The referee blew his whistle, and for a moment, everything slowed down. Eight weeks of work. Eight weeks of drilling, coaching, and teaching. Eight weeks of early mornings and late nights, of tactical sessions and video analysis, of building relationships and earning respect. All of it came down to this. All of it came down to the next sixty minutes.
Millwall kicked off. Their center-forward laid it back to their midfielder, who played a simple pass to their center-back. The ball moved slowly across the grass, and I held my breath, watching, waiting for the trigger.
Connor pressed immediately, but his angle was slightly off he was too central, not cutting off the passing lane like we'd drilled. I felt my jaw tighten. The center-back had an easy pass to his right-back, but he panicked anyway, looking elsewhere.
