Chapter 273: [273] "PHOCÉEN RETURN LEG UPCOMING"

The away dressing room at Stade Phocéen was smaller than advertised.

Sqhad of men and their gear were compressed into a space that smelled of another club’s history. The lockers were fine, the showers were adequate, the lighting was the institutional kind that turned every face into something slightly gaunt.

You could tell the stadium designers had designed this room to be functional. Not comfortable, and nothing more.

Visiting teams were supposed to feel like guests here. Visiting teams were supposed to feel the weight of that stadium design choice from the moment they walked through the door.

SC Valois hadn’t received that memo.

Pinto was sitting on the bench nearest the door, already in his kit, his goalkeeper gloves resting on his knee. He hadn’t said anything since they arrived. He didn’t need to. He had started the last few matches in goal, he had kept clean sheets in most of them, and the way he had claimed that starting spot made further conversation unnecessary.

Klaus was pulling his left sock up with deliberate patience, performing his pre-match ritual. He did it the same way every match. Left sock first, adjust, ankle roll, then the right.

Baini was reading something on his phone, one leg crossed over the other, still wearing the team tracksuit top.

The room had a particular texture to it. Not nervous but not relaxed either. It was somewhere in the middle of both, the atmosphere that a squad reaches when the match ahead is large enough to be cautious but required discipline to win.

Hugo unwrapped the tape around his wrist and wrapped it again tighter, the strip of white moving in clean, practiced pulls.

"You’ve done that three times," Luc said.

"I am aware."

"First time was fine if you ask me."

"The tensioning was uneven," Hugo replied, not pausing the rewrapping. "The second was also uneven. This one feels correct."

Luc leaned back against his locker, his arms folded.

"How’s the left unit settling?"

Hugo looked up briefly, the tape now secured. "It is good. My monitors are where I want them. The room is quiet at night. There is no traffic noise and no sirens."

"Exactly as they told us."

"Yep," Hugo confirmed. "The kitchen is also better than I anticipated."

"You cook?"

"I am taking my time to learn."

Bachra looked up from the bench across the room. "You’re learning to cook?"

"I am still seventeen years old for the time being and recently moved out," Hugo said, directing this at Bachra, he found the question slightly beneath him. "At some point, food has to come from somewhere."

"You just order delivery every night then," Bachra said.

"I have ordered delivery twice or three times since moving in," Hugo replied.

"And the other nights?"

"Eggs. Pasta. One attempt at soup that I will not discuss further."

Luc didn’t look up. "What happened to the soup?"

"The issue was with the stock. The stock was...not properly done."

Cillian, across the room, pressed his fist to his mouth and looked at the ceiling. He was trying not to laugh.

In Luc’s unit, Juliette had handled the kitchen within the first forty-eight hours of arriving, methodically unpacking and organizing with the same efficiency she applied to every problem in front of her. The large closet was hers, and there had been no negotiation.

He hadn’t slept this well in months.

There was no traffic noise. There was no city sounds. There was the occasional wind in the pines and the distant sound of nothing at all.

The beds were bigger. The swimming pool sat untouched for now, the weather not yet suitable to bother with it, but it was there, and it mattered.

He had driven to training each morning through the woods road, the car headlights cutting in between the trees before the sunrise. On Wednesday, Henri had run a session that started at eight in the morning and ended when it ended.

There had been no clock on it and Henri hadn’t offered one.

The players had simply run until Henri was satisfied, and nobody had complained out loud because you didn’t complain out loud to Henri.

Nothing specific about the sessions needed describing. What happened on a training pitch was for the training pitch.

What mattered was that Luc arrived in this dressing room feeling sharp in both legs, no residual stiffness, and his touch in training had been clean enough that he had stopped thinking about his touch entirely.

Sordell was doing light shoulder rolls near the far wall, his eyes fixed forward. He had come in for Dário, who had taken a knock to his left ankle in the Thursday session.

Knock for knock.

Nothing serious, Juliette had confirmed before departure, three or four days and he would be fine. But tonight belonged to Sordell, who played the left wing-back role with a slightly different style than Dário. More aggressive. Less refined on the ball but better in the duels. He hadn’t played himself since he took a knock many matches ago.

Gabriel had been moved across to the right back, replacing Aubert, who was at his most effective in the overlap. Gabriel on the right-back channel was a different proposition for Phocéen’s left side to deal with tonight and everyone in this dressing room knew it.

Florez was seated on Luc’s side, stretching his hamstrings with both hands flat on the floor. He wasn’t the youngest player starting.

Amadou was pulling his shirt over his head and adjusting it with both hands. He looked at the away dressing room with a kind of focused absence, already mentally running the match through his head.

Hadj had said almost nothing since the team bus pulled into the stadium car park. His pre-match ritual involved silence and the small photograph he kept folded in the inside pocket of his travel jacket. Luc had known about the photograph but had never asked about it. It wasn’t his to ask about.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

[OBJECTIVE: WIN MD28. SCORE AGAINST STADE PHOCéEN.]

[REWARD: +7 GENERAL POINTS. +5 SKILL POINTS. ALL STATS GAIN +2 PERMANENTLY.]