Chapter 14 - Chapter 14: Away-Day Advantage

I like playing at Moses Mabhida. Their crowd is rowdy as fuck, and I live off that shit. Most players enjoy the noise at their own ground, forty thousand loyal people in their own colours singing them onto the pitch. Me, on the other hand — I thoroughly enjoy being hated in somebody else's house.

I call it away-day advantage.

You want to boo when I come out of the tunnel? No problem, I'll leave one on your striker for that.

You want to call my teammates names, or make up stupid fucking songs that don't make any sense just to taunt us? Please do. The one they've got for me tonight isn't even about football. It's about where I come from, a dorp nobody in this stadium could find on a map, and I've heard a version of it at Ellis Park too, out of our own supporters, for seven seasons. It'll make me run harder and go straight through you.

You want to scream through the fencing while I take my time on the long walk down the tunnel after a red? Music to my ears, baby.

Just another reason I love the away trips.

"Turn that up!" I shout to Elton from across the away dressing room.

"That's my song!"

Elton does as he's asked, thumbing the volume on the Bluetooth speaker he carries everywhere with him, and the away dressing room fills with the amapiano track that has been getting me right since August.

"Aweh," he says, satisfied with himself.

I stay where I am at my peg, already kitted, shin pads in, socks up, letting the music narrow me down to the next ninety minutes.