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foot on the ball and his arms folded. Edison could see the arrogant confidence of a striker in the way he coolly surveyed his opponents, and in his relaxed stance. Edison wished he could get back that confidence.
    The referee whistled for the kickoff. Steve tapped the ball to Jillian and raced toward the Centreville goal. Jillian returned the ball, which Steve collected just in front of Lily. She moved to tackle him but he turned and backed into her, keeping the ball close to his feet. She loomed over him, her arms almost around him and her knees bumping against the backs of his legs, unbalancing him. Edison saw Steve’s eyes roving, looking for support. The twins were on the wings, too far away to pass to. Brandon was running to help, but the tall centre forward, towering above him, was hard on his heels. Suddenly Steve was flat on his back and the ball spun away toward Brandon, who managed to poke it on to Jessica before the centre forward crashed into him, tumbling him to the ground. Jessica took the ball past one defender and centred it, but no one was there to take advantage of the cross. The Centreville goalkeeper caught the ball and rolled it out to Lily, who sent it over Shay and Julie for the home striker to receive on his head. The striker kept the ball in the air by repeatedly heading it, all the time moving toward the Brunswick Valley goal. It was some trick. As he neared the goal, with Toby moving cautiously to bar his way, and Steve racing at him from behind, he headed a weak shot, which Amy caught easily.
    Edison wondered whether his teammates realized how dangerous the tall striker’s heading skill made him. If he kept control of the ball as he headed it and moved toward the goal, there wasn’t much Linh-Mai and Toby, his markers, could do about it. They couldn’t tackle, because the ball was on his head, not at his feet. All they could do was stand in his way, but then they’d risk committing a foul, which could mean he would get a penalty kick. On the other hand, if they didn’t bar his way, the centre forward had a clear path to goal.
    As the first half wore on, Edison began to understand how Centreville had enjoyed such a successful season. Mr. Field’s assessment had been right. Their attack wasn’t much, consisting of lobbing the ball to the tall striker whenever he got near Amy’s goal, but their defence was solid. If Brunswick Valley advanced beyond the halfway line, at least two home defenders immediately surrounded whoever had the ball, stifling movement and making it almost impossible to pass. On the rare occasions when Steve managed to get away from Lily and find some space, there was the lanky striker, helping his defence and hanging over him like an overfriendly giraffe.
    Edison realized it wasn’t just Centreville’s suffocating defence that was stifling every Brunswick Valley attack. It was more like his teammates were stifling themselves. He thought of how they’d played in the girls-against-boys scrimmage back at the school. Although that was fooling around rather than proper soccer, they’d run with the ball, had created space for themselves with constant movement, and had harried whoever had the ball. Now the only player who seemed to be doing that was Steve, who raced from one end of the pitch to the other, helping his defence one minute, attacking the Centreville goal the next. His method of attack was simple. He kicked the ball ahead and ran after it, relying on speed to get to it ahead of his opponents, or strength to hustle them off it if they got there first.
    Late in the first half, Steve passed to Shay from near his own goal. Shay kept possession while Steve ran past him into an attacking position. With two Centreville defenders closing in, Shay passed between them to Steve, who found himself with only Lily between himself and the goalkeeper. He moved right, then left, then right again, as he approached her. Lily moved with him, but