Chapter 40: Special Match
Alex sat back in his office chair, blinking at the system’s holographic display. Diagrams of pressing traps, numerical symbols for probability, interlocking arrows showing midfield rotations, it was all there. And he still felt nothing. Blank, blocked, maybe drained. Hard to tell.
He hit "Pause" on the video analysis of Inter Milan’s overlapping fullbacks. The office clock ticked past nine. He’d started drawing out potential formations at six. Six hours of staring at tactics that once felt alive, now feeling like dense fog.
He leaned forward and spoke to the emptiness of the System, half‑joking, half‑pleading, "System...?" But the silence answered. No ding. No pop. Just the holographic display.
He sighed and stood up, walked over to the window, looked out at Lecce’s quiet streets. Even at night the city buzzed with life. Neon signs glowed, occasional voices drifted from nearby cafés. He let the silence settle into him.
After a moment he grabbed his jacket. Keyboard clicks and screen images faded behind him as he exited his office for the final time that day.
The apartment felt like a waiting space. Dim lights revealed empty coffee mugs, notes strewn across the coffee table. A thin layer of dust sprayed across his desk, a testament to nights spent planning, worrying, coaching.
He walked into the kitchen. The fridge light flickered on and he pulled out a water bottle. He drank it quickly, paused, then opened another. Hydration was all he had left of his mental clarity. He paced back into the living room like a restless chess player, moving from the couch to the bookshelves and stopping at the whiteboard. Nothing helpful there either. Half‑erased phrases floated across it: pressing triggers, opponent analysis, formation adjustments. They just mocked him.
They had made progress. So much progress. Defeating Monza, holding Fiorentina nearly dead even through the first half. But facing Inter? That felt like a mirror with no reflection. Not just proving them wrong... but proving himself right? Or at least not entirely wrong.
He grunted, rubbed his temples hard. He checked his phone. Evening texts from Isabella asking how his preparation was going. A message from Gallo requesting extra footage on Inter’s left wing. An old audio message from Banda joking, "When you gonna let me shoot more?"
He ignored most of it except for Isabella’s. "Be there later?" she asked simply.
He typed back in shorthand, "Yeah. See you."