Chapter Three: Number Ten for the Bottom Club

[Right-knee recovery: sixty-two percent. Forced load may worsen injury.] He resisted. In the seventieth minute, Lin dropped deep and drew Montreuil's holding midfielder away, opening a diagonal lane for Sami. Lin's pass was exact, but Sami's first touch bounced two meters. The chance vanished. In the seventy-eighth, Lin threaded the ball between two defenders. Abou had started early and was offside. By the eighty-fourth minute, Saint-Denis still trailed. Their breathing sounded like eleven leaking bellows. Baptiste shouted for them to push up, and a twenty-meter wound opened between midfield and defense. Lin suddenly understood. He did not need speed. He needed the ability to make everyone see the same path at the same time.