walking is rest
Šíma
eleven kilometers is a pilgrimage, Kovár
Mareš
let the man walk. walking is thinking
Šíma
Mareš defends him. noted. the tower shelters all who wander beneath it
FINAL ITEM. Italy finished the job tonight. Wednesday it’s them
Hájek
Wednesday it’s Valenti
Kovár
Wednesday it’s eleven problems and you solve the nearest one first
Šíma
put it on a shirt
Kovár
put it on the scoreboard. the shirt follows
Chapter 9: Enzo
On the bus to the stadium for training, Ricci takes the seat beside me with the face of a man preparing a request.
“You’ve played him twelve times,” he says. “The right-back. Give me one thing.”
“Don’t pass backward near him. He eats hesitation.”
“And forward?”
“Forward, you’re somebody else’s problem.”
He chews on that. Then he writes it down. He actually writes it down. Behind us, Gallo is explaining that his group-stage socks are coming to the quarterfinal, and two rows of professional athletes are debating whether luck survives a wash cycle. The consensus is no.
“Luck is a system,” Gallo announces to the whole bus. “You don’t wash a system.”
The socks remain unwashed. This is the sport at its highest level.
The walkthrough is light, more for the cameras than the legs. The mister pulls me aside at the halfway line.
“They’ll double you when it matters,” he says. “Two shirts, all day. You know what that means.”
“Ricci’s alone at the far post.”
“So make the company expensive.” He taps my shoulder once. “And Enzo. Tonight, sleep.”
“And if I can’t?”
