The evening sun on Sunday stretched its long fingers across the rooftops and cast shadows on the street, as the golden hour relinquished the city to the night. Slowly, Santa Cruz was winding down its day; however, in the office of CD Tenerife's unassuming training base, the lights were still on.
Laurence González sat hunched with his back, forearms placed on the nice polished wood while his knees were touching the edge of the desk, staring at an opened laptop.
He was not watching highlights. Not for this. He was being guided by the numbers—set against a table, stark, and austere—LaLiga table after 22 games. The LaLiga table was maybe a little more complicated than it seemed.
CD Tenerife; 7th position; 34 points; 6th position Sevilla two points ahead; 4th position Atlético Madrid only four behind. The European specialness was within reach and just like that, tantalizing, impossible, and real at the same time.
Above them, Villarreal and Real Sociedad were only one result away. Beneath them, hopefuls were already lurking: Getafe, Valencia, and Osasuna, all with noses close to the glass. The whole midtable was like a pizza oven; it could explode with glory, or go flop into French fries, from a couple of good or bad results.
But Laurence did not feel hope. Not tonight.
He felt worn out.
Not physically tired, even if the bags under his eyes suggested otherwise. He felt emotionally spent, like a man putting out fires with a leaking bucket. The defeat 0-3 to Real Madrid was not a disaster - at least not in terms of the whole season - but it had peeled something off him. A layer of illusion. A coat of belief.
They were brave. They were organized. But they weren't ready to take on the giants. Not yet.
And with every game Bellvís limped through, every time Luna pulled up with a faded hamstring, the reality pressed down harder. The squad was not deep enough. The starting XI had overachieved, but the bench was a thin crust over a chasm.
On the desk stood a paper folder, printed and clipped. Victor's work. Scouting reports from the reserves and the academy. Laurence opened it again and skimmed over the notes, the pages filled with hopeful handwriting and cautious optimism.
David Medina. Left-back. Nineteen. Another Castilla kid from their B team. Quick. Good engine. Committed tackler. But raw—positionally naive; easily distorted by more clever wingers.
Álvaro Ramos. Right-back. Twenty-one. Technically clean. Good on the ball. Not explosive to recover. Hasn't faced top velocity yet, still stuck in the Tercera División. If pressed would he burn?
Then Pablo Cuesta. Winger. Eighteen. Very fast, one-footed, and clever. Lacked strength. Couldn't win physical duels, but he had something, a fire. But never faced a man-sized professional with something on the line.
Laurence reclined in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. They weren't transfers. They weren't established, proven player with the experience of competing in life-or-death matches. They were kids. Potential. Possibly assets. Possibly dead weight.
But Laurence also knew this was living at the bottom of the financial ladder in La Liga. Tenerife didn't have a billionaire owner racking up gold in every transfer window. No lavish January war chests. Just hope, sweat, and whatever scraps the academy produced.
The door opened without knocking, a click signaling it was already ajar. Victor strolled in, dropped a coffee mug next to the pile of reports, and without saying a word, sat down in the visitors' chair; his arms rested on his knees, watching Laurence just a moment.
"You've been staring at that page for thirty minutes."
"I was hoping the ink would change," Laurence murmured, "maybe a miracle turn up in the margins."
Victor smiled tiredly. "It's no glamour. But they're willing."
"I know it," Laurence said, picking up the page with Medina's name, tapping it with the pen. "This one's a runner. I may not know when to push and when to hold, but he can recover. I'm going to need that if Bellvís pulls another three-game week."
Victor nodded. "He has been training with the B team, in double sessions. We can pull him up this week. And Cuesta too."
"Cuesta's slight," Laurence said, "but I've seen and done worse than putting an 18-year-old in a Copa del Rey tie. If we can get by this round."
He straightened, stepping over to the whiteboard on the wall farthest away from him—ringed in magnets, arrows, and chalky numbers. The 4-3-3 was still drawn there, which had been their default shape—predicated about Joel's mobility and Griezmann's ability to make the ball drop in between their lines. But the lines looked tired. The teams wings looked ragged. The balance wasn't there.
Laurence took up the eraser and made a slow, deliberate gesture across the board.
Then he put down something new.
4-2-2-2.
It was not pretty. It didn't dazzle. But it was tight. It was stable. It was defensive without being shy.
"Play narrow," he mumbled, mostly to himself. "Let Joel and Cuesta tuck in and drift. Let the full-backs have space to push. Double pivot behind to screen. Natalio up top with Griezmann floating."
Victor stood, walking over to him, staring at the shape, frowning.
"Desperate?"
Laurence chuckled dryly. "Inspired."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Maybe," Laurence said. "But it is all we have."
He stepped back and stared at the shape again. It wasn't about reinventing the wheel. It was about survival. About maximizing what he had. Using every drop of potential, every ounce of effort.
"I won't waste the ones who are willing," he said, quieter now.
Victor nodded. "I'll schedule a session with Medina and Cuesta tomorrow. Get them around the first team."
Laurence nodded absently, already visualizing the movements, the space between lines, the positions on transitions. He didn't need stars. He needed players who would run until their lungs gave out.
Tenerife—7th place.
Above Getafe. Above Valencia. Just behind Sevilla. A heartbeat away from Europe. And a whisper away from falling into the pack.
It wasn't about magic. It wasn't about miracles.
It was about holding on. Building with bare hands. Dragging yourself, inch by inch, toward something bigger.