“Keep up, ten.” I put my head down and ran.
First training session at De Wolfshoeve and my lungs were already on fire, which was bollocks because I’d been running 6 days a week since May and my fitness numbers were the best I’d ever posted.
The pace here was different because these lads moved faster, sharper, all dialled into the same frequency, and nobody’d tuned me in.
At Hartsfield I was the quickest on the pitch.
Here I was chasing shadows, half a second late on everything in a basic possession drill.
“Switch!” The centre-back pinged a ball at my feet.
I took a bad first touch, overran it, scrambled back.
He shook his head but didn’t say anything, because he didn’t need to.
I wiped my face with my shirt, and the number 10 on my back had never felt this heavy.
Same number since youth team, but here it meant more—here it meant starting, or not starting, mattering, or not mattering—and the squad watching me wheeze through a warm-up were probably wondering if the scouting department had gone mad.
I’d only arrived that morning.
The training ground was a converted hunting lodge in the middle of nowhere, grey stone, dark forest on all sides.
I’d expected glass and steel, but what I got looked older than my nan.
Henrik had handed me a packet of pills at orientation—take these twice a day, don’t skip—but I’d been too jet-lagged to ask what they were for, and too distracted by the forest pressing in on all sides to remember them since.
My mum had texted from the car: Eat something, you look thin in photos.
160 pounds, so not thin, just not built the way these lads were.
“You’re dying,” a voice said next to me during the water break.
Blond lad, wiry, grinning too wide for a stranger.
“I can see this.
Your face is the colour of a tomato.” “I’m fine.” “You’re very much not fine.” “Cheers for that.” “I am Tomáš.
Reznik.
Midfielder.” He grabbed my hand with both of his and shook it before I could stop him.
“I am your buddy for today.
Henrik said this.
Also I made tea for you in the kitchen, but it is bad tea, Czech tea.” He paused.
“I’m sorry.” I snorted.
“How bad can tea be?” “My sister says it tastes like the water you boil socks in.
She is a nightmare.
She’s visiting this weekend and she’ll tell me my hair is stupid, which it is not.” He touched his hair, genuinely wounded.
“I’ll drink anythin’ right now,” I said.
“Good.
Because nobody else will drink it.
The Italian goalkeeper said it tasted of sadness.” He took a swig of water and started pointing out the squad.
“That is Baresi, the keeper, Italian, don’t ask him about his diet, he’ll talk for 40 minutes.
The big one there, Van Dijk, centre-back.
He’ll not speak to you for at least 2 weeks, this is normal.
And that one doing sprints alone is Okafor, left winger, Nigerian, very fast, never passes.” “Right.” “Also, the— the training pitches are nice, yes?
Four of them.
Very clean, just don’t let the grass fool you, though.
The gaffer runs sessions harder than any club I have been at.” He lowered his voice.
“You have seen the captain yet?” I looked where he was pointing.
Damjan Kessler, number 6.
I’d read the name on the flight over.
14 years at the club, longest-serving player.
He was running a drill on the other pitch.
6’3″, broad, black hair with grey at the temples.
A scar through his left eyebrow, old, healed white.
He dropped a midfielder with a shoulder feint and played a 30-yard pass without breaking stride.
The ball didn’t bounce though, it just arrived where it needed to be.
Then he barked an instruction at the right-back, short, sharp, and the right-back adjusted his position immediately—no argument, no hesitation.
I watched him for longer than I should’ve.
My hands went cold and I didn’t know why.
“Very good player,” Tomáš said.
“Also very…
how do I say this.” “What?” “Difficult.
He doesn’t enjoy people.” “Any people?” “Most people.
All new people, especially forwards.” He shrugged.
“But he is the best defensive midfielder in the league, so we forgive him.” “Has anyone told him that?” “Many times, he just doesn’t care about this information.” The gaffer blew his whistle, and the groups rotated.
Kessler was on my pitch.
He was quicker than a man that size had any right to be.
First time I tried to turn him, he read it before I’d finished the thought, nicked the ball off my toe and moved on without a glance.
“Quicker, ten.” Low voice, flat, an accent underneath, Eastern European maybe, worn smooth.
He wasn’t even breathing hard.
I looked at Tomáš and Tomáš made a face that said told you.
My jaw locked and I pressed my thumb against the compass tattoo on the inside of my left wrist, the habit I’d had since I was 17, and went again.
He read the 2nd attempt too.
Stepped across, cut my angle, gave me nothing.
3rd time, same result and the man covered ground and made it look effortless while I was burning through my lungs just trying to stay with him.
“Position, Wray,” the gaffer called from the touchline.
“Don’t chase, draw him out.” Right.
Good advice, but would’ve been helpful 30 seconds ago.
So I played a one-two off Tomáš, got the return, and went straight at Kessler because I was pissed off and when I’m pissed off my feet make decisions my brain would never approve.
I nutmegged him.
Clean, and the ball went right through his legs, out the other side.
The pitch went “ohhh,” half-laugh, half-wince.
You don’t nutmeg the captain on your first day.
“Bold,” Tomáš muttered behind me.
“Very bold or very stupid.” “Both,” someone else said.
Baresi, the keeper, grinning from his goal.
“Both is the answer.” Kessler stopped, and he turned and looked at me.
I’ve been sized up by coaches and scouts since I was 14 and none of it felt like this.
His eyes were grey and flat and they moved across my face slow, measuring, and I stood there and let him do it, and I couldn’t look away.
My feet wouldn’t move.
My eyes wouldn’t drop.
I just stood there.
He didn’t say a word.
His jaw tightened then released.
Then we reset and he passed close and I caught his scent, and that’s when my brain stopped working.
It wasn’t cologne or Deep Heat or grass, but just skin, sharp and warm, and it hit the back of my throat and sat there and I missed the next pass because for about 2 seconds I forgot I was on a football pitch.
“Head in the game, Wray,” Tomáš called.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I know.” I didn’t know.
I had no idea what’d just happened, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
My hands were tingling, the back of my neck felt hot and I’d been around sweaty blokes in changing rooms since I was 9 years old and I’d never reacted to anyone’s scent before—not even once, and not the two blokes I’d fumbled with back in London, not anyone.
I got through the rest of the session on autopilot.
After the whistle I pulled my shirt off and the fabric caught on the tattoo along my right ribs, chi cerca trova, the Italian I’d got done without telling my mum because she would’ve cried and then pretended she was fine with it.
He who seeks, finds, and I was starting to wonder what I was looking for.
The dressing room was warm, cramped, and loud with lads peeling off kit, shouting in four languages.
My skin felt wrong, maybe too warm or too tight, and the warmth wasn’t from the session either.
I was heading for the exit when a voice behind me said my name.
“Wray.” I turned, and it was Kessler, just 10 feet away, water bottle in hand.
Both sets of knuckles scarred, old damage maybe?
“Yeah?” He looked at me.
Slow.
Measured.
His nostrils flared, barely, and his jaw clenched and released again.
“Welcome to Valkenburg,” he said, flat, no warmth, and walked away.
I stood there with my pulse hammering and a taste in my mouth, faint, metallic, that hadn’t been there before he got close.
Tomáš appeared at my shoulder.
“See?
Difficult.” “That was a welcome?” “That WAS his welcome.
You should see him when he is not being friendly.” Tomáš studied my face.
“You are alright?” “Fine,” I said, but I wasn’t fine.
“You don’t look fine, you look more like you did after the first drill.
The tomato situation.” “Piss off, Tomáš.” He grinned.
“This is British, yes?
I am learning very fast.” My body knew, but I just wasn’t listening yet.