SECTION I: THE CARBS POLICE IN THE LOUNGE
The smell of grilled sea bass, garlic-roasted potatoes, and steamed jasmine rice drifted across the First Team player lounge at Carrington.
Outside the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the rainy Manchester autumn sky was putting on a absolute spectacle. A brutal, freezing rain was coming down completely sideways, transforming the pristine green training pitches below into what looked like an absolute muddy swamp.
Inside, however, the lounge was a warm, loud circus of elite athletes trying to kill time before the afternoon video sessions.
At the far corner table, completely isolated from the screaming matches happening around the ping-pong table, sat Llori.
His lunch plate was an absolute work of engineering perfection. It didn't look like food; it looked like a geometric blueprint. Exactly 180 grams of grilled fish, 120 grams of rice, and broccoli stalks arranged in precise, parallel lines like miniature green trees. To his right sat a glass of room-temperature electrolyte water, placed at an exact ninety-degree angle relative to his tray.
Across the table sat Bruno Fernandes.
The Portuguese midfielder was waving his stainless-steel fork around in the air like a mad conductor leading an orchestra, talking at roughly two hundred miles per hour with his mouth half-full of roasted chicken.
"I’m telling you, Llori, Pep Guardiola is an absolute Oscar-winning actor!"
Bruno slammed his fork down onto his plate for dramatic emphasis, pointing his finger straight at Llori’s nose.
"He does this every single derby week! Every time! He comes out in front of the press, smiles at the cameras, and tells the world that you are the greatest midfielder to ever walk the earth..."
Bruno leaned forward, his eyes wide with theatrical panic.
"...and then! BAM! The very next second in secret training, he instructs Rodri and Kovacic to physically disassemble your knees in the first forty-five seconds of the match!"
Llori chewed his fish with steady, deliberate rhythm. He swallowed, picked up his linen napkin, and dabbed the corners of his mouth before looking at his captain.
"Public praise is merely a low-cost psychological tool designed to induce subconscious relaxation, Bruno."
"Relaxation my foot!"
Luke Shaw leaned entirely over the back of the adjacent leather booth, holding a massive slice of cheesy garlic bread that he was ninety-percent sure the club nutritionists hadn't approved.
"The man is terrified of you, mate! Absolute shambles!" Luke grinned, taking a huge bite of his bread. "Did you see Sky Sports this morning? They had a whole five-minute segment calling you 'The Matrix Ghost of Carrington'!"
Llori blinked slowly, his dark eyes showing not even a flicker of excitement.
"Ghosts do not possess physical mass, Luke. Nor can a ghost pass a football with thirty-two Newtons of kinetic force."
"SEE?!"
Bruno threw his hands up toward the ceiling, looking around the lounge as if calling on the universe for help.
"He doesn't care! He literally does not care! The entire country is having an existential crisis debating whether he’s a human or an alien, and he’s sitting here measuring his broccoli with a invisible ruler!"
Across the table, young Kobbie Mainoo bit his lip, trying desperately to suppress a loud snort into his berry smoothie.
Llori’s calm, dark gaze slowly shifted sideways, locking directly onto the nineteen-year-old midfielder.
"Kobbie."
Kobbie froze instantly, his straw stuck halfway to his mouth.
"Uh... yeah, Llori?"
"Your current plate contains an inadequate ratio of complex carbohydrates relative to your muscle expenditure."
Kobbie blinked, looking down at his small chicken wrap.
"Oh... well, I was feeling a bit full from Erik’s morning sprint drills, to be honest—"
"Fullness is merely a gastric nervous signal," Llori interrupted smoothly, his voice dropping into that calm, terrifying tone of absolute authority. "You burned precisely 1,240 kilocalories during the high-intensity pressing circuits. If you do not consume another hundred grams of complex carbohydrates within fifteen minutes, your glycogen recovery rate for tomorrow's session will drop by eleven point four percent."
Kobbie didn't wait to hear the rest.
He scrambled out of his leather booth so fast he nearly knocked his smoothie over.
"On it! Getting more rice right now!" Kobbie blurted out, speeding toward the buffet line like a junior cadet fleeing a drill sergeant.
Bruno stared at Kobbie's retreating back in utter silence for three full seconds.
Then he slowly turned his head to look at Llori, shaking his head in absolute, speechless disbelief.
"Unbelievable..." Bruno muttered, slapping his own forehead. "Simply unbelievable."
"What is unbelievable, Bruno?" Llori asked serenely.
"If I tell that kid to eat his carbs, he tells me to mind my own Portuguese business!" Bruno threw his hands up again. "You give him a completely made-up math percentage, and he runs like his house is on fire!"
"The percentage is not made up, Bruno," Llori noted, taking a precise sip of his room-temperature water. "It is biomechanical reality."
"You are a terrifying human being, Llori," Luke Shaw wheezed from behind his garlic bread, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "An absolute menace."
SECTION II: HIGH-TECH LAB & THE 0.2-SECOND KISS
By 2:15 PM, Llori had escaped the loud, chaotic energy of the player lounge, stepping through the double glass doors into Carrington’s high-performance sports science laboratory.
The atmosphere in here was an absolute contrast. It was cool, quiet, and smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol, fresh espresso, and cold stainless steel. High-speed 240fps motion capture cameras hung from the ceiling girders, and massive wall-mounted monitors glowed with vibrant blue, green, and red line graphs.
Elena sat at the primary workstation near the diagnostic suite. Her long, dark hair was pinned back in an understated clip, and her thin-rimmed reading glasses rested on the bridge of her nose.
The automatic glass door slid open with a soft, pneumatic hiss.
Elena turned her swivel chair around. The moment her dark eyes locked onto Llori, the clinical, sharp composure she maintained around the coaching staff melted into a soft, glowing smile.
"You took twenty-two thousand three hundred and forty steps this morning," Elena said softly, her voice melodic in the quiet room as she tapped her screen. "Your short-burst acceleration efficiency was up four point six percent."
Llori walked over, his heavy, quiet presence filling the space. He stopped right behind her chair, reaching down to rest a warm, large hand over her shoulder.
"The pitch had slight frost resistance underneath the topsoil," Llori replied in a low, gentle tone, his dark eyes scanning the glowing data curves on her screen. "It provided superior micro-traction during lateral directional shifts."
Elena clicked her wireless mouse, bringing up a 3D skeletal rendering of Llori's movement mechanics recorded during the morning's intense small-sided games.
"Look at this heart-rate curve right here," Elena pointed her slender finger at a sudden dip in a deep blue line. "When Erik put three defenders in a tight triangle around you to simulate Pep's trap... your heart rate didn't spike at all. In fact, it actually dropped from 142 to 138 beats per minute during maximum compression."
"When spatial density collapses, elevated adrenaline degrades peripheral visual acuity," Llori murmured, his fingers gently moving up to tuck a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear, his thumb lightly brushing against her soft skin. "By consciously lowering cardiac output during the decision phase, peripheral visual processing broadens by zero point two seconds."
Elena leaned her head back slightly against the palm of his hand, letting her eyes close for a brief, peaceful breath.
"You talk like a calibrated machine, Llori," she whispered softly, a quiet, tender smile touching her lips. "But when I watch you out there on the multi-angle camera feeds... it doesn't look like machinery. It looks like pure art."
"Mathematics in motion, Elena," Llori whispered back softly.
He bent down slowly, pressing a quiet, lingering kiss to her forehead. Elena closed her eyes, soaking in the warmth of his lips against her skin for three calm seconds before he slowly pulled back.
"Now," Elena said, her playful, authoritative tone returning as she tapped her desk sternly and pointed toward the rear hydrotherapy suite. "Go get into the ice bath. Ten degrees Celsius. Twelve minutes. No negotiating!"
"Your directive is absolute, Elena," Llori replied with a subtle, rare flicker of warmth in his dark eyes, turning straight toward the cryo-chambers.
SECTION III: PEP’S PRESS CONFERENCE MELTDOWN
At 3:30 PM, the atmosphere in the main player lounge hit an absolute boiling point.
The main sixty-five-inch flat-screen TV was locked onto Sky Sports News, which was broadcasting live coverage from the Etihad Campus across town.
Nearly half the United squad—Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw, Casemiro, Lisandro Martínez, Alejandro Garnacho, and Bruno—had crowded onto the leather couches, glued to the broadcast like it was a blockbuster movie premiere.
Llori and Elena stood near the back doorway, keeping a comfortable, quiet distance. Llori held a porcelain cup with a fresh shot of espresso, while Elena stood beside him, her hands tucked neatly into her dark coat.
On the screen, Pep Guardiola sat at the media table in his signature dark Stone Island sweater. He looked utterly stressed out—rubbing his bald head, fidgeting restlessly with his water bottle, and gesturing wildly before the first question was even finished.
A reporter’s voice boomed through the lounge speakers:
"Pep! Sky Sports News! Llori has been in revolutionary form for United. How do you plan to handle his spatial distribution on Sunday?"
On screen, Pep leaned straight into his microphone, his eyes wide, wild, and intense.
"Listen!" Pep practically shouted into the mic, throwing both hands up into the air in total dramatic flair. "When you talk about Llori... you are NOT talking about a normal football player, okay?!"
The entire United lounge erupted into instant, loud snickers.
"We can put Rodri on him!" Pep continued frantically on screen, making aggressive, frantic triangle shapes in the air with his fingers. "We can put Bernardo! We can put FIVE PLAYERS around him! But the man sees the pass before the ball even reaches his feet! It’s impossible! He operates in another dimension!"
Luke Shaw grabbed a sofa cushion and threw it straight into the air, roaring with laughter.
"HE’S LOSING HIS MIND!" Luke screamed, slapping Casemiro’s shoulder violently. "PEP IS LITERALLY HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN ON LIVE TV OVER YOU, LLORI!"
On screen, Pep was still rambling frantically to the bewildered room of journalists.
"United are dangerous because Llori gives them total calm! Total control! On Sunday... it will be a battle! A crazy, beautiful battle!"
Lisandro Martínez leaned back against the leather couch, a terrifying, carnivorous grin spreading across his face.
"He's scared," the Argentine defender chuckled darkly. "I can smell the fear through the television screen."
Llori took a slow, calm sip of his hot espresso, completely unbothered by the absolute madness unfolding on screen.
"He is not scared, Lisandro," Llori said smoothly, his calm voice easily cutting through the chaos in the room. "He is attempting to manufacture premature overconfidence within our squad. It is an established psychological tactic."
Bruno Fernandes stood right up from the couch, clapping his hands together loudly to command the room.
"Llori is right! Stop laughing, you idiots!" Bruno yelled, though he still had a massive grin on his face. "Pep wants us to walk into the Etihad thinking we’ve already won! Sunday is going to be an absolute war!"
Casemiro nodded slowly from his deep armchair, his gravelly voice echoing with veteran authority.
"Listen to the captain," Casemiro grumbled smoothly, glancing back at Llori with deep respect. "Ignore the TV circus. We hit the grass tomorrow."
Llori turned to Elena, offering a small, knowing nod.
"The media circus is over," Llori murmured softly to her as they prepared to head home. "Tomorrow, we refine the press."
Comments (0)