The morning sun over Pitch 4 was dry and sharp, hitting the whitewashed perimeter walls with a glare that forced Alejandro to narrow his eyes.
The air smelled of eucalyptus and freshly clipped rye grass.
It lacked the heavy, wet chill of Body Moor Heath, but the pitch itself was slick—watered heavily thirty minutes before the U19 squad stepped through the gates.
Alejandro bent down to double-knot Harrison’s left boot.
The leather cap was supple, but the extra quarter-inch of space near the big toe meant his foot slid forward whenever he planted his heel hard.
A Portuguese staff member in a green track jacket stood near the corner flag, adjusting an electronic timer clipped to a metal clipboard.
He didn’t offer a greeting, nor did he check the names on Davies’s official list.
“White bibs,” the staff member muttered in English, gesturing toward a plastic hamper resting on the touchline.
“Right wing, left wing, two central.
Forty-five minutes straight.
No water breaks until thirty.”
Sean Davies leaned against the chain-link fence twenty yards away, a paper cup of bitter espresso in his right hand.
Beside him, Corrigan stood with his hands rammed deep into his tracksuit pockets, his faded hood pulled up against the morning glare.
He wasn’t watching the players warm up; he was staring at his broken iPad screen, tapping the side button repeatedly.
“Jesse,” Davies called out, his voice sharp over the sprinkler hum.
“Hold the width.
Don’t drift inside unless their fullback steps up.”
Alejandro stepped onto the turf.
The Sporting U19 reserve right-back—a lean, dark-haired kid wearing number 42— didn’t glance at him during the initial pass-and-move sequence.
He simply adjusted his shin guards, cracked his knuckles, and took a deep, deliberate breath.
There was no friendly banter, no preliminary feeling-out process.
The whistle blew at 8:32 AM.
The pace of the ball was twice as fast as anything Alejandro had experienced in the Sunday leagues or during the Villa trial games.
The Sporting players moved the ball in sharp, two-touch triangles, the leather zipping across the slick grass with a wet, popping sound.
Four minutes in, the white team’s central midfielder played a early diagonal ball out to the left flank.
Alejandro tracked the flight of the ball, adjusted his stride, and moved to take it on his chest.
As he planted his right foot to cushioned the drop, his heel slid inside Harrison’s oversized boot.
The extra quarter-inch of slack caused his ankle to wobble slightly, making the ball bounce off his upper rib cage instead of settling on his sternum.
Number 42 didn’t hesitate.
The Portuguese fullback stepped inside the awkward touch before Alejandro’s studs could grip the turf, hooked the ball away with the outside of his boot, and initiated a counter-attack in a single fluid motion.
“Get your feet under you, Jesse!” Davies yelled from the fence.
Alejandro turned, his lungs working hard in the dry, unfamiliar air.
He sprinted thirty yards back to track the overlap, his right toes curling tightly inside the boot to keep his foot from sliding forward against the hard front cap.
Three minutes later, another chance came.
The midfielder played a ground pass into space behind the fullback line.
Alejandro used his acceleration, taking three long strides that pulled him two yards clear of Number 42.
He felt the grass give way under his left stud, adjusted his weight mid-stride, and looked up.
The penalty box was clearing out, the central defender dropping deep toward the far post.
Alejandro hit the cross on the run.
Because of the loose fitting around his instep, the contact wasn’t clean.
The ball swerved sharply, clipping the top of the crossbar before ricocheting high over the perimeter fence into the adjacent parking lot.
Corrigan didn’t look up from his screen when the ball hit the bar.
He just pulled a cigarette from his pocket, unlit, and chewed on the orange filter.
By the thirty-minute mark, the sweat was stinging Alejandro’s eyes, mixing with the dust blown off the dry embankment behind Pitch 4.
Number 42 was getting bolder, pressing higher up the touchline because he had realized Alejandro was struggling with his plant foot on the slick surface.
“One-two!” Alejandro called out to the midfielder, pointing to the pocket of space behind the fullback.
The ball came in hard, rolling along the chalk line.
Alejandro didn’t try to control it this time.
He knew if he took a touch, his heel would slide again.
Instead, he let the ball roll across his body, using a subtle drop of his left shoulder to sell a dummy to Number 42.
The fullback bit, lunging forward to block the expected touch.
Alejandro spun off his right hip, flicking the ball behind his own standing leg with his heel—a sharp, instinctive drag-back that left the defender stranded three feet out of position.
He broke into the open box, drove three yards toward the goal line, and cut a low, ground pass back across the six-yard box.
The white team’s striker slid in, driving the ball into the bottom left corner of the net.
The referee blew his whistle twice, pointing to the center circle.
Alejandro slowed to a walk, his hands resting briefly on his hips as his chest heaved.
He looked toward the touchline.
Davies had set his paper coffee cup on the grass and was writing something on his clipboard.
Corrigan had finally put his iPad away, but he wasn’t looking at Alejandro.
He was standing near the gate, engaged in a low, rapid conversation with an older man in a navy blazer who bore the official Sporting Lisbon crest on his lapel.
The man in the blazer wasn’t looking at the pitch either.
He was looking at a thick white paper dossier held in a plastic sleeve, turning the pages slowly while Corrigan gestured with his unlit cigarette.
The final whistle blew at 9:17 AM.
Alejandro walked off Pitch 4, his right foot aching from the effort of gripping the inside of Harrison’s shoe for forty-five minutes.
His navy socks were soaked through with gray water from the slick turf.
Harrison handed him a plastic bottle of still water as he reached the perimeter bench.
“How’s the toes?”
“Sliding,” Alejandro said, sitting down and unlacing the left boot immediately.
“Felt like running in flippers.”
“You got the assist,” Harrison said, sitting beside him.
“The drag-back was clean.”
Alejandro pulled off the left shoe.
A red friction mark had raised along the outer joint of his big toe, skin raw and tender where the leather had rubbed against the fit gap.
Davies approached the bench, his clipboard tucked under his arm.
“Good work in the last fifteen, Jesse,” Davies said, his tone neutral, devoid of high praise.
“Get changed in the main block.
We have twenty minutes before the transport leaves for the hotel.”
“What about Corrigan?” Alejandro asked, looking around the empty fence line.
The scout had vanished from the perimeter gate.
“Corrigan’s in the administration building with their head of recruitment,” Davies said, pulling a dry towel from his bag and tossing it to Alejandro.
“They’re pulling your registration history from the FA system.”
Alejandro paused, the towel resting over his knee.
“My registration history?”
“Solihull’s youth secretary filed a formal notice with the Football Association two hours ago,” Davies replied flatly.
“They’re claiming your international transfer clearance is invalid because your father didn’t sign the third-party representation agreement before you left London.”
Alejandro stared at the red friction mark on his toe.
“So the 4B waiver doesn’t count?” Alejandro asked.
Davies reached down, picked up Harrison’s left boot by the laces, and examined the smooth aluminum studs.
“It counts here,” Davies said.
“It just means nobody knows who owns your clearance until the FA opens their desk at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”