Chapter 500 - 106 — Two Names Again II

Sunday afternoon belonged to nothing in particular.

Demien ate properly, ran through his recovery routine, and spent most of the rest of the day doing very little — some television, a couple of hours on a game with his headset on while someone from his old academy trash-talked him over voice chat without any idea he was talking to a Ballon d’Or nominee, a short call with Sophia that mostly covered her week rather than his.

Somewhere in the middle of it, his phone kept surfacing the same two names over and over, clip after clip cut from the same viral podcast episode.

Eventually he searched Mateo’s name himself rather than waiting for the algorithm to bring it to him, and watched three or four sequences from the Real Sociedad match in a row rather than just the one everyone kept reposting.

The pattern repeated itself each time. Mateo almost never tried to out-run pressure. He manipulated where the first defender approached from — a half-step here, a check of the shoulders there — then used whatever space that single decision opened up.

Demien understood the logic of it immediately, the way one craftsman recognizes another craftsman’s tool even if he’s never held it himself.

He didn’t try it out in his head against imaginary defenders. He didn’t feel the system stir with anything resembling a new unlock.

He just watched, the way he’d watch anyone worth watching, and eventually put the phone down and went to bed.

Monday, November 6th, and Carrington’s whole focus turned properly toward Copenhagen.

Ten Hag opened the analysis session with the away leg specifically, not a rerun of Old Trafford. "We beat them at home because they sat too deep and let us play through them," he said. "Parken will be louder, and they need points more than we do right now. They will not make the same mistake twice."

The clips that followed showed Copenhagen’s expected adjustments — pressing earlier, more direct balls played behind United’s midfield, fullbacks pushing forward the instant United lost the ball, the away end’s noise cranked up as a factor in itself.

"Casemiro isn’t walking through that door," Ten Hag said, looking at Demien directly. "When we build, you control the first progression. When we lose it, you don’t get to assume somebody else is standing behind you. That’s still your job until he’s back."

"Understood," Demien said.

「CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PREPARATION MISSION」 「Opponent: FC Copenhagen」 「Break First Press: 6」 「Successful Switches After Pressure: 4」 「Second-Ball Recoveries: 5」 「Central Turnovers: Maximum 1」 「Complete Tactical Session」 「Reward: +15 TP」 「Bonus Objective: Create 3 Chances From Transition」 「Bonus Reward: +15 MP」

The drills reproduced Copenhagen’s expected aggression as closely as the simulation group could manage, and Demien moved through most of it at the level everyone on the pitch already expected from him.

On one repetition, he beat the first press cleanly and released Garnacho wide — only for the next pass to be cut out entirely, nothing wrong with Demien’s execution, just Garnacho’s final ball going astray.

"That’s on me," Garnacho called across, already jogging back for the restart.

On another, Demien won the second ball and looked up to find Bruno and Højlund had drifted into the exact same passing lane, no clean option in front of him at all.

"Pick a side!" Demien shouted at them both, resetting the ball to Amrabat instead of forcing something that wasn’t there.

"My fault," Bruno said, peeling wide. "Wasn’t watching him."

On a third, Demien drew two Copenhagen markers toward him before switching the ball to the opposite flank in one motion, and United worked it all the way into a clean shooting position.

"There it is," Ten Hag called from the sideline. "That’s the picture. Again."

「MISSION COMPLETE」 「Break First Press: 8/6」 「Successful Pressure Switches: 5/4」 「Second-Ball Recoveries: 6/5」 「Central Turnovers: 0/1」 「Transition Chances Created: 3/3」 「Reward: +15 TP」 「Bonus Reward: +15 MP」

The session had taught the team what happened around him far more than it had taught him anything new about pressure.

After lunch and a short recovery block, Demien left Carrington with Marco for the Adidas studio across the city.

The building had been converted into three separate working sets — one laid with a chalk-marked pitch surface and hard directional lighting for movement shots, one bare and neutral for portraits, one smaller and looser, built for the short vertical clips that would end up cut into fifteen-second pieces online.

He went through hair and grooming first, then wardrobe, a rail of Adidas training pieces and campaign colorways laid out for him to choose between while a creative director talked through the day’s plan on a tablet.

"We’re shooting for three markets today, not just the usual social cuts," she said. "UK, Germany, and a Southeast Asia push — they want you specifically for the youth campaign line."

"Fine by me," Demien said.

The movement photography ran long, the way it always did — dribbling through a line of cones, striking a stationary ball from the same spot eight times in a row until the photographer got the exact frame he wanted, a mid-stride carry repeated until the studs caught the studio lights just right.

"Once more," the photographer said, for what felt like the fourth time. "Same motion, chin up half an inch."

Demien did it again without complaint — advertising ran on repetition, and he’d learned that much from his first shoot with the brand.

Portraits came next, no ball, just his face and the kit against a plain background, the creative director occasionally stepping in to nudge his shoulder or adjust his collar a fraction.

The scale of it all sat differently than his first shoot had. Back then it had been two cameras and a handful of people introducing an emerging academy name to the roster. Today the room held three full crews, a producer cross-checking a storyboard against a shot list, someone on a video call in the corner discussing which cuts would run where and when.

Nobody said anything to him about it directly.

The room said it for them.

The short sit-down interview came last, one camera, soft light, a woman with a tablet running through a compact list of questions rather than dragging it into a full press conference.

"Take us back to your first months in Manchester — what’s changed the most since then?"

"Everything, honestly," Demien said. "The pace of the league took some adjusting to. Now it feels normal. I don’t know how else to explain it."

"Champions League nights at Old Trafford?"

"Different atmosphere to anything else," he said. "You feel it walking out before a ball’s even kicked."

"Playing for England this season?"

"Wembley’s Wembley," Demien said. "Doesn’t matter how many times you walk out there, it still gets you."

"Seventeenth in the Ballon d’Or at nineteen — what did that mean to you?"

"More than I expected, if I’m honest," Demien said. "I didn’t think I’d be that high. Proud of it."

"And finishing second for the Kopa Trophy behind Jude Bellingham?"

Demien didn’t flatten it out for the camera. "Wanted to win it," he said. "Jude had the season for it — World Cup, Dortmund, all of it. He deserved it. I want to win one of these eventually, though. Not going to pretend I don’t."

"Last one," the interviewer said, glancing at her tablet. "There’s been a lot of conversation lately comparing you to Barcelona’s Mateo Salvatierra. Have you watched him play?"

"Yeah, a bit," Demien said. "He’s very good."

"Anything specific stand out?"

"How he manages pressure without needing to be quick about it," Demien said. "Different way of solving the same problem I have to solve every week. Interesting to watch."

She nodded, made a note, and moved the list along without pushing further — no baiting question about who was better, nothing designed to manufacture a headline out of two sentences. Marco’s brief to the brand beforehand had clearly held.

Marco caught him by the door once the last set had wrapped, phone already in his hand.

"You should see this," he said, turning the screen toward him. "That podcast clip from yesterday’s crossed four million views across every repost combined. Two football magazines have already published tactical breakdowns comparing your Fulham numbers to his Real Sociedad ones. POWER VS PAUSE is trending again, word for word, same hashtag from back in the spring."

"Great," Demien said, without much enthusiasm.

"There’s one more thing," Marco said, scrolling. "Barcelona play Shakhtar tomorrow night in the Champions League. You play Copenhagen Wednesday."

He turned the phone around fully. A graphic, already circulating with thousands of shares, split cleanly down the middle.

TUESDAY — SALVATIERRA

WEDNESDAY — WALTER

EUROPE IS WATCHING.

"Nobody arranged that," Marco said. "It’s just how the fixtures fell."

"Doesn’t matter how it fell," Demien said, handing the phone back. "People will make it mean something either way."

He got into the car without saying anything else about it.

Tuesday morning’s session at Carrington ran short and sharp — shape, set pieces, transition reminders, nothing heavy on legs that needed to be fresh for Wednesday night. No new mission opened; Monday had already done the necessary work.

Bags were packed by early afternoon, the squad filing onto the bus for the airport with the same routine they always followed before a European away trip.

Demien checked his phone once more before switching it to airplane mode.

The Walter–Salvatierra conversation had only grown louder through the day, Barcelona’s Shakhtar match now hours away, previews already stacked three deep in his feed.

The last thing he saw before locking the screen wasn’t about Manchester United at all.

It was Barcelona’s confirmed lineup graphic for that evening, Mateo’s name and photo sitting inside the starting eleven.

Salvatierra — starting.

Demien put the phone away.

By the time United landed in Copenhagen, Europe would already know what Mateo had done with his night.

Demien played the following one.