The digital scoreboard in the corner of Lusail Stadium read 1–1. Minute one hundred and twenty. Two seconds over.
Every single soul inside that stadium was on their feet, the air so thick with tension it felt like the walls were closing in. Then the whistle cut through it all—sharp, final—and the referee's arm extended toward the corner flag.
One last chance. One corner kick to decide who went home with gold and who went home with nothing but tears.
Trent Alexander-Arnold walked to the corner with the unhurried calm of a man who had been here before. His face gave nothing away—too composed, almost unsettlingly so, for someone carrying the weight of an entire nation on the inside of his right boot.
He placed the ball down with deliberate care, as though setting something fragile to rest, then stepped back, measured his run-up, and raised one hand toward Miller.
Trent moved. One fluid, devastating swing of that right foot—and the ball was gone, bending through the air not high but sharp, cutting downward with that trademark vicious curve that had undone so many walls before. It split the defence clean apart, arrowing toward the centre of the penalty box.
Someone was already waiting there.
Miller rose.
The bicycle kick connected—clean, violent, perfect—and the ball screamed into the bottom right corner.
GOAL.
The roar that erupted from the England end was something beyond sound. A living, breathing wall of noise. And cutting through all of it, over and over, one name—
Miller. Miller. Miller.
He sprinted toward the touchline. His teammates crashed into him from every direction—arms, chests, tears, screaming faces. Someone was crying. Maybe everyone was crying. Maybe he was too. The moment swallowed him whole until—
BANG.
The door didn't so much open as it surrendered—wood groaning against the frame as Connor's shoulder finished what his patience had started somewhere around the fortieth knock. The crash of it yanked Miller out of Qatar, out of Lusail, out of the greatest moment of his imaginary life, and dropped him back into a Manchester flat that smelled like yesterday's pizza and stale gym clothes.
Miller jolted upright, chest heaving. "Oh, for f—"
He bit the rest of it off, blinking hard against the light flooding his flat. His heart was still hammering from the dream—that beautiful, cruel dream—when his eyes found the source of the noise.
Standing in the now-crooked doorway was a man who had no business looking the way he did at forty-something. Blond hair, long and slightly dishevelled, a face that still carried the ghost of someone twenty years younger. Connor—his uncle, his father's younger brother, his agent, and the founder of Connor Sports Group, a management firm whose reach stretched from England to America, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. Among the players under his wing were Emil Audero, the goalkeeper of Indonesian descent, and Guglielmo Pizzaro, one of AC Milan's most important pieces.
This morning, however, the man responsible for all of that arrived without his expensive suit or his easy smile. He arrived looking like he hadn't slept, and like someone owed him a very long apology.
"You've got some nerve, you know that?" Connor's voice was sharp as he crossed the room, rubbing his shoulder from the impact of the door, and dropped a thick document folder square onto Miller's lap. "I've been outside since six. Six in the morning, Miller. Knocking like an idiot on that door—and when that didn't work, well—" he gestured vaguely at the now-damaged doorframe, "—you're welcome, by the way. And you don't even have a job right now!"
Miller dragged a hand over his face, still trying to shake off the ghost of that bicycle kick. "Alright, alright. Sorry, Boss. I was having a good dream," he rasped, voice rough with sleep. He squinted down at the folder. "What's this?"
"Open it and find out! I've been busting myself finding you a club while you sleep until noon—it's already eight in the morning, which apparently qualifies as noon in your world. You should be out jogging, training, doing something—"
"Yeah, I heard you the first time. Sorry," Miller muttered, though not without a small grunt of protest.
His hands—still carrying the faintest tremor, whether from the adrenaline of the dream or something closer to hope—turned to the first page. The sleep cleared from his eyes almost instantly.
BURNLEY FOOTBALL CLUB — OFFICIAL OFFER
Miller read slowly.
BURNLEY FOOTBALL CLUB — PLAYER OFFER SHEET
Ref: BFC/OFF/2023/AUG/MOB33
TO: Miller Jolene O'Brian
AGENT: Connor Sports Group (CSG)
DATE: 11 August 2023
I. PRIMARY CONTRACT DETAILS
Transfer Status: Free Agent
Contract Duration: 1 (One) Year — Until 30 June 2024.
Extension Option: 1 Additional Year (Subject to 20+ appearances).
Miller stopped. "One year?" He looked up. "Boss, seriously? One year? They're taking the mick."
"There's an extension clause, isn't there?" Connor shot back. "Play more than twenty matches and they keep you. It's not complicated."
Miller turned back to the page.
Basic Wage: £25,000 per week (before tax).
He stopped again. "This isn't even half what I was making at Toronto."
Connor threw his hands up. "Here we go. I find you a Premier League club—a Premier League club, Miller, which your father specifically asked me to do—and this is what I get. There were clubs offering a hundred thousand euros a week. But no, Qatar wasn't good enough for you, was it?"
"Alright, alright. Point taken." Miller exhaled and kept reading.
II. BONUSES AND INCENTIVES
Appearance Fee: £5,000 per match (as starter).
Goal Bonus: £7,500 per Premier League goal.
Win Bonus: £10,000 per league win.
Loyalty Bonus: £150,000 (payable upon completion of full season).
III. SPECIAL CLAUSES
Release Clause: £5,000,000 (applicable to clubs outside England only).
Relegation Clause: 35% wage reduction if club is relegated to the Championship.
Medical Clause: Contract subject to passing advanced medical examination.
IV. ADDITIONAL NOTE FROM MANAGEMENT
"Vincent Kompany is seeking a leadership profile in the dressing room. Miller O'Brian is projected as a mentor for younger strikers and a primary option as target man in set-piece situations."
The room was quiet for a moment.
Miller stared at the Burnley crest at the top of the page. Then his gaze dropped—slowly, almost without thinking—to the tattoos on both his palms. The Cross on his right. The Crescent and Star on his left. Both trembling, just slightly.
He thought of his mother's face. He thought of Wembley. He thought of a shirt he hadn't earned yet.
Vincent Kompany, he thought. A thin smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He reached across the table and picked up the pen.
"Tell him something for me, Boss." Miller's voice was quiet, but there was an edge underneath it that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Tell him the old lion didn't come here to babysit. I came to take the starting spot."
SRETT.
His signature cut across the bottom of the page.
Connor stared at him for a long moment, then let out a short breath that was almost—almost—a laugh. He picked up the signed document and tucked it under his arm.
"I'll tell him." He turned toward the broken door, pausing just long enough to look back over his shoulder. "Oh—and Miller?"
Miller raised an eyebrow.
"Kompany didn't just ask for a target man." Connor's expression shifted, something unreadable crossing his face. "He asked for you specifically. By name. Before I even made the call."
The door—what was left of it—swung shut behind him. Miller sat alone in the silence, the pen still in his hand, staring at nothing.
Why would Vincent Kompany ask for him specifically? A thirty-three-year-old with no club, no headlines, and nothing left to prove to anyone—except himself.
What did Kompany know that he didn't?