Chapter 24: First Match In Europe I
The game kicked off beneath a sky the color of unpolished steel, the kind of sky that made everything below it feel colder, heavier. Frost clung stubbornly along the edges of the pitch, refusing to melt under the weak winter sun.
Every breath hung in the air like smoke, every shout or whistle cutting sharper through the silence because there was no crowd to swallow the sound.
Amani sat on the cold plastic bench, shoulders hunched against the bite of the wind. His academy-issued coat wasn’t quite thick enough, and the chill from the seat seeped through his tracksuit, straight into his skin.
But cold wasn’t the reason his legs bounced restlessly, his heels drumming soft, uneven beats against the frozen ground.
From where he sat, the pitch felt both familiar and utterly foreign. Grass, lines, and goals, just like back home. But the way the game moved? That was something else entirely.
AZ Alkmaar’s academy boys played with a terrifying kind of order, a rhythm born from years of training together, drilled so deep they didn’t even need to shout commands.
They pressed like a hunting pack, snapping at every Utrecht pass before it could even reach its target. The moment a Utrecht player hesitated or took a poor touch, two AZ players descended like vultures, stripping possession and instantly turning defense into attack.
Their front line moved with predatory patience, the wingers sticking wide like shadows waiting to pounce, while the central forward, a tall, lean boy with ice-blue eyes and the stillness of a snake, barely moved at all.
He didn’t chase the ball. He waited for it to come to him in dangerous places. When it did, his touches were surgical: one, two, maybe three before firing a shot or slipping a pass into space Utrecht hadn’t even realized they left open.
Amani’s stomach churned. He’d played fast teams before, but this wasn’t just speed. This was precision violence, football with a scalpel instead of a hammer.
Utrecht looked like they were playing underwater. Every pass felt too slow, every run too hesitant. Tijmen, usually so confident in midfield, kept glancing over his shoulder like he could feel the pressure even before it arrived.