Football fic Chapter 3 (Patreon)

In a café in downtown Copenhagen, Oskar was sitting, reviewing some documents on the table while occasionally checking the time on the wall clock of the café.

“Why on earth is he taking so long?” he couldn’t help but mutter more to himself than to the rest of the people present in the café, looking for the fifth time at the same clock, hoping the hands would magically stop.

Just as Oskar was beginning to think that perhaps the boy in question was not going to come, he finally heard the bell above the door ring, indicating that someone had entered the establishment.

Looking up, Oskar finally met the eyes of the person he had been waiting for. But upon seeing him, the smile on his face slowly faded, just like the sound of conversations throughout the entire café.

Lars was wearing a hood that concealed most of his face, and if you added the large bruise on his face, he looked more like a crook looking to rob you than a customer coming to meet someone.

Every place he walked past, people glared at Lars, while one lady instinctively pulled her purse closer to herself, fearing Lars would run off once he got his hands on it. But Lars, unbothered by the stares he was receiving, kept walking until he finally sat on the bench across from Oskar.

With people's eyes still on him, Lars acted as if they didn't exist while staring intently at Oskar, who was left briefly blank, not knowing what to say at that moment. Recovering quickly, however, he coughed a few times before starting to speak.

“Cough, cough... Do you want to drink something?” he asked, seeking to break the tense silence between the two of them.

“A coffee is fine,” Lars said in a raspy voice. Hearing this, Oskar simply raised his hand toward the waiter, who quickly understood what he wanted and brought a cup before pouring the coffee into it and leaving the two men alone.

“So, I need to know what happened to you back there?” Oskar asked him once the atmosphere in the place became less tense.

“Let’s just say someone didn’t like hearing that I was leaving,” Lars said, taking another deep sip of his coffee.

“I see,” Oskar said, not wanting to pry further into the matter, knowing it was a sensitive topic that he was not a part of.

“Well, I’m here now, so what do you have to offer?” Lars asked, wanting to change the subject quickly as he briefly recalled the argument he had had with his father moments before coming here, which ended with him sleeping on one of the benches in a nearby park until one of the attendants kicked him out of the place.

“I talked to my friend,” Oskar said, remembering the conversation he had yesterday once Lars left the park where they met.

Flashback

“I’m telling you, Erik, I found a super-talent,” Oskar told him, still thrilled with Lars’s performance burned into his memory, as he began telling him about what he had seen in the park.

“That sounds very interesting and all, Oskar, but a player like the one you describe must already be playing in the youth ranks of Copenhagen FC,” said Erik, who knew firsthand the dominance the capital city’s team had when it came to signing the best talents in the country.

“That’s the best part,” Oskar said with a smile on his face. “He isn’t playing for any team, nor is he registered with any club,” Oskar said, finally revealing the surprise.

“Are you sure?” Erik asked seriously, knowing what that could mean for FC Midtjylland.

A player who wasn’t registered with any academy or team meant there would be no need to pay a transfer fee or a contract buyout clause, which meant they could save a few thousand euros on signing a player who, if he didn’t measure up, wouldn't be a problem since the club hadn't paid anything for him.

“How old is he?” Erik asked quickly, already doing mental calculations.

“15,” Oskar said. “But he’ll turn 16 in a few months,” Oskar added quickly before Erik could frown at that.

“Just the minimum age to sign him to a youth contract,” Erik muttered through the phone line.

“Exactly,” Oskar said, finally capturing the attention of the youth team coach.

“When do you think you can bring him over to run some trials here?” Erik finally asked, showing the same level of interest as his friend on the other end of the phone line.

“If there’s no problem, tomorrow I’ll board the noon train to Herning with him,” Oskar told him while waiting for the boy in question to build up the courage to call him.

Originally, he had felt disappointed when he didn't receive any calls from him yesterday, but just as he was packing his bags preparing to return to Midtjylland, his phone rang on the nightstand. When he heard that Lars wanted to speak with him, he left his bag half-packed and rushed to the café where they were to meet.

End of flashback

“And that’s basically everything,” Oskar finished saying, explaining the whole situation in detail while looking at Lars, who listened to every single word with total attention, evaluating the situation.

“So basically, it’s an all-or-nothing situation, right?” Lars wanted to confirm. Oskar nodded emphatically, not wanting to lie to him.

“If I manage to sign with Midtjylland, will they give me a roof and food?” Lars quickly asked.

Seeing Oskar nod, he didn't have to think twice. “Well, I have nothing to lose then. Let’s go,” Lars said, finishing his coffee in one gulp and standing up quickly, not wanting to stay in that place any longer and endure the stares the rest of the people present were throwing at him.

“Don’t you want to go pack your bags first and grab a few things?” Oskar asked him upon seeing that Lars didn't even have a backpack with him.

“This is all I have,” he said, pointing to himself, the clothes he was wearing, and the soccer ball resting against his feet, which he hadn't stopped moving back and forth between his feet despite being seated.

“Alright, but even so, let’s go get my things from the hotel first,” Oskar said, raising his hand toward the waiter to ask for the bill. Once paid, both left the café, walking through the streets of Copenhagen.

Copenhagen Train Station

“Hurry up before we miss the train!” said Oskar, running as fast as he could through the train terminal, followed by Lars, who was also running with long strides while holding a sandwich in his mouth and the ball resting under one arm. The train whistles echoed across the platform in a clear sign that the train was on the verge of leaving the station.

Before the train began its journey, Oskar along with Lars managed to climb aboard.

“We made it,” Oskar said as he tried to catch his breath, placing a hand on his chest trying to recover from the sprint they had made and from almost missing the train that would take them to Herning.

“If you were hungry, you could have ordered something else at the café,” Oskar said once he felt he could breathe normally again, looking at the young man beside him who was still eating his sandwich as if nothing had happened.

“I wasn't that hungry back then,” he said with his mouth half-full as he finished taking the last bite before wiping away non-existent crumbs from his hands.

“Let’s go inside to find our seats,” he said as he entered the carriage and quickly began searching for their seats.

Oskar followed him quickly through the carriages until they finally found their seats and sat down while the train continued its course, leaving the city of Copenhagen behind.

Sitting in his seat, Lars couldn't help but look at the scenery through the window for a moment, thinking that he was finally leaving everything behind and would have a new beginning.

But just as quickly as the scenery caught his attention, he grew bored of it and began looking around the carriage at the people who were also present there.

In front of his seat, there was a collection of magazines intended to entertain train passengers during the 3-hour journey between the two cities. Curious, Lars began quickly flipping through each of them until one about sports finally caught his eye.

The magazine clearly looked like a past edition since it recounted events that had happened at the beginning of the year, such as the news that David Beckham was leaving elite soccer to join stars in the United States.

Lars remembered the reaction that move had caused in the world, especially among experts and news outlets around the globe. After all, Beckham was the most popular and high-profile player in the world.

After all, people couldn't understand why a player who was still years away from retirement would voluntarily choose to go to a soccer desert like the United States.

But that was not the only departure that occurred at the beginning of the year; there was also the departure of Ronaldo “El Fenómeno” Nazario, who was leaving the Galáctico team to embark on a new adventure in Italy, this time defending the Rossoneri jersey of AC Milan.

Following the departure of these last two, the era of the Galácticos finally came to an end, putting an end to one of the most ambitious projects in world soccer.

Lars still remembered the day the project began with Florentino Pérez winning the presidency bid for Real Madrid, and how major stars arrived little by little at the Bernabéu.

Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham... Every transfer market, the world paid attention to Real Madrid's moves and how the white team was increasingly filled with the best stars in world soccer.

On paper, a team with the names of the most important stars in the world should have won everything every year, and in the early years, it was like that, conquering the 2002 Champions League against Leverkusen.

But after that, the project gradually wore down, and locker room tensions were also high, with several gossip magazines talking about it and how a project that sounded magnificent ended up like that.

And the departure of these last two brought an end to the era of the Galácticos, leaving uncertainty over whether Real Madrid would ever manage to return to its former glory now that Calderón was in charge of the Spanish capital's team.

Setting the thought aside, Lars turned to the next page, where they continued talking about what had occurred in the first half of the 2006/07 season across the major soccer leagues of the world.

Manchester United was leading the Premier League that season, pursued by Chelsea under the command of José Mourinho. Still, the attack led by a certain Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney made United clear favorites to win the league title once again.

However, while the Premier League was on the rise and on the verge of becoming the number one league in world soccer, what was once the best league in the world was going through a dark era.

Serie A, known as the Little World Cup and the former number one league in the world, was still suffering the consequences of the Calciopoli scandal.

Juventus, the once Vecchia Signora, ended up relegated to playing in Serie B—the second tier of Italian soccer—upon the discovery of match-fixing carried out by Luciano Moggi along with other executives from several major Italian clubs such as AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina, receiving point deductions and other penalties.

Lars remembered how, at that moment, soccer stars abandoned Italy, with players like Cannavaro and Emerson joining Real Madrid, and others like Zlatan and Vieira switching to Inter Milan.

Putting the magazine aside, Lars finally felt the tiredness after a rough night on the park bench. Slowly, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he ended up in the world of dreams and fell fast asleep.

“Lars,” someone said while he was still sleeping soundly, having no desire to get up yet, simply shifting to the other side and curling up even more against the train seat.

“Lars, we’re here,” the same voice said again while shaking him more forcefully, causing Lars to finally regain consciousness. Rubbing his eyes, he finally remembered he was there for a trial. So, letting out one last yawn, he stood up, moving around in his spot to get rid of the feeling of numbness in his body after being in the same position for so long.

“Let’s get out of here,” Oskar said to a sleepy Lars, who simply nodded as he followed him toward the exit of the train terminal, where a car was already waiting for them outside, carrying a sign with Oskar’s name on it.

Handing his suitcase to the driver, Oskar and Lars climbed into the back of the car, which didn't take long to start up and enter the streets of Herning.

The training ground for the Midtjylland team was on the outskirts of the city and wasn't that big, but even so, Lars saw it as the place where he would possibly be living soon if everything went well.

And standing right at the gate of the training facility, someone was already waiting for them outside.