Rafael felt Sunday’s match before he opened his eyes.
His calves were tight beneath the blanket, while the muscles along the front of his thighs complained when he stretched his legs. The ankle caught by the centre-back carried a dull ache, but there was no swelling and no pain when he rotated it.
Ordinary fatigue.
He had spent enough years playing football to recognise the difference between a body recovering from a match and one warning him that something was wrong.
Rafael pushed himself out of bed and walked downstairs.
His mother was already in the kitchen. She had changed into her hospital uniform and was standing beside the counter with a cup of coffee.
She looked at him as he entered.
"Three goals."
Rafael opened the cupboard. "Good morning to you too."
"I heard Yanis only created one of them."
"He’ll tell you otherwise if you give him the chance."
His mother smiled and set a plate on the table.
"I’m proud of you."
The words stopped Rafael before he could sit.
In his first life, she had celebrated every step of his career until there were fewer things worth celebrating. By the time he was playing in League Two, most of their conversations about football had become careful attempts to avoid discussing what had gone wrong.
"Thank you," he said.
She sat opposite him. "It was one match."
"I know."
"Good. I don’t want to hear that you’ve begun choosing houses in Paris because you scored three goals against boys your own age."
"I was thinking Madrid."
"Finish your breakfast."
Rafael smiled and began eating.
The hat-trick mattered. It had announced his return to the team and shown that his older mind could influence matches through a younger body.
It had not earned him a professional contract, repaired his reputation or changed the level at which he played.
By half past seven, he had left the house with his academy bag over one shoulder.
Metz was already moving around him. Buses stopped beside crowded pavements, bakery doors opened onto the morning air and students crossed the roads in groups while discussing the weekend. Rafael travelled with them, surrounded by people who neither knew nor cared that he had scored three goals the previous afternoon.
At school, two boys stopped him before the first lesson.
"Hat-trick hero," one said. "You’re buying lunch."
"Why?"
"You must have earned a bonus."
"For an under-nineteen match?"
The boy considered that. "Then buy something cheap."
Another student asked whether the third goal had really been as good as Yanis claimed. Rafael told him Yanis had probably added three defenders and a thirty-metre pass to the story.
The teacher arrived before the conversation went further.
Within minutes, the board had been filled with work and Rafael’s hat-trick ceased to matter. He spent the morning taking notes, answering questions and remembering assignments he had last completed seventeen years earlier.
By the time lessons ended, football had reclaimed the rest of his day.
The players who had started on Sunday reported inside the academy building before going onto the pitch. Each completed a brief wellness check covering sleep, soreness and fatigue. A member of the medical staff examined Rafael’s ankle after he mentioned the late challenge.
The man pressed around the joint and asked Rafael to move it through several angles.
"Pain?"
"Two out of ten."
"Any instability?"
"No."
"Tell us if it worsens."
Rafael pulled his sock back into place and joined the others.
The starters spent the session moving between mobility exercises, light cycling and controlled work with the ball. The substitutes and players who had received limited minutes trained on the adjacent pitch at a much higher intensity.
Rafael could hear the coaches shouting through their small-sided game while he worked through a slow sequence of hip and hamstring stretches.
Yanis lay on the next mat with one leg raised.
"You realise all three goals started from my side of the pitch."
"The first one started with a midfielder shooting."
"After I helped create the space."
"You were thirty metres away."
"Intelligent positioning."
Rafael lowered his leg and switched sides. "What do you call all the passes you misplaced before that?"
"Preparation."
"For whom?"
"The defenders. I made them comfortable."
Rafael stared at him for a moment before returning to the stretch.
Yanis continued explaining his contribution until a coach told both of them to stop talking and finish the exercise.
The rest of Monday passed quietly.
Rafael returned home after recovery, completed the schoolwork due the following morning and ate with his mother. By ten, the heaviness in his legs had begun settling into ordinary tiredness.
He went to bed early.
On Tuesday afternoon, the U19 squad gathered beside the training pitch.
The coach stood in front of them with Sunday’s match notes folded in one hand.
"Good result," he said. "But before their goal, we stopped moving together. Our midfield opened, the defensive line stepped out at different times and we gave them a second ball inside our box."
His gaze moved across the group.
"That gets punished against better teams. Fix it."
He folded the paper again and handed it to his assistant.
"Warm-up. Let’s go."
That was the entire review.
The players spread across the marked area and began their activation. After dynamic stretches and short accelerations, the staff introduced the ball and moved them into a possession exercise.
The space was tight enough to punish slow decisions. Rafael checked his shoulders before receiving, returned most passes within two touches and lost possession once when he tried to play around the corner without seeing the defender behind him.
The coach stopped the exercise twice to correct the group’s spacing, then sent the attacking players toward the far penalty area.
A midfielder waited centrally with a supply of footballs. One winger started on either side, while the strikers formed a line outside the box.
The sequence began with the striker dropping toward the midfielder and laying the ball back. The midfielder released the winger, who attacked the open channel before delivering either a low cross across goal or a cutback toward the penalty spot.
The striker had to adjust his run according to the delivery.
Rafael watched the first two groups.
The first striker attacked the near post too early and had to stop while the cutback rolled behind him. The second remained central and reached a low cross with one touch, sending his finish over the bar.
Rafael stepped forward.
He moved toward the midfielder, returned the pass and turned toward the box. Yanis received on the right and carried the ball forward.
Rafael began centrally.
When Yanis pushed the ball ahead of himself, Rafael moved toward the near post. The centre of the area remained open behind him.
Yanis cut the pass back.
It arrived slightly behind Rafael’s stride.
He adjusted with his first touch.
The ball moved across his body, and his right foot followed immediately. There was no extra step between control and finish. Rafael guided the shot inside the far post before his balance had fully settled.
He slowed after passing the goal and looked back at the net.
The finish had not felt automatic. He had chosen the movement, read the delivery and decided where the shot needed to go.
The difference had come after his first touch.
His body had connected the control and strike with less wasted movement.
Two-Touch Finisher.
"Next group!" the assistant coach called.
Rafael returned to the line.
His second repetition came from the left. The winger drove the ball across the six-yard box, forcing Rafael to finish first time. He opened his foot and redirected it toward the near corner.
The shot went wide.
The skill had not corrected a poorly positioned standing foot.
Rafael adjusted on his next attempt and finished low beneath the goalkeeper’s usual position, although there was no goalkeeper in place yet.
After several repetitions, the assistant coach changed the drill.
A goalkeeper entered the goal, and one defender took a starting position several metres behind the striker. As soon as the midfielder released the winger, the defender could recover toward the box and challenge the finish.
The line slowed while the staff explained the change.
Blue light appeared in front of Rafael.