Free Web NovelChapter 37: [37] "An Empty Armband"
Wednesday morning. Training pitch.
Henri called the full squad in early. Earlier than the schedule the usual time permitted.
The players gathered in a loose circle on the center circle, with a lot of studs scraping against the grass. Mateo stood near the edge of it, arms crossed, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
Luc noticed instantly that Mateo never avoided eye contact. Not with refs, not with billionaires, not with his teammates.
Henri cleared his throat twice before he spoke.
"There’s something I need to tell you all," Henri said. "Before Bretagne. Before it leaks somewhere worse than from me."
The circle went quiet. Demirci stopped chewing his gum.
"Mateo is leaving the club in January," Henri said. "He’s signed with a club in Saudi Arabia. The deal is done."
[System Notification]
[Objective: Hold the dressing room together]
[Reward: +3 skill points]
[Penalty: Captain’s armband reassigned to you]
"That’s not a punishment, but I sure as hell don’t want it," Luc thought.
The silence in the circle stretched out, it was unfamiliar.
Hadj was the first to break it. "January? That’s two months."
"I know," Mateo said. He finally looked up. "I should’ve told you all myself. I’m telling you now."
Demirci’s jaw was clenched. "Saudi Arabia. For the money." freeωebnovēl.c૦m
"For my family," Mateo corrected. "I have a daughter starting school next year. I have a contract offer that buys my family ten years of no worries. You’d take it too, and besides, how old do you think I am. How many seasons do you expect me to maintain the same level."
Nobody argued that. Nobody could.
Ekberg, who was usually silent, spoke up. "You’re still our captain till January."
"Sure as hell I’m still your captain till January," Mateo agreed.
---
Henri dismissed the circle for drills. The team scattered in twos and threes, the usual chatter gone.
Luc didn’t move toward the cones. He walked straight to Mateo instead.
Mateo braced himself like he expected a fight. "Go on then. Say it."
"Say what?"
"That I’m full of shit. That I’m abandoning the project right when it looks like we’re on the verge of forming something beautiful."
Luc waited for a second. "I was going to ask if I could join you to Saudi."
Mateo blinked. The tension in his shoulders relaxed, just slightly.
"You’re an asshole."
"I’ve been called worse this week. You’re still my captain. Doesn’t change anything on the pitch."
"It changes the locker room."
"Then we fix the locker room, the same way we fixed everything else. Together."
"Fine," Mateo said, finally. He slapped Luc’s shoulder, harder than necessary. "Don’t get sentimental on me, Yankee."
"Wasn’t planning on it."
The session moved into shape work. Henri ran the back line through a low-block drill, walking the width of the pitch with his hands behind his back.
Luc pulled Idriss aside near the far post.
"You’re starting Saturday," Luc said. "Henri told you yet?"
"He told me this morning." Idriss didn’t smile, but something in his posture loosened. "Lacombe’s managing a knock."
"Bretagne play a 4-3-3. Their holding mid screens everything centrally. You’ll have to make your runs early, before he resets."
"I know how to read a midfield, Beaumont."
"Didn’t say you didn’t." Luc nodded toward Cillian, jogging a recovery lap on the far touchline. "He’s stepping into Hugo’s spot."
"Nobody’s Hugo."
"Exactly. So we don’t ask him to be." Luc’s eyes tracked Cillian’s movement. "We build around what he is instead."
Idriss said nothing to that, he just nodded once, the way he’d started doing lately when Luc said something worth him listening to.
---
Henri gathered them again around the board he had brought over to the pitch before the session ended.
"Bretagne is a coastal pitch," he said. "Wind coming in off the Atlantic. It punishes long balls and lazy crosses." He looked directly at Luc. "It rewards patience."
"I’ve heard," Luc said.
"You’ll need to drop deeper than usual. Hugo’s gone, Cillian isn’t him, and the wind will eat anything played in the air carelessly." Henri tapped the whiteboard, "we build through the middle. Short. Controlled. We make the pitch smaller."
"Understood."
"You’ve been carrying more than a striker should this season," Henri said quietly, away from the others. "Hugo’s gone. Mateo’s leaving in two months. Plus the wager is still on. The possibility we lose you too is not zero."
"I noticed."
"Can you carry more?"
Luc didn’t answer with words. He picked up a ball from the bag at Henri’s feet, dropped it, and curled a long pass forty yards across the pitch into Idriss’s path without looking up once to check the angle.
It landed clean on Idriss’s foot.
Henri exhaled through his nose, which was as close to a smile as he got most mornings.
"Get some rest, then. Bus leaves Friday afternoon."
---
That evening, Juliette’s apartment.
Alexi was gone for the day, off shooting something for a magazine Luc didn’t recognize the name of. The kitchen was quiet, just the two of them and a pot of coffee neither one had finished.
"Mateo told the team."
"I heard. How’d it go?" Juliette was rolling tape for tomorrow’s kit bags.
"About as well as you’d expect."
"And you?"
Luc leaned against the counter with his arms crossed. "We were all wondering who Henri would appoint as next captain."
Juliette’s hands stopped on the tape. "Next captain?"
"Like, eventually. But it’s not my problem until January."
"You say that like January isn’t getting closer every single week," Juliette said.
"Everything’s getting closer every week," Luc said. "The wager. Assigning of the armband. December."
She set the tape down and crossed the kitchen.
"I haven’t told you yet, I have a conference to attend for a few weeks."
"When are you leaving?"
"Sometime next week, the date should be finalised by then."
"I’ll maybe move back till whenever you come back, so that I don’t have to stay here with Alexi."
Juliette smiled.
---
Friday afternoon. The team bus idled outside Stade Valois, exhaust curling into the air.
Hugo was at the gate on his crutches, refusing the team’s offer to stay behind and rest.
"You’re not playing," Luc said, climbing past him onto the bus steps.
Mateo hit Hugo once on the shoulder as he passed, but a whole lot gentler than his usual greeting.
Luc took his seat at the back, phone already lit with the Bretagne squad list Henri had forwarded. A 4-3-3 with their key veteran holding midfielder.
[System Notification]
[Objective: Hold the dressing room together]
[Reward: +3 skill points]
"Good."
The bus pulled out of the gates.
Behind them, Hugo stood on his crutches at the entrance, watching it go.
