Reincarnated As A Wonderkid

Lamine Yamal, the boy wonder, the heir to Messi's throne, the soul of Barcelona, was leaving.

He spent the rest of the night in a daze, the simple joy of his evening with his mother and his date with Sofia replaced by the frantic, buzzing energy of the news cycle. He flicked on the TV, and it was the only story on every sports channel.

"A WORLD RECORD SHATTERED!" a headline on Sky Sports blared.

"BARCA BETRAYS ITS CROWN JEWEL!" screamed a commentator on a Spanish channel.

He switched to "Calcio Global," where a panel of pundits were in the middle of a screaming match.

"It's a disgrace! An absolute disgrace!" roared Giorgio, the fiery ex-player, his face beet red.

"They have sold their future for a quick fix! They have taken the most exciting young player on the planet and thrown him to the wolves in Paris! His career is ruined!"

"Ruined?" the tactical analyst, Marco, countered with a calm, infuriating smirk. "Giorgio, you are being overly dramatic. He is joining the current Champions League holders. He will be playing alongside the best players in the world, in a team that is built to win everything. This isn't ruining his career; it's fast-tracking it to the stratosphere!"

"The pressure will crush him!" Giorgio yelled back.

"A fee that high? He will be expected to be a king from the first minute! The fans in Barcelona will call him a traitor! The fans in Paris will expect miracles every single game! He is a boy! You are sending a boy into a hurricane!"

The numbers they were discussing were so large they didn't seem real, figures that could fund a small country, all for one teenager who was preternaturally gifted at kicking a football.

Leon turned off the TV, the noise of the debate still ringing in his ears. He thought of Yamal, the kid who had ended his own Champions League dream.

He didn't feel anger or jealousy. He just felt a strange, profound sense of pity.

The next day, the training ground was buzzing.

The news had landed like a meteor in their world, and it was all anyone could talk about.

"I still don't believe it," Alessandro Bastoni said, shaking his head as he stretched.

"To sell a player like that... it's like a museum selling the Mona Lisa to pay for a new security system."

"It's the money," Lautaro Martínez said, his captain's voice filled with a weary pragmatism. "This is the business now. Barcelona needed to rebuild their whole squad. They sacrificed their king to save the kingdom. It's brutal, but from a business perspective, you can almost understand it."

"Understand it?" Federico Dimarco scoffed.

"It's crazy! For that much money, you could buy our whole team, the stadium, and probably the city of Milan's entire supply of gelato for a year!"

Julián Álvarez, who had been listening with a look of intense concentration, finally spoke. "Okay, new question," he said, and the group turned to him.

"If you buy a player for that much money, do you also own his dreams? Like, if he has a dream about playing for another team, is that a breach of contract?"

The group just stared at him for a long, silent moment before Cole Palmer, without missing a beat, replied in his deadpan English accent.

"In the Premier League, that's usually covered in clause 34, subsection B. The 'Dream Ownership' clause. Very standard stuff."

The team erupted in laughter, the tension breaking.

Leon joined in, but his mind was elsewhere.

He looked at his teammates—his loud, funny, brilliant family. He thought about the life he had here.

The pressure on Lamine Yamal would be unimaginable, a constant, crushing weight.

Every pass, every shot, every single moment would be judged against the backdrop of his astronomical price tag.

Leon had felt the tiny, fleeting edge of that pressure with the 'Leondona' nickname.

He couldn't imagine what it would be like to live with it every single day. He felt a profound sense of relief that it wasn't him.

Coach Chivu let the chatter continue for a few minutes before a single, sharp whistle cut through the air, bringing an immediate, disciplined silence.

"Good morning," he said, his voice a low growl. "I hope you have all enjoyed the morning's entertainment. It is very exciting when billionaires move their assets around, is it not?" He let the sarcastic words hang in the air.

"But here, in our world, that is all just noise," he continued, his eyes scanning their faces.

"Lamine Yamal does not play for Sassuolo. PSG's bank account will not help us win on Sunday. The only thing that matters is us. Here. Now. Our focus is on one thing, and one thing only: taking the three points that will put us one step away from the Scudetto. All that other drama," he said with a dismissive wave, "is for the television. We are footballers. We work. Now, let's work."

The training session was sharp, intense, and focused. The players had been pulled back to their reality, their purpose. The chatter about the transfer was replaced by the familiar sounds of leather on boot, of shouted instructions, of a team working in perfect, focused harmony.

As Leon was walking off the pitch after the session, his mind clear and his body pleasantly tired, his phone buzzed. It was his agent, Marco.

He braced himself for a hurricane of excitement about the Yamal transfer and what it meant for his own market value.

He answered, "Ciao, Marco. Before you start, yes, I saw the news. No, I don't want to talk about it."

But the voice on the other end was not the usual bombastic, hyperactive Marco. It was quiet. Serious. Almost secretive.

"Leo," he said, his voice a low, urgent whisper. "Forget the Yamal deal. That is old news. Something else has happened. Something bigger."

"Bigger than the biggest transfer in history?" Leon asked, a sense of unease creeping up his spine.

"This is not about money," Marco said, his voice barely audible. "This is about... opportunity. History. Leo, I just got off the phone. I cannot tell you how they got my number. But they did."

"Who, Marco? Who called you?"

There was a pause on the other end, a beat of dramatic, agonizing silence.

"The sporting director of FC Barcelona," Marco whispered, his voice filled with a sense of utter, reverent awe.

"They've sold their star. They have a mountain of money. And they want a meeting. They want to talk about finding a new one."