34 Take Me Home
The boys of Sheffield Blades returned from the dugout in a crestfallen mood.
The keen eyes of the home supporters didn't miss this development, and looked for some subtle changes in either the line up, the coaching staff, or anything they could infer.
Blaise Atkinson, the bane of their team so far, was not around.
That was what most fans, and even the Leeds players saw through with a glance. How could they not look for the guy who gave them the most pain in the first half? The player that they were the most wary of? The talisman of the opposing team?
No fucking way.
The stands went loud, as the murmuring and discussions about the absence of Sheffield's star player became a great talking point for everyone. The absence of Atkinson also surprised the Leeds players.
Though for them, it's nothing but a blessing.
Meanwhile, as the two teams were about to kick off the second half, Blaise sat there in the locker room, accompanied by two middle aged men. They are the under 18 team's doctors.
The manager was decisive in pulling Blaise out, after the team reported his apparent injury to him when his half time talk started. He was already considered by the staff as the future star of Sheffield, as he continued his demolition of the youth leagues.
Ryan Cassidy doesn't want himself to be the reason for their new star's early demise due to injury. Sure, he may be overthinking it, but for reasons like this, it's always better to be cautious than pay the price later.
Plus, it's not like they're out already once he's gone.
So he gave Blaise to the doctors to check on his condition, and hoped that it wasn't anything too serious. He, the manager, and the rest of the boys on the field would have to take care of the proceedings without their main man.
***
Blaise remembered his very first major injury as if it's just yesterday.
It was a cold, rainy night in Stoke.
Blaise could feel the tension as the ball barely bounced around on the muddy pitch.
70 minutes in, and the game's high endurance and focus standards were slowly catching up on Blaise. He's wearing the classic red Nottingham jerseys, along with the captain's armband.
He barreled down the middle of the field with the ball on his feet, and just as he tried to get a pass off, he was taken down hard by a crunching tackle.
What scared Blaise the most was when he felt a pop near his heel.
A red card went straight up from the referee's pockets against the defender.
He grimaced on the sodden pitch, as he held onto the area right above his heel, before getting stretchered off by the physios in the midst of a pressure packed game.
The next day, without any surprise to himself the medical team announced that he suffered a complete rupture on the Achilles that sidelined him for the rest of the season, and even a good chunk of the next season.
Well… he had to at least be thankful that he didn't hear a pop on his ankle this time.
Even after suffering through much worse injuries in the past, this current injury felt like it was the very first injury he suffered in his life.
"There's already swelling in your ankle. Are you feeling this discomfort even before the half ended?"
"Yeah… I felt it after the cleats of the defender caught me by the ankle the first time…"
"And then? You disregarded the pain and continued playing." The doctor said with a straight face and a mocking tone.
"You know I can't stop just like that… I have to do what I can even with one leg..."
***
The Sheffield Blades are taking a beating, a battering, a shellacking, and a domination in the second half. Their opponents didn't let up on the tempo they ended the first half with.
The biggest difference between the first half and second half is like heaven and earth. A profound lack of creativity, and ball carrying ability in the midfield made the Blades' crumble from top to bottom, even making them more vulnerable to the relentless attacking tempo of the home side.
Three minutes in, they broke through with a fierce shot to the bottom right corner off of a counter attack, taking their first lead in the game.
Sheffield were rendered helpless by both their sudden predicament and their opponent's heavy bombardment.
At the 58th minute, the Blades were put to the sword once more. A flimsy tackle from their left back allowed Edward Robertson to humiliate him for the nth time today.
A grounded cross was then sent to the onrushing striker, who also caught his own marker napping. He did not even need to control the ball, he just hammered it to the bottom left corner of the goal for 4-2.
The away team was in shambles. Their second half performance could only be considered disgraceful compared to their first one, with their body language unrecognizable from the confident team that led 2-0 in the first half.
They never regained control from there.
***
"Fuck… we're so ass for falling flat like that…" Terry didn't have the usual bright smile on his face, which instead had gloomy sadness. "Wait! Boss, sir! Do you have any news on Blaise?"
The ears of everyone perked up, as if the answer of their manager would either change the way they look, retain it, or even worsen it.
"He's hurt." The manager said, somehow managing to make the atmosphere even heavier than before. "Hurt because you conceded 4 goals in the second half without much resistance."
"Sir, how about his physical condition?" Cameron calmly got to the end of it, disregarding what his manager said about their bad performance.
"Who knows? I left the same time you all did. Tomorrow, we'll find out from the medical staff for sure."
Everyone breathed a hopeful sigh of relief. After Cassidy saw all of them finish sighing, he got to his post match talk.
Which will never be pleasant, reading by the atmosphere.
Cassidy didn't realize that his team had slowly depended more than what's healthy on the new boy Blaise Atkinson. His case on point: Everything collapsed when he went down.
A team should never depend on one person alone, especially since football is and always will be an eleven against eleven team game. Sure, a reliable, talismanic, star player is always great, but what he saw on his team today after he was taken off injured?
Unacceptable.
Pathetic.
What would happen if he got promoted to the senior team? This game gave him the answer: This team will collapse.
"I'm gonna say one thing about your performance today. You relied on Blaise Atkinson too much."
