Chapter Text
The first thing Arda Güler noticed about Colegio San Gabriel was that it looked far too serious for a place filled with seventeen-year-old boys.
The school stood behind a pair of tall iron gates in one of Madrid’s quieter neighborhoods, where the streets were lined with trees and the traffic seemed to move more slowly. Its main buildings were made of pale stone, severe and imposing beneath the clear autumn sky. Wide corridors ran between them, bordered by high windows and old walls covered in ivy. The school was large enough to contain classrooms, science laboratories, a library, several dining halls, dormitories, a chapel, and more sports facilities than Arda could count from the entrance.
It was the sort of place that seemed designed to make students feel small.
San Gabriel was an international boarding school for boys, attended by students from across Europe and beyond. Lessons were conducted mostly in English and Spanish, but the students themselves appeared to speak every language imaginable whenever there were no teachers nearby. As Arda stood beside his mother near the main entrance, he heard fragments of conversations passing around him—Spanish, English, French, German, and something he could not identify at all.
Above the entrance, three words had been carved into the stone in deep, careful letters.
DISCIPLINA. HONOR. EXCELLENTIA.
Discipline. Honour. Excellence.
Arda stared at them for a moment.
He decided he disliked all three.
His mother noticed the direction of his gaze and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart.”
Arda nodded because that was what he always did whenever someone reassured him without really knowing whether there was anything to reassure him about.
His father had said much the same thing that morning. San Gabriel offered an excellent education, he had reminded Arda, along with opportunities that many boys would never receive. His mother had spent the drive from their new apartment listing practical advice in a soft, increasingly worried voice: attend every lesson, make friends, eat properly, and call if he needed anything.
They had prepared him for the school.
They had not prepared him for being seventeen, alone in a new country, and expected to begin again as if none of that mattered.
Arda had transferred to San Gabriel at the beginning of the autumn term after his family moved from Istanbul to Madrid for his father’s work. His parents had chosen the school because of its academic reputation, international community, and strict but well-regarded boarding programme. They spoke about it as though the decision had been obvious, as though a better school could make the move feel less like leaving his entire life behind.
San Gabriel taught all the usual subjects: literature, mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, languages, and economics. Students could also join a wide range of extracurricular activities, including music, debate, art, athletics, and football.
Arda had noticed the football pitches on the way in.
They were set beyond the main buildings, visible between the trees and the stone walls. He had only caught a glimpse of them, but the sight had stayed with him: green grass, white goalposts, and a group of students running beneath the late morning sun.
He had also noticed how badly he wanted to see them again.
He was seventeen and had no idea what he wanted to do with his future. He only knew that football had once made everything feel simple. On a pitch, he did not have to think about unfamiliar streets, a new language, or the possibility of saying the wrong thing. He only had to watch the ball, read the movement around him, and decide where to go next.
He had not played properly since leaving Turkey.
His mother hugged him before she got back into the car. Arda hugged her in return, trying not to hold on for too long. She smiled at him through the open window and reminded him to call that evening.
He promised he would.
Then he stood by the gates and watched the car disappear down the street.
For a few seconds, he did not move. The school stretched behind him, enormous and unfamiliar, full of boys who already seemed to know where they were going.
Finally, Arda adjusted the books in his arms, turned around, and walked straight into someone.
“Oh, shit. Sorry.”
The impact knocked one of his books sideways. Before it could hit the ground, a hand caught his elbow and steadied him.
Arda looked up.
And up.
Then a little higher.
The boy standing in front of him was impossibly tall. He had dark-blond hair that fell untidily across his forehead, pale eyes, and the kind of face that made Arda briefly forget every word he knew in both languages. His uniform was neat enough to satisfy the school’s rules, but his tie had been loosened, and one side of his shirt had come untucked. A football was tucked beneath his arm as casually as if it weighed nothing.
“You alright?” the boy asked.
Arda realized the hand was still around his elbow. He nodded quickly.
“Yeah.”
The boy let go and glanced at the books pressed against Arda’s chest, then at the timetable sticking out between them.
“You’re new.”
It was not a question.
Arda looked around the courtyard, as though there might be another explanation for why he was standing there with a stack of books and no idea where to go.
“Is it that obvious?”
The boy smiled. It was an easy, unhurried smile, the sort that made the severe courtyard feel slightly less intimidating.
“Only a little.”
He shifted the football beneath his arm and extended his free hand.
“Dean. Dean Huijsen.”
Arda looked at the offered hand before taking it. Dean’s grip was warm and firm, his palm rough in a way that suggested he actually used the football rather than simply carrying it around.
“Arda.”
“Arda,” Dean repeated.
He pronounced it carefully, paying attention to each syllable as though he wanted to make sure he had it right. It was a small thing, but Arda noticed. Most people hurried through his name the first time and asked him to repeat it.
“Nice to meet you, Arda.”
Something about the way Dean said his name made Arda look away.
“Nice to meet you too.”
Dean glanced at the timetable again. “You’re in Mr. Modrić’s literature class?”
“Apparently.”
“Brilliant. So am I.”
Arda’s shoulders loosened a fraction. At least he would not have to enter the classroom alone.
“Is he nice?”
Dean considered the question with exaggerated seriousness. He tilted his head, as if searching through several possible answers.
“That depends. Do you enjoy being publicly humiliated for not understanding nineteenth-century Spanish poetry?”
Arda stared at him.
For one brief second, Dean maintained a perfectly straight face. Then he broke into laughter, loud and bright enough to draw a curious glance from a group of boys crossing the courtyard.
“I’m joking,” he said. “He’s alright.”
“That wasn’t funny.”
“Oh, come on.” Dean adjusted the ball beneath his arm. “It was a little funny.”
Arda tried to keep his expression serious, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
Dean noticed immediately.
For some reason, that seemed to make him even happier.
“Come on,” he said, turning towards the main building. “I’ll show you around.”
Arda hesitated only long enough to gather his books properly before following.
Dean moved quickly at first, his long legs carrying him several steps ahead without any effort. Then he glanced over his shoulder and seemed to realise Arda was struggling to keep up. Without saying anything, he slowed his pace.
The change was subtle. He did not make a performance of it or ask whether Arda needed help. He simply adjusted his stride so they could walk side by side.
Arda noticed.
He noticed the way Dean pointed out the library, the dining hall, and the corridor leading towards the dormitories. He noticed how easily Dean greeted passing students, answering questions and calling people by name as though he had been at San Gabriel forever. He noticed the football tucked beneath Dean’s arm, never quite forgotten even while he spoke.
But maybe later, when Arda tried to remember their first meeting, it was not the school gates or the carved words above the entrance that came back to him first.
It was Dean slowing down so Arda would not have to hurry.
He would remember it as the first kindness Dean had shown him.
By lunchtime, Arda had learned three things about Colegio San Gabriel: the food was terrible, the teachers expected students to behave like adults while treating them like children, and Dean Huijsen seemed to know everyone.
He had gathered the first two facts through personal experience. The third had become obvious during the walk to the dining hall, when they had barely made it down a corridor without somebody greeting Dean. He returned every greeting easily, sometimes stopping for a brief conversation, sometimes calling something over his shoulder while continuing beside Arda. Somehow, he always remembered where they had left off.
Now they were sitting at a long table near the windows, and Dean was examining his pasta with an expression of profound disappointment. Arda had already tried his. He understood.
“DEAN!”
The shout came from across the dining hall. Arda looked up to see a boy with dark curls standing between two crowded tables, a large black bag hanging from one hand.
Dean barely raised his head. “WHAT?”
“YOU LEFT YOUR BLOODY BAG IN MY ROOM!”
“THEN BRING IT!”
“COME AND GET IT YOURSELF, YOU LAZY BASTARD!”
Several students glanced towards them. Dean only laughed and settled back in his chair, apparently satisfied that the bag was on its way.
“Who’s that?” Arda asked.
“Jude.”
“Your friend?”
“My best friend. Unfortunately.”
There was enough affection in his voice to undermine the last word. Arda watched Jude make his way through the dining hall, squeezing past chairs without any of the hesitation Arda had felt while entering. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he carried himself with the comfortable confidence of someone who had never needed to wonder whether there was room for him at a table.
He dropped the bag beside Dean’s feet.
“Next time, I’m throwing it out the window.”
“Love you too, darling.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Dean grinned up at him. Jude looked ready to say something else, but then his attention shifted to Arda, and his expression softened.
“Oh. Hello.”
“Jude, this is Arda.” Dean gestured towards him with his fork. “Arda, Jude. Arda’s new.”
Jude pulled out the chair opposite them and sat down, his annoyance with Dean apparently forgotten.
“Turkish?”
Arda blinked. He had only said a few words since Jude arrived. Was his accent that obvious?
“Yeah.”
“I’m Jude.”
“I know.”
Jude’s eyebrows rose, and he leaned back with a delighted smile. “Already famous, am I?”
“Dean told me.”
“Ah. So you’ve heard all the good things.”
“All the terrible things,” Dean corrected.
There was a dull knock beneath the table. Dean’s knee jerked, and he immediately kicked Jude back. Neither of them looked particularly surprised by this exchange. Arda lowered his eyes to his plate to hide a smile, though Dean noticed anyway and gave him a quick, conspiratorial glance.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the empty seats around them gradually filled.
Federico Valverde arrived first, although Dean introduced him as Fede before Arda had much chance to remember the longer name. Eduardo Camavinga followed and seemed to find sitting down an unnecessary restriction; he kept twisting in his chair to greet people, reaching across the table, or getting halfway to his feet whenever a conversation caught his attention. Aurélien Tchouaméni settled beside him with considerably less fuss. He spoke rarely, but whenever he did, the others either burst out laughing or protested so loudly that Arda suspected he had missed something good.
Brahim Díaz was the last to join them. He arrived smiling, set his tray down, and immediately began teasing Camavinga about something that had happened in the dorm this morning. Camavinga interrupted before he had finished the first sentence. That only encouraged him.
Within minutes, Arda had lost track of who was telling the story.
They were loud enough that he wondered how any of them could hear one another. Conversations overlapped, arguments started and dissolved without warning, and somebody was always reaching for food that belonged to somebody else. Jude stole a piece of bread from Dean’s tray while maintaining eye contact with him. Dean retaliated by taking two from Jude’s.
Spanish gave way to English, then French, then a few words of Portuguese tossed across the table. Arda could follow parts of it, but by the time he worked out one joke, they had usually moved on to another.
At his previous school, he had become used to sitting quietly at the edge of other people’s conversations. It was easier to listen, smile when everybody else smiled, and wait for a question he knew how to answer. He found himself doing it again now, turning his fork between his fingers while the others argued about football.
But Dean kept making space for him.
When Jude made a joke that left Arda looking uncertain, Dean leaned closer and explained it under his breath. When Fede asked him something too quickly, Dean interrupted with, “Slow down. Give him a chance,” and waited while Arda answered. He did it so casually that nobody made an occasion of it. The conversation simply adjusted around Arda, then carried on.
Little by little, his shoulders began to relax.
Brahim was talking about the school’s extracurricular football programme when Dean turned towards him.
“Do you like football?”
Arda looked up from his plate. “Yeah. I play. Not recently, though.”
Dean straightened a little. “What position?”
“Attacking midfielder. Sometimes right wing.”
“No way.” Dean leaned forward, his lunch forgotten.
Arda glanced at the others, wondering whether he had said something strange. “What?”
“You’re joking.”
“Why would I joke about that?”
“Because I play centre-back.”
Jude tipped his head back with a groan. “Oh, here we fucking go.”
Dean ignored him, but a moment later, some of the certainty slipped from his expression.
“Well, not really,” he added.
Arda waited for him to explain. Dean glanced down at his plate and moved his fork through the pasta without taking a bite. He had sounded so eager a second ago that the correction seemed oddly reluctant.
“I mean, that’s where I usually play,” he said, then looked back at Arda. “Why haven't you played recently, though?”
Arda noticed the change of subject but let it pass.
“I haven’t found anywhere since we moved.”
He had missed it more than he usually admitted. There had been so many other things to sort out after the move—school, language, unfamiliar streets—that football had become something he would get back to eventually. Sometimes he caught himself looking at an empty stretch of pavement or a patch of grass and wondering whether there would be enough room.
Dean’s grin returned.
“Well, now you have.”
Arda looked at him. “The school team?”
“The school team, the training sessions, the unofficial games—whatever you want.” Dean leaned back, warming to the subject again. “Football here is extracurricular, but that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.”
That earned a snort from Jude, although this time he did not interrupt.
Dean began explaining when people usually played and which afternoons were best. Brahim added something about training, and Fede leaned across the table to ask Arda how long he had been playing. For the first time since sitting down, Arda answered without needing to rehearse the words in his head.
Beside him, Dean listened with an interest that made it easier to keep talking.
Arda had seen him joke about their lessons and complain about the food, but football brought out a different sort of enthusiasm. He sat forward when Arda spoke, asking questions before the previous answer had quite finished, then catching himself and letting him continue. Once, Jude tried to distract him, and Dean waved him away without even looking.
Arda curled his fingers a little tighter around his fork. He was pleased about the prospect of playing again, of having somewhere to go after classes and something familiar to do in a place where almost everything was new.
Still, when the conversation drifted elsewhere, he found himself watching Dean rather than joining in. Dean was arguing with Jude again, smiling around a mouthful of the pasta he had spent so long insulting.
Arda looked down before either of them could notice. The dining hall was as noisy as ever, and his lunch had gone cold, but he no longer felt in such a hurry to leave.
He did not quite know what to make of that yet.
Arda discovered Dean’s secret on a Thursday afternoon, almost an hour after classes had ended.
It had been raining since lunch. Not the beautiful kind of rain that turned Madrid’s streets silver beneath the city lights, but a persistent, miserable drizzle that found its way beneath collars and left the school corridors smelling of wet stone. Most of the students had already retreated to their dormitories or the library. Through the windows Arda passed, he could see people sitting comfortably beneath warm lights, their books spread across tables.
He was supposed to be doing the same. His mathematics textbook was tucked under his arm, and he had set out with every intention of finding somewhere quiet to study. Unfortunately, somewhere between the science building and the eastern courtyard, he had taken a wrong turn. Then, while trying to correct it, he had taken another.
By the time he found himself behind the old gymnasium, he had stopped pretending he knew where he was going.
A narrow stone path led between the trees. Arda followed it far enough to glimpse a wire fence at the other end, then paused. Surely the library did not require a journey through the woods. He was about to turn back when a dull thud reached him through the rain.
Another followed, then a third.
Arda shifted the textbook beneath his arm and moved closer. Beyond the trees stood one of the school’s unused football pitches, its grass uneven and overgrown along the edges. The fence had rusted around its posts, and a section of netting hung loose from one of the goals. It looked nothing like the immaculate grounds where the school teams trained.
Dean Huijsen was in the middle of it.
His blazer lay beneath an oak tree near the fence. His white shirt was soaked through, sticking to his shoulders, and his dark-blond hair had fallen across his forehead. Several discarded water bottles stood in a crooked line on the grass. Dean was moving between them with a football at his feet, occasionally glancing up towards the goal.
Arda had seen him smile before. There was the polite smile Dean had given him in the courtyard, and the crooked grin that usually appeared whenever Jude said something ridiculous. But this was different. Dean was smiling to himself, apparently without noticing, his attention fixed on the ball.
Arda stayed beside the gate.
For someone so tall, Dean moved with surprising ease. Arda had expected long limbs and awkward turns, but there was nothing uncertain about the way he shifted his weight or guided the ball around the bottles. He feinted left, turned right, then accelerated into the open space. His shoe sent up a small spray of water as he struck.
The ball hit the crossbar with a sharp metallic clang.
“Fuck!”
Arda laughed before he could stop himself.
Dean spun around, and for one ridiculous second, Arda considered disappearing back between the trees. Instead, he stood there with his textbook pressed to his chest while Dean stared at him through the rain.
“Arda?”
“Hi.” He lifted a hand, then lowered it when he realised how awkward that looked.
“What are you doing here?”
“I got lost.”
Dean glanced past him towards the path, then around the abandoned pitch. His mouth began to twitch.
“You’re very lost, apparently.”
Arda shrugged, trying to preserve what remained of his dignity. Now that Dean had stopped moving, he seemed less pleased to have an audience. He brushed his wet hair back and looked briefly towards the buildings beyond the trees.
“You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” Arda asked.
Dean nudged the ball beneath his shoe. “That depends on who’s asking.”
There was enough caution beneath the joke to make Arda wonder whether he should leave. Before he could decide, Dean exhaled and shook his head, the tension easing from his shoulders.
“Come here.”
Arda looked at the grass. Water had collected in the hollows, and the ground near the gate had been churned into mud.
“It’s raining.”
“No shit.”
“I don’t want to get wet.”
Dean gave him a slow look, taking in his damp hair and the dark patches spreading across his uniform.
“You’re already wet.”
Arda glanced down. Unfortunately, he was right.
He slipped through the gate and placed his textbook beside Dean’s blazer, carefully choosing the driest patch beneath the oak. When he turned around, Dean passed him the ball. Arda caught it beneath his shoe, feeling it settle into the soft ground.
“Show me something,” Dean said.
“What?”
“You said you play.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Come on.” Dean stepped back and spread his arms slightly, leaving the way to the goal open. “Let’s see.”
Arda looked from him to the pitch. He had not played properly in months, and his school shoes offered very little grip. His trousers were already getting muddy. Somewhere beyond the trees, teachers were probably beginning to wonder which students had failed to return before dinner.
Dean waited, watching him with an expression that was almost a challenge.
Arda could have handed the ball back. Instead, he nudged it forward and followed, testing the ground with his first few steps. Dean moved to block him, taking his time, clearly expecting an easy interception.
That was his mistake.
Arda shifted the ball once, drew Dean towards him, then flicked it neatly between his legs.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Arda looked up. Dean looked down at the space between his feet, then turned to find the ball rolling behind him.
His laughter came suddenly and loudly enough to send several birds fluttering out of the branches.
“You little shit!”
Arda was already running when Dean came after him.
For the next forty minutes, the mathematics textbook lay forgotten beneath the tree. They used the water bottles to mark out a smaller stretch of the pitch, although one kept falling over and another disappeared after Dean accidentally kicked it into the long grass. Neither of them bothered retrieving it.
Dean was stronger and faster over any real distance, but Arda learned quickly that he could make him turn. A pause, a change of direction, a touch just far enough out of reach—Dean would commit himself, and Arda would slip past before he could recover. Each time it happened, Dean grew a little more determined. Each time, Arda found it harder to stop smiling.
The rain made everything less graceful. Dean skidded while attempting a turn and spent several seconds insisting he had meant to do that. Arda missed an easy shot because his shoe sank into the mud. By then, they were laughing too much to keep a reliable score.
When Arda finally broke away with a clear path to the goal, Dean caught up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“That’s a foul!” Arda protested, still trying to reach the ball.
“No, it isn’t.”
“You can’t just pick people up!”
“I’m not picking you up.”
Arda’s feet left the ground.
“Dean!”
Dean’s laughter shook against his back. He held him there for another second, just beyond reach of the ball, before setting him down. Arda immediately turned and shoved him.
Dean stumbled backwards, pressing a muddy hand to his chest with an expression of wounded disbelief.
“Violence. Unbelievable.”
“You deserved it.”
“You’re a terrible person.”
“You’re a terrible defender.”
Dean went still. The offended expression disappeared, replaced by a smile Arda had already learned to distrust.
“Oh, you’re dead.”
Arda made a sound he would later insist was not a scream and ran.
By the time they returned to the oak tree, there was mud on both their trousers and very little point in worrying about the rain. Dean dropped onto the ground with a groan, then stretched out on his back, apparently unconcerned by the damp grass. Arda sat beside him, his knees drawn up, and tried to catch his breath.
For a while, they listened to the rain pattering through the leaves. Arda could feel his heartbeat slowing, the cold beginning to creep in now that he had stopped moving. Beside him, Dean lay with one arm beneath his head, looking up through the branches. He still seemed pleased with himself.
“Why do you play here?” Arda asked.
Dean turned his head. “What?”
“Why don’t you use the proper school pitch?”
The answer took longer than Arda expected. Dean looked away and caught a loose thread at the seam of his trousers, winding it around one finger.
“Too many people.”
“So?”
“So people talk.”
Arda glanced towards the fence. From here, the main school buildings were barely visible. He had found the pitch only because he had got lost; anyone coming here deliberately would have plenty of warning before somebody approached.
He looked back at Dean and waited.
“My parents don’t want me playing football,” Dean said eventually.
Arda frowned. “Why?”
“They think it’s pointless.”
“Football?”
“Yeah.”
Arda tried to reconcile that with the person he had just spent forty minutes chasing around the pitch. Dean had kept playing through the rain without an audience, a team, or even a decent pair of shoes. Nothing about it had seemed pointless to him.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Dean gave a quiet laugh, although he did not look amused. “Try telling them that.”
He pulled at the thread again. Arda noticed the mud drying along his knuckles and the grass stain near his elbow. A few minutes earlier, Dean had been perfectly happy to lie in the dirt. Now he was looking down at his trousers as though he had begun to remember that he would have to explain them.
“Do they know you come here?”
“No.”
“Would they be angry?”
Dean stopped picking at the seam. His gaze remained on his hand for a moment before he looked out across the pitch.
“Yeah.”
Arda wished he had asked something else. Dean’s answer was quiet, and there was no joke following it, nothing to make the conversation easier. Arda rested his chin on his knees and watched a drop of water slide from the end of a leaf.
“Then why do you keep doing it?”
Dean turned towards him. Up close, his hair was beginning to dry in uneven strands, and a small streak of mud marked the side of his neck. He studied Arda for a moment, as if deciding whether the question needed a complicated answer.
Then he smiled, barely.
“Because I love it.”
Arda had expected an explanation: something about being good at it, or wanting to join a team, or refusing to let his parents decide everything. But Dean seemed to have said all he wanted to say.
Arda looked towards the abandoned goal. One of the bottles still lay on its side in front of it, and their footprints crossed the wet grass in every direction. He thought of Dean out there before he had arrived, smiling to himself as he moved between the makeshift markers.
“Okay,” he said softly.
Dean glanced at him, then let his head fall back against his arm. Neither of them spoke for a little while.
When they finally stood, Dean shook out his blazer and helped Arda brush the worst of the mud from his trousers. It did very little good, but he kept trying until Arda laughed and told him to stop. Before they left, they exchanged numbers beneath the tree, taking turns sheltering their phones from the rain.
Dean walked him back far enough that Arda recognised the corridor.
“Can you manage from here?”
Arda gave him a look. “I’m not completely helpless.”
“Right. You just took your maths homework to a football pitch.”
“It was a shortcut.”
“Of course it was.”
That evening, Arda returned to his dormitory with wet shoes, muddy trousers, and a sore throat that suggested he would regret all of this in the morning. He draped his uniform over the back of a chair and left his textbook open to dry, relieved to find that only the corners had got damp.
His phone vibrated while he was brushing his teeth. He glanced at the screen, toothbrush still in his mouth.
DEAN: you owe me a rematch
DEAN: and a new pair of trousers
Arda rinsed his mouth before answering.
ARDA: you literally threw me into the mud
DEAN: allegedly
He laughed, alone at the sink, then typed with his thumb.
ARDA: i hate you
DEAN: no you don’t
Arda lingered over the last message. He could almost hear Dean saying it, with that easy certainty and the smile he wore when he knew he was being annoying.
There was mud beneath Arda’s fingernails. His shoes would probably still be wet tomorrow, and he had not completed a single mathematics problem.
He put the phone down beside the sink, smiling despite himself.
No. He supposed he didn’t.
Mr. Mourinho was not like most of the teachers at Colegio San Gabriel.
He taught physical education, coached the school’s extracurricular football team, and seemed to possess an almost unnatural ability to identify students who were pretending to be injured to avoid running laps. He also treated sport as something more meaningful than a temporary escape from mathematics, literature, or science.
To Mr. Mourinho, physical education was not simply about fitness, winning matches, or learning how to follow instructions. It was about discipline, confidence, teamwork, pressure, failure, and the ability to keep moving when something became difficult. He believed that a person could learn just as much about life on a football pitch as they could inside a classroom.
Some students assumed that teachers who worked in sports were less serious than those who taught academic subjects. Mr. Mourinho clearly disagreed. He had little patience for the idea that education could be measured only through examination results or university offers.
On a cold Monday morning, he entered the sports hall with a folder tucked beneath one arm. The students had expected an ordinary physical education lesson. Most were already wearing their training kits, while a few stood near the benches, rubbing their hands together and complaining about the temperature.
Jude looked at the folder with suspicion.
“Are we running today?”
“That depends,” Mr. Mourinho replied. “Do you intend to complain the entire time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then yes.”
A few students laughed. Jude looked pleased with himself, as though he had contributed something valuable to the lesson. Mr. Mourinho placed the folder on the bench and surveyed the room. His gaze moved across the students, pausing briefly on each of them until the laughter faded and they began to pay attention.
“Before we begin, I want you to come with me.”
Jude raised his hand.
“Where?”
“Somewhere you might learn something.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is.”
The students followed him out of the sports hall and across the school. Instead of taking them towards the main football pitch, Mr. Mourinho led them beside the athletics building, through a narrow corridor that most of them probably passed every day without noticing.
Photographs covered both walls.
They showed former San Gabriel students who had represented the school in almost every sport imaginable: football, athletics, swimming, fencing, rowing, and several disciplines Arda did not immediately recognise. Some students stood on podiums, medals hanging around their necks. Others posed with teams, their uniforms muddy and their expressions exhausted but triumphant.
A few of the photographs were more than fifty years old. Others had been taken only recently. The older images had faded at the edges, while the newer ones were bright and sharply printed, but the faces in all of them shared something familiar. They were young, nervous, proud, and trying very hard not to look overwhelmed by the attention.
The boys gradually stopped in front of the photographs.
Jude studied one of the older teams, then glanced at Mr. Mourinho.
“Why are we here?”
Mr. Mourinho folded his arms.
“Because most of you walk past these photographs every day without seeing them.”
No one answered. Even Jude seemed unable to think of a joke that would not sound disrespectful.
“These students were part of this school before you,” Mr. Mourinho continued. “They attended lessons, completed assignments, sat examinations, and dealt with the same pressure you deal with now.”
He gestured towards the photographs.
“They also trained before sunrise. They lost matches. They suffered injuries. They were dropped from teams. Some of them were told they were not good enough.”
Arda looked more closely at the images. In one photograph, a boy stood with his hands clasped tightly in front of him, his smile uncertain. In another, a swimmer leaned against a wall with wet hair and tired eyes. A group of footballers stood shoulder to shoulder, their knees covered in mud.
They did not look invincible. They looked like students who had continued despite having plenty of reasons to stop.
“Many people believe academic success is the only form of achievement that deserves respect,” Mr. Mourinho said. “They are wrong.”
The corridor became quieter.
“A student who spends years training their body, understanding a team, managing pressure, recovering from failure, and continuing despite disappointment is learning discipline. A student who studies medicine, law, mathematics, or history is learning discipline too.”
He looked from one boy to another.
“The subjects are different. The effort is not.”
Arda glanced at Dean.
Dean stood in front of an old photograph of a football team. One of the players held a ball beneath his arm. His knees were muddy, his hair was untidy, and his exhausted smile looked completely genuine.
Dean stared at him for a long moment.
Mr. Mourinho noticed, but did not interrupt immediately.
“People often assume that a person’s worth can be measured by examination results, university offers, or the profession they eventually choose,” he continued. “But a person may also find purpose on a pitch, in a laboratory, inside a workshop, on a stage, or in a classroom. What matters is whether they are willing to work for something they truly believe in.”
Jude leaned towards Dean and lowered his voice, although not enough to prevent anyone from hearing him.
“So, technically, football counts as education?”
Mr. Mourinho turned towards him.
“Football counts as football.”
Jude nodded with exaggerated seriousness.
“Very inspiring, sir.”
“It also teaches you how to pass a ball instead of trying to defeat five opponents by yourself.”
The team burst into laughter. Jude looked towards the floor, briefly embarrassed, while Dean grinned beside him.
Mr. Mourinho waited until the noise had faded before speaking again.
“Each of you will eventually be asked what you intend to become. Your parents may already have answers. Your teachers may have suggestions. Society may have expectations.”
His gaze shifted towards Dean.
“But you will still have to decide for yourself.”
Dean lowered his eyes. The movement was small, but Arda noticed it. For the first time that morning, Dean did not look amused or ready with a reply.
Mr. Mourinho stepped away from the wall.
“Do not assume that one path is more valuable simply because it is easier to explain to other people. Academic achievement matters. Sport matters. Character matters. The effort you put into becoming yourself matters most of all.”
For a moment, nobody said anything. The only sound came from the distant sports hall, where a door opened and closed somewhere behind them.
Then Jude raised his hand again.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Are we still doing fitness training?”
Mr. Mourinho picked up his folder.
“Now we are doing sprints.”
Jude’s expression collapsed.
“Suddenly, I miss academics.”
The class laughed as they followed Mr. Mourinho back towards the pitch. Dean fell into step beside Arda, still glancing back at the photographs as they walked away.
Arda wondered whether Dean had heard the same lesson he had.
Sometimes, the thing a person loved most was also the thing everyone else was trying to convince them to give up.
That afternoon, Arda attended his first extracurricular football training session.
He had registered during his first week at Colegio San Gabriel. Football was one of the few things that had still felt familiar after the move to Madrid, and joining the school team seemed like the simplest way to find somewhere he belonged.
He changed into the school’s training kit and made his way to the main pitch, where the older students were already warming up. The grass was still damp from the previous night’s rain, and the cold air carried the sharp smell of wet earth and cut grass.
Mr. Mourinho stood near the touchline, organising the players and correcting their positioning. He was both the school’s physical education teacher and the coach of the extracurricular football team, and he seemed to notice everything: a lazy pass, a poorly timed run, a defender standing too far from his man.
Arda noticed Dean almost immediately.
He was standing outside the fence, still wearing his school uniform, a football tucked beneath one arm. His tie was loose, his shirt slightly untucked, and his polished shoes looked completely unsuited to the muddy ground.
Dean had been watching the team for several minutes.
He knew most of the players by name. He knew which of them performed well under pressure, which defenders relied too heavily on their speed, and which midfielders failed to scan the field before receiving the ball. Every few seconds, he muttered something under his breath or shifted his attention to a different part of the pitch.
But he had never stepped onto it.
Arda walked towards the fence.
“You’re not joining?”
Dean looked at him, then glanced back at the players. “I’m not officially on the team.”
“You could be.”
A faint smile appeared, though it did not quite reach his eyes.
“My parents don’t want me playing.”
Arda looked down at his own training kit. He thought about what he could say, but every possible answer felt too simple. He could tell Dean that his parents were wrong, or that he should ignore them, or that he clearly belonged on the pitch.
None of those things would change what Dean had to face at home.
Before Arda could answer, Mr. Mourinho noticed him standing outside the fence.
“Huijsen.”
Dean straightened immediately. “Yes, sir?”
“You’re welcome to join the training session.”
Dean glanced at Arda, then back at the coach.
“I’m not registered.”
“I know.”
“My parents don’t want me playing.”
Mr. Mourinho studied him calmly.
“That was not what I asked.”
Dean swallowed. “What did you ask?”
“Whether you want to train.”
The noise of the pitch seemed to fade around them. Dean looked towards the players, then at the football tucked beneath Mr. Mourinho’s arm.
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Mourinho nodded once.
“Then get changed.”
Dean remained still, as though he had not expected the answer to be that simple.
“Sir?”
“Unless you planned to play in your school shoes.”
Dean looked down at his polished shoes.
“No, sir.”
“Good. You have ten minutes.”
Dean turned and hurried away across the edge of the pitch. Arda watched him go, smiling before he could stop himself.
From beside the goal, Jude shouted, “Finally! We’ve been waiting for you, shithead!”
Dean raised one hand without turning around.
“Shut up, Jude!”
Arda laughed. Jude pointed at him as though he had just gained an ally.
A few minutes later, Dean returned in training clothes and joined the team.
Mr. Mourinho did not treat him differently because of his height or because he had spent years playing football privately. He corrected Dean’s positioning, demanded that he communicate more clearly, and made him repeat the same defensive movement until he got it right.
Dean listened carefully.
Whenever he made a mistake, he tried again without arguing. He adjusted his feet, changed his angle, and repeated the movement until Mr. Mourinho was satisfied enough to let the drill continue.
Then the training began, and Arda saw the same transformation he had witnessed on the abandoned pitch.
Dean became completely alive.
The uncertainty he had carried beside the fence disappeared as soon as he stepped onto the grass. He moved with purpose, calling instructions to the players around him and reading the game several seconds before it developed. His height gave him an obvious advantage, but it was his awareness that made him difficult to get past.
For the next hour, Arda trained alongside him.
Arda played as an attacking midfielder, moving quickly between the lines and searching for spaces behind the defenders. Dean played centre-back, watching the game from behind and directing the movement of the players in front of him.
Several times, they found each other on the pitch without needing to speak.
Arda sent a pass through the middle.
Dean intercepted it.
Dean played the ball forward.
Arda was already moving into space.
Mr. Mourinho noticed the pattern before either of them could enjoy it.
“Güler! Huijsen! Again!”
They repeated the movement. This time, Arda received the ball with his back to the goal, turned sharply, and escaped before Dean could close him down.
Dean stopped and stared at the space between them.
Arda grinned.
“You’re too slow.”
Dean pointed at him. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
From the side of the pitch, Jude shouted, “He’s going to talk about that all night!”
“He already talks too much,” Dean called back.
“And yet you keep listening!”
The next drill began before Dean could reply.
By the time training ended, the players were breathing heavily, their shirts damp with sweat, and their legs beginning to feel the weight of the cold. Dean walked towards the edge of the pitch, wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist.
Arda was already there with a bottle of water.
Dean accepted it, his fingers brushing briefly against Arda’s.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Dean took a long drink. When he lowered the bottle, a small smile had appeared at the edge of his mouth.
Behind them, Mr. Mourinho gathered the footballs into a net bag. Once the other players had begun leaving, he looked towards Dean.
“Huijsen.”
Dean turned. “Yes, sir?”
“You read the game well.”
Dean’s expression changed. He seemed to have expected criticism, not praise.
“Thank you.”
“You need work,” Mr. Mourinho continued. “Your footwork is inconsistent, and you rely too much on your height.”
Dean nodded, absorbing every word.
“But you have potential. If you are willing to work, I can help you improve.”
For a moment, Dean looked as though he had forgotten how to answer. He glanced across the pitch, where the other players were collecting their bags and calling to one another.
Then he looked back at Mr. Mourinho.
“I am.”
The coach held his gaze.
“Good.”
Mr. Mourinho walked away, leaving Dean standing at the edge of the pitch with the empty water bottle in his hand.
Arda turned towards him.
“What are you thinking?”
Dean looked across the grass. The players had almost gone now, leaving the pitch strangely quiet. The goalposts stood pale against the evening sky, and the lines of the field were already beginning to blur beneath the fading light.
For the first time, the possibility of playing seriously did not feel like an impossible dream.
It felt close enough to touch.
“I think,” Dean said slowly, “I might actually have a chance.”
Arda smiled.
“I think you do.”
Dean looked at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You just need someone to give you one.”
Something softened in Dean’s expression. His shoulders lowered, and for once, he seemed to have no joke ready to hide behind.
Then, so casually that Arda almost missed it, Dean reached for his hand.
Only for a second.
Only long enough for their little fingers to brush.
Dean pulled away as though nothing had happened and looked towards the changing rooms.
Arda remained still, his hand tingling where Dean had touched him.
He thought about it for the rest of the night.