Chapter 8: Amsterdam West
The wind at the SV Sloten complex was relentless, whipping across the open polders and shaking the chain-link fences. It was a grey Saturday morning. Luuk stood in a line of forty other teenagers, all of them shivering in various club windbreakers.
There was no "registration desk" with a secret file. There was just a coach with a megaphone and a stack of numbered bibs.
"Listen up!" the coach shouted. "We do three rotations. 10 minutes of shuttle sprints, 15 minutes of 4-v-2 rondos, then we'll see if any of you actually know how to hold a position in an 11-v-11. If you can't keep the ball in the rondo, don't bother staying for the match. Move!"
Luuk was handed a yellow bib: Number 42.
He moved to the rondo grid. The grass was a disaster—thick, uneven, and saturated with last night's rain. Most of the kids were struggling, the ball bobbling off their shins as they tried to play one-touch.
Luuk stepped into the circle. A defender lunged at him as a heavy, muddied ball was fired toward his back foot.
This was the 100 Ball Control.
Luuk didn't just stop the ball; he used the surface of the grass. As the ball arrived, he stepped on it with his sole, rolling it back a fraction of an inch to let the defender's momentum carry him past. Then, with a flick of his ankle, he zipped the ball through the defender's legs to the other side of the circle.
He did it without looking down. His head was up, his silver eyes already tracking the next three players.
"Nice, 42," a coach muttered, scribbling a number on a damp notepad.
[Coordination: 64.2]
[Ball Sense: 100 - Analyzing Turf Resistance...]
After an hour of drills, the "match" finally started. There were no complex tactics. The coach just pointed at the field. "Yellows, you're in a 4-3-3. 42, you're the Nine. Stay central. Blues, stay in your shape. Let's go."
The game was a mess of "kick and run" football. The Blue defenders were physical, realizing early on that Luuk was the only one on the Yellow team who could actually keep the ball.
Twenty minutes in, a Yellow midfielder panicked under pressure and hammered a clearance high into the Amsterdam sky. It was a "garbage" ball, spinning wildly and caught in a crosswind.
Luuk tracked it. Two Blue center-backs closed in on him, sandwiching him between their shoulders to prevent him from jumping.
He didn't try to out-jump them. He used his 95 Balance.
As the ball dropped, Luuk leaned back into the weight of the defenders, creating a pocket of space. He didn't use his head. He extended his leg—using that Taekwondo hip-opening—and caught the ball on the laces of his boot while it was still five feet in the air.
He didn't just touch it. He applied a violent, counter-clockwise spin.
As his feet hit the mud, the ball hit the ground and vibrated. Instead of bouncing forward toward the keeper, the spin caused it to "bite" the turf and hop laterally, right into Luuk's stride.
The defenders, expecting the ball to go long, overcommitted and stumbled.
Luuk was through. He drove into the box. The keeper rushed out, closing the angle.
Luuk didn't shoot for the corners. He saw the keeper's weight shifting to the right. He used his Coordination to perform a "no-backlift" snap. He struck the bottom-left of the ball with his big toe—a futsal-style "toe-poke" but with the power of a chambered kick.
The ball stayed an inch off the grass, skipping across the wet blades. Because of the "magnus effect" from his 100 Control, the ball didn't travel in a straight line; it hissed outward before curving back in, tucking itself just inside the post.
The keeper didn't even dive. He just watched it go by.
"Who invited 42?" the Blue captain asked, wiping mud from his face. "He's playing with a different ball than us."
On the sidelines, Coach Visser didn't cheer. He just watched how Luuk walked back to the center circle. The kid wasn't celebrating. He was adjusting his shin guards, his eyes cold and analytical, looking for the next gap in the defense.
"He's not just 'good'," Visser whispered to his assistant. "He's optimized. Look at the way he stands. He never loses his center."