‘They’re not usually … They’re usually better,’ Jen says, checking the time on her phone again. Which doesn’t really make me believe that they’re usually much better.
‘It’s fine,’ I mumble, trying to swallow back the worry already building inside me. I’m not sure how Jen and I are supposed to coach this group of girls. It’s not like I expected our old team to show up in the park today, but I hoped for at least some kind of excitement about football, or getting a new coach, orsomething.
Definitely not this.
Slowly, more groups of girls come strolling in, though I notice a lot of them are not dressed ready to play. There’s one girl who’s wearing flats instead of trainers, another wearing jeans instead of tracksuit bottoms or shorts, and a few more with their long hair loose.
Jen seems prepared for all of this: she has extra kit, hair ties and even a beaten-up pair of boots that are a little toosmall for the girl that needs them. She reprimands all of them as she hands these out, but her words seem to fall on deaf ears. I try to remember if we were like this when Jen was our coach, but I mostly remember the excitement of my first football practice.
‘All right, girls, good morning. Thanks for finally making it in!’ Jen says with faux cheeriness.
‘Morning,’ the girls mumble back, barely sparing her a second glance. Some of them still cast me curious looks.
‘I have some exciting news. This is Dina, our new assistant coach!’ Jen waves an arm towards me.
I smile as some of the girls’ eyes flicker up towards me, but their piqued curiosity seems to quickly dissipate. I guess I’m not as exciting as they thought I might be.
‘Cool,’ one of the girls towards the front mumbles, her eyes glazing over as she goes back to her phone promptly. Definitely not very cool.
‘I thoughtyouwere our coach,’ another one of the girls says, looking between me and Jen with a confused expression. She’s one of the only ones who has come dressed to play football.
‘I am, Sophie, but Dina will be helping me out with coaching,’ Jen explains.
‘That’s why she saidassistantcoach,’ another girl beside Sophie says, rolling her eyes. Which earns her a glare from Sophie and a frown from Jen.
‘Sara, come on. It was a fair question. Now, let’s do some warm-ups, OK?’ Jen ushers all of the girls on to run some laps.
After some initial groaning, they put away their phones and head onto the field, jogging the length of it back and forth. They don’t look happy about it, and they’re not whatI would call fast or energetic. But at least they’re doing it.
‘They just need a little time to get going,’ Jen whispers to me.
‘Yeah, sure. We always did too,’ I say, though it’s not really true.
I check the time on my phone. We’re already halfway through practice and most of it has been taken up with their tardiness, getting them prepared to actually play and with warming up.
‘We’ll get them to do some drills. What do you say?’ Jen asks.
‘I’ll get the cones set up,’ I offer, excited to finally have something to do instead of just despairing over the state of the team.
I pick up the stack of cones that Jen brought and start arranging them at different angles around the place. Once I’m done, my eyes drift to the touchline, for some reason expecting Baba’s familiar face to be there, telling me what a good job I’m doing. Of course, he isn’t there. It’s been five years since he passed away, but sometimes it still feels difficult to wrap my head around it.
Soon, the girls are running drills around the cones, dribbling the ball from one cone to the next. They’re not bad, but it’s clear that they don’t have a lot of practice. The main problem I notice is that they’re a little too easily distracted. They argue and they fight. They want to gossip and talk about celebrity scandals. And one thing is perfectly clear: they have absolutely no interest in the game.
By the time practice is over, I’m reconsidering everything. Ma’s words in her garden over the weekend are flashing in my mind. Why did I ever think that coming back tofootball was a good idea, even in this minuscule capacity? My mother always knows best about everything. I might as well throw in the towel, and maybe I should even tell Deen that he should forget about his dreams of the restaurant. Clearly, dreams are better left to our imaginations, because the reality of my dreams of returning to football feels nothing like I wanted it to.
Jen turns to me, and it’s almost like she can see the panic in my face. She gives me a much-needed encouraging smile. ‘I’ll walk you out of the park, come on.’
She gathers up the last of her belongings and the two of us walk side by side, silence washing over us. All the while, my mind is whirring with all the reasons why I should quit right here and now. Surely, there’s a better use for my time than coaching a team of girls who know nothing about football.
‘I know they can be a lot,’ Jen says finally, hesitantly. It’s almost like she can read my mind. ‘But you saw that they were talented, right?’
‘They don’t like football. They didn’t want to be there and they definitely didn’t want to play,’ I say.
‘They’re kids, Dina. You have to cut them some slack,’ Jen says. ‘And … OK, maybe their dreams aren’t playing football but—’
‘They don’t even like it.’
‘But they’ll learn to like it with time and practice. It’s still the start of summer; they’re getting the hang of things.’ Jen sounds way more confident than I feel.
