One Goal

by Amy Bass

  Lewiston’s goals came swiftly, players moving so fast, Cony’s defense looked like traffic cones. Maslah, who bounded into position to start the game, was particularly energized. He had a mission, inspired by Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski’s five goals in less than nine minutes just a few days earlier against Wolfsburg. When Lewandowski came off the bench at the half, Munich was down 1–0. Lewandowski scored a hat trick in four minutes, the fastest in Bundesliga history, starting with a toe poke at minute fifty-one. By the sixtieth, the fans went insane when he scissor-kicked a cross from Mario Gotze into the net.

  Although a Liverpool fan, Maslah decided to mimic Lewandowski, using years of playing FIFA video games to spark his creative juices. He’d been frustrated when Fuller yet again made McGraw pull the starters early against Mt. Ararat. He wasn’t like Abdi H., who saw it as a sign that they’d done their jobs. It could be a beautiful game with a high score, he countered. And now he had a plan.

  “I’m gonna top that,” he said before the game, careful to make sure McGraw didn’t hear. “I’m gonna do just what Lewandowski did.”

  It worked. Impossibly fast, Maslah found space on the right three times to score, leaving even the ref shaking his head in astonishment. With two Cony players marking him like glue, he collected the ball in midfield and broke away to score his fourth from the left. As the ball went in, he high-fived Abdi H. and jogged back, almost as if in slow motion compared to the speed he’d just turned on. But he wasn’t done. Alone again in the attacking third, one on one with the goalie, he launched a blistering shot with highlight-reel prowess.

  Five goals. One game. A school record. Maslah “Lewandowski” Hassan was born.

  But Camden Hills wasn’t Cony. A regional high school located in Rockport, Camden Hills’ students are from the most scenic coastal destinations in Maine. While Sports Illustrated once named the school’s athletic program the best in the state, in the fall of 2015, after a number of players had been injured in a game, the principal canceled the rest of the football season for a lack of adequate players.

  While youth football in the United States has lost some 25,000 kids in the last several years or so, the principal’s decision was unpopular. Football coach Thad Chilton acknowledged the impact that soccer’s popularity had had on his roster. The negative press about concussions didn’t help, with direct connections between chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and the sport.

  Soccer, too, has concussion problems, but has reaped the benefits of football’s shaky future. For both schools and parents, soccer teams are far cheaper to field than football. At the professional level, Major League Soccer, despite struggling in many of its U.S. markets, has grown its audience, increasing ticket sales and sellouts in recent years as football has declined. Without a football team to cheer, for Camden Hills soccer became a focal point of the fall sports schedule.

  In 2015, Camden Hills was a new kid in Class A sports, reclassified by the MPA when its enrollment topped the Class B limit by four students. The soccer team had a lot of success in Class B, winning consecutive Eastern Maine titles from 2011 to 2013, and reaching the regional semifinals in 2014. McGraw, with Gish’s scouting report in hand, knows to expect a good game. Teams that dotted the coast—Yarmouth, Falmouth, Cumberland, Camden, Brunswick—have stepped up in the last few years, playing year-round in league teams. McGraw doesn’t doubt that Camden Hills is ready for the challenge of Class A.

  Camden game announcer Charlie Crockett, a longtime teacher and coach, agrees.

  “Welcome to Windjammah soccah,” he begins his broadcast, noting the early October day boasts “Chambah of Commerce weathah.”

  Crockett rues how local sports pundits underestimate his team. It is time for people to sit up and take notice.

  “Aftah some of these performances, I think they’re going to have to staht realizin’ this is an exceptional soccah team,” Crockett says. “This to me is probably the best soccah team that I have seen at Camden Hills, and maybe seen anywheah, any team.”

  While Camden Hills warms up on Don Roux field, the Blue Devils get ready in the bowels of the school, several flights down from the gym entrance. Ben sits on a bench, pulling his socks up over his shin guards, looking for tape to wrap around the top to prevent them from falling down. Nearby, Abdi H. adjusts the black-and-white captain’s band on his arm.

  The locker room is a tight space divided into two sections with bright blue lockers on both sides and benches in between. The smell of bleach and dirty mop water permeates the air. Gish’s office sits to one side, the walls covered by his kids’ drawings, photographs of players, and shelves of soccer balls signed by teams long graduated. There is usually a Dunkin’ Donuts cup—medium coffee regular—that Gish brings for McGraw when he remembers.

  A few players can’t find their tall socks and ask McGraw for an extra pair. He has no time for such things, pushing them off. When he leaves the room to check on the game camera, they turn to Gish, who quickly grabs extra socks from his office and discreetly hands them out.

  “Hey, before Coach gets back, let me just say: don’t trash-talk out there,” Gish says, remembering his talk with Fuller after his red card. “Don’t get into it; let the scoreboard do the talking. They might say things, but don’t let them take you out of your game—don’t take the bait. Brush it off.”

  The players continue to get ready. Muktar sits alone on the maroon-painted cement floor against the wall in the corner, quietly lacing up his cleats. Zak, on the other hand, can’t sit still, clapping and singing, bouncing from one player to the next, the noise echoing off the concrete. “Try driving to Bangor with Zak,” McGraw once joked. “That’ll test ya!”

  Mwesa and Maulid are huddled over a phone, sharing a pair of earbuds and watching a video. The two shoot short comedic sketches with their friends that are quite funny. But as soon as McGraw returns and begins to pace, the phone disappears, headphones come off, talking ceases, and the clicking of cleats on the floor stops. Gish retreats to his office with Hersi, where they quietly sketch strategies on a small whiteboard. Henrikson grabs Austin and Alex to go outside for goalie drills.

  McGraw impatiently waits for all eyes to shift to him. He’s a bit tense. He knows Gish and Henrikson don’t like Camden. Henrikson, especially, vents about what the refs won’t see because a team filled with—as he sees it—a bunch of white, privileged kids is on the field. Despite his reservations about coaching in Lewiston early on, now he loves this team. He doesn’t want to see them get hurt.

  “NOW,” McGraw roars. “Let’s talk about something.”

  He stops to stare at a player fiddling with the roll of white tape Gish handed him a few minutes earlier.

  “Does it take this long to put on a piece of tape?” he asks.

  Regaining focus, McGraw blasts into his usual spiel about sportsmanship and motivation before giving out positions. He refers to the Cony game for examples about what did and didn’t work. Moving someone to the outside. Bringing someone to the middle. Positioning Q to distribute the ball to Abdi H. and Maslah.

  “Do not shoot with power,” he warns those who will be up top. “Shoot with accuracy.”

  He pauses, looking around the room, shifting between the two sides so no one is looking at his back for too long.

  “The most important thing is that we play smart, with poise, but aggressive and with confidence. You go play your game, Lewiston High School’s game, our game.”

  Our game. The words hung in the air.

  “You play fast, you play hard. When you refuse to lose, when you decide that you’re not gonna get beat, you will NOT get beat! The minute you question yourself? You can’t question yourself. When you make a decision, you make a decision, and every guy behind you backs you up. It’s not one-on-one, it’s not three-on-three, it’s all of us against all of them. If you’re not in the game, you’re still in the game. If you’re on the field, you know you have ten guys on the bench backing you up.”

  McGraw
takes a breath.

  “Those of you on the bench should be ready to go in at any moment,” he continues. “We’ve got a good, strong, deep bench, and the guys in the game, if you give anything less than 110 percent, the guys on the bench are going to be pissed at you because they’re sitting there watching you play, and if you’re there playing half a game, they can play a full game.”

  They nod. They know.

  “Don’t you disrespect them. Don’t-you-dis-re-spect-them. They are our all-stars, sitting there, waiting to get into the game. For some of you, you’ve yet to realize how good you are. There’s a little switch of maturity that’s gonna flip on, and you’re gonna become an unbelievable player. But why wait until next year? Why not TODAY? WHY NOT AGAINST CAMDEN HILLS out there on that field?”

  McGraw pauses again, gearing up for the big finale. It’s time to get these guys up and out. He claps. Each player’s head snaps up. They know. This is it. Gish and Hersi recognize their cue, and come into the room.

  “They don’t call us Dirty Lew!” McGraw yells, his voice straining, the words coming fast and furious as the players surround him until only his white hair is visible. “They call us…”

  “SWEET LEW!” the players shout, stomping and pounding.

  “Ready?” McGraw asks, putting his hand out. “One, two, three…”

  “PAMOJA NDUGU!” the team thunders, grabbing their water bottles and bags and jogging out the door, down the hallway, and outside, their eyes squinting at the burst of light.

  “We can outrun anybody,” McGraw says to Gish as they hoist bags of balls and head out of the fluorescent light. Gish smiles, nods. He knows McGraw is a bit apprehensive about this one.

  “We can outrun anybody,” Gish echoes.

  The Blue Devils cross the parking lot and walk through the gate, jogging past the elaborate webs of the orb weavers who signal that despite the mild weather, winter is coming. The silky gossamer sparkles in the late-day sun, but the players see only the field and the team on it.

  The stadium is busy. Inside the Snack Shack, Austin’s mom and Mémé are getting things ready, slow cookers heating up, while Denis Wing staffs the grill, hot dogs perfuming the air. Fuller buzzes about in a golf cart, trying to focus nervous energy on his last-minute checklist. A few parents sit in the stands, while Coach Abdi sits apart, wanting space to study the game. Fans Dan and Jeannie Martin choose their usual spot smack in the middle of the stands. Their daughter played soccer years ago for Lewiston, but these days they never miss a boys game, home or away. They started coming, they say, “when they showed up,” talking about the Somalis. The team is important, Jeannie affirms. It’s not just about Lewiston—all of Maine is watching.

  “They don’t like playing in the cold,” Dan Martin worries, thinking about the latter half of the schedule. The Martins take their fandom seriously and know each player by name, strengths, and weaknesses. “That was the trouble at the Cheverus game.”

  Music blares from the PA system while the cheerleaders stretch on a blue mat on the track in front of the bleachers, their blue-and-white uniforms complemented by white bows in their hair. Their silver pom-poms shimmer as the sun crawls toward the outlines of downtown to the west, their breath starting to cloud as the air grows cold.

  Walking past the visitors’ bench to their own, the players drop their backpacks on the ground, saying hello to the handful of freshmen Hersi selected to be ball boys. They move into a double-line formation to start their slow jog around the field. Loping gracefully together, they loosen up, smiling occasionally.

  Laps done, they stretch and get into small sides, drilling and dancing, practicing short passes in a sophisticated version of keep-away. Gish, McGraw, and Hersi throw out observations and recommendations, Hersi occasionally taking the ball himself because he just can’t help it.

  “It’s fun!” Gish reminds them, kicking a long, low ball at Alex. “It’s a game!”

  Now good and warm, they break into two groups to fire balls at Austin as the captains meet with the refs. “Introduce yourselves,” the refs instruct them before outlining the rules of the match. “Let’s get ready!” McGraw growls as the captains return to the groups, clapping his hands as he reminds the team to put the balls in the bags by the benches.

  High in the blue box atop the bleachers, Fuller reels off a string of announcements, including rules about spectators and sportsmanship, before calling the starting lineups for each team. After the players take their places on the field, they turn toward the flag for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” As the last notes fade, McGraw brings the players in for final instructions before Nuri takes over for their chant.

  “One, two, three, pamoja ndugu!” the team finishes.

  “Together!” McGraw calls to their backs as they take the field. The players gather on the grass on their knees in a circle, arms tightly around one another’s shoulders, for a moment with the captains.

  “ALL ABOARD!” rings out through the stadium as Ozzy Osbourne’s voice descends into the “aye, aye, aye” of “Crazy Train.”

  “Don’t focus on the stands,” Abdi H. says inside the team circle. “Focus on the game. It doesn’t matter who we are playing; we play them like Scarborough, we play them like Cheverus.”

  “Blue Devils, get out there, get out there, FIGHT!” the cheerleaders begin, signaling that it’s game time.

  “And let’s get an early goal,” Moe interjects, “so there’s no pressure on defense!”

  Good advice. Within five minutes of the first whistle, Maslah grabs possession from a Camden Hills throw-in and rushes to the corner. He sends the ball over to Abdi H., who kicks a short chop to put Lewiston on the board.

  “That was a very nice goal!” McGraw calls, appreciating the teamwork.

  The bench leaps to its feet in celebration. Gish reminds them to stay calm. They cannot risk getting a yellow card for sideline behavior.

  “Let’s keep it together.”

  Wiping his brow with the hem of his shirt, his habit to reset, Abdi H. is glad they got one. He feels more settled. He is nervous playing a team he knows so little about. Before today, he couldn’t even find Camden on a map. He knows they are supposed to be a top team. But their record didn’t tell him the one thing he really wanted to know: did they play fast or physical? Physical teams are always a worry for the Blue Devils. Worried about playing Lewiston? Just hurt them. Then the speed doesn’t matter.

  Abdi H. tends to study the game as it unfolds around him until he cracks the opposition’s code. Then he breaks out, takes possession, and flies. Now we’ll just go at it, he thinks, taking another quick look at the board. But his is the only goal in the first half. Camden, too, settles in and takes its defense up a notch. Gish’s scouting report was right; this is no cakewalk.

  While McGraw toes the sideline, following the ball, Gish, Hersi, and Henrikson stand back a few feet, operating as McGraw’s eyes for the rest of field, calling out numbers for players to mark, yelling “second ball” when a shot doesn’t finish, and reminding them to keep the ball on the ground. From the stands, Coach Abdi yells to players in Somali, calling them over to talk when they come out for a breather. A few rows away, Maulid’s mother chimes in, giving them an extra encouraging word, taking sips of Gatorade every few minutes while her younger children play nearby. Even when her son comes out, her eyes never leave the field, the game growing increasingly fast-paced and rough.

  “Did you see Maulid standing there?” McGraw yells, frustrated over a missed pass. “He’s going to give me an aneurysm,” he mutters.

  “Fire up, Big Blue, fire up!” the cheerleaders repeat to the crowd. “Fire up, Big Blue, fire up!”

  When a call doesn’t go Lewiston’s way, Gish shakes his head and walks down the line.

  “I’ve got to give myself a time-out,” he yells to no one in particular, thinking about his promise to Fuller.

  At the half, McGraw takes the team to the far goalpost, glancing up the hill to the group of old men clust
ered at the side of the school’s driveway. They used to just come for the football games, getting a good view for free, McGraw remembers. Now they watch soccer, too.

  As the players splay on the grass, drinking water, sweat dripping down their faces, some of their families come in for the second half, the admission gate now closed. Abdi leaves his perch and crosses to the visitors’ side, which will be closer to Lewiston’s attacking third in the second half. The players don’t notice anything. A one-goal advantage offers little comfort.

  McGraw surveys the group, the assistant coaches behind him. He gives them detailed strategies. He reminds them they have to take possession, moving the ball and themselves. Don’t just find opportunities; capitalize on them.

  “We got one goal,” he says calmly. “Do you think we can get a few more?”

  The players nod, murmuring their agreement. It’s time to get loud.

  “Can that team beat you in the second half? No, they can’t beat you in the second half. The only thing they have, THE ONLY THING THEY HAVE, is to try to take you out of the game by playing overly physical. They can’t beat you unless we retaliate—if you get physical, guess who gets the card? COMPOSURE! Do NOT let their physicality, their words, take you out of the game. FOCUS. Let them foul. Make sure you deal with the game the way it’s supposed to be dealt with.” It’s as far as he will ever go to address the challenges of playing in a Lewiston uniform and the nasty words that now go with it.

  “They’re fast, they’re physical, you can’t mess around with them,” he continues. “But you’re faster—let the ball do all the work. Can you pass better than them? Can you possess better than them? Can you play the ball back? Can you switch the field better than them? Can you run better than them?”

  The murmurs grow louder.

  “YES. YOU. CAN!”

  In the second half, Abdi H. launches an attack thwarted by Camden’s keeper, Lucas Boetsch. When Boetsch hits the ground, the ball in his hands, it pops up, hitting the ground for a slow roll toward the box.