The projector clicked off, and the room stayed quiet for another few seconds.
Nobody rushed to stand.
Nobody reached for the door.
The image of Elche's counterattack was still fresh in everyone's mind.
Paco closed his laptop and rested both hands on the table in front of him.
"I've shown you enough."
He looked around the room until his eyes settled on Rodrigo Gamón.
"If Elche win the ball in midfield, what's the first thing they'll look for?"
Gamón didn't answer immediately. He had learned long ago that Paco never asked questions with obvious answers.
"The runner behind the midfield line."
Paco nodded.
"And if we stop that?"
"They'll switch wide."
"Then?"
"They'll wait."
Paco smiled faintly.
"They're patient."
His gaze shifted across the room.
"They're not interested in forcing chances. They're interested in waiting for yours."
He picked up a marker and drew two horizontal lines across the magnetic board.
"This is our midfield."
A third line appeared higher up.
"This is Álex."
He drew another circle just behind him.
"And this..."
The marker tapped the board.
"...is the space Elche want."
Nobody interrupted.
"They'll try to separate you from Rodrigo and Hugo. If they do that, they'll force us into long balls."
His eyes landed on Álex.
"So don't disappear."
Álex nodded once.
"I won't."
Paco shook his head.
"That's not what I said."
A few players exchanged curious glances.
"I didn't say don't disappear from the match."
He moved the magnet representing Álex a few metres deeper.
"I said don't disappear from your teammates."
The words settled over the room.
One adjustment on a tactics board had explained more than five minutes of talking could have.
"Let's go outside."
The September breeze carried the smell of freshly watered grass across Paterna as the players walked onto the training pitch.
Several academy teams were finishing their own sessions nearby, but Paco had already reserved the central field.
Orange cones divided the grass into different zones.
Three small goals stood at one end.
Full-sized goals waited at the other.
Álex slowed for a moment, taking everything in.
Every cone had a purpose.
Every drill had already been planned before the players had even left school that morning.
Paco gathered the squad near the centre circle.
"We're not training fitness today."
Boyko quietly nudged Johan.
"Good news."
Without looking at them, Paco continued.
"If you're exhausted by the end of the session, it won't be because I made you run."
A few players smiled.
"It'll be because I made you think."
That earned a different reaction.
Nobody smiled now.
The first drill began with possession.
Not ordinary possession.
The pitch had been divided into three vertical lanes, and every attacking move had to pass through the central lane before it could reach either side. Paco wanted the midfield to become comfortable receiving the ball under pressure instead of avoiding it.
Gamón rolled the opening pass to Carlos Alós, who stepped forward without rushing. An opposition player drifted toward him, trying to block the obvious passing lane, but Carlos simply waited another heartbeat before threading the ball into Hugo Guijarro's feet.
The timing was enough to change the picture.
Instead of receiving with a defender already on his back, Hugo had half a yard to turn.
"Again," Paco called. "Don't play where the player is. Play where he'll be."
The ball found Álex a few moments later.
Before it arrived, he glanced over his left shoulder.
Then his right.
The habit had become automatic.
One defender was closing from the front, another was drifting across from the blind side, hoping to trap him the moment he turned.
Instead of forcing the play, Álex cushioned the ball into Gamón's path and spun away from pressure. By the time Gamón returned the pass, the defender who had tried to pin him down was chasing empty grass.
"Better," Paco said, letting the move continue.
The sequence flowed from one side of the pitch to the other before Mejía burst down the right flank and delivered a low cross into the mini-goal.
The whistle sounded.
Not to stop the exercise.
To restart it.
The tempo climbed naturally.
Nobody needed to be told to move faster.
The quality of the passing demanded it.
Carlos stepped into midfield whenever space opened in front of him, trusting Rubén Martínez to slide across behind him. Víctor García tucked inside from left-back, giving Hugo another passing option whenever Elche's shape tried to squeeze the middle.
Every movement affected another.
Every decision changed the next one.
Álex was beginning to notice patterns he hadn't seen a month earlier.
When Gamón opened his body a certain way, the pass almost always travelled to the opposite side.
When Mejía pointed with his left hand, it meant he wanted the return ball played into space rather than to his feet.
Tiny details.
The kind that only revealed themselves after weeks of training together.
The ball arrived again.
This time Álex turned.
A defender lunged.
He escaped with a quick body feint before slipping a pass between the lines toward Boyko.
The striker laid it off first time.
Johan burst through.
Goal.
"Reset!" Paco called before anyone celebrated.
The players jogged back into position.
Football rarely rewarded those who admired their own work.
As the session wore on, the sharp rhythm of the opening drills began to fray around the edges.
Passes that had been perfectly weighted now arrived just behind their targets. Conversations grew shorter, replaced by heavier breathing as each exercise demanded another sprint before tired legs had fully recovered.
Boyko chased a loose ball but slowed halfway through the recovery run, trusting someone else to win it instead.
The blue-bibbed side needed no invitation.
One quick pass escaped the press, another found a runner in space, and suddenly Carlos was retreating toward one of the small goals with two attackers bearing down on him.
Paco's whistle sliced through the afternoon.
"Freeze."
The players stopped exactly where they were.
Boyko rested his hands on his knees, drawing a deep breath.
Paco didn't look angry.
He rarely did.
He walked to the place where Boyko had eased off his run and then turned to face the entire group.
"What changed?"
Johan wiped sweat from his forehead.
"The pass wasn't good enough."
"It wasn't perfect," Paco agreed, "but that's not why we were punished."
His eyes moved toward Gamón.
"What did you see?"
"We stopped reacting together."
Paco nodded.
"Show me."
Without another word, Gamón jogged back to the moment possession had been lost. Carlos followed. Hugo drifted into position. Álex retraced his run between the lines.
Boyko stayed where he was.
Paco waited.
The striker frowned before realising everyone else had already understood.
He walked back the extra six metres.
Paco smiled.
"There."
He looked around the group.
"The distance wasn't six metres."
Nobody spoke.
"It was one second."
The words landed harder than any shout.
"You thought someone else would close it."
Boyko scratched the back of his neck.
"I did."
"And if this is Saturday?"
Boyko looked toward the small goal where the attack had ended.
"We concede."
Paco nodded once.
"Again."
No lecture.
No punishment.
Just another repetition.
The drill restarted from the exact same position.
This time the ball broke loose after a challenge between Hugo and one of the blue-bibbed midfielders.
Boyko reacted first.
Before anyone else had taken a second step, he was already sprinting back to block the passing lane.
The attack never developed.
Gamón recovered possession.
Álex called for the ball, received on the half-turn and quickly switched play to Víctor García, who carried it into open space.
Paco let the move run to its conclusion before blowing the whistle.
He looked at Boyko.
"What changed?"
The striker grinned through tired breaths.
"I stopped waiting."
Paco folded his arms.
"So did the rest of the team."
That was enough.
No praise.
Just recognition.
Sometimes, that meant more.
As the shadows stretched across the training pitch and the floodlights flickered to life, the players gathered the cones, mini-goals and bibs without being asked.
Carlos fell into step beside Álex on the walk back toward the dressing room.
"You've started talking more."
Álex looked at him.
"Is that a bad thing?"
Carlos shook his head.
"The first week you trained with us, you waited for someone older to tell you where to stand."
He smiled faintly.
"Today I heard you tell Mejía to hold his run because the passing lane wasn't there yet."
Álex thought back.
He hadn't even realised he'd said it aloud.
Carlos nudged his shoulder.
"Leadership doesn't arrive with the captain's armband."
They reached the tunnel just as Paco called after them.
The squad stopped.
The coach rested the tactics board against his leg and looked from one player to the next.
"Tomorrow's session is shorter."
A few relieved smiles appeared.
"Not because we'll work less."
They disappeared just as quickly.
"It's because by then..."
He folded the board beneath his arm.
"...everything we do will be for Elche."
No one needed another reminder.
The match was still days away.
Yet as the players disappeared into the academy building, carrying tired legs and notebooks full of tactical reminders, every conversation had already drifted toward the same question.
Could they make it five wins from five?