Reincarnated As A Wonderkid-Chapter 582: Berlin Academy

The Berlin Academy was not like the academy in London.

In London, the grass was green, the balls were new, and the coaches smiled.

In Berlin, the pitch was astroturf (which scraped your knees if you looked at it wrong), the balls were slightly deflated, and the coaches shouted in German.

"Schneller!" Coach Muller screamed. "Faster! You run like snails with heavy backpacks!"

Leon Fischer (formerly Alex Finch, formerly Danein Blake) jogged around the perimeter. He was ten years old. Again.

His legs were short. His lungs were small. But his brain was a supercomputer.

He looked at Mark.

Mark was wearing a headband made of toilet paper. He was sprinting, but he was running sideways.

"I AM A CRAB!" Mark shouted. "A VERY FAST CRAB!"

"Mark," Leon panted. "Crabs don't play football."

"They do in my world!" Mark retorted. "It is called Crab-Ball! The goal is a sandcastle!"

Ricardo was juggling the ball. He was humming a samba tune.

"The rhythm is different here," Rico said. "It is... rigid. Like a metronome. Tick-tock-tick-tock."

"German efficiency," Leon said. "We have to adapt."

"I don't like adapting," Rico complained. "I like improvising."

They finished the warm-up.

Coach Muller blew his whistle. It was a terrifying sound. Like a train horn.

"Today," Muller barked. "Positioning. Discipline. Structure."

He pointed to a whiteboard. It was covered in lines and arrows. It looked like a battle plan for invading a small country.

"You stand here," Muller pointed to a spot. "You move there. You do not improvise. You execute."

"Boring!" Mark whispered.

"Effective," Leon corrected.

They started the drill.

It was rigid. Pass A to B. B to C. C to Goal. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

If you dribbled, Muller shouted. If you tried a trick, Muller shouted louder.

Rico hated it. He tried to do a stepover. Muller stopped the session.

"Ricardo!" Muller yelled. "This is not a circus! This is football! Simple pass!"

Rico looked sad. His shoulders slumped.

Leon walked over to him.

"Hey," Leon whispered. "Play the game."

"What game?" Rico asked. "The boring game?"

"No," Leon smiled. "The game within the game. Do what he says. But do it... better."

"How?"

"Pass simply," Leon said. "But pass perfectly. Pass with spin. Pass with disguise. Make the simple look magic."

Rico's eyes lit up. "Magic simple."

"Exactly."

The drill restarted.

Rico got the ball. He didn't dribble. He passed.

But he didn't just kick it. He caressed it. He put a little backspin on it so it sat up perfectly for the striker.

"Good!" Muller grunted. He looked surprised.

Leon got the ball.

He saw the pattern. A to B to C.

He knew where C was going to be before C even moved.

Leon hit a first-time pass. It dissected the defense.

"Very good!" Muller shouted. "Precision!"

Mark got the ball.

He didn't pass. He ran.

"Markus!" Muller yelled. "Pass!"

Mark ignored him. He ran past three cones. He ran past the goalkeeper (a boy named Hans who was picking a dandelion).

Mark scored.

"GOAL!" Mark screamed. "THE CRAB STRIKES!"

Muller turned red. "Markus! That was not the drill!"

"But the ball is in the net!" Mark argued. "Is that not the objective?"

Muller sighed. He rubbed his temples. "Five laps. Now."

"Yes Coach!" Mark saluted. He started running laps. Very fast. "I AM A RACE CAR!"

After training, they sat in the changing room. It smelled of deep heat and old socks.

"This is hard," Rico said, untying his boots. "They want robots."

"They want soldiers," Leon said. "But soldiers can be artists too."

"I am a ninja," Mark said, walking in from his laps. He wasn't even out of breath. "Ninjas are disciplined. But they also have smoke bombs."

"Please don't bring smoke bombs to training, Mark," Leon said.

"Fine. Glitter bombs?"

"No."

They walked out of the academy.

Berlin was grey. Concrete buildings. Grey sky.

But Milo was waiting.

Milo was dressed as... a Bratwurst Seller.

He was wearing a traditional Bavarian outfit (Lederhosen) and holding a tray of sausages.

"GUTEN TAG!" Milo screamed. "ALEX! MARK! RICO! I AM THE SAUSAGE KING! I AM SELLING THE WURST! (Get it? The best wurst!). ONLY TWO EUROS!"

"Milo, those sausages look raw," Leon said.

"THEY ARE RARE!" Milo insisted. "LIKE A STEAK! VERY FANCY!"

"I'll take three," Mark said.

"Mark, don't eat raw meat," Leon warned.

"I have a cast-iron stomach!" Mark declared. He ate a sausage. "Delicious. Tastes like... potential food poisoning."

They walked to the U-Bahn station.

Leon looked at his reflection in the train window.

Ten years old.

He had done this before. The academy grind. The pressure.

But this time, it felt different.

In London, he was the prodigy. The one they built the team around.

Here, he was just another kid. A number.

"We have to stand out," Leon said.

"I am standing out!" Mark pointed to his neon yellow shoes. "These are visible from space!"

"Not like that," Leon said. "We have to show them something they haven't seen before."

"Like what?" Rico asked.

"Like... The Dynasty," Leon said.

"But we are babies!" Mark said. "We are the Dynasty Jr."

"Dynasty Origins," Rico suggested.

"I like it," Leon smiled.

The next day. Matchday.

Hertha Berlin U10s vs Bayern Munich U10s.

A big game. The scouts were watching.

Coach Muller gave the team talk.

"Bayern are strong," Muller said. "They are big. They are technical. We must be organized. We must be a wall."

He looked at Leon.

"Leon. You are the pivot. Control the middle. Do not lose the ball."

"Yes Coach."

He looked at Mark.

"Markus. You are on the bench."

"WHAT?" Mark gasped. "BUT I AM THE WEAPON!"

"You are a loose cannon," Muller said. "Sit down."

The game started.

Bayern were good. They passed the ball like mini-professionals. Their striker, a kid named Thomas, scored in the fifth minute.

0-1.

Then he scored again in the tenth minute.

0-2.

Hertha were crumbling. The wall was broken.

Leon tried to organize them. "Push up! Close the gap!"

But the other kids were scared. They were playing against the badge.

Halftime. 0-2.

Muller was angry. "Where is the discipline? Where is the structure?"

"The structure is broken, Coach," Leon said calmly.

Muller looked at him. "And what do you suggest, Herr Fischer?"

"Chaos," Leon said.

Muller blinked.

"Chaos?"

"They are organized," Leon explained. "They expect us to be organized. If we are chaotic, they won't know what to do."

Muller looked at the scoreboard. He looked at his terrified team.

He sighed.

"Okay. Mark. Warm up."

Mark jumped up. "THE CANNON IS LOADED!"

Second half.

Mark came on.

He didn't play a position. He played "Everywhere".

He ran at the Bayern defenders. He chased the goalkeeper. He ran in circles just to confuse them.

"What is he doing?" the Bayern coach shouted. "Mark him!"

"We can't catch him!" the Bayern defender yelled back.

In the fiftieth minute, Leon got the ball.

He saw Mark running.

Leon hit a long ball over the top.

Mark was offside. Miles offside.

But at U10 level, there were no linesmen. Only the referee, who was tired.

"Play on!" the ref waved.

Mark ran. He scored.

1-2.

"SPEED KILLS!" Mark screamed, doing a knee slide that lasted ten meters.

Bayern were rattled. The machine was glitching.

Rico started to dance. He dribbled past two players. He passed to Leon.

Leon saw the goal.

He remembered the old life. The curl. The technique.

He hit it.

Top corner.

2-2.

"The comeback!" Milo yelled from the sidelines. He was selling flags now. "BUY A FLAG! WAVE IT FOR VICTORY!"

Last minute.

Bayern had a corner.

They sent everyone up.

Leon cleared the ball.

It fell to Mark.

Mark ran.

He ran the length of the pitch.

The Bayern goalkeeper came out.

Mark tried to chip him.

He missed the ball. He kicked the ground.

He fell over.

But the ball hit his shin as he fell.

It rolled slowly. Very slowly.

It hit the post.

It rolled along the line.

And went in.

3-2.

Mark lay on the ground. "I MEANT TO DO THAT! IT WAS A TACTICAL STUMBLE!"

The final whistle blew.

Hertha Berlin 3. Bayern Munich 2.

Coach Muller was shaking his head. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"It wasn't pretty," Muller said to Leon. "It wasn't structured."

"But it was a win," Leon smiled.

"Ja," Muller admitted. "It was a win."

They walked off the pitch.

The sun came out.

Leon looked at his friends.

Mark was covered in mud (and possibly sausage grease). Rico was smiling. Milo was counting his money.

They were just kids. In a new country. In a new life.

But the magic was still there.

"Hey Leon," Mark said.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think they have pizza in Berlin?"

"I think so, Mark."

"Let's go find it. I am starving. Winning makes me hungry."

Leon put his arm around Mark.

"Let's go."