Chapter 3 — No Room for Samba
The morning fog clung to the training grounds of De Toekomst, Ajax's famed youth academy, like a curtain that refused to lift.
Julian stood alone on the damp grass, breathing in the cold Dutch air.
He missed the heat of Rio — the sticky warmth that seemed to power his every move — but today, the chill made him sharper, hungrier.
[System Notification]
Current Quest: "Adapt and Overcome — 48% Complete."
Status: Frustration Detected. Recommend: Controlled Reinvention.
The omnipresent voice buzzed softly in his ear.
"Controlled reinvention, huh?" Julian muttered. "You ever try playing football without joy, System?"
[Response:]Joy is a psychological factor. Efficiency is measurable. Joy is… optional.
"Yeah," he smirked, "tell that to Pelé."
Structure vs. Soul
Ajax's training was military-like.
Every pass was counted.
Every run had an angle.
Every touch had to lead somewhere — efficient, clean, cold.
The coaches barked orders in clipped Dutch, watching Julian with narrowed eyes as he danced through cones with movements too fluid, too unpredictable.
"Mattheus!" one coach snapped. "No flair! Simplicity! Tempo!"
Julian nodded, but when the ball touched his foot, instinct took over.
A flick, a drag, a heel-roll — the rhythm of Rio flowed through him.
By the time he'd finished a move, the rest of the players had stopped to stare.
"Again," the coach said, unimpressed.
[System Alert]
New Metric Unlocked: Discipline Index
Current Value: 14/100 — "Chaotic Genius"
The System wasn't helping. Or maybe it was — depending on how you looked at it.
At night, when the academy lights dimmed, its voice softened into something almost human.
"You know," it said one night as Julian sat on his dorm bed, scrolling through highlight clips of Neymar, Ronaldinho, and Zico,
"you remind me of an outdated patch file."
Julian blinked. "What?"
"You're unoptimized," the System teased. "Beautifully inefficient."
He chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Skill Integration Mode
A week later, after another disastrous training session where Julian had been subbed out for "playing street football," he stormed into the locker room.
The System stayed silent for once — until he punched the metal locker.
[System Detected: Emotional Surge.]
Activating Experimental Feature — Skill Integration Mode.
The air around him shimmered faintly, like heat on asphalt. His vision flickered — numbers, angles, data overlaid on reality. Yet somehow, the rhythm of the game pulsed beneath it all.
[New Functionality]
System now capable of harmonizing instinct-based creativity with structured efficiency.
Warning: Excessive flair usage may trigger "Cognitive Disruption" debuff.
Julian grinned.
"Let's see if we can dance inside your rules."
The First Friendly — Feyenoord Reserves
It was meant to be a simple closed-door test match: Ajax's U-18s versus Feyenoord's reserves.
No spectators, just coaches and clipboards.
Julian tied his boots slowly. The System's voice came through, sharper now, almost like a coach in his ear.
"Objective: Maintain formation discipline. Sub-objective: Dominate utterly."
He stepped onto the pitch. The moment the whistle blew, structure vanished.
Within ten minutes, Feyenoord hadn't crossed the halfway line. Julian was everywhere — pressing, dribbling, shooting.
His movements were fluid chaos disguised as purpose.
The coaches shouted at him to "hold position," but he didn't hear them anymore.
Then came his masterpiece.
He flicked the ball past one defender, then two.
The crowd — mostly substitutes — gasped as he began to spin.
The Hiper Drible Infinito.
A blur of motion, step-overs chaining into spins, into shimmies, into impossibilities.
Defenders froze, hypnotized. One tripped over his own feet; another turned completely around, confused.
[System Analysis:]Impossible. Coordination values exceed recorded limits.
Julian stopped, leaned left, and unleashed the Tiro de Carnificina Infinita.
The ball curved once, twice — then twisted midair, bending back into the net like a serpent.
[Goal!]
Current Score: Ajax 1–0 Feyenoord.
"Correction," the System said flatly. "Ajax 2–0. Goalkeeper fainted post-impact."
By halftime, the score was 25–0.
By full time — 49–0.
Julian had scored 41 and assisted 8.
Every play, every touch, every goal bore his name.
[System Overload]
Error. Tactical model collapse. Redefining 'Dominance.'
Congratulations: 'Unquantifiable Phenomenon' title earned.
When the whistle blew, even the Feyenoord players shook his hand in stunned silence.
The Ajax coach didn't speak for a full minute. Then, finally:
"...That wasn't football. That was witchcraft."
The Second Friendly — PSV Eindhoven Youth
Word spread fast. Scouts and youth directors whispered about "the Brazilian kid who plays like chaos incarnate."
Three days later, Ajax arranged another match — to "test consistency." PSV's youth squad was considered elite.
Julian warmed up under gray skies. His body was sore, but his eyes burned with anticipation.
[System Status]
Fatigue Level: 67%
Mental Fortitude: 80
Mood: Blissfully Defiant.
"Let's go break football again," Julian murmured.
The first goal came two minutes in — a casual flick over two defenders, volleyed home with surgical precision.
The second, a bending Tiro de Carnificina Infinita from forty yards out.
The third, after weaving through six defenders using the Hiper Drible Infinito, ending with a rabona assist.
By the 30th minute, PSV's keeper looked terrified.
By the 60th, they'd stopped trying to tackle him altogether.
Every time he touched the ball, something impossible happened.
Final Score: 11–0.
Julian: 10 goals, 1 assist.
Across both matches: 60 goals created, every one touched by his feet.
The System was silent for once — processing.
Then, softly:
[Analysis Complete.]
You are an anomaly. The algorithm breaks when you move.
Julian smirked. "Good."
The Aftermath
The next morning, newspapers were already buzzing.
"The Boy Who Breaks Football," one headline read.
Clips leaked online — commentators, fans, and even pros reacted in disbelief.
Some called it fake. Others called it divine.
At the academy, the head coach stared at Julian during breakfast.
"If you can keep this up against Europe's best," he said quietly, "we'll have to rewrite how football is played."
Julian only smiled, dipping bread into his coffee. "I already did."
[System Notification]
Quest "Adapt and Overcome" — COMPLETE
Reward: +8 to Mental Fortitude.
New Quest Unlocked: "Stage 2 — The Birth of Chaos Football."
For the first time, both System and player seemed to agree.
He wasn't meant to adapt. He was meant to evolve.
And as the morning sun broke through the Dutch clouds, Julian stepped outside, ball in hand, the whispers of the world already chasing him.
Somewhere deep inside the System's code, a new tag appeared beside his name:
[Classification]: Reality Distortion Athlete.
The future of football had just changed forever.