by Amy Bass
Everyone knew that was what Karim was really saying. Inshallah, we got this.
McGraw gazed at the team. There was a look in their eyes he’d never seen before. They were about to face one of the strongest teams on the schedule. He nodded, sensing that he needed to let them get started.
“Go warm up.”
If the team’s warm-up process in summer is fun to watch, before a game it gets downright intimidating. In unison, clapping and chanting, stretching and jogging, they convey without a doubt they are one team.
“Open the gate!” Abdi H. called, and the team seamlessly switched from its “windows” formation.
McGraw marveled at their method, pausing to watch as they created four lines, moving through toy soldiers and squat lunges. That look was still in their eyes, he noticed.
“I don’t know if this is going to be good or bad,” he said to Gish. “But I guess we will find out.”
It took only fifty-seven seconds to score their first goal. By minute seven, they had grabbed a 2–0 lead. They won 5–0, taking twenty-six shots total. Bangor had thought the home-field advantage would help. Bangor was wrong.
The following Saturday, the offensive onslaught continued as the Blue Devils shut out Lawrence High School, Muktar scoring the first of their eleven goals. Posting double digits for the second time in only four games, Lewiston seemed determined to erase the perception that soccer is a low-scoring game. Lawrence’s goalie, Tim Weymouth, made twenty-eight saves. Austin and Alex combined for two.
With his team leading 5–0 at the half, McGraw pulled starters, worrying they’d become the most hated team in the league. He could hear Fuller in his head: “That’s enough, Coach.”
Abdi H. never complains about coming out. He knows that in a tight game, he will play the whole thing. Still on track to be the highest-scoring player in school history, he didn’t worry about his numbers or wonder what they would be if McGraw left him in.
Pulling starters gave McGraw a chance to experiment with the bench. He decided to put in junior Benjamin Musese. Tall and lean, Ben is described by teammates as intense and competitive. Whether vying for a shot on goal or playing video games at home, he has little patience for failure. The only school day he ever missed was when he became an American citizen.
Ben came to Lewiston from the Democratic Republic of the Congo via Tanzania. He was just four years old when he fled his village on the back of his eight-year-old brother, escaping to the woods to hide from the warring factions who invaded. Ben’s twin sister never made it.
Now that he is secure in Maine, Ben’s love of soccer is ferocious. He plays it, he says, no matter what country he is in, and enjoys teaching it to kids at the community center, seeing himself as a role model. Off the field, he roots for Bayern Munich, and in winter and spring, he is a top triple jumper on the track team. Without soccer, he says, he cannot be happy. Without a championship, he worries, McGraw cannot be happy.
While McGraw knew Ben was powerful and fast, he wanted him to work on his shots, which lacked precision.
“He has no inside foot,” McGraw commented to Gish. “We can’t beat it out of him, so let’s just let him go.”
The cushion against Lawrence presented the perfect opportunity to let Ben hone his skills, so McGraw sent him in. He smiled when Ben scored, looking at Gish. This was a good idea. But then Ben scored again. And again. And again. Ben scored four times inside of thirty minutes. So much for keeping the score down.
The “Battle of the Bridge” with cross-river rival Edward Little came next; another shutout win, 6–0. Lewiston scored quickly, as had become its habit, and never stopped. Abdi H. had a hat trick; Muktar, Karim, and Maslah added one each.
“Shell-shocked,” Coach Andreasen said of his team, outshot 25–1.
Early-minute goals built instant momentum for the Blue Devils, giving them time to settle in while throwing their opponent off-balance. The Red Eddies appeared stunned by Lewiston’s sophisticated footwork. The Blue Devils ran over balls without touching them, moving so fast that the Red Eddies didn’t know they were faking until the ball was already headed in another direction.
Maslah had no problem scoring on his old teammates. His presence in a Lewiston uniform upped the ante of an already electric rivalry, making for a rougher, more frustrating game than the scoreboard indicated. Moe got a red card in the first half for head-butting a kid who said something about his mother. He thought it was worth it. Hooyadu waa lama huran, Somalis say. It’s not necessary to live with a mother; it’s hard to live without a mother. Sid iyo sayal bilood ayaa hoyadaa ku so wadey. Your mother was holding and raising you for nine months in her stomach. Moe couldn’t let the kid off the hook, his temper taking over as it sometimes did.
“Anger is his biggest weakness, something he’s got to work on,” McGraw says of Moe. “He kicks himself in the ass all the time. He’s gonna be successful if he takes care of that demon.”
The Blue Devils were unfazed playing a man down. If anything, Andreasen later said, they played better after Moe’s ejection. McGraw agreed. “This just gives us more space to move,” he told the team. “Our packed offense can’t be stopped.” Abdi H. concurred; he saw it all the time in premier league games. He knew EL would try to attack more, giving him more opportunities to take the ball away from them.
Thanks for the hat trick, he thought.
Beating EL was a big deal. It’s how sports rivalries work. But McGraw wanted to keep the early success in perspective. The team got stronger with each game, but it was only September. They would pay the price for complacency, he reminded them.
Between games, they practiced hard at Marcotte Park, a wide-open grassy space on the other side of the Colisée from Drouin. The field sits even higher than the Colisée, the 168-foot-tall twin spires of Saints Peter and Paul providing a dramatic backdrop. Some drive to Marcotte; others walk a path from the high school. Ben rides his bike. As they get ready, stretching on the grass, kicking off slides for cleats, Alex Rivet’s mother stops by with a cooler full of frozen candy bars.
“JACKALS!” McGraw yells at them as they dive into the cooler, the food vanishing in mere minutes.
McGraw starts practice with a quick overview of the next team they are going to play, his “This is what we’re gonna do” talk. He mentions specific players, sometimes proposing role-playing drills so they can strategize about number six or number twelve.
“They aren’t EL,” he says, knowing the team is still high from defeating its rival, “but you play 110 percent anyway—and if I don’t get it from you starters, remember I’ve got twenty other guys who will give it to me.”
The players solemnly nod. They know.
“Okay,” he says, his demeanor lightening a bit. He looks around. He knows they’re tired, a bit banged-up. There have been some hamstring issues, some contusions, a few sprains here and there. He needs to make them work, but he also needs to take care of them.
“No hills today, and…” McGraw stops, the immediate cheering too loud for him to continue. “Go do some laps, and STAY TOGETHER!”
The team falls into two lines and takes off, circling the field several times. When they return, the captains take over, Abdi H. calling out warm-up formations, a small smile on his face. So reserved off the field, he works hard to be more vocal on it. He makes sure his teammates get to work as he readies himself, but there is also a lightness about him, joking and laughing. As his muscles loosen, so does his state of mind.
The players are a colorful sight on the field, blue-and-white t-shirts mixing with an array of jerseys from favorite teams. Maulid wears his bright yellow dashiki, challenging Joe to a handstand contest as they run. Maulid nimbly flips forward and backward; Joe uses his upper-body strength to walk on his hands while keeping up with the line.
Practice divides into three groups. Varsity and JV stay with McGraw and Gish; Hersi is with the freshmen on another field; and goalkeeper coach Per Henrikson drills Austin and Alex, relentlessly throwi
ng a variety of balls at them—tennis, football, softball, soccer—to improve their reflexes.
Once reluctant to work with high school kids, Henrikson wasn’t looking to go anywhere now, and not just because of the small salary the Booster Club paid him. A giant of a man, long hair usually pulled back into a ponytail, beard unkempt, he has coached all over the world. After stints in the Philippines, India, and Bhutan, he returned to Maine, where he once dominated the basketball courts of Georges Valley High School in Thomaston, to care for his mother. “Intense and controversial” is how McGraw describes Henrikson, who rarely hesitates to tell a ref what he thinks of him, especially if he believes there’s a racist element to a call. He worries the players aren’t always safe on the field because they’re “black, African, Muslim—because they’re different.” He hopes having Abdijabar Hersi on the sidelines in a blue shirt makes a difference, taking the level of respect up a notch. But he has doubts.
The majority of the team works in groups of three, focusing on two-touch drills. Mastering touch, perfecting how to take and keep control of the ball, is a key fundamental. Good soccer needs it; great soccer demands it.
“Here, here!” Moe calls, dancing from side to side to get his legs warm, his hand in the air. When the ball comes, his return is long and elegant, clearing it without ever looking down. He smiles, a cocky tilt to his head. He knows that was pretty.
“We’ve got Mt. Blue tomorrow!” McGraw roars, his voice getting thinner. “I want good touches ON THE GROUND! You’re better than that! Control the ball! You’ve got to make yourself better! Warm up your feet!”
Practice is coordinated chaos, with a lion in the middle repeating things in triplicate as he moves about the field.
“TALK, TALK, TALK,” McGraw bellows to a group not having much luck with keeping their exchanges to two touches. “Weave in and out—NO WALKING!”
He stops, pointing at a player who isn’t jogging to get to the ball, throwing the kid a look that could stop a train.
“IF I SEE YOU WALKING, TEN PUSH-UPS!”
The player drops to the ground and lowers his body, up and down, up and down. The moment the player stands, McGraw roars again.
“PUSH-UP POSITION! FIVE! AND WE’RE GONNA COUNT ’EM LIKE A TEAM!”
The team drops in concert, counting together, McGraw hovering above, making comments that range from a sarcastic uncle to Sergeant Foley. When they’re done, he calls for a huddle. It’s time to scrimmage, but not until McGraw does what he does best: motivate.
“We need unity!” he begins.
The group huddles tighter, sweat rolling down their faces, their breath coming too fast to pause for water.
“Don’t be afraid to shake a guy’s hand when you run by, because you’re gonna need that camaraderie!”
McGraw grunts, trying to clear the gravel out of his throat.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asks a player whose eyes have drifted to a youth league game across the street, mostly white kids populating the teams.
The player nods.
“Yeah? REPEAT WHAT I SAID!”
The player mumbles something. Satisfied, McGraw gets back to his speech.
“Who wants to score tomorrow?” he asks quietly, ensuring they keep still in order to hear him.
“I do!” a few players yell.
“NOOOOOOOO!” McGraw thunders.
Gish smiles, taking a step back so no one sees. He knows they’ve fallen into McGraw’s trap.
“WE want to score tomorrow!” McGraw grumbles. “WE!”
The players begin to jump on their toes, growling as they come in closer, excitement for tomorrow’s game taking over. Getting the team to focus the day before a game is always difficult. They just want to play, their eyes straying to the piles of red, yellow, and blue pinnies on the sideline, waiting for scrimmage.
They scrimmage in small sides, making one-two touch essential because of the tiny space. The ball bounces man-to-man, no one holding possession for more than a split second. The players never look down, their eyes seeking the ball’s next target.
“FIND A TEAMMATE!” McGraw yells to a group not passing quickly enough, grabbing Joe. “Use your teammates,” he says, pulling Joe’s head closer to his own, his arm around the defender’s back. “I know, I know, you like to dribble, but you’ll get the ball back—you don’t need to do this by yourself.”
As practice continues, an audience gathers. A group of Somali kids—mostly sophomores—watches, their beat-up bicycles thrown every which way next to them. They play soccer in the park but say they are afraid to play with McGraw’s team. They talk about the team in hushed tones, as if Real Madrid is scrimmaging in front of them. When the game across the street ends, parents migrate over to Marcotte. They, too, watch with reverence, pointing out specific plays for their kids to emulate.
Satisfied they’ve honed their touch, McGraw announces they have twenty-three seconds to prepare for full field drills. As he counts, players frantically get in line, balls returned to the net bags. He emphasizes possession and restricts the number of touches each player can take per drill. It’s not the kind of practice McGraw ran thirty years ago, when his burly Franco players practiced booting the ball, trying to gain power and distance with each kick. Possession drills take patience and a lot of coaching. McGraw assigns laps to a handful of guys who are chatting on the end, but overall he is pleased.
“You just broke the crowd’s heart!” he jokes to a player who sends the ball over the crossbar.
McGraw felt good. The team was working together, and not just because he was chanting his usual “together, together, together” from the sidelines. There was a spirit in the air that went beyond the seemingly effortless games they were playing. Something just felt different.
The team felt it, too. They needed a new rallying cry, Henrikson told them, something new to chant in their manic huddle before yelling, “One, two, three—Pamoja ndugu!” It had to be something uniquely theirs, rather than the U.S. Men’s National Team’s “I Believe That We Will Win.”
“Think about what you’re trying to do,” Henrikson encouraged them. “Create something.”
A group of them found it one night at Karim and Zak’s house. Nuri remembered a soccer team he used to like in Jeddah, Al-Ittihad FC, the oldest club in the Saudi Premier League and a featured team in FIFA video games.
“I got it,” Nuri said to Karim in Arabic. He looked over at Moe and Zak, who were combing the Internet. “I got it,” he said again, this time in Somali so Moe would understand. Because of all the places he lived, Nuri’s head contained a potpourri of languages—Arabic, Somali, English, and Turkish. If anyone could find a chant for the team, it was Nuri.
He knew that the passionate intonations of Ittihad fans were legend. He found a recording of one on YouTube and played it for his friends. As he began to write it down, he made tweaks here and there to better suit their team, writing in a colloquial Saudi dialect rather than textbook Arabic.
We will eat you slowly, slowly
We will eat you like a prickly pear
We will eat you like noodles
We will eat you, yum yum yum
Lewiston is going to eat you
This is Lewiston, we are family.
“We’re gonna beat ’em, we’re gonna eat ’em,” Nuri said to his friends, grinning.
Yes, this was it. They would teach it to the starters, hoping the others would fall into place. Nuri, despite being a sophomore, would take the lead, working with his teammates in a kind of call and response. He would deliver a line; the team would respond with “YAKULAK!” (WILL EAT YOU!).
It happened at the Mt. Blue game, just two days after Edward Little. Nuri had the team practice on the hour-long bus ride. After McGraw gave his pregame speech, they pressed together, Nuri in the middle.
“Just say ‘yakulak’ if nothing else,” he reminded them, thinking how amazing it was to be doing this, and only a sophomore. He started. They responded. They didn’t a
ll know what they were saying—We are going to eat someone? Maulid thought—but they did it, together, and then yelled the words they knew by heart: one, two, three! Pamoja ndugu!
No question, the team was fired up.
While Lewiston beat Mt. Blue 5–1, the Cougars became the first team to get on the board since Brewer. But the Blue Devils returned to the art of the shutout against Brunswick. The 5–0 victory started fast and furious, with Maslah hitting the net on an assist from Nuri just thirty-two seconds in, beating the goalie from ten yards out. Abdi H. followed a few minutes later, taking the ball from Karim and blasting it into the far corner. He moved so fast, so many steps ahead of everyone else, it felt like there was more than one of him out there. Karim scored twice, and Maslah added another for good measure. Failing to get in a shot the entire first half, the Dragons had only two attempts in the second, and their keeper made an astonishing twenty-three saves.
Seven games into the season, Lewiston stood unbeaten with five shutouts, outscoring opponents 49–3. “It’s only September,” McGraw continued to warn his squad. “The other teams are getting better.” But it didn’t feel that way. As they rolled toward the playoffs, it felt like no one could take them on. But McGraw knew who was coming.
Camden Hills.
Chapter 13
Our House
Before Camden Hills came to Lewiston, the Blue Devils added two more shutouts—Mt. Ararat and Cony—to their unbeaten record. McGraw felt especially good after Mt. Ararat, a midday Saturday home game that left him the afternoon to putter around his house, thinking about what to grill for dinner before sitting on the deck with a cigar, soaking in the last vestiges of summer air.
The Cony game, a 9–0 win, was one for the ages. As Cony stretched, Lewiston circled the field in unison, Zak, Q, and Nuri joking as they ran, amazed to be in shirtsleeves midseason in Augusta. It was fun to play soccer in weather that felt more like the past summer than the winter still to come.
