Chapter 97: [97] "Deadline day Wednesday"
January 31st, 2024.
Deadline day in European football usually carried the frantic, desperate energy of a casino floor in the final minutes before the tables closed. Clubs scrambled to fix mistakes they had made in August and had somehow illogically waited till the dying minutes for that fix, agents leaked rumors to artificially inflate prices, and players sat by their phones waiting to find out what city they would be living in by the next morning.
At SC Valois, the panic had been replaced by something far more terrifying, absolute corporate efficiency.
Luc walked into the main meeting room at eight in the morning. The space, usually comfortable for a squad of 16(not knowing how they managed that for so long), felt suddenly claustrophobic. The air hummed as there were new faces. Quite a lot of them.
Cillian was sitting in the middle row, staring at a young kid with slicked-back hair who was tapping his foot a million miles per hour. "It looks like the first day of school in here," Cillian muttered to Luc as he walked past. "Half of these new blokes I’ve never seen."
"Not exactly what Champions League ambitions buy you," Luc said, taking his seat at the front left.
Idriss sat two seats down, his arms crossed, his eyes scanning the new arrivals with hostility. He knew his starting spot was suddenly under threat. Hugo sat beside him, casually scrolling through his tablet, entirely unbothered by the influx of new faces.
Klaus Becker leaned against the back wall, his massive frame radiating a sort of smug approval. Klaus liked a crowded room, it meant the club was finally acting like a big team.
The heavy double doors at the front of the room swung open.
Coach Henri walked in, carrying a thick stack of printouts. But the room didn’t go completely silent for Henri. It went silent for the woman walking a step behind of him.
Valérie Laurent wore a tailored charcoal pantsuit and a silk blouse, a diamond necklace resting coldly against her collarbone. She walked to the center of the room, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. She did not look like an owner stopping by to offer words of encouragement. She looked like a general inspecting a newly assembled army.
"Good morning," Valérie said. Her voice didn’t need volume to command the room. It carried itself effortlessly.
Twenty-three pairs of eyes locked onto her.
"When I bought this club, I wasn’t serious with how I handled it," Valérie began, pacing slowly across the front of the room. "It was a mid-table stepping stone club. A place where older players came to retire and younger players came to escape for a good paycheck. In August, nobody in this country expected us to be sitting in a Champions League qualification spot by February. Yet, here we are."
She stopped and looked directly at Luc for a fraction of a second before sweeping her gaze over the new arrivals.
"But remaining at the top is infinitely harder than arriving there," Valérie continued. "Last week, Henri came to my office. He walked me through a tactical problem. He explained that to break down the low blocks we’ll be facing in the later part of the season, and to compete with the sheer depth of teams like Paris Royal and Phocéen, our current shape was no longer sustainable. We needed width. We needed specialists. We needed depth."
She gestured toward Henri, though her eyes stayed on the players.
"I am not a manager. I do not pick the starting eleven. But I am an owner who protects her investments. Henri told me what he needed to change the system, and I opened the club’s checkbook and bought exactly what he asked for...within our power. I have backed this manager, and I have backed this squad. My part is done. Your parts continue now."
Valérie’s dark eyes narrowed, sweeping the room one last time, making sure the gravity of her final sentence hit hard.
"I expect a return. Do not disappoint me."
She didn’t wait for a response. She turned on her heels and walked out of the double doors, the lock clicking decisively behind her.
The silence she left behind was heavy.
Henri stepped up. He didn’t look like the anxious, pacing manager from the first half of the season. The bags under his eyes were still there, but he stood with a new, reinforced authority. When the owner spends millions explicitly on your instructions, you either grow a spine or you get crushed by the weight of it.
Henri picked up a black marker. He drew a large rectangle on the big board, then quickly sketched out a formation.
Four at the back. Three in the middle. Three up top.
"We are shifting to a 4-3-3," Henri announced, tapping the board.
A murmur rippled through the room. Luc’s posture stiffened. Idriss sat up straight.
"The mid-block, two-striker system got us to third place," Henri explained, drawing arrows along the flanks. "But without proper wide threat, and with teams figuring out how to congest the center against us, we lack natural width. We might start getting choked in the middle. From today, we play with pure wingers. We stretch the pitch. We isolate their fullbacks one-on-one. And we play with a single, central striker."
One striker.
Luc looked closely at the board. The 4-3-3 meant the box would be less crowded, giving him more room to operate, but it also meant he wouldn’t have a second forward to drag the center-backs away... It also meant something else.
He glanced at Idriss. Idriss was already looking at him.
They had spent months building a lethal partnership. Now, they were in direct competition yet again for a single spot on the pitch.
"I want to make sure everyone understands exactly who is in this room and what your roles are," Henri said, grabbing a printout. "This is our finalized squad for the remainder of the 23/24 season. The window closes tonight, but our business is done."
Henri looked down at his list as the rest were passed around.
"Goalkeepers. Tomáš Blažek remains our number one. Rafael Pinto is our backup."
Blažek, sitting near the wall, gave a stoic nod. Pinto, the 24-year-old, mirrored it.
"Right backs. Kévin Aubert and Edouard Marchand."
"Left backs," Henri continued. "Thierry Owusu. And we’ve promoted Zack Florez from the youth team."
Luc looked back. Florez, an 18-year-old kid looked like he trusted his own ability on the pitch way too much.
"Center-backs," Henri said, tapping the heart of the defense on the board behind him. "Samir Hadj. Jonas Ekberg. Amadou Fall. Yannick Cabral, another promotion from the youth team, age 18. And our newest center back..."
Henri gestured toward a solidly built man sitting in the third row, looking completely relaxed.
"Leo Hernandez," Henri said. "Twenty-four years old. Signed directly from Stade Phocéen."
Poaching a starting center-back from a direct rival mid-season was exactly the kind of boardroom violence Valérie specialized in. Hernandez gave a brief, unapologetic wave. He had crossed enemy lines, and he didn’t care who knew it.
"Midfield," Henri said, moving to the center of the pitch. "Klaus Becker. Cillian Doyle. Hugo Blanc."
He paused, looking at two new faces.
"We are adding two pieces here to ensure we never lose control of the tempo. Bense Baini, twenty-eight, joins us as a free agent. He brings a decade of European experience."
Baini, who looked like he had seen every tactical setup on the continent, nodded once. For those who knew him, he was exceptionally technical.
"And Jose Mallorca," Henri added, pointing to a sharp-looking 24-year-old. "Signed from London Blue in the Premier League. He brings forward passing and a workhorse engine."
Mallorca just adjusted his posture. Klaus, leaning against the back wall, looked at Baini and Mallorca with something like a death stare, measuring if they were up to his standards.
"Now, the wide areas," Henri said, his voice tightening. "The pure wingers. This is where the 4-3-3 lives or dies."
He looked to the right side of the room. "On the right wing, Gabriel Assis and Bachra Goza, nineteen years old, straight out of La Masia."
The kid Cillian had noticed earlier offered a quick, confident smirk. A La Masia graduate meant pure, terrifying technical ability and a god complex. Gabriel, wearing his usual bright yellow hoodie, just grinned at his new competition.
"On the left wing," Henri continued. "Dário Ferrão. And Alex Sordell, twenty-six, signed from Intermilani."
Sordell was sitting with his legs crossed, projecting the kind of arrogant Italian-league aura. A Serie A winger meant tactical discipline.
"Finally," Henri said, putting the printout down and looking directly Luc. "The strikers."
The room went still.
"Idriss Konaté. Luc Beaumont."
Henri paused, then gestured to a kid sitting quietly in the corner. He looked barely old enough to drive.
"And Max Caster. Sixteen years old. Promoted from the youth team. Like Luc, he’s an American."
Luc turned his head. The kid, Max, was staring at Luc with wide, completely starstruck eyes. The American media had been hyping Luc up as a god for months, to a sixteen-year-old kid from the States, sitting in the same room as Luc Beaumont must have felt like a hallucination.
Luc gave the kid a single, firm nod. Max’s eyes went even wider.
"That is the twenty-three-man squad," Henri said, stepping away from the board. "There is no more Bastien. There is no more Mateo. No more Lacombe or Dermici. There are no more excuses now about lacking depth or lacking specialists. We have a minimum of two players for every position. We have youth, we have Champions League veterans, and we have pure pace."
Henri walked to the center of the room, folding his arms.
"This 4-3-3 requires absolute discipline. The wingers stay wide. The midfield covers the transitions. The striker stays central and finishes what the wings create."
Henri’s eyes swept over them.
"I don’t care how much Valérie paid for you," Henri said, his voice dropping into a deadly serious tone. "I don’t care what academy you graduated from, or how many goals you scored in the first half of the season. Every single spot on this pitch is up for grabs."
Henri picked up his marker and capped it with a sharp snap.
"When next we hold a training session, I will decide the starting XI for SC Corse. Dismissed."
Idriss stood up. He looked down at Luc, who was still seated.
"One striker, back to our little game of rivals," Idriss said quietly.
"One striker," Luc confirmed, meeting his gaze.
Idriss didn’t look angry. He looked hungry.
He turned and walked out.
Luc stood up slowly. The sheer density of the squad was staggering. Valérie had essentially bought a second starting lineup to duct-tape the cracks Mateo and Bastien had left behind.