Chapter 129: [129] "Breaking the Lock"
"I wouldn’t miss it for anything."
She smiled, the exhaustion finally pulling her back down against his shoulder. "Good. Now carry me to bed. If I have to walk another step in this suit, I’m going to collapse."
Luc laughed, sliding his arms under her and lifting her effortlessly despite his aching back. As he carried her down the hall, his mind briefly flickered back to the dark screen of his tablet.
He had to take the lead on Sunday. If he didn’t, the birthday dinner was going to taste like trash.
---
Friday morning at the training complex.
The weather had taken a turn for the miserable. A cold, relentless drizzle coated the pitches, making the grass slick and any training boot that dared it, heavy. The squad was out, running possession drills under the gray sky.
Coach Henri stood under an umbrella on the touchline, a whistle clamped between his teeth.
"Stop!" Henri blew the whistle sharply. "Bring it in!"
The squad jogged toward the center circle, their breath forming white clouds in the freezing air. Luc wiped the rain from his eyes, taking his place next to Klaus Becker.
"Sunday," Henri barked, wiping the screen of his tactical tablet with a towel. "Bretagne. They are currently sitting eleventh in the table. They are not Paris Royal, and they are not AS Garonne. They do not want to attack us."
Henri held up the tablet, showing the digital formation.
"They play a 4-3-3," Henri said, tapping the screen. "They are defensively solid. Their two wide forwards will press our center-backs aggressively, trying to deny our build-up. But more importantly, their holding midfielder...that twenty-nine-year-old veteran, will screen everything centrally. They want to frustrate us. They want a zero-zero draw. They want us to push too high and leave ourselves exposed to a cheap counter-attack."
Klaus Becker scoffed loudly. "Cowards."
"Maybe," Henri agreed. "But they are cowards who earn points by frustrating better teams. When we played them away, the coastal wind ruined the game and forced us to play ugly, we could only get a point. But tomorrow, we are at Stade Valois. We dictate the conditions. Gabriel, Dário."
The two wingers looked up.
"You do not cut inside early," Henri instructed. "You stay as wide as the chalk lines. You force their fullbacks to step out to meet you. If you cut inside too soon, you are running straight into their holding midfielder’s trap. Stretch them. Make the pitch as big as possible."
Henri turned to Luc.
"Beaumont. You are going to be surrounded. Their two center-backs will not leave the penalty box, and that veteran holding midfielder will try to block every passing lane to you. When we cross the ball, it’s going to be crowded. You need to drag them out of position. Make dummy runs to the near post to open the cutback for Hugo."
"Understood," Luc said. He knew exactly what kind of match Sunday was going to be. It was going to be a grueling, physical wrestling match in the penalty area. He was thankful he had spent the TES points on Absolute Poacher and Physical Anchor. He was going to need every ounce of balance and trigger speed he could muster.
"Baini, Klaus," Henri continued. "Recycle the ball quickly. Do not let them reset or find their shape. If the left side is blocked, swing it to the right instantly. Exhaust them."
The tactical breakdown continued for another ten minutes before Henri dismissed them back to the drills.
As they jogged back into position, Bachra Goza appeared beside Luc. The teenager was wearing a thick neck snood pulled all the way up to his nose to combat the cold.
"Hey, Captain," Bachra mumbled through the fabric. "If they sit deep and screen the middle, that means no space for me to run in behind, right?"
"Exactly," Luc said. "Which means if Henri subs you on, you don’t try to knock the ball past them and sprint. You use your close control. Draw fouls on the edge of the box. Make them commit to a tackle."
Bachra nodded, absorbing the information. "Right. Make them look stupid. I can do that. It’s what I’m good at. Trust."
"Just don’t lose the ball doing it," Luc warned.
"I’ll never."
---
Saturday evening. The eve of Matchday 22.
The squad was hosted in the team hotel, a newly introduced standard protocol for home matches to ensure dietary compliance and enforced curfews.
It signalled that SC Valois was levelling up.
Luc sat alone in his hotel room. The digital clock on the nightstand read 10:00 PM.
The media was still buzzing with the GQ cover. Valérie’s media team had successfully saturated the market. Everywhere Luc looked on his phone, he saw his own face staring back at him, usually accompanied by an article analyzing whether he or Fresko was the superior striker.
It was a manufactured war, but it carried very real consequences. The board members, the sponsors, the fans, they all bought into the narrative. If he didn’t score tomorrow, the media would claim the pressure of the cover had gotten to him.
He locked his phone and tossed it onto the empty space beside him on the bed.
"TES," he thought, staring at the blank ceiling and calling upon his favourite system.
[System Notification]
[Balance: 30 General Points | 25 Skill Points]
[Current Passives: Captain’s Aura, Absolute Poacher, Physical Anchor]
[Current Consumable: Tactical Mute (x1)]
He had the tools. He didn’t need to buy anything else for a team sitting eleventh in the table.
"Status on Locker Room Cohesion?"
[Locker Room Cohesion: 91% (Optimal)]
[Observation: The squad is fully aligned. Egos are subordinated to the tactical demands of the 4-3-3. The system detects no immediate internal threats.]
Stability.
Gabriel was tracking back. Idriss was accepting his role as a lethal substitute.
Klaus and Baini were dominating the midfield.
Luc closed the system interface. He reached over and switched off the bedside lamp, plunging the hotel room into darkness.
Tomorrow, Sporting Bretagne was coming to Stade Valois. They wanted to build a wall across the pitch, screen the midfield, and pray for a scoreless draw.
Luc closed his eyes, his breathing slowing to a steady, predatory rhythm. He was going to tear it down using any means necessary.