The Sunday Football – Part 1: Left Back

"Marca! Marca!" shouted Rui. "Mark him!"

Aaron stood in goal in the rain, hands on knees, as a striker slid the ball past him into the net. The score was 3-1. A small crowd of dogs and toddlers cheered from the touchline. He was thirty-four, a new arrival from Manchester, a freelance translator and a very bad goalkeeper.

"Sorry!" he called.

"Positioning!" roared the left-back, in Portuguese, then English, then something that sounded like Italian. "You must come out!"

Rui was thirty-one, wiry, fierce and muddy, with a shaved head, big dark eyes and a stripy yellow shirt with the number 3. He had played for the neighbourhood team, the Sunday Lions, since he was sixteen. Aaron had met him that morning and been shouted at within seven minutes.

They lost 5-2. In the dressing room, a cramped brick hut with a leaking shower, Aaron sat on a bench with his head in his hands.

"I'm hopeless."

"You are not hopeless."

"I let in five."

"You let in three. Two were my fault."

Aaron looked up. Rui stood in front of him, steaming, with a towel round his neck and a rueful grin. "I am sorry. I shout. It is how I care."

"You care about football."

"I care about the team." Rui shrugged. "And the goalkeeper."

He offered Aaron a lift home on his scooter. The streets of Lisbon were wet and glittering in the dusk, the cobbles slick, the trams clanking by. Aaron clung to Rui's waist on the back seat, heart pounding, laughing at nothing. They stopped at a café for pastries and strong coffee.

"Can I ask you something?" said Aaron.

"Yes."

"Why are you so kind after being so loud?"

"Because I am Portuguese," said Rui. "We shout, and then we feed you."

"Green?" said Aaron, a pitch, a shirt.

"Green," said Rui, flushing. "Very green. Train on Wednesday. I will teach you to come out."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Penalty.