Chapter 529 139 — First Place II

The first drill was Kane.

A reserve striker started high, then kept dropping toward midfield. A second reserve played Musiala, drifting in the pocket nearby. The reserve wingers were told to attack whichever channel opened up the moment anyone moved.

Ten Hag stood by the edge of the grid.

"Demien, Kobbie, Harry, Raphaël," he called. "Nobody follows automatically. Nobody. You talk before you move."

The first repetition started.

The reserve Kane dropped.

He looked free. Nobody near him. The ball was about to go into his feet.

Demien stepped with him.

He covered the ground fast and closed the striker down — but in doing it, he'd pulled himself several yards beyond where he should have been. The reserve Musiala slipped straight into the pocket Demien had just left, took the next pass, turned, and played the winger in behind Dalot.

The winger shot. The keeper saved it.

"Stop!" Ten Hag called.

He walked into the grid. Not angry. Just direct.

"Demien. Stepping toward Kane wasn't wrong," he said. "The problem is when you stepped. You went before anyone was behind you. Who took your space?"

Demien looked at the pocket where the reserve Musiala had received.

"Nobody," he said.

"Nobody," Ten Hag agreed.

Demien replayed it in his head as they reset.

I saw Kane free. I reacted to the danger in front of me. That part was right.

But I didn't check where Kobbie was. I didn't check where Harry was. I just went.

New rule. Before I step: who fills the space I'm leaving? Find that first. Then go.

"Again," Ten Hag said.

The reserve Kane dropped again.

This time Demien checked over his shoulder before he moved. Mainoo had already seen it and was sliding across behind him.

"I'm here!" Mainoo called. "Go!"

Demien stepped. He closed the striker enough that he couldn't turn cleanly, and Mainoo was sitting in the Musiala lane behind him.

The reserve Kane had nowhere to go. He passed it back.

United squeezed forward and forced them all the way back toward their own half.

「MISSION PROGRESS」 「Successful Central Handovers: 1/5」

"That's it," Ten Hag said. "That's the whole idea."

The repetitions kept changing.

On one, Maguire went with the dropping striker instead. Demien saw it immediately and stayed deeper, picking up the Musiala runner rather than doubling up on Kane.

"Harry's got him!" Demien shouted. "I've got ten!"

On another, both the reserve Kane and the reserve Musiala dropped almost onto the same horizontal line, side by side.

"Kobbie—!"

"Left one's mine!"

"Pass him!" Demien called, pointing Musiala across to Mainoo rather than chasing through traffic after both of them.

The voices overlapped constantly. Ten Hag calling names from the side. One of the assistants barking "Distance! Distance!" every time the midfield got stretched. Varane warning Maguire — "Runner, your side!" — when a winger peeled off his shoulder. Bruno, up top, shouting where the next press should come from — "Center-back, now! Squeeze!"

By the later repetitions, Bayern's simulated rotations had stopped finding free players nearly as often.

Not every time, though.

On one rep, United's shape was exactly right. Demien and Mainoo had handed off perfectly. And the reserve playing Musiala just turned anyway — a sharp drop of the shoulder, a touch past the first challenge — and suddenly he was running at the back line.

Varane had to come out and meet him, and Maguire had to scramble across to cover the run behind.

"Nothing wrong there," the assistant called. "Good player, good turn. It happens."

Demien nodded to himself.

Good positioning makes it harder. It doesn't make it impossible. They've got players who'll just beat you sometimes.

The next exercise was about escaping Bayern's press.

The first team set up in buildup. The reserve front four pressed the center-backs, while two reserves playing Kimmich and Goretzka blocked the midfield lanes. Demien was the main midfield outlet.

On the first rep, a reserve closed him from behind just as the pass arrived.

He'd already checked his shoulder. He knew the man was there. He moved his body across the presser as the ball came, and took the contact without going down.

「TRAIT ACTIVATED」 「Press Resistant」

He didn't dribble on into the second midfielder. He found Mainoo at an angle and moved straight away into a new space.

Mainoo gave it back.

Bayern's first line was now behind him.

「MISSION PROGRESS」 「Press Escapes: 1/6」

He looked up. The reserve left-back had pushed high, and Garnacho was starting his run into the space ahead of him.

Demien released him. Garnacho was away down the wing, and the move ended with a shot from Højlund that went just over.

On the next repetition, Bayern didn't follow Demien at all. They blocked Bruno instead and left Demien with the ball. So he carried it, ten yards forward, until the reserve Goretzka had to step out, and then switched it wide to Antony.

On another, he received with his back to goal and every forward option covered.

He could have tried the turn. He was almost certain he'd have made it.

He played it back to Maguire instead.

Ten Hag didn't stop anything. He let it run. That was the right decision.

I can escape pressure most of the time. That doesn't mean I should try every time.

Being able to turn isn't the same as needing to.

Then he made his one mistake.

He received in the middle and saw Bruno appear in space between the lines. Bruno was free — or he looked free. Demien went to punch the pass through before the reserve playing Kimmich had fully moved across.

The Kimmich player read it.

He'd been standing just behind Bruno, half-hidden by Bruno's own movement. He stepped in and cut it out.

Immediate counter. Varane and Maguire had to sprint back toward their own goal.

Ten Hag didn't stop it when the ball was intercepted. He let the counter play all the way out, let the defenders deal with it, and only then blew the whistle.

Demien already knew exactly what had happened before anyone said a word.

I read Bruno.

I didn't read the man behind Bruno.

That's what they do. They show you the lane, just for a second. Just long enough to make you think it's open. And then they close it the moment you commit.

I won't do that again.

"You saw it?" Ten Hag asked.

"I saw it," Demien said.

"Good."

That was the whole conversation.

「Central Turnovers: 1/1 Maximum」

One more mistake in the middle now, and the bonus was gone.

The third exercise worked on what United did in the first few seconds after winning the ball.

The reserve Bayern side started in attack, the Kane and Musiala stand-ins combining in the middle while both of their fullbacks pushed high. United's task was to win it back and decide, within a couple of touches, whether a counter was really on.

On the first rep, Demien won the first loose pass.

He looked up. Garnacho was covered. Bayern's midfield was already running back.

He kept it. Played it simply. No progression counted.

The coaches let it run and said nothing. That was right too.

On another, Mainoo won the first duel, and the ball broke to Demien while the reserve left-back was still stranded high up the pitch.

Demien checked the opposite side.

Antony was completely free.

「LEGENDARY SKILL ACTIVATED」 「Paul Pogba — Long Switch Flair」

He drove the ball across the whole width of the pitch, low and fast over the wet grass, straight into Antony's stride before the reserves could get across.

「MISSION PROGRESS」 「Progressive Actions After Recovery: 1/4」 「Switches Behind Advanced Fullback: 1/4」

Antony attacked the exposed defender and cut it inside to Højlund, who hit it first time. The reserve keeper saved it.

Not everything ended in a goal.

Another recovery came in the middle a few minutes later. Demien spotted Garnacho already running behind the reserve playing Davies. No skill this time — just an ordinary long pass, the kind he'd hit thousands of times, into space.

Garnacho was in.

The count ticked up again.

Slowly, the idea was becoming clear to everyone on the grass. Survive Bayern's movement in the middle. Then punish the space their attacking shape left behind when the ball changed hands.

The full eleven-versus-eleven was the longest part of the day.

The reserves set up in Bayern's likely shape: Kimmich and Goretzka behind Musiala, Kane dropping between the lines, Coman and Sané stretching the pitch wide, the fullbacks pushing on whenever Bayern settled on the ball.

Ten Hag still didn't name a starting eleven. He rotated the midfield in blocks, and Bruno stayed in the advanced role throughout.

First block: Demien, Mainoo, Bruno.

Second block: Demien, McTominay, Bruno.

Demien noticed the difference almost immediately.

With Kobbie, I've got someone else who can take it under pressure. If they press me, he's there. If they press him, I'm there. We can keep the ball.

With Scott, it's different. He goes. He runs past their midfield, into the box. He's a threat they have to track.

Neither's better. They just change my job.

With Kobbie, I might be the one who has to break forward. With Scott, I'm the one who stays.