That was insane gain. I almost leveled up from a single match alone, and nearly got back my XPoints that I could use for another stamina booster if I wanted to. The fact I was literally 4 EXP away annoyed me a bit, but it was alright.

  Yet, I was spent. This was definitely not something I could do week-in, week-out, and I was brought in for a managerial role, first and foremost.

  I returned to the dressing room, hoping to catch Mitch before the celebration was over, only to be greeted with silence. A handful of the lads are seated in a loose semicircle near the far benches, with heads bowed and hands clasped. Ah, I almost forgot a couple of the lads—Milner, Langley, Palmer—were religious. It wasn’t a team thing, but the others stood nearby out of habit rather than participation anyway, waiting without really waiting.

  Milner finished first with a quiet amen, barely more than a breath.

  “Two minutes,” someone muttered. “That’s all.”

  And that was all it was. Music clicked on. Someone whooped. A bottle cap clattered against the floor. The moment dissolved without ceremony.

  I didn’t stay for long. After a round of drinks and champagne that wasn’t champagne—cheap fizzy something—I spotted Mitch near the doorway, already turning to leave.

  “Hey,” I said, catching him by the shoulder before he could slink off. “I’m taking the next match off.”

  That stopped him.

  He stared at me like I’d just sworn in church. “You’re having me on.”

  “I’m not.”

  “The next one’s important,” Mitch snapped. “That’s the actual opposition. Not this lot.”

  “I know,” I said evenly. “That’s exactly why. I can’t do this every match, and you know it.”

  His jaw tightened. “That’s why I told you to sit after the first half.”

  “And you were right,” I said. “But you also know why I stayed on.”

  Mitch grumbled. He was still fuming—had every right to be—but that was my cover. I’d already crossed the line and put him at a difficult spot. Might as well stand on it.

  “I wanted it to go this way anyway,” I continued. “We’ve leaned on me too hard, too fast. We gotta manage the squad.”

  He scoffed. “By sitting out the hardest fixture?”

  “By forcing them to play without a crutch,” I replied. “I’m wrecked, Mitch, and Boras is solid at the back. This is the match where discipline matters. They need to learn they can’t rely on someone who doesn’t have the legs for two games in a row.”

  Mitch looked at me for a long moment. He didn’t like it. I could see that clearly. But the argument was already over.

  “Fine. But I better see Boras playing like Maldini next game.” He turned back toward the noise, still scowling.

  That was the plan. I’d be putting in the works to turn these guys into the biggest boulders this division had ever seen. And I’d gotten just the blueprint for it.

  With me knowing exactly how to game the system into giving me more quests, grinding EXP was easy enough. After two evenings of going back and forth between spectating kids’ games at a nearby school while doing the usual scouting, I’d racked up another 182 EXP.

  I’d checked the scouting panel, and it just kept notes I’d made during matches and tendencies I’d spotted in passing. All of that was neatly indexed, timestamped, and cross-referenced without me having to dig for it. Not necessary, but neat nonetheless.

  The two attributes I’d chosen to unlock next were obviously Marking and Heading. I already had the experience to eyeball a defender’s ability, and I could estimate the digits anyway through Live Assessment. What I didn’t have was precision over time. With the attributes unlocked, progress stopped being abstract. I could see the increments and know exactly how much a player gained from a week of drills.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  With 436 XPoints, I unlocked the Training Architecture node. After checking out the foundational skills, I found two that were worth considering:

  This was the numbers monster. On paper, it was absurdly efficient. Team-wide gain, multiplicative, stacks with good scheduling. It would be great . . . if I was the head coach.

  Then, there was the other skill.

  The first was obscene, but brutally narrow. I would drill shape, one loop, over and over until anything else felt like a waste. I wasn’t even the one picking formation and when we would get some match sim going, so this skill would just lead to a lot of frustration in the short term. It would even stack with this skill I’d unlocked:

  In theory, I could get Boras to gain 15% more progression per session.

  The second fit reality. I selected Targeted Development and flagged Boras without hesitation.

  If I was going to sit out the next match and make a point, I might as well make sure it landed.

  Training started the next evening.

  We ran the defenders through the basic drills I’d gone through, then came the match-adjacent stuff; back four versus a rotating front three, recycled endlessly.

  Yet, I’d started to regret banking on Boras already.

  The first time it happened, I almost missed it.

  “Hold the line,” I called. “Don’t chase. Let the runner come to you.”

  The back four shuffled. Everyone but Boras.

  He stepped anyway, exactly as if he’d heard something else entirely. The ball slipped into the space he’d vacated. A goal came.

  I blew the whistle. “Reset.”

  Second rep.

  “Boras, stay connected,” I said. “You don’t need to win it early. Trust the cover.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, jogged into position, and the moment play restarted, he broke the line anyway.

  I exhaled slowly, walked a few steps onto the pitch. Kept my voice level.

  “That one’s on you,” I said. “You broke the line.”

  He laughed. “How many teams have you coached, coach?”

  A couple of heads turned.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “This isn’t about authority. It’s about spacing.”

  “Right,” Boras said. “As I suspected.”

  I frowned. “Suspected what?”

  “You know I don’t play that way. I like to lunge, and you pull the backline back to make me look bad when I lunge. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” He stopped, finally facing me properly. “You come in, take someone else’s spot, sit yourself in meetings, and now we’re meant to take your coaching in good faith?”

  What? Why was he resentful of me? He’d been sat on the bench long before I ever pulled a shirt on, warming it for Mansfield anyway. I hadn’t taken anything from him.

  I checked his attributes.

  Now that was gonna be a problem.

  Behind him, Kowalski caught my eye and gave the smallest shake of his head. Not don’t argue. More like that’s just how he is.

  I nodded once, short and decisive. “We’ll talk after,” I said. “Reset.”

  He turned away without answering, already organizing the line again, higher. His way. He even turned to Kowalski and said, “This is what we always do. Right, Luke?”

  No it wasn’t. Kowalski was ancient and shouldn’t play in a high line.

  As the ball went out for reset, Kowalski drifted over under the pretense of grabbing water. “Don’t take it personally,” he murmured. “He’s like that.”

  I glanced at Boras. He was already barking again, waving an arm, setting the line his way.

  “There’s a reason Mitch jails him on the bench,” Kowalski added. “Wins his duels. Loses the room.”

  That explained a lot. Mansfield got suspended for another two games with that stupid red anyway, which left me with him as the only natural center-back left beside Kowalski. I needed this guy to listen. The question was, how would I win him over?

  The wording was deliberate. Cruel, even. The system didn’t care about intent, attitude, or effort. It only cared whether Boras could suppress his instincts long enough to do exactly what he was told.

  I looked back up.

  Boras was still waving his arm, still dragging the line higher, still coaching over me like I wasn’t there at all.

  Fine. I took this as a personal challenge.