by Rich Wallace
“The truth?” asked Zero.
Calvin shrugged and gave an embarrassed grin. “Guess so.”
“Well, there’s our ride,” said Jessie, pointing toward a station wagon that was pulling into the parking lot. She winked at Calvin. “Hope I don’t give you nightmares. See you next time.”
Danielle waved to the boys with her fingers and followed Jessie across the field.
Calvin stared after them, resting his chin on his fist. Then he caught Zero’s eye and gently shook his head a few times, breaking into a smile. “I’m starving,” he said. “You got money?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. Not a lot.”
“Enough?”
“Yeah. Enough for something. Let’s go.”
Calvin gathered up his cleats, the soaking-wet T-shirt, and a plastic gallon jug that he’d filled with water. He’d finished half of it during breaks. “Shoulda brought a gym bag,” he said.
“Where we going?”
“The market, I guess.”
They headed toward the small grocery store at the corner of Ninth and the Boulevard. Hudson City’s main street was busy with traffic, and many of the shops and small restaurants were open late on summer evenings. Music was coming from many of the stores, which occupied the bottom floors of the two- and three-story buildings.
It was about eight twenty when the boys reached the grocery.
“What do we want?” Zero asked.
Calvin squinted and looked around the store, nodding thoughtfully. “I’m narrowing it down,” he said. “Something substantial... maybe from the deli.”
They headed down the canned-goods and juice aisle and made a left toward the deli counter. There were no other customers so they didn’t bother taking a number.
“Help you?” asked the bored teenage boy behind the counter.
“In due time,” said Calvin, peering into the glass case at the cold cuts and tubs of salads. “The fruit salad looks good. Roast beef... salami.” He tapped on the glass. “That potato salad fresh?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t,” the teenager said flatly.
“Let’s have half a pound of that with two forks,” Calvin said.
The guy dished up the salad and weighed it. “Just over half,” he said.
“That’ll do us,” Calvin said. He looked at Zero. “What else?”
“I was thinking pretzels.”
“Excellent choice. And orange juice?”
“Absolutely,” Zero said. “Potato salad, pretzels, and orange juice. What could be better?”
“The only thing that could make it better is to eat it all at a bus stop,” Calvin said. “Boulevard and Eleventh is my favorite bench. You?”
“Perfect atmosphere,” Zero replied. “Let’s do it.”
4
Three on Three
Two nights later, Coach Luis Diaz blew his whistle sharply and called his team over. They each had a ball and had been working on controlling it, dribbling in and out of a series of cones.
“That’s enough of a warm-up,” he said. “Drills are fine, but you learn this game by playing it.”
Calvin and the others kneeled on the grass and looked up at the coach. He was short and sturdy, with the beginnings of a summer mustache sprouting above his lip. He would be captain of the Hudson City High School team this fall.
“How many of you have actually played this game?” he asked. “On a real team, I mean.”
Four or five players raised their hands. Zero asked, “Does gym count?”
The coach smiled and shrugged. “Sort of.” He made two quick cutting motions with his hand, dividing the group into three sets of three. “You three stand up,” he said, indicating Calvin, Mary Pineda, and Peter Leung. “You’re a team.”
“Just three of us?” Calvin asked.
“Three is the perfect unit. You’ll see.”
Coach had set up two portable goals, one in front of a full-sized goal and the other at midfield. “Short field. No goalies,” he said. “But no long shots, either. I want to see footwork and passing. Any shot longer than fifteen yards doesn’t count.”
Coach sent Zero, Julie Carrasco, and Orlando Green onto the field for the game. “The game goes for one goal,” Coach said. “Losing team steps off and the third team comes on. We’ll switch the teammates around after a while.”
He blew his whistle and Calvin took possession of the ball, kicking it ahead and chasing it down. The three opponents converged on him, and Calvin pivoted, kicking the ball to the side and throwing out an elbow.
Julie took possession of the ball and booted it up the field, where Peter caught up to it and sent it flying in the other direction.
Now it was simply a race to the ball, and Calvin got there first. With the three opponents in pursuit, Calvin quickly shot the ball toward the goal. It missed by about four feet and spun out of bounds.
Coach Diaz stood with his arms folded and his mouth tight. He stepped over to the three players who were waiting to get in and started talking quietly to them.
On the field, Calvin chased down a long boot from Orlando and came racing back up the field. He dodged past Zero, then managed to spin between Julie and Orlando, finding himself right in front of a wide-open goal. He easily kicked the ball into the net and threw his fists into the air.
He trotted back to his team’s end of the field, laughing.
“Okay,” Coach said. “Next team.”
Angel Medina, Briana Torres, and Victor Alvarez trotted out. All three were a year younger than Calvin.
“We’ll eat these guys up,” Calvin said to Mary.
Angel came up the field with the ball, and Calvin and his teammates ran toward him. As they approached, Angel turned and sent the ball back to Briana, who was about fifteen feet to the side and behind him.
“Charge!” yelled Calvin with a broad grin, leading his two teammates toward the ball.
But Briana was quick, barely receiving the ball before she passed it over to Victor. By the time Calvin had turned and headed toward Victor, the ball was already moving back to Angel, who easily took it thirty yards to the goal and fired it in.
Coach blew his whistle. “Calvin,” he said with a broad smile. “Tell me what just happened.”
“That kid scored.”
Coach laughed. “How come?”
“Because he got lucky?”
“You tell me. How lucky does he have to be when nobody’s guarding him?”
Calvin shrugged. “I got through three of them when I scored.”
“It wasn’t easy though, was it?”
“Guess not.”
“Look,” Coach said. “Remember when I said three was the perfect unit? Think about it. While you were fighting to get through three defenders, your two teammates were as wide open as they could be. You had your head down, thinking only about dribbling and shooting. The way to score goals is to pass, my man.”
Calvin nodded.
“We need to work hard, but we need to work smart. That’s all I told these guys,” he said, sweeping his hand toward Angel and his two teammates. “When you three went racing after the ball together, all they had to do was form a triangle and make a few simple passes to pick you apart.”
“I get it,” Calvin said.
“Okay, let’s try it some more. Everybody listen: When a player has the ball in a three-on-three game, he should always have two options for passing. Two teammates, two options. Think of a triangle shape.”
Coach patiently corrected mistakes every few minutes after that, explaining how a player could have moved into position for a pass, or how a defender could avoid getting faked out. But mostly he let them play, and gradually they began to catch on.
“We’ll be pretty good,” Coach said after they’d run some laps at the end. “We’ve got talent; we just have to use our brains.”
Calvin and Zero stopped at Little Italy for a slice of pizza on the way home. On the wall beside the counter were several team pi
ctures from previous Little Italy teams, and a plaque from a few years before when the team had won the YMCA title.
“We’ll be up there soon,” Calvin said, pointing to the pictures as they were served their slices.
“Are you on our team?” said the man behind the counter.
“Yeah,” Zero said. “Just finished practice a few minutes ago.”
“Ernie Salinardi,” the man said, sticking out his hand for them to shake. “I own this place.”
Calvin and Zero shook his hand and gave their names.
“It’s our first soccer season,” Calvin said.
“Great. The team’s looking good, I hope?”
“Real good,” Calvin said. Then he leaned his head to one side and thought for a second. “We will be, anyway. Still got a lot to learn.”
“Learn quick,” Ernie said, winking. “Wins are good for business.”
“We’ll try,” Zero said, nodding solemnly.
“I’m just kidding.” Ernie wiped the counter with a cloth. “Have fun and learn the game. There’s no better game on earth.”
“It’s a deal,” Calvin said.
“I only ask one thing,” Ernie said, breaking into a grin. “Don’t lose to Luigi’s. That’s my cousin’s place. We’ll have a dinner wagered on that game, believe me.”
5
Opening Day
Coach Diaz carried a box of orange T-shirts across the rec field. He tossed Calvin a shirt with the YMCA logo and LITTLE ITALY in blue block letters. Calvin scrambled out of his tank top and pulled the new shirt over his head. Number 9.
“First game,” Coach Diaz said, gathering the team around him. “Two twenty-four minute halves. We’ll keep it simple.” He held up a clipboard with a diagram of a soccer field drawn on it. “Let’s go over the positions again.”
“Two wings,” he said, circling the LW and RW he’d written on the diagram. “Front line, left and right. You’re mostly on offense, but in a seven-on-seven game like this one, you’ll need to hustle back on defense, too. Everybody needs to float—don’t be a mile away from the ball. But don’t crowd up, either. That’s what kills an offense.”
Coach circled the letter C between the wings. “The center forward. Key guy. Get in position to score.”
Calvin could already feel his T-shirt sticking to his back. It was early evening, but the weather remained hot and humid. It hadn’t rained in weeks.
Coach pointed to the two MIDs he had written below the front line. “Midfielders. Support the offense; remember that triangle pattern we tried. And work your butts off on defense. Keep the ball away from our goal.
“Sweeper. You play behind the midfielders but work with them.
“Goalie. Stop the shots. When you have the ball, get it up the field to a teammate. Any questions?”
Calvin put up his hand. “What positions are we playing?”
“I’ll get to that. One rule. One major, essential, critical rule: Pass the ball. Pass it. Then move into position for a return pass. That’s how you move the soccer ball. Dribble if you have space, but don’t ever just put your head down and chase it.”
Coach looked at his watch. “We’ve got ten minutes. Grab a ball and dribble two laps around the field, then get back here and I’ll give you your positions. Let’s hustle.”
Calvin picked a ball out of the large mesh bag and dropped it at his feet. Several of his teammates were already dribbling along the sideline, but Calvin was the fastest player on the team. He zipped around the corner flag and behind the goal, working the ball with both feet and keeping it as close as he could. It got away from him as he dribbled around the corner, but he recovered it and sprinted up the sideline, passing Orlando, a taller black kid who was fast, but was struggling with the ball. Calvin smiled when he saw the number 0 on the back of the only player still running ahead of him.
“Save some energy,” Zero said as Calvin flew past.
“I got plenty,” Calvin replied.
The Grotto players were outfitted in dark blue T-shirts. They were in pairs or groups of three, passing the balls back and forth near the middle of the field. It looked as if they had some good players. Calvin still wasn’t sure about his own team. Little Italy had a lot of eleven-year-olds, and a few of them weren’t very athletic.
Coach put Calvin at sweeper for the first half, with Zero at goalie.
“We may get shell-shocked back here,” Calvin said softly as they jogged onto the field. He was looking toward Little Italy’s front line—Victor Alvarez, Peter Leung, and Briana Torres. None of the three was taller than five feet.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Zero said. “Look—keep it close this half, then we’ll pound ’em later when we move up on offense.”
Calvin’s concerns proved to be valid. The Little Italy front-line players seemed confused and hurried, swiping at the ball as soon as it came by, booting it up the field but rarely toward a teammate.
The Grotto had some quick players who put the pressure on and kept it up. Calvin twice cleared the ball away from the front of the goal, and Zero made a couple of saves. But the Grotto’s tall, red-haired striker eventually took a nice centering pass from the wing, gave a fake and dribbled around Orlando, then fired the ball into the net as Zero dove in vain.
Coach Diaz called the players over before they lined up for the kickoff.
“We have to establish some offense,” he said. “We can’t just kick it hard every time the ball comes to us. Make some good short passes—just try to get into the rhythm of the game. You can pass backwards, you know.
“Midfielders, call for the ball. That’s what I mean by support—let them know where you are. You guys aren’t talking at all.”
Coach gave a big smile as he sent them onto the field. “I like the effort,” he said. “But let’s use our brains, too.”
Peter took the kickoff and made a short pass toward Briana, who trapped the ball, pivoted, and passed back to midfielder Angel Medina. Angel was short and wiry, with olive skin and close-cropped hair. He dribbled a few steps, then made another short pass, this one about ten yards across the field to Mary.
“Support!” yelled Calvin, who had moved up the field. Mary made a nice grass-cutting pass back to him, and Calvin fielded it and surveyed the situation.
Victor, Mary, and Peter were clumped up about ten yards in front of Calvin. “Spread out!” he said firmly, darting to his right. He had room to dribble, but a couple of Grotto players were closing in.
Calvin saw Angel ahead of him near the sideline and made a crisp pass in his direction. Angel moved toward the ball and trapped it, then put on a burst of speed. Coach Diaz clapped his hands as Angel ran by. “That’s the way,” he called. “Short passes to move the ball!”
Little Italy didn’t come close to scoring the rest of the half, but the competition seemed much more balanced. The Grotto made a couple of runs at the goal, but the defense closed ranks, and Zero made two more saves. At halftime, the score was still only 1-0.
“Much better,” Coach said as the players sucked on orange slices and swigged water near the wooden bench. “Keep passing. Keep hustling. We’ll put more speed up front this half.”
Zero moved up to wing and Calvin to midfield. Coach grabbed the sleeve of Calvin’s T-shirt and took him aside as the others ran onto the field. “Be aggressive,” he said. “You’ve got the speed to play the whole field. You need to take control of the game.”
Calvin nodded. He appreciated the implication that he could play a less rigid game.
Little Italy came out smoking in the second half. With Julie Carrasco, Zero, and Orlando up front and Calvin controlling the midfield, most of the early action was in the Grotto’s defensive end.
The ball went out of bounds near the corner, and Orlando scooped it up for a throw-in. His throw reached Zero’s feet, and Zero had room to dribble toward the goal. As the defense closed in, Zero chipped the ball into the air toward the goal box. Calvin got there first, caught the ball softly on his thi
gh, and let it drop. He had a clear shot at the net, but the goalie was darting over to that side.
Calvin feinted to his right, then passed the ball across the field, parallel to the goal line and zipping across the grass. Julie was there and the net was wide open. She pounded it home. The game was tied!
Calvin raised his fist and punched at the air, shouting, “Yeah!”
Julie ran over and Calvin caught her in a bear hug. Zero patted her shoulder and they ran toward the center of the field.
Calvin looked toward the sideline. Coach tapped the side of his head. “Smart play!” he shouted.
Past the coach and behind the bench, Calvin caught sight of the Rosado sisters, decked out in their black team T-shirts and passing a ball around. Calvin knew they had the second game of the evening, against Hudson City Florist.
“Let’s get another one!” Zero said, dropping back a bit for the kickoff. About seven minutes remained in the game. Plenty of time.
Calvin heard a low rumble of thunder in the distance, but the sky was mostly clear. He was sweating heavily, but his energy level was high. He wanted to win this one badly.
The ball came to him a few moments later, and he angled upfield toward the sideline. He approached the center line but suddenly he was trapped—two defenders in front of him and one at his side, directly between him and Angel.
Peter Leung was playing sweeper, but he was way back near the goal. Calvin sent a long pass toward him, but he didn’t get much pace on the ball. Bad move.
A Grotto player raced toward the ball and got there well ahead of Peter, who was cutting over as quickly as he could. That left the middle of the field open, and that red-haired Grotto player was streaking in by himself. The ball had been passed ahead of him and he was chasing it.
Calvin sprinted down the field and shouted to Peter. “Take the middle! I’ve got your back.”
The redhead had the ball now and there was open space between him and the goal. Mary Pineda, short but limber, was crouched in front of the Little Italy net. She hadn’t been tested in the entire second half.
Peter raced toward the ball and offered just enough resistance to take away a pure, dead-on shot. So when the shot came, it was from a slight angle, a low line drive that streaked toward the corner of the net. Mary lunged and got a hand on it. The ball popped into the air but continued toward the goal.
