Chapter Two: Training

As they drove down the highway, Eve noted the spaced out, dark commercial buildings that littered the sides of the road. It wasn’t what she had imagined. Dusty road signs were scrawled over with graffiti, and the palm trees were few and far between.  

‘Is it all like this?’ 

Lucia frowned at her for what felt about the hundredth time since picking her up from the airport. 'What is wrong with this?'

'I just thought it would be prettier, you know. More quaint.'

Lucia huffed and her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Eve’s worries began to multiply. She had made a rash decision to get out of a painful situation. Too rash, maybe, but the thought of playing a whole season alongside someone who had lied to her, who had wounded her right down to her emotional bones had been too much to cope with. Though she had told herself it was an opportunity to experience a new culture, to learn a new language, to play a different kind of football, the truth was that she had run away. Eve had begged her agent to get her out of Hanmore as quickly as possible, and Real Martinez had been the first to splash out the required cash.  

The car had fallen silent again so Eve was glad when the entrance to the training ground appeared. Lucia pulled the car sharply onto a rugged track and they drove under a sign bearing the team's crest and into a compound that gave Eve a little bit of hope. There were two training pitches, a building that looked like a gym and changing rooms, and another that seemed to house some offices. Everything seemed new-ish and well-kept. She had seen a video of it all before joining but half-feared it had been put together with the aid of glossy filters. Her only meeting with anyone at the club had been a brief video call with the technical director, via an interpreter, before signing.   

The technical director had assured her she would be coached in English until her Spanish improved. Given that the only words she currently knew were ola, cerveza and gracias, it was going to take a while. 

‘Bon Dia, bon Dia,’ a balding man in a too tight tracksuit and a pair of oversized sunglasses stepped up to shake her hand as soon as she left Lucia’s car. 'Soy Mikel Cabello.' he said, slapping his own chest, 'coach, eh, el manager'. Eve had never heard of him and momentarily regretted not having looked him up online before arriving. The only thing she had checked was where Real Martinez had finished in the league. They had come fourth but the technical director had assured that they were ambitious, that they would make more good signings in the next transfer window, and that she would be a key player whose experience they would value.  

‘We go?’ Mikel 

‘Go?’ Eve asked,

‘Play, go, play the footballs.’ Mikel made a sweeping motion with his leg, and kicked at an imaginary ball. 

‘Oh yeah, can’t wait to get going.’ 

Mikel beamed at her. ‘Si, si.’  

Eve smiled back before Lucia brushed past her. ‘He mean now. The team train now.’ 

Mikel waved an arm in the direction of one of the buildings, where Lucia was now headed. ‘Is all for you, ready, ready.’ 

‘I just got off the plane,’ Eve said in disbelief. 

‘Que?’ Mikel frowned. 

‘No bally, bally, no ready. Too sunny, sunny, I need to acclimatise.' .  

'Que?' Mikel looked nonplussed.

‘Come,’ Lucia yelled. She had stopped by the door to a flat-roofed, red-tiled building and was beckoning Eve over. There was something about Lucia’s calm authoritative tone and way of speaking that made Eve follow her. 

The changing rooms were clean and neat, and sure enough, hanging on a peg was a training kit in Real Martinez colours already emblazoned with her name and the number, ten. Her jaw fell open at the sight and she dropped her rucksack to the floor. It shouldn’t have been a shock, but she had been at Hanmore for so long that a wave of something that felt like grief almost knocked her over. ‘I don’t have any boots,' she gasped. 'They’re with the movers. I mean, I didn’t think I would be playing right away.' How stupid she had been. Had she thought they would pay her to do nothing for a few days? 

Lucia looked pointedly at feet and without even asking her size, left briefly, and came back with a pair of boots that she shoved into Eve’s arms. ‘These Maria’s, she not mind.’ 

Eve nodded dumbly and started to change.  

 

Lucia hadn't said a word, not even looked her way, while Eve had pulled on the strange kit and borrowed boots, which fit perfectly. They were broken in nicely without being wrecked, but were not the make she normally wore; the make that she was sponsored to wear. She supposed this was a closed training session that was already underway, so it was highly unlikely her sponsors would find out and be annoyed. Besides, the session would be almost finished by the time she and Lucia made it out onto the pitch.  

She took a deep breath as they left the changing room, and walked around the building, and there they were, her new team. They were shouting and laughing, in Spanish. They were so very Spanish; with expressive shoulder shrugs, rapid banter in Romanesque tones, tanned skin and loud laughter, and in the way they passed the ball around tikka taka fashion with short, sharp, no-look instinctive passes. 

Training sessions were what Eve had always loved about football. Yes, trophies, awards, and winning leagues were all fantastic, but she had never felt more at home, never more at ease with herself, than when on a training pitch. Nothing gave her more joy than when the pressure was off and she was just kicking a ball about with twenty or so other women who didn’t think it was an odd way for grown-ups to spend their time. Training had always been her refuge, though it didn't feel safe at the moment. 

What if she was shit, like proper shit? What if she didn’t fit in? She had grown up playing English - hold the ball, wait for the opening, lob it over the top or pass it down the line - football. The squad began to acknowledge her, approaching cautiously. Some were enthusiastic and told her, in broken English, how much they were looking forward to playing with her, others were not confident enough to speak and so nodded her way. And there were some who were wary - the midfielders and the older players, who were likely concerned that she was there to take their place in the starting eleven. A great many of them seemed to be called Maria, or variations of Maria. 

The coach shouted something at her, and Eve froze until Lucia tugged at her shirt and pulled over to a patch of dry grass at the side of the pitch. ‘Warm-up.’  

An assistant coach ran them through a few drills which seemed easy at first, then a little more testing as Eve began to sweat under the heat. They ran between cones, and her breaths came quicker and harder. Her heart began to pound more than it would have three or four years ago, though she couldn’t entirely blame her drop off in fitness on age. Lately, sleep had been difficult, dinner had become cereal, and coffees had been swapped out for wine. She had come to Spain to get fit and start again. Day one, she supposed, was always going to be tough.  

A whistle blew and she was ushered over to take part in a rondo. The ball was kicked about, player to player, in quick succession, until the player in the middle of the circle was able to intercept a pass. Eve played a soft ball to her right that was easily stopped. She blamed the longish, harsh grass for it, and took her turn as the ‘piggy’. She couldn’t get near them. Her new teammates lifted, shoveled, and slid the ball past her with ease, and she was relieved beyond measure when Mikel blew his whistle to signal that rondos were over. However, she then became part of a five-a-side training team. In the short game that followed she was a ghost, running around without purpose, and not once touching the ball. She felt slow. The game lasted fifteen minutes each half, but it felt like a full ninety and when another whistle blew to signal the end of training, Eve turned her face up to the sky and blinked back tears 

‘This my boots,’ one of the Maria’s said, catching Eve up on the way back to the changing room. She was one of the younger players, a smiling, happy teenager.  

‘Yeah, sorry, Lucia said you wouldn’t mind.’ 

‘No.' Eve Middleton wear my boots, is honour,’ the girl said, slapping her chest. 

Eve smiled back at her. ‘Thanks, gracias.’ 

‘We play, yes?’ She held up a hand for a high five. 

Eve slapped the hand and nodded. ‘Yes, we play.’