El Classico

Tea was coming to boil in the saucepan. He took in the smell, and it was alone enough to

power him. Dawn was approaching, the sky started to teem to life as Essa might think if

he were on his daily nature walks on hills. Instead he was here anxiously watching the

clock waiting for his tea to be ready, wondering why it was at times such as today that

time seems to pass by like a breeze. Today was a big day. The clash of the rival teams: FC

Abbottabad Hills and Abbottabad All Stars. Essa and his buddies form FC Abbottabad

Hills. Hassam and his buddies form the latter. All the trash talk leasd to this day, a local

El Classico. “Ohh snap, ‘passengers we are expecting a skidding match today’” Ibrahim

jokes. The turf is wet today as Ibrahim had remarks in his funny way. At times he would

be silent as a stone and at times he would start cracking, perhaps it was a pressure thing.

We pull to the parking lot and get out. Essa stretches out his limbs, as his back gets sore

in the car packed with all the players. They form a group at a corner of the turf. On other

days they would be scattered, running around like some crazy kids shooting at the ball

and just delaying our booking time period, where I would be the only one requesting,

without avail, for order. But today they leave the ball in peace and stand in a line gazing

at the gate, at the incoming team, with a sort of vacant expression on thier faces. It was

the opponent team, they were chattering with each other and were in mirth, playing

music loudly over their second copy JBL speaker. They must think they’re Lamine

Yamal or something pulling up like that, Essa smirking thinks to himself. Essa had a

problem in intense matches, he would be a little over aggressive and as a result he would

take a win or loss a little too seriously. “Guys we need a plan here,” Essa started the

tactics talk, “ So they agree on a seven-a-side, Sheru you’re the keeper, Ibrahim khan

bro and Asfand Bhai you’re on defense, take your preferred sides, playing mid is Zagu

Bhai and myself, and attack is Mohiz Brazilian and Nut for today.” “Mohiz I’m expecting

no shenanigans from you today, you know better than that. Big game OK? Ibrahim

you’re starting the flow of our attack, that attack can run through me or Zagu Bhai and

up to Mohiz. Asfand Bhai, bro, no slip ups today; let’s not replay the Harry Maguire

highlights today” We all laughed. Apparently Essa’s pep talk was fu-funny or futile, we’ll

see. “Zagu Bhai today you will run and for the next three matches you will be exempted.

Alright, to wrap things up. Zarak Bhai you’re on the bench on roll with Asfand Bhai.

Nouman you sub with Ibrahim, Hamdan with Zagu Bhai, Inam Bhai with Nut. Alright

Muzammil, Shahab, Basit and all you boys are fans for today, ok? You know fans dictate

the matc-” “shut up now, go win” Shahab interrupted “So guys watch out for Mirko and

El Muchar. Sheru remember, Mirko shoots fast and Muchar low. Rest I’ll deal with.

Remember, tire yourself and sub with each other. Whoever isn’t running will be subbed

off..” “No pressure team, but you know.. We all know it’s high pressure.” After this

particularly long talk, which was in other matches just one point saying “let’s win,” but

today they knew to win against All Stars they would need to play with tactics and more

importantly substitutes. They’d lost every match to the All Stars, although All Stars only

played them twice thinking of no match for them. And it was true Abbottabad Hills was

merely an amateur team and they had learned that in the hard way when they were

decimated by the hands of All Stars. The teams head out to their positions. Hills do not

have the mind for humiliation again; playing this third match after a long three months

of pestering All Stars to play. The match kicks off and Essa takes a flight towards the ball

to secure it. He is practically flying towards it when Hassam challenges that notion, and

steps up putting his body on the line to shield the ball, sticking his foot out. Essa catches

his leg while running, resulting in him crashing to the turf with a thud. He raises his

hand in complaint, but Hassam runs away with the ball with no perceptible concern.

Hassam advances with the ball, comes front on with Zagu Bhai, tries to dribble him with

a La Croquetta and gets past him with ease. But Zagu Bhai approaches from behind and

gives him a signature dirty elbow before Hassam escapes wincing toward the Hill’s Box;

he looks up and finds Ibrahim gaining space on him and thinks wise and passes a long

ball on the right side to Muchar. In a short time Essa falls back and advances towards

Muchar. His teammates understand his move and act accordingly: they each cover their

man. Asfand Bhai stays on Mirko, their number nine, while Essa and Muchar face off.

Muchar tries a stepover and slyly feints and takes off leaving Essa standing. Little does

he know Essa is right on his tail and in a second puts a foot on his ball causing it to

bounce out of bounds. Essa has his smug look on his face and motions towards the

“fans” and the turf lights up with noise. Play resumes and now Mirko has the ball, he

prepares to do his favourite thing, that is to shoot but Asfand Bhai has him covered and

dives in and swipes the ball away. He then scans for a pass and finds Essa making an

inside run on their defense and Zagu Bhai asking for the ball. He passes over to Zagu

Bhai. Shah G, that relentless guy from the All Stars, jumps on Zagu Bhai, while he is

unable to get it from him, he swings and kicks his legs. Uncharacteristic of him, Zagu

Bhai doesn’t meddle for foul instead he finds an opening and passes side to Ibrahim.

This is a super pass as two guys of All Stars are on him when Ibrahim is open on the

side. Ibrahim dashes forward, wasting no time. Due to his momentum he fakes shots

and dodges his man, the fat defender, effortlessly and looks up to find Mohiz making a

run in a line in front of him. Between them is Hassam who becomes aware of their

predicament and falls back to catch Mohiz who receives a curving projectile shot by

Ibrahim. The ball bounces and Mohiz receives it with a flick of his foot and propels it

forward and intends to cut inside. Hassam on his flank, gains on him until he can get a

foot on the ball. Just then, in an instant, Mohiz conjures up a “ronaldo chop” and sends

Hassam running toward the nets looking like an idiot. Mohiz flashes him a cold look

before advancing toward the opponent’s goal. Goal is now in his sight and he pulls back

to shoot, but he cuts once more to the left and sends the fat defender sliding across the

wet turf onto the wrong direction “Bye Bye!” he thinks and a devilish snare forms on his

face, before the thirst for goal consumes his face and he shoots, a second slide comes his

way and launches him into the air and then gravity does its part. Frustrated, we all run

to him. That’s a penalty, alright. Nasty business. Mohiz steps up. He has a cold look on

his face, the “Cold Palmer look.” But can he pull off a Cold Palmer, that’s the question.

None of us have a good record on these one-step penalties. Mohiz looks to the right

before pausing for a second and blasts it. It's in the mid-left region but their keeper gets

a foot in, it touches the inside crossbar and somehow avoids the goal. Furious, Essa kicks

at the ground he thinks Mohiz had the opportunity to pass him as he was open and

everyone knows he’s the finisher for their team, still he knows better than to whine.

Play goes on and the All Stars demonstrate an orderly game with too many passes for

the Hill’s boys to check. All Stars have a mind to wear the Hill’s boys, as they know Hill’s

boys haven’t had much training like them. Still Essa and Mohiz try to run in between

players, passing around like robots. At one point they’re able to corner the fat boy, but he

passes it back to the goalie. After twenty minutes of playing cat and mouse with us they

decide to attack. The ball comes to Shah g’s feet, and he propels it forward with the best

of speed that I manage to match but soon the ball is passed to Mirko who is clear in front

of our box. Now they have their opening, that is our blunder, the one they were waiting

for us to make. He rolls the ball forward prepping to shoot, Ibrahim realises the mistake

and lunges forward, but not in time, for the ball is airborne. A magnificent sight, rolling

forward at a speed cars travel on, a bright orange Select ball, swaying left and right

uncontrollably. “Uh oh, that’s a knuckleball” Zagu thinks to himself. The ball is on the

right side of the goal. Its on the line, but is punched back. A one hand save! The ball

travels in the air and descends and falls to Muchar's feet. The crescendo drops but is

back again! He does a stepover on Ibrahim and runs past. Promptly Ibrahim tracks back

and gives him a push, he doesn’t budge he goes on towards the goalpost. Sheru charges

at him and dives forward with his hands snatching at the ball. But the ball is chipped

sideways up for Asfand Bhai and his adversary big Mirko to challenge. Mirko is taller

and reaches the ball first, however Asfand Bhai “spears” into mirko causes both of them

to collapse. “Aaaaa!!” “You killed me man, shit!” Amidst all this the ball silently rolls in

the goal. All stars are one up. Palming his head Ibrahim starts “Bro, Asfand you left

mirko.. Man, are you making us lose?” “brother you couldn’t even move Muchar. Stop

talking,” Asfand Bhai fires back, and they enter a little argument which is normal after

you get scored on. Essa breaks the fight and signals for subs, Asfand Bhai injured on a

brave attempt to foil the goal is dubbed with Zarak Bhai and Ibrahim with Nouman. Essa

understands their playstyles to be similar like bulls so he sends Nut with them to defend,

since Nut was “shooting with his eyes closed” and had been “eating too much naswar”

according to Zagu Bhai. Zagu Bhai was the team critic and he was apt to banter on

everything, everyone knew that. We carry play, and there’s thirty minutes left on the

clock. There are some buildups but they get cancelled, mostly wrong passes by zarak

bhai. Zagu bhai wins the ball from fat boy deep in their box, attempts to hit a roulettes

on hassam but is denied and the chance is wasted. Time is running low, and even

though our defense is fresh whilst theirs is washed up we need an attack and we need

someone to start our attack, Essa thinks doubting his decision to sub off Ibrhaim. THe

ball is with Sheru and he passes forward to Zarak Bhai. He ‘s standing on the edge of our

box. Mirko and Muchar advance on him knowing he’s new to the game, they plan on

snagging from him, but what happens is, zarak bhai does a rapid fake turn to one side,

and goes the other, leaving the boys stuck. Fluke or not he proceeds with a wonderful

acutely curved ball to Zagu Bhai he dummies hassam and this time manages to beat

him, now he scans for a pass and launches one to me. I receive it, and this is one of the

first times I have the ball at my feet on attack, and I feel the freedom. It’s a distinct

feeling. I feel like Musiala at that moment. And so I propel forward with a long stride

covering max distance before someone catches on to me. Fat boy sees me and jogs

backward since he knows I’m a threat and that I will take him on. I see Shah G charge at

me from the right. I roll back and take a quick turn to the right, beating him. And now I

take on fat boy. He puts out a leg to check my ball, I dribble it a little to my side, doing a

lane change and then I knock the ball forward and sprint. It’s a clear pitch now, a feeling,

a feeling one gets when they exit a tunnel. Just Essa and the keeper. One on one. The

keeper runs towards Essa. Essa feints to one side, then goes to the other. The feint is well

sold and the keeper makes a dive the wrong way, and Essa smashes it into the net. He

celebrates with the team “SIUUUU!!!” It’s loud and the people look out their windows.

Taking a massive hit to their pride, all stars start to play with tenacity. Tenacity to score.

Hassam has the ball he passes it to Muchar, he passes back. Hassam sends a cross to

shah g who is nearning on hill’s box setting to score, he pulls back for shoot and fakes a

charging nouman, who although misses the ball, takes down shah g with a ram. Play

continues with mirko on the ball, he rolls the ball with zarak bhai on him. He pulls an

Elastico on him and takes him on. Both are on the ball, contesting for it, pushing each

other. Zarak bhai gets the better of him and pushes him of but he resists and carries the

ball away and passes to Muchar who cuts inside on nouman, who brakes a little late and

from a corner Muchar curls the ball into the far side of the net, and does the jude

bellingham celebration on us. We restart and lose the ball instantly and they charge at

us, passing left right and center. Essa is tired to follow up and Mohiz is slightly injured.

Nouman does a good job of covering the back lines, but zarak bhai loses his man who

makes a run in behind. It’s none other than mirko he runs, and receives a pinged ball

from fat boy. He shoots a low driven which bounces off the post and into sheru’s hand

who launches it straight into the enemy's feet. The ball is with shah g, who takes a

swing at the ball but slips terribly and now the ball is with Mohiz who advances on goal,

fat boy covers him. He does one of his flair passes over to Nut, who shoots with his toes.

It’s a bad shot but it goes like a bullet and blasts into the net! “We’re still in it” Nouman

thinks. Zagu subs himself with hamdan and inam bhai with zarak bhai. It’s golden goal

now. We start with new energy. Most of the team launch themselves on the ball thirsty

for the goal. All stars bring in their beasts, sufyan and ali, now since they think we’re no

joke. Essa and Nouman stay back, agreeing on covering the beasts. If we can do so, then

the rest of our boys will outplay the washed up All Star boys. The ball comes to sufyan’s

feet and he pushes past nouman with a roulette, nouman tracks back and lunges himself

onto sufyan but sufyan persists and wards him off and sets his eyes on goal like a

hungry predator. I look at Sheru and without speaking I warn him of what comes next. I

leave my man Ali and find kind of a middle ground between the two guys. This isn’t

ever a good idea, but I know one thing. Essa knows Sufyan will want to finish it himself.

I catch him and start contesting for the ball, almost a foot in when he returns biscuits to

ali, who shoots with power. But little does anyone know the speed of Nouman, who has

already caught up and puts a sliding leg to block the ball. And the ball deflects, but it still

goes toward goal, bottom right corner, it seems an inevitable goal. Sheru dives and gets

one hand on the ball again, “Super save!” Ball rebounds on Shah g’s feet, he shoots wide.

Sighs of relief on the Hill’s side. Goal kick sends the ball flying over to the other goal,

Hamdan is there, he juggles, tips the ball up and shoots his famous volley, “Thud!”..

Hassam is present to block and it bounces off his head over to the rushing defenders of

Abbottabad Hills and one of them now has it. He’s in a dangerous position and he shoots

like a rocket, dispelling his anger in the shot, and it goes in the net. He’s pacing like a

mad man and howls on top of his lungs. It's nouman. With a sublime power shot, hit

from the laces and into the top left corner. Loud cheers fill the street. And that is how FC

Abbottabad Hills won the El Classico.