Mancini let the silence hold for three seconds.
Then he spoke to the room.
“Second half.
We go after them.
I don’t care about anything other than three points from this match.” His gaze moved across the dressing room and settled on Thomas, still sitting in the far corner with a damp towel in his lap.
“You.
The kid from the youth team.
On your feet.” Thomas’s heart lurched.
He stood up.
“Can you understand Italian?” Mancini had switched to English, clipped and direct.
Thomas nodded, then answered in halting Italian – thick accent, clumsy grammar, but intelligible.
“I understand.
My Italian is…
not perfect yet.
English is better.” Mancini’s expression didn’t change.
“Second half.
Guarín off.
You’re on.” The dressing room erupted.
Every head turned toward Thomas.
The murmurs came in quick, overlapping bursts – some in Italian, some in Spanish, some in Portuguese, all carrying the same incredulity.
“Who is this kid?” “No idea.
Never seen him train with us.” “Has he even played a professional match?
Ever?” “Mancini’s lost the plot.
We’re 1-0 down at home and he’s putting on a youth player?” Mancini ignored all of it.
He wasn’t looking at the squad.
He was looking at Guarín.
The message was surgical.
This is what happens when you challenge me.
A teenager with zero professional experience takes your spot.
Guarín’s face darkened.
He stared at the floor, jaw clenched, fists balled on his thighs.
He understood.
Everyone understood.
Mancini straightened his tie – a reflex, a reassertion of control and walked toward the door.
Before leaving, he turned back one last time.
“I don’t care about your caps, your transfer fees, or how important you think you are.
If you challenge my tactics in front of the squad, I will replace you with the youngest body available.
Are we clear?” The door clicked shut behind him.
Berni looked at Thomas, who was still standing, frozen, processing the fact that his Serie A debut had just been announced.
“Well?
What are you waiting for?
Warm up, shin guards on, let’s go!” Berni snapped a towel at him with a grin.
“You’re playing at the Meazza, kid.
Try to enjoy it.” The tunnel was a strange place to absorb what was happening.
Thomas walked behind the rest of the squad, adjusting his shin guards, tugging at his shorts, fiddling with anything he could reach.
The adrenaline was making his hands shake.
He flexed his fingers, clenched and released, trying to burn off the tremor.
Ahead of him, Jonathan fell into step with Campagnaro and spoke in a low voice, not quite low enough.
“We’re a goal down at home, and Mancini brings on a kid who’s never played a professional match.
What are we supposed to do with that?” Campagnaro sighed.
“Guarín ran his mouth.
That’s what happened.
And now we’re all paying for it.” “The kid can barely speak Italian.
How am I supposed to communicate with him on the pitch?” Thomas heard every word.
He kept walking.
Palacio appeared at his shoulder – wiry, intense, all sharp angles and nervous energy.
“Hey.
Listen.
Second half, you need to run.
A lot.
Diagonal runs toward me, pulling defenders wide, creating space in the channels.
Got it?” Palacio’s Italian was rapid-fire, flavoured with a thick Argentine accent that turned every s into a soft sh.
Thomas caught maybe sixty percent of it.
Palacio saw the uncertainty on his face and tried again in Spanish, which didn’t help at all.
“Forget it,” Palacio muttered, waving a hand.
“I’ll sort it out myself.” He walked off.
Thomas didn’t take it personally – Palacio was a thirty-three-year-old professional operating under extreme pressure, and he’d just been told his new midfield partner was a teenager who needed subtitles.
It was a reasonable reaction.
Then a hand settled on Thomas’s shoulder.
A heavy hand, attached to an arm that belonged to someone who stood a full half-head taller than him.
Andrea Ranocchia.
Captain.
One metre ninety-five of encouraging Italian centre-back.
“You’re Brenner, right?
From the Primavera?” “Yes, that’s me.” “Don’t be nervous.
Here’s what you do: run hard, cover ground, help the older legs around you.
You’re eighteen – you’ve got energy they don’t.
Use it.” Thomas nodded.
“When you get the ball,” Ranocchia continued, “think one step ahead.
This is Serie A – the tempo is faster than anything you’ve experienced.
If you need to pass, find Kovačić.
He’s the organiser now that Guarín’s off.
If you’re pressed and there’s no option, just clear it.
Better to give away a throw-in than lose possession in midfield.
Understand?” “Understood.” Ranocchia tapped the Inter crest on Thomas’s chest with his fist.
“You’re wearing this badge now.
That means something.
Sixty thousand people in this stadium are counting on you, even if they don’t know your name yet.
Give them everything you’ve got.” He gave Thomas a thumbs-up and jogged ahead to take his position.
Thomas stepped out of the tunnel and onto the pitch.
The noise hit him first – a wall of sound, dense and physical, pressing against his eardrums from every direction.
Sixty thousand people, most of them angry, most of them anxious, all of them loud.
Then the grass.
The immaculate green of the Meazza pitch under floodlights, striped with mowing lines, firm under his studs.
Then the scale of it.
The stands rising in steep tiers on all four sides, a cathedral of concrete and color, blue-and-black flags rippling in the night air.
Thomas clenched his fists at his sides.
His childhood idol, Ronaldo, the Fenômeno, had worn this same blue-and-black striped shirt.
Had sprinted across this same pitch, in front of crowds just like this one, and done things with a football that had made a small boy in São Paulo fall in love with the sport forever.
And now Thomas was here.
Standing on the same grass.
Wearing the same colours.
Inter Milan.
The Meazza.
He took a breath.
The Engine hummed quietly at the back of his mind, ready, waiting.
I’m here.