After David’s pep talk, Will, along with the rest of the team became fired up and went out for the second half of the match.

Will waited on the touchline for the player he was coming in for to leave the field before running through it, only stopping when he got to his team’s side of it.

He stood at the edge of the center circle, and watched the ball drop from the referee’s hands before the Rangers U18 team got things started again.

Marcus was initially playing as a ten, but he had moved to the base of the midfield and was now playing in the pivot, setting himself up behind Will and to the left. He was making a few gestures to the backline to push up. Will watched him and nodded slightly.

"Tempo, it’s all about the tempo". Will thought to himself as the match resumed. "Slow the game down".

The system overlay was already present in the corner of his vision, with markers floating over his teammates, the pressing distance numbers ticking beside the Rangers players who had red flags on their location.

His first touch of the second half came from a short pass from Marcus. It was slightly behind him so he had to drop a little to receive the ball. His first instinct was to run forward, but Marcus was gesturing for the ball back, and then he remembered David’s instructions.

During his split second of hesitation, he saw that he was about to lose the ball to a pressing Rangers player through the system overlay, so he took a touch sideways and let the pressing player sail past him, before rolling the ball back to Marcus, and started a run along a diagonal into the half space on the right flank.

Marcus found him with the return pass, as the Rangers defensive midfielder tracked the ball late.

That extra second away from the Rangers defensive midfielder was exactly what Will needed.

He got the ball with his back to goal with about half a meter of space. The system lit up, alerting him to the pocket behind him, telling him about two runs happening simultaneously on either side, and a third one, a late run from the striker into the penalty box. He held the ball for about two seconds, which was an eternity in a football pitch, more so in a match that was moving as fast as the current one being played.

The two seconds was long enough for his team’s left back to arrive in an overlapping position, which kept the Rangers U18 winger who had tracked back, in a precarious position. Does he attack the man with the ball, or does he attack the space and options. He chose the former and rushed towards Will.

As soon as the winger closed Will down, Will slid the ball into the left channel for the left back without even needing to look. That was one of the many perks of having the system overlay, he had seen the best passing path and had decided on it even before the left back came running towards him.

The Middlesbrough U18 left back made an early cross into the box, but it was headed clear. The effort seemed wasted, but it afforded Will the time they spent shuffling and reorganizing themselves to jog back and receive the next ball.

David, from the touchline, clapped a couple of times. "Nice work Will. That’s what I want from you. Nice and easy!"

Twenty minutes passed like that. Will wasn’t particularly spectacular during those twenty minutes. He was not the center of anything that would make the highlights package, not that there would be one for an U18 friendly for a youth side in the second tier of English football. What he was doing was quieter and less visible than a goal or a flashy trick from the perspective of a casual watcher.

He was playing the game slowly, and slowing down the pace of the game which had been to fast for the Middlesbrough players. He recycled possession, he moved the Rangers press from side to side, making them shift and shift again, until visible openings could be seen.

He was an advanced playmaker, but not the traditional type. He was more like a traditional deep lying playmaker deployed in the higher side of the pitch. One of the profiles that David needed him to have to from his ’unicorn profile’. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

In the sixty seventh minute, one of the openings of the Ranger’s press was exploited.

Will received the ball on the right channel. He took one touch towards the inside and saw that the Rangers U18 left back had drifted too narrow in anticipation of a pass to the winger. Will did not pass to the Winger. Instead, he played it to the striker who had dropped deep, and then immediately sprinted into the box, making a third man run.

The Middlesbrough U18 striker, thankfully understood Will’s intention when he saw Will making a run towards the box and then laid it off towards the direction Will was at. The striker’s layoff arrived perfectly and Will, arriving into the box at pace, swung his left foot at the ball.

The ball left the ground with an uncanny acceleration, zipping through the bodies inside the box and etching itself into the bottom corner of the far post. The opposing goalkeeper couldn’t even move because of the speed of the shot. He could only watch as it etched itself in the back of the net.

Will immediately turned from the goal and walked calmly towards the corner flag. He pointed at Marcus because the latter’s off ball movement was what created the space for the shot and smiled slightly. Marcus pointed back. The rest of the team converged and someone jumped on his back and he staggered under the weight and nearly fell over.

[Ding!]

[Goal registered: 30 Credits]

[Match Rating update: 7.8]

The match finished with that score-line, one goal to nil.

Afterwards, David did not make a big deal of the goal. He mentioned it in the same sentence as several other things he wanted the team to take away, wedged between the defensive shape and the set piece routine they had messed up at the start of the second half. "Smithson’s movement for the goal, that’s what I want from all of you when we go to that position."

That was it. That was the whole mention.

Will was fine with that.

In the changing room after, the system updated his match rating to 8.1 and the super mission progress ticked upward. He sat in front of his locker reading the notification while the noise of the changing room moved around him, Liam shouting something at Jason, the goalkeeper throwing his gloves onto the bench with unnecessary force, Alex sitting nearby and silently scrolling through his phone.

"Nice goal," Alex said without looking up.

"Cheers," Will said.

Neither of them said anything after that. It was the right amount.

A/N: Apologies for the lack of updates, I was under the weather the past couple of days but I’m fine now.

Also, we just got contracted. I’m grateful to everyone who’s been reading till this point, and everyone who’s voted or dropped a review or a comment, thank you very much, it means a whole lot to me.

Bonus Chapter coming later in the day to celebrate the contract