So here we have a women's soccer stroy for the Euros! Please tell me if you liked it, I have no idea what the women's football fanbase is like around here...
The Fox and The Gamma Ray
“Wendie!” Sara Gama called through the hall. While her team had just lost to France 5-1, she couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to her old friend, Wendeline Renard, before the two captains got busy captaining their respective teams. The only problem was, she couldn’t find the defender anywhere.
“Sly as a fox,” Gama couldn’t help but chuckle to herself as she left the press conference room without as much as a hair from Renard. Gama often called the Frenchwoman “the fox”, and, in turn, Renard would call her “the gamma ray”.
“If you’re on the ceiling, you know I’m coming after you, right?” Gama yelled at nobody in particular. “And I’m not your coach, so I actually have a chance of succeeding!”
But there was no reply.
Renard wasn’t giving a press conference, Gama realized, not anywhere. She always showered before addressing the rest of her team, but she couldn’t hear any running water and besides, the Frenchwoman would have showered already by now. Renard wasn’t in the locker room or her coach’s office, because she had checked both places.
That left only one possible place…
*
“Wendie!” Gama burst open the door of a dark, cluttered broom closet. If there was anywhere that Renard would be, it would be here. And there she was--curled into a ball?
“What are you doing here?” Gama then realized just how cold it was inside the closet. Renard was shaking--and she obviously hadn’t even changed out of her kit. That’s not like her, the Italian realized, sitting next to her on a bucket.
“Are you injured?”
A shake of the head. Renard had always been a silent sulker--but what in the world could she have been sulking about?
“Lost?”
Renard shook her head, more furiously this time. “Are you serious? Lost in a stadium?”
“Let me guess.” Gama quickly ran her mind through the game. “Blaming yourself for the one goal France conceded compared to the five they scored?”
“It’s not stupid, Sara,” Renard argued. “Every goal is important to the goal difference. I’m a defender and we conceded a goal, let me sulk for a while longer.” She then seemed to realize how ridiculous that sounded in front of a defender who had just conceded five goals. “Why aren’t you sulking, Sara?”
“Because unlike you, I actually realize that there are eleven women on the pitch for each team and that you can almost never place the blame on just one person.” Gama rolled her eyes. “And plus, we can still qualify from Group D, so you didn’t just ruin our Euros, Wendie.”
“But that’s not the point,” Renard sighed. “You guys are elite competition, y’know? People--the media--will be expecting us to thrash Belgium and Iceland. And then all the expectations will be upon us, even more than ‘it’s coming home’ England, and what if the girls just…crack? Y’know, under pressure?”
“They won’t, you’re a great captain to them!” Gama argued. “And your coach…”
“Is absolute crap at player management.”
“Well, that was…honest.”
“Hey, what do you expect? I play with Marie.”
“Anyways.” Gama pointed to her kit. “Look, Wendie. Why don’t you take a shower, and we can talk later? You’re going to catch a cold from being here, come out of the closet.”
“Um, no. What about the media?”
“Wendeline Therese Renard…”
“Fine.” Renard stood up, then extended her hand to Gama. “Could you…come with me?”
“What?”
“Please…” Renard begged, giving Gama the baby eyes. “I need you.”
“Ugh, okay. But stop looking at me like that!”
*
Renard had taken her shower (after much coaxing from Gama to go in there by herself), and now sat next to her, literally soldered to the Italian like a Sheffield blade. She still had that sad gaze in her eyes, like something (or was it somebody?) had stolen the light from them.
Now Gama was beginning to think that it wasn’t just the game.
“How’s the camp going?” Gama asked, trying to strike up a conversation with her friend for the third time. “Met anybody new?”
“No, I have better things to do.”
“Wendie, stop sulking! You just won 5-1, snap out of it!”
“Why don’t you start sulking like a regular human being who just lost 5-1, and snap into it?”
“Is that even a phrase?”
“I don’t know, do you think I grew up speaking English?”
“Yes?”
“No! I’m Martinican, you fool!”
“Whatever! And if I started sulking, you’d try everything to cheer me up, and then why would you want me to sulk in the first place?”
No answer from Renard.
“And they say men don’t communicate,” Gama grumbled. “This is ridiculous.”
“Woe is me.”
“Now you sound ridiculous,” Gama pointed out. “I wish I’d taped you saying that.”
“Whatever.” Renard took Gama’s hand, clutching it close. “Look…if I stay away from the team any longer, they’ll get worried. But…”
But you want to stay with me, Gama finished in her brain. But all she did was silently nod. “I’ll call you.”
“We can go on holiday after the Euros--if Corrine doesn’t see.”
“You’re scared of her.”
“No…okay, maybe a bit.” The defender sighed, running a hand through her hair. “It’s just that…Sarah retired because of her, y’know? And Valerie wasn’t called up this time…and what’s going to be next? The girls need me.” And she stood, finally releasing Gama’s hand. “It was nice seeing you, Sara…see you in the quarterfinals?”
“Yeah, see you then,” Gama agreed, watching Renard walk off. Her shoulders were slumped, worry writ all over her face--but she straightened up as soon as she spotted Diani approaching, plastering on a smile.
“You good, Wendie? We didn’t see you in the locker room,” Diani noted. So Gama wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“Oui, Kadi, I’m good. Let’s go down to dinner! You played very well today.”
Renard was obviously faking the cheer in her tone, and Gama made a mental note to check up on her later. Renard was an extremely compassionate leader to her troops--but with the way Corrine Diacre was, Gama feared that her friend might be biting off far more than she could chew.
