The scoreboard

After the match, the scoreboard still showed eleven points beside their school's name. Under the visitors' name was a number so much larger that Leon stopped looking at it. He sat on the bench while the caretaker collected cups from the edge of the court. In his bag, beneath a damp towel, was the captain's badge he had been given that morning. He had expected to wear it home. Now he could not remember taking it off. His father would arrive in five minutes, and Leon was trying to decide whether he could describe the result without saying the numbers.

At the start, the badge had seemed to change the way he stood. He called the team together and repeated the phrases he had heard older captains use: keep moving, trust one another, take your chances. The first pass was his. He sent it too hard, and it crossed the sideline before anyone reached it. The visitors scored immediately. Leon clapped his hands and told everyone to concentrate. He did not mention the pass. For most of the first half, he demanded from the others a calmness he could not find in himself.

At the interval, Amira asked him to slow down. She was the youngest player and had said almost nothing during training. Leon began to explain that a faster game would give them more opportunities. She pointed to the court. ‘We aren't getting there at the same time,’ she said. For a moment he saw the match from above: himself arriving early, the pass thrown into a space that would only later contain a teammate. He sat down and let her finish. Their teacher watched from the doorway without interrupting.

They did not catch the visitors. The second half contained missed shots, a twisted shoelace and one argument about a line call. But Leon waited before making the next pass. Twice it reached Amira in space, and twice she scored. Near the end, he missed an easy chance. This time he raised his hand to acknowledge it before telling anyone else what to do. When the whistle sounded, the team walked towards the bench together. Nobody described it as a good result. Amira asked whether they could practise the slower move on Monday.

The caretaker switched off the scoreboard. Leon could still remember both numbers. When his father arrived, he gave the result accurately, without beginning with the referee or the visitors' height. In the car he found the badge beneath the towel. Its pin had caught in the fabric. He worked it free and placed it in the small front pocket of his bag, where it would not be bent. Then he asked whether he could stay late at school on Monday. His father said yes and waited for the rest of the story.

Consider the whole passage. How does the writer structure the text to change the reader’s understanding of Leon’s defeat? You could consider the opening, movement between different times, the turning point, and the ending. Support your analysis with references to the passage.