The hot, dry Castilian wind swept across the tarmac at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, carrying the scent of jet fuel and scorched asphalt.
At 4:15 PM on Tuesday, the white-and-red charter flight carrying the Manchester United squad taxied into a private terminal corner flanked by two Spanish National Police vans. As the air-stairs lowered, the dry Spanish heat hit like a sudden, physical wall—a stark, thermal shock after weeks of damp, grey Manchester drizzle.
Llori stepped out onto the upper platform, wearing the official club travelling suit: a dark navy technical cotton jacket, crisp white t-shirt, tailored trousers, and pristine white sneakers. He wore sleek, noise-canceling headphones over his ears, through which a quiet, complex piano prelude by Rachmaninoff played at a measured 55 decibels.
Below on the perimeter fence, fifty local photojournalists and a hundred chanting Atletico Madrid supporters had gathered behind steel barriers.
"¡Oye! ¡Farris! ¡Te van a romper las piernas hoy!" a fan roared in thick Madrileño Spanish, thrusting a red-and-white scarf through the chain-link fence. "¡Bienvenido al infierno!"
Llori’s expression remained utterly neutral. His dark eyes swept over the crowd, registering the high-frequency gestural energy and the sound pressure levels without absorbing a single drop of the hostility. He adjusted his duffel bag over his shoulder, descended the stairs with measured, rhythmic strides, and stepped directly onto the team bus.
Beside him in the window seat, Lisandro Martínez chuckled softly, adjusting his sunglasses. "They think shouting in Spanish makes them scary, Llori. They have no idea you probably know the exact grammar of their insults."
"The vocabulary is remarkably predictable," Llori noted quietly, pulling off his headphones as the bus engine roared to life. "Eighty-two percent of their taunts utilize variations of three specific verbs regarding physical collapse. It lacks linguistic creativity."
Martínez let out a loud, delighted laugh, slapping Llori's knee. "That's why I love you, kid. They want to burn your house down, and you're grading their Spanish."
By 6:30 PM, the atmosphere inside the press auditorium at the Estadio Cívitas Metropolitano was suffocating.
Over one hundred international journalists, camera crews from Marca, AS, Movistar+, and Sky Sports, and dozens of local Spanish reporters sat shoulder-to-shoulder under the harsh white studio lights. The air conditioning was failing to keep up with the heat generated by forty broadcast cameras.
Diego Simeone had finished his press conference thirty minutes prior. The fiery Argentine manager had spent twenty minutes pacing in front of the microphones, grinning darkly when asked about Llori Farris:
"He is a brilliant boy, yes. A prodigy," Simeone had said, leaning forward with his signature wolfish intensity. "But the Metropolitano is not a conservatory. In our house, there are no pianos. There is only turf, blood, and pain. We will see how fast his brain works when he has no space to breathe."
Now, it was Manchester United’s turn.
Erik ten Hag walked into the room first, looking sharp and unyielding in his suit, followed by Llori.
The moment the 19-year-old Scandinavian-trained midfielder sat down before the array of thirty microphones, the camera shutters detonated in a blinding, continuous frenzy of flashbulbs.
Llori sat perfectly upright. He did not blink against the strobes. He adjusted his microphone stand by two centimeters to align it precisely with his mouth, placed his hands flat on the press table, and waited.
"We will take questions," the club's press officer announced. "First question to Marca."
A veteran Spanish journalist stood up, holding a voice recorder forward. His tone was laced with sharp, deliberate provocation.
"Llori," the reporter began in rapid Spanish, not waiting for the translator. "Diego Simeone just said that his team will make this match a nightmare for you. In Spain, we know Atletico’s midfield—De Paul, Koke, Marcos Llorente—they don't play tactical chess. They break players physically. Are you prepared for the fact that tomorrow night, you will be hit harder than you have ever been hit in your life?"
The room went dead silent. The camera lenses zoomed in on Llori’s face, looking for a twitch of the eye, a flush on his cheeks, or a nervous shift in posture.
Llori waited precisely 1.5 seconds before answering. He spoke in fluent, pristine Castilian Spanish, his tone as cool and smooth as polished marble.
"Physics dictates that the kinetic force of a tackle is a function of mass and velocity," Llori said calmly, his voice echoing clearly through the auditorium speakers. "If Rodrigo De Paul or Marcos Llorente commit their momentum forward to make physical contact, they automatically sacrifice their ability to change direction for 0.4 seconds."
The Spanish journalists blinked, caught off balance by the immediate, linguistic fluency and the absolute lack of emotion.
Llori continued, looking directly into the reporter's eyes. "My objective is not to absorb their physical contact. My objective is to ensure the ball is no longer in that spatial coordinate when the force arrives. A tackle that misses target mass achieves zero deceleration effect on our attack."
Ten Hag smirked into his glass of water.
A reporter from AS quickly jumped in, leaning forward aggressively. "You talk like a computer, Farris! But this is the Champions League at the Metropolitano! Seventy thousand people will be screaming for ninety minutes to destroy your concentration! Have you ever experienced a hostile crowd like this?"
"Sound waves are mechanical vibrations traveling through the air," Llori replied without hesitation. "Decibel levels inside a stadium reach maximum resonance at approximately 105 to 110 decibels. The human ear perceives this as noise, but biomechanically, acoustic pressure cannot alter the trajectory of a football or modify the distance between two players."
He paused, resting his calm, dark gaze over the sea of flashing cameras.
"The crowd cannot make a tackle," Llori added softly. "Only the eleven players on the pitch can do that. And their positions are fully visible."
A quiet, stunned silence fell over the room. The local Spanish press corps looked at each other, realizing that their attempts to rattle the teenager had completely dissolved against a wall of absolute, impenetrable logic.
Later that evening, at 8:15 PM, the team conducted their final pre-match walk-through on the pitch at the Metropolitano.
The massive stadium was empty, but the scale of the venue was imposing. The steep, red-and-white tiers swept upward like a giant concrete colosseum, trapping the cool night air inside the bowl. The pitch was cut short, manicured to perfection, and heavily watered—Simeone’s groundsmen ensuring the surface was as fast as slick ice.
Llori walked out to the center circle alone, stepping onto the lush green turf in his training kit.
He stood at the exact midpoint of the pitch, closing his eyes. He took a slow, deep breath in through his nose, holding it for four seconds before releasing it.
He listened.
He felt the subtle pitch of the stadium bowl, the direction of the cool wind blowing from the open roof section, and the slight elasticity of the wet turf beneath his studs. He mapped the coordinates of the pitch in his mind: 105 meters long, 68 meters wide. Exactly the same as Old Trafford. Exactly the same as every pitch he had ever played on.
Footsteps approached from behind.
Casemiro walked up beside him, folding his arms across his broad chest as he looked around the empty, towering stands.
"Quiet now," Casemiro noted in his deep, gravelly Portuguese, a nostalgic smile touching his lips. "Tomorrow, at 9:00 PM, this place will feel like an erupting volcano. I've played here ten times with Real Madrid. It is brutal, Llori."
"The dimensions do not change, Casemiro," Llori said softly, opening his eyes and looking up at the high floodlight towers.
"The dimensions don't change," Casemiro agreed, turning to look at the young prodigy beside him. "But the pressure does. Simeone will order Llorente and Reinildo to step on your toes from the very first minute. They will try to make you angry."
Llori turned his head slowly, looking at the veteran midfielder with a serene, unbothered expression.
"Anger requires an emotional investment in an external opinion," Llori said. "I am only invested in the equation."
Casemiro stared at him for three seconds, then let out a rich, deep laugh that echoed off the empty concrete stands. "You really are built out of cold iron, kid. Let's go back to the hotel. Tomorrow, we give them a math lesson."
By 11:00 PM, inside Room 408 of the Eurostars Madrid Tower hotel, the lights were turned off.
Llori sat by the massive glass window overlooking the sprawling, illuminated night skyline of Madrid. Below, the highway lights stretched out like glowing red and white veins across the city.
He opened his tablet. Before reviewing the final set-piece defensive clips sent by Ten Hag, he checked his private messages.
A single text from Austria sat at the top:
Elena:
“I watched the Spanish press conference on the Viennese news stream. You explained kinetic momentum to a room full of shouting sports reporters. Only you could make a hostile press room sound like a physics lecture. I am so proud of you, Llori. Play your music tomorrow on that pitch. I’ll be watching every single frame. ❤️”
Llori looked at the glowing screen. A soft, warm, private smile touched his lips—the only crack in his stoic armor for the entire day.
He typed his reply:
Llori:
“The stadium is simply an acoustic hall, Elena. Tomorrow, we play in C minor. Sleep well.”
He locked his tablet, set it on the nightstand, and laid down on the bed. Within two minutes, as the city of Madrid buzzed with nervous, aggressive anticipation for the war that awaited tomorrow night, Llori Farris’s breathing slowed to a rhythmic, meditative baseline.
His pulse: 40 beats per minute.
The vessel was sealed. The stage was set. The equation was ready to be written in blood and turf.
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