The narrator tells us that he's sorry that the match is going on, but that he doesn't want to kick it off because it's hurting the pride of the players. He says that if he were like him, he'd stop the match and rest his leg, but if he was like the crowd, they'd be demanding "elegant perfection" from him. The narrator says he knows full well that the manager started the match to hurt the players' pride, but he says he didn't have the resolve to stop it. He's sure that if the manager wanted to go on, he would play to win until the end, but now that he looks at what's happened to him, it seems like the "magic wore off." The narrator wonders how he'll do it, since he can't run right on his legs. He thinks that the "Football Gods" gave him the opportunity to kick the ball in a mini-game or something, and now he wants to prove that he can do it in front of the whole club. He wants to see if he can beat the expectations of the club's players, but even if he does, he won't be able to make them like him.