Chapter 51: Volume 1, - 51: Signs
VDuring Monday’s history class, the lock screen of Rayan’s mobile phone illuminated twice under the edge of his wooden desk.
He slid it against his thigh and unlocked the screen with his thumb. The first notification was a calendar reminder for geography revision; the second was an automated battery alert. There was no message from Sporting CP, no missed call from Marta Nunes, and no unread email in his inbox.
He knew there shouldn’t be one. The evaluation deadline had been set for 30 June. Forty days away, and the formal meeting had ended barely twenty-four hours earlier. Nothing in the club’s administrative schedule suggested a Monday morning update.
He locked the phone and slid it beneath his notebook, only to check it again four minutes later when Senhor Silva turned to write on the blackboard.
"What are you waiting for?" Idris asked quietly from the adjacent desk, leaning sideways without lifting his head from his history outline.
Rayan kept his eyes fixed on the blank black screen. "Nothing."
"You’ve opened your screen six times since the bell rang," Idris noted, his voice flat and practical. "If Silva sees it, he takes it until four o’clock. What do you expect them to send you on a Monday morning?"
"Anything," Rayan muttered, turning the device face down. "A confirmation. A schedule update. Just something."
"They gave you six weeks," Idris said smoothly, adjusting his pencil case. "They aren’t going to text you every twenty-four hours to tell you that you’re still in the trial."
Across the desk cluster, Joca Ferreira glanced up from his sketchbook, tapping his pen against his chin. "Unless they’ve set up an automated hourly update system," Joca whispered with a faint grin. "’Hour Twenty-Four: Rayan is still at Sporting.’ Relax, man. You were there yesterday."
Bia dropped a folded slip of paper onto Rayan’s history notebook from behind him. He opened it to find a single line written in her precise script: Did you actually open the geography revision file, or just dismiss the alert?
Rayan turned slightly in his chair, giving a vague, distracted nod towards Bia without answering. He turned the phone face down once more, but his focus remained entirely fractured.
"Ignore the phone and finish the third summary question," Idris said, tapping Rayan’s open exercise book with his knuckle. "Silva’s checking books before the bell."
Rayan picked up his pen, but his eyes kept straying to the matte black casing resting beside his eraser. The absence of news felt like an empty space, and his mind kept filling it with possibilities.
By Tuesday afternoon, the urge to look for evidence had moved from his phone to the grass of Pitch 2 at Alcochete.
Training began late that afternoon under a pale, overcast sky. The session was structured around quick-combination play and small-sided transition games. Rayan felt physically light; his movement was sharp, and he executed his tactical responsibilities cleanly. When João Tavares called for a rest interval between drills, Rayan didn’t sit on the cooler boxes with Nuno Valente.
Instead, his eyes tracked every movement on the touchline.
Beside the assistant coaches, Tavares stood with his hands behind his back, talking low and privately to Bernardo Rocha. The conversation lasted over three minutes. Bernardo listened, nodded twice, and tapped his boots against the turf. Rayan’s chest tightened as he watched them. ’Did Bernardo get a private sit-down? Have they already told him he’s staying for the U17s?’
Twenty metres away, near the administrative barrier, Álvaro Pires stood in a heavy club rain jacket while Duarte Faria completed a short acceleration drill. As the winger jogged back towards the starting cone, Álvaro lowered his eyes to a black clipboard and wrote something down in his ledger. Rayan subtly shifted his position, turning his shoulders to try to glimpse whether the page contained squad names or numerical grades.
Even the smallest logistical details felt loaded with hidden meaning. When Tavares stepped to the equipment bag and retrieved a handful of red marker cones, Rayan watched where he set them. He wondered if shifting the boundary four metres narrower was designed to test his spatial awareness specifically, or if the coaching staff were adjusting the space to isolate another player entirely. Moments later, when Álvaro Pires adjusted his spectacles, checked his watch, and walked back towards the main administrative building without speaking to a single player, Rayan wondered if he was carrying a completed evaluation report inside his coat.
When Tavares blew the whistle to start the six-versus-six possessional exercise, he began handing out bibs.
"Rayan. Blue," Tavares called out, tossing a folded fabric bib towards him.
Rayan caught it, but before pulling it over his head, he glanced around the grid. Bernardo and Duarte Faria were wearing yellow. Matias was wearing green. He immediately tried to calculate whether blue represented the starting attack, the secondary rotation, or a group marked for closer tactical scrutiny.
"Put the bib on, Rayan," Matias said, jogging into the grid and adjusting his socks. "We’re restarting on the whistle."
Rayan pulled the blue mesh over his jersey, his mind still working through the colour distribution.
During the session itself, Rayan played well. He took two-touch options, released the ball quickly into the half-spaces, and tracked back to cover his full-back whenever possession inverted. But the pattern of his attention had shifted.
After completing a sharp, one-touch wall pass to set up a shot, Rayan didn’t immediately look for the second ball; he turned his head towards the sideline to see if Tavares was watching. When he overcooked a cross that sailed beyond the far post, his eyes instantly snapped towards the coaching bench to measure Tavares’s reaction.
In the thirty-second minute of the drill, Duarte Faria cut out a wide pass, intercepted Rayan’s lane, and cleared the ball out of play. Rayan stopped, holding his knees, his gaze lingering on Tavares, who was jotting something onto the session sheet clipped to his board.
Duarte Faria walked past him to retrieve the ball from the mesh fence.
"Staring at the coach isn’t going to bring that pass back, Rayan," Duarte said dryly, not even looking at him as he scooped the ball up with his foot.
Rayan straightened up quickly, his face flushing hot. "I was watching the line."
"No, you weren’t," Duarte replied calmly, tossing the ball back to the server. "You’ve looked at Tavares after every single touch today. Play the game."
Rayan opened his mouth to defend himself, but the whistle blew for the next restart, leaving his frustration stuck in his throat.
When the main session concluded, the players gathered near the equipment bins to remove their boots and drink water.
Luís Neto walked over from the secondary pitch, caught the eye of one of the second-year wingers, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Stay behind for ten minutes," Neto said quietly. "We need to talk through a few things inside."
Rayan watched the winger walk off towards the main academy building alongside the coach. His mind instantly constructed a scene: ’They’re telling him he’s staying. That’s why it’s behind closed doors.’ There was no evidence for it. The conversation could have been about academic reports, video analysis, or a minor physical assessment. But inside Rayan’s head, every private interaction became a confirmation that decisions were being finalised without him.
Later that evening, sitting on his bed in Olivais with his homework open on his knees, Rayan opened WhatsApp.
He scrolled down to the Sporting U16 squad group chat. The last message was a routine administrative notice from the kit manager sent on Sunday evening regarding laundry bags. Since then, total silence. None of the players had mentioned their evaluation meetings. Nobody posted about their status.
He stared at the motionless screen.
Rayan set the phone face down on his desk. The silence from the coaches, the group chat, and the quiet hallways of Alcochete felt far heavier than direct criticism, because inside that empty space, he could invent every reason why he might be losing.