The first game of the Neighborhood-to-Neighborhood Tournament arrived the way everything important does: too early and too heavy.
The locker room was a concrete room that smelled of ointment and old dust. The wall bore marks from hands caked with mud—as if soccer had tried to escape that place and come back. On one side, Dudu in the number 10 jersey, with two or three guys glued to him. Laughing loudly. Owners of the space. On the other side, the rest of the team: good people, but afraid to make mistakes, afraid to pick a side, afraid of becoming targets.
Léo took his place beside Rai without ceremony. It was friendship. But it was also a choice.
Dudu looked over and tossed out the line like someone sprinkling salt on an old wound:
“Hey, Léo. You’re going down with him, you know. People who latch onto someone who’s been ‘helped’ always end up crying.”
Rai took a step forward, then stopped. He wanted to fire back. He had the words ready. But at thirty-five, he knew: arguing in the locker room meant losing the game before it started.
He only answered in a low voice, calm enough to hurt:
“You talk a lot for someone who gets so little done without an audience.”
Dudu laughed. Loudly.
“Well, look at you, getting brave now that you’ve got ‘Dona Marta.’”
Silence cut through the locker room for half a second. Rai realized it wasn’t just provocation. It was an attack on his reputation. Reducing Rai to a “dependent,” not a player.
Sergião came in and slapped the clipboard against his hand.
“Listen up. Dudu is the 10 because he earned it. Because he delivered. Because he was the top scorer.”
Dudu lifted his chin as if he’d won.
Sergião continued:
“But nobody gets to be the 10 forever. A jersey isn’t an inheritance. It’s a job to do.”
The line dropped into the locker room like a brick into a puddle. Dudu felt the splash but pretended he didn’t.
Sergião looked at Rai and said the kind of thing that changes a kid’s career:
“Today, Rai… you’re playing through the middle. I want to see if you can run the midfield.”
Dudu smiled poisonously. Because the middle was where the king ruled.
And the ball was in play.
In the first few minutes, Dudu did what he always did when he had an audience: he tried to be the author of the story. He called for the ball, took long shots, complained about the team.
Rai kept it simple. Called for give-and-goes. Switched the play away from his ego. The difference began to show not on the scoreboard, but in the team’s breathing. They started running at the right time.
Dudu noticed and did the last thing he had left: he stopped passing. On purpose.
Rai made himself available, and the ball “didn’t see him.” Léo made himself available, and the ball “didn’t see him.” Dudu wanted the team to send a message: without the 10, nobody existed.
Rai looked around. And for the first time in a game, he understood: Maestro isn’t the one who has the ball. It’s the one who makes the ball find its way… even when they hide the map.
He began to move differently. Not waiting for the pass—creating it. Appearing in the space where the defensive midfielder had no option but to pass to him. Taking the ball from the center back while Dudu held onto it. Switching the play without needing the king’s permission.
The team responded. Slowly, like someone learning to walk again, but they responded.
At the twenty-minute mark, Rai received the ball near the edge of the attacking third, with his back to goal and his marker tight to him. The Gift revealed a thin line—Léo cutting inside, the opposing center back a half step too far forward. A lane that would exist for one second.
Rai turned at exactly the right moment and threaded the pass through. Low, firm, with precisely the right weight.
Léo ran in alone on the goalkeeper. This time he didn’t think. He shot across goal.
Goal.
The Cruzeiro do Sul supporters—about thirty people behind the railing, but loud enough to sound like three hundred—erupted. Léo ran to Rai, hugged him, shouted. The team’s kids piled on.
Dudu stood still in the middle of the field. Arms hanging at his sides. Looking like he’d just realized the game could happen without him.
Cruzeiro do Sul won 2–0. The second goal came from the center forward, off a cross that began with a switch Rai made from midfield—three touches, no showboating, just reading the game.
In the locker room after the game, Sergião didn’t make a speech. He only looked at the team and said:
“Today you played like a team. Anyone who wants to keep playing like a team, show up Monday. Anyone who wants to play alone can do that in a Sunday pickup game.”
Dudu left first. Without speaking to anyone.
Rai left last. At the door, Sergião grabbed him by the shoulder.
“You know what you did today?”
Rai looked at the coach.
“I played.”
“No. You made the team play. That’s rarer than a goal.”
Sergião released his shoulder and walked away.
Rai stood still in the locker-room doorway, looking out at the empty field. Trampled grass, cleat marks, the smell of sweat and wet earth. And he thought, with the clarity of someone who had already lived two lives: Maestro isn’t the one who has the ball. It’s the one who makes the ball find its way.
Now he had to learn when to unleash the Wizard within the Maestro. Without killing either one.