The dry-erase marker didn't just squeak against the tactical whiteboard—it shrieked like a dying animal being dragged through a narrow corridor.
Inside Carrington’s main tactical video suite, the heating system was cranking out a suffocating twenty-four degrees Celsius to combat the icy Manchester rain howling against the double-glazed glass outside. The room smelled of wet leather training tops, deep-heat muscle rub, and dark espresso brewing continuously in the back corner.
Erik ten Hag stood at the front of the auditorium, his bald head reflecting the harsh fluorescent ceiling lights, his face growing redder by the second as he slammed a red dry-erase marker onto the illuminated screen.
"Look at this!" Erik barked, his sharp Dutch accent ringing off the acoustic wall panels. "Look at the gap between Rodri and Kovacic against Villa! What is this?!"
He slapped the board with the flat of his palm, leaving a faint sweaty mark right over the center circle.
"Forty meters! Forty meters of open grass! If Pep leaves forty meters of central space against us on Sunday, I want us to punish them in three seconds! Three seconds, eh?!"
Bruno Fernandes leaned forward from his front-row seat, his black pen clicking furiously against his knee like a telegraph machine transmitting emergency distress codes.
"Erik, but if Bernardo pinches inside the moment Llori touches the ball—"
"Then we trap Bernardo!" Erik shouted over his captain, drawing a wild red arrow that shot clear across the board and nearly off the plastic frame entirely.
Erik spun around on his heel, pointing the capped marker straight at Llori’s nose.
"Llori! When you receive the ball from Andre in the build-up, Rodri steps out three meters. How long do you have before Kovacic closes the back door?"
Llori sat perfectly upright in Seat #1, his shoulders square, his posture entirely unbothered by Erik’s shouting or the marker hovering three inches from his face.
"Precisely 420 milliseconds, Manager," Llori replied instantly, his deep voice smooth, crisp, and devoid of hesitation.
The entire video suite fell dead silent.
In the third row, Alejandro Garnacho blinked slowly, leaning over to whisper out of the side of his mouth to Kobbie Mainoo.
"Bro... did he just say 420 milliseconds?"
"Shh!" Kobbie whispered back frantically, keeping his eyes glued to the front. "Don't question his math, man! He's never wrong!"
Erik stopped mid-breath. He stared at Llori for two long seconds, slowly lowering the marker.
"420 milliseconds..." Erik repeated, a terrifyingly tiny flicker of approval touching his eyes before vanishing instantly. "Yes. Exactly. Less than half a second. If you hesitate, you get tackled. If you pass backward, Pep's trap closes. You must play the ball forward into the half-space before Rodri’s lead foot plants on the grass!"
Erik turned back to face the squad, slamming his palm against the board one final time.
"Out to Pitch 1! Full gear! Warm-up in two minutes! Go, go, go!"
Out on Pitch 1, the icy drizzle had turned the topsoil into a high-speed skating rink.
The coaching staff had laid out a restricted thirty-by-thirty-meter grid using neon-yellow marker tape. The rules for the drill were brutal: maximum one touch, three passes total before a shot on goal, and if the pressing unit won the ball within four seconds, the possession team had to drop and do ten explosive push-ups directly in the cold mud.
Llori, Bruno, Marcus Rashford, and Kobbie wore the neon-green bibs.
Casemiro, Lisandro Martínez, Luke Shaw, and Scott McTominay formed the orange bibs—the dedicated defensive destruction unit.
Steve McClaren blew the whistle.
Casemiro charged forward like a runaway freight train, sliding three meters across the soaking wet grass to cut off Llori’s right-foot passing angle.
"PRESSURE!" Casemiro roared in Portuguese-accented English, his eyes wide. "DON'T LET HIM TURN!"
In the same split second, Lisandro Martínez sprinted in from Llori’s blind side, throwing himself into a low block to trap Llori's left foot. It was a textbook, aggressive double-press designed to physically overpower any midfielder in Europe.
"LLORI, WATCH OUT!" Marcus screamed from the left flank.
Llori’s eyes didn't widen. His core remained completely locked, his weight balanced on his planted right heel.
Instead of turning or playing a safe back-pass to the goalkeeper, Llori used the slick, water-logged surface to his advantage. With a subtle, lightning-fast flick of his right ankle, he scooped the ball two inches off the soaking turf—letting it float serenely right over Lisandro’s outstretched boot.
The ball bounced perfectly into Kobbie’s running path in the half-space.
"OH MY DAYS!" Luke Shaw shouted, skidding on his knees as Kobbie took the ball on the turn.
"MOVE! MOVE!" Bruno screamed, sprinting toward the box. "KOBBIE, ONE-TOUCH TO MARCUS!"
Kobbie sliced a low, fizzing cross across the five-yard box.
Marcus Rashford struck it first-time with absolute violence—a thunderous right-foot volley that exploded toward the top corner!
The sound of the ball smashing against the underside of the heavy aluminum crossbar echoed across the entire Carrington complex like a gunshot.
The ball bounced straight down onto the white goal line, spraying a wave of rainwater three feet into the cold air, before spinning back out into the muddy penalty box!
"NO WAYYYYYYYYYY!" Marcus screamed, dropping to his knees and grabbing his head with both hands, his face a picture of utter disbelief. "HOW IS THAT NOT IN?!"
"ON THE LINE! IT DIDN'T CROSS!" Steve McClaren shouted, waving his arms wildly through the mist. "PLAY ON! PLAY ON!"
Lisandro Martínez booted the ball forty yards downfield into the fog, letting out a wild, primal roar.
"NO GOAL! GET DOWN! GREEN TEAM, TEN PUSH-UPS IN THE MUD!" Lisandro bellowed, laughing hysterically at Marcus.
Bruno slumped straight onto his back in the wet mud, staring up at the gray Manchester rain clouds in pure agony.
"I swear that crossbar is five centimeters lower than standard FIFA regulation!" Bruno yelled, kicking his muddy boot into the air. "I'm suing the Carrington groundskeeping team!"
Llori walked calmly over to Marcus, who was still on his knees shaking his head. Llori extended his hand, pulling the winger up with a single, steady movement.
"The strike trajectory was mathematically correct, Marcus," Llori analyzed smoothly, not a single strand of hair out of place despite the rain. "However, the air density caused by humidity increased the ball's lift vector by two point three percent. Adjust your ankle lock down by one degree on the next attempt."
Marcus looked at Llori, wiping a splash of mud off his cheek, and burst into a breathless laugh.
"One degree?! Llori, I just hit the bar at eighty miles an hour!"
"Which is why a one-degree adjustment yields a goal rather than structural aluminum contact," Llori replied with absolute seriousness. "Execute the calibration."
By 7:30 PM, the rain had finally cleared over central Manchester, leaving the wet city streets glistening beneath the neon shop signs.
The squad had gathered in a private dining room at Hawksmoor, a high-end steakhouse tucked away in the city center. The long dark-wood table was loaded with heavy iron platters of ribeyes, sirloins, bone marrow, roasted garlic, and massive bowls of triple-cooked chips.
The atmosphere was loud, relaxed, and full of high-energy team banter.
At the head of the table, Casemiro was slicing into a massive bone-in ribeye, holding his knife with authority.
"I'm telling you boys," Casemiro said, pointing his steak knife across the table toward Kobbie. "El Clásico against Barcelona... Pep’s team, Luis Enrique’s team... it doesn't matter. The first ten minutes of a derby are not about tactics."
"What are they about then, Case?" Kobbie asked, chewing on a chip.
"Pain," Casemiro grinned, his dark eyes twinkling with veteran mischief. "You hit someone hard in the first minute. You let them know that every time they turn their back, you are there. After that, they look over their shoulder for the rest of the night."
"That sounds illegal, Casemiro," Luke Shaw joked, taking a sip of sparkling water. "The referee has a whistle, you know."
"In the first five minutes of a derby, the referee’s whistle is broken," Casemiro replied smoothly, making the whole table burst into laughter.
At the middle of the table, Llori sat beside Elena, who had joined the team dinner after finishing her evening research at the university sports science department.
In front of Llori sat an immaculate 250-gram fillet steak.
He picked up his steak knife, sliced a thin, precise cross-section through the center of the meat, and examined the interior color under the warm ambient dining lights.
"The internal thermal core of this protein is sitting at precisely 54.5 degrees Celsius," Llori noted softly to Elena.
Elena turned her head, a soft, amused smile touching her lips as she looked at his plate.
"That is the exact threshold for medium-rare cook consistency," Elena murmured back, her voice low and intimate amidst the loud table chatter. "Did you ask the chef for a specific internal temperature?"
"I requested a medium-rare preparation," Llori replied calmly. "The chef executed the Maillard reaction with high precision. The surface crust density is optimal."
From across the table, Marcus Rashford leaned over, pointing his fork at Llori’s plate with a loud groan.
"Yo! Llori!" Marcus shouted over the noise. "Are you seriously analyzing the chemical reaction of your steak right now?!"
"The Maillard reaction dictates protein surface caramelization and flavor retention, Marcus," Llori explained serenely. "It is basic culinary thermodynamics."
"HE'S RATING HIS STEAK IN THERMODYNAMICS!" Marcus yelled to the rest of the table, causing Bruno to nearly choke on his drink.
"Llori, my brother," Bruno called out, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Can you please just eat your food like a normal human being for five minutes? Just five minutes!"
"Eating is an act of nutritional fueling, Bruno," Llori answered smoothly, taking a quiet, perfect bite of the fillet. "The emotional framing of the process is secondary."
Elena reached under the table, her long fingers finding Llori’s hand and giving it a gentle, affectionate squeeze. Llori glanced sideways at her, his dark eyes softening with a quiet, undeniable warmth that only she ever got to see.
"Ignore them," Elena whispered near his ear, her breath warm against his skin. "They don't appreciate proper thermal control."
"Their ignorance does not alter the steak's quality, Elena," Llori whispered back, a faint, rare trace of a smile touching his lips.
As the squad continued to laugh, roast each other, and devour mountains of food, the bond within the team grew tighter by the second.
The media was screaming outside. Pep was spinning mind games on television. But inside this room, United was locked in, calm, and ready for war.
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