Blue were a goal up at the break, and Garcia did not feel good about it.

Jamie sat with the rest of Northgate Blue near the technical area, chest heaving, a water bottle hanging from one hand. Shaw crouched in front of them and talked through the right side, drawing a shape in the air with two fingers.

Garcia could not hear the words, but he could read the warning in them. White would come down that channel again. Decide earlier. Stop chasing every runner across the pitch. Stop hammering it anywhere the moment you win it.

Jamie nodded along, eyes on the coach.

Garcia stayed behind the rope with Alan and Rafi, because nobody from outside the camp could say a single word to a player while the match was alive.

That was the hard part of days like this. The work was done. Now he could only watch it hold or break.

TWEET.

The second half started, and White moved the ball quicker toward Blue’s right.

It was not a grand plan. Their coach had simply seen that Jamie’s side had been the busy one all morning, so White went back to it to make him defend two things at once.

Dylan O’Connor held the width and stayed high. Tyler Grant drifted into the gap inside him. Aaron Pike pushed up the overlap every time Miles was slow getting back.

Jamie struggled with it early.

He kept getting caught between stepping out to the ball and holding his line, and for the first ten minutes of the half he was a beat late on both. He was not being torn apart. He was just behind, and at this level behind was where the trouble started.

The goal came from proper football, not from Jamie falling apart.

Tyler Grant dropped between the lines and took the ball with his back half-turned. Noah Bennett came to close him, but Tyler was already spinning off him, opening his body toward goal in one touch.

Too slow, Noah.

Tyler did not need long. He slid a low ball through the gap as Dylan O’Connor cut inside off the left, a diagonal run across the top of the box.

Dylan got across Harry Cole and used his body to hold him off, the one thing Dylan did better than anyone at the camp. He took it on his right and finished low into the corner.

THWACK.

1–1.

Enzo got a hand to the air behind it and nothing else.

Jamie stood with his hands on his hips for a second, jaw tight, staring at the spot where the ball had crossed the line. The match was slipping, and his face showed it.

But he did not fold into himself the way he had at Croydon. He clapped his hands once, hard, and called for the restart.

Garcia watched that and felt something settle.

He’s not hiding from it. He wants the ball back.

After the equaliser, Jamie got louder.

He pointed before the ball came to him. He talked to Miles, calling him short, calling him long. He asked for it again straight after he gave one away, which two weeks ago he would never have done.

And he stopped passing backward on instinct.

He won a duel with Dylan on the touchline, standing him up and nicking it clean off his toe, and instead of recycling it to Harry, he opened up and drove it forward into Miles.

It did not lead to anything. But it was the choice that mattered.

A few minutes later he made an overlap down the right, sprinting outside Miles into the space behind White’s full-back. Miles saw him late and the pass was behind him, but Jamie stretched and reached it before it ran out, then cut it back low across the six-yard box.

Elliot Ward attacked the delivery.

A defender threw a leg across it first and blocked it behind for a corner.

It was not a clean attacking moment. The pass to him had been poor and the cutback half-blocked. But Jamie had run forty yards to make something happen instead of standing in his slot waiting for the match to end.

Garcia marked it without writing it down.

On the far flank, Reece showed everyone the cleaner version of the job.

Malik Johnson got the ball facing him with space to run, the exact situation that had troubled Jamie all match. Malik dropped a shoulder and went to knock it past him.

Reece did not lunge.

He angled his body early, before Malik committed, and simply closed the inside lane so the only way forward was the long way round, away from goal. Malik checked, found nothing, and played it backward.

No recovery sprint. No scramble. Reece had killed the danger a full second before it became danger, just by standing in the right place.

Garcia watched it and told himself the truth he did not enjoy.

Right now, on polish, the scouts take Reece first.

His shape was better. His touch was calmer. His decisions looked prepared because they were. A coach could trust that performance on a Saturday tomorrow.

Jamie was rougher than that and always had been today.

But there was one thing Reece had not had to show, because nobody had got behind him all match.

White were about to give Jamie the chance to show it.

They overloaded his side one more time, and for a moment it worked.

Dylan O’Connor pulled wide and stayed high. Tyler Grant moved inside off him. Aaron Pike came steaming up on the extra run outside.

Three White shirts, one lane.

Jamie got dragged a yard narrow as Tyler moved, and that was all it took. Dylan slipped out behind him on the touchline, free, and the ball was already on its way to his feet.

For half a second it was gone. Dylan was behind him with the ball, Isaac Monroe was charging the near post for the cutback, and Jamie was facing the wrong way.

Beaten.

Then Jamie exploded back.

His recovery had always been the quickest thing about him, and it answered now when it mattered most. Two strides, three, eating a gap that should not have been closeable, his legs turning over faster than anyone in white had managed all day.

Dylan steadied and slid the low cutback in toward Isaac at the near post.

Jamie got there first.

THUD.