Page 16

‘Murphy.’

‘Choksi.’

Maeve and Kira nod curtly at each other, and start jogging in silence, beginning their warm-up around the empty pitch.

This has become a ritual between them in their additional one-on-ones so far this week.

No niceties, no chit-chat, just straight into it.

They talk during the workout and are very vocal about any critiques either can find about the other’s playing, but they haven’t had any actual conversations since Kira came to check that Maeve’s wrist was okay.

Maeve always arrives at their additional one-on-one training a little early, to prove her reliability and conscientiousness in case it gets back to Hoffman, but Kira is inevitably late.

Today was no different. Maeve had been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes when Kira finally rocked up.

Her face looked recently splashed with water, and she was chewing an energy bar.

Maeve is absolutely exhausted after an already intense week of training with Hoffman and the team, but she won’t show any weakness now.

They’ve ended up unusually having another one-on-one on a Friday night, after they were discussing schedules and realised neither of them had Friday night plans. A part of Maeve felt pleased Kira wasn’t going out either. It made her feel less of a loser.

‘You’re late,’ Maeve snaps.

‘Oh, get over it,’ laughs Kira.

‘You’re so disrespectful.’

‘You’re so uptight.’

‘You’re so annoying.’

‘You’re so hangry.’

Kira, still chewing as she jogs, hands over the last bite of her protein bar. Maeve hates to admit it but she is pretty hungry, now she mentions it. Reluctantly she grabs it and, even more annoyingly, does feel better.

Then it’s just the two of them and the pitch, naturally synchronising their thudding feet.

‘Ah, what an exciting Friday night,’ says Kira.

Maeve snorts, despite herself.

‘The glamorous life of a footballer,’ Maeve replies.

Kira looks over and grins. ‘No where else I’d rather be.’

Maeve doesn’t know if she’s being sarcastic, but she doubts it.

She wonders if Kira, like her, has no life really, outside of this.

Football always comes first. She wonders if Kira also sometimes wishes she had other things going on – more time to see friends, or family, or, God forbid, have a hobby.

Maeve tries to remember when was the last time she read a book, or went to the cinema, let alone had a proper holiday.

But Maeve can’t ask Kira, that would be too friendly.

Instead, Maeve just asks, ‘We’re doing weak foot exercises this evening, right?’

‘Mmm, Serena did say that, but I’m not so sure,’ says Kira. ‘In the friendly earlier, I thought our left feet were fine. Pretty good actually. I mean, I’ve always found it easier than most players, I’ve always been practically ambidextrous.’

‘Ambidextrous is hands,’ Maeve mutters. ‘For feet it’s ambipedal. Or two-footed.’

She hates that Kira gets to be so confident in her abilities, but it is, frankly, true. Kira’s left and right are both as strong as each other.

‘Oh whatever,’ Kira shrugs. ‘Who cares about the word as long as we can do it?’

‘Well, I think we should do what Coach says,’ says Maeve.

‘Of course you do, teacher’s pet.’

‘ You’re the one who is Coach’s pet.’

Kira raises an eyebrow, grinning. ‘Jealous much?’

Maeve doesn’t reply. Obviously she is jealous, not just of Kira’s preferential treatment from Coach Hoffman, which come with its fears of losing her captaincy, but also of Kira having such a strong mentor relationship with anyone at all.

Maeve has never had someone in an authority figure consistently rooting for her like that.

She thinks guiltily of her mum, but that’s not the same thing at all.

The reason Maeve and Kira hadn’t met for training earlier this afternoon, for example, had been because Kira was having a one-to-one with Hoffman. And that was just seen as normal and natural for them both.

Maeve and Coach Fernandez had occasionally had additional check-ins, because of her role as club captain, along with Kevin and the other key members of the coaching team, but Maeve had admitted to Adriana she’d often found them demoralising.

They made it painfully obvious that the women’s football team wasn’t as much as a priority for the club.

She had often felt like the women’s team were collateral to the paired men’s team.

They were only given resources as an afterthought from the men’s.

This wasn’t only happening in the Tigresses’ team of course.

When the Manchester United men’s training ground was being refurbished, the women were ousted and put in a portacabin to make way for them, for heaven’s sake!

How could they all improve at the rate of their full potential when they weren’t given the chance?

Women’s football was getting bigger and bigger, and the Lionnesses winning a major tournament had helped a lot, but it often felt like progress was slow and hard-won.

It hadn’t been officially said as much, but Maeve suspected that Mark Astor didn’t care about buying the Tigresses, they’d just come as an ‘extra’ with the men’s Tigers team, which is what he really wanted because of their rich heritage.

Maybe that was why Jacob was here with the Tigresses – maybe his father was only bothered to be involved in the meetings of the Tigers.

She wishes she could prove them all wrong single-handedly so that the team wouldn’t be seen as second best anymore.

Maeve realises her shoulders have tightened and her pace gone erratic.

She’s getting distracted, needs to bring herself back to this evening’s training.

They find Kevin, who is leading their one-on-one tonight, but looks tired and only half-focused, glancing at his phone.

Maeve wonders if he resents missing out on his Friday night.

‘You’ll be doing weak foot training tonight,’ says Kevin, gesturing vaguely to a drill set-up. ‘Dribble in an out of those using your left.’

‘But Kevin, it’s our last training for the week, and it is a Friday evening…’ says Kira, perhaps noticing Kevin’s heart isn’t really in it. ‘I think we should treat ourselves to finishing.’

‘But you finished earlier,’ argues Maeve. ‘You scored in all of the drills.’

‘Oh, I am always happy to finish again,’ winks Kira.

A smirk is playing on Kira’s lips and Maeve wonders if it’s about her pleasure at scoring goals earlier or, like a teenage boy, at the everyday euphemisms of football terminology. Maeve rolls her eyes.

‘Fine,’ says Maeve. ‘Kevin, would it be alright if we split the session? Do some weak foot training and then some scoring?’

‘Wow, great negotiation, Murphy. Is that what you do as Captain? Give way to everyone’s requests?’

Maeve clenches her jaw. She can’t win with her. She tries not to let Kira get to her but Kira can wind her up whenever she wants. That’s really what Maeve should really be working on in training – finding a way to block her out.

They do a weak foot exercise, dribbling in and out a set of six cones only using their weaker foot.

They take it in turns, watching the other, commenting on the use of the front instep area to the inside of the foot to the outside and sole of your foot to go around the cones, moving the cones gradually closer and picking up speed to increase the difficulty.

Kira is right, they’re both pretty strong with their weaker foot, and even with their critical eyes on each other, there isn’t much to pick up on for improvement tonight.

So to increase the pressure, they then repeat the exercise but this time with the other player putting pressure on them.

Kira dribbles and Maeve marks her, striking in for the ball with her own weak foot, working on their control.

At first they’re methodical about it, matching each other clinically.

‘Alright,’ says Kevin, reading from his script before scrolling on his phone again. ‘Now, Kira, you stay on your weaker foot, but Maeve, you can use your stronger.’

‘Fine,’ Maeve brushes a stray hair from her forehead.

Maeve is now able to get the ball from Kira’s speedy feet more regularly, trying not to block it too hard so that they’re not having to keep fetching, instead the challenge being to keep stealing it back from each other to be able to continue the drill.

‘Okay, now make it more game conditions,’ says Kevin. ‘No cones, no lines, just Maeve on weak foot dribbling, Kira trying to get the ball from you.’

Maeve will obviously be at a disadvantage, and knows this means she’ll have to take more of an ego bruising, but it is good for her to improve her ball control.

‘Fine,’ she says, begrudgingly.

But Maeve’s also exhausted, and in her tiredness and relentless challenge from Kira, she starts getting frustrated, and in her frustration, gets clumsier in her tackles, mis-timing them or not winning the ball cleanly.

So when Kira makes a particularly annoying move nutmegging her and is clearly about to shoot even though that isn’t even the exercise, Maeve makes an aggressive tackle to stop her.

She overreaches, successfully knocking the ball from Kira’s possession, but in doing so, loses balance and slides hard to the ground, nearly taking Kira down with her. She lands nastily on her already sore wrist.

Maeve glowers up, angry and bruised, wanting to vent her frustration. What is Kira doing, just staring at her?

‘Wow, thanks for helping me up,’ grumbles Maeve. ‘Great team player.’

Kira rolls her eyes and with a sarcastic flourish, holds a hand out. ‘Please, m’lady, how may I be of further service.’

Maeve ignores it and gets herself up alone. She winces a little and rolls her wrist to check it’s okay. Maeve thinks she hid her reaction, but as they’re putting the cones away Kira looks at her sideways.

‘You hurt that wrist again?’

‘Oh, like you care.’