By mid-afternoon we were standing on the edge of University of Reading’s practice field. A few players were already warming up, jogging light laps or stretching along the sidelines. The team playing today seemed to be a different one to the one I spectated the other day, and better as well. Maybe the other lineup had been the B team.

  I glanced at Maisie. She was tapping something into her phone, probably checking the list Tom had pre-filtered for us.

  “How… did you get us in here?” I asked quietly. Unlike the last match I’d been in, which had been at an open community field where anyone could wander onto the pitch if they fancied it, this place was a proper training ground. From what I knew, Slough didn’t have any direct connections with the university.

  Maisie leaned in and lowered her voice. “Reading lets students observe sessions for research or course projects. All I did was email the performance analysis department, said I wanted to track player development for a university project, and—boom—they let me bring a colleague. Easy, innit?”

  I frowned. “A colleague?”

  “Yep. That’s you,” she said with a small grin. “They don’t care why you’re here, as long as you’re quiet and don’t get in the way. Even if we’re scouts, they probably wouldn’t mind if a student actually got a semi-pro contract out of it.”

  Made sense.

  I followed Maisie’s gaze toward the far end of the pitch. A friendly match was already underway—a friendly between University of Reading’s second team and a nearby U18 semi-pro side from the region. Maidenhead United, I reckoned.

  Maisie nudged her notebook and glanced up at me. “So… why acceleration and ball control? That seems oddly specific. Surely you don’t just want fast kids.”

  I couldn’t exactly say, ‘because the game inside my head told me to.’ Luckily, there was a solid footballing rationale that made sense on its own.

  “Think about it,” I said slowly. “Acceleration gets you into space before anyone else. Even if a player isn’t the most technical, if they can reach the ball first, they can make plays happen. And ball control… well, that keeps them effective when they’re under pressure. If you can combine both, you’ve got a player who can create and exploit chances before the defense reacts. A difference maker, if you will.” Which was exactly what Hungerford had been missing as well.

  “Mhm. Well, I’ve got one for you,” Maisie said, flipping a few pages in her notebook with a quiet swipe of her fingers. Her eyes scanned down the columns—pre-filtered stats, training notes, a few observations from the last time she’d checked the players. Then she paused. “This one. Brennen, Number 14. You see him?”

  I followed her gaze to the far side of the pitch. A lean kid with a shock of blond hair was already darting past a defender all with the ball still glued to his feet. Damn, the kid was fast.

  I stared at his profile:

  17 and already had a full-star. There was no way this kid would end up at Hungerford. It would be a crime if he were to play for us.

  I crouched, letting my live assessment kick in. I tracked his movements as he received a pass, turned, and weaved between two markers. Ball control… 48, give or take thirty. Hopefully his actual attribute landed on the higher range.

  So his ball control was indeed over 55.

  Maisie exhaled, clearly pleased, then tapped the edge of her notebook with her pen. “There’s another friendly going on at another uni,” she said. “Different profile though. A bit more physical, less technical. I figured this one suited you better, given what you said about ball control.”

  I glanced briefly toward the far fence, where I could just make out movement of the other team. She’d planned this. Good to have someone well-prepared with me.

  “From my scout report,” she continued, flipping to another page, “there’s supposed to be another one here as well. Not on yet—he’s on the bench. He plays up top and has good feet for a striker, drops deep to receive. If the data’s right, we should wait until the second half.”

  My eyes were still tracking Brennen as he tore down the flank again. “Yeah.”

  Across the pitch, on Preston Albion’s right flank, someone caught my attention. His movements were different from Brennen. He took his first touch inward, angled his run diagonally, and forced the fullback to turn his hips the wrong way before accelerating past him.

  Inverted winger.

  I leaned forward slightly, narrowing my focus. The kid cut inside again a minute later, this time riding a shoulder check before bursting into the half-space. That burst was clean. Not explosive like Brennen’s, but decisive.

  Acceleration: 80.

  I let live assessment run as he received under pressure, cushioning the ball with the inside of his foot before shifting it across his body. The control wasn’t perfect, but it held—enough to keep momentum.

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  Ball Control: 62 ± 30.

  Good enough.

  “Other team,” I muttered. “Right side. Cuts in every time. That’s not accidental.”

  “Is cutting in an important trait?” she asked.

  The winger received again, checked wide just long enough to freeze the fullback, then dragged the ball inside with his first touch.

  I said, “If the player has the right profile for it, and it seems like this guy does. He’s pre-committed; knows exactly where the space will open once the defender turns. That’s decision-making at speed. You can’t teach that easily.”

  Maisie nodded slowly, scribbling something down. “So he’s a… different kind of difference maker.”

  “Yeah.”

  The player Maisie mentioned did come on early in the second half. He dropped off the line on his first touch, shielded the ball cleanly, and rolled his marker before slipping a pass wide.

  Good feet. Exactly as advertised.

  The bar ticked over again.

  I let out a slow breath, leaning back against the railing.

  Damn. This was absurdly efficient. If every session went like this, I could level faster than I ever had on the pitch.

  But the thought didn’t sit cleanly.

  If I didn’t travel around all weekend, this wasn’t something I could repeat all week. Not without quitting my day job, at least. University sessions ran during working hours.

  Unfortunately, Hungerford probably wouldn’t be able to snatch any of these players.

  Brennen was already too sharp. The inverted winger on the right had decision-making you didn’t stumble into by accident. Even the striker Maisie flagged moved like someone who’d be coached properly for years. They’d be the type of players a National League team, or even a relegation-battling League Two team could go for.

  I was just about to disengage when the fourth official raised the board.

  Seventy-fifth minute.

  A sub jogged on for Reading, taking up the left side. Taller than Josh Cullen, but heavier in the stride. His first touch went backward instead of forward, safe and hesitant.

  I narrowed my focus and let the assessment run.

  He was an inverted winger profile like Cullen’s, just slower and rougher around the edges. Not impressive. But not terrible either. In fact, he’d be almost as good as Donovan, if not already better.

  I watched him receive the ball under pressure. He took an extra touch every time, always checking over his shoulder a fraction too late. When he played the ball, it was conservative—simple passes, rarely breaking lines. And every mistake earned him something from his teammates. A sharp word. A hand thrown up. Once, a full-on bark after he hesitated instead of overlapping.

  His shoulders dipped after that, and he stopped calling for the ball.

  Low confidence was normally a red flag. Confidence issues killed players faster than bad technique ever could. But this didn’t feel like arrogance-deflated-by-reality. This felt like someone who already thought he wasn’t good enough from the start.

  Already nearly as good as half of Hungerford’s first-team wingers, and this kid was playing scared. Scared players were cheap, overlooked, easier to pry loose. This was exactly the type of player Alex Hurst had told me to go for.

  I could even go for the kid now. Dual registration was simple—club on weekends, uni midweek. Hungerford wouldn’t even need to outbid anyone. We just needed to offer minutes and a role that didn’t change every week.

  By the time the whistle blew, I was still watching him.

  Players were drifting toward the touchline now, stretching, laughing, slapping hands. The kid lingered near the halfway line, tugging at the hem of his shirt, glancing toward the bench like he wasn’t sure if he’d done enough to justify being there.

  A nudge hit my elbow.

  I looked down. Maisie was watching me instead of the pitch.

  “You’ve been staring at him since he came on,” she said quietly. “Left side. Number twenty-three.”

  I didn’t deny it.

  “Go on, then,” she said, nudging me again, softer this time. “Do you want to go for him?”

  “I’d have to talk to the head coach first.”

  Maisie didn’t argue. Instead, she slipped her notebook out from under her arm and flipped to a page she hadn’t shown me yet. “I think I’ve got notes on him. Second-year student,” she went on. “His name is Elliot Harper. He wasn’t a starter last season. Coaches flagged him as ‘technically sound, mentally tentative.’ That was their wording, not mine.” She hesitated, then added, “He’s been in and out of the squad since.” She tore the page out cleanly and held it out to me. “For when you do talk to the head coach.”

  I took it, eyebrows lifting. “Don’t scouts usually guard their notes like state secrets?”

  Maisie gave me an easy smile. “I’m not a scout,” she said. “I’m just… helping.”

  Something about the way she said it made the words land heavier than they should have.

  I folded the page once and slipped it into my pocket. She really has been doing that, I realized. Connecting me with Tom Harding. Filtering profiles so I didn’t waste time. Now this.

  Does she have a thing for me or something?

  Even if she didn’t, this went beyond casual courtesy. And if someone kept offering you ladders, the least you could do was stop pretending you didn’t see them.

  I watched the kid jog out of the field before turning back to her. “About that coffee… You said I owed you one.”

  She looked up, surprised. “That I did, yeah.”

  “You still want it?”

  She stared at me for a good second. When she eventually spoke, her smile was smaller and less professional. “I wouldn’t have brought it up again,” she said. “But… yeah. I think I do.”

  We kept our smile for another second, then Maisie furrowed her brows slightly. “Hold on. Don’t you have Youth training this evening?”

  Oh. Yeah. I guess I did.