October 25, 2017.
England.
Birmingham, Bodymoor Heath.
This was Aston Villa’s youth academy.
As one of the oldest clubs in England, and indeed the world, Aston Villa was the perfect example of a club with a proud and decorated history.
The proof stood right there on the touchline: a balding old man watching the boys sprint across the pitch, his gaze fixed firmly on the action.
His name was Gordon Cowans.
In the 1980-81 season, wearing the No.
10 shirt, he led Aston Villa to their first top-flight league title in seventy years.
A year later, he helped the team defeat Bayern Munich and lift the UEFA Champions League trophy, then went on to beat Barcelona and claim the UEFA Super Cup.
Gordon Cowans, the man who had led Aston Villa to the greatest heights in the club’s history, was undoubtedly one of its finest players.
Right now, as the coach of Aston Villa U16, he stood beside youth development manager Ben Ashby, both of them watching the young player wearing No.
6 on the pitch.
Not because the boy was playing well.
Because he was playing terribly.
“Gordon.”
Ben Ashby spoke softly, choosing his words with care.
After all, the man beside him was a club legend, while he was only twenty-nine and had taken over as youth development manager just two months ago.
“You asked me to come and take a look at this kid.
You said he’s nearly seventeen and that he’s a prospect worth offering a contract to.
But from what I’m seeing…”
He did not finish, because the No.
6 playing defensive midfielder finished the argument for him.
It was a simple defensive situation.
The opposing attacking midfielder made the most basic shoulder drop and change of direction, barely even a feint, yet No.
6 froze on the spot as if nailed to the ground, his center of gravity completely sold.
The opponent slipped an easy through ball in, and his teammate took the pass and shot.
Throughout the entire sequence, all No.
6 did was stand there and turn his head.
Ben Ashby had seen bad players before.
Back when he had been a teacher at Berkshire College of Agriculture, he had also coached the school team part-time.
He had seen every level imaginable.
But a defensive midfielder personally recommended by Gordon Cowans, one supposedly “worth a professional contract,” should not be this poor.
Gordon Cowans said nothing.
His hands were clasped behind his back, his fists clenched tight.
Last weekend, No.
6 Zayn Ryder had played seventy minutes in a friendly against Wigan Athletic U16.
In that match, he had covered the entire central and defensive areas almost by himself, made four interceptions, won eighty percent of his defensive actions, and even sent a long diagonal pass from near the center circle that directly assisted the winger’s goal.
After the match, Cowans had patted him on the shoulder in the dressing room and said, “Keep it up.
A professional contract is right in front of you.”
Then he called Ben Ashby, the man responsible for offering contracts to academy players.
“Ben, come over on Monday and take a look at Zayn.
The lad’s been with me for a whole year.
He isn’t some prodigy who skipped age groups, but his progress has been steady.
He’s physically strong, and his defensive awareness is mature for his age.
He’s about to turn seventeen.
He’s worth a contract.”
On Monday, Ashby came.
But Zayn called in sick.
Cowans said kids got headaches and fevers sometimes.
It was nothing unusual.
On Tuesday, Ashby came again.
Zayn did turn up for training, but he played like someone who had never been a defensive midfielder in his life.
He had no sense of positioning, hesitated on the ball, and even when doing something as basic as shielding with his back to goal, he still let an opponent poke the ball away from under his feet.
Cowans kept trying to explain it to Ashby.
“Maybe he’s only just recovered and his body hasn’t caught up yet.
It’s been getting colder in Birmingham.
Flu season, you know.
Give him one more day.
Come back on Wednesday and have another look.”
Today was Wednesday.
Ben Ashby took out his phone and glanced at his schedule.
He had given Gordon Cowans three days, specifically to watch one U16 defensive midfielder.
And now he felt as though he had wasted his time.
“Gordon.”
He slipped his phone back into his pocket, keeping his tone as even as he could.
“I understand you’re attached to the lad.
You’ve had him in the U16s for a long time, so of course you know him better than I do.
But my job is to assess him objectively.
Between yesterday and today, I’ve watched two training sessions.
His performances are not at the level required for a professional contract.
I don’t even know how he managed to get an ‘Apprentice contract.’ If I sign him, the U18 head coach will ring me next month and tear into me, asking if the boy is my illegitimate son.”
Gordon Cowans finally turned around.
The fifty-nine-year-old was not tall.
He was balding, wearing an old Villa training top that had clearly been washed too many times.
There was no anger on his face, only silence.
In that silence were disappointment and unwillingness, but not the slightest intention of arguing.
Because every word Ashby said was true.
Cowans had spent his whole life as a player and a coach.
He knew the difference between a dip in form and a lack of ability.
Zayn’s last two days were not a dip in form.
It was as if he no longer knew how to play football at all.
But he could not understand it.
He had coached Zayn for a full year.
The boy’s physical qualities were among the best in his age group, and his defensive awareness had been genuinely trained into him.
He was not comparable to those prodigies who jumped to the U18s or U21s at fifteen, but he was steady.
He improved every single week.
For an academy player about to turn seventeen, that kind of continuous growth was worth a professional contract.
Cowans had seen too many boys given up on at this age.
It was not that they had no talent.
They were just missing a little time and a piece of paper.
He did not want Zayn to become one of them.
“Give him one more friendly.
We’ve got Liverpool U16 this weekend.
I’ll have him play the full match.
If he still isn’t good enough… I won’t stop you anymore.”
Ben Ashby looked at the old man’s face and swallowed what he had been about to say.
Forget it.
He had already waited three days.
A few more would not matter.
“Fine.
We’ll watch one more match.”
…
Austin Sun had been standing outside the front door for three minutes, the key clenched in his palm, his grip tightening again and again, yet he still could not bring himself to pull it from his pocket.
Because behind that door was Zayn Ryder’s “home.”
Even after three days of “soul transfer,” he still had not gotten used to it.
Then again, who could possibly have experience with something like this?
In his previous life, Austin had been an orphan.
After leaving the orphanage, he had sold insurance, run a street stall, worked as a real estate agent, anything that could make money.
His last job before the soul transfer had been in Shanghai, where his title was designer but his actual job was sales.
The last night in his memory, he had been pulling all-nighters for days, clinging to the final breath before the deadline as he sent the client a proposal that had been revised more than a dozen times.
The client replied, “It doesn’t feel right.
Let’s just go back to the first version.”
Austin’s final thought had been to drag that damned client onto the highway and see who got lucky.
Before he could put it into action, his vision went black.
When he woke up, everything had changed.
Now, his name was Zayn Ryder.
White skin, blond hair, blue eyes.
Sixteen years old, 1.82 meters tall, playing defensive midfielder for Aston Villa U16.
His father was a factory worker, his mother a junior accountant, he had a sharp-tongued younger sister about to start middle school, and the family also had an old, dark brown golden retriever named Biscuit.
Everything about this family existed only in the original body’s memories.
If he walked inside, he would have to play the part of a son and an older brother.
And that thick Birmingham accent from everyone in the house always made him think, in a daze, of the nights he had stayed up watching Peaky Blinders.
So Austin stood outside the door, trying to sort out what was going on in his head first.
The translucent screen in his field of vision was still hanging there.
It had not disappeared once since his soul transfer.
The interface was extremely simple, like a pane of frosted glass suspended in the air, its edges glowing faintly blue.
There was only one line of text in the center:
[Salary Football System (Loading Progress: 99%)]
Aside from that, there was nothing.
No stats panel.
No buttons he could press.
He had a “hack,” but the hack refused to load.
That felt worse than having no hack at all.
He would rather never have seen this screen in the first place.
At least then, he could accept his fate with a clear conscience and quietly go become a reborn business tycoon.
“What the hell is this system doing?”
“If you’re giving me a system, at least give me one that works properly!”