Chapter Text
April 2024: Present Day - Ciutat Esportiva, Barcelona
The meeting room in Ciutat Esportiva smelled like damp grass and metal studs.
The kind of smell that clings to everything after a European night at home that didn’t go your way.
A Champions League first-leg playoff loss that might cost you a title in the final does that. It turns everyone inside out, even here, even at the best facilities in Europe, where glass walls and polished floors cannot make the defeat feel any cleaner. On the other hand, it is what overturns the feeling into something heavier, quieter and less forgiving. Despite the fact that this was only the ‘halftime’ of a two-leg game, all the promises they couldn’t keep were all there, gathered in one room at once.
The screen at the front still glowed faintly, a harsh, unforgiving glow, not one to go away too quickly.
No one looked at it anymore.
The seating in the room had formed itself like it always did, just something that was always in the back of your head. Something you are supposed to know.
Veterans towards the middle, while young players are further out.
The ones confident enough to speak could go whenever they pleased.
Alexia Putellas sat in the center of the second row, not at the front, never needing to be. The place had become hers over the years without anyone acknowledging it out loud, because in reality, there was no need to. Enough distance from the screen to study the whole room, enough centrality so everyone could quietly orbit her. Aitana sat beside her, knee bouncing once every few seconds, unable to fully settle after defeat, anxiety creeping around since the final whistle. Patri Guijarro was on Alexia’s other side, leaned forward with elbows on knees, already mentally halfway inside the tactical clips before they even started watching them.
Behind them sat Mapi León, one arm hanging over the back of her chair, Lucy Bronze beside her sitting straight, arms folded, jaw set in that way she did when something annoyed her, turning around from time to time to look at Ona. Irene Paredes sat one seat over from them in silence, while Cata Coll occupied the aisle with one leg stretched out, gloves still clipped to her bag.
Further down the row, Ona Batlle and Fridolina sat together, murmuring to each other under their breath. Mariona sat with her arms crossed tightly, her distant gaze fixed on something, possibly replaying mistakes no one else could see.
Closer to the back were the younger ones. Salma Paralluelo half-turned in her chair, incapable of sitting still even in tension. Bruna Vilamala and Martina Fernández whispered briefly before the footage resumed.
Vicky Lopez sat behind Alexia. Just close enough to be heard if she spoke, but far enough to say that it was clear she had not earned a place among the room’s core, not because she lacked talent, but because hierarchy was the only thing that matter here after all.
Alexia had noticed that within a little time of Vicky joining the first team, the way she never tried to force herself into veteran spaces, never overstepped and never mistook La Reina’s praise for permission to get close. She was the type to earn things quietly and that, more than talent, was why Alexia respected her.
An analyst clicked once, wanting to put this torture to an end.
“Enough,” he muttered, more to himself than to any of them.
The pause was a brutal, final frame of Chelsea’s celebration. Unmistakable, who else would it be if not Lauren James coming off the bench and congratulating her teammates? A bad angle. 0-1. Home. For now, the frozen pixels on the screen seemed to be their cold truth.
Otherwise, it was also too cold for how tired they were.
Someone had left the air conditioning running from earlier and no one had bothered to get up and switch it off. Shirts stick to skin, hair still wet on temples, in between the murmurs, you could hear someone unpeeling their tape and letting it fall onto the floor in loose spirals. A few sat forward. Most didn’t.
Everything felt tilted, out of shape. Nobody was fascinated by the meeting room’s glass panoramic windows, nor was anyone talking about the way the seats aligned. Perfection for a perfectionist, too much for them.
It should have felt like the end of something, but it didn’t. It had felt as honest as it could be coming through, just a moment of destructive grief over a game that might be overturned in a week’s time.
Phones came out in a rush, a bottle rolled somewhere under a bench and hit a bag with a soft, hollow knock.
Alexia had barely spoken since the loss, which kept everyone aware of the focus she had. She was not loud this season, not unless she had something worth saying. Maybe, not so long ago, just before the injury, she might have filled the silence in the room quicker, added confidence to the ones in the room through the use of volume and a captain’s certainty.
Now she knew the weight speaking had, having recognised the importance soon enough after recovering.
So when she chose to speak in a room like this, full of unusual fatigue, everyone listened. It meant she decided something mattered and they would be backing her no matter what.
Alexia’s eyes sharpened as soon as she saw the analyst turn off the screen.
“Now, the other game, let’s give it a look, shall we?” Jonatan sighed, asking a question which didn’t need an answer, his arms crossed while standing in the front of the room, keeping an eye on the women. No reaction.
Semi-final, second bracket. Different problem, but the same competition.
PSG against Lyon appears on the screen before Alexia even gets to think. Wide angle. Their midfield line was looking systematic, the ball moving slowly from one side to the other, predictable enough that the half towards the back of the room would stop looking altogether. Younger, less experienced, because how would they know that what they were looking at, mattered much more, than a football match.
Just context they called it. Future reference. Opponent scouting, even if they don’t know if they will survive the next week.
“¿Por qué estamos viendo esto?” Bruna asks, slightly lifting her head, but not enough to indicate that she’s paying attention. Her voice stayed quiet, as if she was testing the ground.
“Because you might be playing against one of them,” came the brief reply, calm and composed, not any different from what you would expect Jonatan to say.
A few eyes were back up, while others were still getting into their heads, suffering their own loss.
The clip plays on. Possession was brought back into their own half. A fullback steps forward, hesitates and goes back again. Safe, clean and forgettable.
Then the game shifted, but just slightly. A loose touch and a pass that hung at Marie Katoto’s foot for too long to get a rough greeting from someone. That someone arrived, maybe not fast, not even first, but it just seemed right for everyone in the room. Everyone who knew what it was like to be on both sides of that duel face-first.
A leg where it shouldn’t be, at an angle that cuts off the obvious option without touching the ball at all. Katoto hesitates and loses half a second she couldn’t afford. The press closes around her like a curtain and then the ball is in Lyon’s possession.
Almost as if it was inevitable.
There, a free lane and one more step, that’s where Lyon’s midfielder drives the ball through and the attacking play stops there. Cleared out. Too much hesitation from Diani, as she has seen the ball like nobody else, but decided to clip it back with her heel, Lindsey Heaps not arriving in time to make a touch.
Now, a few heads lift properly. Not because of the clearance this time, but because of something only higher tier players who belonged in the room would notice.
They all were good enough to fit into that category.
“Pause it,” echoes across the room, from Jonatan, who’s standing right beside the analyst.
The man rewinds the moment without any further comment.
Alexia studies the screen, even studied what’s behind it. Then watched the replay, again and again. She saw it now. Calculated distortion, a girl she has never seen play before, weaponising the illusion of abandonment on the field.
Alexia’s lips parted slightly.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
For a moment she forgot to hide it. Not the reaction itself, Alexia had taught herself years ago how to maintain her face through pain, frustration, victory and every camera that has been shoved in front of her after, especially during the walk out of the press conference room.
Her mind stopped listening to the room, as her thumb dragged along the edge of her jaw, slow and absent, dissecting what she was seeing in real time, pulling it piece by piece until she understood not only what happened, but also why. Captain’s eyes, that was all it took.
Lucy Bronze is the first in the room to mutter loud enough for her to hear and break Alexia away from deep diving into her thoughts. Not really words that mattered, somewhere in between noise to fill the gap between their frustration and astonishment.
It’s clearer now. Lyon’s line tried to go up with Heaps expecting the ball back from Katoto, the idea of it almost making their robotic playstyle, which seemed to be continuously defining their performance in the first half, disappear.
There was something else about the play.
The analyst pauses it again, one more time, without any prior instruction.
“Here it is, mirad,” he says in a rough tone, clearly caught up in what’s going on.
The aspect changes.
Not fully in the frame at first, just a shift of weight that shouldn’t matter on its own. A step that looks like it could be referenced as sacrificial. This rewind finally catches #28 clean.
She is not central in the play. She shouldn’t be the problem in this play. The ball and its danger are somewhere else. Their structure is somewhere else. She is five meters away from where she’s supposed to be. People who watch Lyon play as their job know that they don’t play like this, especially if it is about letting somebody be reckless and separate themselves from the system, especially in midfield. They have perfect pressuring triggers, but #28 looks like she is out of shape all the time.
Out of shape, that’s it. Five meters away from where injured Egurrola would start, she was half-turned and not scanning in the way coaches would teach. She’s looser than that. Not looking for the ball, but looking at the players, waiting till the shape distorts on its own.
Once again, Katoto receives.
That’s where it should end.
Well, it doesn’t.
Marie has her space rewritten for her and there it goes.
The Lyon midfielder steps into her space once. She doesn’t move towards the ball, she moves towards the option her teammates haven’t dared to use yet. That alone changes the rhythm enough to cause hesitation from the opposition.
Somebody in the room exhales sharply.
That drew glances, almost as much as it did when Alexia’s posture suddenly shifted forward with her shoulders rounded.
Everyone knew the difference between Alexia paying attention and analysing plays and her actually becoming invested despite her obsessiveness.
Aitana noticed first, of course she did. Her eyes flicked sideways, catching the sharp and focused look on her captain’s face, which caused her to immediately look back at the screen with renewed interest, as if La Reina’s attention itself confirmed the importance of what they were seeing.
The analyst zoomed in on the footwork and body language.
Tight, uncomfortable.
They could all see it now, #28 is not reacting to Katoto at all. She is reacting to her next step, to her next pass. The one Marie mistakenly thinks she has time to make, arriving late.
The exact definition of momentum in football.
Because, after all, the hesitation is the goal. Not the tackle, not the interception, but the delay. And in that delay, everything else collapses.
There was no no wounded pride because of something that was done, something she wouldn’t have done, in Alexia’s interest. All she had inside her at this moment was recognition. Recognition of a good player who was capable to think and scan before deciding to act.
Not flair, not even athleticism that caused that look from the football’s best, but a recognition of one footballer playing at the highest level seeing another mind operate at a level that forced out inexcusable respect.
This was uglier than all those clips you can see on social media, dribbles, stepovers and all others. This was way uglier. Harder to explain when you are watching it on the screen and probably harder to survive. A player like that seems exhausting, probably is exhausting.
The worst of all was that she was young.
Alexia could tell.
“Don’t allow #28 to turn,” Irene Paredes announces absentmindedly, running her hand through her hair.
Right, because why would you let such an undefined player do that in the first place?
Jonatan didn’t say anything at first, but everyone in the room could see the glint of satisfaction on his face as they went back into the normal tempo and continued watching the game.
He recognised the movement, not refined and neither was it polished. As the analyst pulled up the squad list, it was quite frankly obvious what problem they were facing.
A few more moments played, but no replays. It seems like something has definitely stuck in everyone’s heads and that’s why everyone avoided speaking up.
The most dangerous thought gets passed around the room, uninvited.
What does she look like when she learns control?
Expressions tightened, not with concern, but with understanding.
“She doesn’t defend,” Jonatan says finally, as if he has discovered something he didn’t think of before. His words came out slow and thoughtful. “She just runs out of shape.”
Vicky scoffs, the sound coming out rough and a little too loud for the room.
A couple of curious heads turn her way, just teammates adjusting attention.
Nothing about Vicky Lopez ever really asks for attention. Despite being energetic on pitch, which is usual for players her age, she isn’t always quick to highlight particular players in scouting clips and she definitely isn’t quick with praise. The room shifted in the kind of way teammates do when someone who usually keeps their thoughts to themselves suddenly reacts.
If anything, she has the arrogance of young Spanish midfielders, the kind that assumes most opponents are problems to solve, not people to admire.
Salma, slouched sideways in her chair two rows over, tilts her head with a grin on her face already forming.
“¿Qué?” she asks. “¿Y tú desde cuándo te emocionas por rivales?”
A few small laughs broke through the room, as Vicky leaned back in her chair, rolling one shoulder in a shrug.
“No es eso,” she mutters, eyes still attached to the screen. Irritation gets it out of her, so she continues, “Just saying that she is fucking annoying to play against.”
“Niña, ¿qué quieres decir con eso?” Mapi asks, voice curious.
Vicky watches the replay loop again of another play. Lyon concedes at the end of the first half. Lopez knew that this was bad and had its own value, despite also knowing the score the game ended with, which suddenly started to feel like a personal inconvenience to her.
Her jaw shifts once.
“Pues da rabia,” she says, scratching the back of her neck, maintaining her tone flat and certain despite her body language. “She plays like she’s angry at everyone.”
A few snorts go down, a quiet laugh from Ona into her hand, but Vicky doesn’t smile.
She lifts her hand and points at the screen instead.
#28 again, just before the sound of the whistle for halftime goes off.
Positioned wrong, out of shape. At least it seems wrong if you don’t understand what she’s doing. Alexia, who has kept quiet for the last ten minutes, finally shifts again.
“No parece formar parte del sistema,” Alexia says, her voice low and measured as she looks around the room. Her gaze finds the screen, then Jonatan, the screen again and finally, Vicky.
“Twenty-eight understands the system and that’s enough,” her voice comes calm, leaning forward slightly, reframing everything: not talent, not intensity and not even aggression. This is something closer to the interference with intention.
“Se llama Noé,” Vicky spits out, like it matters right now. Like it matters because suddenly calling somebody their shirt number becomes a crime, so now she is play-pretending a hero and correcting the insult.
As if nobody noticed.
But the problem is, that they actually didn’t. They only paid attention to #28. Whoever was hiding behind that number wasn’t something that mattered, because she was just a clip, a tactical note. Now, on the other hand, she was specific. Someone to all those in the room, whether they wanted to admit it or not.
Everyone in the room played against players who are different.
Players with pace, players with technique, players with flair. Players who are used to breaking games open.
Alexia’s eyes flicked sideways again, briefly shifting in her seat to face towards Vicky. She notices the way the midfielder says it, not casually and not mockingly at all, she says it the way it matters. If it matters, it means players earned them.
Mapi exhales through her nose.
“That serious?” she murmurs, sitting back.
“No.” Vicky answers almost instantly, then corrects herself, quieter this time, “Sí.”
“Eh, well, Lyon has a few like that,” Mapi leads on, still studying the screen, because they probably do. Maybe. Just maybe. The key thing is if they choose to play them or not, as they chose to play her.
“No. No son como ella,” Vicky immediately replied with no hesitation, as if it costs her absolutely nothing to admit.
A less comfortable silence followed on. Longer.
The screen lit up with her highlights from the second half.
No more half-attention and no more aimless conversations. She was worth the study now, worth having European Champions sit in silence and watch her move, because they finally understood what they were looking at.
“Ostia,” Aitana murmurs, “Míra a la cabrona, she’s already moving before Martens even turns.”
Lucy Bronze folds her arms tighter, eyes narrowing on the screen in front of her, “That’s disgusting.”
Mapi furrows her brows, having the curiosity of a defender.
“Niña, what if she guesses wrong?” she asks, practical and immediate. If a player abandons the team’s shape that often, that aggressively, then she will eventually have to get punished for it. That’s the reality of football. These are players that those systems are built to expose.
Vicky’s certainty gives out a sense of tired honesty, “She usually doesn’t. I’ve been there. I had to deal with playing against her.” No exaggeration whatsoever, followed by thinking silence, which was gradually consuming the room more and more each time they stopped talking.
The clips resume. It looks normal. Everyone wants it to look normal, but now that they have paid attention to it, each one of them can see it. One hesitation forces PSG to take one more heavy touch, one wrong angle ruins the next pass. This game is imperfectly perfect and there’s a person standing behind each and every fracture of it.
No beautiful final-third performance, just disruption, recoveries, angles, pressing traps.
Jonatan folded his arms tighter across his chest in delight. There is something unmistakably pleased in his expression now. Not because he enjoys what he’s seeing, but because this exact moment is the reason they are here.
Not to mourn Chelsea.
Not to sit in defeat.
To identify the next problem that will become theirs in no time.
The second goal from Paris came quickly. Katoto is a measured forward and despite being outplayed in the midfield, they always had set-pieces, where the opposing team could not hold onto her.
Just after that, something worth attention came again.
“Again,” Jonatan said, indicating for another rewind to be played.
Putellas watched carefully, because for once again, it is the placing and the onfield intelligence that mattered. Tiny body feints, just enough for people to look at her when she has already gone.
“How is she managing to bait them so well, knowing that she is still losing?” Patri said quietly, clearly not as engaged as the others, not enough to start noticing that the systematic Lyon-ball did not correspond to how Noé moved on the pitch. Too hesitant, too passive.
“Paga atención, for once in your life, vamos ya.” Jonatan flicked a frustrated look at Guijarro.
The analyst froze the frame. Noé stood three steps outside the conventional structure. To an untrained eye, wrong. To this room, calculated.
“Es que, she gives them space, knowing she really isn’t,” Irene says, leaning forward, her voice more reassured than it was before. “She wants them to believe the pass is open.”
Aitana lets out a low whistle.
“Qué asco.”
Lucy shook her head slowly.
“That’s how midfielder defending should work,” she muttered. “That twat is showing them what horrible midfielder defending is.”
“No. Peor. That’s psycho defending.” Mapi gave a dry snort, with a few tired laughs following her, but they were way quieter now.
Alexia’s jaw tightens at another moment. One wrong touch here, one delayed pass here and suddenly, the entire Paris-Saint-Germain’s move died before any danger could be created.
“Jesus,” Patri muttered. “She’s not even going for the ball.”
That drew a glance from Jonatan, as he nodded once, pleased.
“Now you understand.”
The next clip begins, where PSG cycle possession through the middle of the pitch, simple and safe.
Doesn’t help much when Noé abandons her lane before the ball gets through, making Mapi react instantly, finger already stabbing toward the screen.
“There,” she says, voice clipped. “She’s out of play if they bounce it.”
On paper she’s absolutely right. At the highest level of all, that’s what they should do: one touch around the corner and send it through the defence line, just as Noé frees up space for them to do so. The problem is, the bounce never comes.
Noé shows the space to the opponent for too long, just long enough to make her believe in it when she lifts her head. By the time she does her first touch, the passing lane is no longer there and her second touch is heavier than she intended. Mertens, there she goes.
“No me jodas,” Mapi mutters as her hand slowly lowers.
Jonatan says nothing, because there is a difference between acknowledging someone from another team and openly praising them in front of your own players. He understands that the player they have uncovered is in complete control.
A sigh cuts through.
“I told you,” mutters Vicky, folding her arms tighter. She doesn’t hint at any smugness about everyone catching up to her thoughts, probably thankful they got to her point.
This was the inevitable conclusion.
“How old is she?” Patri asks, her voice soft, almost careful not to break whatever has settled over the room.
“Nineteen,” Vicky answers, but it felt like dropping a weight, shifting the room.
Of course she is, because where else could Vicky have played against her otherwise if she were not young?
Aitana’s whole upper body turns in her chair so fast her knee knocks lightly into Alexia’s again, “¿Diecinueve?”
“No chance,” Cata blurts out, eyebrows shooting upward, the disbelief immediate and obvious.
Mapi’s skepticism gets drained out immediately, but Vicky remains indifferent, offering the room a small shrug after she dropped a bomb. Players who do this at nineteen are something else entirely, dangerous and vigorous. Something you can’t deal with, even if you have spent years at the highest level of the game. Arrogant and instinctive.
The air thickens in the room and Alexia interlocks her fingers slowly, then cracks her knuckles one by one, a quiet habit. Her eyes never leave the screen, not once. The shift in her jaw adds to the uneasy tension and the distant look does not make it any better.
Nineteen.
That number keeps repeating in her head.
That means that she should still be rough and obvious, making mistakes young players always make when their instinct overtakes discipline, but she isn’t seeing enough of them. All she sees is a girl who simply looked gifted, as if she didn’t need to put in work in order to get here.
Physical explosiveness can be developed.
Confidence can grow onto someone.
But this kind of timing and the ability to understand where the ball will be before it is there.
That was the sort of thing players either had or they didn’t.
Alexia’s thumb brushes once against her lower lip, absent-minded and not enough to make her present.
What does she become after?
The frightening part is not what the player is now, but what she might become, the thought alone making the captain’s eyes narrow a fraction, as interest became something heavier. Heavier enough to wake something competitive and instinctive in her own chest, not fear, because it is never fear, just the undeniable awareness that a few hundred kilometres away from her, there is a nineteen-year-old forcing Alexia Putellas to think about her this hard, that alone making herself worth remembering.
“Talents like this one get coaches one of two ways,” Jonatan said to the room, thinking similarly, but going in the other direction. “Either they discipline her and make her safer, systematic and lifeless in game, or they build around her.”
All of this could be ruined because of club officials.
On screen, Noé forces another rushed clearance. There it is, the clip is perfectly cut by the analyst to show her input before a throw-in, the ball bouncing off to Ellie Carpenter, who easily brushed a Parisian fullback off and launched the ball right into Diani’s left foot.
Diani lifted the ball a bit, just enough to fool the goalkeeper, as her hips rolled and slotted it into the goal.
Right there, all of those playing were considered a future opponent, a future problem and the centerpiece of it wore #28 on her back.
“Enough for today.” Jonatan exhales and nods towards the analyst.
The screen goes black.
They have known since the footage started that Lyon won.
The room shifts, someone exhales, as the room progressively gets louder having players murmur around her again, but at the same quiet enough to hear a bottle cap clicking somewhere near the back row. All of them were still shaken by the fact that there is a teenager out there who forced players of the European elite to sit in silence dissecting her every move.
Elbows staying on her knees, hands loosely clasped, Alexia stayed seated tight.
Too still and too composed, her jaw working once and stilling.
Her thumb presses slowly into the side of her right hand, enough pressure to pale the knuckle before releasing. Mapi’s eyes flick sideways towards her, but she disregards any thought appearing, as Alexia reaches for her water bottle standing beneath her chair. Her lips part slightly and she doesn’t even open it. One of her fingers taps once, then twice on the plastic.
She takes a breath, steadying something inside her before it can show on her face and sits back.
Her eyes linger on the screen a second too long, as the screen’s harsh and unforgiving glow from the beginning of the session switched to something deeper.
This is because she knows with quiet certainty.
If they survive Chelsea next week.
She wants to see for herself.
April 2024: Present Day - Groupama OL Training Centre, Lyon
By eight in the next morning in Lyon, that same problem was nineteen years old, angry at her own cleat laces and already on her third retie before anyone else had stepped onto the pitch.
The knots were already perfect, double-done.
She undoes them anyway.
Her eyebrows were drawn tightly together as she retied her left cleat. She rose and straightened, a bit tense beneath her training top which has a Lyon crest above her heart, took three steps and kneeled down again. Noé undid both of her laces this time and did them from the beginning, pulling hard enough at the end for it to hurt her fingers.
Standing up, she was not that tall to dominate, still young and slightly average on her own team, still a victim to Wendie Renard’s veteran superiority, especially when it came down height-wise. In games she would stretch into the kind of frame that made her look longer and sharper in motion, but for now she kept to herself and carried in a way that made people notice her before they meant to.
At first glance there was something unmistakably French in her face, probably the clean symmetry of it, in the warm ivory of her skin that never quite faded into paleness even through cold winters in Lyon. To somebody, it could’ve been a frenchwoman’s face, nothing distinguishable, but there was something older layered over it, harder and sharper, not letting the softness seeth through, her Basque side of the family leaving itself in the angles of her cheekbones, the refinement of her nose and the way her face usually settled into something unreadable.
By the time April had come, the rare sun darkened the bridge of her nose and tops of her cheeks, soft brown freckles peaking through, despite how little she seemed to notice.
Her hair was dark, a chestnut shade, almost black when soaked through the daily sweat, thick and unruly enough that it was uncontrollably waving itself by the time she left the training centre, fresh out of the shower too. It sat uneven on her shoulders where she cut it, dark waves bunching. Maybe one day someone would tame it, straighten and cut it properly, but not yet and not her, at least not while she still looked half-feral, not ready to let go of the last scraps of childhood.
It was the kind of face people remembered without understanding why.
Not because it was soft, but because it wasn’t.
Her eyes, brown in most lights, though never the same shade twice. On days where she was irritated, which meant for at least three days of the week, they darkened into something severe beneath her eyebrows and then, only when she was genuinely enjoying herself, rare enough to be notable, did the warm hazel peek through.
A pale scar cuts through one eyebrow, jagged and easy to notice.
Sixteen years old, blood down her temple and refusing stitches because she wanted to finish the match first.
Even now, standing alone in the dew whilst retieing perfect laces in an unnecessary tempo, with a more unnecessary force, it creased.
She looked up just in time to see Melchie Dumornay jogging out from the changing room toward her.
Melchie was happy, always moving like these mornings belonged to her.
Bright-faced, as if she found a grin to give to everyone each single time. Half-zipped in her training top, she was still adjusting one glove with her teeth, as she crossed the dew-soaked grass with an easy bounce, loose-limbed and careless, way too comfortable about it being eight in the morning.
She slowed when she reached Noé, looking down at the laces and then back at her, “What’s up?”
Noé offered a little shrug.
“They felt off,” she said, to which Dumornay sheepishly rolled her eyes.
“Did they now?,” Melchie laughed, nudging her shoulder with enough force to make her sway half a step as the others began entering the pitch.
Noé only huffed, her attention dropping back to her boots, scuffed and grass-stained after the game, fresh retied laces threaded through the blue leather dulled out from overuse.
“I think I heard someone saying that coach is planning on doing shape work today,” Melchie said, glancing toward the staff leaving the building and making their way to the pitch, “Hopefully not too much running, my legs are still sore.”
“That usually means more running anyway,” Noé said, lifting her eyes and throwing a glance, “Don’t speak it into existence.”
“True,” Melchie sighs in defeat, bending briefly to adjust the cuff of her sock before straightening again.
She folded her arms loosely and tipped her chin toward the sky.
“Nice morning, though,” the Haitian said, rocking back on her heels and pressing the toe of her cleat into the grass, making Noé glance upward.
The sky was still pale with early light, holding onto the last of the cold.
“Where?” she sarcastically asked while looking back at Melchie.
“Here. It has potential,” the girl replied with a wide grin.
“It is grey.”
“Grey can be beautiful. This,” she said, gesturing grandly toward the sky with its generally miserable weather, “is atmosphere.”
Noé stared at her for a moment, clearly unimpressed.
“Right. So about that.”
Melchie gasped theatrically, one hand flying to her chest.
“I’ll tell Christiane you said that,” she declared, pointing her finger at Noé, as if she was accusing her. “Tell her you hate her grey gloves, bet.”
“That is not remotely the same thing.”
“Close enough,” Melchie said with a dismissive flick of her wrist.
“She’ll kill you for lying.”
Dumornay’s grin widened, showing how delighted she was at the moment.
“Ha, she’ll kill you for disrespecting the gloves,” she announced triumphantly.
Noé gave a quiet snort through her nose, the corner of her mouth twitching and her gaze dropping briefly to the damp grass between them to hide her reaction.
Melchie lifted her wrist again, swirling her finger around the frenchwoman’s face, as if she was circling it.
“There,” she said, leaning in. “That was almost a smile. World be kind to this one here, she’s clearly enjoying her day.”
Noe swatted her hand away without any force.
“Shut up.”
Behind them, more of the squad entered the pitch in small groups, their voices low and jackets zipped, physios trailing behind with equipment bags. Coaches were shouting for bibs, players greeted one another with clipped nods and added to the hum of routine. Staff called out greetings to players, while someone dropped a ball bag before entering the field and swore loudly enough to make Melchie laugh.
This was the tempo, the ordinary noise of a morning that carries a lot. With it, Noé’s shoulders lifted again, only slightly, but just enough for the tension to settle back where it belonged. Because, for one moment she remembered where she was and what this was.
Her teammate chose not to notice and let it slide.
Dumornay bumped Noé’s arm once more and trotted away, already at a distance to be half-turned and shouting at the French, “Come on, before they start thinking we’ve become responsible adults.”
Noé finally cracked at that, her head dipping as she shook it, unable to hide her smile now. The tension that had clung to her after the game eased a little under the teasing, under the warmth of teammates who knew how to get under her skin and how to pull her out of her own head.
“Speak for yourself,” she quietly muttered and followed her toward the group.
By the time she reached the loose half-circle standing around the coaches, most of the squad was there. Some bounced lightly on their toes to stay warm, passive enough to be respectful and others folded their arms, tucking their chins deeper into zipped collars of the training kit, all fresh and awake.
Wendie Renard stood toward the front, like the captain she was. Tall, composed, hands resting on hips, listening with the calm patience of someone who has heard the same tactical speech a lot of times before, yet still remained unbothered. Others just stood around, letting low murmurs break the silence when Sonia Bompastor stopped talking making sure all eyes were fixed on her.
That seemed like it was all it took being a football player at such a level.
Noé took the place next to Melchie, slipping naturally into the centre of it, but somehow still being out of place.
One assistant stepped forward with his clipboard tucked under one arm, scanning the group until the low conversation finally died.
“Good,” he said. “You fought well at your home ground.”
A few nods followed, nothing more. It was pretty fair, as everyone knew that no one here celebrates first legs.
“You turned nil-two into three-two in front of your own crowd,” he continued. “You know how much that matters to our fans.”
Then his tone suddenly sharpened, as he glanced back at Sonia, who simply offered him a nod of approval.
“But if any of you think that this means the tie is finished,” he let the sentence hang, scanning his crowd once again, “You gave them two goals in the first half, because we came out and played like a bunch of trouillardes, clearly forgetting who we are.”
Here’s where the head coach decided to step-in, sighing and slightly less aggressive, “When we will come to Paris, they will be desperate and aggressive. I hope everyone understands that they have nothing to lose now.”
Noé’s jaw tightened even more without her realising.
“First twenty minutes of the next leg decide everything,” the first assistant added. “You kill the game there or you give them belief. There is no middle ground in a Champions League semi-final.”
The group shifted from neutrality into uncomfortable silence as almost one.
Noé’s eyes stayed fixed on the patch of grass ahead of Bompastor’s feet, but every word lodged under her skin anyway.
“We will talk about this more tomorrow,” the assistant said, proceeding to clap once, “Rondos first, play sharp tempo. Then shapework.”
By the time Noé had turned away and the whistle blew behind her to start off rondos, the softness the Haitian brought to the midfielder had completely disappeared from her face, not leaving a single trace.
Players peeled off into their assigned groups, balanced for it to be fair, but loose enough for it to be considered a habit, jogging toward cone-marked squares. Bibs were tossed from hand to hand, while Selma complained immediately about being put in the middle before the drill even started. Cascarino answered with a laugh and told her to move quicker.
Noé said nothing, just quickly stepped into the grid with others and took her place along the outside, while coaches chose who was starting inside.
“Loser of first touch goes in,” Selma Bacha muttered, “All of you better be bad at this, because I am not staying inside for too long.”
“Convenient of you to say this when you’ve obviously got the worst touch here,” Majri replied with intentional sarcasm, letting out a laugh, “Why would you get back out to get back in the next minute?”
A few snorts circled the group.
Melchie, standing a few places to Noé’s right, turned her head just enough to grin at her. “Fifty euros says you end up there within thirty seconds.”
“You wouldn’t give me fifty,” Noé snapped back, not looking at her, following the ball with her eyes.
“Wow, are you calling me broke?” Dumornay placed a hand dramatically over her chest.
“No,” Noé said flatly, finally glancing back at her, “You will complain about it for three weeks after, so don’t even bother offering.”
That earned a laugh from the group just as the first ball was in the square.
The rondo began with the usual ease of elite players getting into rhythm, one touch first, the ball moving around the outside with the effortless, technical quality that made even simple drills look polished. Inside, outside of the cleat, passes with minimum effort, while Selma was chasing the ball with her body rather than her feet. Weight shifted lightly over the damp grass.
For a few seconds, it felt casual.
Selma dived in the middle of the rondo and missed the ball enough to make Diani bark a laugh, “Are you a defender or what?”
“Shut up and pass properly, I cannot do this,” Bacha shouted, shaking her hands in frustration, already rolling her hips into the direction of the ball.
Another exchange. Then another.
Noé stayed quiet, body loose only in appearance, already moving half-steps before the ball reached her, adjusting angles and tracking her teammates patterns, opening up accordingly. Her first touch came clean and her return pass was sharper than necessary. Her shoulders drifted forward, eyes not on the player with the ball but on the one after.
Bacha overcommitted.
The ball was played back to Noé under pressure, as her touch stuck to the ball and Selma saw the opportunity to stab a toe in and knock it loose.
“There!” Selma shouted triumphantly, pointing at her. “Inside, merci beaucoup.”
That gained a laugh from Wendie, who stood with the kind of amused calm only veterans ever seemed to have in training.
Noé clicked her tongue against her teeth and stepped into the middle without arguing, simply throwing a glance at Melchie, whose grin had already widened with pure mischief.
“Thirty seconds,” Melchie muttered through her teeth. “I should start charging for predictions.”
The French ignored her.
The atmosphere tensed, as she lowered her centre of gravity, bending her knees and bringing her calves back, dropping her weight into the lower part of her legs and angling her shoulders. This allowed her to read the players’ body shape instead of the ball. She tracked hips, planting feet and the movement of shoulders, primarily the decisions before decisions.
The next pass moved around quickly, faster and rushed than before, settling in Amel Majri’s feet.
Noé closed off a possible outlet for a pass before Majri could even lift her head, stepping across the passing lane with enough speed to force her back onto her weaker foot.
She played it late and square toward young Ouazar, still inexperienced enough to hesitate under pressure, taking an extra touch where it was not necessary and it was enough for the midfielder to stab a cleat through the passing lane and nick the ball, sending it loose towards the far cone.
“Merde,” Cascarino let out with a laugh as Ouazar groaned and dragged both her hands down her face before jogging into the middle, already muttering under her breath about unfair matchups.
Noé stepped back into the outside of the square without reacting, chest heaving because of movement, expression unchanged.
“Move it quicker,” she said flatly, brushing invisible dew from the side of her shorts.
Ambre shot her a glare over her shoulder.
“You know, sometimes I believe that you might have been made in a lab specifically to ruin people’s mornings,” Selma muttered.
That got a round of low laughter.
Play restarted with Ouazar in the middle, as the rondo softened again almost immediately. Not in quality, because world-class players and champions were still moving the ball at a quick tempo, but in feeling. The panic left it, edges rounded as Ambre’s pressing was lighter. Someone could hold the ball half a beat longer than they usually would because now they could.
Then Noé lost it again, as Cascarino sold a disguise and passed the ball into her weaker foot, making her touch pop half a meter too far from Noé’s body. The mistake was small by ordinary players, but fatal by theirs.
Ambre lunged at the ball, putting her toe on it.
“Yes!” the younger midfielder shouted, spinning and jogging over to nudge Noé like she had won a duel she intended to remember for weeks. “Back in. Back in.”
That earned a louder laugh, specifically from Melchie.
The French exhaled once through her nose, sharp and controlled before stepping back into the square. Suddenly, the joking thinned and disappeared.
The first pass was into Diani’s feet, first touch and out to Majri, who swiveled and released the ball to Selma.
Noé launched before Majri’s foot even made contact, but her cleat was there a bit too late, missing the intended interception.
“Jesus Christ,” Selma muttered, forced into a one-touch pass she had not wanted.
The square sped up and everyone felt it, as touches got shorter and the tempo climbed. Diani checked toward the ball and received on the half-turn, Noé following her.
The forward, seeing the pressure, flicked the ball around the corner with the outside of her boot.
Noé changed direction with such violence that her studs ripped a dark strip through the grass, getting there half a second after the ball and all that momentum had nowhere to go but through Selma.
The collision cracked louder than it should have.
Shoulder into ribs first.
Then thigh through calf as her trailing leg clipped Bacha’s plant leg.
“Putain, Noé!” Renard shouted, watching Selma stumble violently sideways out of the square, her arms flinging wide to catch balance before she hit the ground.
The ball rolled free, nobody chasing it.
Selma turned immediately, one hand on her side, the other rubbing at the outside of her leg, “What the fuck is wrong with you this morning?”
Noé stood there where the impact had left her, on her feet, but with her chest rising and falling harder now, fixing one of the loose strands of dark hair that had fallen into her face with her hand.
“She was slow,” she said.
The response kept the square quiet.
Cascarino barked out a disbelieving laugh, while Selma stared at Noé.
“We are doing rondos, imbécile,” she husked, still rubbing her leg.
A whistle shrieked across the pitch before anything else could be said, sounding sharp enough that it had sliced through the entire training ground.
The assistant coach was already striding toward them, his pace quick and furious enough that players in the neighboring grids stopped mid-drill and turned heads.
“Noé!” he stopped directly in front of her, too close, making her lift her chin slightly to meet his eyes, “What did I tell you?”
A tendon in her neck stood out faintly beneath flushed skin.
“She had the ball,” she said unapologetically.
“And she is your teammate.”
His voice cracked across the field with enough force that Selma visibly flinched beside them, instantly wishing she hadn’t said anything to Noé and just let it go.
“This is not a fucking final. It is training,” he glared at all of them at once, before looking back at the French.
Noé’s nostrils flared, fingers flexing open and shut at her side, once, twice, but she said nothing.
“Look, if you cannot control yourself in a rondo,” he said, quieter now, which made it even worse, “how exactly are we meant to trust you in Paris?”
Hitting differently, unlike all the shouting and the criticism, this hit her way harder, as the words seemed beneath her ribs and stayed there. Her stomach tightened so abruptly, almost as if she had been winded, instantly feeling as if she might throw up right at his feet. Heat rushed up her neck, flushing into her ears, climbing beneath the collar of her training top. Her jaw locked hard enough to ache, pressing together until the muscle there jumped visibly beneath her skin, allowing her breathing to stop for just a second.
The square had gone still, because they knew that no matter what, that’s not something you say to a teenager who has recently finished high school.
Selma’s irritation vanished first, complete this time, as discomfort overtook it so quickly she looked down at the grass once she stood up instead of at either of them. Ouazar’s slack posture straightened and even Dumornay, who had been smirking and messing around seconds ago, went quiet.
They all heard him from the first time, because this was not even about calming her down and watching her tackles, but about the club’s trust and selection. The thing hanging over every training session this season, spoken aloud or not.
Noé’s fingers curled inward against her palms, digging in tightly into her skin. Her throat worked around a swallow she barely forced down, but her face still didn’t expose any emotion, same severe neutrality.
The redness high in her cheeks is probably the thing that betrayed her this time.
“Learn the difference between aggression and stupidity, because either one of those means both at the same time when it comes to you,” the assistant said, his eyes dragging over her posture, as her shoulders circled in defensively.
She looked directly ahead, trying to act like it did not matter even if it did, far more than she would ever let him know. The next inhale came slow and measured through her nose, controlled so carefully it might have seemed painful from the side.
“Yes, coach,” the words left her mouth quick and clipped flat, toneless.
He held her stare a second longer, stepped back and jerked his chin behind her, toward the square.
“Again.”
The ball rolled back in, but nobody spoke anymore. No jokes, no laughter, only the sound of boots over grass and the thud of passing as the ball hit the cleat.
Noé dropped back into the middle and did exactly what she had been told, less contact. Selma avoided her eyes as she was back on the outside, rubbing absent circles on the side of her calf from time to time.
Every movement seemed deliberate, as the young midfielder stopped pressing reckless and wild. Controlled to the inch, she never lunged at the ball, just forced rushed passes with angles and timing in a tempo that was comfortable for her. Diani attempted to bounce one around the corner again and Noé’s foot found the ball, toeing it away.
The whistle sounded once again from across the pitch, sharp and long, nearly everyone exhaling at once. The drill dissolved immediately with players jogging toward the larger setup at midfield where cones and mannequins have already been laid out.
Noé moved with the rest, expression blank, but her pulse still hammered stupidly somewhere down her throat.
As she passed the mannequins, a hand caught briefly at the back of her sleeve.
Renard leaned slightly closer as they walked, not looking at Noé, her voice low enough, “Do not let him affect you.”
Just a veteran’s warning before she moved ahead toward the front, long strides were easy and composed, leaving Noé half a step behind her.
The words should have steadied her.
Instead they settled somewhere deep and followed her until the setup, almost reaching the assistant’s assault, because hearing it from the captain meant it was visible now, obvious enough that even the most composed player in the squad noticed the way she was unraveling.
Cones and mannequins were already across midfield, marking channels, recreating PSG’s press, spare balls lined up to immediately restart. This was a kind of a tactical repetition that Lyon had done a thousand times, movement and shape drilled in until it became their identity. Bompastor assigned positions with ease, while the players around her adjusted bibs and socks, rolling shorts up in concentration. Noé moved inside where she had been placed.
As the whistle sounded once again, play had begun from the back. Endler, Renard exchanging passes while others opened up. Wendie sent it through to Carpenter, who flicked the ball inside to Noé.
The ball arrived at her feet and instinct took over almost immediately, reaching her head before instruction. She received it half-turning on her weak foot, slipped her shoulder and drifted away wider from the shape to create her own angle. It opened the field immediately, with Diani seeing it, giving her an opportunity to curve the run to match, letting Noé split the line with a through ball, threading perfectly into stride.
Left-footed shot, finish.
Clean.
The whistle blew before the ball even settled.
“Reset,” Sonia Bompastor stepped forward and pointed sharply to the patch of grass the midfielder had vacated. “Where were you told to receive?”
“Midfield,” Noé said, glancing at the cone.
“And where did you go?”
Noé did not answer.
“You are not here to freelance, trust the pattern,” Sonia said before adding another question. “Why do you move towards the wing?”
The girl nodded once frustrated, because that was not the kind of question she could have replied, and jogged back.
This time she stayed in midfield longer, lingering before receiving where she was instructed, but the spacing ahead of her was awkwardly closed by Van de Donk. Rather than turn around and move the ball backward, she dropped her shoulder and improvised, playing a wall with Heaps, slipping a vertical ball through a gap that technically should not have existed.
Again, the sequence worked and as it was expected, the whistle came.
“What are we doing?” now, the assistant was the one letting out a breath through his nose.
“Tactical progression,” Noé answered.
“Exactly. Tactical progression. This is not an improvisation hour,” he snapped back.
A few of the players lowered their eyes toward the grass.
Again.
She obeyed more precisely on the next repetition and held her starting position, taking a safe touch.
“Too static,” the correction came immediately from the sideline. “Move earlier.”
Noé bit down on the inside of her cheek, now she moved earlier.
Again.
The whistle went again.
“Too early,” the assistant snapped, clear frustration threading through his voice. “Wait.”
She nodded once.
Again.
The next sequence began, she drifted higher on instinct, trying to create the moment herself before the pattern numbed her completely.
This time, the whistle shrieked across the pitch, louder and longer. As if it was no longer correcting, but punishing her.
Bompastor strode toward her before the play had even fully stopped, irritation plain in every part of her body while asking, “Do you understand the purpose of this drill?”
“Yes,” Noé replied, trying to carefully maintain her voice neutral.
The coach threw one arm out toward the pattern around them, gesturing at the cones, mannequins and everything around, where they had been running about.
“We build these patterns for a reason,” she said, words clipped with mounting impatience. “We are not asking what you would like to do at the moment. We are teaching the team what we should do and you are no exception.”
Noé stood perfectly still while she spoke, though every part of her body looked like it was wound way too tightly beneath the composed stillness.
“You keep solving the problem your way,” Sonia continued, holding her gaze, “and you look surprised when we stop you.”
Noé’s throat worked around a swallow she barely managed.
“I know you can solve problems,” her tone shifted into something colder, more pointed, which somehow kept making this conversation worse than shouting. “That is not the point. The point is whether you can solve them inside our structure.”
The words settled heavily beneath her ribs.
That was the thing they never said directly until moments like this, always coming out of nowhere, without any prior warning.
“You are here to learn Lyon’s shape,” Sonia ended her speech, each word deliberate. “Not dictate your own.”
That was the accusation beneath all of it, wasn’t it?
The drill restarted, the anger of the midfielder fading away, composure coming back as she held the intended line and played the pattern. Received, set, moved, rotated only when instructed.
Cleaner and duller.
Gives off the feeling of trying to breathe with someone holding a hand around her ribs.
Players usually trusted whoever made the game easier and despite all the tension wrapped around her, held in that one hand, despite the shouting and corrections, the veterans still kept choosing her. That mattered more than she wanted it to.
Another sequence.
The ball moved through the entire shape untouched, one-touch only slicing in between mannequins before Carpenter drove the final cutback across goal for Cascarino to finish first time into the net.
No interruption this time, only silence from the sideline.
Selma nudged Noé’s shoulder as they jogged back, still rubbing faintly at the side of her rib from the collision earlier.
“You are a psychopath,” she muttered, though the irritation had mostly drained out of her voice by now. “But what they were saying was disgusting.”
Noé only gave a small shrug, trying not to show how badly she needed the air in her lungs, hot and dry as the burn gradually settled in. A loose strand of dark hair clung damply against her cheek before she pushed it back behind her ear, offering Bacha a smile, which almost looked sympathetic.
Further ahead, Wendie caught the midfielder’s eye briefly, pointing two fingers toward the group beside her, indicating her to stay there. Same position next time.
A captain’s trust.
Simple as that.
Then the assistant finally gave a single nod from the sideline, “Better.”
So they went again.
And again.
By the time the final whistle cut across the training ground in Lyon, players bent forward with hands on knees, tugging at the collars of their training kits which were sticking to damp skin. Dumornay rolled the ball in her possession towards the equipment bags without looking and earned an irritated shout from one of the assistants collecting cones nearby.
Noé stood where she stopped for a second longer, her chest rising steadily.
Her thighs felt heavy now that the adrenaline was no longer carrying them and every small ache from the session began surfacing, every step pulling faintly at the fronts of her thighs. There would be bruises across her shins later. She already knew without looking.
Around her, the squad dissolved back into familiarity.
“If they put me into an ice bath today I might retire,” Selma dragged out a groan, somewhere in front of her, dramatic and exhausted, which immediately earned a laugh from Diani beside her.
“Twenty-three and retiring, mind you, she says that every week,” Kadidiatou shot back, playfully nudging Le Sommer, who was jogging right past them.
“Wesh,” Bacha switched her tone up a notch, trying to sound offended, “This is harassment against my will. I have a right to have feelings on this topic.”
Loose laughter was cutting through the fatigue as they walked off the pitch, those who still had their cleats scraped them as soon as they touched concrete.
Further ahead, Wendie was already speaking with staff, calm and composed in the effortless way veterans always seemed to be after training, posture still perfect despite two hours on the pitch. One assistant spoke with animated hands beside her while she listened with an occasional and unreadable nod.
The French stayed behind the main cluster, peeling from the back of the group along some other teammates, one hand holding her cleats at her side. Her training top has already darkened with sweat beneath the crest, her chestnut hair stuck against her temples and curling from the moisture.
The indoor warmth hit her immediately once the doors opened.
Voices echoed differently inside the building, bouncing off tiled walls, softer as the fatigue continued settling through the squad. Alice Sombath dropped tape onto a bench. Damaris complained about who had stolen her shampoo again, as if this has been an ongoing thing. Music played faintly in the changing room, half drowned out by conversations and the hiss of running showers across the corridor.
Noé reached her locker, shoulders slightly rounded.
#28 displayed clearly in front of her.
She pulled the damp, white Lyon top over her head in one motion, letting the cool air hit the skin.
Up close, training always left visible evidence on her and she was proud of it, as it was an equal evidence to her effort. Redness marked the tops of her shoulder where fabric and contact rubbed raw throughout today’s session. One shin already began to show darker bruising, just below grass stains along the outside of her knee where she had slid in a tackle.
The lighting in the changing room sharpened every aspect, making the shoulders more defined, the lean build shaped entirely by consistency and determination in the weight room. Lines of her abdomen shifted whenever she moved, visible beneath the damp skin, tensing when she bent to untape her ankle, slowly peeling off the adhesive in between hisses.
There was nothing polished about her physically once she played football.
She changed into loose grey shorts, softer and dry, sports bra still on, standing in slides instead of her shoes, briefly shoving them into her locker.
Across the room, conversations continued, blending into locker doors being slammed shut and as soon as Noé walked over toward the bench in the middle of the room to grab a towel, complaints started filing in.
Majri walked past carrying her cleats by their laces and immediately grimaced towards the speaker standing on the table across the room, “Whoever keeps putting this playlist on should be arrested.”
“It’s Cascarino,” Becho answered from beside her locker while digging around for her slides.
“Didn’t think it could get anyworse,” Majri groaned.
Cascarino glanced over from two lockers down, while adjusting her socks, visibly offended.
“You people have no culture.”
“This sounds like something you would hear in a nightclub on twelve different beats,” van de Donk joined into the conversation.
“I don’t know about you,” Delphine defended herself, pointing around the room, “but we are French and this is French rap”
“Well, French rap clearly seems close enough to be qualified as auditory violence,” Daniëlle replied.
“That’s rich coming from someone who listens to techno voluntarily.”
Noé snorted quietly under her breath while dragging the towel over the back of her neck. She leaned one shoulder against the lockers beside her, listening to the conversation, clearly siding with Cascarino on this one, committing to her nationality.
“Oh, and you,” she pointed toward Noé now, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, “You don’t have a say in this. You laughed.”
“Not at you.”
“You literally did,” Delphine sighed, shaking her head, “Negative person, negative energy.”
“I’m literally French.”
“Oui,” Selma, halfway through changing out of her training shorts beside her locker, looked up immediately, one eyebrow lifting in amusement, “We noticed.”
Noé’s eyes flicked toward her leaning back against the open locker, Selma’s arms folding loosely across her stomach when she looked at her with that same irritating half-smirk she always wore when she was being annoying on purpose.
“Seriously,” she continued, gaze dragging over the French briefly, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so angry while standing still.”
Noé adjusted the towel once again, grabbing one of its corners with her hand and pulling it over her shoulder slowly before answering, “Bacha, get over that tackle—”
“My music won us the Champions League,” Cascarino announced over the top of them, entirely committed to defending herself. “And, it’s going to win us another one this year.”
“That was not because of the playlist,” Renard remarked dryly while speaking to one of the physios.
“You don’t know that.”
Van de Donk laughed loud enough to double over while Dumornay walked past again carrying two protein shakes, taking one look around before shaking her head.
“And you call me unserious. This team genuinely loses brain cells after training.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cascarino replied instantly.
“I am,” Melchie replied easily. “I spend too much time around you.”
The French midfielder let the noise exist around her without really stepping into it again.
She walked back over to her locker, shoving the last of her training gear deeper, while her phone sat loose in one hand.
The room had thinned out by the time she was ready to go. Some stayed behind, but most of the team headed toward the gym for post-training lifts, others towards treatment rooms or individual meetings with club analysts before having lunch. Distant laughter and the rustling of fabric quickly faded down the corridor, doors opening and shutting every few minutes.
A full ninety minutes a few nights earlier meant recovery had not been optional for her today, no matter how much she would have preferred working till failure over sitting still.
The corridor down to the recovery room was quieter than the changing room, evidently colder when you progress towards the room with the ice baths. Strolling through it, Noé noticed Diani through a half-open door, sitting sideways on one of the massage tables with one leg stretched out while a physio started working along her calf, scrolling through something on her phone while absentmindedly arguing with Cascarino from across the room about a finish during today’s shapework.
Cascarino herself had compression boots strapped on both legs, sunk deep into a chair with her head tilted back, shooting glances at Diani from time to time and trying to make the physio laugh on purpose. Van de Donk, Becho, Heaps, Bathy, they were all there, either receiving or waiting for treatment.
Wendie Renard had been there too, though only briefly, walking out of the room as soon as Noé walked by, offering her a slight nod and pointing toward the ice baths.
Noé crossed paths with her just outside the main recovery area, the captain stepping back into the corridor with the sleeves of her training top pushed up her forearms, shaker bottle hanging loosely from one hand while she spoke quietly into her phone. Even after the session she still looked composed in that irritatingly effortless veteran way, posture straight, breathing steady, barely appearing affected by two hours of work.
Her eyes flicked toward Noé for a second.
A small nod.
Then two fingers pointed briefly toward the ice baths farther down the corridor before she continued walking without interrupting her conversation.
By the time Noé finally pushed through the recovery-room doors herself, most of the players who had not played heavy minutes were already beginning to filter back out toward the gym upstairs, leaving behind only the ones whose legs still carried the match in them.
She lowered herself into the bath slowly, the cold hitting her shins violently, going up her calves, her knees, her thighs. When the water reached her hips, every muscle in her core tightened hard enough to ache. She exhaled sharply through her nose, as the freezing water closed around her legs, and leaned her head back, forcing herself deeper another inch until the water settled just beneath her ribs.
Her body looked and felt harsher under the recovery-room lighting, surrounded by the sharp smell of disinfectant and chlorine, the uncomfortable feeling of coldness settling deeper the longer she stayed still. Recovery rooms always became quieter once the complaining stopped, settling into smaller noises like the whir of machinery and physios speaking low one to another, occasionally interrupted by splashes whenever somebody shifted.
Noé’s phone was still balanced loosely in one hand.
The screen lights up with a notification:
VICKY: everyone was watching, you were insane
The same person who had just appeared on her screen wasn’t a teammate and neither was she someone from Lyon’s staff.
Someone who existed in a different league, at a different rhythm, yet both of them coexisted on the higher stage.
In Noé’s contacts she was simply saved as Vicky, stripped of everything except familiarity, though anyone who follows in women’s football knows her as one of Barcelona’s most watched midfielders, someone who is considered to be a promising prospect. A player whose reputation was already expanding far beyond her age, but for Noé, that public version never existed, remaining something simpler, more annoying in a way that felt strangely grounding to both of them, appearing in each other's lives with a blunt timing and never being able to avoid each other to begin with.
Once again, for the French— it was just Vicky. The same one who would argue with her after matches, pictures from Barcelona’s training ground and make people around her smile.
The ice shifted faintly around her thighs as Noé adjusted herself in the bath, but her attention stayed on the screen, the message sitting there on preview, Lopez not aware of the fact that Noé was currently trying her best to ignore her.
The screen remained lit in her hand and she eventually gave in, typing:
NOÉ: we were lucky
She debated if she believed in her own words, but it seemed better to leave it like that.
The answer came back almost immediately:
VICKY: no
VICKY: it’s you
VICKY: you were everywhere
Noé read it once, then her jaw tightened slightly as she read the messages again, slower this time, hoping that repetition would change what the Spanish midfielder wanted it to mean.
She looked away from the screen briefly, eyes settling on the opposite wall, then flicking sideways to Cascarino arguing with one of the physios and back onto her phone.
NOÉ: we conceded two
VICKY: came back and still won
NOÉ: doesn’t matter
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Then returned again.
VICKY: it does to people who watched
VICKY: aitana was shocked when i said you are nineteen
VICKY: girl when i tell you she said she wished to be a few years younger after seeing you
The message was delivered, a second later read by Noé.
Her thumb hovered above the touchboard before she lowered it slightly, letting her hand rest against the edge of the icebath while her eyes stayed fixed on the screen, maybe not on the sentence, but surely on the name.
Aitana.
She barely took in the rest.
Just the name.
She had grown up watching her.
Everybody had.
Growing up, players like Aitana had existed on television screens and short highlight reels, never seeming real. She belonged to Champions League nights, international tournaments, award ceremonies, especially after winning her first Ballon D’Or. One of the people you watched. People who occupied the football stage, rather than shared it with others.
Even though she completely acknowledged the fact that she herself has grown to be a part of an eight-time European champions’ side, some players still existed so high above her reality that they stopped feeling entirely real.
Apparently one of them had opinions.
Apparently those opinions somehow involved her.
Okay.
Somewhere in Barcelona, people she respected had apparently spent a part of their day talking about her match.
Somewhere along the way the distance had become smaller.
It sounded ridiculous.
The thought sat awkwardly in her chest.
She came to a realization that she had spent so much of this season focused on surviving the next training, which transitioned into a collection of evaluations and every mistake being another piece of evidence, the next opportunity to prove that she belonged in the first team that she had never really considered who might be watching from outside of Lyon. She had spent most of the season feeling observed by coaches, measured by staff and corrected by people whose approval always seemed out of reach.
Being watched from inside Lyon was normal and expected.
On the other hand, being watched from outside of it felt stranger.
Her thumb brushed the screen.
Across the room, one of the physios was explaining recovery protocols to a player who had just had her first training with the first team, fresh out of the academy, where the expectations were softer and the words weren’t so loud. Cascarino laughed loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Eventually she tipped her head back just before a new notification appeared.
VICKY: one of the analysts said something funny when we came out
Okay, that at least had felt easier to look at and to reply to.
NOÉ: ???
VICKY: u seem like u played darts before going into football
NOÉ: god what the hell are you on about
Another message followed up just before Noé had time to overthink the message and interpret it as hidden criticism.
VICKY: cause u just know where to be and where to put your legs
The corner of her mouth twitched despite herself, watching the third message arrive in seconds.
VICKY: i didn’t find this funny btw..
Oh?
VICKY: i still think u are annoying because that’s true
NOÉ: that’s not a compliment
VICKY: vicky lopez says it is
NOÉ: as far as i know, vicky lopez is insane
The typing bubble appeared almost instantly, no offence taken.
VICKY: u still know that’s true
VICKY: it’s cause u look like that when u lose the ball
Like what?
This time Noé rolled her eyes, which probably meant Vicky was succeeding. She could picture her expression already, smug and proud. Her thumb hovered before she decided not to answer, instead scrolling back up to reread the comments the Spanish midfielder had mentioned.
The longer she looked at it, indeed, the stranger it felt.
Aitana had watched, analysts had watched, did the whole team watch?
The thought continued settling somewhere uncomfortable deep down her chest.
For a moment Noé just stared, then frowned. Her reflection looked back at her from the dark screen around the messages, a bit distorted by fingerprints and bad lighting overhead. Damp strands of her hair had escaped behind her ears again and the scar through her eyebrow seemed more visible when she looked for herself too long.
The phone stayed in her hand, the messages remaining exactly where she had left them.
Nothing had changed.
If she was to pinpoint what felt different about Vicky’s messages, it would not be the idea that Vicky had complimented her, Vicky complimented people all the time, maybe not football-wise, but they feel like they have known each other enough to do so. She was usually the one to exaggerate, to annoy people, say things to get reactions out of people, but most importantly it was the names attached to the compliments that lingered in the French.
The ice water shifted again as she adjusted slightly in the bath, drawing her attention downward to the bruises that stood out beneath the surface. Purple was spreading along her shins, yellow fading around older bruises. The darker mark beside her knee showed properly now, blooming beneath her skin.
Those made sense.
Those she understood.
You got hit, it hurt.
Simple.
No interpretation.
Noé wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with information given, the thought starting to shape into something disproportionate. Maybe, it was too large to fit in a single message, which made her jaw tighten.
A splash broke her thought process.
Someone had just dropped into the ice bath beside hers again, louder this time, with a loud hiss and immediately followed up by explicit swearing in French that didn’t bother hiding the discomfort.
“Ah— non— this is punishment. Actual punishment.”
Selma.
Obviously.
The defender lowered herself another inch into the freezing water before gripping the sides of the bath like she was going through torture, shoulders springing up. Delphine was walking right behind her, laughing loud enough for the nearby physio to tell her to stop encouraging Bacha.
Noé only shook her head faintly and set her phone face-down beside the towel.
Beside her, Selma continued lowering herself into the water as if she was entering her own execution.
“Why is it always colder than yesterday?” she demanded of nobody, her grip becoming tighter. “Explain that to me, explain the— putain— science behind this.”
“Maybe you don’t know because there is no science,” Delphine informed her with a wide grin which had formed as she watched Selma struggle, patting her shoulder. “You just find it necessary to complain every day.”
“That’s because with each day it gets worse.”
“You say that and still come back, so whose fault is that?”
“Because apparently recovery is important,” Bacha snickered in disbelief, sinking another inch before immediately regretting it, her face twisting enough to earn a laugh from Cascarino.
Familiar voices filled the space without demanding her attention, half-laughing, half-arguing.
Usually she liked that, because the noise gave her something else to focus on that wasn’t her own thoughts.
To her bad luck, today it wasn’t working particularly well.
Her gaze drifted back down to her legs beneath the water, where the bruises continued forming colours deeper than they looked a few minutes prior, she came to a conclusion that the messages sitting face-down were harder to explain than what she was looking at right now. The bruises had a moment attached to them, while the texts never really specified.
Vicky made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.
A part of her wanted to pick the phone back up and reread the messages for the fourth or fifth time, another part found that desire embarrassing enough for it to be ignored.
Her ten minutes in the ice bath passed quickly, marked only by the feeling in her legs and the slow stiffness creeping into her hips as she forced herself to stay a bit longer till the point it was starting to become unbearable and Noé could swear she was about to start relating to Selma.
When she finally stood, the cold followed her body up, water sliding down her thighs as she stepped out and grabbed the towel, wrapping it around her lower body before exhaling once through her nose and releasing the tension she didn’t realise she held.
She didn’t look back, nor did she check the phone.
Just turned slightly toward the door, already half out of the room, when Bacha noticed her properly. The defender’s attention lifted from her own battle with the cold water, drifting first to Noé’s posture, then down to her legs as she passed her, the bruises briefly noticeable.
Selma went quiet for a second, expression shifting lightly as she registered them more clearly, “Jesus Christ.”
Noé already knew what she was looking at without needing to stop.
“They’re fine,” she answered flatly, continuing to move towards the exit.
“Looks horrible to me.”
The midfielder glanced down once, briefly, out of habit rather than interest. The bruises looked exactly the same as they had before, unchanged by the attention given to them.
“They’re bruises.”
“Selma, calm down,” Delphine released an immediate, light laugh, breaking the slightest amount of tension, “The kid knows better, you have seen enough to know how she plays.”
Noé’s mouth briefly threatened to twitch, as she adjusted her towel higher over her hip and stepped out into the corridor.
In a span of a few seconds, her head went back into the room, “Have any of you seen Melchie after training?”
A couple of voices answered, overlapping, one saying she had gone upstairs, another insisting she said something about a meeting, the details blurring into noise where nobody fully listened but everyone still spoke.
The midfielder paused just long enough in the doorway to catch the useful part, eyes flicking briefly across the room to confirm she didn’t miss her in there and just made the whole room speak about her, without the need to.
“Yeah,” Sombath added a moment later, half-turned with her back towards the door, “she said she had a meeting with her agent and Bompastor straight after training. That’s probably why she was being weird in the changing room.”
The sentence hung along for a second, before the room had time to move from it, Noé gave a small nod, absorbing it without making any comment and stepped back from the doorway, letting the conversation die behind her as she moved out into the corridor. The sounds of the team faded with each step, Selma’s complaints dissolving first, then Delphine’s laughter and eventually, everything else flattened into distant noise.
She passed the mirror at the end of the corridor without really seeing it, only catching a brief fragment of herself as she moved by, damp hair pushed back, faint redness still on her face and skin. Nothing about her appearance felt unfamiliar. Nothing about it felt new. In the end, it was just her, reduced to something observable again now that the training was over.
Behind her, the building still carried on living its life, even if none of it reached her properly anymore.
Somewhere in Barcelona, Vicky had spent a significant part of her day talking about her football to people Noé had admired. The thought stayed longer than she initially expected it to, not turning into pride or disbelief or even excitement, just a strange kind of awareness with no knowledge of what to do with what she has been exposed to.
Her phone was still in her hand, still untouched.
And still, for reasons she didn’t fully understand, heavier than it should have been.
Being watched had never made her feel chosen.
Only measurable.