The bibs kicked off again. A winger who’d been hanging wide all game started drifting inside now, linking quick passes and pulling our shape apart. Every time he got it, the tempo spiked. First touch, drop of the shoulder, gone.

  I tracked him through one sequence and winced. He was miles quicker than the rest of them, the kind of lad who’d either make it at least semi-pro or disappear by nineteen because no one taught him positioning. His acceleration was brutal, though. First touch to push, second to play, and even within the two-touch limit he made it look like he was sprinting downhill.

  He took a heavy directional touch that sent the ball too far, and my instincts screamed to step in. But I didn’t. I was out of the game for too long. I didn’t trust myself to get to the ball in time.

  I held back half a beat, second-guessing the run. Fuck it. If I had to second guess, I’d make the lad second-guess himself too.

  “Step in! Now!” I barked.

  The centre-half reacted on instinct, lunging just as the winger went to release. He would’ve made the pass anyway, but the shout made him think twice, and in two-touch footy, you don’t get time to think twice. The ball came out wrong: underhit, curling straight into our midfielder’s feet.

  We broke before they’d even reset their shape. One shout, one read.

  The legs might’ve gone, but the head still worked.

  For a few minutes it even looked like we’d figured them out. But the fatigue was catching up. My legs felt leaden on every lateral shift, every sprint to cover space, and by the seventy-fifth minute, it was painfully clear I wasn’t the same machine I used to be.

  We kept it tight after that, pressing better, closing lanes. For a minute it even looked like we’d figured them out.

  But reads don’t carry forever. You can only anticipate so much when your legs won’t follow through.

  The same winger got on it again later, this time linking up with their number nine and the opposite midfielder in a neat little triangle they’d clearly drilled before. By the time I recognized the pattern, the ball was already squared across the box and buried low at the near post.

  You could feel the difference after that one. They moved sharper, thought quicker, and trusted the ball more. We kept chasing, nicked another from a set play, but every time we looked close, they’d carve us open again with something clean and rehearsed. A little wall pass here, a blind run there, and that was enough.

  By the time the winger got to it like the fifth time, I lunged for a desperate interception and almost got there, but my second step came a fraction too late. The pass squirted across the box, the number nine pulled the trigger, and my stomach sank . . . only for the shot to drift wide by inches.

  The final whistle blew immediately after. The score was four-two. Respectable, if you squinted.

  No one said much at first; we were still busy with the usual hands-on-knees ritual. I sagged against the nearest cone, gulping air like a goldfish someone had dropped on dry land. The whistle couldn’t have come sooner. I would need a couple more games to get used to this kind of match intensity.

  Mitch clapped my shoulder as we walked off, a small nod that said you still see it, even if I didn’t move like I used to. The younger lads gave me that curious look, but nobody really said anything to me. They were already talking among themselves about a TikTok clip of someone meg-ing a pro in training.

  Mitch called them over a minute later and said something low I couldn’t quite catch. A few of them glanced my way, then back at him, nodding along. Whatever it was, it made him grin.

  He came over after, rolling the ball between his hands.

  “You gonna come next session?” he asked.

  I hesitated, toeing at the pitch where the turf had scuffed up.

  “Yeah,” I said finally. “Might do.”

  He paused by the sideline and gave me a quick once-over. “You know,” he said, “The first team could use someone who actually knows how to read a game. You already got the job. Tomorrow’s just meeting Bossman so it’s official. Formalities, nothing more.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Don’t overthink it,” he added. “Just turn up. Keep your head in it, yeah?”

  The overlay appeared atop Mitch’s head again.

  Of course, I had to access them. I’d already gone this far.

  The stats were all locked? This was next level paywall rubbish.

  I didn’t have the time nor the strength for this nonsense right now. “Right,” I said finally. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  On the train home, I leaned back in my seat, eyes half-closed, focusing on the back of my eyelids. The overlay had vanished, but the memory of it was still there, floating in my vision. I clenched my fists, summoning the image of my Profile, trying to will it back. The screen reappeared in my mind.

  He focused on the line at the bottom, and another one appeared beneath:

  I frowned. Reputation level, like some weird in-game hierarchy judging everyone around you? That was . . . annoying. So I couldn’t even just pick willy-nilly. I had to see who on the pitch had less ‘Rep’ than me? And even then, just two. TWO. At a time. Do you even know how many attributes there were in the game? Bloody more than two, that’s how many!

  I ran the numbers in my head anyway. Thirty-something attributes. One level unlocks two. At this pace, I’d need ten levels just to see the whole picture. Ten bloody levels.

  This thing was greedy, but surely it couldn’t be Activision-level greedy. The higher your level, the more you’re supposed to get, right? That’s how progression worked.

  Hold on. The quest only gave me exactly 10 EXP. Where did the extra 3 EXP come from?

  Only then did I notice the smaller notification still lingering at the corner. It said:

  Ah. This system still had the sense to hook me up with just enough grindy dopamine to keep me chasing numbers like some weekend EAFC addict who swore he’d quit after ‘one more match.’

  The train rattled along, and up ahead I spotted the sign for Reading. Dunsvale couldn’t be far now. I’d been here long enough; too long for it to make sense.

  Maybe it was because it was close enough to Callum’s Burnley that I could get up north if I really had to, though in practice I rarely did. Maybe it was so I had more excuses to make the trek to see my folks, who were back up in the North, still rooted in their quiet rhythms while I meandered through life down here.

  Whichever the case, I’d chosen to be stuck here all alone, doing nothing with my life.

  Maybe I really needed the change. Even it came locked with multi-level DLCs.