3 am thoughts
i keep thinking about how unfair it all felt i keep replaying it in my head like it’s going to change if i watch it enough times. he was so good. really good. carried everything the hope, the pressure, the stupid fifty-year wait like it was nothing. scored when we needed it most. made people text their dads again after years of not talking about football. then that one second. the wait. the noise turning into this awful flat hum. senegal posting on snap like it was funny.
and he just… stepped up. did the thing only he would do. the soft chip. because that’s him. always trying something impossible when everyone else would’ve just passed it safe.
but it didn’t go in. mendy barely had to move. the ball just floated there like it was tired too. and for a second his face looked so empty. like he wasn’t even there anymore. like the boy who’d been on fire the whole tournament just… left his body for a minute. i hate that part the most.
now everyone’s talking about the miss. looping it. memes. hate. like the five goals never happened. like the way he made us believe didn’t count. one kick and it’s all gone. it’s not fair. he’s twenty-something. human. trying to be the hero with the whole country staring, after waiting forever. my throat hurts when i think about it. not crying-hurts, just this heavy, stupid ache that sits there and won’t leave. like when you lose something small but it was yours and now everything feels a little emptier.
he said his soul hurts.
i get it. mine does too, and i wasn’t even playing. just watching from far away, feeling useless. i wish football could be gentle again. wish a brave stupid choice got a clap instead of a lifetime of people reminding you of the one time it didn’t work. wish we didn’t tear people apart for being human in the worst moment possible. i don’t know. i just miss when it felt hopeful. when he was still smiling in the tunnels. when the dream wasn’t over yet.
sorry. it’s late. i needed to say it somewhere.
