"You ever played in the middle?"
Coach Ríos didn't even look up when he asked.
We were sitting in the locker room before a friendly against another academy side. Nothing official. Just a test.
I hesitated."Once or twice," I said.
Truth was, I hadn't played midfield since I was ten.Back before every coach saw my height and stuck me in defense like I was a wall, not a player.
"You're starting as a holding mid," he said. "Next to Duarte. Keep it simple. Get it, move it."
That was it.
No time to overthink.
The first fifteen minutes were chaos.
The pace was faster. The pressure came from all sides.In defense, everything was in front of me. I could read the game like a book.
Now, I was inside the book.Inside the noise.
I lost the ball twice in the first ten minutes.One bad pass almost led to a goal.
"Wake up!" Duarte snapped.
I nodded. Gritted my teeth. Told myself I belonged here.
Then something clicked.
I dropped deeper. Gave myself space.Stopped trying to be fast and started trying to be smart.
One touch. Turn. Look up.
And there it was.
A gap.
I sent the ball diagonally, behind the full-back, right into the path of our winger.
Perfect weight. Perfect angle.
The winger didn't finish, but he clapped his hands."Great ball, Lucas!"
That was the first time I'd heard my name said with respect during a match.
From there, I settled in.
I didn't shine. I didn't dominate.
But I didn't drown either.
I started to feel the rhythm of the midfield—when to hold, when to press, when to release.
I learned more in that one half than I had in weeks of drills.
At halftime, Coach Ríos walked past me.Didn't stop. Didn't speak.
Just a short glance.
And a half-smile.
Barely there. But it was real.
Second half, I returned to defense. Another kid took the midfield role.But something had changed.
I wasn't just another center-back now.
They had seen something.
And so had I.
After the match, I sat alone tying my boots when Duarte came over.
He offered me a bottle of water.
"Not bad for a central," he said.
I laughed. "Not bad for a snob."
He laughed too. The tension broke.
Maybe not friends.But closer.
That night, I wrote down one sentence in my notebook before going to sleep:
"Play like a wall. Think like a 10."
It didn't rhyme. It wasn't poetry.
But it felt like a map.
[End of Chapter 9]