The second season. They say it's where you prove who you really are.
Funny. I didn't think I'd start mine sitting on the bench. Again.
I sit. Hood up. Arms crossed. Watching the same robotic drills. The same eleven players running like programmed code. Anissa Cate, last year's Golden Ball winner, precise and predictable. Kyle Johnson, the right winger who joined the same year as me, already an untouchable starter, weaving his sterile patterns. He always makes the "right" runs, always passes safe. I joined this machine alongside him, but somewhere along the line, he became part of the gears, and I became the grit.
This is Newcastle United. The best team in the world. The most expensive machine in football history. And I don't fit.
They don't say it out loud, but I see it in the coach's face. I'm unpredictable. Wild. Dangerous — in all the wrong ways "hey look who comed to see the game ,its the CEO " So he came ,damn he is sitting so close to me ,Richard Thorne, the CEO. His presence always a dull ache ,And look who is stepping beside him with a hand casually placed on his arm,Elise. Richard Thorne wife and previously my wife just looking at her make me wanna punch someone She looks different, somehow. Brighter, perhaps. Her blonde hair fell perfectly, her smile easy as she conversed with Thorne, occasionally glancing down at the pitch with a practiced interest. They look perfect, polished picture of power and access, high above the common roar. The casual intimacy of their posture, their shared glances—it is a punch to the gut, fresh as the day I found out. They are not even trying to hide it anymore. Why would they? They own everything now. damn it all everything happend because i listened to that whore
Three years ago, my fourth season at Dortmund. It didn't just end with a whimper, it ended with a collective groan that echoed across the league. We limped to the finish line, battered and bruised, finishing outside the Champions League spots, scraping into the Club European Championship by the skin of our teeth. Meyer's system had finally calcified, turning us from a dynamic force into a rigid, easily readable opponent.
Every game felt heavier, every loss a deeper cut. The locker room chatter died, replaced by tense silences and the occasional bitter snap. It was my worst season by far that time i remember missing the penalty in the 95th minute in the CEC in the quarters i remember it like yesterday i am still scared of shooting penalties until this day ,i cant lie it was the worst year in my entire career at least back then
It was during the second half of that season, when the club felt like it was suffocating, that Elise became more than just "the journalist who understood." Our conversations after matches stretched longer, moved from professional analysis to shared frustrations, then to something warmer, more personal. She was the one consistent, empathetic presence in a world that had become cynical and cold. She didn't ask me to be a quote; she just listened.
She saw the real me behind the headlines, the frustration behind the defiance. She was smart, perceptive, and more than anything, she made me feel seen. In the dying embers of my Dortmund dream, she was a quiet, unexpected fire. She was hope.