35 Overreliance

October 20th

The video room is deathly silent.

In the hands of the manager Ryan Cassidy were the results of Blaise Atkinson's various medical tests yesterday night and earlier in the morning to ascertain what actually went wrong with his foot.

What made the room so silent was the fact that whatever's written there, would have major implications for the Football Association Youth Cup game on the 22nd, just 2 days away.

The two wingers of the squad, Cameron Okojo and Terry Quinn were both wearing serious expressions that didn't betray their worry and hesitation.

These two people were the closest to Blaise during his short stay in the team. The former was his fellow exit trialist turned Blade, while the other was the first friend he made in the club.

They don't want to hear the bad news, if ever there's one.

The manager cleared his throat with an ahem, before looking through the document with a growing frown on his face. This frown triggered a wave of depressed looks on the faces of the team members… at least until he scratched his head and looked confused instead.

"Uhhh… hey, help me. How do you even read these?" He called over one of the players, triggering a new wave of laughter that replaced the uncertainty of the young team members. "Don't laugh at me, you arseholes! I bet you can't read this too!"

"We're players sir, not physios nor managers." Terry laughed out loud and didn't hold back to further ease the tension in the atmosphere.

The manager was stumped. He's right.

A few seconds later, the physio took over the announcement and said that Blaise suffered a mild right ankle sprain and will be out for at least one week to a maximum of three weeks. Which means, he'll automatically miss the FA Youth Cup game, and there's also a chance he'll miss their next game on the 9th of November too.

A collective sigh of relief could be heard from the room, not only from the players, but also from the manager… who seemed to have breathed the biggest sigh of them all.

The fact that the only match he'll surely miss will be the match 2 days later, is fantastic news for him. That means that his injury wasn't anything particularly serious, as injuries that need surgeries would make him lose more time.

He'll be in a hot mess if the team's crowning jewel goes down with a freak injury.

Cameron fist bumped with Terry, their minds losing the worry and anxiety from not knowing what happened to their friend and teammate. On the far side, Callum was also beaming, he had already written in his journal something about what he should give to Blaise when he visits his home after game day.

***

Sheffield Blades Under 18 had a horrible draw in the FA Youth Cup First Round. Out of all the possible non-league teams they could've drawn among the various youth teams up to League One, they drew a team from whose senior team was on their own tier.

It's not like they are scared of getting trashed by a same division side, but they are just not that confident of their chances without Blaise Atkinson, especially against a side at the same level.

Such is the sorry state of this current iteration of Sheffield Blades. They rely on this one injured person to be the linchpin, the focal point, the orchestrator of everything on offense. He's become a 'taken for granted' number one.

Of course, they still are a functional youth team with the killer instinct and the strength to battle a team at their level. Since if they couldn't even do that, why are they even striving to play football?

It's just that… the difference between the level of play with Atkinson around, and without him?

Stark. Huge. Massive.

And they're feeling that difference right now against Southend, whose youth team might be in the lower division, but whose senior team was in League One.

Cameron Okojo was already huffing and puffing around 30 minutes into the match. He didn't expect that a cup game was going to be much harder than even the derby games they've experienced. They've been searching for breakthroughs on multiple fronts, but they can't find a single one because of their disjointed play on the offensive end.

It's down to their unusually crisp defense that they haven't conceded yet.

They've given up seven shots on target already at this point, with the ball being played mostly inside their own half.

The defense are making do with short clearances, last ditch tackles, passing mistakes, missed long shots, and the general inability of their opposing team to capitalize on the amount of pressure they're throwing at Sheffield.

Cassidy had his hands on the pockets of his trousers for quite a while now. He disliked the desperate situation his team had been in from the start, with the lack of a true playmaker, ball carrier, and creator readily apparent on his team right now.

Sometimes a flash of inspiration is enough to win a game.

This balding youth manager really believed that, as many games were won or lost with just a single moment of pure football inspiration, magic, even. He believed that every single football player can do something extraordinary like this at least once in their lifetime.

The Southend right winger suddenly found himself free in the wide areas. He ran with the ball on his feet, as the defenders struggled to keep him in check. He neared the right goal line, and faked a cross to lure the defender to either challenge with a slide tackle or lose his footing.

After succeeding on his feint, he cut inside, with the keeper sticking and almost hugging his near post as he yelled instructions for the other Blades to cover his far side.

To the keeper's surprise, the Southend winger didn't cross the ball, and instead cut it back to the middle with speed, also making the other defenders that stuck their feet out to look at who's coming to meet the ball…

The keeper managed to quickly reposition, yet once again to his surprise, the Southend player that met the cut back hit it with his left and finessed it off the bounce to the top right corner of the goal.

He had no chance.

32 minutes into the match, Sheffield went down 1-0.