[oneshot] do not let the hero in your soul perish
Title: do not let the hero in your soul perish
Pairing: miroslav klose/mesut ozil, gen
Rating: pg13 for language
Genre: gen, hurt/comfort
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: written for an anon on footballkink who wanted hurt/comfort ozil/klose. in which mesut gets hurt and everyone else steps up, basti and thomas get in a fight, wohlfahrt is hbic, and germany always wins. alternate reality where germany advanced to the finals to face the netherlands. 3,057 words.
eight.
For someone who has always prided himself on fast reflexes and keen skills of observation, he never saw the kick coming.
One moment he has the ball, perfect passes to Lukas and Miro opening up down the pitch, and the next he’s getting tackled from behind and literally falls on top of a blur of orange from the front-right. The turf is prickly against his skin and the places where they collided against him are pounding at the beat of his pulse, blood rushing to pool and burn where he knows bruises are already forming. Somewhere above him, he hears the sound of a referee’s whistle; the other two players (de Jong? van Bommel? Heitinga?) untangle themselves from around him, speaking in loud, rapid Dutch and attempting broken English.
Mesut’s already collected a string of scrapes and cuts from the past sixty minutes of play, but those injuries are only slight stings when he rolls over and groans, struggling to breathe. A knee to the chest has him completely winded, and his vision swims every time he tries to prop himself up on one arm.
No, he thinks, desperately clinging to consciousness, I can't get subbed out, I can still play-and then a blur of pink and black swims into focus in front of him. Miro.
He tries to choke out something intelligible, but they're both horrified to find that instead of words, hot bile rises up his throat; he has to jerk his head painfully to the side to spit the bitter liquid out. The dull roar in the stadium has risen to almost ear-shattering levels, and for the first time, Mesut cannot hear the pervasive buzzing of vuvuzelas above the noise. Fans in the stands are probably screaming bloody murder or, alternatively, voicing their raucous approval.
He makes to get up again, but Miro gives a firm push to his shoulder. “Don't even try.” He turns and yells towards the sideline. “Coach, you're going to need a fucking sub!” The white shapes of paramedics gather around to move him onto a stretcher, but Miro practically growls at them to step aside-such an uncharacteristic display of emotion that even the referee seems at a loss.
sixteen.
When Mesut first goes down, Philipp isn't overly concerned; the game has been just as nasty up till now, and by nature, he is a calm personality, slow to anger.
But the flip side to this is that he is also very slow to forgive, and when he sees Miro and Sami's expressions, it dawns on him that something is very, very wrong.
He breaks into a run, Per and Piotr's footsteps pounding across the grass behind him. Mesut's right arm and leg are twisted at odd angles and Miro is bending over, whispering fiercely into his ear as the medics hover around the scene uncertainly.
“Well?” Philipp asks the ref, brow furrowed in agitation. He fumbles inside his shirt pocket and starts drawing out the yellow card-
“Fuck no!” Lukas shouts at the same time angry booing starts reverberating from the bleachers.
Philipp turns to the sideline and sees Jogi and Hansi striding up and down the bench area, a measly possible technical the only thing keeping them from rushing onto the field in person. When he turns back around, Basti and Lukas are arguing with the referees and the two Dutch players.
seven.
Bastian's back is turned when it happens. It's not until the sudden commotion in the stands starts and Manuel exits the goal area at a run that he registers that someone is hurt.
Miro is crouched beside an unmoving figure near the opposite goal, roaring something at the bench. Lukas is close by, waving his hands and making a ruckus, and without a second thought, he jogs over and joins him. It's as easy as it was two years ago, four years ago, six years ago; easy to slip back into old patterns of supporting their teammates together, yelling down refs without care for another foul.
Because this is die Mannschaft, and they would all rather have one of their own safe than achieve some sort of individual glory at the cost of another; because Mesut can't even speak, he's in so much pain; and when Thomas runs up and tosses the first punch, Bastian hazards a glance at Jogi and sees his face so full of fierce approval that he cannot help but turn and enter the fray himself.
three.
Holy shit is the first thing that comes to mind when Arne sees the on-pitch brawl blooming in front of him. Lukas is shouting at the officials who are trying to drag Thomas and Basti off de Jong, hands in the air and expression wild.
“Hey,” comes a weary voice from below, and he looks down at Miro, who seems to have seized a length of medical gauze from a paramedic.
“How is he?”
“Broken arm, possible mild concussion, bruises everywhere,” he replies grimly. “There's also something up with his leg, but I don't know what it is.”
A shadow falls across them and Miro cranes his head up. “He's in shock.” Wohlfarht. “There's nothing more you can do for him.”
Jogi breathes a tight sigh of relief when the doctor strides onto the field. Hansi looks like he might have some sort of anxiety attack if something doesn't get called in the near future.
“What if they send Thomas and Basti off and not de Jong and Heitinga? What if Lukas gets carded just for yelling? What if-”
“You're not helping,” he bites out. The next moment, two officials manage to pry the fighters apart and the lead ref proceeds to red card Heitinga, Basti, and Thomas and yellow card Lukas and de Jong.
thirteen.
“This is such bullshit,” Thomas grumbles, fidgeting on the bench. Marcell lopes up and down the pitch in place of Miro, since he seems to have brought it upon himself to supervise everything that happens to Mesut (to the great exasperation of most of the medical staff).
“You're the one who decided it'd be a good idea to start a fight on the field,” Toni points out drily.
He shrugs easily and leans back against the bench, an unrepentant smirk on his face. “I know all of you wanted to do the exact same thing, don't lie.” The smirk broadens into a wide grin despite the bruising on his cheek, and there's really nothing else anyone can say to that.
six.
They have never played nine on ten before-but then again, South Africa had been a series of firsts, and not just for them.
They've been down by one for the longest time, since before Mesut's ridiculous clobbering, and by the eighty-ninth minute, Sami is worn out, beat up by the endless succession of petty fouls and yellows that seem to parade in front of the Dutch team no matter how filthily they fight.
This is not beautiful football, Sami thinks. This is not the football I flew out to play. A whistle blows down the field and derails his roiling thoughts-Marcell is taking a corner kick, quite possibly the last play of the game. A sort of desperation wells up in his chest, a kind of tight pressure that longs to explode out through his footwork, his dribbling, his passing.
And then he is running across the pitch to join the others, so fast that he might as well have wings on his cleats; Marcell's foot seems like it's traveling in slow motion in that one moment, some sort of time warp prolonging the path of the ball. He manages to fend off the defender behind him, and then it is as if he can see where the ball is going to go, as that spinning blur of black and white moves through the air, and he is jumping, reaching upwards to connect with his head, a sharp blow towards the back left corner breezing past the goalkeeper's fingers and into the goal-swift, clean, perfect-beautiful.
eleven.
The enthusiasm in Jogi's delighted scream is infectious. Sami gets buried underneath a pile of bodies near the Dutch goal, seconds ticking away on the countdown clock before the refs are signaling for extra time. On the sideline at the other end of the field, Wohlfahrt is letting blood out of Mesut's leg injury to stir him out of shock as Meyer binds up his arm. Miro flutters around anxiously, much like an overgrown mother hen.
“You are ridiculous,” the doctor comments wryly, fanning at Mesut's face. He rolls his eyes when Miro ignores him and continues to pace, troubled gaze occasionally flicking towards the pitch as the two teams try to score before overtime ends.
“How do you think Manuel will do?” Miro asks, studying the grass beneath his feet at great length. “He hasn't done penalties yet this world cup-”
The sudden, cacophonous noise of painful coughing interrupts him and he whirls around to see Mesut blinking under the glare of the stadium lights.
eight.
An acute sense of vertigo hits him immediately after he opens his eyes again, so hard that he retches for five, long seconds before regaining the ability to breathe. The pain in his chest has dulled a bit and an ice pack is pressed to the back of his head, dampening the hair at his nape.
“Mesut.”
He looks up, head pounding, and Dr. Wohlfahrt's face slips into his line of vision. “You've got a concussion, so you can't fall asleep, understand?” Mesut nods. Something grips his shoulder and Wohlfahrt is being shoved aside, Miro's semi-panicked looking face sliding in to replace it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” he replies, trying to crack a smile. “What did you expect?” Miro just frowns and shakes his head, and Mesut sighs, feeling at the gauze around his head with his unbroken arm. Miro's strong grip is like an anchor for his drifting thoughts and against the urge to drift into sleep.
“What's going on, did we win-?”
“We'll probably be going into PKs sometime soon,” Miro cuts in before he can finish the question, mouth twisting.
The statement is ringing in his ears and his arm twinges when he shifts up, trying to think. “Who's going to take my spot, then?”
“Spot for what?” Wohlfahrt asks, voice sounding as if it's coming from a long way off.
“I would’ve been the fourth of five penalty kicks if I hadn’t been subbed out,” Mesut says slowly, each word requiring tremendous focus and effort. Wohlfahrt blinks once, twice, and then moves out of sight.
“Where'd he go?” Mesut groans.
“Nevermind,” Miro says hurriedly, pushing him down when he tries to get up. “You just need to stay awake so you won't slip into a coma. Worry about that for now, we’ll take care of the game.”
“No,” he mutters, a wave of haziness crashing over him for a few moments before he can speak again. “Why aren’t you out there, why are you here?”
“I-” Miro starts.
“Wohlfahrt isn’t the only doctor,” he plows on. “Why did you stay, the team needs you-”
Miro fiddles at the cuff of his windbreaker. “Can we not talk about this now?”
“Okay,” he returns, thoughts clearing a bit at the shrill, short whistles signaling another fifteen minutes of overtime. “So tell me why Basti and Thomas are suddenly on the bench.”
“They started a fight on the pitch,” Miro admits. “Because of the foul.”
eleven.
A series of emotions (ranging from shock to gratitude to horror to vindication) washes over Mesut’s face. Miro shakes his head. “Don’t think that this is somehow your fault,” he says, frowning. “They did what they thought was right, and there are always other people who can take their kicks.”
Mesut’s brow furrows in concentration and mild frustration. “Did whoever tackled me get carded as well?”
“Yes. Heitinga.” He relaxes visibly at this pronouncement and Miro slips a hand into his loose grip.
“Stop worrying,” Wohlfahrt says as he returns to their corner of the stadium behind several safety mats. “Unless you’d like to pass out, Mesut-then please, by all means, proceed with your little game of twenty questions.” Miro has to duck to tuck his smile away.
“I just want to know what’s going on,” he protests, “considering I was half-conscious for the last-I don’t even know how long I was passed out.”
“Not important,” Wohlfahrt sing-songs merrily. “Now, if you’re good, I’ll let you stay until the end of the match, and then we’ll get you to the emergency room.”
“Is that wise?” Miro whispers loudly. “He has a broken arm and a concussion-”
Wohlfahrt crosses his arms and gives him a pointed stare. “Tim and Josef have to clean Thomas and Basti up, and if I leave with Mesut and something happens during the shootout, then things would be even worse than they are now. Would you really want him to go, not knowing?”
Miro mutters something offensive about doctors underneath his breath and Wohlfahrt grins, pats him on the shoulder and turns back to face the game.
one.
Penalty kicks are strange, tricky things. As the window of opportunity to score another goal dwindles, that one thought weighs heavily on Manuel’s mind. The goal seems to loom large and empty behind him, and when those three, strident whistles blow and the game ends, a sharp light-headedness descends upon him, accentuates the buzz of vuvuzelas.
You never get used to it, he thinks. The slight shaking in your hands, the stars exploding behind your eyes, the fact that you are not expected to save these goals. The continuous string of tips Jogi spills into your ear about each player the Dutch might send up, the sweat that pools in between your palms and the worn-out gloves you pull on. You never get used to it, no matter how well you do at Schalke or in Bundesliga or in the other knockout stages.
Philipp tries to give him an awkward pep talk after Germany wins the coin toss and chooses to shoot first, but the whistles are blowing again and his words are lost in the midst of everyone moving down to the center of the field.
ten.
It’s stupid and juvenile and he should be better than this, but the missed penalty kick against Serbia is still hanging around in the back of his head, throwing him off his game. Everyone knows he’s had a terrible season with Bayern and a mediocre one at best with Köln in the past year, but Lukas likes to think that he came to the World Cup with something to prove and that he’s sufficiently proved it to them.
And yet the failed goal still stings, and here is a chance to redeem himself, to do something for his team on his own. They say that penalties undermine the spirit of the game, that the beauty of teamwork has no place to shine when it’s one-on-one, striker against goalkeeper. But something Jogi told him four years ago comes back to him now, carries him as he strides slowly to the penalty area to open the shootout, to take the first kick.
There is immense trust involved when taking a penalty, Lukas. Your team is relying on you to fool the keeper, to sink the ball into the net. When you kick, kick for Germany-not for yourself, not for your own satisfaction, not for the number of goals you might attain in your career.
Choose a corner, Lukas, choose a side, choose the middle road, if you really want to, if you think you can get the ball into the goal that way. Just know that when you shoot, you have the full support and encouragement and fervor of the whole team behind you, no matter what happens. Make your choice and follow through, put all your strength and focus and desire and skill in that shot. All you can do afterwards is hope for the best.
Lukas kicks.
one.
The score is three-two for Germany and the only one left to shoot is Nigel de Jong; Manuel smiles sardonically at the irony. The stadium is quieter than he has ever heard it before as he takes his position on the line underneath the goal. Jogi’s face is white (whether from nervousness or his previous encounter with the flu, he doesn’t know), and his teammates are lined up in a solemn eight-man salute halfway down the pitch, arms linked.
He could end it here. If the ball goes in, they’ll be moving on to sudden death, but Manuel likes settling things on his own terms-if he wants something done right, he’ll do it himself.
Vuvuzelas have died down in pitch and number; the silence is as unnatural as it is absolute, and it weighs heavily across his shoulders as de Jong runs towards the ball, eyes flicking towards the top right corner. He jumps a beat before de Jong’s foot even connects, arms reaching out for the place he knows the ball will be-and when it hits, solid and real against him, it is as if the ball is coming home, cradled in the crook of his elbow like it was always meant to be there.
eight.
There is a glorious second of complete, utter stillness.
And then in the same moment that waves of sound come crashing through the stands, it hits Mesut that-oh my God, they won-they did it, and Wohlfahrt is jumping up and down, all thought of taking him to the hospital forgotten. Miro is clutching at his good arm, tears streaming down his face and Mesut feels like his face is about to split open, he’s beaming so hard.
It is Manuel’s turn to get buried under a pile of die Mannschaft players, Jogi screaming his pride and joy to the heavens. Hansi is doing some sort of strange victory dance with Oliver and the bleachers ring with song, chants of Lu-lu-lu-lukas Podolski and every other German fansong known to man.
He is wheeled out of the stadium with a broken arm, a bruised chest, a pulled tendon, two broken ribs, and a heart of beating black, red, and gold.
fin
Pairing: miroslav klose/mesut ozil, gen
Rating: pg13 for language
Genre: gen, hurt/comfort
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: written for an anon on footballkink who wanted hurt/comfort ozil/klose. in which mesut gets hurt and everyone else steps up, basti and thomas get in a fight, wohlfahrt is hbic, and germany always wins. alternate reality where germany advanced to the finals to face the netherlands. 3,057 words.
eight.
For someone who has always prided himself on fast reflexes and keen skills of observation, he never saw the kick coming.
One moment he has the ball, perfect passes to Lukas and Miro opening up down the pitch, and the next he’s getting tackled from behind and literally falls on top of a blur of orange from the front-right. The turf is prickly against his skin and the places where they collided against him are pounding at the beat of his pulse, blood rushing to pool and burn where he knows bruises are already forming. Somewhere above him, he hears the sound of a referee’s whistle; the other two players (de Jong? van Bommel? Heitinga?) untangle themselves from around him, speaking in loud, rapid Dutch and attempting broken English.
Mesut’s already collected a string of scrapes and cuts from the past sixty minutes of play, but those injuries are only slight stings when he rolls over and groans, struggling to breathe. A knee to the chest has him completely winded, and his vision swims every time he tries to prop himself up on one arm.
No, he thinks, desperately clinging to consciousness, I can't get subbed out, I can still play-and then a blur of pink and black swims into focus in front of him. Miro.
He tries to choke out something intelligible, but they're both horrified to find that instead of words, hot bile rises up his throat; he has to jerk his head painfully to the side to spit the bitter liquid out. The dull roar in the stadium has risen to almost ear-shattering levels, and for the first time, Mesut cannot hear the pervasive buzzing of vuvuzelas above the noise. Fans in the stands are probably screaming bloody murder or, alternatively, voicing their raucous approval.
He makes to get up again, but Miro gives a firm push to his shoulder. “Don't even try.” He turns and yells towards the sideline. “Coach, you're going to need a fucking sub!” The white shapes of paramedics gather around to move him onto a stretcher, but Miro practically growls at them to step aside-such an uncharacteristic display of emotion that even the referee seems at a loss.
sixteen.
When Mesut first goes down, Philipp isn't overly concerned; the game has been just as nasty up till now, and by nature, he is a calm personality, slow to anger.
But the flip side to this is that he is also very slow to forgive, and when he sees Miro and Sami's expressions, it dawns on him that something is very, very wrong.
He breaks into a run, Per and Piotr's footsteps pounding across the grass behind him. Mesut's right arm and leg are twisted at odd angles and Miro is bending over, whispering fiercely into his ear as the medics hover around the scene uncertainly.
“Well?” Philipp asks the ref, brow furrowed in agitation. He fumbles inside his shirt pocket and starts drawing out the yellow card-
“Fuck no!” Lukas shouts at the same time angry booing starts reverberating from the bleachers.
Philipp turns to the sideline and sees Jogi and Hansi striding up and down the bench area, a measly possible technical the only thing keeping them from rushing onto the field in person. When he turns back around, Basti and Lukas are arguing with the referees and the two Dutch players.
seven.
Bastian's back is turned when it happens. It's not until the sudden commotion in the stands starts and Manuel exits the goal area at a run that he registers that someone is hurt.
Miro is crouched beside an unmoving figure near the opposite goal, roaring something at the bench. Lukas is close by, waving his hands and making a ruckus, and without a second thought, he jogs over and joins him. It's as easy as it was two years ago, four years ago, six years ago; easy to slip back into old patterns of supporting their teammates together, yelling down refs without care for another foul.
Because this is die Mannschaft, and they would all rather have one of their own safe than achieve some sort of individual glory at the cost of another; because Mesut can't even speak, he's in so much pain; and when Thomas runs up and tosses the first punch, Bastian hazards a glance at Jogi and sees his face so full of fierce approval that he cannot help but turn and enter the fray himself.
three.
Holy shit is the first thing that comes to mind when Arne sees the on-pitch brawl blooming in front of him. Lukas is shouting at the officials who are trying to drag Thomas and Basti off de Jong, hands in the air and expression wild.
“Hey,” comes a weary voice from below, and he looks down at Miro, who seems to have seized a length of medical gauze from a paramedic.
“How is he?”
“Broken arm, possible mild concussion, bruises everywhere,” he replies grimly. “There's also something up with his leg, but I don't know what it is.”
A shadow falls across them and Miro cranes his head up. “He's in shock.” Wohlfarht. “There's nothing more you can do for him.”
Jogi breathes a tight sigh of relief when the doctor strides onto the field. Hansi looks like he might have some sort of anxiety attack if something doesn't get called in the near future.
“What if they send Thomas and Basti off and not de Jong and Heitinga? What if Lukas gets carded just for yelling? What if-”
“You're not helping,” he bites out. The next moment, two officials manage to pry the fighters apart and the lead ref proceeds to red card Heitinga, Basti, and Thomas and yellow card Lukas and de Jong.
thirteen.
“This is such bullshit,” Thomas grumbles, fidgeting on the bench. Marcell lopes up and down the pitch in place of Miro, since he seems to have brought it upon himself to supervise everything that happens to Mesut (to the great exasperation of most of the medical staff).
“You're the one who decided it'd be a good idea to start a fight on the field,” Toni points out drily.
He shrugs easily and leans back against the bench, an unrepentant smirk on his face. “I know all of you wanted to do the exact same thing, don't lie.” The smirk broadens into a wide grin despite the bruising on his cheek, and there's really nothing else anyone can say to that.
six.
They have never played nine on ten before-but then again, South Africa had been a series of firsts, and not just for them.
They've been down by one for the longest time, since before Mesut's ridiculous clobbering, and by the eighty-ninth minute, Sami is worn out, beat up by the endless succession of petty fouls and yellows that seem to parade in front of the Dutch team no matter how filthily they fight.
This is not beautiful football, Sami thinks. This is not the football I flew out to play. A whistle blows down the field and derails his roiling thoughts-Marcell is taking a corner kick, quite possibly the last play of the game. A sort of desperation wells up in his chest, a kind of tight pressure that longs to explode out through his footwork, his dribbling, his passing.
And then he is running across the pitch to join the others, so fast that he might as well have wings on his cleats; Marcell's foot seems like it's traveling in slow motion in that one moment, some sort of time warp prolonging the path of the ball. He manages to fend off the defender behind him, and then it is as if he can see where the ball is going to go, as that spinning blur of black and white moves through the air, and he is jumping, reaching upwards to connect with his head, a sharp blow towards the back left corner breezing past the goalkeeper's fingers and into the goal-swift, clean, perfect-beautiful.
eleven.
The enthusiasm in Jogi's delighted scream is infectious. Sami gets buried underneath a pile of bodies near the Dutch goal, seconds ticking away on the countdown clock before the refs are signaling for extra time. On the sideline at the other end of the field, Wohlfahrt is letting blood out of Mesut's leg injury to stir him out of shock as Meyer binds up his arm. Miro flutters around anxiously, much like an overgrown mother hen.
“You are ridiculous,” the doctor comments wryly, fanning at Mesut's face. He rolls his eyes when Miro ignores him and continues to pace, troubled gaze occasionally flicking towards the pitch as the two teams try to score before overtime ends.
“How do you think Manuel will do?” Miro asks, studying the grass beneath his feet at great length. “He hasn't done penalties yet this world cup-”
The sudden, cacophonous noise of painful coughing interrupts him and he whirls around to see Mesut blinking under the glare of the stadium lights.
eight.
An acute sense of vertigo hits him immediately after he opens his eyes again, so hard that he retches for five, long seconds before regaining the ability to breathe. The pain in his chest has dulled a bit and an ice pack is pressed to the back of his head, dampening the hair at his nape.
“Mesut.”
He looks up, head pounding, and Dr. Wohlfahrt's face slips into his line of vision. “You've got a concussion, so you can't fall asleep, understand?” Mesut nods. Something grips his shoulder and Wohlfahrt is being shoved aside, Miro's semi-panicked looking face sliding in to replace it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” he replies, trying to crack a smile. “What did you expect?” Miro just frowns and shakes his head, and Mesut sighs, feeling at the gauze around his head with his unbroken arm. Miro's strong grip is like an anchor for his drifting thoughts and against the urge to drift into sleep.
“What's going on, did we win-?”
“We'll probably be going into PKs sometime soon,” Miro cuts in before he can finish the question, mouth twisting.
The statement is ringing in his ears and his arm twinges when he shifts up, trying to think. “Who's going to take my spot, then?”
“Spot for what?” Wohlfahrt asks, voice sounding as if it's coming from a long way off.
“I would’ve been the fourth of five penalty kicks if I hadn’t been subbed out,” Mesut says slowly, each word requiring tremendous focus and effort. Wohlfahrt blinks once, twice, and then moves out of sight.
“Where'd he go?” Mesut groans.
“Nevermind,” Miro says hurriedly, pushing him down when he tries to get up. “You just need to stay awake so you won't slip into a coma. Worry about that for now, we’ll take care of the game.”
“No,” he mutters, a wave of haziness crashing over him for a few moments before he can speak again. “Why aren’t you out there, why are you here?”
“I-” Miro starts.
“Wohlfahrt isn’t the only doctor,” he plows on. “Why did you stay, the team needs you-”
Miro fiddles at the cuff of his windbreaker. “Can we not talk about this now?”
“Okay,” he returns, thoughts clearing a bit at the shrill, short whistles signaling another fifteen minutes of overtime. “So tell me why Basti and Thomas are suddenly on the bench.”
“They started a fight on the pitch,” Miro admits. “Because of the foul.”
eleven.
A series of emotions (ranging from shock to gratitude to horror to vindication) washes over Mesut’s face. Miro shakes his head. “Don’t think that this is somehow your fault,” he says, frowning. “They did what they thought was right, and there are always other people who can take their kicks.”
Mesut’s brow furrows in concentration and mild frustration. “Did whoever tackled me get carded as well?”
“Yes. Heitinga.” He relaxes visibly at this pronouncement and Miro slips a hand into his loose grip.
“Stop worrying,” Wohlfahrt says as he returns to their corner of the stadium behind several safety mats. “Unless you’d like to pass out, Mesut-then please, by all means, proceed with your little game of twenty questions.” Miro has to duck to tuck his smile away.
“I just want to know what’s going on,” he protests, “considering I was half-conscious for the last-I don’t even know how long I was passed out.”
“Not important,” Wohlfahrt sing-songs merrily. “Now, if you’re good, I’ll let you stay until the end of the match, and then we’ll get you to the emergency room.”
“Is that wise?” Miro whispers loudly. “He has a broken arm and a concussion-”
Wohlfahrt crosses his arms and gives him a pointed stare. “Tim and Josef have to clean Thomas and Basti up, and if I leave with Mesut and something happens during the shootout, then things would be even worse than they are now. Would you really want him to go, not knowing?”
Miro mutters something offensive about doctors underneath his breath and Wohlfahrt grins, pats him on the shoulder and turns back to face the game.
one.
Penalty kicks are strange, tricky things. As the window of opportunity to score another goal dwindles, that one thought weighs heavily on Manuel’s mind. The goal seems to loom large and empty behind him, and when those three, strident whistles blow and the game ends, a sharp light-headedness descends upon him, accentuates the buzz of vuvuzelas.
You never get used to it, he thinks. The slight shaking in your hands, the stars exploding behind your eyes, the fact that you are not expected to save these goals. The continuous string of tips Jogi spills into your ear about each player the Dutch might send up, the sweat that pools in between your palms and the worn-out gloves you pull on. You never get used to it, no matter how well you do at Schalke or in Bundesliga or in the other knockout stages.
Philipp tries to give him an awkward pep talk after Germany wins the coin toss and chooses to shoot first, but the whistles are blowing again and his words are lost in the midst of everyone moving down to the center of the field.
ten.
It’s stupid and juvenile and he should be better than this, but the missed penalty kick against Serbia is still hanging around in the back of his head, throwing him off his game. Everyone knows he’s had a terrible season with Bayern and a mediocre one at best with Köln in the past year, but Lukas likes to think that he came to the World Cup with something to prove and that he’s sufficiently proved it to them.
And yet the failed goal still stings, and here is a chance to redeem himself, to do something for his team on his own. They say that penalties undermine the spirit of the game, that the beauty of teamwork has no place to shine when it’s one-on-one, striker against goalkeeper. But something Jogi told him four years ago comes back to him now, carries him as he strides slowly to the penalty area to open the shootout, to take the first kick.
There is immense trust involved when taking a penalty, Lukas. Your team is relying on you to fool the keeper, to sink the ball into the net. When you kick, kick for Germany-not for yourself, not for your own satisfaction, not for the number of goals you might attain in your career.
Choose a corner, Lukas, choose a side, choose the middle road, if you really want to, if you think you can get the ball into the goal that way. Just know that when you shoot, you have the full support and encouragement and fervor of the whole team behind you, no matter what happens. Make your choice and follow through, put all your strength and focus and desire and skill in that shot. All you can do afterwards is hope for the best.
Lukas kicks.
one.
The score is three-two for Germany and the only one left to shoot is Nigel de Jong; Manuel smiles sardonically at the irony. The stadium is quieter than he has ever heard it before as he takes his position on the line underneath the goal. Jogi’s face is white (whether from nervousness or his previous encounter with the flu, he doesn’t know), and his teammates are lined up in a solemn eight-man salute halfway down the pitch, arms linked.
He could end it here. If the ball goes in, they’ll be moving on to sudden death, but Manuel likes settling things on his own terms-if he wants something done right, he’ll do it himself.
Vuvuzelas have died down in pitch and number; the silence is as unnatural as it is absolute, and it weighs heavily across his shoulders as de Jong runs towards the ball, eyes flicking towards the top right corner. He jumps a beat before de Jong’s foot even connects, arms reaching out for the place he knows the ball will be-and when it hits, solid and real against him, it is as if the ball is coming home, cradled in the crook of his elbow like it was always meant to be there.
eight.
There is a glorious second of complete, utter stillness.
And then in the same moment that waves of sound come crashing through the stands, it hits Mesut that-oh my God, they won-they did it, and Wohlfahrt is jumping up and down, all thought of taking him to the hospital forgotten. Miro is clutching at his good arm, tears streaming down his face and Mesut feels like his face is about to split open, he’s beaming so hard.
It is Manuel’s turn to get buried under a pile of die Mannschaft players, Jogi screaming his pride and joy to the heavens. Hansi is doing some sort of strange victory dance with Oliver and the bleachers ring with song, chants of Lu-lu-lu-lukas Podolski and every other German fansong known to man.
He is wheeled out of the stadium with a broken arm, a bruised chest, a pulled tendon, two broken ribs, and a heart of beating black, red, and gold.
fin