A/N: (I have finally decided on a love interest, it’s going to be Dinah Jane. I lowkey have had to decide between her, Camila Cabello, Normani, and Zara Larsson. Also, this Chapter is 4k words to make up for my absence.)
As the players leave the muddy, high-intensity confines of the crossing grid, the loud banter begins to quiet down.
The casual, encouraging energy of the drills settles into a focused, match-day seriousness.
Callum walks with Lewis Cook and Stuart Dallas, the steam from their breath rising heavily into the crisp, freezing air.
Cal unstraps his Velcro shin guards, adjusting them beneath his socks, before taking a long swig from a plastic Lucozade bottle.
“Don’t let Scott get his hands on you early on Pitch Two,” Dallas says quietly, leaning in as they walk past the brick medical pavilion.
“In the eleven-v-eleven, everyone has a point to prove.”
Ahead of them, Rob Kelly walks briskly with a heavy tactical whiteboard tucked under his arm, his metal whistle clicking rhythmically against his zipper with every step.
Behind them, the heavy thud of senior defenders’ studs clacking against the wet tarmac creates a steady, ominous drumbeat.
By the time they step through the gate of Pitch Two, the pristine, perfectly manicured show pitch that mimics the exact dimensions of the stadium, the smiles are completely gone.
Callum tosses his water bottle to the side of the touchline, fixes his yellow training bib, and steps onto the freshly chalked grass.
Fixing his yellow bib, Callum looks up to see Kelly positioning everyone based on his tactical board.
Motioning for Callum to get in place for the kick off, the assistant coach sets up the Reserves in their blue bibs.
Setting them up in a compact 4-3-3 to mimic the Brentford defence.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Kelly nods sharply, picking up a training ball and blowing his whistle with a shrill PWEEET.
Before handing the ball over, Kelly lays out the specific tactical constraints for the match.
“Alright, listen up!” Kelly’s voice cuts through the freezing air.
“This is simulated match play, but I will be blowing the whistle to freeze play for shape corrections. Yellows, I want high-intensity pressing from the front. Callum, you trigger the press. When we win the ball, transition quickly. Blues, your job is to make their lives a living hell. Compact, physical, organized.”
Rob Kelly walks to the exact center spot of Pitch Two, drops a brand-new, high-visibility Nike Ordem ball onto the turf, and steps back toward the touchline with his whistle in his mouth.
Callum and Lewis Cook stand over the ball at the center spot.
The pitch feels massive compared to the training grids.
The grass is perfectly manicured, the lines are freshly chalked, and the full-sized goals look dauntingly far away.
Cal places his boot on top of the ball, feeling the wet leather beneath his studs.
His chest heaves with a deep, steadying breath.
PWEET
Kelly’s whistle blows, sharp and long, echoing across the training complex.
Callum taps the ball lightly forward to Lewis Cook, who immediately drops it back to Tom Adeyemi.
Getting into position, Callum moves up the field, his eyes positioned firmly on the ball as it moves from Adeyemi, who has dropped down to his defensive midfield position, to Luke Murphy, who is quickly closed down by Mirco Antenucci in his blue bib.
Eyeing up the space, Murphy slips a low pass so that Charlie Taylor, who is darting into that same space, gets the ball perfectly in his stride.
Callum glances back, seeing Giuseppe Bellusci watching him closely.
When Callum walks forward, Giuseppe walks back and vice versa, effectively sticking to him like glue.
Charlie carries the ball up the left flank and looks up, playing a slightly lofted ball up the flank to Alex Mowatt.
Alex pushes the ball forward with a controlled touch using a change of pace to move past Sam Byram, the blue bib Right Back.
Callum, seeing an opportunity to dart into the box, walks backwards to receive the ball, then suddenly shifts his weight and breaks out into a sprint, surprising Giuseppe, catching him flat-footed.
However, as he moves to turn, Callum has already reached the 18-yard box.
Mowatt spots the run, moving the ball onto his weaker right foot, and he scoops the ball into the air, playing a floating ball into the air.
Before Callum can jump, he is met with a shoulder from Scott Wootton.
Using his own strength, Callum retaliates and manages to hold his ground, planting his left boot firmly into the turf to absorb the impact.
Wootton’s shoulder-charge was heavy, designed to completely knock the teenager off balance, but Callum braced his core and shoved right back, carving out a vital pocket of space mid-air.
With Giuseppe Bellusci still scrambling to recover behind him, Callum converted that physical leverage into a powerful, explosive jump.
Rearing his head back, his eyes trained on the ball in the air, he swings his head forward, leaning his entire body into the header and twisting his torso mid-air to meet the dropping ball.
Thud.
He connected cleanly with the middle of his forehead, powering the ball downward toward the bottom left corner, exactly where it was hardest for Ross Turnbull to reach.
Turnbull tries to get a touch on the ball, but the bounce of the header makes it skip off the turf and nestle into the side netting.
From the center circle, Uwe Rösler watched with his arms folded, a rare, approving nod breaking through his stern expression.
Next to him on the touchline, Rob Kelly vigorously blew his whistle.
“Great strength, Vance! That’s exactly what we want!” Kelly shouted, clapping his clipboard.
“Wootton, you’ve got to get tighter earlier! Bellusci, don’t get caught flat-footed on the turn! Reset, Blues, play out from Turnbull!”
As Callum trotted back out of the eighteen-yard box, his lungs pumping in the cold air, Bellusci jogged past him, spitting on the grass and flashing a dark, intense look.
The Italian defender didn’t say a word, but the message was loud and clear: the next challenge isn’t going to be so clean.
Standing near the D, he looks back and sees Kalvin Phillips watching him while also keeping an eye on Lewis Cook.
Turnbull kicks the ball upfield as far as Mirco Antenucci, the veteran striker, who controls the ball squarely in his chest, passing it to Lee Erwin.
Erwin tries to dribble, but he is quickly closed down by Liam Cooper.
Cooper plants a heavy, uncompromising boot into the challenge, poking the ball loose.
It was a classic, crunching training-ground tackle.
The ball squirmed out of the pack and rolled directly into the path of Tom Adeyemi.
Without looking up, Adeyemi instantly recycled it, playing a sharp, first-time pass to Lewis Cook in the center circle.
The counter-attack was live.
Before Cook could even turn, Kalvin Phillips exploded out of his defensive stance, hunting him down with an absolute vengeance.
But Cook anticipated it.
With a slick drop of the shoulder, he feinted left and dragged the ball right, letting Phillips fly harmlessly past him on the wet surface.
Callum, standing right on the shoulder of Giuseppe Bellusci near the edge of the D, saw the exact moment Cook broke free.
Bellusci felt the danger too.
He quickly stepped right into Callum’s space, using his hands to aggressively shove Cal’s lower back, trying to force him into an offside position before the pass could even be conceptualized.
“Lewis!” Callum bellowed, his voice echoing across Pitch Two, demanding the ball before the Italian defender could completely pin him down.
Cook didn’t hesitate.
Sliding a crisp, diagonal pass along the deck, he tried to slice open the gap between Bellusci and Scott Wootton.
Bellusci, realizing he was a half-step late, completely abandoned any pretense of a clean tactical play.
He lunged across with a fierce, cynical sweep of his right leg, aiming to take both the ball and Callum’s ankles out in one single motion.
But Callum’s sharp instincts saved him.
Expecting the reckless challenge from the fiery Italian, Cal hopped slightly off the ground just as the heavy boot zipped beneath him, completely missing his ankles.
He skipped over Bellusci’s sweeping leg, but the sheer momentum of the hurdle meant he had to chase the ball down as it skidded off the wet grass toward the box.
Scott Wootton was already tracking across, sliding desperately to cover his partner’s error.
With Ross Turnbull rapidly rushing off his line to close the angle, Callum had a split second to make a decision.
The ball was slipping toward the right side of the penalty area.
Instead of taking a heavy touch that would let Turnbull smother it, Callum used the pace of Cook’s diagonal pass against the defense.
He didn’t look up.
Running at full tilt, he struck the ball first-time with the outside of his right boot, hitting a fading, sliced shot across the face of the goal.
Turnbull threw his arms out, but the ball curved cleanly around his outstretched leg, clipping the inside of the far post and clanging into the back of the net.
PWEEET
Rob Kelly shouts, blowing a long, sharp blast as the Yellows celebrate the lightning-fast counter-attack.
“Goal stands! Excellent composure to ride the tackle, Vance!”
Kelly then turned his attention to the ground, where Bellusci was sitting up, rubbing his thigh.
“Giuseppe! That is a yellow card all day in a real match! Stay on your feet! You leave us down a man if you pull those kinds of moves.”
Bellusci muttered something in Italian under his breath, pushing himself up from the turf and shaking his head.
He glared at Callum, but this time, underneath the frustration, there was a flicker of genuine respect.
Uwe Rösler walked a few paces onto the pitch from the touchline, clapping his hands loudly to keep the tempo from dropping.
“Good transition, Yellows! Cook, excellent vision. Callum, very smart to stay on your feet. That is the hunger we need. Reset! Blues, let’s see a reaction!”
Callum breathes a smile on his face as he walks back toward the D.
The adrenaline was still humming under his skin, but he forced his face back into that stoic, focused mask the moment he crossed the eighteen-yard line.
He couldn’t afford to look complacent, not with Rösler watching every step from the touchline.
As he reached the D, Lewis Cook jogged up beside him, slapping his hand into Callum’s palm with a loud crack.
“Brilliant ride on that tackle, Cal,” Cook murmured, his chest heaving as he kept his eyes locked on the Blues resetting their shape.
“Bellusci wanted to put you in the stands there. You left him looking proper foolish.”
“He’ll come harder next time,” Callum replied quietly, checking over his shoulder.
Sure enough, Bellusci was already back in position, barking orders at Scott Wootton, his face flushed red.
A few yards away, Kalvin Phillips was smacking his own thighs, visibly furious that Cook had turned him so easily in the buildup.
“All day, Blues! Organize!” Turnbull bellowed, his voice booming over the pitch.
“Don’t let them dictate the tempo! Work it out!”
Turnbull played a short, zipped pass out to Sam Byram at right-back.
The moment Byram’s cleats touched the leather, Callum dropped his weight into his toes, locking his eyes onto the ball.
He was the trigger for the 4-3-3 press.
He waited for the cue, ready to hunt down the space the second Byram looked to play it infield to Kalvin or Casper Sloth.
Seeing Callum eyeing him, Byram switches the play, moving the ball onto his left and lofts the ball to Lewie Coyle, the Blue bib left back.
Trapping the ball brilliantly, Coyle plays a long ball into the midfield.
Both Tommaso Bianchi and Adeyemi leap; Bianchi’s proximity to the ball allows him to win the aerial duel.
Bianchi flicks the ball forward, and it is picked up by Souleymane Doukara.
Using his massive, powerful frame to immediately shield the ball from a tracking Luke Murphy, leaning his back into the midfielder and pinning him completely.
With a single, deceptively agile spin, Doukara rolled away from Murphy’s challenge and drove forward through the central channel of Pitch Two.
Callum, tracking back near the halfway line to maintain the compact defensive shape Rösler demanded, saw the danger developing.
Doukara picked up his head and spotted Mirco Antenucci making a diagonal, peeling run from the right wing into the half-space behind Charlie Taylor.
With the outside of his boot, Doukara slid a perfectly weighted, slide-rule pass between Taylor and Liam Cooper.
Antenucci didn’t need a second invitation.
The veteran Italian striker collected the ball beautifully in stride, instantly cutting inside toward the box.
“Step up, Coops! Force him wide!” Marco Silvestri screamed from the Yellows’ goal, his Italian accent cutting through the cold air as he positioned himself at the near post.
Cooper closed the distance rapidly, staying on his toes to prevent Antenucci from curling one with his preferred right foot.
Sensing the pressure, Antenucci cleverly clipped a delicate, lofted ball over Cooper’s lunging leg, aiming for the back post where Lee Erwin was completely unmarked and sprinting to meet it.
Erwin taps in the ball easily, coming to a sliding halt on the wet pitch.
The post rattled hard as the ball flew past a helpless Marco Silvestri.
Erwin jumped right back up from his slide, pumping his fists, while a frustrated Silvestri slammed both hands against his own thighs, letting out a loud string of furious Italian curses at his backline.
“Too easy! Way too easy!” Rob Kelly shouted from the sidelines, blowing a sharp blast on his whistle to freeze play.
“Cooper, you can’t let Antenucci get that clip over you! And where is our weak-side cover? Berardi, you’ve got to tuck in quicker when the cross comes from the opposite flank!”
Uwe Rösler stood completely still on the touchline, his arms crossed over his Leeds United training jacket, his eyes narrowed as he chewed his gum aggressively.
He didn’t say a word, but his intensely disappointed glare spoke volumes.
He absolutely hated conceding on transition.
Callum stood just past the halfway line, hands on his hips, watching the Blues celebrate the equalizer.
The Reserves were completely buzzed now, slapping Erwin on the back and yelling encouragement across the pitch.
Before Lee Erwin can even finish high-fiving Antenucci, a ferocious, metallic blast of a whistle cuts through the air.
It’s not Rob Kelly this time.
It’s Uwe Rösler himself, and he’s already three strides onto the pitch, his face a mask of absolute thunder.
“Stop! Stop! Freeze!” Rösler bellows, his booming voice echoing off the Thorp Arch trees.
The entire pitch instantly goes dead silent.
Nobody moves.
He points a rigid finger directly at the Yellow backline.
“Abysmal! Tactical discipline? Zero! We talk about the transition phase every single morning in the video room, and then you show me this? Cooper, you drop off too deep and invite the flip. Berardi, you are sleeping on the back post! Sleeping!”
He turns his gaze slowly toward the midfield engine room, his eyes locked onto Luke Murphy and Tom Adeyemi.
“And where is the screen? Doukara turns like a cruise ship, and you let him sail right through the center circle? Unacceptable.”
The senior players stand in frozen silence, taking the hairdryer treatment on the chin.
Callum stays completely still in the center circle, watching the manager pace the turf.
Rösler finally looks over at Callum and Lewis Cook.
The anger in his eyes cools just a fraction, replaced by an intense, demanding glare.
“Yellows, you have exactly five minutes left of this block,” Rösler says, his voice dropping into a low, menacing register that carries across Pitch Two.
“You have lost the momentum because you got lazy after your goal. I want to see a reaction right now. If you do not press them into the dirt, we will spend the next hour running lines on Pitch Three. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Boss,” a chorus of breathless voices answers.
Rösler checks his stopwatch, then points aggressively at Callum.
“Vance! Trigger the press. Don’t let Bellusci breathe. Play!”
The game resumes, and Silvestri plays a pass to Berardi, the Swiss fullback.
Looking up, Berardi passes the ball simply to Cooper, turning on the balls of his feet to avoid the press from Antenucci.
Cooper sends the ball careening upfield in the direction of Callum.
Seeing the ball dipping toward him, Callum checked his shoulder.
Giuseppe Bellusci was already tight to his back, forearm planted right between Callum’s shoulder blades, preparing to smash into him the moment his boots left the turf.
Instead of jumping early and letting the physical Italian center-back undercutter him, Callum played it smart.
He used his frame to anchor himself into the grass, backing his weight into Bellusci’s chest to pin the defender in place.
As the careening ball dipped out of the gray sky, Callum didn’t try to control it on the deck.
With a soft, cushioned touch using the crown of his forehead, he flicked the ball backward over his own head and right over a completely fooled Bellusci, who had anticipated a physical duel instead of a deft piece of skill.
“Slick, Cal!” Stuart Dallas roared, already bursting down the right flank.
The flick-on fell perfectly into the stride of Lewis Cook, who had read Callum’s movement beautifully.
Cook collected the ball on the half-turn, driving forward into the space abandoned by Bellusci.
Callum didn’t watch his pass.
The second the ball left his head, he spun off Bellusci’s left shoulder, leaving the frantic Italian scrambling to recover his footing on the greasy turf, and sprinted straight into the heart of the eighteen-yard box.
Scott Wootton was forced to slide over to cover Cook, leaving a massive, gaping hole in the center of the Blues’ defense.
“Put it in, Lew!” Callum barked, his eyes locked on the open turf ahead of him.
Seeing Turnbull had moved to anticipate the shot, Lewis gave him exactly what he wanted, swinging his leg back and letting it fly like a spring.
The shot cracked off Cook’s boot like a pistol, a low, fizzing rocket aimed directly toward the bottom right corner.
Turnbull’s pre-movement completely backfired.
Having shifted his weight a fraction of a second too early to cover the near post, the veteran keeper was caught entirely off balance.
He tried to reverse his momentum, throwing his massive frame downward in a desperate, sprawling dive, but the wet turf offered no traction.
His fingertips only brushed the air.
THWACK.
The ball struck the inside of the right post, but instead of bouncing out, it ricocheted furiously across the goalmouth, spinning tightly along the goal line.
Callum, who had kept his legs pumping at a full-tilt sprint to follow the shot, saw the opportunity instantly.
Scott Wootton was lunging across in a frantic slide to clear it, but Callum was sharper.
Sliding hard on his left hip across the wet, slick grass of Pitch Two, he extended his right leg as far as it could stretch, beating Wootton by a fraction of an inch.
Snap!
He stabbed the ball into the roof of the net, coming to a sliding halt right in the mouth of the goal as the canvas rippled above him.
“YES!” Callum roared, pushing himself up onto one knee, his face dripping with wet mud and sweat as he pumped his fist.
From the touchline, Uwe Rösler’s face finally broke.
He didn’t smile; he wasn’t the type, but he nodded vigorously, checking his stopwatch and clapping his hands together with a sharp, echoing snap.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP
The long, rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the digital timer cut right through the atmosphere on Pitch Two, signaling the exact end of the five-minute block.
Rösler brought his whistle to his lips and blew three long, definitive blasts.
“And that is time! Session over! Bring it in!” Rösler barked, his voice carrying across the damp Thorp Arch turf.
The frantic, physical edge that had built up over the last few minutes instantly evaporated.
Players on both sides dropped their heads, hands on knees, chests heaving heavily as they drank in the cold Yorkshire air.
The Blues looked thoroughly deflated, having been demolished 3-1, while the Yellows exchanged exhausting, satisfied low-fives.
“Brilliant shift, Cal,” Luke Murphy gasped, jogging past Callum and giving him a solid slap on the shoulder.
“Gaffer was about to run us into the ground. You saved our legs there.”
Callum wiped a streak of wet mud and sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, a quiet smirk breaking across his face.
He turned toward the touchline where the squad was already congregating around the water crates and tactical boards.
Uwe Rösler stood by the main bench, his clipboard tucked tightly under his arm as Rob Kelly began handing out high-protein recovery shakes.
The manager’s sharp eyes scanned the approaching players, locking onto Callum as the young striker walked up to grab a water bottle.
“Vance,” Rösler called out, his stern German accent cutting through the chatter of the senior pros.
The rest of the huddle went quiet, turning their attention to the teenager.
Callum stopped mid-sip, lowering his water bottle as twenty pairs of eyes shifted toward him.
Rösler stepped closer, his imposing frame casting a shadow on the damp grass.
He stared down at Callum for a long, heavy second, the silence stretching out until the only sound left on Pitch Two was the distant hum of a tractor cutting the grass on the far side of Thorp Arch.
“The flick over Bellusci,” Rösler said, his voice dropping into a low, measured register.
“And the anticipation of following the shot. That is what I want from my number nine.”
He tapped his clipboard sharply against his thigh.
“In the first ten minutes, you are too static. You are waiting for the game to come to you. In the Championship, if you wait, a defender like Giuseppe will eat your lunch and spit out the bones. But when you move backwards to draw him out, when you use the brains instead of just the muscles… das ist gut.”
A few of the senior lads, including Sol Bamba, nodded approvingly.
Bellusci, standing at the back of the huddle with a towel draped over his neck, just grunted and looked away, still nursing his bruised pride.
“We play a high-intensity game,” Rösler continued, turning his gaze to address the whole huddle.
“If one link in the chain breaks, the whole system collapses. Today, the front three showed me they can trigger the press. Now, I want to see that same hunger on Saturday.”
He looked back down at Callum, a tiny, almost imperceptible softening around his eyes.
“Go to the medical room. Get the protein, get the ice. If you train like this tomorrow, you are on the team sheet for the weekend. Understood?”
“Yes, Boss,” Callum said, his heart doing a sudden, violent thud against his ribs.
“Good. Clean up. Dismissed.”
The huddle broke apart with a chorus of groans and tired chatter as the lads headed toward the main building.
Lewis Cook immediately slung an arm around Callum’s mud-stained shoulders, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hear that, mate?” Cook laughed, pulling him toward the changing rooms.
“You’re starting to make the gaffer look like a tactical genius. Come on, let’s get inside before the hot water runs out.”
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Thanks for 11k views, I never thought one of my non-anime related fics would do so well.