My Ultimate Gacha System

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Turf Moor, Burnley

Midday

The team bus rolled toward Turf Moor with Burnley supporters already pressed three deep against the barriers, and the moment it slowed near the players’ entrance the shouting started before the doors had even opened.

"WALTER! OVER HERE, WALTER!"

Camera flashes went off in clusters as the squad filed down the steps, reporters angling microphones over the barrier tape, throwing questions faster than anyone could answer them.

"Demien, can you replicate Munich in the Premier League?"

"What are the odds on a hat trick today, Demien?"

"Is this the real test now, after Bayern?"

"What do you think of Mateo Salvatierra?"

That one floated past without an answer. Demien didn’t even turn his head toward it.

Then another voice cut through closer to the barrier, phone already held out. "Demien — Salvatierra called you a good player yesterday. What do you think of that statement?"

Demien stopped.

He turned his head and looked straight at the reporter, and a slow smile spread across his face, the kind that made the man lean in over the tape with the phone held closer, certain a quote was coming.

Demien held the look for one more second, still smiling, then turned and kept walking toward the players’ entrance without saying a single word.

He didn’t flinch from any of it and he didn’t perform for it either. He kept his headphones down around his neck rather than over his ears, walking through the noise instead of hiding behind it, and a couple of his teammates glanced sideways at him as they crossed the concourse, half expecting a reaction that never came.

Away Dressing Room

The away dressing room at Turf Moor was nothing like the Allianz. The corridors were narrow enough that two players couldn’t pass shoulder to shoulder without turning sideways, the ceiling sat lower than felt natural, and through the walls the noise from the home end came louder and rougher than the polished roar of a Champions League night. Less glamour. More teeth in it.

Demien pulled his kit from the hanger and started getting changed, and his shirt hung in its usual spot among the starters — Casemiro to his left, Bruno to his right, Højlund’s shirt further down beside Rashford’s.

Ten Hag walked in once the room had settled and didn’t waste time on ceremony.

"Burnley will press the first pass," he said, standing near the tactics board with a marker in hand. "They’ll push it wide early and crowd every second ball. And they’ll use their crowd after every duel — every foul feels like a war out there today."

He tapped the board once, right where the gap between Burnley’s midfield line sat drawn in black marker.

"When they jump toward Demien, the free man appears," he said. "Move the ball before they turn the first contact into a fight. If they jump, we play through. If they sit, we move them until the gap opens."

Demien sat with his boots already tied, hands resting on his knees, eyes on the board. He wasn’t trying to prove he belonged anymore. That part was done. He was here to take a plan apart.

Tunnel

Burnley’s players glanced at him more than once lining up in the tunnel, a few of them clearly running the Bayern clips back through their heads. One of their midfielders drifted a half-step closer than he needed to and bumped his shoulder into Demien’s as they shuffled forward.

Demien looked at him once, said nothing, and looked back toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

Fweeeeeetttttttt!

Burnley kicked off aggressively, exactly the way Ten Hag had described it.

Their front two curved their runs to cut off the pass into Varane, a second forward angled his run to block the return to Onana, and their nearest midfielder stayed close enough to Demien that he could bump him the instant the ball arrived, denying the turn before it started.

For the first five minutes, Burnley looked organized and United looked stuck. Demien barely got a clean touch, forced into one-touch lays and backward passes every time the ball found him, and the home end cheered every one of them like a small victory. It didn’t look like struggle from where he stood. It looked like information gathering.

He noticed it on the fourth Burnley press: their midfield jumped too hard, too eager, every single time he touched the ball. Every time they followed him, the space behind them opened up clean for Bruno or Højlund to step into.

He started drifting deeper — not because Burnley was forcing him back, but because he wanted their marker to keep following him there.

「TECHNIQUE ACTIVE」 「Andrea Pirlo — Deep-Lying Playmaker」

「ATTRIBUTE ACTIVE」 「Vision: 99」

The first warning came when he dropped beside Casemiro and received from Martínez, taking one touch across his body that pulled Burnley’s marker a full stride too far with him. He didn’t dribble past it. He disguised a pass into Bruno between the lines instead, and Bruno turned first time and slipped Rashford through — but the shot was blocked before it could threaten the goal.

Burnley answered by fouling him earlier the next time. A midfielder clipped his ankle just as he tried to turn, and the referee only waved a warning, no card, while Turf Moor cheered the tackle like it had been a clean one.

Demien pushed himself up off the grass slowly, brushed the dirt from his palm, and said nothing at all. His face gave Burnley nothing to feed off.

13’ —

Burnley tried the same trap again a few minutes later — one man tight on his back, another stepping in from the side to close the passing lane. Demien let the pass arrive across his body, held the first contact on pure strength, then spun away from it with one controlled touch.

「TECHNIQUE ACTIVATED」 「Johan Cruyff — Turn Innovator」

「ATTRIBUTE ACTIVE」 「Ball Control: 99」

「ATTRIBUTE ACTIVE」 「Strength: 99」

The first line broke clean. Bruno dragged a defender wide with his run, Højlund pinned the center-back on his shoulder, and Burnley’s left-sided defender stepped across to close him down a half-second too late.

Demien accelerated into the half-space, shaped his body like the pass was going to Rashford on the overlap, and drove it low across the goalkeeper instead.

「LEGENDARY SKILL ACTIVATED」 「Thierry Henry — Va-Va-Voom」