Harbinger Of Glory

Most of the squad had disappeared after lunch.

Some had gone back to their rooms.

Others had found teammates to spend the afternoon with.

Leo, on the other hand, had turned into an explorer of sorts, so much so that he’d much so that he’d walked past the same pitch twice and had only realised it when he recognised a row of training mannequins standing beside the touchline.

Not that it mattered, but for the first time since arriving, there was nowhere he needed to be, and so he kept walking through the grounds at whatever pace felt natural to him, occasionally stopping to look at a photograph on a wall or a name engraved somewhere it deserved to be remembered.

An hour later, Leo pushed his room door open and found Carlo and Udogie exactly where he’d left them.

Both were sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television, controllers in hand and eyes fixed on the screen.

The match looked tense enough that neither acknowledged his arrival.

A PlayStation sat beneath the television with its cables stretched across the carpet, while an open bag of gummies and several half-destroyed packets of snacks occupied the space between them like match-day refreshments.

Leo stepped over the mess blocking their vision a bit, but they all leaned to their sides to still keep the television in their vision without acknowledging him.

”Good to see you both had a productive afternoon.”

Carlo shushed absent-mindedly, asking for silence without taking his eyes off the screen, while Udogie leaned forward.

”Don’t talk.”

”Why?”

”It’s the eighty-ninth minute.”

Leo glanced at the television, about to comment, but then Udogie’s player slipped through on goal, and both men lurched forward at the same time, instantly reminding Leo why he’d been perfectly happy spending the afternoon elsewhere.

”NOOOOOOOOO!!” Carlo groaned as the effort from Udogie’s player found the back of the net, all while Udogie flexed his muscles.

”Did you two not leave?” Leo said as their gazes found him sharply.

”You’ve been gone two hours,” Carlo said while glancing back at the screen.

”You took your keycard. What were we supposed to do?”

At that, it hit him that he’d unknowingly locked them in the room.

”Sorry about that,” he said, and walked further into the room.

”Half an hour till training,” he said, setting his bag on the bed and then glancing over at the two, who nodded without looking away from the new match they’d just started.

”You want to go down early? Kick about a bit before it starts?”

When he said that, Udogie paused the game, as the two men considered it with the genuine deliberation of men weighing a real option, and then both shook their heads almost simultaneously, the second after that.

”Nah,” Carlo said.

”Nah,” Udogie confirmed.

Leo picked two boots from his bag, dropped them into a ziplock, and headed for the door.

”Suit yourselves,” he said.

He was halfway out when he turned back and re-entered the room.

”Bring my keycard when you come down.”

Neither of them responded, but he knew they’d heard it, and he left.

The walk to the main pitch took about seven minutes, and when he got there, the groundskeeping staff were already arranging balls around the training area and making sure that everything was fit for the session that was about to go on.

Leo passed them, greeted and then made his way over to the largest pitch around.

There, he sat on the bleachers beside the pitch and changed into his training shorts, a sleeveless top, short socks, and then the green Skechers, and stepped onto the grass.

He started with the ball at his feet, just walking with it, no purpose yet, getting the feel of a different surface under a different sky.

Then he followed that with a light jog, the ball moving with him, and then some juggling afterwards.

Following that, he transitioned to shooting, standing back from the goal, working through the range of it, some with pace and some with placement, feeling for where his body was today.

After a while, he set one up and stepped into it, catching it clean.

It rose toward the top corner with pace, crashed against the underside of the crossbar, and dropped behind the line before racing through the roof of the net.

The mesh rippled violently as the ball travelled its full length before finally settling against the base of the goal.

Leo stood admiring his work, but it wasn’t just him as a low whistle soon drew him to look at the side and there, Marco Piatelli was standing beside the pitch with his hands in his tracksuit pockets, watching him, and behind him the first wave of players was beginning to make its way down from the complex.

A second later, Marco walked over.

”When did you unlock that?” he said, nodding toward the goal while Leo laughed.

”A while back.”

Marco nodded, the nod of someone filing information.

”Well, get to gathering the balls,” he said. ”We’re starting soon.”

Leo nodded and went around collecting them into the bag as the pitch filled, players arriving in ones and twos and bits of their conversations flowing around the pitch.

Spalletti came through the gate a few minutes later with one of his assistants at his side, speaking quietly as they walked.

Whatever they were discussing ended midway across the pitch as his eyes found the players, and from that moment on, the conversation ceased to exist.

He continued forward, taking in the group gathered before him as the assistant fell silent beside him.

”When we’re in a session,” he said, ”I need the highest level of professionalism you have. Save the other stuff for outside. In here, we work.”

He didn’t waste any time with pleasantries and quickly got into it, pulling a sheet from his underarm.

After that, he turned toward a rolling bin that had been brought onto the pitch, full of bibs in three colours.

”I’m going to call names,” he said.

”And when I call yours, I’ll tell you which colour to take.”

He looked up at the players after that, receiving a round of nods and hums before he started going through them.