By the time Dean got home, the house was empty.
Ethan hadn’t come back yet.
He tidied up a little.
In a spare moment, he turned his focus in toward the three beads hanging in his field of vision.
A whole morning of ball-control training had brightened the blue bead on the left another small notch, threads were spreading out a little further across it.
He still hadn’t worked out the full purpose of the three beads, and had no idea what they’d eventually grow into.
But the changes themselves were real and undeniable.
Whether it was stamina, explosive power, or his touch and coordination on the ball—all of it kept climbing steadily, in step with the beads filling in.
Not until close to lunchtime did he hear hurried footsteps outside the door.
Ethan pushed the door open, with sweat across his forehead, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, bits of grass clinging to the cuffs of his trousers—clearly, he’d spent the whole morning running around some patch of grass somewhere.
“Dean, guess who I ran into this morning?
David!” He came over, talking as he went.
“He asked after you specially—wanted to know how you were getting on at Liverpool’s academy.
He’s clearly still not over it, kept going on about you being some kind of super-talent, said Everton’s going to regret missing out on you forever.”
Dean didn’t pick up the thread, just gave him a flat glance and told him to go wash up for lunch.
That afternoon, the two of them stayed home playing video games.
After dinner, Dean walked Ethan back to the Andersons’.
The old couple were sitting in the living room listening to the radio.
Seeing the boys arrive, Anderson got up with a smile and clapped Dean on the shoulder.
“Train hard.
I’m looking forward to seeing you out on that Anfield turf one day.” Anderson’s expression turned a shade more serious, and he added one more piece of advice.
“And another thing—once you actually make a name for yourself, keep well clear of reporters.
Especially that lot at The Sun.
Not one true word out of them, always looking to stir up trouble and ruin young lads.”
Dean nodded, taking it to heart.
He understood Liverpool supporters’ hostility toward The Sun—the false reporting after Hillsborough had long since made that paper a sworn enemy of Anfield.
Early the next morning.
Dean arrived at Kirkby ahead of schedule, as always.
He pushed open the door to the U16 changing room to find it already full of noise, a good crowd was gathered inside.
Conor, Adam Pepper, John Flanagan, and the others sat clustered together, energetically going over the weekend’s 3–0 win against Tottenham, the conversation was ranging from Riise’s thirty-yard cannon of a shot to Kuyt’s sharp reading of the run, loud and lively.
Dean walked over and greeted them each in turn.
The group nodded back, but before anyone could ask him much of anything, Conor slapped his own thigh and raised his voice, calling out to the whole room.
“Right, lads, listen up—starting today, Dean’s officially training with us properly!”
Everyone was exchanging looks.
They all remembered this quiet kid who’d joined with zero background just two weeks ago—no one had expected him to improve at such an absurd rate, let alone catch up to full U16 training this fast.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, they all broke into smiles and offered their congratulations.
Dean smiled too, thanking each of them in turn, then bent down to change into his training kit.
The group got their gear sorted and headed out together toward the training pitch.
On the way, Conor leaned in close to Dean and lowered his voice.
“Oh, by the way—Adam’s getting pulled up to the U18s next week, going to play in the Premier Academy League.
Lucky sod.
He might even get a shot at this season’s FA Youth Cup too.”
He paused, then went on.
“You’ll need to pick up the pace yourself too.
Not sure if you’ve heard, but England’s U17s have made it into the World Youth Championship U17 finals for the first time in history.
With the strongest prospects on this current England U17 squad probably getting pulled up to fill gaps in the U20s for the U20 World Youth Championship, that’ll open up spots in the U17 squad.
That’s our chance.
So the U18 league and the FA Youth Cup are the best springboard there is—play well enough there, and you might even catch the eye of the national youth setup.”
Dean heard this and shook his head.
“That’s way too far off.
My basics are still too thin; I haven’t even properly played a real match yet—how would anyone notice me at that level?
Let’s see how I get on in our own U16 matches first.
You, on the other hand—you’ve already made a U18 squad list before.
Push properly this time, and you’ll get your shot on the pitch eventually.”
Conor had been pulled up before, but had never actually gotten a chance to play.
Conor rubbed the back of his head, a wistful, longing look appeared on his face.
“Yeah…
if I could just get a look-in on a stage like the World Youth Championship, forget Liverpool’s first team—chances at other top leagues would come knocking too.”
Just as the group reached the edge of the training pitch, Heighway came walking toward them.
His eyes swept across the lined-up players, lingering briefly on Dean, before he spoke.
“Starting today, you’re training normally with the U16s.
If you can’t keep up for now, that’s fine—don’t force it.
The main thing is getting up to the rhythm and the intensity as fast as you can.”
“I will, boss.” Dean nodded in response.
Heighway said nothing more, and turned to go check on the other pitches.
This morning’s U16 session was being run entirely by youth coach Astley.
Coach Astley laid out the day’s training plan briefly, and the squad started their warm-up.
Everyone jogged two laps around the edge of the training pitch, then moved through hip openers, lunges, and ankle rotations.
Once the warm-up was done, the first item of proper training was the one drill kept, without fail, at every level of every English academy squad: rondo—known among the players themselves as: “monkey in the middle.”
This was a training method used everywhere from grassroots pickup pitches all the way up to Premier League first teams, and there was nothing better for testing the precision of a one-touch pass, passing vision, and defensive anticipation.
The full U16 squad split into two groups, each forming a circle with two defenders standing in the middle of each.
The rules were simple: the players on the outside of the circle could only play one-touch passes, passing among themselves to keep the ball away from the two defenders in the middle; the two in the middle were there to press and intercept, and whoever lost the ball would swap places with whoever had made the mistake.
The moment the groups were settled, Dean was pushed straight into the middle of the circle, along with another squad player, to be the “monkey.”
This was an unspoken rule in every academy team.
New signings always had to get a taste of being run ragged first—nobody got to settle into the group easily.
Every one of them had been put through it by the older lads before them, so naturally, none of them were about to go easy on the new arrival either.
The passing around the outside started up quickly.
The ball moved fast between their feet, its path was unpredictable, and the rhythm was shifting between quick and slow.
Several passes intentionally skimmed right past Dean, close enough that it looked like he could reach it with a single step—but the instant he shifted his weight and moved to intercept, the ball had already been passed calmly off to the other side, missing him by a hair’s breadth, every single time.
Clearly, it was a game—dangling something in front of him that looked within reach but never actually was.
Making him lunge for it, again and again, so they could watch the new kid make a fool of himself.
But Dean’s expression stayed completely calm throughout, looking neither embarrassed nor irritated.
He kept moving back and forth with the rhythm of the passing, his footwork was light, showing no sign of tiring at all.
The others wanted to see him made a fool of, but he wasn’t paying any of that any mind at all—every bit of his attention was locked onto the rolling ball, watching the feet of whoever had it, reading where the next pass would go, running through the best moment to intercept, over and over, in his head.
He didn’t even notice it himself, but the blue bead on the left was climbing at a rate far beyond what regular passing training usually produced.
The proportion of blue kept steadily rising.
Another round of passing came around, and the ball reached James Griffiths’s feet.
He meant to play it along the ground, at an angle sharp enough that it should have just skimmed past Dean’s side.
But the instant he struck the ball, Dean seemed to have already read the line it would take—his weight dropped suddenly, his left leg shot out, and the top of his foot landed exactly in the ball’s path.
A soft, sharp smack rang out.
The ball was cleanly cut off, and sent flying away.
He’d done it!
A few of the players on the outside froze for a second, surprise flashed across their faces.
They knew exactly how hard this drill was—for a new signing standing in the middle for the first time, just keeping up with the pace without gasping for breath from being run around would already have counted as decent going.
Dean had only been training for half a month, and not only had he kept pace, he’d actually won the ball clean.
Griffiths, though, frowned.
He was clearly not looking pleased.
Because now it was his turn to be the monkey.