The contract was a single sheet of paper on Mancini’s desk, weighted down by a silver pen.
Thomas sat across from the head coach, pulse drumming in his ears.
Behind Mancini, covering the entire back wall, the 2010 treble-winners grinned down from their poster – Zanetti with the trophy, Milito mid-roar, Sneijder’s arms spread wide.
The same image Thomas had stared at in Vecchi’s office weeks ago.
Now he was signing a contract in the room next door.
Five years.
Four hundred thousand euros per year, after tax.
First-team base salary.
Thomas picked up the pen.
His hand was steady, steadier than he expected.
He signed.
The instant the ink touched paper, something shifted inside his skull.
A chime, clean and resonant, followed by the Engine’s voice, not a sound, exactly, but a presence, a crystallisation of meaning that arrived fully formed: [First-team professional contract confirmed.] [Pitch Vision Engine upgraded.
Basic Level → Intermediate Level.] [New capability unlocked: Neural Training Mode.] Thomas kept his face neutral.
Mancini was watching him with a look that was half warmth, half calculation, the expression of a man who’d just acquired a chess piece and was already thinking three moves ahead.
“Train hard, Brenner.
I expect good things.” “I won’t let you down, Coach.” A brief handshake.
A photographer from the club’s media team took a picture of them together, Thomas holding the contract, Mancini with a hand on his shoulder, both smiling.
It would appear on the club website within the hour.
The announcement was modest.
A single item on Inter Milan’s homepage: Inter Milan is pleased to confirm that 18-year-old Thomas Brenner has signed a first-team professional contract with the club.
Below the photo, a short Q&A with Mancini from Inter Milan TV: – “Why Brenner?” “Because I see potential in him.
In my view, Thomas already has qualities that can contribute at Serie A level.” – “His assist in the Genoa match?” “Yes, he made a direct impact, and that’s a significant part of why he’s been promoted.” – “His characteristics?” “Thomas is a versatile player who can operate across multiple positions in midfield and attack.” – “How many opportunities will he get?” “Under my management, everyone’s chances are earned equally.
Inter Milan is a club built on merit, that’s been true since the day it was founded.” The Italian sports press noted it in passing.
A youth player signing a first-team deal wasn’t unusual, it happened at every big club, every season.
A few fan forums speculated about whether Brenner’s Genoa performance had been genuine or lucky, but the thread was buried within a day.
Before moving into the first-team dormitory, Thomas went back to the Primavera building to collect his things and say goodbye.
His youth-team teammates reacted the way youth-team teammates always do when one of their own gets promoted: with a thin layer of congratulations over a thicker layer of envy.
A few handshakes, a couple of genuine smiles, and a lot of eyes that said why him and not me?
Thomas didn’t blame them.
He’d have felt the same way.
Vecchi was waiting in his office.
The Primavera coach closed the door, sat Thomas down, and spoke to him with the directness of a man who knew this might be their last private conversation for a while.
“Listen to me carefully, because I’m only going to say this once.
At a club like Inter Milan, the dressing room is complicated.
There are egos, alliances, politics – things that have nothing to do with football but can destroy a young player’s career if he’s not careful.” Vecchi leaned forward.
“As a newcomer, your job is simple: keep your head down, train harder than everyone else, and don’t take sides.
Don’t get drawn into anyone’s drama.
Just work.” Thomas nodded.
“Your strength is your understanding of the game.
Your reading of play is exceptional – I’ve told you that, and I mean it.
But your fundamentals are still weak.
Your touch, your passing weight, your weak foot, all of it needs work.
The first team will expose those weaknesses every single day.
So do extra training after sessions.
Every day.
No exceptions.” “Yes Coach.
I will.” Vecchi hesitated, then added: “If you ever need advice, real advice, from someone who isn’t playing political games, go and talk to Zanetti.
He’s moved upstairs now as the Vice-president, but he still comes to the training ground most days.
He is a good man.
He’s been at this club for twenty years, and he’s helped more young players than anyone.
You can trust him.” Thomas stood and extended his hand.
Vecchi took it, held it for a moment, and then pulled him into a brief, firm hug – the kind coaches give when they’re proud but don’t want to say it out loud.
“Go on.
Go be a first-team player.” Thomas moved into the first-team dormitory that evening.
The room was small but private – a single bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a window overlooking the oak trees that lined the Appiano Gentile training complex.
It was quiet.
The senior players all lived off-site in apartments and villas across Milan; the only people who stayed at the base were the ones who couldn’t afford not to.
Thomas set his laptop on the desk, sat down, and closed his eyes.
[Neural Training Mode.] The Engine had explained the new capability in a compressed burst of information during the contract signing, and Thomas had spent the afternoon turning it over in his mind.
The concept was extraordinary: a fully immersive mental simulation that allowed him to train inside his own head.
Not visualisation – not the sports-psychology trick of imagining yourself making passes.
Actual neural-pathway training, where the simulated repetitions produced real, measurable improvements in his physical technique.
The Engine could generate AI-modelled versions of world-class players as training partners.
Their movement patterns, passing rhythms, and technical tendencies were reconstructed from the thousand matches Thomas had already fed into the system.
They weren’t perfect replicas, they were data composites, stripped of personality, operating like highly sophisticated practice dummies.
But their technique was real.
Their passing weight was real.
And the feedback they provided was calibrated to Thomas’s specific weaknesses.
The catch: the improvements were incremental.
This wasn’t a cheat code.
It was the equivalent of hiring the world’s best private coach for unlimited extra sessions – sessions that didn’t drain his physical stamina, didn’t require a pitch, and could be done at any hour.
The gains would be real, but gradual.
A point here, a point there.
Weeks and months of compound improvement.
Thomas opened his eyes.
Took a breath.
Let’s see what this thing can do.
He closed his eyes again and activated the mode.
The simulation materialised around him – a training pitch, empty, lit by flat, neutral light.
No crowd, no weather, no distractions.
Just grass and white lines and silence.
In front of him stood a row of figures.
Motionless, expressionless, waiting.
Thomas recognised them immediately from their body shapes and stances: Pirlo, Beckham, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta.
Five of the greatest passers in football history, reconstructed from data, standing in a line like mannequins in a shop window.
Thomas walked up to the nearest one – Iniesta and studied the simulation closely.
The face was accurate.
The build was right.
The posture was eerily authentic, down to the slight forward lean that the Spaniard carried in his natural stance.
But the eyes were blank.
No warmth, no intelligence.
A tool, not a person.
Select your training partner.
“Iniesta.” Thomas chose.
Thomas chose Iniesta for a reason.
Pirlo’s genius was the long diagonal – the sixty-yard switch of play that turned defence into attack with a single stroke.
Beckham’s was the cross, the curving delivery from wide positions.
Xavi orchestrated tempo from deep, controlling the rhythm of an entire match through metronome passing.
All extraordinary.
All wrong for Thomas’s situation.
He knew that if he ever got meaningful minutes, would be in the number ten role or slightly deeper, linking midfield to attack.
That meant short, quick, incisive passing in tight spaces.
Iniesta was the master of exactly that: the Barcelona midfielder’s ability to receive under pressure, turn, and deliver a perfectly weighted pass in confined areas was arguably the best in the world.
The simulation Iniesta moved into position, ten metres away, and they began.
Simple one-touch passing while jogging in parallel.
The most basic drill in football, maintaining connection with a moving teammate through continuous, rhythmic exchanges.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thomas’s technique was immediately exposed.
His ankle was too stiff, locking the joint the way he would for a shot, not relaxing it the way a passer should.
His body lean was wrong, tilting too far forward on some deliveries and sending the ball bouncing instead of rolling.
His lead on the pass, the spatial calculation of where the moving target would be when the ball arrived was inconsistent.
Every time he made an error, the simulation Iniesta paused, stepped back, and demonstrated the correct technique in slow motion.
No words – just precise, mechanical repetition of the right body shape, the right contact point, the right follow-through.
Thomas copied.
Adjusted.
Tried again.
Failed.
Adjusted again.
For five hours, he didn’t stop.
When Thomas opened his eyes, the room was dark.
The clock read 11:30 PM.
He sat very still for a moment, processing.
Five hours of intensive passing drills – thousands of repetitions and he felt no physical fatigue at all.
His legs weren’t heavy.
His muscles weren’t sore.
His stamina was untouched.
But something had changed.
He could feel it in his hands – no, in his feet.
A subtle recalibration, as if the neural pathways between his brain and his ankles had been re-wired with slightly better wiring.
The memory of correct body shape during a pass felt more accessible, more instinctive, than it had that morning.
A chime sounded internally.
[Ding…
First Neural Training session complete.] [Training partner: Iniesta.
Passes completed: 6,282.
Session score: 6.5 out of 10.] [Attribute update: Short Passing – 58 → 59.] One point.
Five hours of work for a single point of improvement.
Thomas exhaled slowly.
It wasn’t much.
But it was real.
And he knew it would compound.
If he could improve by even half a point per day, consistently, for months, while also training physically with the first team during the day, the gap between his vision and his execution would start to close.
Not overnight.
Not dramatically.
But steadily, invisibly, in a way that no one around him would be able to explain.
He looked out the window.
The oaks rustled in the November wind.
Moonlight fell across the training pitches in long, cold stripes.
A knock on the window made him jump.
A face appeared in the glass – grinning, slightly manic, framed by messy hair.
Federico Bonazzoli.
“Porra!” Thomas hissed, clutching his chest.
“You scared the hell out of me.” “Thomas!
My friend!
My neighbour!
Want to come out tonight?
I know a place in Navigli – great music, great people, very lively.” Thomas pointed at the laptop on his desk, which was queued up with a Serie A match from 2012.
“I’m watching football.” “Watching football?
Now?
It’s nearly midnight!
Come on, live a little – you’re eighteen, not eighty.” “You go.
I need to study this match.” Bonazzoli hauled himself halfway through the window, grabbed Thomas’s arm, and tried to physically drag him toward the door.
Thomas resisted with the calm, immovable patience of someone who had already made up his mind.
“Seriously, Thomas, are you actually eighteen?
You act like one of those old coaches who’ve forgotten what fun is.” “The girls will drain your legs.
You want to sign a first-team contract or not?” That landed.
Bonazzoli’s face flickered – just for a second, with something that wasn’t quite embarrassment but wasn’t quite not.
He’d been with the first team for six months and still hadn’t been offered a professional deal.
Thomas, who’d arrived weeks ago, already had one.
“Low blow,” Bonazzoli muttered.
He made a mock-threatening gesture, then clambered back out the window, deliberately scuffing the white wall with his shoe as he went.
Thomas smiled and turned back to his laptop.
The system had given him a new feeding task: five hundred more match replays, this time focused specifically on Serie A.
Different league, different tempo, different tactical culture.
The Engine needed Italian football data to refine its predictions for the context Thomas was actually playing in.
He pressed play and settled in for a long night.
At half past two in the morning, Bonazzoli stumbled past Thomas’s window on his way back from Navigli, reeking of beer and cologne.
The light was still on.
“Lunatic,” Bonazzoli slurred, shaking his head.
“Absolute lunatic.”