Chapter 247: Return
The Crawley training pitches were miserable in late December.
It was the kind of morning where nobody wanted to be outside much less running sprints in the biting wind.
But for Jamal, it was the best morning he'd had in weeks.
There was no dramatic comeback. No slow-motion jog out of the tunnel, no applause from the rest of the squad and no big speech from Niels.
Football at this level doesn't really do sentimentality. You're either fit to play, or you're stuck in the physio room.
Today, Jamal was finally back to being fit.
He stepped onto the frozen pitch with a thick snood pulled up over his nose and an orange training bib over his jumper, blending right in with the shivering players gathering in the center circle to warm up.
A few yards away, Niels stood with a wool hat pulled tightly over his ears, watching the squad go through their stretches.
