⚽ Football Reborn: The Manager from the Future
Chapter 36 – Matchday Minus Three: Training for the Impossible
A sharp whistle echoed across the Chrono United training grounds, followed by the thud of a ball against a steel wall.
"Again!"
Chuva stood with a stopwatch in one hand, sweat glistening on his brow—not from exertion, but from pressure.
Three days.
That was all they had before facing Seraph and the Syndicate's machine-like team.
And Chuva wasn't training the boys to win. He was training them to survive.
Ronaldo Jr. was practicing diagonal press-breaks with Thiago Messi, while Falcãozinho dribbled through a maze of moving drones controlled by Greg.
Chuva paced between stations, voice sharp.
"Forget what you know about defenders. She won't bite. She won't flinch. She'll erase your intentions if you hesitate."
"Then what do we do?" Thiago asked, panting.
Chuva's answer was immediate. "You confuse yourself."
The boys exchanged puzzled looks.
Greg chuckled from the sideline. "He means jazz football. Total unpredictability."
"I don't want total chaos," Chuva corrected. "I want chaos with timing. Rhythm you can't write down. She's designed to overwrite tactics. But if we stop using tactics…"
"…She won't have anything to overwrite," Ronaldo Jr. finished, grinning.
Chuva smirked.
"Exactly."
That night, Chuva gathered the team under the stars.
No balls. No cones. Just a circle.
"I need to tell you something," he said, voice quieter than usual.
The boys leaned in.
"She's not just another opponent. She's the next generation of football—code, control, precision. The Syndicate built her to kill soul in the game."
Silence.
Then Chuva asked: "Why do you play?"
Falcãozinho was the first to answer. "Because I feel alive when I do."
Thiago followed. "Because I want to make my father proud."
Ronaldo Jr. added, "Because the ball listens to me in a way people don't."
Chuva nodded.
"That's what they can't simulate. That's what she doesn't understand."
He looked each of them in the eye.
"When we play Seraph, we're not just trying to win. We're reminding the world that football isn't code. It's conversation. It's laughter. It's rhythm. It's heartbreak. It's you."
They didn't cheer.
They didn't chant.
But something deeper stirred inside them.
And it showed the next morning.
Day 2 of training began before sunrise.
Greg had reconstructed Seraph's movements using data from Tokyo. On a holographic field, the team watched her from above.
"She never double-steps," Greg explained. "She doesn't react to fakes. She reads intent—neural spikes in movement timing. It's predictive."
"So we give her no pattern," Chuva muttered.
Greg smiled. "Exactly."
The solution was strange and elegant.
They began training with unpredictable music.
Ronaldo Jr. was given a headset pumping in Afro-fusion with syncopated breaks. Thiago trained with Mongolian throat chants remixed with trap beats. Falcãozinho danced through footwork drills backed by samba mixed with glitchcore.
The point?
No rhythm was consistent.
No beat repeated.
As the bodies trained, the minds rewired.
By evening, they were making plays not even they understood until the moment passed.
Chuva watched from a distance, marveling.
"They're beginning to flow."
Ethan stood beside him. "And you? What's your plan when Seraph turns to you?"
Chuva looked skyward.
"I teach her the one thing she was never taught."
"What's that?"
Chuva smiled faintly.
"Doubt."
Elsewhere, Seraph stood alone in her chamber.
She didn't sleep.
She didn't dream.
But she had… echoes.
A flicker.
A pass.
A smile.
A question: Why does he smile?
She pushed the thought away.
In the chamber beside hers, twelve more prototypes floated in cryogel.
Seraph was V1.
The others were V2–V13.
None had been activated.
Because Seraph was perfect.
But perfection had its own fragility—it feared contamination.
And Seraph, though she didn't know it, was beginning to question.
Just enough to cause an anomaly.
The Playwright had noticed.
He was already rewriting the mirrorcell parameters. Already installing fail-safes.
But doubt had no codebase.
It came from interaction.
From a pass.
Day 1.
Final preparation.
The team landed in Zurich, where the Global Youth Invitational was being hosted.
Media swarmed.
Reporters from across the world tried to break past Chrono United's convoy, but security was tighter than ever.
"Chuva! How does it feel facing the Playwright's newest model?"
"Is it true Seraph doesn't blink?"
"Is she human?"
Chuva ignored them.
Inside the hotel, the team watched Seraph's final press appearance.
She said nothing.
Just stood there.
Unmoving.
Unblinking.
Unfeeling.
"She's terrifying," Thiago whispered.
Chuva stood, muting the screen.
"No," he said.
"She's lonely."