Chapter 7 — Across the Six Meter Line

The confirmation is in Nguyen Manh's drawer, between the ball purchase receipt and the list of parents. On the top of the page is the gymnasium's seal: "Qualified to organize provincial-level competitions, with supervision." The bottom line asks the person in charge to commit that the pitch, goals, lights, scoreboard and exits have been checked.

Manh signed three weeks ago.

Chi looked at the paper, then looked at him.

“You signed without having a spare battery box.”

“The board still has primary sources.”

“And the floor seam?”

“Marked.”

“Not to be fixed.”

Manh took the paper back. “If I don't sign, the tournament cannot be held here.”

“So why don't you write with conditions?”

“Because the organizers will move the location.”

“That's their decision.”

“And could end the province's women's handball class.”

Chi didn't expect to be so angry that her hands were cold. “You protect the team by signing for things that don't exist yet?”

“I defend an opportunity.”

“Opportunity can make Tram fall.”

“I asked for the mark.”

“Players cannot always see the mark while being pulled.”

Manh turned away. He said many times during his career that athletes must focus on the field, not blame the floor. Now Chi forced him to look again at the line between discipline and adults transferring risks to the players.

Vy walked in and heard the last part. “Do you sign?”

Manh nodded.

“Does Ms. Diep sign?”

“She signed the management part.”

Diep just arrived, holding the file. “I signed because the document did not have a box saying ‘not enough.’ I sent the addendum.”

Vy asked: "Has anyone read the appendix?"

"I do not know."

“So what is the certificate saying?”

Diep replied: “It says the gym is responsible for too small a sample.”

Chi held her phone and took a photo of the confirmation form. Manh raised his hand to stop, but stopped.

“I won't post,” Chi said. “I send it to the team and the organizing committee.”

“What if they asked me to act as a puppeteer?”

“Then they have to say specifically what is wrong.”

Manh sighed. He asked the whole team to meet before the organizing committee meeting. Not to discuss tactics, but to say out loud what each person accepts and does not accept.

Tram said she accepts playing on a marked field if there is an observer, enough warm-up time and the right to stop when the surface is wet. Vi said she accepted the transfer but needed support for car fares and shift changes. Vy said she would accept any result if the meter was checked first.

A reserve player said she was afraid that if the team made a big deal out of it, the province would say it was too troublesome for women to play sports. The room was silent. Manh said that was no reason to play on poor conditions.

Chi asked: "What if the team loses because they move the field?"

Vy replied: "We lost a match, not the right to play."

Vi looked at her. “But I still want to win.”

"Me too."

“So can the two things happen at the same time?”

“That's what we're trying to do,” Chi said.

The organizing committee meets in the afternoon. A league representative said the seams were marked, the scoreboard could use a backup clock, and moving the game would affect television coverage. Hong Ha's faculty asked if the table was wrong, who decided the final time.

The representative responds to the main referee.

Khoa asked: "Does the referee see the source log?"

The other person said he would look at the minutes.

“I asked about the procedure before the match.”

No one answered immediately. Luan's suggestion: test the table under a simulated load, record the start and end times, seal the data, and place a clock on the table. The organizers cannot object Because it's a normal technical thing.

Additional expenses suggest floor observers must be present on both teams, not arena staff alone.

Diep said that if there are conditions for competition, it is necessary to close the ramp area with anti-slip tape and limit warm-ups. The organizers asked who paid. Diep replied that the gym can pay for the ice, the federation can pay for the test, the team should not pay by taking risks.

At the end of the session, the match was still held at Tan Lap, but the organizers approved an addendum: check the floor two hours before, test the board three times, use two clocks, record incidents in the minutes and have the right to stop if conditions change. Not everything Chi wanted, but more than the original piece of paper.

Manh called Chi to the hallway.

“I think you were wrong.”

"Have."

“Aren't you going to defend yourself?”

"I signed because I wanted to keep the prize. But I used that goal to not read all the risks. You're right."

Chi was surprised by the frankness. Manh gave her a copy of the paper, with the line "supervised".

“From now on, I want the team to know who the supervisor is, what he does, and who to report to.”

“Are you afraid of losing your job?”

"Yes. But losing my job doesn't hurt as much as watching Tram fall and remembering every single thing I did."

In the locker room, Vy told everyone not to say "the floor is fine" anymore. They said “floor inspected at 7:10, dry conditions, icy seams”. If it rains, the sentence must be changed.

Vi wrote those sentences on sticky tape. Brooches stuck around glossy cabinets. No one laughed because they listened too carefully. People who were once told to focus on their own parts are now learning how to keep other people's parts from disappearing.

At night, Chi sent an appendix to Khoa. Khoa replied: "I will sign along. The away team also needs to be protected."

Put away your phone. She did not feel relieved. The semi-finals still have no official results. But for the first time, the confirmation letter is no longer a closed door. It becomes a list of questions to be asked before the whistle blows.

That night, Manh did not return immediately. He sat in the trainer's room, reopening the signed safety form. His signature is at the bottom of the page, bold and slightly oblique. Above is the line "qualified for organization with supervision". He remembers when he signed: the organizers gave him the papers, the team was waiting for the bus, Vi called to ask for work hours, Tram looked for an ankle bandage. He read it, understood the general idea, then signed because he thought the background check belonged to the yard manager.

Diep walked in carrying two cups of tea.

“I guess you haven't left yet.”

“I'm reading my signature.”

“It's still the same signature.”

"I know."

Diep put down the cup. "I also signed the yard record. It's not just you."

"I was the one who signed for the team. I could have asked."

“I also could have refused to enter the field into the tournament.”

The two sat opposite, neither of them trying to lighten their responsibility by dividing it into small enough pieces. Manh turned to the next page. There is a box for power and clock. The box has been marked “checked”.

“Who checks?” he asked.

“Officer on duty.”

“Do you have a name?”

"Are not."

Manh closed his eyes. “So we used a word with no one behind it.”

Chi stood outside the door, heard it but didn't go in right away. Diep looked at her and signaled to come in. Chi placed the appendix on the table.

“I want to add to the list of testers,” she said. "Not to find someone to punish. So that when something goes wrong, we know who to call."

Manh reached out to receive. “Plus the team signer.”

“Are you sure?”

"Sure."

“If they ask why I did it before sign?"

“Then answer because I didn't ask enough before.”

Diep looked at Manh. “You're putting yourself in trouble.”

“It's harder to let another player fall and then say there's a problem with the field.”

The next morning, Chi, Manh and Diep went to the organizing committee office. The room has three desks, a printer and stacks of files according to the season. Ms. Bich read the appendix and underlined the items about the responsible person. She did not refuse, but asked for funding to repair the yard.

“If you don't have money to replace the floor, what do you want us to do?” she asked.

“Restricted area disclosure,” Diep replied. “Change the training schedule, arrange people to monitor, give the team the right to request a stop.”

“If any team asks to stop, the tournament will be prolonged.”

“Any team that makes an unreasonable request can be recognized and considered. But we cannot force the team to have a reason to stay silent to keep the schedule.”

Manh added: "If the schedule is more important than safety, clearly state that it is the choice of the organizers, not a natural condition."

Mrs. Bich looked at them for a moment. “You are asking for a change in the way we operate.”

Chi said: “No. We are asking to run what is already there.”

The organizing committee agreed to try the annex in the semi-finals. They add the yard manager's on-call phone number, the name of the board technician, and the procedure in case of discrepancies. Not every line is beautifully written. Some sentences are long and overlap each other. But at least, there are no more items that just say “checked” with no one to ask.

On the way home, Manh asked Chi: "Do you feel like you're overdoing it?"

"Have."

He laughed. “You answered so quickly?”

“Because people who do something often wonder that.”

“What if I told you to stop?”

“I will ask why.”

“What if the reason is that the team needs to practice?”

“I will practice at night.”

“What if the reason is that other people are upset?”

“I will write down their discomfort in the feedback section.”

Manh looked through the car window. “You look like someone who doesn't have an off button.”

“I'm learning the pause button.”

In the afternoon, Hanh tried being a timekeeper in front of the whole team. She started making mistakes in small places: forgetting to read out loud the mark when the ball was dead, recording the wrong substitution time, looking at the board instead of listening to the referee. Each error is circled. No one laughed, but Tram still asked if she could take a break to eat cake.

“After ten minutes,” Hanh said.

“You just said time is important.”

"Correct. Ten minutes is important.”

Luan gave Hanh an instruction sheet with only six lines. She taped it next to the table. Just don't edit the words. She just reminded Hanh that the instructions must be read with shaking hands.

In the evening, Chi sent the appendix to Hong Ha's Faculty. Khoa replied after an hour: "My team agrees, but we ask that the two captains read it before the match."

Chi conveyed the words. Manh texted back: "Agree."

At the end of the day, Manh signed the new version again. This time he did not sign hastily. He read each entry, asked each person's name before writing.

Put away your phone. The semi-finals still have no official results. But for the first time, the confirmation letter is no longer a closed door. It becomes a list of questions to be asked before the whistle blows.

And if someone later asks who let it happen, they won't have just one name to push forward. They will have a system to answer to.