Every night that week, Thomas closed his eyes and returned to the same empty training pitch inside his head.
The Iniesta construct was waiting – expressionless, patient, technically flawless and they picked up exactly where the last session had left off.
The first night’s score of 6.5 had stung, but it had also shown Thomas exactly how wide the gap was between knowing the right pass and being able to play it.
Now he was grinding that gap down, one session at a time.
So for five days straight, Thomas lived a double life.
During the day, he trained with the first team.
The sessions were an education in humility, everything moved faster, the touches were sharper, the margins for error were razor-thin.
Thomas could keep up with the physical demands, just about, but his technical limitations were on constant display.
Miscontrolled passes.
Heavy first touches.
Moments where his brain knew exactly what to do and his feet did something else entirely.
His teammates were professional about it.
Nobody mocked him openly – this was Serie A, not a schoolyard, but the body language was clear.
The slight pause before passing to him.
The microsecond of hesitation, as if calculating whether the ball would come back cleanly.
Thomas registered all of it and said nothing.
At night, he entered the Neural Training simulation and worked with the Iniesta construct until his eyes burned.
The sessions followed a progression.
They started with the basics – parallel running, one-touch exchanges over ten metres and gradually increased in complexity.
Cross-positioning while changing speed.
Receiving on the half-turn under simulated pressure.
Disguised passes, where the body shape suggested one direction and the ball went another.
Every error was catalogued.
Every correction was demonstrated in slow motion by the simulation, which had the patience of a machine and the technique of a genius.
Thomas would watch the Iniesta construct execute a pass, the relaxed ankle, the precise contact point on the inside of the foot, the subtle opening of the hips and then replicate it.
Again.
And again.
And again, until the neural pathway hardened from conscious effort into something approaching muscle memory.
By Wednesday, his training scores had climbed from 6.5 to 7.5.
The simulation was tracking a metric called proficiency – essentially a measure of how well Thomas’s technique matched the construct’s and his rating with Iniesta had risen to forty percent.
The other constructs (Pirlo, Beckham, Ronaldinho, Xavi) remained at zero, untouched.
By Friday, he’d completed over fifty thousand passes across five sessions.
Short Passing: 58 → 65.
Seven points in five days.
The improvement was significant, it lifted his passing from “Serie C” to “low Serie B,” the level of a middling professional.
Still nowhere near the standard of Kovačić or Hernanes, the men who controlled Inter’s midfield.
But the gap was narrowing.
More importantly, the difference was visible on the training pitch.
On Thursday, during a possession drill, Thomas played a sharp one-two with Kovačić that drew a nod from the Croatian.
On Friday, in a small-sided game, he delivered a first-time pass to Icardi that the striker didn’t have to adjust his stride to collect.
Small moments.
Nothing spectacular.
But Vecchi’s words echoed in his head: footwork can be trained.
Decision-making can’t.
He had the decisions.
Now the feet were slowly, quietly catching up.
Saturday afternoon.
The entire Inter Milan squad boarded the high-speed train to Rome.
Thomas sat by the window, watching the Italian countryside blur past – flat Lombardy farmland giving way to the rolling hills of Emilia-Romagna, then the sharper terrain of Tuscany and Lazio.
Two and a half hours, Milan to Rome, and he spent some of it with his eyes closed, running through passing patterns in his head.
Sunday morning.
Adaptation training at the Stadio Olimpico.
The Roma ground was different from the Meazza, an athletics stadium with a running track around the pitch, which made the crowd feel further away and the acoustics strange.
The grass was good, though, and the light was better than Milan’s late-autumn gloom.
During the training scrimmage, Thomas found himself in a pocket of space near the edge of the box.
The ball came to him from the right, and the Engine barely had time to activate before his instincts took over.
He cushioned the pass with the inside of his right foot, softer than he would have managed a week ago, the ankle relaxed the way the Iniesta simulation had drilled into him and laid it into Icardi’s path with a single touch.
Icardi didn’t even have to break stride.
He took one touch and slotted the ball past the goalkeeper.
The striker turned back, eyebrows raised, and gave Thomas a thumbs-up.
“That was a good ball, Brenner.
Comfortable and easy to finish.” Thomas nodded, trying not to let the satisfaction show on his face.
Comfortable.
That was the word.
Not spectacular, not brilliant – comfortable.
The kind of pass that top strikers build their careers on: the ball arriving at the right speed, in the right position, at the right moment.
No adjustment needed.
Just shoot.
That was what Iniesta did.
Not the flashy pass.
The right pass.
After training, Thomas showered and changed in the visitors’ dressing room.
The facilities at the Olimpico felt sterile and corporate, bright fluorescent lighting, upholstered individual stalls, and private tiled showers, but nobody seemed to notice or care.
Icardi appeared next to him, towelling off his hair.
“Your passing is getting better,” Icardi said, matter-of-factly.
“In the Genoa match, your ideas were good but the execution was all over the place.
Now the weight is much cleaner.
What changed?” Thomas considered his answer carefully.
“I’ve been doing extra sessions.
Focusing on short passing, thousands of reps, every night.
Just trying to close the gap.” “It’s working.
Keep doing it.” Icardi paused, then lowered his voice.
“You know, Hernanes had a choice in the first half today.
I was in a better position, but he played it to Palacio.” “I noticed.” “It’s not a coincidence.
He does it in matches too.
He feeds Palacio first, every time.
I’m the team’s top scorer — seven goals already.
Yet, I’m still getting fewer chances than I should.” Thomas could hear the frustration simmering beneath the surface.
Icardi wasn’t the type to complain loudly – he was too smart for that, too aware of the hierarchy.
But the injustice of it gnawed at him.
“If I’m on the pitch,” Thomas said quietly, “I’ll find you.
Every time.” Icardi looked at him.
The same appraising look he’d given Thomas after the Genoa equaliser, not quite trust, not quite suspicion.
Something in between.
“I believe you,” he said.
“But whether you play or not isn’t up to either of us.” He was right, and Thomas knew it.
His place in the squad was Mancini’s political tool, not a reward for merit.
Getting actual minutes would require something more than talent or desire.
It would require opportunity.
And the courage to seize it when it came.