The week had a different rhythm.
Not slower.
Not faster.
Just different.
Azul felt it in the way Miravet structured sessions. The way the tactical board shifted. The way certain names were called forward during shape work while others stepped back and observed.
This match was not his to carry.
He understood that without needing to be told.
And somewhere beneath the understanding — he was glad.
---
Marcos had been quiet all week.
Not in a troubled way.
In a focused way.
The kind of quiet that meant something was building.
Azul had seen it before — in himself, in others — that particular stillness that arrived just before a player stopped waiting and started taking.
He recognized it in Marcos now.
And in Ferran.
Both of them moving through training with an edge that hadn't been there the week before. As if watching Azul's performance hadn't intimidated them.
It had ignited them.
Good.
That was how it was supposed to work.
---
Match day arrived under a grey sky.
The kind of sky that made the pitch look sharper. The green more vivid. The white lines more precise.
In the tunnel, the noise from the stands filtered down in low waves.
Azul stood near the back of the line, relaxed, observing.
Marcos was two places ahead of him.
Shoulders loose. Jaw set.
Ferran just beside him.
Bouncing slightly on his toes.
Ready.
---
The whistle blew.
And almost immediately — Ferran announced himself.
---
**7th minute.**
It started from nothing.
A routine throw-in on the left flank. A simple exchange of passes across the midfield. Nothing dangerous yet.
But Ferran drifted.
Slowly. Almost lazily.
The way only certain players could move — making space look accidental until suddenly it wasn't.
The ball reached him on the left side of the box.
One touch to set.
Then he did something that made the crowd inhale sharply.
He flicked the ball up with his left foot — barely off the ground, just enough — and in the same motion, shifted his body weight completely.
A defender lunged.
Ferran was already gone.
The ball dropped perfectly into his stride.
He looked up once.
Just once.
Then curled it — outside of the right foot — into the far top corner.
The goalkeeper moved.
But it was a courtesy gesture.
The ball was already in the net.
The stadium erupted.
Azul watched from midfield.
He'd seen that before.
Not here.
Not from a player this age.
He'd seen it on old footage. Grainy clips replayed endlessly on coaching laptops and fan accounts.
The way Neymar used to make flair feel inevitable. Like it wasn't a choice but a natural language. Like his body simply spoke football differently than everyone else's.
Ferran had just spoken it too.
Marcos ran to him first.
They embraced with the wild joy of boys who still remembered what it felt like to score in the street.
Azul clapped once.
Slowly.
That was enough.
---
The match settled into a careful rhythm after that.
The opposition weren't poor.
They were organised. Defensively compact. Patient in their shape.
They had clearly seen what happened last week.
They were not going to be opened easily.
But Azul could see the gaps.
Not obvious ones.
The kind that required someone to find them before they fully existed.
In the 28th minute, he received the ball deep.
Turned.
Drove forward.
Drew two players toward him — completely — the way a magnet draws iron, almost against their will.
Then slipped the ball through.
Marcos.
In space.
One touch.
Two.
The third — a shot that travelled low, powerful, precise — crashed into the bottom corner before the goalkeeper had even committed his weight.
The net shook.
The crowd rose again.
Marcos wheeled away, arms out, face open with something beyond celebration.
Relief, maybe.
The release of a week's worth of quiet building.
He pointed at Azul as he ran.
Azul waved it off.
He wasn't the story today.
---
Halftime.
Two goals.
Miravet spoke briefly.
He mentioned defensive shape. Second ball recovery. Width.
But when he glanced at Marcos and Ferran, his expression carried something unspoken.
Keep going.
---
The second half opened with more resistance.
The opposition pressed higher, disrupting the passing lines, making the simple things complicated.
For fifteen minutes, the match stalled.
Moments arrived and disappeared.
Azul stayed patient.
He picked up the ball in the 61st minute deep in his own half, turned away from pressure smoothly, and began moving forward.
The opposition had committed players high.
There was a lane.
Narrow.
But there.
He found Ferran on the right side — a pass that bent slightly in the air, weighted to arrive just behind the defensive line where a player could run onto it without breaking stride.
Ferran caught it perfectly.
One defender between him and the goal.
He didn't slow down.
He went at him directly — straight, fast, brave — then at the last possible moment shifted the ball to his left.
The defender's legs crossed.
Ferran was through.
He slid the ball coolly across the goalkeeper.
Goal.
Assist — Azul.
But on the pitch, Ferran stood over the ball for a brief moment before celebrating.
Something in his posture said it clearly.
*I knew exactly what I was doing.*
That was the difference between talented and dangerous.
Self-belief that didn't waver when the moment arrived.
---
The fourth goal was Marcos.
And it was the kind of goal that made people stop whatever they were doing.
The kind that reached you.
76th minute.
A corner was cleared only as far as the edge of the box.
The ball dropped awkwardly — slightly behind him, at an uncomfortable height, not quite right for a volley, not quite low enough to bring down cleanly.
Most players would have controlled it.
Reset.
Started again.
Marcos didn't.
He let it drop past his right shoulder, twisted his body mid-fall — completely off-balance, one foot barely touching the ground — and hit it left-footed on the half-volley.
The connection was clean.
Impossibly clean.
The ball flew.
Not placed.
Hit.
The kind of strike where you feel the sound before you fully process what you've seen — that sharp, clean crack that carries across an entire stadium and settles into the chest of everyone watching.
Top corner.
The goalkeeper didn't move.
He simply watched it.
Silence first.
Then — noise unlike anything the match had produced before.
Azul turned to look for Marcos.
He found him standing completely still, arms slightly raised, head tilted back.
Eyes closed.
Just for a second.
Taking it in.
It reminded him of something he'd seen in a documentary once. Old footage. Black and white almost. A young player from Rosario, barely older than them, standing over a ball with that same stillness after something impossible had just happened.
Like the goal had surprised even the one who scored it.
The way Messi used to look.
Not arrogant.
Not theatrical.
Simply present in a moment too large to celebrate loudly.
Marcos opened his eyes.
Jogged quietly back to the halfway line.
Azul fell into step beside him.
Neither of them spoke.
Nothing needed to be said.
---
The final whistle came.
Four goals.
Marcos — two.
Ferran — two.
Azul — two assists.
The numbers were simple.
But what lived inside them wasn't.
---
In the locker room, it was loud.
Music, laughter, voices overlapping.
Azul sat to the side, watching.
Marcos was in the middle of it all — laughing freely, the controlled quiet of the week completely released now.
Ferran was replaying his first goal on someone's phone, shaking his head at himself with a grin that couldn't quite believe what it had witnessed.
Miravet stood near the doorway.
He caught Azul's eye across the room.
Nodded once.
Azul nodded back.
This was what it was supposed to look like.
Not one player carrying everything.
A team finding itself.
Each one discovering, in their own time, in their own way, what they were capable of.
---
Later, walking back toward the residence, Marcos dropped beside him.
The night was cool. The paths quiet.
"How did it feel?" Azul asked.
Marcos thought about it.
"Like I'd been waiting to do that my whole life," he said. "And didn't know it until it happened."
Azul understood that completely.
"The second goal," he said.
Marcos smiled without looking at him.
"Don't."
"I'm not saying anything."
"You're about to."
Azul paused.
"It was Messi-level," he said quietly.
Marcos didn't respond immediately.
When he did, his voice was different.
Smaller. More honest.
"It didn't feel like me," he said. "For a second. Like my body just… knew."
"That's exactly what it felt like watching it," Azul said.
They walked in silence for a moment.
"You know what Miravet told me after my performance?" Azul said.
"What?"
"That what matters is what you do when the feeling is gone."
Marcos absorbed that.
"And what do you think he'll say to us tomorrow?"
Azul smiled faintly.
"Same thing."
---
That night, Azul opened his notebook.
He didn't write about his own game.
He wrote about Marcos.
About Ferran.
About what it felt like to stand on a pitch and watch two players find something inside themselves that hadn't been fully visible before.
He wrote:
*The best teams aren't built around one light.*
*They're built around players who learn to burn on their own.*
He paused.
Then added:
*Today, they burned.*
He closed the notebook.
And for the first time in a long while, he fell asleep thinking not about himself — but about what they might all become together.