The Penalty Area

A heart-warming novel about overcoming adversity, making human connections, and football.


Vincent once had a shot at becoming a professional soccer player but a career-ending knee injury put an end to his dreams. A tough kid from a poor family, he has become an emotionally cut-off man with frustrated hopes and limited options. He finds himself coaching an under-16 soccer club in an attempt to keep alive his only passion in life. The team he coaches is little more than a roster of hot- headed boys, none of whom understands the on-field chemistry needed to win. Simply put, they aren't of a championship calibre. When his unemployed sister Madeleine, a single mother, dumps her thirteen-year-old son on him, Vincent panics. With no clue how to take care of a teenager, he brings his nephew to practice and eventually throws him into the scrimmage. It's then that Vincent notices there's something strange about Léonard. He has a preternatural ability for anticipating each striker's intentions, making him a remarkably talented goalkeeper. But Léonard looks detached, absent, lost. Léonard has undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome. What is equally clear is that, with Léonard's abilities as a goalkeeper, Vincent's ragtag team has a chance to reach the finals. For that to happen, for the team to find a reason to rally behind this strange kid from Paris, Vincent will have to let down his guard and open his heart for the first time ever.