The Next Big Thing

"Call me Coach."

The words echoed in David’s mind over and over again, looping like a song he couldn’t turn off. He sat in front of his newly assigned locker in the dressing room, staring at nothing in particular. It wasn’t that the words themselves were bad—far from it. But it was the way they were said. The tone. The weight behind them.

Almost every coach he had met before preferred to be called gaffer or boss. Granted, he had only met two in his short career so far, but still—it was a pattern. It was familiar. And yet, here was Erik ten Hag, a man who didn’t even acknowledge his handshake, shutting down the interaction with three simple words.

David couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

As players began trickling into the dressing room, their chatter filled the once-quiet space. Laughter, greetings, and inside jokes bounced off the walls, creating a lively atmosphere. Some of them nodded at him as they passed, and he returned the gesture to the few faces he recognized from his previous visits. Normally, he would have been the first to strike up a conversation, to blend in seamlessly, but today... today, his mind was elsewhere.

Did I do something wrong?

The question gnawed at him, refusing to be ignored.

Was it because I offered him a handshake?

David was half-Nigerian, and though he had never been to Nigeria himself, his father had made sure he knew a thing or two about the culture. One of the rules drilled into him was that offering a handshake to an elder—especially someone significantly older—could sometimes be seen as a sign of disrespect. Younger people were supposed to show deference, to wait for the elder to extend their hand first.

But that couldn’t be it, right?

That rule didn’t really apply here. This was Europe. The Netherlands, to be precise. Coach—no, Ten Hag—wasn’t Nigerian. He doubted the man would even care about something like that.