"Wait, I thought it was Barcelona's Xavi! Turns out it's Xabi Alonso..." Theodore muttered, staring at the holographic Spanish flag.
He let out a breath and smirked. "Well, I'm sure as hell not gonna bitch about that."
Naturally, a part of him had hoped for Xavi's vision.
The man was the ultimate midfield brain of Barcelona's golden era, possessing an off-the-charts football IQ and serving as the engine behind Spain's World Cup dominance.
But Xabi Alonso? That was nothing to scoff at.
Alonso was a legendary deep-lying playmaker, a midfield general who had orchestrated the midfield for heavyweights like Real Madrid, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich. While his trophy cabinet as a player might be slightly different from Xavi's, Alonso's tactical understanding of the game was absolute top-tier.
Combined with his new 99 long-pass attribute from Pirlo, Alonso's 84 vision was an upgrade.
After showering the sweat and mud off, Theodore headed back to the academy apartments.
Aston Villa was a massive historic club, and they took care of their youth nicely.
The dorms were surprisingly nice—spacious double rooms with private bathrooms and twin gaming setups where the boys usually spent their free time screaming at FIFA or watching the Champions League.
Just as Theodore threw his duffel bag down and collapsed onto his mattress, the door burst open.
His Dutch roommate, Kac, practically flew into the room.
"Bjorn! You absolute madman!" Kac yelled, his eyes wide. "I just heard what happened! Four fucking assists in twenty minutes?! How the hell did you pull that off?!"
Kac had been a rotational midfielder for the U17s but had missed the matchday squad after tweaking his ankle in training last week.
"Uh... I just kicked the ball, and the guys ran onto it," Theodore lied smoothly.
"Bullshit! You're a damn genius!" Kac scrambled over, holding out one of Theodore's spare training jerseys and a Sharpie.
"Look, my insider sources are never wrong. Coach Dean Smith is already looking at your tape. You're gonna get pulled up to the first team, I can feel it! Sign this right now. When you're a world-class superstar making millions, I'm selling this on eBay for a fortune!"
Theodore actually laughed out loud, tossing the pen back. "You picked the wrong career, Kac. With your hustler brains, you shouldn't be playing football, you should be on Wall Street."
But Kac's "insider information" was spot on.
...
At that exact moment, inside the sprawling office of Aston Villa's first-team head coach, 47-year-old Dean Smith was glaring at a glowing monitor.
The Championship was a brutal, unforgiving meat grinder of a league and the pressure was eating him alive.
Villa was currently sitting in 8th place, having just suffered a humiliating three-game losing streak.
Their current form was absolute shit.
The club's board of directors had given Smith a terrifyingly clear ultimatum this season: Win the Championship, or at the bare minimum, secure promotion back to the Premier League.
Looking at their current form, it felt like a pipe dream.
The squad was tired, uninspired and desperately needed an injection of fresh blood.
On the screen, Dean watched the U17 footage.
He watched the number 33 kid effortlessly bypass two defenders and whip a perfect dipping cross right onto the striker's head.
A slow smile crept across Dean Smith's stressed face.
With 18 years of coaching experience, he knew a diamond in the rough when he saw one.
This kid had vision and passing that belonged on a premium pitch, not rotting in a youth academy.
Without hesitation, Smith picked up his phone and dialed his assistant coach.
"Clear your schedule for the next U17 game. I want eyes on the Bjorn kid. In person."
...
The next day at the academy training grounds.
Before the warmup even started, Coach Charles pulled Theodore aside, looking like he'd just won the lottery.
"Bjorn! Listen to me," Charles whispered intensely, grabbing his shoulders. "I just got off the phone. The first-team assistant coach is coming to Staffordshire to watch our next match specifically for you. Don't fuck this up. You play like you did yesterday, and you might get promoted straight to the senior squad."
Theodore's heart pounded.
He knew he had played well, but catching the first team's eye after a single game? Kac really was a prophet!
"Don't worry, Coach," Theodore said, his eyes hardening with determination. "I'll give them a goddamn show."
And he meant it.
...
For the next three days, Theodore trained like a man possessed. He pushed himself to the limit, staying two hours after regular practice ended and forcibly dragging Kac along to run passing drills until they could barely stand.
Finally, January 25, 2019 arrived.
Aston Villa U17 traveled north to Staffordshire to face Stoke City U17.
It was a daunting matchup on paper.
Stoke City U17 was sitting comfortably in 8th place, while Villa was still scraping the bottom of the barrel in second-to-last.
But Theodore wasn't nervous. He laced up his boots with cold focus. After all, he wasn't just a 17-year-old kid anymore.
He had a system, the vision of Xabi Alonso and the right foot of Andrea Pirlo!
At 3:30 PM, the whistle blew.
Both Theodore and Kac, who had fully recovered and impressed in training, were in the starting eleven.
The moment Theodore's cleats hit the pitch, the familiar voice chimed in his head.
[Ding! Mission Assigned: Get promoted to the Aston Villa First Team!]
[Mission Reward: Unknown]
'Unknown? You're making me work for a mystery box?' Theodore thought, amused.
It didn't matter.
He was going to complete the mission anyway. Getting to the first team was the only way to get real minutes in the Championship and prove himself to the world.
But as the match kicked off, Theodore quickly realized this wasn't going to be a walk in the park.
Stoke City's senior squad was famously nicknamed "The Potters," and they were notorious across England for their brutal old-school style of play.
They didn't care about beautiful football, they cared about brute force.
Hoof the ball up the pitch, cross it into the box, and bash it into the net.
Their U17 squad played the exact same way.
Within seconds, Stoke took total control of the tempo, completely bypassing the midfield.
They kept launching long, towering balls from their backline straight to the wings, looking for crosses.
Their target man? A freakishly massive center-forward named Mario, who stood at a towering 193cm (6'4").
The kid was an absolute battering ram in the air, having already scored 9 goals this season through sheer aerial dominance.
In the first five minutes alone, Stoke battered the Villa penalty box with two dangerous crosses both finding Mario's head.
It took desperate, chaotic defending to keep the ball out of the net.
'Fuck this,' Theodore thought, watching another Stoke winger wind up for a cross.
'If we let them keep spamming the box, they're going to score eventually.'
Realizing the midfield was being entirely bypassed, Theodore made a decision.
He abandoned his central position and sprinted aggressively toward the wing.
If Villa's fullbacks couldn't stop the crosses, he would have to shut down the supply line himself.
...
By the 7th minute, Stoke's one-dimensional strategy was obvious, but Theodore was ready for it.
As the Stoke winger tried to force his way down the flank, Theodore and the Villa full-back converged.
They trapped him against the touchline and executed a brutal synchronized double-team.
With a crunching tackle, Theodore came away with the ball.
It was the perfect counter-attacking trigger.
Theodore picked his head up. Xabi Alonso's 84-rated vision immediately painted a tactical map across his eyes.
Ahead of him, both Terr and Andri immediately put their heads down and sprinted like bats out of hell toward the Stoke penalty area, dragging the terrified center-backs with them.
Boom!
Theodore's right foot lashed out. But instead of launching one of his signature cruise missiles over the top to the forwards, he disguised the pass perfectly.
He drove a low, laser-precise ball straight down the center of the pitch—right to his trailing roommate, Kac.
Arriving completely unmarked at the top of the penalty arc, Kac couldn't believe his luck.
There wasn't a single Stoke player within five yards of him.
It was the exact drill they had been grinding for two extra hours after practice!
Kac didn't take a touch. He just wound up and unleashed a powerful shot.
The ball rocketed through a chaotic sea of bodies in the penalty box.
The Stoke City goalkeeper was completely completely screened, he didn't even see the ball leave Kac's foot.
By the time the keeper saw the blur of leather heading his way, it was already tearing into the back of the net.
1-0.
The dead-last visiting team had drawn first blood!
"Let's fucking go!!" Kac screamed, his face flushed red with pure ecstasy.
He sprinted directly at Theodore, launching himself into the air and pulling his roommate into a suffocating hug.
It was his first goal of the season.
...
Meanwhile, up in the freezing stands, a man in a thick Aston Villa coat was rapidly scribbling in a notepad.
It was John Terry.
Chelsea's legendary, iron-willed captain had taken over as Villa's first-team assistant coach after retiring in 2018.
Terry wasn't an easy man to impress, but a sharp glint of approval shone in his eyes.
'Brilliant,' Terry thought, tapping his pen against the paper.
'Ninety-nine percent of academy kids would have suffered from tunnel vision and blindly hoofed that ball into the penalty area toward the sprinting forwards. But this kid? He used the forwards as bait and found the late runner. That single pass demonstrated a football IQ that was lightyears ahead of a standard 17-year-old.'
...
Down on the pitch, Stoke City was furious.
Being down 1-0 in their own backyard to the league's punching bag was humiliating.
After the kickoff, they surged forward like a tidal wave, desperate to batter their way to an equalizer.
But Villa wasn't having it.
Following Coach Charles's instructions, they instantly dropped into a suffocating low block. All eleven players sat deep in their own half.
Stoke's offense hit a brick wall.
Their giant striker, Mario, suddenly found himself wearing two Aston Villa center-backs like a backpack.
Every time a cross came in, Mario was bullied, shoved and completely smothered before he could generate any power on his headers.
And all the while, Theodore lurked in the midfield, waiting to spring the trap.
In the 21st minute, the jaws snapped shut again.
Reading the Stoke midfielder's eyes perfectly, Theodore anticipated a lazy pass through the center.
He dropped his shoulder, launched into a sliding tackle and cleanly swept the ball away.
He didn't even wait to fully stand up. Scrambling to his feet, Theodore spotted Terr making a run.
Swish!
Another signature Pirlo-esque long pass erupted from his boot. The ball traced a perfect dipping trajectory, sailing effortlessly over the desperately backpedaling Stoke defenders and dropping right into Terr's path.
Terr didn't dare to waste a delivery this beautiful. Watching the ball drop over his shoulder, he didn't even take a touch to settle it.
He threw his right foot through the bottom of the ball on a pure, instinctive volley.
BOOM!
The ball soared past the helpless goalkeeper's head, smashed violently against the inside of the post and ricocheted into the net.
2-0!
Two assists in twenty-one minutes!
On the Stoke City bench, Coach Cort stood frozen, his mouth hanging slightly open.
The tactical setup he had trusted all season was being completely dismantled by one kid.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Cort muttered in disbelief to his assistant. "His passing... it's unbelievable. It's like he's playing a video game."
Realizing they were getting slaughtered, Cort ran to the touchline, screaming until his throat went raw.
He ordered his midfielders to stay glued to the number 33.
'Snap his ankles if you have to, just stop him from passing!'
But it was completely useless.
Theodore's release time was just too fast. Even when two Stoke players rushed him, he always managed to pass the ball a fraction of a second before they could make contact.
By the 30th minute, Theodore decided to put the final nail in the coffin.
Dropping deep into his own half to collect a throw-out from his goalkeeper, Theodore found himself immediately hunted by a rabid Stoke midfielder. The defender came flying in, desperate to block the inevitable long ball.
Theodore calmly shaped his body, winding up his right foot to launch it.
The Stoke player lunged—
Chop.
It was a total fake.
Theodore viciously dragged the ball back with the sole of his boot, cutting inside and leaving the defender sliding pathetically past him on the grass.
With the space wide open, Theodore looked up and launched a devastating cross-field ball.
The exact second the ball left Theodore's foot, Terr hit the afterburners.
The striker burst into the Stoke penalty box just as the ball descended into the six-yard area.
The Stoke keeper recognized the danger and rushed off his line, closing down the shooting angle.
A shot with his feet was impossible.
But Terr didn't panic.
He leaped into the air, meeting Theodore's perfectly weighted pass with his forehead.
Thump!
The ball looped gracefully over the sprawling keeper and nestled into the back of the net!
3-0.
The team sitting dead last in the league was completely violating the eighth-place squad in their own stadium!
The Stoke players looked like they had seen a ghost. The fight completely drained out of them.
Terrified of conceding a fourth—or a fifth—Coach Cort threw his pride in the garbage bin.
"Fall back! Everybody fall back!" he shrieked. Instead of trying to score, he ordered his entire team to park the bus for the final fifteen minutes of the half.
He even assigned three separate defenders to man-mark Theodore.
The referee blew his whistle.
The first half ended in a massacre!
Aston Villa 3, Stoke City 0.