The rain fell on Manchester like a gray curtain, turning the academy pitches into slick, treacherous surfaces that demanded a different kind of football. Soma had never played in conditions like this—Lagos had wet seasons, but the rain there was warm, tropical, cleansing. This was cold, persistent, and seemed to seep into his bones.
"Weather's part of the game here," Tunde said as they walked toward the training ground. "You'll need to adjust your touch, your movement. Everything's different when the pitch is wet."
Soma nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. It had been two weeks since the Liverpool match, and the atmosphere around him had grown noticeably cooler. Conversations stopped when he entered rooms. Passing patterns seemed to bypass him more often. Even the younger players, who'd initially been in awe of his skills, now seemed wary.
Coach Thompson had called a meeting that morning—team selection for the upcoming match against Chelsea's academy, arguably their biggest test of the season. Soma had been expecting to start, his goal-scoring record speaking for itself.
Instead, he found his name on the substitute's bench.
"I don't understand," he said to Thompson after the team meeting. "I've scored in four straight matches."
"Football isn't just about individual statistics, Soma," Thompson replied, not looking up from his clipboard. "It's about how you make the team function as a unit."
"But we're winning. My goals are winning us matches."
Thompson finally looked up, his expression weary. "Are they? Or are we winning despite the way you play?"
The question hung in the air like an accusation. Soma felt heat rising in his cheeks.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Thompson said carefully, "that Marcus has created seven assists this season to your zero. It means Jamie has a better pass completion rate playing as a defender than you do as a forward. It means that every time you get the ball, the rest of the team stops moving because they know you won't pass it."
"I pass when I need to pass."
"You pass when you can't score. That's not the same thing."
The words stung because they carried a grain of truth Soma didn't want to acknowledge. He thought about the Liverpool match, about Marcus's run, about the shot that hit the crossbar when a simple pass would have guaranteed a goal.
"So what do you want me to do? Stop scoring?"
"I want you to start thinking like a footballer instead of like a street player. There's a difference."
Training that day was brutal. The first team worked on set pieces and tactical shape while Soma found himself with the reserves, running fitness drills and practicing basic passing. The message was clear: prove you can be trusted with simple tasks before you get the important ones.
Watching from the sideline as Marcus led the team through attacking patterns, Soma felt something he'd never experienced before—irrelevance. In Lagos, he'd been the center of every game, the player everyone came to watch. Here, the team was functioning perfectly well without him.
Maybe even better without him.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. For the first time since arriving in England, he wondered if Emeka had been right back in Lagos. Maybe this was all just a dream, and he was finally waking up.
After training, as the first team celebrated a good session and headed to the showers, Soma lingered on the pitch. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained gray and threatening. He pulled out his phone and called the one person who always had answers.
"Mama," he said when Grace picked up, his voice smaller than he'd intended.
"Soma! How are you, my son? I was just telling Mrs. Adunni about your goals—"
"They dropped me from the team."
The line went quiet. In the background, Soma could hear the familiar sounds of Lagos—traffic, voices, life continuing without him.
"What happened?" Grace asked finally.
"They say I don't pass enough. They say I'm selfish."
"Are you?"
The question was gentle but direct, in the way only mothers could ask impossible questions.
"I score goals, Mama. That's what forwards do."
"Hmm." It was a sound Soma remembered from childhood, the noise Grace made when she was thinking. "Tell me about your teammates."
"What about them?"
"Do you know their names? Their stories? What they dream about?"
Soma paused. He knew Marcus was the captain, that Jamie played left-back, that Tunde was Nigerian like him. But beyond the football facts, he realized he knew almost nothing about any of them.
"Football is not just about scoring goals, Soma," Grace continued. "It's about brotherhood. About lifting each other up. Your father, God rest his soul, used to say that a man who climbs alone might reach the top, but he'll find it very lonely up there."
That evening, Soma sat in his small room, staring at highlights of his favorite players on his phone. But instead of watching their goals, he found himself watching their assists, their celebrations when teammates scored, the way they interacted with others on the pitch.
For the first time, he noticed how Lionel Messi's eyes lit up when he set up a teammate. How Cristiano Ronaldo sprinted to celebrate with whoever scored, even if it wasn't him. How the greatest players seemed as happy creating magic for others as they were creating it for themselves.
Maybe there was something to learn here after all.