Chapter 274: [274] "PHOCÉEN RETURN LEG IMMINENT"

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

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

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

[REMINDER: IF FRESKO OUTSCORES YOU TONIGHT, THE GOLDEN BOOT LEAD IS REVERSED.]

Luc stared at the notification for the amount of time it deserved.

The clock on the dressing room wall read six forty-seven.

Henri had not come in yet.

That was intentional on his part. Henri had walked the dressing room earlier, during the warmup window. He had stood in the doorway, looked at the room, and walked away without saying anything. It was a kind of trust that he extended only when he believed the group did not need the speech.

The speech had already been delivered across days of preparation. Anything he said now would just be words filling space.

The team understood what was required of them.

Phocéen played a high-possession 4-3-3 built around Neji’s ability to circulate the ball through the thirds without telegraphing his next pass until it had already left his foot.

Fresko worked off the blind side of the defensive line, collecting in the pocket between the last defender. Months ago, that pocket had been exploited twice in one match.

It was not getting exploited tonight...at least Valois hoped not.

Cillian was taping his shin pad into place, the white strapping going beneath the sock twice before he cut it and smoothed it down with his thumb.

He caught Luc’s eye across the room.

Cillian had matured significantly. The version of Cillian Doyle that chased with uninstructed aggression and opened gaps was still recognizably the same player, but there was a different quality to him now. Less reactive. He understood his defensive territory.

He understood what pressing was for and what it cost when it failed. Henri had embedded that understanding across months of instruction and of repetition until it stopped being instruction and became instinct.

Luc would still take Hugo in the midfield over anyone on this squad. But tonight Hugo was somewhere else, somewhere higher on the pitch and what Cillian could do in that defensive-midfield space had become reliable enough to trust.

Klaus stood up from the bench. He stretched his neck slowly, left then right. He walked to the center of the room. He picked up a bottle of water from the table, drank half, set it back down, and turned toward the door.

Bachra was bouncing near the wall, a tight, compressed energy radiating off him. He had been in brilliant form not-so-recently, his movement off the ball direct and unpredictable, arriving in sharp bursts that gave defenders no time to adjust.

Tonight he was starting on the right wing instead of Gabriel. Henri had a reason for it. He always had a reason for it.

The intercom in the dressing room cracked.

"SC Valois. Tunnel. Three minutes."

Nobody shouted. Nobody clapped. No manufactured noise. The room just began to move, a squad that had been in this exact situation enough times now to know exactly what came next.

---

The tunnel was cool and narrow.

The strip lighting overhead ran the length of it, casting long shadows on the smooth walls. Somewhere at the far end of the tunnel, the noise of the stadium filtered in as a low vibration. Twenty-nine thousand people in a Phocéen kit, drinking in what the evening had promised them. A swing at beating Valois ahead of them. A Golden Boot swing. Their striker, two goals behind the American, but no doubt ready to level everything.

The Phocéen XI was lining up a distance ahead. Luc could see their blue kits from the far end of the tunnel.

Pinto stood at the front of the Valois line.

Behind him, Hadj and Amadou, shoulder to shoulder, both silent.

Florez was on the outside, young and composed. Gabriel stood on the right side of the back line, which was the wrong position for him by convention but the right position by tonight’s logic.

Klaus behind the defenders was in the base of the midfield. Cillian to his left. Hugo directly ahead of both of them.

Sordell on the left after so long. Bachra on the right, still bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.

Luc at the front.

He stood with his eyes forward, looking down the tunnel’s length toward the Phocéen players.

Fresko was standing at the front of the Phocéen line.

The Phocéen striker was taller than he appeared on screen. He had the build of a center forward who had been trained to receive with his back to goal, the kind of frame that made pressing him directly a losing proposition for most center-backs. He stood with his hands at his sides, his blue kit pressed and clean. He was looking forward, down the tunnel toward the light at the end of it.

His expression was calm.

Thirty goals. Two behind Luc at thirty-two. The margin had evaporated and expanded in the weeks since the injury layoff and after Luc’s recovery. The gap that had sat and felt comfortable had been run down, then extended in the blink of a match.

One match left in the direct head-to-head before the final day of the season.

Luc looked at him.

Fresko did not look back. Not yet anyday.

Behind Fresko, Neji was standing with his arms crossed, talking quietly to the Phocéen right midfielder beside him. He had the same quality about him that Luc remembered from November. That unhurried, already-thinking-ahead energy.

The kind that made you understand immediately why his team recycled everything through him. Because every time the ball came back to Neji, it left in a better direction than it had arrived.

Hugo was behind Luc’s right shoulder.

He was standing straight, eyes forward, looking down the tunnel past the Valois players in front of him toward the Phocéen line.

He had spotted Neji.

Luc could feel it without looking at him. The slight shift in Hugo’s posture, the way the teenager stopped his subtle pre-match movement and went still instead. The way someone’s body tightens the moment they have identified the problem they are about to spend ninety minutes solving.