The Copa Sudamericana was the consolation bracket.
Clubs eliminated from the Libertadores in the Round of 16 automatically qualified for it.
São Paulo had gone from competing for the pinnacle of continental football to fighting for a lesser title without anyone in the squad actively choosing to do so.
The coaching staff filed the reality under “acceptable” and moved on.
The short break between the two competitions did something useful for Léo.
He had been with the squad long enough that the initial friction had worn off.
What remained was just football.
The veterans accepted him with the unspoken ease Brazilian locker rooms reserve for products of the house—players who grew up inside the same concrete walls and understood exactly what the crest meant.
Léo was the youngest in the group.
He also trained the hardest.
In Brazilian football, where raw ability is common currency and demonstrated effort earns respect, that combination settled most questions quickly.
“That’s enough for today.”
Ramalho called it from the touchline with twenty minutes left in the afternoon session.
The squad drifted in from their positions.
A few jogged; most walked with the heavy, deliberate economy of men who had spent everything they intended to spend.
“Come in, everyone.” Ramalho waited for the boots to stop crunching on the turf.
“The Serie A opener kicks off this weekend.
Our turn is tomorrow.
Away at Campinas.
The bus leaves from the main gate at eight in the morning.”
He looked down at his clipboard.
“Squad list.”
The group settled into quiet attention.
Léo stood near the back, his hands clasped behind him.
“Keepers: Denis César de Matos, Rogério Mücke Ceni.” Ramalho worked his way through the defenders, then the midfielders.
“Wellington Aparecido Martins.
Maicon Thiago Pereira de Souza.
Denílson Pereira Neves…”
Léo tracked each name with half his attention.
He spent the other half forcing his expression to remain completely neutral.
“Forwards: Sílvio José Cardoso Reis Júnior.
Luís Fabiano Clemente.
Osvaldo Lourenço Filho.
Aloísio dos Santos Gonçalves.”
Ramalho paused, his eyes scanning the back row.
“Léo Costa.”
Léo exhaled.
He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.
“Vamos.” Ramalho closed the clipboard.
“Disperse.
Rest.
Get your equipment checked tonight.
Léo.”
Léo looked up.
“No extra sessions this evening,” Ramalho ordered.
“You have a match tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Léo was still carrying the feeling—a distinct, unfamiliar lightness in his chest—when he passed the youth academy pitches on his way back to the dormitory.
The sound stopped him.
A rhythmic tapping, precise and endlessly patient, echoed from the far corner of the chain-link fence.
Léo slowed his pace and looked through the mesh.
It was a boy.
He was small.
Léo’s first instinct put him at ten or eleven years old.
The kid was running a grueling solo drill: left foot planted as a pivot, his right instep rolling the ball in slow, agonizingly controlled circles around his standing leg.
It wasn’t flashy.
It was the kind of grinding repetition most players abandoned after fifteen minutes because it was boring and the results were invisible—until suddenly, years later, they weren’t.
The boy looked up, caught sight of Léo, and froze.
“Pô—Léo?” He jogged toward the fence, his eyes wide.
“You’re actually back?
I heard the rumors but I didn’t—you’re really here.”
“I’m here.” Léo looked down at him.
“Do I know you?”
“No, not personally.” The boy straightened his shoulders, trying and failing to look taller.
“But I know you.
I joined the academy in 2010.
The coaches were still talking about you.
They used you as the gold standard for what hard work looks like.” He wiped a line of sweat from his forehead.
“Anyway.
My name is Anthony.
Anthony Matthäus dos Santos.”
“How old are you, Anthony?”
“Thirteen.”
Léo recalibrated.
He was off by three years.
The kid was drastically small for his age, carrying the frame of a ten-year-old.
But he had the eyes of someone who had been told his size was a career-ending problem and had decided to use the insult as fuel.
“You’ve been here since you were ten?”
“Yeah.” Anthony nodded, reading the silence.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“That I’m small.” Anthony gripped the chain-link fence.
“I know you’re a genius, Léo.
Everyone knows that.
But I’m not bad either.
I’m going to be right where you are.
I’m going to be a player everyone knows.”
Léo stared at him.
Thirteen years old.
Undersized.
Running footwork drills alone in the fading light while the first team went to dinner, telling a senior player to his face that he was going to be famous.
“How many times do you run that drill a day?” Léo asked.
Anthony blinked.
“Two hundred.”
“Make it three hundred.” Léo nodded toward the grass.
“And add the other foot.”
Anthony’s jaw dropped slightly.
“Work harder than you think you need to,” Léo said.
“Not because someone tells you to.
Do it because you understand why.” He turned to leave.
“You’ll get there.”
Léo walked down the path.
Thirty meters away, he glanced back over his shoulder.
Anthony had already returned to the ball.
Left foot planted, right instep rolling.
Léo knew how the math worked in this country; he’d see what that kind of stubbornness became in a few years, or he wouldn’t.
But the fire in the kid’s eyes was real.
Léo’s phone buzzed in his pocket before he reached the dormitory door.
Unknown number.
He pulled it out and frowned.
He had only owned the Brazilian SIM card for a month.
Nobody had the number except Vezoli, Uncle Shawn, and the club administration.
He swiped the screen to answer.
“You absolute jerk,” a voice exploded through the speaker.
“Cara—two years.
Two whole years in America and not one call.
Nothing.
And then you come back to São Paulo and I have to find out through the press?
Who do you think you are?”
Léo held the phone an inch away from his ear.
“Neymar?”
“Sim, it’s me!
Who else would still bother with you after all this?” A sudden, loud laugh broke through the irritation.
“Good brother.
I knew you’d still recognize my voice.”
Léo pushed his door open and sat heavily on the edge of his bed.
They hadn’t spoken since the day Léo left for America.
Back then, Neymar had been the other half of the “São Paulo Twins” narrative—two years older, dominating at Santos, already crowned the heir apparent to Brazilian football.
The contrast had been too stark to look at directly.
Neymar was lifting the Copa Libertadores and anchoring the national team, while Léo was getting benched on a US youth squad because his uncle hadn’t written a fifty-thousand-dollar check.
Léo hadn’t called because he couldn’t explain the gap in their trajectories without sounding pathetic.
“There were things going on,” Léo said quietly.
“I know there were.
I’m not actually mad.” Neymar’s voice softened.
“I’ve got informants everywhere, you know how I am.
I heard you were back the same week you landed.
I waited for you to call me.”
“I know.”
“I’m calling you.
Which officially makes you the bad friend in this story, just so we’re clear.”
“I know,” Léo repeated.
The static hummed between them.
It was the distinct comfort of two people realizing that a two-year silence hadn’t actually changed the architecture of their friendship.
“Listen,” Neymar said, his tone turning serious.
“Give it a season.
Establish yourself.
Let everyone see what you can do.
Then get your agent to look at Europe.
We finish what we started.
The São Paulo Twins, cara.
You and me taking over the European leagues.”
“You haven’t even signed in Europe yet.”
“It’s happening this summer.
The bids are insane.
Santos is finalizing it.” Neymar paused.
“But honestly, cara…
I need to get over there.
Because of what I saw.”
“Saw what?”
Neymar’s voice dropped, stripping away the usual bravado.
“Before 2011, I thought it was us.
You know?
I thought the two of us were the peak.
I thought all the European hype around Messi and Ronaldo was just media noise.
I believed our generation was better.
I thought Brazil was untouchable.”
Léo waited.
“Then we played Barcelona in the Club World Cup final.” Neymar exhaled slowly.
“Léo…
I am not easy to impress.
You know my ego.
But I stood on that pitch and watched Lionel Messi tear us apart.”
“Tell me.”
“He’s an actual genius, cara.
Not the fake word the journalists throw around.
The things he sees, the speed of his processing…
I watched him ruin our backline and all I could think was, Okay, so that’s the real standard.” Neymar sighed.
“Argentina is going to be our biggest problem at every major tournament for the rest of our careers.”
Léo stared up at the white ceiling of his room.
“So you’re saying all our plans just got harder,” Léo said.
“I’m saying we’re going to need to be significantly better than we thought we did.” Neymar laughed, sounding genuinely thrilled by the prospect.
“Which is fine.
We can do that.
You playing tomorrow?”
“Squad list came out tonight.
I’m in.”
“Vamos.
Go be brilliant.
And call me after the whistle.
Don’t make me track you down again.”