CHAPTER 59 — MINUTES
Halftime was brief.
The coaches talked tactics. Adjustments. Triggers. Kweku sat quietly, pulling his base layer tighter around his wrists. His breathing slowed. His hands stopped shaking.
"You're staying on," Devereux said, almost casually.
Kweku nodded.
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The first ten minutes of the second half were about positioning.
Kweku stayed close to his marker, offering angles, receiving and releasing. One touch. Two at most. He felt the rhythm begin to settle inside him — not confidence exactly, but familiarity.
He intercepted a loose pass and turned, scanning. The obvious pass was wide.
He played it.
No applause.
Just continuation.
That was the reward again.
The opposition pressed higher. Space tightened. A tackle clipped his ankle — painful, but not enough to stop him. He stayed up, passed the ball, and felt something inside him harden.
At the touchline, Devereux folded his arms. "Common boys get into the final third," he said.
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Marseille kept knocking, the opposition seemed happy with the scoreline and parked the bus but football is unpredictability itself.
Around the seventieth minute, Kweku received the ball under pressure, back to goal. Two defenders closed in. He could feel them before he saw them.
Instead of forcing a turn, he shifted the ball sideways and laid it off — then immediately moved.
The return pass came into space.
Kweku didn't rush it. He slipped a through ball between the lines, perfectly weighted.
The striker, a more traditional fox in the box, had conserved his energy for such a chance and hit the shot first time, not giving the defenders any time to recover.
Goal.
The stadium erupted.
Kweku froze for half a second — then jogged back toward the centre circle, heart pounding, face calm.
No celebration.
The scorer pointed at him once.
That was enough.
---
The final minutes dragged on.
Marseille defended deep, springing forward for counterattacks which unfortunately amounted to nothing. Kweku tracked back, legs burning, lungs screaming. He made one last interception near the touchline and cleared the ball long.
The whistle blew.
1–1.
Players collapsed onto the grass. Substitutes rushed on. Hands clapped shoulders. Someone laughed.
Kweku stood still for a moment, absorbing it.
He hadn't changed the game alone.
He'd helped it tip.
As he walked off, Devereux caught his eye.
A nod.
Nothing more.
That night, lying in bed, Kweku replayed the match in his head — not the assist, but the small things. The positioning. The decisions. The way the game had demanded discipline, not brilliance.
He called his mother before sleeping.
"I played," he said.
There was a pause on the line.
"Ah didn't you just start training with them?" she asked.
"Yes."
She smiled through the phone. He could hear it.
"That's good, just don't kill yourself. Eat well and cover up properly, don't let anyone say I didn't raise you well," she said.
Kweku laughed and after speaking for some time hung up. He stared at the ceiling, exhaustion settling deep into his bones.
For the first time since arriving in Marseille, he didn't feel like he was chasing the future.
He felt like he'd stepped into it — carefully, quietly, and exactly when he was ready.
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