The call came at dawn.
Khali was still asleep when his phone buzzed with a message from home. He read it twice, certain the screen was wrong.
"Baba passed away this morning. Come home when you can. — Mama"
Everything after those words moved in slow motion. The city lights blurred. The air felt thin. He remembered his father's hands — grease-stained, steady — the way he'd fixed bikes, fixed broken things, and fixed Khali's tired heart with small words of belief.
Khali collapsed into the chair, the world rearranging itself around a single impossible absence.
Homecoming
The flight home was empty of sleep. Amira sat beside him on the plane, silent and small — a steady presence that felt like warmth.
At the airport in Abuja, the smell of dust and hot air wrapped around him like a memory. His mother met him with hollow eyes and arms that held the same strength they always had. The village felt smaller and bigger at once — everyone's faces lined with the news.
The funeral was simple, the kind of farewell that echoed the life his father had lived: quiet, honest, and filled with people who loved him. Men from the workshop came to salute. Neighbors spoke about the boy who used to kick a tattered ball near the mango tree.
When Khali stood to speak, his voice cracked."Baba taught me to keep my feet on the ground and my eyes on the sky," he said. "He told me, 'When you run, remember who taught you to run.' I'll run for you, Baba. I'll keep running."
He folded the last of the grief into those words and let the silence answer him.
A Choice Made
Back in Manchester within days — because the season could not pause forever — Khali felt the stadium like a cathedral of echoes. Amira held his hand as they walked through the tunnel; her fingers were the only anchor he had left.
News cameras asked for soundbites. He said nothing. The club offered time off. He refused it.
"I want to play," he told Coach Guardiola in a voice that surprised even him. "Not to escape. To remember him. To honor him."
Guardiola looked at him, then nodded. "Then we play for him."
The match scheduled that weekend was against a fierce European opponent in the youth Champions quarterfinals — not Manchester, not United — just a night where grief and glory would meet.
The Saddest Match
The stadium lights were colder than before. The crowd's roar arrived like distant waves. Khali moved through the warm-up mechanically, every muscle tuned to memory. Amira stood in the press section, eyes red, clutching the small silver pendant he'd given her — a gift from his father's first paycheck, now with a new story.
From kickoff, he felt the weight: grief pressing on his lungs, love tightening his chest, the memory of a father's laugh in every echo of the ball.
He didn't smile. He didn't celebrate.
In the 23rd minute, a cross came low into the box. Bello — watching from home on television as his own season had a lull — texted, simply:
"I'm with you."
Khali kept his eyes forward and slotted the ball into the net with quiet precision. No fist pump. No shouts. He walked to the corner, touched the City crest, then pointed to the sky — a silent message only some would understand.
The opposition equalized. The game swung back and forth. Each sprint felt like a conversation between his feet and his father's memory.
Near the end, in a moment that felt both fragile and fierce, Khali received the ball at the edge of the area. He danced between two markers, turned, and let the ball glide into the net — a finish so pure it felt like a hymn.
When he scored, Amira cried openly. The crowd cheered, but the sound dimmed in his ears. He had won the match for many reasons: for the team, for the badge, and most of all for the man who had taught him to chase a ball under a mango tree.
After the final whistle, the stadium lights seemed to soften. Players lifted Khali, but he let them. He wanted to be supported. He wanted to feel the weight of hands that carried him now.
Aftermatch
Back in the locker room, he sat with a towel around his shoulders. Messages flooded his phone — condolences, praise, offers of comfort. Among them, a simple text from Bello:
"You played like a man who belongs to the world. Your father is proud."
Khali stared at the message until it blurred. He typed back, fingers heavy:
"Thanks. Tell your mother I said hello."
Amira came in with warm tea and sat beside him. She didn't ask him to talk. She passed him the silver pendant she'd kept during the match. He looped it around his neck.
Outside the stadium, a small group of fans had gathered with banners: "For Baba — For Khali." They sang quietly, a lullaby of support.
Khali stepped out, looked up at the night sky, and let himself ache — the way people must when loss rearranges everything. But beneath that ache was something else: a resolve. His father's hands were gone from this world, but his lessons were not.
He would keep running. He would keep scoring. He would keep being the boy who never forgot where he came from.