The rain returned in a thin, steady veil that turned the academy's floodlights into halos. Mahmoud tugged his training top down over his ribs and jogged toward the main pitch with the first unit already circling the center cone. Controlled contact—his first with the group since the sprain. The ankle felt honest, not loud; his breath, even. He caught Kareem's eye. A small nod. Yasser's chin tipped once: tempo voice.
Coach Muneer raised the whistle. "We're done rehearsing. Today we manufacture boredom—ours and theirs. If we control time, we'll own Saturday. Rondo squares, two grids, two-touch. Pivots, hold shape."
The ball started to hum. Blue bibs stitched passes through the smaller grid like thread through fabric. Mahmoud anchored the low left corner, shoulders loose, scanning hip angles, not feet. When pressure doubled, he didn't escape with flair—he rewound the move to Kareem at the precise pace Kareem could accept. The press arrived, then suffocated on air it couldn't find.
The assistant coach drifted past. "Center of gravity—clean," he muttered, marking a note. Mahmoud let the compliment pass like wind. Work first.
"Switch," Coach barked.
They merged grids into one narrow rectangle. Defenders rotated in pairs, charged and retreated like a heartbeat. Mahmoud sold a vertical pass with his eyes, then knifed a lateral stab into Yasser's back foot, moving the press sideways, not forward. Two touches later, the trap collapsed.
A younger midfielder bit hard on Mahmoud's shoulder fake and clipped his heel. Contact, not malice. Mahmoud didn't snap; he absorbed, rolled his hips open, and turned the foul into a reset without taking the whistle. Rhythm over righteousness.
"Shape," Coach called.
Cones vanished. Lines appeared. Eleven v eleven, three-quarters field, contact permitted. Blue in a 4‑3‑3, Mahmoud the left-sided six with license to breathe for the line. Orange pressed in a 4‑1‑4‑1—mimicking the Europeans. The first wave surged; Mahmoud floated a yard deeper, receiving from Kareem on the half-turn and returning a cushioned reverse that invited pressure and then denied it. Boredom, brick by brick.
Orange's stand-in eight—Emil's role—started jumping early on touch two. Mahmoud pre-moved once, twice, then a third time before the cue, taking the return into the pocket Emil had vacated. The field opened like a mouth. He didn't hit the switch; he slid the shortest lethal pass, splitting two lines for the interior winger's underlap. Shot low, palmed wide.
"Again," Coach's voice flattened, satisfied but greedy.
The next sequence asked for cruelty. Orange set a touchline trap by the technical area, blades high, studs tidy. Mahmoud arrived late on purpose, inviting the snap. He killed the ball with his sole, let the first man overrun, used the second's momentum to spin, then fed Kareem with the only weight that wouldn't drown him. Kareem stepped, lifted, and found Yasser streaking—one touch, roofed. The small net clattered.
"Reset. Golden thirty," Coach ordered.
Orange ball. Mahmoud spoke for the first time, just a syllable: "Slow." Blue compressed like a lung exhaling, squeezing seams shut until Orange coughed up a square pass. Mahmoud stole the breath—interception on his toe, not a lunge—and recycled twice through the back to bleed the clock. Boredom as blade.
The whistle dismissed urgency. Coach pointed to the corner flag. "Set pieces. They're tall. We'll be taller in ideas."
Near-post crowd. Back-post stack. Short corner bait. Mahmoud's assignment: edge-of-box sentry, counter extinguisher. On the second rep the clearance popped like a bad secret. He didn't lash at goal; he volleyed a pass back into the mixer, waist high, spinning away from the keeper. A knee redirected, a boot stabbed—saved on the line. Right decision, wrong finish. Filed.
Next variant: they primed the counter. Two orange shirts bolted. Mahmoud had already left his post, taking the diagonal that cut off the only pass that mattered. He didn't slide. He arrived, turned the runner with body geometry, and won the foul with a shoulder the reference could love.
Water break. Steam rose off heads and shoulders. Yasser leaned in. "Their right back sleeps when the winger pinches."
Mahmoud nodded. "Drag him with a fake overlap; I'll thread the near‑blind seam."
"You don't even look," Yasser said.
"I looked before."
Coach's whistle stitched them back into shape. Final script: two minutes, next goal wins. Orange pressed like men trying to pay back time. A heavy pass shot across wet turf toward Mahmoud with a chaser attached. He chose honest violence: low stance, absorb, roll the strike, leave a rib's memory, keep the ball. The corridor announced itself with silence. Everyone felt it.
He sold the diagonal. Eyes big, shoulders square. Then he tucked the smallest dagger through the triangle between eight, six, and center back—a seam only trust can open. The striker started the decoy and found it suddenly real. Two touches, toe past the keeper. Net.
Whistle. Finished.
Noise fell apart into breath, into the Velcro rip of GPS vests, into laughter quickly swallowed. Coach met them at midfield, expression like weather. "That's the pace. Not fast. I said the pace." His eyes held on Mahmoud a heartbeat longer than neutral. "Film in two hours. Ankle?"
"Honest," Mahmoud said.
"Keep it that way."
They dispersed. The older scout with the chewed pen lingered near the tunnel, making a circle on his pad—the pivot sign—then shading it in. He didn't look up when Mahmoud passed. He didn't need to.
In the locker room, tape unwound like soft thunder. Kareem dropped onto the bench with a hiss. "You're the metronome," he said, grinning. "Annoying one."
"Keep your quarter notes," Mahmoud answered, the corner of his mouth tilting.
Yasser slid a water bottle across. "That false switch before the cut—keep that for Saturday. Don't give it away here."
"It's not mine if I can't repeat it," Mahmoud said.
"It's yours," Yasser replied, certain.
The cold tub took his legs to the quiet place. Pain receded to a useful whisper; the ankle reported status like a teammate: present, ready, don't lie to me. He closed his eyes and let breath count his edges back into order. In for three. Hold. Out for four. Time loosened its grip.
Film room, later: the Europeans flickered in high frame rate, ice-white kits moving like a school of fish. Emil's angles, again. Shoulders telegraphing a half-second too early when he hunted the second touch. The right back's habit of peeking at the ball and forgetting the back post. Coach stabbed the screen with a laser. "This gap is real for two touches. If you miss it, it's gone. If you hit it, they're gone."
Mahmoud wrote nothing. The note already lived in muscle. Create boredom. Break it before they're ready.
Evening folded over the city by the time he stepped into the open air. He took the long way back, the route that carried the smell of hot metal, bread, wet dust. A kid juggled near the curb, scuffing a too-big ball, counting out loud and messing up his count. The ball rolled to Mahmoud. Sole trap. Gentle pop back. Weight perfect.
"How'd you make it stop like that?" the boy asked, eyes wide.
"I gave it the speed you can handle," Mahmoud said. "Not the speed I can imagine."
The boy tried again and kept it up to eight, then nine. He yelled something triumphant to nobody in particular. Mahmoud smiled into his collar and walked on.
At home, he iced, ate, and lay flat. The fan sliced the ceiling into slow-moving tiles. VALYS spoke at the edge of sleep, voice softened by his pulse.
"Decision speed under load: improved. Energy expenditure: optimal. Ankle load: even. Recommendation: ninety minutes visualization, limit to transition phases."
"What's the thing tomorrow that changes Saturday?" he asked.
"Teach your team to like boredom," VALYS said. "Then you decide when to end it."
He set the alarm, not for dawn but an hour before it, to meet the quiet while the city still pretended to be asleep. His last waking picture was Emil stepping early into a space that wasn't there anymore, and the pass that would arrive where the space used to be.
He slept like an answer, not a question.
**End of Chapter 20.**