Harbinger Of Glory

By the time Leo got to the Wigan complex, training had started, though it wasn’t very intense.

The players were already moving through recovery exercises on the far side of the pitch, and a moment later, he joined them.

A few greetings were exchanged as he made his way towards the far side, where Ezra was.

”Where’d you go?” the latter asked as Leo got there.

”Had to drop someone off at the airport,” Leo said, finding a spot on the grass and beginning to stretch.

Ezra nodded slowly, looking like he wanted to ask some more, but he kept to himself and went back to his stretching.

The mood across the group was good.

They were still in high spirits from the previous game, and it didn’t look like they wanted to come down from there.

Leo settled into it, working through the exercises as they began to get more intense.

After looking around for a while, he asked.

”Where’s Dawson?”

Ezra shrugged, reaching for his ankle before nodding towards the sidelines.

”He wasn’t here when we started.”

Leo looked toward the touchline.

Then, toward the tunnel entrance, before his eyes came back across the pitch, but he didn’t find Nolan either.

It was one thing for Dawson to be absent from training without a note for the players, but Nolan, too, wasn’t around.

”Weird,” he muttered, and went back to his stretching, deciding not to think too much of it!

.....

In the same moment Leo trained, Noah stepped into what had become his home.

An apartment that had nothing, but at the same time, had all he needed!

What it had was a desk, a decent shower, and a fridge that he kept stocked with the basics, which was everything he needed when work was moving.

And work was moving.

He dropped his bag by the door and stood in the kitchen for a moment, just breathing, before pulling the fridge open and taking out a bottle of water.

The tiredness was real.

He had been somewhere every other day for the past couple of weeks, but underneath it was something else.

Something that had been dormant for long enough that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

It felt like being in the game.

He showered, changed into a clean shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms, before settling at the desk where his laptop sat, already open.

He clicked into his email and leaned back slightly while the accessibility reader loaded.

You have seven new emails.

Noah dragged his mouse pointer and clicked on the notification banner that came with the voice, and went through the first three without much reaction.

A scheduling request, a newsletter he kept meaning to unsubscribe from and another he didn’t bother opening after seeing who it was from.

The fourth email, though, stopped him.

The sender was Wigan Athletic Football Club.

It wasn’t every day he got messages from them, despite his connection and dealings with them through Leo, but this one seemed to be from the management.

After thinking of what it could be, not really getting a concrete thought, he sat forward and opened it.

Dear Mr. Sarin,

We are writing to make you aware of several formal inquiries that have been received by the club regarding Leo Calderon.

As his registered agent, we believe it is appropriate to keep you informed of these developments ahead of any further correspondence.

The first inquiry has come from Burnley Football Club, who have expressed a formal interest in acquiring Leo’s services ahead of their return to the Premier League next season.

The nature and specific terms of their interest are still being assessed at club level, but the interest is concrete, and we could be looking at them making a public offer in the coming days.

The second inquiry was received from Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, who have similarly expressed interest in opening discussions.

We would appreciate your earliest response regarding the player’s current stance, as this will assist the club in managing these inquiries appropriately going forward.

Regards, Wigan Athletic Football Club — Club Operations

Noah read it once.

Then he read it again, slower.

Burnley was one thing.

Premier League football was Premier League football regardless of where they finished in it, and for a seventeen-year-old coming off a season like this one, that was not nothing.

And Brighton.

That was a different conversation entirely.

A club with a track record of developing young players, and that moment, with European football on the horizon after finishing 6th in the season that ended, as well as a manager who understood what to do with technical midfielders.

He sat with that for a moment and let it be good.

Then he read the last line again.

We would appreciate your earliest response regarding the player’s current stance.

When he read that, he kept still while brushing over it multiple times.

The player’s stance.

Not the club’s position.

Not the terms being considered.

The player’s stance.

As if the primary thing Wigan needed from Noah right now was confirmation that Leo wanted to go.

Noah leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.

He knew exactly what that was.

”These people....” he muttered before going silent again.

The offers were real, possibly serious enough that turning them down would require a conversation the club didn’t want to have with its own supporters.

So instead of being the ones selling, they wanted the narrative to read as the player choosing to leave.

Shift the weight onto Leo.

Let the fans direct their feelings somewhere other than the boardroom.

An annoyed smile came and went across his face as he picked up his phone.

Scrolled to Nolan’s number and called.

It rang twice before a click sound came.

”Have you also developed a knack for interrupting people?” Nolan answered with a grumpy voice.

”I need Dawson’s number,” Noah said, ignoring the latter’s tantrums.

Nolan went quiet on the other side for a bit before ending the call.

Noah stared before a contact appeared in his chat with Nolan, but before he could click on Dawson’s contact, Nolan called again.

”What now?” Noah answered.

”Yeah, see how that feels like?” Nolan said with a smirk in his voice before getting serious.

”If this is about that, then you’d better stop. Dawson’s already on their necks for what they are trying to do!”

Noah opened his mouth to speak, before closing it back again.

After the two stayed silent on the phone for a while, Noah finally spoke.

”It shouldn’t get to how it is in the first place.”

Nolan didn’t say anything, and a while later, Noah ended the call before leaning back into his chair.

He looked once more at the contact before turning off his phone and setting it beside the laptop.

.....

The days moved on, slowly but surely, as the training got up to speed.

The physio suite at the complex had become a familiar room by now, and the physio, Garrett, had seen Leo more times than he had seen his wife.

”We are ahead of schedule,” he said, pressing two fingers into the back of Leo’s thigh.

Leo nodded, smiling slightly.

A while later, his phone buzzed on the way out of the physio room.

Vittoria: She put me on a diet. a DIET leo. I haven’t done anything wrong!

Leo read it and smiled before replying.

Leo: Well, you did come twice without telling her.

Vittoria: She’s my manager, not my mother!

Leo: She’s also your aunt.

Vittoria: That’s beside the point

He was still looking at the screen when another came through, a voice note this time, forty-seven seconds long.

He put his earphones in and listened to Vittoria explain, in a mixture of Italian and English, the specific injustice of being put on a meal plan by someone who had known her since she was born, while also being kept swamped with bookings.

He sent back a voice note.

That’s what happens when you don’t communicate.

And three seconds later, she replied.

Vittoria:You have some nerve!

He was laughing when Ezra appeared from the corridor and fell into step beside him.

”What’s funny?”

”Nothing.”

Ezra looked at him.

Then at his phone.

Then back at him with an expression that required no words.

”Leave it,” Leo said without glancing at him because he could already imagine the face Ezra was making.

From somewhere behind them, McClean’s voice carried down the corridor.

”Does whatever’s got him smiling involve taking us to the Premier League?”

Ezra glanced at Leo, who had already put his phone in his pocket and was looking straight ahead.

”Probably not,” Ezra said.

All while this went on, one consistent thing that got the players a bit nervous was Dawson.

It was the third consecutive session he’d missed, and Nolan had been running the sessions in his place with the particular focus of someone trying very hard not to be asked about something.

The training itself had shifted in shape and intensity as the playoff fixture approached, which was expected.

What wasn’t expected was the absence becoming a pattern.

A couple of the older players had asked Nolan directly, with Darikwa even personally going to the near management, but he didn’t get a straight answer.

”Don’t know,” Nolan would say when asked.

But what Leo noticed was the glance Nolan gave him whenever someone asked the question.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Leo question what was up and if it involved him!