January 4th, 2014.
Stoke-on-Trent, England.
The Britannia Stadium, with its capacity of twenty-eight thousand, was already shaking with the roar of Stoke City supporters.
This was the third round of the FA Cup.
The match clock read seventy-five minutes.
The score held at 1-0, the home side Stoke City leading the visiting Leicester City by one.
Leicester were still fighting in the Championship back then, clearly a cut below the Premier League’s Stoke City.
So the game had largely been Stoke pinning Leicester in their own half and raining down shots.
The brutal pressure had Leicester’s manager Nigel Pearson, his staff, and the players on the bench wearing grim expressions the whole time.
But on that away bench sat a sharp-featured young man with black hair.
His eyes were locked on the pitch, mouth muttering in barely audible Chinese under his breath.
“Space right there for a through ball!” “Way too slow on the pass.
Zero danger there.” “How is Nugent this bad?
Sub him off already.
Put me in there, I’d link up with Vardy ten times better than this.” None of his Leicester teammates on the bench could have guessed that their squadmate was busy running a full tactical commentary from the sideline, as if sending him on would flip the match in an instant.
Twenty-four Championship rounds in, Leicester were top of the table.
They had a real shot at the title this season and promotion to the Premier League.
On top of that, the first-choice players had just fought through a league match three days earlier.
With his starters’ legs in mind and the stakes of this fixture considered, Nigel Pearson leaned over and murmured a few words to his assistant Steve Walsh.
The decision was made.
They would strategically let this low-priority cup tie go and focus everything on the league title race.
Pearson turned and scanned the bench, a row of young faces brimming with hunger.
His gaze paused for a moment on the black-haired young man.
The kid’s profile snapped into his head automatically.
Leo Hale.
English-born Chinese.
Eighteen.
Midfielder in the Leicester City U21 squad.
Solid fundamentals, comfortably above U21 squad average.
The standout quality his youth coaches never shut up about?
His work rate.
After the team’s daily sessions, he stayed out by himself drilling every individual skill.
But that was where his talent ended.
As a midfielder, his vision was middling.
He couldn’t deliver a killer pass that split lines.
No close control to beat a man and pull defenders out of position.
No physical dominance or defensive bite, either.
No sharp off-the-ball movement.
No late runs into the box to unload from range.
The one thing worth mentioning?
A massive engine that let him run end to end all match long.
In short: a painfully average talent with no standout trait, trying to close the gap to the naturally gifted through sheer effort.
In competitive sport, every coach has a soft spot for a hard worker.
Pearson was no different.
As a reward for his relentless application in training, and to rest the starters for a cup game they were fine losing, Pearson had decided to include him and another standout U21 kid in the eighteen-man squad facing Stoke City.
They had already written this one off, so the result didn’t matter.
May as well give the young lads their first-team debut.
The thought crystallized into action.
“Jamal!” “Mahrez!” “Hale!” “Get up and warm up!” On the bench, a good-looking young African lad and an older-seeming Black kid shot to their feet.
The black-haired young man whose name had just been called blinked.
“Wait.
I’m actually getting subbed on?!” Nobody knew that inside this eighteen-year-old body lived a soul from ten years in the future.
Three days ago, Leo Hale of 2024 had been in a car crash.
When he opened his eyes again, he was a decade back.
Same name.
A mixed-race British-Chinese kid in the Leicester City U21s.
And even more shocking, a Green Legend System had come with him.
The moment he made the eighteen-man squad for the away trip to Stoke, the system had booted up and dropped a Newbie Chest in his lap.
Inside the chest was a [Prime Kevin De Bruyne] player card.
Cracking it open gave Leo a single attribute and a single talent off peak Kevin De Bruyne.
Leo had barely processed getting a literal cheat code yesterday.
Now he was about to come off the bench.
“The universe is just handing this to me.” A dozen one-match-wonder storylines flashed through his head in an instant.
He snapped out of the daze and launched himself off the bench, sprinting to the touchline to warm up.
A few minutes later, the warm-ups done, Leo pulled on the number 23 shirt with “HALE” across the back and joined his two teammates on the sideline.
He glanced to his right at the good-looking African kid.
The guy’s stats popped into his mind right away.
One of the architects of the Foxes miracle.
The first African to win Premier League MVP.
The one they called King Mahrez.
Riyad Mahrez.
At this moment, Mahrez had just arrived from Le Havre in Ligue 2.
He had yet to play a single minute for Leicester.
This FA Cup outing wasn’t just Leo’s professional debut.
It was also Mahrez’s first match in a Leicester shirt.
Leo caught the way Mahrez was rubbing his hands together, maybe fighting off some nerves.
Without really thinking, he reached over and patted him on the shoulder.
“Hey, man.
Welcome to England.” Mahrez turned toward the black-haired Asian kid beside him, caught off guard for a beat.
A small ripple spread through him.
It was his first time suiting up for Leicester, and the opponent was a Premier League team.
Of course he was a little tense.
Leo’s easy smile loosened something in his chest.
The two of them were both mixed-race, their coloring closer than the others.
Mahrez felt a flicker of kinship with the dark-haired young man who’d broken the silence.
He gave Leo a nod and answered in his stiff English voice.
“Thanks.” Leo grinned and turned to his other side, smacking palms with Jamal, the Black holding midfielder he knew better from the U21s.
The two of them traded quick encouragement.
“Let’s go, Jamal.” “Same to you, Leo.” A few paces away, Nigel Pearson’s eyebrow rose a fraction.
“The kid’s got some real composure to him.” He had no way of knowing that under Leo’s calm surface, a storm was churning.
A future Premier League MVP stood right beside him.
The Stoke supporters’ chants rang in his ears, layered over the shouts of players on the pitch.
The raw electricity of the stadium had him completely.
Even the grassy scent of the pitch, the faint earthy smell drifting into his nose, made his heart pound faster.
Excitement, nerves, adrenaline, all knotted together.
He had fantasized about this forever.
Standing on a top-five-league pitch as a professional, drinking in the roar of the crowd.
And now he was here.
On the stage of the FA Cup, a tournament with more than a century of history.
Facing a Premier League team.
This was insane.
This was everything.
The assistant coach pulled the three of them in and ran through the tactical points at lightning speed.
In summary: go out there and figure it out.
They waited on the touchline for a stoppage.
It came soon enough.
The fourth official, ready for several minutes now, raised the substitution board.
The stadium announcer’s voice boomed through the PA system.
“Eighty minutes gone, and Leicester are preparing a triple substitution.” “Number 26, Riyad Mahrez, replaces number 35, David Nugent.” “Number 26 Mahrez is Leicester’s new signing, just in from Ligue 2 Le Havre for a fee of five hundred thousand euros.
Numbers 23 and 37 are two youngsters freshly promoted from the Leicester youth setup.” “Looks like Leicester are ready to pack it in.” Amid the Stoke fans’ relentless singing, Leo set his right foot onto the grass with a rush of pure adrenaline.
Leicester’s default shape was a 4-4-2.
But after pulling starting striker Nugent off, they only had one man left up top.
Jamie Vardy.
The future soul of the Foxes.
Pearson signaled the adjustment.
The team shifted into a 4-2-3-1.
Leo would sit in the hole as the attacking midfielder.
Mahrez slotted in on the right wing.
The other Black kid, also called up from the U21s, dropped into the holding midfield two.
“Come on, boys!
Keep fighting!” Leo watched Vardy at the tip of the spear, arms raised, rallying his teammates, and a strange, dizzying feeling washed over him in a wave.
His whole life, he’d only ever controlled these real-world stars through a video game controller.
But right now, right here, he was on the pitch with Vardy and Mahrez.
Actual teammates.
Fighting the same fight.
The Stoke fans’ chants, sharp and soaring.
The announcer’s voice.
The players calling out to each other.
Every sound was so vivid, so impossibly real.
Leo’s fists clenched without thinking.
His expression, his eyes, hardened into focus.
The football dream he’d carried for so long was right in front of him.
Real.
Tangible.
His only job now was to not let it slip.
To grip this once-in-a-lifetime chance with both hands and never let go.
Maybe Stoke saw Leicester burning all three substitutions at once with the lead in hand, because they responded by pulling three of their own starters to rest.
Even so, the stronger Stoke side kept Leicester penned in their own half, probing for a second goal to kill the match for good.
But Vardy’s rallying cry had lit something.
The Leicester players dug in, all eleven dropping deep into their own territory.
Leo was no exception.
With the defensive block packed so tight, there wasn’t much room for Stoke to thread passes through.
Stoke midfielder Charlie Adam, pressing high and impatient, let his attacking instincts take over.
He pulled the trigger from the edge of the box, a snap strike out of nowhere.
The ball rocketed forward, only to slam into the body of Jamal, the Black holding midfielder just subbed on.
It ricocheted into the air.
Leicester center-back Wasilewski rose up on the spot and launched a towering header.
The ball sailed clear, out of the penalty area.
Leo tracked its flight all the way.
His eyes sharpened.
One step forward.
Chest.
The ball dropped softly to his feet, glued there.
Every pair of eyes in the Britannia locked onto him.
Leo looked down at the ball.
A flash of options burst through his mind.
In the next heartbeat, the decision was made.
The counterattack starts now.
The black-haired kid in the blue number 23 shirt nudged the ball with the outside of his right boot, pushing it slightly ahead to his right.
He didn’t look up.
No hesitation.
Right leg cocked back, then whipped forward, the inside of his foot driving cleanly through the ball.
A ground through ball.
A surgical blade sliding across the grass.
The ball skimmed low and fast over the turf, arrowing from the center circle.
It traveled sixty yards, slicing the gap between Stoke’s two remaining defenders with pinpoint precision, rolling out into open space at the edge of the Stoke penalty area.
And a blue number 9 thundered into the frame.
Leicester’s lone striker, Jamie Vardy.