With Fleming on, the triangles were even less fluid as before. He was fresh, sure, but he hadn’t built the synergy with Rothschild and Reeves that the old combos had. Passes lagged just a fraction, rotations hesitated for a split second, and openings closed before they fully appeared. Still, Plymouth were running out of gas as well, and we got a couple decent shots in. In the 66th minute, Langley slipped between the midfield lines and got onto a loose ball after one of Plymouth’s centre-backs fluffed a clearance. He took a touch, shaped up, and dragged a low shot toward goal . . . only for their keeper to explode across his line and slap it wide. It was a decent chance, made from nothing, but not enough to get us on the board.

  Before I could even process Langley’s shot, Plymouth were off again. The ball pinged upfield, one-touch passing that looked cleaner than it had any right to be at this stage of the match. Another counter came screaming down our high line before I even realized it, and suddenly I was sprinting again.

  My stamina gauge burned at my retina:

  Bloody hell.

  The pass cut through the middle, just begging for interception. Both Kowalski and I lunged, too late to fully commit cleanly. Our bodies collided in a graceless heap, and I felt a dull crunch as our shins scraped the turf together.

  Parron, like some manic cartoon sprinter, spotted the gap we’d created. The little bastard was on us instantly, trying to nip the ball away before we could recover. The fucker. I knew if he connected, it was either a goal or a scream-inducing scramble.

  In a desperate reflex, I swung my leg and shanked the ball with all the strength left in my weary legs. It flew off like a cannonball into the stands for a throw-in.

  I barked at Kowalski. “You should’ve screamed at me to leave it!”

  “You didn’t say a bloody word either!” Kowalski brushed dirt off his shorts. “I’m not a psychic, you know!”

  Why hadn’t I realized it until now? We’d barely communicated at all. Not once. Between the three of us—the two ‘veterans’ holding the backline—there had been silence. Every time Plymouth’s midfield nudged the ball forward, my brain was screaming: ‘Cover Parron. Track Schwarzer. Watch Hurst. Don’t get pulled apart.’ But the words never left my mouth. Such a rookie mistake; no wonder Parron nearly nicked it. And why were two ancient defenders forced to play a high line in the first place? This was definitely something I’d overlooked and needed to think about after the match.

  “Harrington! Don’t get caught napping!” Okafor screamed at me.

  His voice cracked through the haze, but a half-second too late. I’d been stuck in my own head, and when I finally processed the movement in front of me, Parron was way closer than I’d like.

  He dribbled straight at me like he’d been teleported back into my lane while I was busy writing a dissertation inside my skull. This time he tried some ridiculous little toe-flick–heel-drag combo like he was auditioning for a futsal highlight reel. Under normal circumstances, maybe he’d have sold it. But I’d seen thirty variations of that exact trick over the course of my career, from League Two hopefuls to Sunday league lunatics.

  Experience beats flair.

  I just stepped in, low and patient, let his own momentum betray him, and nicked the ball clean off his foot. A neat little poke, nothing heroic, but enough to send him stumbling a step and enough to keep us from conceding a third.

  “Troy, stop fucking running into him!” Plymouth’s central midfielder roared while punching the air. He was pissed off beyond belief.

  Parron spun around, furious and breathless. “Why does it matter?” he shouted back, arms flung wide. “I scored. We’re winning.”

  He then turned back toward me, looking like he genuinely couldn’t process why running into the same defender five times wasn’t producing new results.

  I just lifted my hand and held up five fingers. Then I mouthed it, slow and clear, like I was teaching phonics to a toddler: “Five out of five.”

  His mouth curled into a smirk. You’d wonder if this man was an edgelord main character written by a web serial writer, because he’d been smirking way too often. You gotta give it to him, though; after five failed attempts, his Morale was still at 84%.

  Good. I needed to keep him hungry, even if I was barely standing straight.

  Parron thought it didn’t matter. It mattered alright.

  Slowly and painfully, we began to crawl back into the match.

  The pressure built in waves. We boxed Plymouth into their own half, drove them backward, and finally played where we were supposed to play: on their side of the pitch, not gasping for dear life inside ours. Langley had given us a new dimension—clean touches, clever slips, turns that shaved fractions off defenders—but the triangle on the right was falling apart.

  Fleming’s timing was half a beat off with every rotation. He’d step when he should hold, hold when he should drop, and overall wasn’t even better than a half-dead Dom.

  Every time we tried to progress down the right, the ball ended up rolling all the way back to Okafor, who had to do another bloody redistribution cycle like he was running a post office.

  Then Mitch made the sub I’d been silently begging for.

  Reeves off → McAteer on.

  The second Reeves stepped off, Okafor jogged in between us and gestured for me to come over.

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  “Three at the back now. Three-five-two. Talk. Stay tight.”

  Damn. Mitch really had the guts to change formations to something we’d never done in practice. And, more importantly, there was someone actually saying the words out loud. It was funny to me why the instructions were always given to Okafor, who wasn’t the captain, and how he was always the most vocal one on the field.

  Then two notifications slammed into my vision.

  They floated there in bright, obnoxious colours, blocking half my field of view.

  “What—” Nope. No time.

  I swatted the holographic mess away. I had approximately negative-two seconds to interpret what any of that meant. Right now all I understood was: new shape, new spacing, don’t screw it up.

  McAteer, meanwhile, bounced onto the pitch like someone had wound him up with a key. Eighteen years old, eyes bright, legs twitching like a racehorse held on a leash. A baby-faced striker thrown into a storm.

  I scanned him on instinct.

  Channel Forward? At least that explained the kid’s movement. For all his baby-deer energy, he didn’t have catastrophic timing, or at least I hoped he didn’t. He kept drifting diagonally, poking into the gaps between centre-back and full-back, testing half-spaces like he was prodding a bruise to see if it hurt. It wasn’t polished, not even close, but it was the sort of movement defenders hate late in matches.

  Especially knackered defenders.

  The boy looked like he’d have quick legs. I wondered how quick they actually were.

  Christ. He wasn’t a fox in the box—

  He was a fox cub that had just discovered zoomies.

  We needed that. We needed pace that didn’t come from Roberts laying off crosses.

  Mitch was brave; I’d give him that. I’d like to see him take that extra step of bravery: push Palmer forward to become the left winger, and drag Milner back to play centre-back in his place. Langley wasn’t a left midfielder; we all knew that. With Palmer pushed high, we’d pin their full-back deep and force their entire right flank to defend instead of joyriding into our half every other minute. And with someone stretching the line on the left, Langley wouldn’t be glued to the chalk like a reluctant arts-and-crafts student.

  The very next time the ball went out, I marched straight to the touchline like a man possessed. I knew the angle to go for now: flatter him. Speak his case back to him like I’d finally joined his wavelength. He deserved it.

  That was it. I wanted another quest.

  The system obliged.

  FMSim agreed with my angle.

  I stepped closer, nodded at him like I was acknowledging the second coming.

  “Gaffer,” I said, breath still ragged, “that switch was class. You’ve pinned their right side. If you push Palmer up now, we’ll drag Langley inside and tear them through the channels. You’re this close to cracking them.”

  I gestured at the pitch, at the space we could own.

  Now let’s see if he buys it.

  I could almost see the gears turning. He wasn’t brushing me off. He was calculating.

  So I gave him one last push.

  “If we hit them there now, Gaffer, they won’t have the legs to recover. We can get back into this game.”

  That did it.

  His pen was in his hand before I even finished. He bent over the clipboard, scrawling fast, sharp arrows across the left flank. A couple circles. A big underline. Then he ripped the sheet free and slapped it into my palm.

  “Palmer high. Milner drops. Langley inside,” he whispered to me. “Go; tell them.”

  I took off down the touchline, waving the paper at the lads like mad. I must be looking like my team was the one two-nil up and not Plymouth.

  Huh. I must’ve gained 5% naturally from using my Silver Tongue skill earlier.

  Okafor received the notes, nodded, and sprinted off. Parron snorted as I jogged past.

  “Man’s thinking he’s Pep or something,” he said.

  I didn’t give him a second glance; his voice was just background noises. The changes were locked in. Now we just had to cash it in.

  71’ – Plymouth 2 – 0 Hungerford

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