[Leadership Role Accepted. New Attribute Unlocked: Field General. Warning: Team performance now partially reflects your decisions.]
Luca felt the weight of the system's acknowledgment as he jogged back onto the pitch for the second half. Leadership wasn't about shouting orders or demanding the ball—he'd learned that lesson watching street crews fall apart when their bosses tried to control everything. Real leadership was about making others better, creating opportunities they couldn't see themselves.
The Under-20s emerged from their halftime discussion with the focused intensity of professionals whose pride had been wounded. Their warm-up touches were sharper, their passing more deliberate, their body language radiating the quiet confidence of players who'd been reminded of their superiority. Esposito barked instructions to his teammates, his voice carrying the authority of someone who'd already tasted first-team football.
But Luca was watching something else entirely. Alessandro stood apart from the Under-18s huddle, his shoulders rigid with frustration, his eyes fixed on the ground rather than engaging with Marotta's tactical adjustments. The golden boy was cracking under pressure, and his breakdown was spreading through the team like a virus.
"Alessandro." Luca's voice was quiet, meant only for his teammate's ears as they lined up for the restart. "They want you to try too hard. That's their plan."
Alessandro's head snapped up, his eyes flashing with anger. "Don't tell me how to play football, street rat. I was winning trophies while you were stealing cars."
The words stung because they were true, but Luca had learned to use truth as a weapon rather than a weakness. "Maybe. But you weren't winning anything in the first half."
Before Alessandro could respond, the referee's whistle cut through the tension. The second half had begun, and immediately the Under-20s showed their adjusted tactics. Instead of the casual dominance they'd displayed early in the first half, they pressed with calculated aggression, targeting the Under-18s' weakest links while protecting their own vulnerable areas.
The first test came within ninety seconds. Verratti received the ball in midfield under immediate pressure from two Under-20s players. His first touch was clean, but the second defender was already closing the angle, forcing him toward the touchline where a third player waited to complete the trap.
Luca began moving before Verratti even looked up. Not toward the ball—that would be obvious—but into the space he knew Verratti would need in three seconds' time. The movement looked random to casual observers, but it was precisely calculated based on the Under-20s' pressing pattern and Verratti's preferred passing angles.
When the pass came, Luca was already facing forward with time to think. The Under-20s' left-back was caught between closing him down and tracking the overlapping run from Davide Conti. For a crucial half-second, he hesitated, trying to cover both threats.
Luca exploited the hesitation ruthlessly. Instead of the simple pass to Conti that everyone expected, he cut inside with a sharp change of direction that left the defender scrambling to recover. Suddenly, Luca was driving toward the penalty area with space opening ahead of him and several teammates making supporting runs.
The Under-20s' defensive midfielder moved to intercept, but he was thinking like a professional playing against academy players—expecting the safe option, the percentage play, the choice a coach would approve of. What he got instead was pure street football intelligence.
Luca's stepover was subtle, barely noticeable, but it shifted the defender's weight just enough. The through ball that followed split the defense with surgical precision, finding Santoro's run perfectly. This time, the striker's finish was confident and clinical, low to the goalkeeper's left, unstoppable.
Three-one.
[Tactical Leadership Bonus: +1 Vision. Team Confidence Surge Detected. Individual Performance Bonuses Applied to All Players.]
The celebration was different this time. Instead of wild individual joy, the Under-18s came together as a unit, their huddle tight and purposeful. Luca found himself at the center without seeking it, his teammates looking to him for reassurance that this wasn't just luck, that they could actually compete at this level.
"Stay calm," he said quietly, his voice cutting through their excitement. "They're going to come at us hard now. No more testing—they'll throw everything at us."
His prediction proved accurate within minutes. The Under-20s abandoned their careful buildup play in favor of direct attacking that showcased their physical superiority. Long balls pumped toward target men, crosses whipped in from wide positions, set pieces delivered with venom rather than precision. It was professional football stripped to its most brutal essentials.
The Under-18s' defense, excellent against technical play, began to creak under the aerial bombardment. Pietro Marchetti made three magnificent saves in five minutes, but each rescue felt more desperate than the last. The pressure was relentless, suffocating, designed to break not just their tactical shape but their mental resolve.
In the fifty-eighth minute, the inevitable happened. A corner kick swung in from the right found Esposito rising above everyone else, his header powerful and perfectly placed. Marchetti got a hand to it, but the ball ricocheted off the crossbar and fell to the Under-20s' striker, who bundled it over the line from two yards out.
Three-two.
The goal changed everything. The Under-20s' celebrations were muted but meaningful—they'd found their rhythm, remembered their class, rediscovered their superiority. Several Under-18s players dropped their heads, the confidence of ten minutes earlier evaporating under the weight of sustained pressure.
But Luca was already moving, not toward the ball or his position, but toward Alessandro. The golden boy stood at the center circle, his face a mask of frustrated desperation, his body language screaming his desire to do something spectacular to change the game's momentum.
"Now," Luca said simply as he jogged past.
"What?"
"Now you show them who you really are. Not the spoiled kid trying too hard. The player who's been training for this moment his entire life."
Alessandro's eyes narrowed, but something in Luca's tone penetrated his frustration. "Why do you care?"
"Because we win together or lose together. And I don't plan on losing."