Defender

Chapter One

Dear Friends,

I am sharing the opening chapter of a short novel written in honor of the World Cup. Cast of characters / lineups can be found here.

Best,

Sam

DEFENDER

CHAPTER ONE

Halftime. One nil.

Does he want to watch it?

No, he does not.

Knows exactly how the play happened in the reality of the field. Messi turning the corner, shin against shin to be back in position. Not a trip, far from a trip. Messi flying. Doesn’t take dives? They all take dives. Sometimes they keep from taking dives just so they can build up a reputation, take a dive when it really matters, like now.

That’s the life of a striker, of a star — play the refs, play the fans, all of them in there together. The cheer that goes up when — he isn’t really, to be honest, watching — the little man steps up to the ball and knocks it into the corner pocket of the net, the keeper Kastelic sprawling uselessly in the other direction. A 50/50 chance but not for Messi, one way or another the dominoes all go down for Messi and the crowd basking in it, the vast fake world of the foul he didn’t give and the way it becomes its own reality flashed inarguably on the scoreboard.

Cool towel on his neck, pouring water down his throat. Kovačevič huddling up with the defenders discussing tactics. He pretends to listen. Mark your man, that’s the tactic. Stay glued to him no matter what he does. It’s a very simple game, fundamentally. What Kovačevič is saying has to do with offside traps, has to do with the way they scatter on a corner. Sure. Very interesting. But what matters is his man, the play flowing through his man, the fans, the ref, the whole fanatical country behind his man, and the heart of what he’s doing isn’t offside traps or tactics, it’s obstinacy. His last, his only. It’s denial, sheer ox-like denial, and anything else Kovačevič says a waste of energy.

The meeting breaking up. Kovačevič over, with his great smile. “He’s quick, isn’t he?” he says. This is how he plays — friendly. His friendliness is contagious. It seems to get to the other team. They slow down for him, they give away the kinds of chances they never give away. It’s great. It works for him. It’s not how Jović plays.

“Nothing special,” says Jović.

Kovačevič grins. To him there are the psychos and the normals. He understands the psychos, what they have to do key themselves up. Usually it breaks down for the psychos sooner or later, usually they have to acknowledge cold hard reality. But he has no idea what it’s like to be a psycho.

Kukić, sanest of all, coming around, young and slick, a gifted manager. The bit of dye he puts into the grey in his beard, the complicated hair gelling. As much a star in his own way as any of them. “Jura, what do you think?” he says.

He’s standing and Jović hunched over on his bench. They’re isolated in the dressing room. No one can hear them.

“Pull you now? It’s a good half. No shame in coming out now.”

It wasn’t a good half. Not only the goal but Messi dinging the crossbar. What was taken from him with the penalty given back by the crossbar. A little move, should have been out of range for a shot, but just open enough and the great man taking the opening, curving it around Jović, dinging the crossbar. And as for shame — what does Kukić know about shame?

Have to swallow his own spit. Have to get the words, the tone, exactly right. Coaches like kids, like animals, the way they respond to strength, recoil from fear.

Looks up, eyebrows raised, locking eyes with Kukić from underneath the bulging forehead. “I’ve got him,” he says.

Seems to do the trick. Kukić moving off to minister to the rest of the laggard team.

***

Nothing else to do really. A bit of water — sipping not gulping now. The masked men readjusting their masks. A bit of tugging on the uniform, a bit of patting down. Grass stains on his shorts, cuts on his knees, no point making it pretty now.

Kukić over with the offense, the white board and magic marker, Xs and Os, lines with arrows drawn and erased, all of them arcing optimistically towards goal. The final injunction for the defense simpler than that. Kovačevič pulling them together — no point in a coach when Kovačevič is around. Just a moment of the four of them together, arms draped on shoulders, heads in the center of the circle. Grips tight on the backs of their jersey. Remember this — the way they breathe together, the way they’re linked together.

Kovačevič mutters something. Could be anything — doesn’t matter. On reflection, thinks Jović, he’s probably saying “get ‘em.”

Released at last. Undoes his laces and ties him up a final time. Nothing like the feeling of strapping on gear. Nothing like the feeling of charging out into battle. And meeting the Argentines in the tunnel, each team in their separate line. No thought, even, of glancing at the other one. No child, thank god, this time, but still a moment of puffery in national pride. He’s next to Otamendi, the big defender. His chest and head thrown back. The Argentine side — let’s face it, the Argentine stadium — in the midst of a complicated song on the theme of national glory. His man inducted in it, his man already long ago passed into myth and legend. Jović keeping his eyes straight ahead. His man somewhere off behind him, Jović with the sixth sense by now of what he’s doing — incurably shy, pawing at the concrete of the tunnel, just waiting for when he can get out on the pitch and speak for himself.

And then released again. Whatever the hold up is at the front — the need for ceremony, always ceremony — giving way, and the simple matter of a couple dozen men trotting, walking out to their positions, the subs with their bibs over to the sideline. The Argentina song deep in the Maradona years. They’re catching glimpses of Maradona in heaven. They’re completely out of their minds — but that’s an old story.

The ref setting his Casio and blowing his whistle and Slovenia with the ball this time kicking it back towards their own lines. Koşir with noblesse oblige, star’s prerogative, to Gašpar, and then Gašpar as soon as he’s challenged back to Kovačevič and Kovačevič, friendly, over to Jović, who just gives it a tap, like saying hello to an old acquaintance, like saying I still think well of you, even if his ball-handling days have passed him by, sending it back to Kastelic in goal who boots it downfield with the vague idea of reaching Koşir. And it actually does, a header leading to a chaos of bodies sprawled around in midfield, and Gašpar emerging out of a pile to toe it forward to Kleva and then to Koşir, who is however surrounded by defenders, mobbed and pickpocketed, the gorgeous boy throwing himself to the ground in some hope of the referee’s sympathy. But this is River Plata defense, this is something that Koşir, even in Belgrade, even with Red Star, isn’t used to, the way they hunt in packs, the way they close in.

And now they’re hinting at a break. Paredes finding Mac Allister with space, Mac Allister driving Osojnik backwards. Over to his side, his man, who’s been strolling around the Slovene backfield, just kind of sliding his cleat over the turf, now beginning to break into a trot and then a run. With a short pass from Mac Allister takes it at the top of the box.

But Jović is there, Jović with feet planted, all angles to the goal blocked off. The little man ticking left and then ticking right, the way the ball just clings to his shoe. Any opening at all and he’ll drill it in. But Kovačevič is coming up for support from behind him and Skubic from midfield drifting back seeing if he can pick the great man’s pocket and over to Martinez, not particularly dangerous and then finding Alvarez in the corner and he does a couple of feints to try to get around Ngoma, but no such luck. Hits off Ngoma’s shin and then back off Alvarez for a throw-in for the Slovenes.

That’s the way. One stand after another. They’ll be down here around 25 times this half. That was a trick Jović père taught him once, when he was breaking in as a defender. To put 50 pebbles in his pocket — small pebbles, enough so that they wouldn’t slow him down — and clean them out stand by stand.

Not the most practical suggestion — like many of Jović’s — but they did get the point across, they did instill a certain simplicity of mind. Football in the end a race against the clock. Sooner or later they will score of course, you just have to extend each stand. Holding the line 50 times over the course of a game not so difficult when you think about it like that, and then it stands to reason that his own man should only have about ten or twelve chances within that. That’s what the game becomes — whittling down, so that of those fifty only five or so turn into shots, and of those five only two or three into good shots. And at that point that becomes about as small of a window as you can get. Some of it, in the end, comes down to the goalkeeper and to luck.

Take that math and Messi has already had his chances this game, had the dart into the penalty box, had the hooking shot he never should have allowed that hit the bar, another, from far out, that Kastelic saved without trouble. But that’s Messi. The whole point of Messi is that he defies the math. In any case, it’s been a long time since he’s emptied pebbles out of pockets to celebrate his defensive achievements. Now it’s more fundamental than that, now it’s twitch by twitch, now it’s each touch the great man has does that opens up enough space for him to shoot, now it’s each creak of his own knee and do they, does Messi, suspect how easy it would be to turn around it.

Jović père anticipating this as well. The calls barking down Skype and then Zoom, to Southampton, to Bari, to Montevideo, to every hotel room in between. Feet on the ground, keep position. The defenders, even the best ones — maybe especially the best ones — leaping from time to time in the vain hope of making the highlight reel, in case a longish match report has time for the blocked shots. But not for the family Jović. Not his game — not by the time he made the position switch anyway. Never lunge, never commit, never jump. Have the big body and let them do the work. That’s all it is at the end of the day, the fine art of being a donkey on defense. One imaginary pebble out of the imaginary pocket, two, three, four twitches survived from Messi before Skubic arrived, the creaking knee as yet undiscovered.

On offense, nothing much happening. Kleva taking it into a corner and keeping it there, making his futile turns around Romero who’s got him covered. Eventually Molina drifting over to move the game along as much as anything and Kleva, after all that work, hitting it back to Akakpo who drills it into a wall of defenders and then kicked back to Martinez in goal, with Argentina beginning to set up a careful possession.

He’s been at the halfway line for all of this, just to be sporting. Messi standing near him, Messi pulling on his socks while Kleva showboats in the corner. Argentina’s not taking this very seriously. They powered through their group, with Messi breaking all the remaining records. They dispensed with Colombia in the next round, which was the real test. They’re on the weak side of the bracket, they shouldn’t have to break a full-on sweat until they run into France in the quarterfinal.

It’s not just that Slovenia isn’t on the same level as the Argentines. It’s that not a single player plays in the same league as them. Kovačevič once did. Koşir will after this tournament. The transfer fees wait for the Africans, maybe for Kastelic, but it’s the basic disparity between a team with a star at every position and a team in the midst of a Cinderella story. Messi pulls on his socks, Messi drifts down towards his rightful spot at the top of the penalty box. The Argentine defenders and midfielders kicking it back and forth between themselves. No reason to rush — and why would they? A convincing first half, a compelling lead. Leave it to Slovenia to show something that they haven’t shown yet.

If Messi, like everybody else in the tournament, has his thoughts full of his own records, of the upcoming match with Mbappé, Jović has his head full of nothing but Messi. All week long it’s been this — highlight reels of Messi goals, the national team’s player profile app that’s also, basically, highlight reels of Messi goals. 91 goals in a year, eight Golden Boot awards, more goals — by 100 — than anyone else has scored in his league, the league that no Slovene, at the moment anyway, has managed to reach. Every possible achievement and accolade a football player can have, and, somehow or other, Jović is supposed to stop him.

So what that’s meant is frames broken down to the split-second, looking for weaknesses, the way that Ronaldo has a tell, seeing if Messi has a tell as well — the way he looks at the ground, at a defender, before he begins a move, if his eyes indicate whether he’s about to go left or right or pull back and shoot.

Thousands, tens of thousands of clips, freeze-frames, the touchscreen of his iPad zoomed in on, the picture starting to dissolve into graininess, staring at the frozen image to catch the direction of Messi’s eyes, whether a particular glint comes into them when he’s faking, when he’s committing to a move.

Think that works? Think all those numbers, all that video analysis, finds a weakness? Think again. A player like that, by definition, doesn’t have a weakness. A player like that, just trying to cap out his career now, is entirely weakness-free.

So what that means is the preparation is not quite so sophisticated. It’s Jović lying on his bed in his hotel room, moving his body with the YouTube clips, icepack on knee, his torso swaying as Messi sways. The move against Getafe, the famous one starting at the halfway line — easy enough, don’t go for the steal the way that the defenders, two of them, do. Against Athletic in 2015, the defender doing what he can to get back into position and then being nutmegged for his trouble. And Gvardiola, poor Gvardiola, best defender of his generation, best defender Jović knows, keeping up with Messi on a long run to the touchline, finally pulling level with him and then getting drawn in, falling off balance, Messi turning around him and finding Alvarez to just touch-pass it into the net. And after all the things that Gvardiola said in the press heading into that tournament. And Jović on his bed swaying with Gvardiola, with Messi, down to the touchline, Jović staying back at the key moment, the big body still blocking the angle to goal and to Alvarez. Not the most scientific means of preparation but what he has. Like the game you play as kids in front of a mirror, the person in front trying to expose the kid behind him, the rapid movement and then the body in the background moving as quickly as a shadow. The way it works — you have to learn to read where the movement center starts in the other person, where the thought starts, and then the impulse that comes with it, you have to move with the other person as if you were them.

Easier said than done — especially when the one you’re mirroring has the quickest reflexes of anyone that anyone has come across. When the one you’re mirroring is a physical freak, who, according to the magazines — and, yes, he’s read them, read all of them — has a unique muscle configuration, abetted by high-end conditioning, world-class nutrition, that gives him the ability, unique among muscle configuration, to really explode.

Doesn’t exactly seem likely at the moment. His charge just puttering around the penalty box, the midfielders taking their sweet time bringing the ball up. Gašpar challenging, just out of nothing better to do, and then Paredes, this being exactly what he’s waiting for, accepting the gift of the extra space, moving down the flank, the ball to Mac Allister and then back to him, Osojnik giving him more of the outside than he really should, and Paredes drifting deeper into Slovene territory, Messi still like a pensioner on an afternoon stroll, shoulders hunched, geriatric, in football years, at 39.

And then suddenly Alvarez is breaking towards the far post and Paredes has a big swinging cross that finds him and the whole defense falling back in the box. Alvarez hits a volley back behind him and suddenly Messi’s darting into the space he’s just vacated and gets his head on it on a hard one-bounce to the goal and probably Kastelic should just grab it but he doesn’t — he’s unnerved, like all of them are unnerved — punches it out, and this, really, is what Messi has been waiting for, the real shot in the aftermath of the opponents’ mistake. And the little man racing with his unique muscle configuration, the sudden explosion, and Jović doesn’t have to watch YouTube clips to have the sensation of mirroring, knows that this dark shadow, faster than he is, is darting just behind him, a little behind to start the footrace but intuiting, based on how he shot it, where the rebound might end up. And 20, 25 years of sprint drills going into this, no longer very fast, but pumping with his arms, up on the tips of his toes, gets to the ball in a slide and cleanly connects, sending it out towards the stands, and respectfully upfield at that, Messi’s cleat diving in just a split-second after the ball’s departed.

Two pebbles out of the pocket. Kastelic, conscious of his mistake, coming out of goal to slap hands with Jović, who in any case might have drifted too close to goal on the cross. Forget the ball — that’s going to be the secret for the next 40 minutes — just focus on marking the man.

And now Molina, bless him, has a poor throw-in, and Skubic manages to challenge and comes clear with it after a melee — and that’s three pebbles down. The Slovenes just delighted, it seems, to be kicking the ball back and forth in their opponents’ half, it seems to be hard for them to remember that they’re also supposed to score.

He and Messi both drifting towards the circle. Used to be part of the legend of Messi that he would also defend, but that’s not really the case — hasn’t been the case for a long time. The secret of stars that they really are a different species, that all the principles of team play and so on don’t actually apply, that when you’re making $60 or $70 million a year and scoring 91 goals, it’s not actually in anyone’s interest for you to do your part chipping in to team play. He stands and watches Messi and watches Messi watching the action. What is he seeing? Nothing very special of course. A second-rate team that somehow got past Norway and Ghana. An offense with one quasi-star they can’t seem to find. A defense that isn’t bad but shows signs of breaking. Would a real opponent — someone in La Liga, Digne or Saliba with France, have given Messi the space he did to connect on that header? Almost certainly not. What he is very confident about is that Messi didn’t spend all week sitting in his hotel room scrolling through highlight reels of Jura Jović and working out the best way to play against him.

It’s not just mirroring the body, that’s what he’s come to learn — that’s been, maybe, the gift of his 30s. It’s learning to mirror the mind as well. Messi and the Argentines in general moving towards arrogance if not contempt. They can bolt all the locks if they want to, just fall back and see if Slovenia can come up with anything. Part of them seems to want to do that, just kick the ball back and forth amongst themselves, let the fans go delirious no matter how little is happening on the pitch. Part of them seems to be thinking about — what? what goals are left to achieve? — maybe the great man, having already broken the Cup scoring record, extending his lead in this tournament. This is the inscrutable minds of the great ones — the kind of thing that Jović, it now seems, will never entirely have access to — knowing what in the world makes them keep charging forward when they already have it all.

Koşir calling for the ball, and there’s the brief excitement in the diminutive Slovene section when he gets it at the top of the box, back to the goal, doing his best impression of Messi, hinting one way and then another, about to turn and uncork a shot, but the Argentines are less than impressed, both Molina and Tagliafico suddenly converging — they have been doing their homework on him, know how he likes to hog, and they trap him, pick his pocket again. He slides just enough to stop a clean breakaway, forces them to settle for a free kick.

Not very impressive, as seen through Messi’s eyes. The two of them, star and shadow, drifting back together towards the real prowling grounds, Messi parking himself yet again at the top of the penalty box, Jović with his forearm up against Messi’s bicep — Messi looking up surprised as if he’d forgotten a defender was there. The Argentine defenders milking it again, Fernández just lazily kicking the ball in front of him, like he were a kid on a hot day and it was a stone on his path, as he crosses the halfway line.

Many minutes, many chances to go, but it’s a strange torpor that’s settled on both sides. The wingers supposed to be pressing the backs, which they’re not doing. Kukić, with his slim-cut suit, his elegant beard, just pacing the sidelines instead of shouting in indignation. The Argentine fans singing about the lifetime of struggle and triumph in rooting for Argentina. Is this really what’s going to satisfy everyone? Slovenia making it a great deal further than anyone thought they would. Argentina just continuing the regal pathway at least until they meet the French.

Fernández seems to goad Gašpar into challenging him, as Paredes did, but he’s learned his lesson. The midfielders now passing it back and forth amongst themselves in a pretty pattern, Fernández and Paredes switching it between the wings.

He’s standing right on top of Messi, hip to hip, Messi barely moving and neither is he. He wants to feel, just as soon as it enters into his head, his impulse to break. But Messi, with the rest of the team, curiously indolent, Messi just pacing around the box, letting Jović pace with him. That seems to be what everyone is waiting for – they’re all waiting for Messi to decide what to do with himself, the play losing all its flavor without him. Alvarez takes the ball on the wing, starts to drift towards the center. Messi finally breaking and Jović sensing it as soon as his hips start to twitch, the two of them a streak heading together into the deep part of the box, Jović with every part of himself wanting to throw an elbow, tug on a shirt, and knowing it’ll take less than that for a foul to be called.

Alvarez gives up on it, pulls the ball back — Messi having gone all the way across the box for nothing, Jović just ever so slightly ragged alongside him. Alvarez drifts over with it towards the top of the box and then, before anyone can anticipate it, Kovačevič dives in, gets it away in a clean tackle, and is on his feet again. Gašpar darts out to midfield to pick it up, takes it towards the circle and it’s three against four, but the Argentines, for the first time in the match, hurriedly backpedaling, and Slovenia bearing down on them, Alvarez looking bereft at the spot where he lost the ball and Messi standing with hands on hips. And now Akakpo takes it down the flank, seems to run into the same wall he’s faced all match from Tagliafico, passes it back to Koşir, who looks fully guarded by Romero, but Koşir, with the kind of ingenuity that you have at 21, slides into it and out of his slide hits a booming shot that curves just past the tilting head of Romero and then past the leap of Martinez in goal and squeezes just on the near side of the post to send the ropes of the back of the goal billowing outwards.

It would be an exaggeration to say that there’s bedlam in Dallas Stadium. More a very gratifying silence. They’re no longer singing about the tribulations of being an Argentine fan, they’re no longer looking forward to meeting Diego in heaven. And there is a healthy Slovene contingent — who knew there were this many Slovenes in the U.S.? — shouting and holding their hands up to the skies.

Tony Koşir — he of the front hair flip, of the designated time for the pre-match hair gel — certainly knows how to have a goal celebration. It doesn’t matter that he’s been useless throughout this match, that Argentina has picked him clean every time he’s been in the box, what matters is the slide and the connection, and for months in Slovenia — maybe, who knows, for years? — this is what they’re going to be showing, the gorgeous, inspired equalizer, and pin-up Tony racing around the pitch waiting for his teammates to catch up with him and embrace him.

There’s no reason to hold back. There’s no reason to think any of them will ever have a moment quite as exciting as this one — nobody really fooled, not even the weepers in the stands, not even everybody back at home blowing kisses at, embracing their television sets — but, for a moment, and the scoreboard is indisputable on this, they are as good as the very best team in the world, and Tony Koşir milking that for all its worth. Koşir vaulting into the arms of Miha Gašpar and the others around to do what they can to muss Koşir’s hair and Koşir not even fending them off, just with one finger raised and pointing to the stands or the heavens, only the Africans who have a certain irony towards Team Slovenia standing a bit back and applauding, the rest of the team crowding in to touch Koşir. Kovačevič, who did so much to set up the goal, content to join in the scene, grinning like Jović has never seen him grin, holding on to one shoe of Koşir’s like they’re in a royal procession, Gašpar carrying him back towards the small hardy Slovene section in the stands and Koşir leaping off at last to stand by the touchline and blow his own kisses, shake his clenched hands to the crowd, commune with them a little longer. Jović stands just off to the side of the procession all through this, and then, when the referee, finger pointed at watch, finally succeeds in breaking it up, he trots back to his position, he prepares to guard Messi again.