The days between Thursday's training and Saturday's match stretched like elastic. Che woke each morning before dawn, his body moving through the System's protocols with automatic precision, but his mind was already in Maldonado. The squats and push-ups felt different now—not preparation for some distant future, but sharpening for something immediate. Something real.
Friday at school was unbearable. Señora Márquez was explaining something about fractions and proportions, her voice a steady drone that Che's ears registered but his mind rejected. His notebook was open in front of him, but instead of following the lesson, he was drawing the pitch in his margins—marking positions, visualizing passing lanes, imagining where he'd receive the ball and what options would be available.
"Che," Señora Márquez said, pulling him back to the classroom. "Can you solve this problem?"
He looked at the board. Numbers arranged in an equation that made immediate sense to him, the answer appearing in his mind before he'd consciously worked through it.
"Seven-eighths," he said.
"Correct," she said, but there was something in her tone that suggested she knew he hadn't actually been paying attention. She moved on.
At home that evening, after he'd collected Sofia and Diego and made sure they were settled, after he'd done his homework with the mechanical efficiency of someone whose hands were present but whose mind was elsewhere, he laid out his kit. The boots his mother had given him. The training shirt Ramón had provided—white with blue trim, the high school's colors. Shorts that were slightly too large but would work. Socks that came up to his knees.
His mother watched from the kitchen doorway, not saying anything, just observing this ritual of preparation. When he looked up and caught her eye, she gave him a small nod that might have meant good luck or might have meant be careful or might have meant both.
That night, Che barely slept. He lay in the darkness listening to Diego's breathing, to Sofia's small movements, to his grandmother's rattling cough from the corner of the apartment. The System was quiet, waiting. The boots sat beside his bed like a promise.
Saturday morning arrived with the particular quality of light that suggested something significant was about to happen. Che was awake before his alarm—not because he'd set one, but because his body had decided sleep was no longer useful. It was 5:30 AM. The bus wouldn't leave until 8:00 AM. He had two and a half hours to fill.
He moved through his morning routine with exaggerated care. Breakfast was bread and mate that his mother had prepared before her night shift ended. She was sleeping now, exhausted from twelve hours at the factory. He ate slowly, deliberately, trying to occupy time that was moving too slowly.
By 6:45 AM, he couldn't wait any longer. He dressed in his kit, pulled on the boots, and left the apartment. The barrio was just beginning to wake—a few vendors setting up early, the smell of fresh bread from the panadería three blocks away, the sound of someone's radio playing cumbia from an open window.
The meeting point was at the high school, forty-five minutes away on foot. Che walked through neighborhoods that were gradually transforming from sleep to activity. The streets of Barrio Pérez gave way to slightly wider avenues, which gave way to the commercial zone near the high school. By the time he arrived at the school gates, it was 7:20 AM.
The parking lot was empty. No bus. No teammates. Just Che standing alone in the early morning light, wearing his full kit, holding his small bag with a water bottle and the sandwich his mother had wrapped for him.
He sat on the curb and waited.
The first teammate arrived at 7:35—one of the defenders, a boy named Esteban who looked surprised to see Che already there.
"You're early," Esteban said.
"I didn't want to be late," Che said.
Esteban nodded like this made perfect sense and sat beside him on the curb. They didn't talk much. Just sat there watching the morning continue its progression from dawn to full day.
By 7:50, the rest of the squad had assembled. Twenty players total, most of them arriving in clusters—groups of friends who'd walked together or been dropped off by parents. Matías arrived last, jogging up to the group with an apology about his mother's car not starting.
Ramón was already there, clipboard in hand, checking names against a roster. When he saw Che, he made a small gesture of acknowledgment—not approval exactly, just recognition that Che had fulfilled the basic requirement of showing up.
The bus arrived at 7:58—an old charter vehicle with faded blue paint and windows that didn't quite seal properly. The kind of bus that schools used when they couldn't afford better, when the priority was getting bodies from one location to another rather than doing it comfortably.
They loaded in. Che took a seat near the middle, by the window. Matías sat beside him without asking, and the bus pulled out of the parking lot at exactly 8:00 AM.
The drive to Maldonado would take about an hour and fifteen minutes, depending on traffic. Che pressed his face against the window and watched Montevideo transform around them. The urban density gradually loosened. Buildings became shorter, more spread out. The roads widened. Green space appeared between structures—not the cramped, dirt lots of Barrio Pérez, but actual maintained parks, trees planted in deliberate patterns.
"You nervous?" Matías asked.
"Yes," Che said. There was no point lying.
"Good," Matías said. "If you weren't nervous, I'd be worried."
Around them, the other players were talking, laughing, the noise of young men together filling the bus's interior. Someone was telling a story about a girl from another school. Someone else was arguing about which striker was better—Suárez or Cavani. The familiar patterns of team dynamics, the kind of bonding that happened in transit.
Che wasn't part of these conversations yet. He was too new, too young, too uncertain of his place. So he just watched the landscape change outside the window and felt the excitement building in his chest like pressure that needed release.
By 9:15, they'd left the outskirts of Montevideo completely. The landscape was rural now—rolling hills, scattered farmhouses, cattle grazing in fields that seemed impossibly large compared to the compressed spaces of the city. The sky was huge out here, endless and blue, the kind of sky that made you understand how small you were.
Then, gradually, the road signs began indicating Maldonado. The bus turned off the main highway onto smaller roads. Houses appeared more frequently. The density began to increase again, though nothing like Montevideo. This was a smaller city, more manageable, the kind of place where everyone probably knew each other.
The bus pulled up to a sports complex at 9:25 AM. When Che stepped off, the first thing that struck him was the quiet. Not silence—there were sounds, people talking, a distant lawnmower—but compared to Barrio Pérez, compared to the constant noise of urban density, this felt almost peaceful.
The second thing that struck him was the facility itself.
The pitch was immaculate. Not good for a local field—immaculate in a way that suggested regular professional maintenance. The grass was cut to a uniform height, deep green and thick, without a single bare patch visible. The white lines were fresh, perfectly straight, unmarred by wear. The goals were professional-grade aluminum, the nets pristine and properly tensioned.
Around the pitch, the grounds were equally maintained. No trash. No broken glass. No dirt patches worn by overuse. Just clean concrete pathways, well-maintained seating areas, and a small building that looked like it contained proper changerooms.
Che stood at the edge of the pitch, staring. He'd never seen anything like this. In Barrio Pérez, the cancha was cracked asphalt with potholes and weeds. The high school pitch was decent, but still showed wear—patches where the grass was thin, areas where the ground was uneven. This was different. This was the kind of facility that suggested investment, care, resources.
Without thinking, he stepped onto the grass and knelt down. His hand reached out and touched the surface. The blades were soft, almost springy, rebounding under his palm. The ground beneath was level—completely, perfectly level. No dips. No irregularities. Just consistent, maintained earth.
He looked up and realized several of his teammates were watching him. Some of them were smiling—not cruelly, but with the kind of amusement that came from seeing someone experience something for the first time. Esteban shook his head slightly, like he was both entertained and sympathetic.
"It's just grass, Che," one of the midfielders said, though his tone wasn't mocking.
But it wasn't just grass. It was possibility. It was the difference between playing football and playing it properly, on a surface that allowed the ball to move true, that rewarded technical precision instead of punishing it with unpredictable bounces.
Che stood up, aware now that players from the opposing team—the Maldonado club—were watching too. They were gathered near their bench, maybe fifteen of them, already warming up. They were looking at Che with expressions that ranged from curiosity to amusement.
One of them—a tall boy, maybe sixteen, with the build of a center-back—said something to his teammate. Che couldn't hear the words, but he heard the laughter that followed. Another player made a gesture, mimicking someone kneeling and touching the ground with exaggerated reverence.
The message was clear: the Montevideo team had brought someone who'd never seen a proper pitch before. Someone naive. Someone easy to target.
Che felt heat rise in his face. Not anger exactly, but embarrassment mixed with determination. He'd given them ammunition. He'd acted like a child amazed by grass, and now they were using that against him.
Matías appeared beside him, his voice quiet. "Ignore them. They're just trying to get in your head before the match even starts."
"I know," Che said.
"Do you?" Matías asked. "Because you look like you want to apologize for being impressed. Don't. You've never seen a pitch like this because you've never had the opportunity. There's no shame in that."
Ramón was calling everyone to gather for the pre-match briefing. The Maldonado team was still doing their warm-up drills, moving through possession exercises with the casual confidence of players who were comfortable in their environment.
Che joined his teammates, but his mind was already processing what had just happened. The embarrassment was real. But underneath it was something else—fuel. The Maldonado players thought he was naive, thought he was out of place. They'd already decided he was a target.
The System hummed at the edge of his consciousness, patient and observant.
They have given you information, Che Hernandez. They believe you are vulnerable. They will test that belief early in the match. Use this.
Ramón was outlining the tactical approach—maintaining possession, pressing high when possible, using the width of the pitch to stretch Maldonado's defensive shape. Che listened, but he was also watching the opposing team, studying their movements, their body language, the way they communicated with each other.
In forty-five minutes, the match would begin. And Che would show them exactly what naive looked like when it had been sharpened by a year of invisible work.
The pre-match briefing ended. The squad moved toward the changerooms to finalize their preparation. Che took one last look at the immaculate pitch, at the level ground and perfect grass, and felt something settle inside him.
This was where everything would begin.