The bright, defiant, "Barnsley Braves" energy that had defined the last few weeks was gone, replaced by a thick, suffocating blanket of dread.

The fans who had bothered to show up were quiet, their faces grim, as if attending an obligation rather than a celebration.

Michael stood in the tunnel, watching his team warm up. It was a pathetic sight.

The players were just going through the motions, their shoulders slumped, their passes limp.

They were a team adrift, haunted by the three ghosts that had wrecked their season: the ghost of their hospitalized manager, the ghost of their disgraced, doped-up teammate, and the ghost of the terrifying expectation they could no longer meet.

At the head of this broken column was the interim manager, Steve.

His [CA 55 / PA 60] was on full, agonizing display. He was clutching a clipboard, his face a pale, sweaty, nauseous green. He looked less like a football manager and more like a man about to be physically sick.

This was the team Michael had.

A terrified interim boss, a doping scandal, a shattered morale, and an 18-year-old [CA 45] academy kid named Tom Harrison, who was currently sitting on the bench, looking like he was about to cry from the sheer, overwhelming terror of having been named in the starting lineup by his insane, teenaged owner.

Michael had bet everything. He had spent his last 150 points. He was back to zero. This was the point of no return.

The whistle blew.

The opposition, a solid, mid-table team called Lincoln City, kicked off. They had read the papers. They knew Barnsley was in crisis. They knew Jennings was out. And they saw this small, terrified, unknown child standing in the most critical defensive position on the entire pitch.

Their game plan was brutal, simple, and painfully obvious: attack the kid.

For the first ten minutes, it was a horror show.

Tom Harrison was a nervous wreck. He was a [CA 45] player, and he was playing like it. He was chasing shadows, his movements panicked, his positioning all wrong.

The game was happening around him, a red-and-white blur that he couldn't seem to process.

In the 10th minute, the inevitable happened.

The Lincoln attacking midfielder received the ball. Tom, in a blind, desperate panic, did the worst thing he could: he ran at the man, abandoning his position, breaking the team's entire defensive shape.

The Lincoln player, a seasoned veteran, must have thought it was Christmas.

He just laughed, let the boy charge past him, and played a simple, devastating pass into the massive, gaping hole Tom had just left.

Their striker was one-on-one. He didn't miss.

1-0.

The stadium was silent, save for the small pocket of away fans.

Michael watched from the director's box, his heart a cold, dead stone in his chest. He had done this. He had destroyed this boy's career and his club's season in one single, arrogant, system-fueled decision.

Down on the pitch, Tom Harrison just stood there, in the middle of the field, his hands on his head. He looked like he was about to cry. His teammates, too deflated to even be angry, just looked at him with a kind of empty pity.

The Lincoln players jogged back, laughing.

"Easy money, lads!" one of them yelled.

They restarted the game.

The Lincoln midfielder got the ball again, his eyes lighting up. He saw his target. He saw the crying kid. He was going to do the exact same thing. He shaped to play the exact same pass, into the exact same hole.

But Tom... Tom was still crying. He was still devastated. But something new, something alien, was flooding his system. The panic was still there, but underneath it was a cold, hard, logical instinct.

[The Interceptor: ACTIVATED!]

Before the Lincoln player's boot had even connected with the ball, Tom was moving.

He was no longer the panicked, shadow-chasing boy. His brain, which had been a fog of terror, was now a supercomputer. He knew where the pass was going.

He didn't run. He glided. He slid, his leg extending in a perfect, scything motion, and intercepted the pass with a clean, textbook-perfect tackle.

He popped back to his feet, as if he had springs in his boots, played a simple, five-yard pass to his captain, and then slotted back into a defensive position so perfect, it looked like a diagram from a coaching manual.

The entire stadium, including the Lincoln midfielder, just... stopped. Baffled.

"Where... did that come from?" the commentator's voice crackled on the radio feed.

A switch had been flipped. The [CA 45] kid was gone. The skill had surged, temporarily boosting his stats.

This was [Temporary CA 65] Tom, and he was a wall.

For the rest of the half, it was the most bizarre, one-sided defensive display Michael had ever seen. Tom wasn't fast. He wasn't strong. He was just... right. He was always in the right place.

A cross-field ball was attempted? Tom was already there, chesting it down. A striker tried to make a run? Tom was already in the passing lane, pointing, directing his defenders.

He was a human magnet for the ball. He was a mini-Kanté. He was a one-man defensive system.

And this changed everything.

The "Barnsley Braves," who had been too scared to attack, who had been pinned back, suddenly had a shield.

The equalizer came in the 30th minute. Tom the Wall won the ball again, a clean, beautiful tackle.

He laid it off to Raphael Santos. Raphael, who had been a ghost, suddenly came alive. He was free.

He drew in three panicked defenders, who had no idea what this kid was, and then, with a flourish, he danced. He threaded a filthy, no-look pass to Finn Riley.

Finn, one-on-one, was never going to miss. 1-1. The stadium erupted.

The go-ahead goal came in the 60th minute, just after halftime. The players were flying.

Tom, again, stepped up, read a pass, and intercepted it.

He gave it to Danny Fletcher. Danny, the "brain," had all the time in the world. He looked up, saw Jamie Weston making a run, and pinged a 40-yard diagonal pass.

Jamie, full of [Power Shot] confidence, took one touch and unleashed a rocket. 2-1.

The turnaround was complete. The crowd was going insane.

The final whistle blew. 2-1 to Barnsley. An impossible, unbelievable, logic-defying comeback.

The players, screaming with joy, didn't run to the goalscorers. They ran to the 18-year-old kid who had just had the game of his life. They lifted "Tom the Wall" onto their shoulders, the boy who had been crying ten minutes in, now crying with pure, unadulterated joy.

The stadium announcer's voice was cracking with emotion: "Ladies and gentlemen... today's Man of the Match... for his professional debut... Number 28, TOM HARRISON!"

The press box was in chaos. They were scrambling.

Who was this kid? Where did he come from? They were rewriting their "Collapsing Club" headlines, and replacing them with "Barnsley's Newest Genius Discovery."

Michael sat in his office, his legs feeling weak, his heart finally slowing down. He was laughing. He was watching the pundits on TV twist themselves into pretzels, trying to explain how a team in "total collapse" had just pulled off their most dominant win of the season. His phone was buzzing. It was his father. He hit 'ignore.'

He was broke. He had zero points. And he'd never felt more powerful.

The blue screen, his beautiful, loyal blue screen, flashed in front of his eyes.

[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 'VICTORY IN THE DARKEST HOUR']

[DESCRIPTION: You faced a total leadership collapse, a public scandal, and certain defeat. You took an impossible gamble... and won.]

[REWARD: +300 SYSTEM POINTS!]

Michael let out a whoop of joy. He was rich again!

[NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED: 'COACHING STAFF DEVELOPMENT']

[DESCRIPTION: You may now access the Staff menu and spend points to permanently upgrade the Potential Ability (PA) of your non-playing staff.]

Michael's grin faded, replaced by a slow, calculating, dangerous smirk.

"If I have to run this team myself," he whispered, looking at his new 300-point balance, "so be it."

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