The next training session couldn't come fast enough for Soma. He arrived thirty minutes early, bouncing a ball against the academy's pristine walls while waiting for the others to show up. Each touch was deliberate, each bounce a promise of what was to come.
"You're keen today," Coach Thompson observed, emerging from the main building with his clipboard and whistle. "Good to see enthusiasm."
"I'm ready to show you real football," Soma replied, perhaps more boldly than he'd intended.
Thompson's eyebrows rose slightly. "Real football?"
"Yes, sir. The football that makes people fall in love with the game."
The other boys trickled in over the next twenty minutes, Marcus arriving precisely on time with his boots already laced, Tunde shooting him warning glances that Soma chose to ignore. The energy in the air felt different today—charged, expectant.
"Right then," Thompson called them together. "Today we're working on positional play. Maintaining shape in the final third, creating space through movement rather than individual skill."
The drill was complex—intricate passing patterns designed to pull defenders out of position through systematic build-up play. Each player had a specific role, a predetermined movement, a scripted response to every possible scenario.
Soma watched the first group run through it, marveling at the choreography. It was beautiful in its precision, efficient in its execution. It was also completely soulless.
When his turn came, he lined up in the right wing position Marcus had assigned him. The ball worked its way through the pattern—center back to fullback, fullback to midfielder, midfielder to attacking midfielder. Everything exactly as rehearsed.
Then the ball came to Soma.
According to the drill, he should cut inside, draw the defender, then lay it off to the overlapping fullback. Simple. Effective. Predictable.
Instead, Soma took one touch and exploded down the touchline.
The defending players, caught completely off guard by the deviation from script, scrambled to react. Soma's pace, honed on Lagos streets where hesitation meant losing possession to bigger, stronger boys, left them trailing in his wake.
At the byline, with three defenders converging, most players would have crossed or cut back to maintain possession. Soma had a different idea.
He stopped dead, let the first defender commit, then dragged the ball back with his right foot while simultaneously flicking it forward with his left. The nutmeg sent the defender stumbling, and suddenly Soma was through on goal.
The keeper, positioned for a cross, was caught completely wrong-footed. Soma's finish was clinical—low, hard, into the bottom corner.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Jamie started clapping, followed by a few others. Even some of the boys from the adjacent pitch had stopped their drills to watch.
"Bloody hell," someone whispered. "Did you see that nutmeg?"
But Thompson's whistle cut through the admiration like a sword.
"Adebayo! What part of 'positional play' didn't you understand?"
"I scored," Soma said, unable to keep the pride from his voice.
"You broke the drill. You ignored your teammates. You—" Thompson paused, visibly collecting himself. "In a real match, that kind of individualism would have left us exposed to a counter-attack. Football is eleven men working as one, not one man working alone."
"But in a real match, the defenders wouldn't know the drill either," Soma countered. "They would react like people, not like robots."
A few of the boys shifted uncomfortably. Marcus stepped forward, his captain's armband catching the light.
"Coach Thompson's right, Soma. What you did was impressive, but it wasn't team football."
"Team football?" Soma's voice rose. "In Lagos, we don't have time for team football. If you get the ball, you make something happen. You don't pass it sideways fifty times hoping the other team falls asleep."
"This isn't Lagos," Marcus replied, his tone sharp. "This is Manchester City Academy. We have a way of doing things here."
"Your way is boring."
The words hung in the air like a challenge. Several boys exchanged glances, and Soma could feel the temperature of the group shifting. Tunde was shaking his head slowly, mouthing "stop" in Soma's direction.
Thompson's voice, when it came, was dangerously quiet. "Boring?"
"Yes, sir. All this passing sideways, following patterns, playing it safe. Where's the magic? Where's the moment that makes people jump out of their seats?"
"The magic," Thompson said, "is in executing a game plan so perfectly that the opposition can't stop it. The magic is in eleven players thinking as one mind. Individual brilliance is just..." he paused, searching for the word, "...selfish."
The session continued, but the atmosphere had changed. Every time Soma touched the ball, he could feel eyes on him—some curious, some disapproving, all waiting to see what he'd do next.
He tried to follow the drills, he really did. But his feet seemed to have a mind of their own. A simple pass became a flick. A routine movement became a skill. His body spoke a different language than the one Thompson was trying to teach.
During the scrimmage at the end of training, Soma found himself on the opposite team from Marcus. Good, he thought. Time to show the captain what real football looked like.
The game was barely five minutes old when Soma received the ball in midfield. Marcus immediately closed him down, positioning himself perfectly to cut off the obvious passing lanes.
"Come on then," Marcus said, his eyes locked on Soma's. "Show me this Lagos magic."
Soma smiled. This was familiar territory—the challenge, the dare, the moment when reputations were made or broken. He dropped his shoulder left, then right, then left again. Marcus stayed with him, disciplined, patient.
So Soma tried something different.
He let the ball run slightly ahead of him, inviting Marcus to tackle. As the captain committed, Soma scooped the ball over his head with his right foot, spun around him, and collected it with his left. The move was audacious, unnecessary, and absolutely breathtaking.
The watching boys erupted in appreciation, even some of Marcus's usual allies. But Marcus himself wasn't finished. He recovered quickly, tracking Soma's run toward goal.
"Pass it!" Jamie called from the left wing, completely unmarked.
"Square it!" another teammate shouted from the right.
But Soma saw only the goal, only the keeper advancing, only the moment of truth that separated dreamers from legends. He struck the ball with the outside of his right foot, bending it around the keeper and into the far corner.
This time, even Thompson couldn't suppress a slight nod of approval.
But as Soma wheeled away in celebration, he caught Marcus's expression—not anger, not frustration, but something worse. Disappointment.
In the changing room afterward, the buzz was all about Soma's goals. Boys who'd barely acknowledged him the day before were suddenly eager to chat, asking about Lagos street football, wanting to know where he'd learned to move like that.
But Marcus dressed in silence, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried the authority of his captain's armband.
"Impressive skills, Soma. But you left Jamie and Connor completely out of the game. They might as well have been spectators."
"I scored two goals," Soma replied.
"And what happens when you don't? What happens when the other team marks you out of the game? What happens when your individual brilliance isn't enough?"
Soma looked around the changing room, suddenly aware that the conversations had gone quiet. Everyone was listening, waiting for his response.
"Then I'll score three goals," he said.
Marcus shook his head and walked out. Several other boys followed him, leaving Soma with the uncomfortable feeling that he'd won the battle but somehow lost something more important.
Tunde lingered, as he always did.
"You're making enemies," he said quietly.
"I'm making goals," Soma replied.
"Same thing, sometimes."