The Liverpool players, their red shirts soaked with a mixture of Californian sweat and bitter disappointment, stood on the pitch, hands on their hips, watching the Real Madrid team celebrate a victory they had snatched from the jaws of a draw.

"I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" the commentator was still yelling, his voice a ragged, ecstatic mess. "A friendly that had more drama than a Hollywood blockbuster! Goals! Dribbles! Tactical masterclasses! And a final, devastating sting in the tail from the fastest man on the planet! If this is pre-season, I think my heart might actually explode before we even get to September!"

In the Liverpool dressing room, the atmosphere wasn't one of devastation, but of quiet, professional frustration.

The sound of boots being thrown against lockers was replaced by the low hum of analytical conversations, the dissection of a loss that felt more like a lesson.

"He's fast, isn't he?" Arnold said to a nearby Virgil van Dijk, a wry, almost impressed smile on his face as he peeled off his jersey. He was talking about Mbappé. "I think he might actually be faster than the speed of light. I didn't even see him go."

"He caught me off balance," van Dijk, the captain, replied, his voice a calm, steady rumble of authority. He was referring to the moment he'd been "sent for a swim." "It was a good move. It won't happen again."

Alexander Isak, the big Swede, was staring at his boots as if they had personally betrayed him. "I should have buried that one," he muttered to Mo Salah, replaying his scuffed first-half chance in his head. "You put it on a plate for me."

"Don't worry, big man," Salah said, a supportive, almost big-brotherly grin on his face. He clapped Isak on the back.

"There will be many more plates. And you will eat." He then turned to Leon and Florian Wirtz, the two new boys who had both scored.

"Good goals, new boys," he said, his eyes sparkling with a competitive fire. "Very nice. Next time, leave one for the old man, yes?"

They hated losing, but they knew this was just the beginning.

The door opened and Arne Slot walked in.

"Losing hurts," he began, his voice calm and measured. "I don't care if it's a friendly or a final. It should always hurt."

He looked around the room. "But I do not care about the result tonight. I care about what I saw. I saw our principles. I saw courage. I saw," he said, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across his face, "the beginning of something very, very special."

He looked at Leon and Wirtz. "You two. Your debuts were magnificent. Leon, a moment of individual genius. Florian, a perfect tactical execution. The intelligence you both bring is exactly what we need." He then looked at the rest of the team.

"And I saw our weakness. We were exposed on the counter-attack. Our high line, our greatest strength, was used as a weapon against us. Chivu," he said, a note of deep, professional respect in his voice, "is a very clever man."

He clapped his hands once, a sharp, decisive sound. "Today, we learned a valuable lesson. And it cost us nothing. We will study the tape. We will adapt. And we will be better. Now, shower. Recover. The real work starts on Monday."

The mood was instantly lifted. The loss had been reframed as a necessary, productive step. The players, their spirits restored, began to get changed, the usual locker room banter returning in full force.

Trent Alexander-Arnold was looking at his ridiculously bright yellow boots with a thoughtful expression.

"Maybe they were too fast," he said to a laughing Andy Robertson. "Confused my own feet when Vini Jr. came at me."

Leon was in the middle of it all, laughing along, a sense of belonging washing over him. He had scored on his debut. He had earned the respect of his new teammates. He felt at home. But underneath it all, Chivu's final, cryptic words were a nagging, unsettling echo.

This was an audition... The President was watching... you were the main event.

Was he just a pawn in some grand, continental chess match between two managerial giants?

"So... Chivu's a scary guy, huh?" Arnold said, appearing beside him as they were packing their bags. "He looked like he was plotting world domination from his technical area."

"You have no idea," Leon said with a wry smile.

They walked out of the dressing room together, a comfortable, easy silence between them.

The stadium was quiet now, a sleeping giant under the California stars.

Leon was in the team car on the way back to the hotel, the city lights of Los Angeles a blurry, beautiful river of gold and red outside his window.

The high of the match was slowly fading, replaced by a quiet, contented exhaustion.

His phone, which had been off all game, buzzed to life as he switched it on, a flood of notifications and messages from friends and family who had stayed up late to watch his debut.

He smiled, scrolling through them.

And then, he saw it. A single, frantic, ALL-CAPS message from his agent, Marco.

[Marco]: LEO! LEO! MY PLATINUM-HAIRED PRODIGY! MY GOLDEN GOOSE! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE JUST DONE?! CALL ME THE SECOND YOU GET THIS! THE WORLD IS ON FIRE!

Leon just sighed, a fond, tired smile on his face. Marco's default setting was "the world is on fire." It probably just meant the Japanese lightning drink company had made another offer.

He was about to put his phone away and deal with the beautiful, glorious chaos of his agent in the morning, when the phone started ringing in his hand. It was Marco.

He answered, bracing himself. "Ciao, Marco. I'm guessing the world is on fire?"

"ON FIRE?! LEO, THE WORLD HAS BURNED TO THE GROUND AND BEEN REBORN IN YOUR IMAGE!" Marco roared, his voice a distorted mess of pure, unfiltered hysteria. "I have just gotten off the phone. The most important phone call of my life. Of our lives!"

"Okay, okay, calm down," Leon said, trying to keep his voice low so as not to wake the sleeping Isak next to him. "Who was it? Liverpool, about a bonus? Madrid, with another offer?"

"NO!" Marco yelled, his voice cracking. "Forget them! They are children playing in a sandbox! This was not a club, Leo. This was not a scout. This was... him."

"Who is 'him', Marco?"

There was a pause, a moment of pure, dramatic, agonizing silence on the other end of the line. When Marco spoke again, his voice was a reverent, awe-struck whisper that sent a shiver of pure, ice-cold dread down Leon's spine.

"The personal assistant to Florentino Pérez," Marco breathed. "The President of Real Madrid. He said, and I quote: 'The audition was a spectacular success. The President is... impressed.'" Marco took a shaky breath. "'Tell the boy not to sign the final registration papers just yet. Madrid always gets what it wants.'"

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