Nobody had any fucking clue who Alex Conlan was ten years ago. In fact, barely anyone had a clue who she was now.
Hell - she wasn't even sure she was.
She was, by basically every metric, an Islander. She'd grown up there. Lived there since she was six. She'd always been aware, of course, that her
Malta Keohane, the Brenecian international, had played there at the time, so 'Keohane' quickly became her nickname in the youth ranks, too.
She hadn't seen the call-up coming.
Even the phone-call had been awkward, largely because English was Keohane's, like, sixth language. You needed to know a lot of smatterings in the Sunrise Islands. But she'd accepted - of course she had, what else could she do?
Well, she could've... drifted off. Like everyone else had, all her friends, everyone she'd grown up with, all gone.
Forever.
But it wasn't her time. That phone-call, she knew, was all that had kept her in this world.
The first thing she noticed about Brenecian players - er, she meant her teammates, of course - was that most of them were huge.
Keohane herself was not huge. Keohane stood a princely 5'3" and weighed somewhere in the 110s. Keohane was the sort of player who got described as 'the diminutive winger' in every single match report.
She knew everyone only in a vague sort of way, just as she knew the language in a vague sort of way, and she expected to be sort of... gently dipped into the fire. Not starting on the left wing in a match between Brenecia and Apox, a friendly a couple of weeks ahead of the Campionato Esportiva.
Brenecia vs. Apox... now there was a match she had heard of.
This was their tenth matchup, and each side had their share of bruises. But it was six years ago everyone was thinking back to - Apox's last match in the international spotlight. A Campionato Esportiva final, one that they'd triumphed 4-3 in extra time, and that triumph had turned to ashes in their mouths when their manager, Olim Benzari...
... oh, God, was this Benzari a son? Or a relative? It didn't bear thinking about.
It felt odd, standing here in navy blue. It wasn't the colour she'd dreamed of representing. But it was her only option. And she wasn't going to shame it with a half-hearted performance.
So she set to it. Her role wasn't what she was used to. Back home, they'd always encouraged, you know, having the ball stick to your feet, a few tricks here and there, but in her first training session Peter Uffington had two-footed her for trying a rabona. But Catherine Bardsley had stood up for her in public, and chided her in private.
"Listen... I know this isn't your natural country." Bardsley had eyes that darted disconcertingly. Perhaps it was a habit honed in Sameban captivity. "Not your natural culture. But showboating, it's... ah, it's not really our-"
"But it was the right thing to do!"
"The overlap was there on your left, with Locks. Back home, maybe you can think about beauty and glory, but here... this is Brenecia, love. We do what we can to win, because victory's what gives our shitty grey island in the middle of nowhere life. It's what gives it hope. We've been through a lot of losing in our time - and yes, some of it playing lovely football. A lot of it under me. But sooner or later - as a player, a manager and a nation - you've got to grow up, and go for the throat. That's what I want you to do for the match. Shoot when it's the best thing to do, but don't take it all on yourself."
Keohane licked her lips, as Balliol kicked off to Rankin, and then charged forward. Beck was her quarry today.
The match progressed... well, but it was unusual in a sense. Technically, Brenecia were the superior side on paper, but the concern was with closing ranks, making sure there was no way in hell that the lethal Apoxian strikers could steal a march. And that meant Keohane had to do her bit in defence, too. At one point, she'd lost Era Beck and she'd gone streaking halfway off down the pitch, but all of a sudden Gryphon was there sliding in and perfectly taking the ball into the stands. She berated Keohane - "Fucking foul him next time!"
"What, on purpose?!"
"... Yes?"
And walked off shaking her head.
There was a bit of edge, as well, growing into a scoreless half-time. The Brenecian ranks had slipped just a tiny amount and just in that time Imriel Townsend slipped a neat forward ball through the lines. Lucan Palmisano was one-on-one with Mathis Woodgate but somehow the goalkeeper swept in and clawed the ball away, a desperate covering Szukala hoofing the ball away into the stratosphere before Gandhi could cause further mischief with it. And Keohane's chances, well... it seemed like everywhere she ran, every opening she thought she'd found suddenly had a guy with a red chevron standing in the way. She'd played poorly, and she knew it.
Right up until the stroke of half-time.
She wasn't sure what switch flicked it, really. Running into trouble time and time again had lost its allure, and she hadn't seen the ball in what felt like forever. She managed to nutmeg Beck to roll a pass to the overlapping Lovelock, gestured herself as open, broke away from Raynerson and was ignored - well, she was on the edge of the box with her back to goal - as Lovelock whipped a cross in. Rankin almost got her head to it but was no match for Jekyll in the air, and the ball went skyward.
Squire Trevelyan, culturally Apoxian himself, saw where it was going, and hurled himself at it. There was almost a sickly crunch as he met Fowey in the air, and won - the ball flew into the sky again and, fatally, was allowed to bounce by Jekyll. Rankin twisted a foot around it and fired it on goal and Anaximander got down exceptionally well to beat it into the ground. The danger was over.
Right up until Keohane, following the play and the flow, suddenly found herself making the right run at the right time, and thumped the ball into the ceiling of the net.
