The cement court in the neighborhood, affectionately known as "The Oven", was in its usual state: hot enough to fry an egg at midfield. The Wednesday afternoon sun showed no mercy, making the air shimmer above the cracked concrete. It was the perfect setting for a practice match. For Elismar, it felt like the eve of a World Cup final.
Their opponents, the "Rooftop Falcons", were already warming up. They were slightly older boys from the neighboring district. Not exactly prodigies, but they had the basics: they could run without tripping over their own feet, they wore colored vests to tell each other apart, and their goalkeeper—he actually wore gloves. That alone was a massive advantage.
The Tigres Mansos, on the other hand, looked like a group of lost tourists. Markin fanned himself with his own shirt, already drenched in sweat. Piter attempted juggling and couldn't get past two touches. Lester kicked the ball against the wall and it came back weaker than when it left. And Ryan looked like he was praying—probably begging for a meteor to hit the court before the match began.
"Guys, gather up!" shouted Elismar, clapping his hands with an energy that found no echo.
They circled up, half-hearted.
"Listen," Elismar began, his black eyes burning with the light of a dream. "This isn't just a training match. It's our first step! Remember everything we talked about. Markin, you're a wall! Nothing gets past you. Piter, you're our tank, our iron pivot. Hold that ball and blast it! Lester, today your shot's going to hit like thunder! And Ryan—you're our atomic flea, annoy the heck out of them!"
Markin nodded, panting. "A wall… I like that."
"Blast it... I'll try," said Piter, adjusting his tight shorts.
"Thunder? I just hope it's not the sound of my shin smacking theirs," muttered Lester.
"And me?" asked Elismar, placing his hand in the center of the huddle. "I'm the defender. Your shield. No one gets past me. Not today! Today we surprise them. Today we start our story. On three! One... two... three... TIGRES!"
"...Tigres," the others replied in a whisper barely strong enough to scare off a pigeon.
The whistle blew—a sharp cry that signaled the beginning of the massacre.
The ball rolled to the Tigres. And for ten glorious seconds, Elismar's speech felt prophetic. As the fixed defender, he received the ball. A sudden panic gripped him—his crooked feet threatening to tangle. Before disaster struck, he saw Piter open and passed. The ball wobbled, bouncing awkwardly, but it got there.
"Nice one, Elismar!" shouted Piter, surprising everyone by trapping it with his chest.
He spun—his heavy body moving with unexpected grace—and shielded the ball from an opponent. Took two steps forward. The court opened up. He saw Lester running down the wing. The pass was perfect, right to his foot. In Elismar's mind, the imaginary crowd erupted. It was the rehearsed play, the tiki-taka of Feira do Bairro!
Lester controlled it. He was at the edge of the box. He readied his body. Wound up for the shot. Time stood still. Would this be the promised thunder?
He shot.
The ball floated. Floated slowly, like a lazy soap bubble, tracing a high, gentle arc. It descended weakly, bouncing once before reaching the Falcons' goalkeeper. The keeper didn't move. He simply knelt, like someone picking up a kitten, and caught the ball with visible boredom.
Silence was broken by one of the Falcons' players laughing. "What was that? A pass to the keeper?"
And just like that, the magic was gone.
The goalkeeper wasted no time. With a powerful throw, the ball flew over everyone's heads and landed at the feet of their striker—a skinny, fast kid.
Elismar, still admiring the tragic arc of Lester's shot, turned just in time to see the striker sprinting alone. I'm the defender, his mind screamed. I have to stop him! But his feet didn't obey. He stood frozen on the court, eyes wide, watching like a spectator in the stands. The striker reached Markin and calmly slotted it in the corner.
Goal. 1–0.
"Come on, Elismar! That was yours!" yelled Piter.
Elismar didn't reply. He was frozen. The ball barely reached midfield before ending up in their net again. A long, low shot. Markin crouched to save it, but his "soft hands" failed him miserably. The ball bounced off his wrists and through his legs.
Goal. 2–0.
"Sorry, guys! The ball had spin!" cried Markin, staring at his hands like they had betrayed him.
"What spin, Markin? It came straight! Looked like you were clapping for it!" snapped Ryan.
The third goal was a masterpiece of collective incompetence. The Falcons made three passes. The first passed Ryan, who slid in the wrong direction. The second left Lester in the dust, running the wrong way. The third found Piter and Elismar side-by-side, both staring at the ball, unsure who should go. The attacker simply walked between them like they were training cones and tapped it past Markin.
Goal. 3–0.
After that, the floodgates opened. Goals of every kind. A chip shot, with Markin too far out trying to play with his feet. A rebound goal after Markin punched the ball straight to the striker. An own goal when Lester tried to block a cross and fired his "thunder kick" into their own net.
Elismar remained a ghost on the court. He ran—always late. Tried to defend—but the opponent had already passed. The ball seemed to have a force field, repelling his crooked feet. He didn't complete a pass, didn't shoot, didn't make a single tackle. He simply watched, powerless, as the score climbed.
10–0. Markin sat down and almost cried.15–0. Piter started arguing with his own shadow.20–0. Ryan hid behind the goal, pretending to tie his shoe for five minutes.
The twenty-third goal was the most humiliating. The game was nearly over. The Falcons weren't even celebrating anymore—they just passed the ball around, bored. Their striker received it in front of Elismar. He stopped, stepped on the ball, and looked at him.
"Not gonna mark me?" the kid asked, with a hint of pity in his voice.
Elismar stepped forward, clumsily. The kid simply rolled the ball between his legs—a nutmeg, a humiliating dribble—and walked slowly to the goal, tapping it in as Markin stood turned around, drinking water.
Goal. 23–0.
The final whistle sounded like mercy.
The Tigres Mansos dragged themselves off the court. No one said a word. The only sounds were Markin's heavy breathing and Elismar's shoes scraping against the concrete. The weight of humiliation was suffocating.
They sat on the curb, far from any prying eyes.
"Twenty-three..." whispered Ryan, face buried between his knees.
"I think I got hit in a place I didn't even know existed," said Lester, rubbing his thigh. "No pause…"
"We're really bad," declared Piter, with brutal finality. The sentence hung in the hot, sticky air.
Elismar said nothing. He stared at the horizon, where the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky orange and purple. It was a beautiful scene, but he couldn't appreciate it. In his mind, all twenty-three goals played in a torturous loop. And in every one, he saw himself frozen, a spectator of his own failure.
The dream of the Ballon d'Or, which that morning had seemed so bright and close, now felt light-years away, lost somewhere beyond that melancholy sky. He stood up in silence and began walking home, leaving behind his teammates—and his dignity—by the roadside. He hadn't played at all. He hadn't even touched the ball properly. Today, he wasn't a player. He was just a crooked-footed kid who watched his dream get scored on twenty-three times.