My Ultimate Gacha System

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Manchester — Evening

Demien’s phone was still hot from the Bayern aftermath by the time he sat down on his own sofa that evening, the screen barely dimming between one notification and the next.

Headlines. Fan accounts. Pundit clips cut into fifteen-second loops. Tactical breakdown accounts freezing his free kick mid-flight with arrows drawn across the frame. His one goal and two assists had turned into a public event overnight, and every scroll dragged him back into it instead of letting him move past it.

He watched the free kick clip again without meaning to. Then the SIUUU. Then the pass to Højlund, then Casemiro’s header, then the Player of the Match graphic with his name spelled out under the trophy. He wanted to check the reaction quickly and put the phone down. His thumb kept finding another clip instead.

Then a headline slid past that stopped his thumb completely.

WALTER IN MUNICH. SALVATIERRA IN BARCELONA. EUROPE’S NEXT GREAT U20 DEBATE HAS STARTED.

He read it twice before he understood he didn’t recognize the second name at all.

He scrolled down into the replies, and the debate was already messy in the way these things always were — nobody agreeing, everybody certain.

@UtdCentral: Demien Walter just dropped 1G/2A at the Allianz. Stop forcing comparisons.

@BarcaComps: Salvatierra controlled a Champions League match without needing chaos. Watch the game, not only the numbers.

@ScoutReportEU: Walter is power, output, transitions, and clutch moments. Salvatierra is control, manipulation, and final-third patience. Completely different profiles.

@BallonTalk: Walter vs Salvatierra is going to become unbearable, isn’t it?

Demien read through it without posting anything. He wasn’t jealous and he wasn’t offended. Football quality interested him regardless of whose name sat next to his, and he kept scrolling because he wanted to actually see what all of it was about.

A verified account posted the clip a minute later, tagged from Barcelona’s Champions League group match against Royal Antwerp.

@EuroFootballHub: Mateo Salvatierra, 19 years old. Watch the first touch here. 🎥

Demien pressed play.

Mateo received the ball near the right touchline with two Antwerp defenders already closing the angle, and he didn’t sprint away from them the way most nineteen-year-olds would have. He let the first defender commit fully, shifted his hips a fraction, dragged the ball across his body with the sole of his left foot, and slipped through the gap the defender’s own momentum had opened before the second man could shut the passing lane.

Then, without looking down, he clipped a reverse pass into the box.

Barcelona scored from it three touches later.

Demien’s clip from Munich was loud — a free kick, a scream into the corner flag, a stadium exploding around him. Mateo’s clip was almost silent by comparison. One touch. One hip movement. One pass played by feel rather than sight. No wasted motion anywhere in it.

He watched it once through. Then he rewound to the first touch and watched that alone. Then the hip feint. Then the reverse pass, three separate times, without saying a word to the empty room.

A pundit clip loaded next in the same scroll, two analysts sitting across a studio desk with the Barcelona goal frozen behind them.

"For me, Walter’s already proven more," the first said, leaning forward on his elbows. "Doing that away at Bayern, under real pressure, from 3-1 down — that’s a different thing entirely from looking composed inside a possession system built to protect you."

The second shook his head slowly. "I’d argue Salvatierra’s control is the rarer skill. Anyone can be electric for twenty minutes when the emotion’s running high. Bending the rhythm of a match without needing a single wild moment — that’s something else."

"They’re going to shove the Messi-Ronaldo thing onto this," the first said, half a laugh in it. "Loud versus quiet, explosive versus still. It’s lazy, but it writes itself."

"They’re their own players," the second said. "Give it five minutes before someone forgets that."

The fan edits were already multiplying by the time Demien scrolled past the studio clip. One cut straight from his SIUUU at the Allianz into Mateo walking away from his own assist without any celebration at all. Another laid their numbers side by side in a single graphic. A third just used two words as the caption.

POWER VS PAUSE.

Demien read that one twice. It captured the gap between the two clips better than either analyst had managed in three minutes of talking.

A stat account posted the numbers a few scrolls later, kept simple rather than buried in decimals.

Demien Walter vs Bayern: 1 goal, 2 assists, Player of the Match, direct free-kick goal, 5 pressure-release actions, 3 chances created.

Mateo Salvatierra vs Antwerp: 1 goal contribution, most successful dribbles on the pitch, most final-third entries, most chances created, highest progressive carries.

Then a football magazine notification landed on top of everything else, its headline cleaner than the rest.

THE OTHER NAME: WHY MATEO SALVATIERRA IS ALREADY BEING PLACED BESIDE DEMIEN WALTER

The wider football shows picked it up within the hour — split-screen graphics, online polls, short tactical breakdowns comparing their touch maps side by side. Nobody in any of it mentioned his family or his agent or anyone close to him. This debate belonged entirely to strangers with opinions.

One poll caught more traction than the rest.

WHO IS EUROPE’S BEST U20 ATTACKER/MIDFIELDER RIGHT NOW?

Demien Walter — 49% Mateo Salvatierra — 47% Other — 4%

Close enough to annoy both sides equally. United fans called it disrespectful after what he’d just done in Munich. Barcelona fans called it English media bias, because Mateo’s game wasn’t built for a highlight reel.

Demien didn’t post anything about any of it. He set the phone face-down on the arm of the sofa and got up to sort out his recovery bag for the morning.

Before he left the room, he picked the phone back up one more time and watched the reverse pass again. Not obsessing over it. Just noticing it, the way one player notices another.

Friday, September 22, 2023

A broadcast clip surfaced the next morning, timestamped from Mateo’s own post-match mixed zone in Barcelona.

"Mateo — you’re already being compared to Demien Walter after his night in Munich," the reporter said, microphone angled up. "What do you make of that?"

"He had a great match," Mateo said, his voice even, no edge in it either way. "Comparisons are for people outside the pitch."

"Did you watch the Bayern highlights?"

"I saw the free kick. And the last assist."

"What did you think?"

"Good player," Mateo said.

The reporter tried once more, angling for something sharper. "Would you want to face him? If the draw ever gave you that match?"

"If the draw gives us that match, we play," Mateo said, and turned to walk toward the tunnel before the question could be pushed any further.

The clip took about four minutes to get twisted into a dozen different arguments. Some accounts called him cold. Some called him scared. Some called it the most respectful answer either player had given all week. United fans said he’d dodged the question outright. Barcelona fans said he simply didn’t need to perform for anyone.

Demien watched the clip at Carrington later that morning, sitting in the recovery room with his legs still wrapped in compression sleeves. He watched Mateo say the two words — good player — and let out a small breath through his nose, nothing more dramatic than that.

Then he locked the phone and went back to his recovery stretches.

By the end of that day, the football world had split cleanly into two names carrying a debate neither of them had asked to be part of.

The final post landed that evening, a major account with millions of followers pairing two images side by side — Demien in United white mid-scream at the Allianz, Mateo in Barcelona colours walking calmly away from his own assist.

THE NEW ARGUMENT HAS A SECOND NAME.

The comments underneath were already moving too fast to read properly.

Demien’s thumb hovered over Mateo’s reverse pass one more time before he locked the screen and stepped out onto the recovery pitch.

The Bayern match had given Europe Demien Walter.

By morning, Europe had already found the other name