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He’d found him at halftime. Digging nails into his skin, cursing into his T-shirt, and throwing his shin guards at the wall. It was abnormal for the Spurs forward, even by his temperamental standards.
The second half wasn’t any better than the first. He watched as Richarlison missed one clear-cut chance after another. Their fans booed loudly, which only pushed Richarlison’s head further under the water.
Whether it was out of mercy or idiocy, he couldn’t tell. But Richarlison’s number finally went up on the board, signaling the end of his match. He only moved to shake the interim boss’s hand before collapsing over his discarded jersey, sobbing like a newborn baby.
He was several seats away from the other man, so he couldn’t do much. But he knew those kinds of tears very well: exhaustion, frustration, hopelessness.
“I can’t do this anymore. Não posso mais fazer isso, simplesmente não posso.”
*
He found him outside. Shivering under a thin training top in the unseasonably cold breeze, staring at the city lights in front of him. It was almost spring, but the chill was severe.
“You shouldn’t be out here without a jacket. What if you got sick?”
Richarlison stared up at his sudden companion with watery, red eyes. “Why should you care, Ali? We’ve always been rivals; first Everton, now Spurs.”
“There are three kinds of people I hate: traitors, murderers, and career-enders. You, Richy, aren’t any of those.” Alisson knelt on the pavement next to Richarlison. Upon seeing the goosebumps on the other’s bare arms, he draped his black coat over Richarlison’s tiny frame.
“Do you do that often?” he asked before he could change his mind. “Cutting…with the nails. Your own nails.”
A long sigh. “Only when I spiral. I guess I spiraled tonight…I’m just so tired. I train extra, I watch highlight reels, I watch the others; and I still have the scoring rate of a goalkeeper. No offense to you.”
Alisson nodded slowly, the memory of himself smashing a mirror with his bare hands replaying itself in his mind. “I know where you’re coming from.”
“How’d you guess? You walked in on me at halftime just enough to give me those gloves, and we haven’t actually talked since the match began.”
“I cry a lot. I’ve learned to tell exhaustion from disappointment.”
“Well…it’s hard.”
“What’s hard?”
Richarlison pulled the too-big coat tighter around him, raising an eyebrow when he recognized a different cologne on the collar. It was woody, yet light, and surprisingly…Dutch. Specifically, Gucci perfume.
He wasn’t going to ask.
“I...I just don't get it. I train hard, I show up to matches, I try everything but it just isn't working. I know this probably sounds pathetic, but it's not fair.”
“It’s not pathetic, Richy, you’re right. I guess sometimes the hardest workers don't always get the prize.” It was something Alisson had figured out the winter before. He and his Liverpool teammates worked like a nest of bees to improve their form, but had failed miserably. No doubt Richarlison was feeling the same.
The keeper hummed in thought. “Is there anyone that makes it better? The hurt?”
Richarlison's eyes lit up like two dimmed flames. “Sonny. He's a walking ray of sunshine. He’s pulled me out of so many holes, I don't know what I'd be without him.”
Alisson smiled fondly at the thought of the Korean forward. “Bobby’s my sunshine.”
“You miss him, don’t you?”
He nodded, trying to hold back tears. It had been a few months since Firmino departed Liverpool, but he still missed him as if he'd left two hours ago. "Is it weird to grieve someone that's not even dead?”
"I don't know, I'm not good at asking questions. Do you think everybody on earth was born with a destined sunshine provider?”
"Who knows? Maybe we are.”
Richarlison smirked, leaning on one arm like a smug coworker hearing about their boss's first date. "You're thinking of Virgil, aren't you?"
Alisson thanked the night for hiding the blush sprinkled across his cheeks like cayenne pepper. "Maybe."
*
After dropping off Richarlison with Thiago Silva--it was either him or the interim, and Richarlison had seen quite enough of the latter for the day--Alisson set off to find Ederson. The younger goalkeeper was a consistent starter, but had seemed off ever since he'd learned he was to start versus Bolivia. That was confirmed when Alisson couldn't find Ederson in the locker room.
Alisson knew that, unlike himself, Ederson rarely experienced match anxiety or panic attacks. At least, Ederson didn't experience the apparent ones, the ones with hyperventilating or rocking in place or lashing out. But he still checked all the places he'd hide if he was panicking: the broom closet, corners, even the showers. The latter was mostly peaceful, although he did learn quite a few new words when he accidentally walked in on Gabriel Martini in the shower.
He finally found Ederson in an empty press conference room, calmly reading his phone in an empty seat. But upon second glance, Alisson noticed how the other's hands were clenched into fists, tightening before releasing only slightly. That's how he knew something was wrong.
"What are you looking at?" Alisson approached Ederson from the front, careful not to startle him. "I swear I won't tell if it's pictures of a teammate."
"Not pictures. Fan comments." Ederson turned off his phone and stuffed it in his pocket. "Where were you?"
"With Richy." Alisson didn't tell all the details; that was Richarlison's to tell.
"Richy? He played for Everton!"
"And you play for City, yet here we are talking like cousins."
"Guess you're right." Ederson sighed, leaning on the seat in front of him. There were slight eye bags under his eyes, and Alisson worried about how much sleep the other was getting. "I don't want to compete with you."
Well, no wonder he was losing sleep. "I know, Edi."
"I don't want to make you feel bad. I hate the fans putting one of us down to boost the other up. Like, I'm not good enough in my own right? I have to step on your toes…”
"…and I have to step on yours. Thank goodness for those who know that we aren't rivals in real life." He reaches into his jacket and takes out a football. "Quer jogar? Sem sapatos, sem luvas, sem relva . Just us and a ball on the street."
Ederson smiled, taking the football. "Maybe we can assemble a few kids as well."
" Você está louco? It's midnight, no kids are going to be awake now. Even the kids who came to watch the game are already asleep."
"You're right. Now, I know a good spot where even ESPN Brazil can't reach us."
*
Ederson's "good spot" happened to be a dark, narrow alley behind a few businesses. The two turned on an electric lantern, but Ederson's crazy shooting almost knocked it out several times.
"Careful, Edi!" Alisson hung the lantern from a rusty nail impaled in the wall. "If the lamp was kerosene, you'd have set something on fire."
He kicked the ball into the wall. It bounced and Ederson caught it, spinning it on his finger like a basketball.
"I thought your family was the crazy goalkeeper type. Never expected caution from a Becker."
"Hey, when you're the shorty in a bunch of giraffes, you've got to be careful. One wrong move, and you get stepped on like an ant. The goal net was a sort of protection, because you don't get bowled over. That's what I thought...until I moved to England."
Ederson winced, thinking of the many times he'd been shoved to the ground in a goalmouth scramble. "Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're in goal or if you're a skeleton. Everybody fouls everyone like it's a wrestling match."
He kicked the ball on the ground toward the other side of the alley. Alisson caught it, but tumbled in a heap against the wall.
"You trying to get me in the hospital?" Alisson joked, popping right back up like a jack-in-the-box. Besides a couple of scuff marks, he seemed none the worse for his collision. "I've been there, it's not fun. And now I think I've got a bruise."
"I didn't mean to do that, honest!" Ederson held the lantern in the air, shining the light towards Alisson. Indeed, there was a small bruise on his forearm, where he'd landed. "You could've ended up worse."
Alisson brushed dust off his forehead, resisting the urge to yell when his fingers brushed against the bruise. "I'll be fine. If I let Muriel see this, though...he'd never let me go outside again without strapping pillows on my limbs."
"Protective older brother, huh?"
Alisson nodded, zipping his jacket tighter. Maybe a pick-up football match at midnight in late winter wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. "He makes me feel safe, though."
"Well..." Ederson hung the lantern back on its nail, leaning on Alisson' shoulder even though the two were almost the same height. "Can I confess that you do the same?"
"I make you feel safe? Be serious, Ederson, I couldn't scare a mosquito."
"You're vulnerable when you need to be, and that makes me feel safe to be vulnerable around you. If that's not trust, I don't know what is."
Ederson kicked the ball against the wall. It deflected and flew onto the windowsill, wedging itself in a gutter.
"Ay, Ederson!" Alisson glanced at the ball and shook his head. "We are so dead if the owner finds out."
"Not quite." Ederson held up a ladder that he'd gotten from nowhere and propped it against the wall. "Hold up the ladder."