Where’s my blue?
Where’s all that blue gone?!
Something like an earthquake went off inside Dean, though not a trace of it showed on his face.
He had no idea why the blue bead had gone transparent again, but he could still feel clearly, every single tactical detail he’d just walked through.
That short handful of minutes of tactical visualization had felt too real—real enough that every passing lane, every shift of the defensive line, every moment a gap had opened up, felt like it had been carved straight into instinct.
He’d only ever heard passing tactics explained properly, in any structured way, for the very first time today.
And yet, closing his eyes right now, the whole triangle-support, horizontal-stretch, vertical-breakthrough sequence felt completely, closely familiar, as if he’d drilled it a hundred times, a thousand times, until it lived in his muscles.
He ran back through it quickly in his head, and it didn’t take him long to land on the answer: this had to be the blue bead’s doing.
The blue energy he’d been quietly building up through everyday training had triggered and burned off the instant he heard the tactical explanation, pulling him into an intensely focused flow state.
Turning the abstract language of tactics into a complete, fully realized picture of the pitch.
And dropping him right into the middle of it while letting him absorb everything, completely, in the shortest possible time.
This wasn’t rote memorization.
This was actually letting him feel it.
Once Dean had worked out what the blue bead did, more questions instantly followed.
If the blue bead corresponded to tactical understanding, football IQ, that kind of thing.
What about the red one?
Did it correspond to physical attributes—strength, speed, that whole category of physical gifts?
If it built up enough, could it trigger and burn off the same way the blue one had, boosting his physical condition sharply, in a short burst?
And what about the third bead—the transparent one that had never shown any activity at all?
What was that one even for?
Whatever the answers turned out to be, working out what the blue bead did left Dean feeling considerably steadier.
At the very least, he no longer had to worry about being left behind on tactical understanding just because he was starting from zero.
As long as he kept banking blue energy, he could digest even the most complicated tactics quickly.
The urgent thing now was actually to train more, to bank as much blue energy as he possibly could.
At the same time, he needed to work out exactly what triggered the flow state—did it only happen when a coach explained something out loud, or could he trigger it himself just by studying a tactics board on his own?
That mattered a great deal for how he’d get back into that state next time.
Dean’s mind stayed completely fixed on how the beads worked, and he barely registered anything Heighway added afterward.
He just kept staring at the formation diagram on the whiteboard, lost in thought.
Running the pitch scene from a moment ago through his head again and again, trying to actively summon that same bird’s-eye feeling of looking down over the whole pitch but nothing happened, no matter what he tried.
Luckily, the tactics session was already close to wrapping up, so he didn’t have long to sit there puzzling before Heighway set down his marker and rapped his knuckles on the desk.
“That’s it for today.
This afternoon starts at half one—specialized training first, then we’ll split into groups for a squad scrimmage, putting what we covered today into practice out on the pitch.” Get faster updates on NovelPing.
He paused, his eyes sweeping over the row of young faces in front of him, and then dropped the piece of news everyone in the room cared about.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard by now—England’s U17s have made it into the World Youth Championship finals for the first time in the country’s history.”
“Who England U17 manager John Peacock ends up picking for that squad isn’t up to me.
But who gets pulled up to play for Liverpool’s U18s in the Premier Academy League, who makes the FA Youth Cup squad list—that decision is entirely mine.
I think you all understand exactly what that means.
If you want to move up, want to make the national squad, want a professional contract—show me you’ve got the real thing.
The World Youth Championship is a massive stage.
Perform there, and top-flight opportunities are right there waiting.
Whether you grab them or not is entirely down to you.”
The moment the words resounded, the room burst into noise.
Every U16 player’s eyes lit up, brimming with a hunger none of them could quite hide.
The World Youth Championship—the ultimate stage every young player dreamed of.
Get noticed there, and it wasn’t just a professional contract at Liverpool on the table—offers from other Premier League clubs would start pouring in too.
The professional path which had felt so distant a moment ago, suddenly felt like it had been pulled right up close, close enough to touch, on the strength of that one sentence alone.
Dean sat in the middle of the group, without the same excitement as everyone else around him.
The World Youth Championship was too far off for him—he was still young, and wouldn’t even turn fourteen until Christmas, at the end of the year.
He didn’t actually know his real birthday, if he was honest.
It was only because Grandma Mason had found him on Christmas Day that his birthday had ended up being Christmas.
Dean’s goal, right now, was clear enough: establish himself properly in the U16s first, and use the three beads to build up his ability across the board.
Once the tactics session broke up, the players headed off in twos and threes toward the academy canteen for lunch.
It was the standard academy meal.
Dean sat quietly in a corner, his mind was still turning over the blue bead’s trigger mechanism, not saying much to anyone.
During the hour and a half of lunch break, most of the others went back to the dormitory to nap.
Dean leaned back against a bench in the changing room, eyes closed, trying a few more times to purposely drop into that flow state and run through the tactics again—but still nothing happened.
He gave up on it eventually, and just rested, saving his energy for the afternoon’s training.
Half past one.
The full U16 squad assembled on the training pitch, right on time.
Coach Astley set up specialized small-group passing drills—groups of four, working one-touch passing sequences within a marked-off grid, focused specifically on the triangle support and horizontal stretching covered that morning.
The drill itself was dull, but the intensity was high, the ball was moving fast between everyone’s feet.
Shouts and the thud of the ball echoed steadily across the pitch.
Dean worked through it steadily along with his group.
At exactly half past two, the specialized training wrapped up, and the squad scrimmage began.
The players were split randomly into a red team and a blue team, without much gap in overall strength between the two sides.
Dean, Conor, Flanagan, and the others ended up on the red team, though Dean was listed as a substitute, sitting on the sideline to watch for now. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Once the match kicked off, the pace wasn’t especially fast.
Individually, the players on both sides had decent enough basics—their dribbling and first touch looked the part.
But the overall team play wasn’t especially fluid.
Attacks mostly depended on the other side’s mistakes.
Either a pass came out too heavy and ran out of play, or a run and a pass just didn’t line up in time—more than once, a chance that looked like it might carve the defence open fell apart because the connection between two players came half a beat too slow, giving the defence time to recover.
Not far from the touchline, Heighway stood shoulder to shoulder with Ben Hughes, the U18 youth coach, both of them were watching the pitch with expressions that weren’t especially pleased.
“This is the level we’re at.” Heighway kept his voice low, with a bit of self-mockery in it.
“Word gets back to Melwood, and they’ll be laughing at us again, saying there’s no one worth anything left at Kirkby.”
Ben Hughes let out a sigh, his face was full of resignation.
“This particular batch’s overall talent is just what it is.
There are not many real standouts in the mix.
If we want proper results, we’re probably looking a few age groups down the line.”
He paused, then added, “For what it’s worth, I do think we could stand to widen the net a bit on recruitment.
Stop fixating so much on local white boys.
There’s good talent in immigrant families too—that lad in the U10s, Trent, he’s Black, and his feet are genuinely excellent.
His awareness’s not bad either.”
Heighway gave a slight nod, but didn’t say anything back, his gaze was still fixed on the pitch.
The U10s were still too far off.
Too distant a well to draw from for a problem that needed solving now.
He might not even still be here by the time that group came up.
He’d likely have left Kirkby long before then.
Thirty minutes into the match, the score was still 0–0, both sides were making mistake after mistake, it was not exactly a spectacle to watch.
Coach Astley blew the whistle to stop play and began making substitutions, swapping five players on each side, rotating heavily to get a proper look at everyone.
“Dean.” Astley waved him over from the sideline.
Dean got up at once and jogged over.
“You’re going on at defensive midfield.” Astley spoke quickly, pointing out the position on the pitch as he gave his instructions.
“First job is defence—hold your position, stick to your man.
But when we’re in possession, don’t push forward carelessly.
Ball comes to your feet, settle it, sort your options out properly before you play it.
Don’t just go charging in blind.”
Dean nodded and jogged out to take his position.