Chapter 28: Training With The First Team?
The extra training session ended and the players parted ways and went to their respective houses leaving Alex alone on the pitch.
Alex, however, did not follow the rest of his team. Instead, his feet led him away from the noise and chatter of the first-team squad, guiding him instinctively toward the far pitch, the one where the Under-18s were training. It was not the first time he had wandered over there. In fact, he had done so once before, the previous day, maybe out of idle curiosity or something less explainable. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was something in his blood pulling him there again, a whisper of the past disguised as a hunch.
He leaned against the same rusted railing as before, the metal cool beneath his hands. The floodlights above were humming quietly even though the sky had not completely darkened. There was a weight in the air, not oppressive, just expectant. A silence filled with motion and breath and unspoken dreams.
The teenagers on the pitch were already deep into their session, balls zipping back and forth between cones, voices rising as they called out for passes. The air buzzed with the rhythm of youth football, all high-energy touches and hopeful chaos.
At first, it was the same blur of limbs and movement as any youth training session. He saw the same frantic pressing, the overhit passes, the ambitious dribbles. Some decent touches, sure. A nice switch of play here, a well-timed tackle there. Nothing groundbreaking.
But then, he saw him again.
Number 8.
The boy with tightly wound curls, his socks defiantly rolled down to his ankles, shirt slightly oversized as if it could not quite keep up with how quickly he was growing. Luca Ferretti. The same kid he had noticed the first time, the one who had briefly lit up the field like a flare in the darkness. Back then, Alex had tried to brush it off. A good moment, he had told himself. A flash. These kids all have flashes.
But now, seeing him again, Alex realized it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t luck.