Ding!
Pass to goalkeeper Ben Pierce: success rate 51%.
Ding!
Pass to Sam Smith: success rate 67%.
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Pass to Melle Meulensteen: success rate 65%.
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Pass to Jimmy Dunne: success rate 70%.
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Pass to Tyler Reid: success rate 47%.
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Pass to Axel Tuanzebe: success rate 88%.
The forward passing lanes flashed a dangerous, glaring crimson in his vision, but the backward lanes glowed a calm, safe green.
The success rate on back-passes to his own defenders was overwhelmingly higher.
Tomás felt like he had just unlocked a new dimension of the game.
It didn’t matter if the road forward was blocked by a wall of older players.
He had a backup plan.
Of the six players behind him, Tuanzebe was the safest option.
Vice-captain Jimmy Dunne wasn’t far behind.
Those two were the strongest on the ball, composed enough to pass and receive cleanly under the intense U18 pressure.
The rest were less reliable.
“Axel!”
Tomás played the ball straight back to Tuanzebe.
Tuanzebe took the pass, dribbled clear of Andreas Pereira’s pressing shadow, saw Tomás’s subtle movement, and immediately understood the tempo.
“Sam, once you get it, keep looking for Tomás!”
Receiving a quick cross-field ball from Tuanzebe, Sam Smith was surprised to find Tomás had already dropped into a pocket of space ahead of him.
The U18’s veteran captain, Joe Rothwell, was still glued to Tomás’s hip.
Smith hesitated.
Should I force it into that traffic?
Picturing Tuanzebe’s fiery temper if he slowed the play down, Smith decisively fizzed the ball into Tomás’s feet.
The second Smith released it, Tomás closed the distance to meet the pass.
He checked over his shoulder before the ball even arrived.
Ding!
Your forward passing lane is at 0%.
Rothwell’s defending was suffocating.
Don’t try to turn, Tomás told himself.
He played a crisp, one-touch pass right back into the defense, keeping the ball moving.
The U18 attackers were pressing with frightening intensity, but there were only five of them committed forward, including Scott McTominay.
The U16 backline, plus Smith dropping in as an emergency outlet, made six against five.
The numbers were on Tomás’s side.
As long as he acted as the metronome and strictly picked the highest-percentage pass, he could neutralize their high press entirely.
“Ben!”
This time, with all five U18 attackers committing to the trap, Tomás played it all the way back to the keeper.
The U18 forwards slammed on the brakes, their coordinated press suddenly useless.
McTominay stared at Tomás, chest heaving, his brow furrowed.
Is this really the same Tomás I know?
These weren’t reckless lunges from the older boys.
They had coordinated their trap to swarm Tomás the exact second Rothwell forced him into a bad touch.
It was a suffocating tactic that regularly destroyed other U18-level teams.
But they couldn’t take the ball off a supposedly fragile U16 player.
Instead, they were chasing shadows.
Ben Pierce, receiving the ball, looked terrified.
He was a pure shot-stopper, not a ball-playing keeper.
The pressure from the U18 forwards sprinting toward him made his boots feel like lead.
“Tomás!”
Pierce exhaled a massive breath of relief only when Tomás dropped deep into his own box to receive the short pass.
Captain Rothwell couldn’t follow him this far back without completely exposing the U18 midfield structure.
The forwards shifted their press onto Tomás.
But now that he was facing up the pitch with the ball at his feet, forward passes were an option again.
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Rashford’s pass completion rate: 32%.
Ding!
Pass to Tosin: success rate 15%.
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Pass to McNeil: success rate 20%.
If the U16s were losing, he would have gambled on one of those forward passes to Rashford.
But they were in the lead.
Going forward was suicide right now because the strongest player on the pitch, Joe Rothwell, hadn’t budged from his defensive anchor position.
If only the captain would lose his patience and lunge for it.
Tomás looked at Rothwell staring him down from a few yards away and suppressed the primal urge to force a hero pass.
The most important job for the U16s right now wasn’t scoring a second goal.
It was killing the U18s’ momentum.
An intense, coordinated high press was brutal on the lungs and legs.
The older boys couldn’t sustain it for ninety minutes.
If we ride out this storm and force them into a slower, positional game, our defense will hold.
Ding!
Pass to Melle Meulensteen: success rate 90%.
That’s the one.
“Melle!”
At 90 percent, as long as he didn’t misjudge the weight of the ball, there was zero risk.
Tomás pinged the ball to Meulensteen just before U18 striker Ashley Fletcher could close him down.
All the feints, all the physical intimidation—it was all useless.
Tomás played the pass and glided into a new pocket of space, leaving his former teammate Fletcher stranded.
As he moved, Tomás scanned the field, pointing and shouting, directing his teammates to keep the shape.
He was the central hub, the engine of the resistance.
Receive, pass.
Move.
Receive, pass.
They were methodically grinding the U18 press into dust.
The match had turned into something entirely different.
The crowd on the touchline should have been cheering the frantic pace, but the stands were eerily quiet.
“Is this really the U16 side?”
“I thought the high press was the U18s’ ultimate weapon…”
“They can’t even get near the ball.”
“Tomás… Could he actually be a genius?”
The academy staff, scouts, and parents stared in disbelief.
Nuno Ferreira rubbed his eyes in shock, while Marta pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, tears welling in her eyes.
Mrs.
Palmer stood frozen; her face pale.
She could see it clearly now.
Whatever talent her own son possessed, it wasn’t on this level.
This was pure, undeniable talent—the exact same aura that Rashford and Tuanzebe carried.
“Told you so,” Aunt Melanie murmured with a proud smile, leaning back against the railing.
“Tomás and Marcus. Both of them. Geniuses.”
Up in the viewing gallery, three Manchester United executives—CEO Ed Woodward, John Murtough, and academy lead Nick Cox—were equally silent, watching the slender Portuguese kid orchestrate the entire pitch.
“What’s his name?” Woodward asked slowly.
“Tomás Eusébio Ferreira. He’s Portuguese,” Cox answered, his eyes locked on the boy.
Woodward rubbed his chin, a flicker of apprehension crossing his face.
“Please tell me he isn’t another Bebé,” he muttered, referencing the infamous Portuguese winger Sir Alex had signed blindly, who became one of the club’s biggest flops.
“No. He is definitely not Bebé,” Cox said firmly.
Cox hadn’t recognized the kid’s tactical intelligence before today, but he had always respected his work ethic.
Now that the raw ability was blooming?
“This kid actually understands the game. His future is incredibly bright.”
Cox, who had come to this match fully intending to cut the boy from the academy, found himself defending him to the CEO.
Out on the pitch, the frustration finally boiled over.
Rothwell closed in on Tomás, his patience shattered.
“That’s enough!” Rothwell snarled, lunging aggressively to steal the ball from behind just as Tomás went to receive a pass.
Tomás had been waiting for exactly this moment.
His hypersensitivity—the trait that usually made him shrink from physical contact, the curse that made him fear tackles—was suddenly weaponized by the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He had spent years learning how to hide on the pitch, how to avoid collisions.
He never realized that being this sensitive to a defender’s momentum could be a superpower.
He felt Rothwell’s breath, the heavy thud of the older boy’s boots.
He had never been this nervous, this terrified—and yet, completely, utterly calm.
Instead of taking a touch, Tomás let the ball roll across his body, dropped his shoulder, and executed a fluid, blindingly fast pirouette.
He used Rothwell’s aggressive momentum entirely against him, spinning away like smoke just as the tackle arrived.
He came out the other side into open grass, leaving the U18 captain swiping at thin air.
A collective gasp broke across the sideline.
“What a turn!”
“Absolutely velvet!”
“That’s a flash of pure genius!”
Rothwell stumbled, his face flushing red.
“Everyone back! Drop back!” he roared in panic.
The midfield had instantly broken wide open.
By eliminating the defensive anchor, Tomás had acres of green space ahead of him.
The forward passing percentages in his vision skyrocketed into the 80s and 90s.
“Marcus!”
Because Sam Smith had dropped deep, the U16 wingers were effectively playing as a front two.
Tomás wanted the most lethal option available.
Before the scrambling U18 defenders could even turn their hips, Tomás whipped a perfectly weighted, splitting pass through the center of the park.
The U18 midfielders scrambled back like madmen.
Conceding a second goal would be a total humiliation.
As McTominay sprinted desperately past Tomás on his way back to defend, he gave the Portuguese boy a long, searching look of disbelief.
The U18 press had entirely collapsed into a panicked retreat.
The U16 forwards surged forward.
Tomás stood in the center circle, his chest heaving, his muscles burning.
Ding!
Congratulations on defeating the elite midfield anchor, Joe Rothwell.
Reward: [Ball Control] experience +200, and one pair of Shin Guards (Bronze).
Ding!
Your flash of brilliance on the pitch elevated the beautiful game.
The inspiration you captured allowed you to grasp a sliver of football’s true essence.
Congratulations, you have mastered an exclusive, self-created skill: [Velvet Turn].
Starting grade: Gold.
Equipment: [Shin Guards] Rank: [Bronze] Description: Protects your shins, reduces impact damage, and guards against career-ending tackles.
Special Skill: [Ferreira’s Velvet Turn] Grade: [Gold] Description: A hypersensitive, kinetic half-turn.
By feeling the defender’s momentum, your turn after receiving the ball is incredibly smooth, possessing a high chance to completely wrong-foot an aggressive marker behind you.
Visual effect: [Poetry in Motion].
Two rewards, back to back.
A skill?
A Gold-tier special effect?
I actually created a special skill?
Forget the bronze shin guards.
This was an exclusive ability he had unlocked purely through his own instincts, skipping the grind entirely to debut at Gold rank.
His throat tightened.
He wanted to cry.
He replayed the turn in his mind.
The more he analyzed it, the more he realized how devastatingly effective it had been.
Crack!
A loud impact snapped him back to reality.
Rashford’s venomous long-range shot had been brilliantly tipped out for a corner by Dean Henderson.
“Tomás,” a voice said.
Tomás turned.
Joe Rothwell was standing a few feet away, his chest heaving, his arms resting on his hips.
The older boy’s frustration was gone, replaced by a look of profound respect.
“Paul McGuinness isn’t out here evaluating Rashford or Tuanzebe today. He already knows what they can do,” Rothwell said quietly, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“He’s evaluating you. Isn’t he?”
Tomás looked at the U18 captain, momentarily speechless.
“You really are a genius,” Rothwell added, shaking his head with a wry, exhausted smile.
“An enviable one.”
Rothwell closed his eyes for a second, replaying the elegant, ghost-like turn in his mind.
A single flash of brilliance like that was something an ordinary player could chase for an entire lifetime and never catch.