Skills from Brazil

by Dan Freedman

  “Foguinho is my name,

  Football is my game,

  I’ll take you on, down the line,

  I’ll skill you up, each and every time!

  Don’t try to stop me,

  Don’t even try to foul me,

  It makes no difference, how many men surround me.

  I’ll skill you up,

  I’ll burn you down,

  My. Name. Is. Foguinho.

  Little Fire just came to town!”

  Heading Home

  Jamie scratched his scalp and looked at his fingernails. They were full of sand. Normally that might have been a bit disgusting, but, right now, Jamie looked at it a different way. He liked the idea that he was bringing some of Brazil back home in, or rather on, his head.

  It wasn’t all he’d be bringing back either. He had the skills from Brazil inside him now and he was determined to keep them and practise them every day before the big match at the end of term. When the day came, he wanted to be ready, Jamie thought, borrowing the phrase that Mestre always seemed to use.

  He smiled to himself and looked at Rafael. His friend was leaning his head against the aeroplane window with his mouth wide open and his tongue hanging out to the side. Jamie couldn’t believe that he had slept for practically the whole flight home.

  What made it even more frustrating was that Rafael had promised to tell Jamie the true story of Mestre on the plane – who he really was and how he really got those skills – and then, as soon as they’d eaten their meal, he had fallen fast asleep!

  Jamie thought about his time with Mestre. He thought about Rosária and the other kids on the beach and he thought about the amazing night that Bernard had taken Jamie and Rafael to see Palmeiras play. Jamie now understood that, all the time they were there, Bernard had been preparing for the opening of the futsal hall and yet he’d still made time to be the best host for Jamie.

  Jamie looked across at Bernard, who was making some architectural sketches, his face as serious as ever.

  Jamie undid his seatbelt, stood up and walked over to him.

  “Thank you so much for inviting me,” said Jamie. “I just hope I didn’t disappoint you.”

  Bernard put down his pencil. “Disappoint me? How?”

  “Part of the reason you invited me was to help Rafa get over his stammer in public and … it hasn’t happened…”

  Bernard shook his head. “Jamie, we invited you because you are a true friend to Rafa,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to cure him. Just to have fun with him. And I know you two did that.”

  Jamie nodded. “It was the best time of my entire life,” he said. “And I’m so sorry about your mirror!”

  Bernard didn’t respond. Instead, he did something that no man apart from Mike had done to Jamie since his dad had left.

  He gave Jamie a hug.

  Part

  Three

  Talking Tactics

  Wednesday 16 July – six and a half weeks later – the day before the game…

  “You need to know your opposition,” Mike said, staring at the three young, hopeful faces in front of him. “So what Rafael has been doing: watching the teachers train, working out their formation … that is exactly the right thing to do.”

  Jamie, Jack and Rafael looked at one another and smiled. For weeks now, everything they had done had been geared towards this game. As soon as school restarted, Jamie, Jack and Rafael had held trials to see which three players would be joining Jamie and Jack in the side.

  There had been lots of good players – both boys and girls – and as captain, Jamie found the process of telling the other kids that they hadn’t made it into the team very difficult. In the end, though, Rafael, put it best when he’d said: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.”

  And so, finally, the trio had settled on the following team and formation: Jack in goal, the Talbot twins in defence, Aaron Cody in midfield and Jamie in attack.

  Not only was Rafael present at every one of the kids’ training sessions in the park – always kneeling by the side of the pitch, making notes in his pad and passing on information and tactics to the team via Jamie – he also made sure he saw all of the teachers‘ training sessions in the playground too. He would conceal himself from Pratley’s view by hiding behind the cars and memorizing everything that he saw. He compiled comprehensive fact-files on every member of the teachers’ team, all the while devising his own set of special tactics to beat them.

  Ultimately, Rafael’s tactics revolved around one simple idea: the teachers were playing with Mr Duggins in defence. He was quite a fat man and an extremely slow runner; Mr Pratley had been forced to pick him when Ms Vetterlein had repeated her insistence that she couldn’t play in the Teachers v Pupils match because of the Cup Final she was due to play in for Hawkstone the following weekend.

  Once news of this had leaked, Rafael had pounced on Duggins’ presence in defence as the teachers’ weak point and decided that the pupils should attack this weak point with their own strongest, most dangerous threat: Jamie.

  Rafael knew that if, whenever he received the ball, Jamie took on Duggins, he would beat him every time. It would unlock the defence. It would unlock the whole game.

  If Jamie was the most powerful weapon on the pitch, Rafael was the mastermind off it. He had told every player of their individual responsibilities and they all knew the overall team tactics off by heart. All the work had been done. Everything was set and now, the night before the game itself, Jamie, Jack and Rafael had come to see the man who knew more about winning big matches than all of them put together. Mike Johnson.

  “Have your tactics but also be prepared to change,” Mike told them. “A match evolves during its course. It never stays the same. If you are too regimented – just sticking to your original plan – you will break. You have to be flexible to change with the circumstances.”

  While Jamie and Jack listened intently, Rafael nodded and wrote furiously into his notepad. He soaked up every piece of football information that was ever offered to him.

  “And above all, if you defeat your opponents, never gloat. The time of your greatest triumph is the time to show some humility … and that goes for life as well as football.”

  Mike took a big gulp of coffee and let his words sink in.

  “Good luck, you lot,” he said. “Go and make it happen.”

  The Truth of the Legend

  Jamie walked home that night with an extra spring in his step.

  After they left Mike’s, he, Jack and Rafael had had a group hug. They knew that the next time they would all see one another would be the day of the game itself. The day they hoped to lift that gleaming school trophy.

  And Jamie knew that he was ready.

  Everything about the way his body felt told him so. Not just because he had been training with Jack and the rest of the team every afternoon, carefully keeping to Rafael’s set plan and tactics, but also because, even after he left them, every night he’d been continuing his own search for footballing perfection.

  Taking his mind back to Brazil, he had devoted countless hours working on every single skill that he had learned over there. While he practised, he imagined Mestre standing – arms folded – nodding occasionally, guiding Jamie in the art and skill of Brazilian brilliance. Once, when attempting A Mágica, he’d even managed to walk a few steps with the ball balancing on his head! He’d called Rafael straight away to see if he could somehow get the message back to Mestre in Brazil!

  Jamie was surprised at how often he had thought of Mestre since they had got home. His presence seemed to be with Jamie all the time. Perhaps it was because of the story of his life. Rafael had finally told Jamie the truth about Mestre the day after they had got back home from Brazil, and it was a story Jamie could not forget.

  “Come on then,” Jamie had said to Rafael
. “You said it was a good story. And it must be: to get skills like that … to be able to do A Mágica. Go on, tell me; what’s the deal with Mestre?”

  “Mestre was brought up in the slums, one of the poorest of them all,” Rafael had begun. “He was a brilliant young footballer but his family had no money whatsoever and so, like many others, as a young boy, he turned to crime to get by. He pickpocketed people, stole from shops, that kind of thing … but then, when he got older, it became more serious, and when he was nineteen, he was sent to prison for thirteen years.

  “In those thirteen years, he was let out for only one hour each day. The rest of the day, it was just him in that cell alone. He had only one possession: a tiny little ping-pong ball. He spent ten hours every day for thirteen years practising his touch with that little ping-pong ball … and it was that little ping-pong ball which gave him all his skills. By the time he was released, it was too late for him to become a footballer, but even though he couldn’t be a professional, he now had the touch of a magician. He went to prison a boy, a young criminal. He came out as O Mestre.”

  “Wow,” said Jamie. “That’s sad, but it’s incredible, and it makes sense too. If you can control a ping-pong ball in a prison cell, no wonder you’ll have become a master with a normal ball by the time you get out. That is some story.”

  “You’re right, it is sad,” Rafael said. “Because although he now had the touch of a genius, it was too late for him in the professional game. So he did the next best thing: he taught his skills to the kids. And, as you know, he has helped at least one boy go on to be a professional footballer…”

  Jamie nodded. He thought about Arnaldo a lot too.

  “No wonder you’ve got so much respect for him,” Jamie said. “He’s an amazing man.”

  “True enough,” smiled Rafael. “And he has a very pretty daughter!”

  Let Down

  Thursday 17 July Match Day: 08.04

  “You’re not coming, are you?”

  Just one look at his mum’s face told Jamie everything he needed to know.

  “Jamie, they just called me this morning. They’re short. They need me.”

  “I knew it! I knew this was going to happen! Why didn’t you just say you weren’t going to come in the first place?” he stormed. He wanted her to be there so much. He was so upset, so desperately disappointed … he just had no way of handling it.

  “I wanted to come, Jamie. You know I would love to, but this is my job. I’ve got no choice. You’ll still have Mike there…”

  “Exactly!” shouted Jamie. “Because he’s the only one that cares about me!”

  “Jamie!” his mum pleaded. “Jamie! Wait!”

  But he was gone. Slamming the door shut so hard behind him that the whole of their little house shuddered.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Jack, who was waiting for Jamie outside her house. Her excitement for the match had changed to concern as soon as she saw Jamie.

  Jamie shrugged and shook his head. He’d been on a high ever since he’d got back from Brazil. He’d felt so relaxed and confident … probably the happiest he’d ever been. And yet now – on this day of all days – he could only feel anger.

  The worst part was that, somewhere in his mind, he’d been expecting this. Whenever he was really looking forward to something, he always got let down in the end.

  “Have you got your match kit?” Jack asked.

  “Course I do!” snapped Jamie.

  Jack stared at him. He never talked to her like this.

  “Look!” he shouted, opening his bag for her to see. “Got everything apart from socks and shin pads. Happy now?”

  “Don’t you want to get your socks and shin pads?”

  “Not if it means going back home!” barked Jamie.

  The Big Warm-Up

  Match Day: 11.07

  Aaron Cody, Dexter and Kane Talbot and Jamie Johnson all lined up on the edge of the area to take their shots at goal. Jack Marshall bounced in anticipation between the posts and Rafael da Cruz looked on watchfully from behind the goal.

  It was break time and, while they were practising, the rest of the kids were placing chairs around the playground’s edge. The whole school would be watching later and lots of parents would too. Everything had to be in place. Very soon, the school trophy would be brought out if its cabinet. That’s when things started to get really exciting.

  Now it was time for the final warm-up. The last chance to loosen muscles and work on tactics before kick-off, which was just over three hours away.

  Jamie could sense the eyes of the other kids on him. It was the same when he watched Hawkstone warm up: he always focused on the star player, Harry Armstrong, analysing his every movement. He knew the other, younger kids were doing that with him right now.

  Jamie watched and waited his turn as Aaron Cody coolly slotted his shot home, followed by Dexter Talbot, who blasted his effort into the roof of the net. Kane Talbot was next – he saw his strike brilliantly saved down to the left by Jack Marshall.

  And then it was Jamie’s go. All the kids putting the chairs down stopped what they were doing in order to watch.

  Jamie waited in readiness on the edge of the area as Aaron Cody softly rolled a cross along the ground towards him.

  Jamie saw the ball coming. He analysed its speed and direction, gathered all his strength and then went for a major blaster of a strike.

  To his and everyone else’s horror, he missed the ball entirely. A complete air shot.

  “Give us another one,” he shouted quickly, before anyone had a chance to react. “There was something in my eye.”

  So, from the other side of the pitch, Dexter Talbot spun over a perfect cross. It was a juicy pass, drifting through the air, just begging to be hit.

  Jamie saw the ball coming and this time elected to take it on the volley. He swivelled, planted his right foot firmly in the ground, and shaped his body for a left-foot strike. Then he attacked the ball with a violent swipe.

  This time he made contact all right … but in the worst possible way. Jamie ballooned the ball – not only over the goal, but also over the whole of the school building.

  Everyone watched it sail skywards and then drop into the car park next to the school gates. The ball must have hit the roof of a car because there was an audible thud followed by the loud wail of an alarm going off.

  It was not just the car that was alarmed.

  Some of the kids gasped. Most were shocked into silence. This was Jamie Johnson. This was the best player in the school. This was three hours before kick-off. This was a major problem.

  “What’s wrong, JJ?” asked Jack as she and Rafael came to talk to their friend.

  “Is it n-nerves? Are y-you OK?” asked Rafael.

  Jamie hung his head.

  He was anything but OK.

  Quick Getaway

  Match Day: 13.32

  Everything was set. Just lunch and then kick-off.

  “Where you going?” asked Jack. “We need our fuel.”

  She had been keeping an eye on Jamie today. She could tell he was not right.

  And now, just as they were going into lunch, he seemed to be slipping away, going somewhere else.

  “Gotta go and do something,” was all Jamie would say. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back for the match.”

  Jamie waited until everyone had gone for lunch. Then he went into the toilets, took off his shirt and trousers, put on his football gear and put his school clothes back on over the top.

  It was a boiling hot day and Jamie now had way too many layers on but he didn’t care. All he cared about was that Mike had got the text that he had sent an hour before.

  Those two shots Jamie had taken at break time had been horrific. He knew that there was no way he could play in this game while his argument with his mum that morning wa
s still on his mind. He had to make up with her. It was the only way for him to sort himself out. He just hoped Mike would be able to help him.

  Jamie walked out of the back exit of the school, checked his watch, checked that no one was looking and then vaulted the school gate as quickly as he could.

  He saw the car and sprinted across the road to get in. He checked again. Thankfully, no one had seen him.

  Mike Johnson smiled and patted Jamie on the knee.

  “I’ve got to be back in thirty minutes,” said Jamie.

  Mike smiled and started the car.

  “We’ll have you back in twenty-five.”

  Ready for the Whistle

  Match Day: 14.12

  The whole school was waiting.

  Rafael was going out of his mind, tearing through the pages of his notepad, trying to work out a different tactical plan.

  Jack was kicking the goalposts in frustration.

  And Mr Pratley was smiling. Just three minutes left until kick-off.

  Jamie Johnson had bottled it. He was a no-show.

  And then, finally, he appeared.

  “What?” Jamie smiled nonchalantly at Jack. “I told you I’d be back for the match!”

  Jamie sprinted on to the pitch, in his full kit, missing only his shin pads and socks, ready to take the kick-off for the pupils’ team.

  As Mr Karenza made Jamie and Pratley shake hands before the start, Jamie looked around at all the people who were watching: every single pupil and loads of parents too.

  Jamie did not have either of his parents there to watch. But that was OK, now that he had made up with his mum.

  She had been taken completely by surprise, not just to see Jamie and Mike suddenly appear at the hospital while she was working, but with the massive bunch of flowers they had for her too.