The roar was a physical thing, a wave of sound that washed over the pitch as 24,500 voices, a sea of red and white, echoed across the historic Galgenwaard. It was a sound of hope, of fierce loyalty, and of an expectation that hung heavy and electric in the air.
This was not just any season opener; for Utrecht, it was the dawn of their most ambitious campaign in recent memory, a season where whispered dreams of glory were now being shouted from the stands.
For Amani, emerging from the cool darkness of the tunnel into the brilliant, almost blinding, green of the pitch, the moment felt both surreal and profoundly inevitable. This was his second season as a guaranteed starter, a milestone that still felt fresh, yet one he had relentlessly pursued.
The boy from the sun-drenched streets of Malindi, a world away from this European cauldron of passion, had not been given this spot; he had seized it.
