Location: Kenji's Temporary Apartment Time: 07:30 AM
As the first light of dawn seeped into Kenji's room, the television screen illuminated the space with a cold blue glow. On the screen, the League One table stood like a brutal reality. At the very bottom of the list, miles away from the other teams, lay a wreckage: Blackriver United (-6 Points).
The announcer's voice echoed in the room, every word hammering like a nail: "The Federation's decision is final! -12 points deducted. Math doesn't lie, gentlemen; to stay up, they must win 14 of their remaining 23 games. We're talking about a team that has only managed 2 wins all season! Blackriver isn't in intensive care anymore; they're in the morgue. Just waiting for the plug to be pulled."
Kenji turned off the TV. The room plunged into silence. "Statistics are the tombstones of the past," he muttered to himself. "Not of the future."
Location: The Nest - Training Ground Time: 09:00 AM
Walking through the rusted gates of The Nest, Kenji felt like he was stepping into a funeral home, not a football pitch. The atmosphere was heavy enough to make breathing difficult.
The team was divided by an invisible wall. On one side, slumped on the grass with heads bowed, were "The Old Guard" (Liam, Gary, and the others); they had long accepted defeat. On the other side, warming up far away from them with anger and hatred, stood "The New Transfers" (Igor, Martinez, Samuel). The Hopeless and The Furious... Two separate worlds in the same swamp.
Gary threw the crumpled newspaper in his hand violently to the ground. "Did you hear?" he shouted, his voice trembling. "The bookies gave us odds of 1.01 to get relegated. We're finished, lads. Why are we here? Why are we still running?"
No one had the energy to answer. The air was heavy as lead.
At that exact moment, the massive iron gate of the pitch swung open with a crash, and a gleam entered that pierced even the gray sky. Club President Emir had arrived, but not on foot. The machine beneath him was less a car and more a spaceship landed on the road: A PAGANI HUAYRA.
The savage roar of the V12 engine echoed through the rusted stands. The 3-million-Euro carbon fiber beast parked on the edge of the muddy pitch like a sculpture. When the gull-wing doors opened upwards, Emir stepped out; his face was grim, but the car stood there in all its glory, shining like a diamond in the middle of squalor.
Kenji blew his whistle with all his might. The sharp sound snapped the hypnotized team out of their trance. "Heads up!"
The entire team reluctantly turned to him, but their eyes were still glued to the car. Kenji walked over to the Pagani and slapped his hand—carefully—on its hood. "Can't take your eyes off it, can you?"
Gary's eyes were wide as saucers. Darren had taken off his headphones, his jaw dropped. Even Igor had stopped, staring at this metallic gray masterpiece.
"This car is from President Emir's personal garage. It's worth more than your combined salaries, even more than this entire facility you're standing on," Kenji said, his voice echoing across the pitch. "And I give you a promise."
He pulled a tablet from his pocket and held it up. "Journalists are writing that you are dead, that you are corpses. But I will give you a reason to stay alive. Starting today, I am initiating the 'K-Point System.'"
The players looked at each other in confusion. Kenji continued:
"I know words are cheap. So I've reduced everything to mathematics. Every week, in every training session and every match, you will be scored:
[ THE K-POINT SYSTEM ]
Defense: +20 Points to center-backs for every Clean Sheet. +5 for Critical Interventions.
Offense: Goal +15, Assist +15. (Yes, the passer is as valuable as the scorer).
Work Rate: +10 Points to the player who covers the most distance.
Sacrifice: +25 Points to the player who covers a teammate's mistake.
Kenji placed his hand on the Pagani again. "When the season ends, if this team stays in the league... The player with the highest score on this table takes the keys to this car and drives out of here like a king."
The room went instantly silent. This wasn't an empty promise; it was a tangible, metallic, 3-million-Euro reality.
"But there is a small detail," Kenji said, his voice turning serious. "If we get relegated... This car goes to the bank. So if you want the car, you have to save the team first, then each other. Igor, if Darren doesn't score, you don't get the car. Darren, if Igor concedes, you don't get the car."
Darren stepped forward, eyes on the rims. "Are you serious, boss? Can this car be mine?"
"Collect the points, and it's yours, Speedster," Kenji said.
Igor stepped forward, shoving Darren with his shoulder. "Move, kid. That car is my style."
Kenji smiled. Despair had evaporated, replaced by a pure and savage greed. And in football, greed was a fuel even more powerful than talent.
"Lukas!" Kenji shouted. "Start it up! The point counter is running now!"
When Kenji blew the whistle, the players thought it would be an ordinary training session. They were wrong. The session lasted exactly 5 hours.
During this time, Kenji's "Council of the Forgotten" turned the pitch into a laboratory. Professional fitness coaches and dietitians monitored every bite, every breath, and every step the players took.
Dr. Elena Rossi (The Mechanic): Elena was like a shadow to Samuel with her tablet. she had prepared a special pool exercise and proprioception program for his "glass" knees. "Samuel, don't lock your knees when jumping! Use your glutes. You carry your body, not those knees!" she shouted. The same Elena had put Liam into a "bulk and strengthen" camp. She had the scrawny kid doing special isometric exercises to strengthen his core so he wouldn't be knocked down on the pitch.
Lukas (The Whip): Lukas was in charge of "wild" players like Igor and Tank. He implemented a military-grade cardiovascular endurance program to control their limitless energy and rage. "Rage is fuel, Igor!" Lukas roared. "Don't waste it shouting at the ref. Save it in your lungs. You'll need that rage to run even in the 90th minute."
Hiroto (The Brain): Kenji's data analyst watched every move of the players second by second through monitors set up on the sidelines. "Darren!" Hiroto called out. "You lean your torso 12 degrees forward while dribbling. This increases friction and slows you down. Lift your chin. Run upright. Don't look at the ball, look at the space on the pitch." He was also making Martinez memorize heat maps showing his teammates' passing habits.
The team was dragged from the swimming pool to the weight room, then to the tactical room. And finally, at the end of hours of this torture, Kenji stepped onto the pitch.
THE PRACTICE MATCH: The 40-Minute Battle Royale
The players were exhausted, legs trembling. But there was no mercy in Kenji's eyes. The squad was 15 men, so a 7-v-7, single-half match was to be played.
TEAM A (The System Team - 3-4-3):
Defense: Igor (The Butcher), Samuel (The Tower), Martinez (The General)
Midfield: Thomas "Tank" (The Bodyguard), Liam (The Brain)
Attack: Gary (The Wall), Darren (The Spear)
TEAM B (The Rebels): The remaining 7 players (Wing-backs Jet and Ricky were here). Kenji gave them a single order: "Injuring the A Team is permitted. No mercy. If you stop them, you take the Pagani points."
The whistle blew, and The Nest turned into a battlefield.
Total chaos reigned for the first 10 minutes. Jet and Ricky from the B Team attacked the tired A Team like hounds. The A Team faltered, trying to adapt to the new system (3-4-3). Liam lost the ball twice; Samuel made a positional error.
But as the minutes ticked by, the physical and mental resilience Lukas and Elena had been loading for hours began to kick in. Martinez started shouting in the center of defense like an orchestra conductor: "Igor, press left! Samuel, stay back!" Under his direction, the defensive line began to move in unison like an accordion. Igor cut every attack coming from the wing with savage but controlled shoulder barges. Samuel rose using the technique Elena taught him to bring down high balls, putting no load on his knees.
In the midfield, a strange chemistry was born. Tank had stopped playing with the ball. His sole duty was to protect Liam. Every time the B Team's rough midfield approached Liam, Tank stepped in and absorbed the collision like a wall. Thanks to this protection, Liam began to see those "deadly passing channels" Hiroto had pointed out in his analysis.
In the 30th minute, the climax of the training occurred. While the B Team pressed, Martinez intercepted the ball and passed it to Liam without panicking. Liam lifted his head before the ball even reached his feet. His eyes sought Darren, who was waiting "on the offside line" just as Kenji wanted, further up the pitch.
Darren was getting impatient, but he remembered Hiroto's voice: "Stand tall. Wait." The ball leaving Liam's foot arced through the air, cutting the pitch diagonally. Darren launched while the ball was still in flight. With his signature explosive speed, he left Jet behind. He cushioned the ball with his chest—no longer looking at it, feeling the goal—and struck the volley.
When the ball met the net, the only sound on the pitch was heavy breathing. Kenji blew the whistle and ended the match.
When he walked onto the pitch, the players had collapsed onto the grass. Their chests heaved like bellows. Darren was covered in mud, Igor's jersey was torn, and Tank had fallen to his knees. But this fatigue wasn't the "dead" fatigue of the morning. It was the satisfying exhaustion of having achieved something.
Kenji turned off the K-Point tablet in his hand. "That's it," he said. "Today, you became a team. Igor, Samuel, Martinez... You built a wall. Tank, Liam... You protected the brain. And Darren... You drove the spear home."
The players struggled to sit up and looked at Kenji. "Match tomorrow, boss?" asked Gary.
Kenji smiled, but it was a dangerous smile. "No. The Ironport match is in 6 days."
A groan of relief rose from the team. "Oh, we'll rest," someone mumbled.
"Rest?" Kenji laughed. "You misunderstood. We have 6 days. That means you will relive this 5-hour hell you experienced today for the next 5 days."
The players' faces fell. Darren groaned, "You gotta be kidding..."
"Elena will reprogram your knees, Lukas your lungs, and Hiroto your brains," Kenji said sharply. "When we step onto that pitch, we won't play football with Ironport. We will crush them physically and mentally. Now go, get into the ice baths Elena prepared. You are here tomorrow morning at 08:00. Latecomers..." He nodded towards the Pagani. "...can dream about the car."
PREPARATION WEEK: Metamorphosis
For the next 6 days, the concept of time disappeared at The Nest. Only three things remained: Pain, sweat, and Hiroto's cold data.
DAY 2: THE PAIN THRESHOLD Lukas's whistle was like a whip. He increased the tempo every hour. The players ran until their lungs burned, until they vomited on the sidelines. In the gym, Liam was trembling under the bench press. His arms had failed; he couldn't lift the bar. Just as he was about to be crushed, Tank grabbed the bar with his massive hands and pulled Liam up. "Get up, Stick," he rasped. "Get up for that car."
On the other side, Igor marched on Lukas during an anger management session. They stood nose to nose. Igor's veins looked ready to burst, but this time he didn't throw a punch. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and backed away. He was learning to stop.
DAY 4: HARMONY Those complex data on Hiroto's tablet had now taken flesh and bone on the pitch. When Martinez received the ball in midfield, he passed without looking back; because he knew like his own name that Samuel was standing there, exactly where he needed to be. And Darren had managed to rein in his notorious impatience. He wasn't running constantly anymore; he waited in ambush on the offside line like a predator, watching for the right moment.
DAY 6: SILENCE (Before the Storm) The last day's training was light tempo. Tactical work was done and finished.
As the team sat in the locker room, there was a deadly silence inside. No music. No jokes. No laughter. There was only deep focus in their eyes. The distinction between "The Old Guard" and "The New Transfers" had been erased. They were all in the same mud, and they were all hungry for the same prize—and survival.
Kenji opened the door. When he entered with the match squad in hand, his tone was no different from a whisper. "Tomorrow," Kenji said. "Tomorrow, the time for talk ends. Are you ready?"
The one who broke the silence was Igor, rising noisily from the bench. There was pure savagery in his eyes. "Release our chains, boss. Let us attack."