The phone call with Marco was a bomb that detonated in the middle of Leon's triumphant, muddy celebration.

He stood in the small, chaotic away dressing room at Macclesfield, surrounded by his singing, joyous, beautiful team, and just stared at the wall, his mind a complete, echoing void.

"He wants you, Leo. He wants you."

Flavio Briatore, the flamboyant, chaotic, and utterly unpredictable force of nature who had once been his boss, wasn't just playing 4D chess with the global transfer market. He was playing 4D chess, writing a soap opera, and conducting a hostile takeover all at the same time. And he had just made Leon the main character, the villain, and the prize, all in one move.

"Leo? LEO?! ARE YOU BREATHING?!" Marco's frantic voice shrieked down the line, pulling him back to reality. "HE IS A MADMAN! A GENIUS! A MAD GENIUS! He wants to trade a World Cup winner for a boy wonder, and he's using YOU as the facilitation fee! He wants to un-retire you! This is the greatest story in the history of football! It's beautiful! It makes me want to weep!"

Leon finally took a breath. He looked at the peeling paint on the dressing room wall. He looked at Dave the baker, who was currently trying to drink water out of the Man of the Match trophy. He looked at Liam Doyle, the 'Badger', who was covered in so much mud he looked less like a footballer and more like a creature from a swamp.

And he started to laugh.

It was a deep, genuine, and utterly uncontrollable belly laugh. A laugh of pure, unadulterated, liberating absurdity.

"Gaffer?" Jamie Scott asked, pausing his victory dance. "You... you good? You're making a weird noise."

Leon just waved a hand, wiping a tear from his eye. "I'm fine, Jamie," he choked out. "I'm... I'm just appreciating the 'metaphysics' of the situation."

"Marco," he said into the phone, his voice suddenly calm, clear, and filled with a profound, unshakeable sense of peace. "Listen to me. Go to your office. Make yourself a nice espresso. And then, I want you to call Mr. Briatore. And you will tell him, from me..." he paused, a slow, brilliant, and utterly final smile spreading across his face, "that I am flattered by his... creative... offer. But I am a manager now. I have a team. I have a project. And I am not, and will never be, a bargaining chip in his beautiful, insane, high-stakes game. Tell him... no. Respectfully, of course."

The silence on the other end of the line was so profound, so absolute, that Leon could hear his own heartbeat.

"...no?" Marco finally whispered, the word a tiny, fragile, confused sound.

"No," Leon confirmed, the word tasting like freedom. "Now, I have to go. My team is waiting. We have a promotion to win."

He hung up the phone, a feeling of pure, unadulterated lightness washing over him. He had done it. He had faced down the circus, the glamour, the chaos, and he had chosen... this. He had chosen the mud, the bad biscuits, and the beautiful, terrible jokes. He had chosen his family.

"Alright, you magnificent lunatics!" he roared to the room, his voice filled with a new, powerful energy. "Who wants to get pizza? Because the gaffer is buying!"

The weeks that followed were a beautiful, chaotic, and deeply rewarding blur. The "Great Briatore Heist" (as Julián had dubbed it) fizzled out, becoming just another bizarre footnote in a crazy transfer window. Lautaro stayed at Inter, Yamal stayed at PSG, and Leon stayed at Apex FC, exactly where he belonged.

His life settled into a new, wonderful rhythm. He was a manager. And he was, he was discovering, a pretty good one.

He spent his days on the training pitch, a place that now felt more like home than any stadium he had ever played in. He was a teacher, a mentor, a tactician, and, occasionally, a part-time philosopher.

"Okay, so," he began one morning, standing in front of his squad, trying to explain a new, complex defensive rotation he had dreamed up (with a little help from his 'Manager Mode' system). "I call this... 'The Confusing Butterfly'." (He had decided to lean into Julián's ridiculous metaphors; the players seemed to respond to them). "When the ball is here," he moved a magnet, "our midfield 'flaps' this way. When the ball moves here..." he moved another, "we 'flutter' back. It is all about... 'aggressive, tactical pollination'."

His team just stared at him, a mixture of profound confusion and blind, unwavering faith.

"So... we're butterflies, gaffer?" Liam Doyle asked slowly. "Angry, tactical butterflies?"

"Exactly, Liam," Leon said with a proud, confident nod.

"...I love it," Liam growled, his eyes shining with a new, predatory light.

His 'Tactical Ghost' side-hustle with FC Vaduz was a hilarious, unexpected success. He would spend his Sunday evenings in his office, on a frantic video call with the club's president, Hans-Peter, analyzing their upcoming European opponents.

"MR. LEON! THEY ARE... GIANTS!" Hans-Peter had wailed before their match against Trabzonspor. "They are very large, and very, very Turkish! What do we do?!"

"We be the mosquito, Hans-Peter," Leon had calmly advised. "We are small, we are annoying, and we... bite them."

Vaduz had gone on to secure a legendary 0-0 draw, a 'tactical masterpiece of profound annoyance', and were now the undisputed darlings of the Conference League.

His home life was his sanctuary. He and Sofia had officially moved in together, their new house a beautiful, chaotic, and happy mess of tactical whiteboards, half-finished canvases, and his mother's ever-present, all-powerful lasagna.

"It is a house of balance," Elena had declared, placing another giant dish of pasta on the table. "He gives the brain," she pointed at Leon, "she gives the heart," she pointed at Sofia, "and I," she said, with the unshakeable authority of a true matriarch, "give the carbohydrates. It is a perfect system."

And then, there was the baby. Their 'little mascot'. Sofia was now visibly pregnant, and the reality of it was the most beautiful, terrifying, and profoundly grounding thing Leon had ever experienced. He spent his evenings not just analyzing defensive shapes, but also trying, and failing, to assemble a ridiculously complicated, high-tech Swedish baby carriage.

"This is not a carriage," he muttered, staring at a set of instructions that looked more complex than Chivu's Real Madrid playbook. "This is a tactical puzzle designed by a sadist. The structural integrity is... questionable."

"Just... don't use your 'Power Shot' on it, footballer," Sofia laughed from the sofa, where she was sketching in a notebook, a serene, happy smile on her face.

The season was drawing to a close. Apex FC, in a stunning, beautiful, and utterly improbable run of form, were top of the league, three points clear, with one match left to play. They needed one point. One draw. One single, solitary point to win the league, to secure their second promotion in two years.

It was a beautiful, perfect story. And Leon knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the football gods were not going to make it that easy.

Their final match was away, against York City, a tough, experienced, and desperate team fighting for their own playoff lives.

As Leon stood on the sideline of the packed, hostile stadium, the roar of the home crowd a deafening wall of sound, he felt a familiar, electric thrill. This was it. The final battle.

He was running through his final tactical checks in his mind when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it. It buzzed again. Insistently. Annoyingly.

He pulled it out, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. It was an email from the English FA.

[Subject: URGENT: Player Registration Inquiry - Apex FC]

[Dear Mr. Leon,

Following a routine audit, a significant irregularity has been discovered regarding the international clearance and registration of your player, Samuel Adebayo. His transfer from FC Dordrecht was not... finalized... in the correct manner. He is, and has been for the entire season, ineligible to play.]

[As per FA regulations, all matches in which Mr. Adebayo has participated will be retroactively forfeited. Effective immediately, Apex FC will be deducted... 42 points.]

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.