The changing room after a win is a different place to the changing room after a draw or a loss. People move differently. The music someone plays from their phone goes unchallenged. The laughter is easier and the comments land better. Even the tired players look like they are tired from something worthwhile rather than just something endured.

Will sat in front of his locker and unlaced his boots slowly, letting the noise move around him. His ribs ached from where someone’s elbow had found them during the celebration pile. His calves were tight from the eighty-three minutes of movement on heavy turf. Both of these things felt like honest receipts for effort given and he sat with them without complaint.

He checked the system quietly, keeping the screen low and out of habit glancing around to make sure no one was looking at him at an odd angle.

[Final Match Rating: 8.3]

[Credits awarded: 50]

[Credit Balance: 480]

Twenty away from the first cap expansion. Twenty credits. He let that number sit for a moment. Twenty was two good daily missions or one match performance at eight-point-something. It was close enough to feel real rather than abstract.

David came in while people were still in various states of changing and the room was still loud. He stood near the door with his hands in his jacket pockets and waited for the noise level to fall naturally before speaking, which it did quickly, because the squad had learned that when David stood quietly somewhere the conversation in his head had already begun.

"Good performance. I want to be clear that this was a team performance and everyone in this room contributed to it." He paused and looked around slowly, taking in the faces. "We could have been better in the first half. The final third needs work and we’ll address that in training this week. But the character we showed after they equalised, pushing back and finding a winner in added time, that is exactly the type of character a team needs to have all season if it wants to do something worthwhile. Remember this feeling."

A few claps, the kind that are genuine rather than obligatory.

"Rest up. Light session Monday. Full training resumes Tuesday. Enjoy tonight."

He left. The noise came back immediately.

Marcus leaned over from the next locker along. He had a towel around his shoulders and his hair was still wet from the shower, water dripping off the ends onto the collar of his training jacket. "Eight point three," he said.

Will turned his head. "What?"

"Your rating. Someone on the staff tracks individual ratings after matches. They use data from different data analytic tools such as opta and the rest. I saw it on the assistant coach’s clipboard when I walked past. Eight point three for a home debut." Marcus grinned. "That’s not bad at all, Smithson."

Will kept his expression neutral. "I’ll take it."

"You should. You controlled the whole second half. That assist for the first goal especially. I don’t know how you saw that pass when you did. The space was there for about two seconds and you found it."

"Preparation," Will said.

Marcus looked at him like he was about to press the point, then thought better of it and went back to getting changed.

Outside the changing room Chloe was waiting by the wall near the exit, her recorder in her hand and her notebook under her arm. She had been scrolling through her phone when he came through the door but she looked up immediately, with the particular alertness journalists had that made you feel like they had been watching the door the whole time even when they clearly hadn’t.

"Eight point three," she said.

He stopped walking. "How do you know that?"

"Journalism." She smiled. "Also one of the physios mentioned it quite loudly on the way out. So not that much journalism."

He laughed despite himself. She was already holding her phone toward him with the recorder running, but she lowered it after a second and the professional expression softened slightly.

"Off the record for a moment. That was really good, Will."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She was looking at him properly, not the way she looked when she was collecting material. "I don’t know enough about football to tell you exactly what you were doing out there but I could tell it was something. The crowd reacted every time you got the ball in the second half. I noticed people around me starting to watch you specifically rather than the ball."

He nodded, not trusting himself to say too much.

"Okay, back on record." She raised the phone again. "What did it feel like making your first competitive league start?"

"It felt like the start of something," Will said.

She wrote it down. That was the only time she wrote something down rather than just recording it, and that told him she thought the quote was worth ink rather than just audio.

His family found him ten minutes later in the car park. His dad walked straight to him with the particular directness of someone who has been waiting to do one specific thing and doesn’t want to delay it. He put both hands on Will’s shoulders and looked at him the way he only ever did when something genuinely mattered. His mum had her phone out and was trying to take a photo but kept getting the angle wrong and frowning at the screen.

Janet was standing slightly behind both of them with her arms crossed. When Will caught her eye she held it for a moment and gave him a single nod.

It was just one nod.

From Janet that was more than a standing ovation from anyone else.

A/N:

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