The System Makes Me a Player

Dante's Vision:

I didn't shoot.

The ball rolled off my foot to the side, and when I saw Kelvin alone in front of the goal, I felt as if a part of me had been set free, the air no longer heavy, yet another part of me sank even deeper.

The entire stadium screamed, roared, exploded, but all I could hear was my own breathing and the muffled sound of my heart pounding in my chest.

And, in the middle of that instant that seemed to last an eternity, memories began to invade my mind.

I remembered when I was eight years old.

Just a kid, but already standing on a pitch, kicking the ball under my father's sharp eyes. He didn't smile. He never smiled. He watched. Evaluated. Judged. Every shot I took was followed by a correction, a harsh comment.

"More power, Dante"

"You need to hit the corner, Dante"

"It doesn't matter if you're a midfielder, it doesn't matter if you're a defender, you were born to be a striker. The world only looks at the front line"

I had no choice. I couldn't pick another position. I couldn't try, play around, or simply enjoy the game. For my father, I had to be the scorer, the protagonist, the boy who would make the difference in every match.

My father was a professional player, one of the best Brazil ever had. He was seen as a reference in attack. And because I was his son, the pressure on me only grew heavier.

And my mother was no different. When I came home, tired, wanting only to rest or play with my friends, she would sit beside me at the table and speak with that soft voice of hers:

"You know how much we believe in you, Dante. You're the one who will make us proud. You're going to be the best player in the world"

And I believed it.

I believed it because I didn't know another world.

At school, when they asked what I wanted to be, I didn't answer astronaut, firefighter, or scientist. I said striker. Always striker. The weight of my parents never let me see other possibilities.

And when I grew older, that weight became even heavier.

Every training, every tournament, expectations rose. I wasn't just Dante. I was "the son of one of Brazil's best strikers." I had to carry that label. Every time the ball reached my feet, I felt it wasn't just me on the field, it was them too, watching from behind the fence, expecting me to solve everything, to be the star.

I was never allowed to fail.

I was never allowed to pass the ball without hearing criticism.

"You should've shot, Dante!"

"Don't give the ball to anyone, you're the man of the team!"

Those phrases repeated so much they rooted themselves inside me. I became a prisoner of them.

Sometimes, in some matches, I saw completely unbelievable passes. I knew that was the right play, and when I dared, when I let the ball go, I felt it was so much more natural than shooting. More me. More true. But every time I did, my parents looked at me with disdain, staring at me as if I had committed a crime.

So, little by little, I began to believe I really was only a striker. And nothing would change that. After all, what I wanted most was to see my parents smile, to support me, to celebrate. I just wanted them to be happy.

But one day, something broke inside me.

It was in a youth tournament, when I was thirteen. I was playing really well that match, but instead of shooting, I began to send impossible passes, to find invisible spaces. In the second half, after a play where I left a teammate one-on-one with the keeper, I heard the voice of an opponent, an older defender. He came closer, looked me in the eyes, and said:

"Man, you're good, but not good enough for the front line. That's not your position"

In that moment, my legs froze. I couldn't respond. Because, deep down, I felt the same. I liked giving passes, serving the team.

I had never dared to think it aloud, but those words echoed in me like a sentence. Was I really not a striker? Was everything I lived just a lie I had been forced to believe?

In the locker room after that match, I stayed silent. My teammates celebrated the victory, but I couldn't smile. After gathering courage, I decided I needed to talk to my parents. I needed to tell them what I truly felt. That maybe I was a different kind of player, someone who saw the game in another way.

But destiny didn't give me time.

That same week, when I got home from school, my mother was sitting on the couch, her eyes red. I asked where dad was. She took a while to answer, and when she finally spoke, it felt as if the ground vanished beneath my feet.

"Your father had a heart attack… he didn't make it"

The world stopped. I didn't hear anything else. I couldn't breathe. It was as if all the words I wanted to say had been ripped from my throat forever.

I never got to tell him that maybe I wasn't a striker. Never got to tell him I had doubts, that I wanted to be something else. Never got to ask to just be Dante, and not "the successor."

Instead, what was left was only emptiness. An emptiness filled with a horrible feeling: guilt.

Guilt for never saying anything before. Guilt for not being strong enough to speak up. Guilt for not living up to his expectations while he was alive.

And in that same moment, what chains me to this day was born: a duty.

A heavy, suffocating duty that told me I had to carry his legacy. That I had to, no matter what, be the striker he wanted me to be. It didn't matter if my heart said otherwise. It didn't matter if my eyes saw passes more beautiful than goals. I had to be him. I had to honor his name.

That's why, when I shot… or rather, when I chose not to shoot and passed to Kelvin, something inside me shattered.

Because, deep down, that was the real Dante.

The Dante who wanted to release the ball.

The Dante who wanted to play differently.

But at the same time, it was also a betrayal of the weight I've carried since the day my father passed.

I looked to the side, and all I saw was Kelvin striking the ball clean. The ball flew at incredible speed, but with every second it neared the net, a new Dante was being born.

Little by little… until the ball fully crossed the line.

The crowd screamed, the Zenkai team argued among themselves, but while Kelvin began to sprint to celebrate, my body moved on its own, carrying me toward him.

I reached him quickly and jumped onto his back, he grabbed my legs, and we began to shout. As the others came to celebrate with us, I felt a new feeling rising inside me.

"Thank you, Kelvin… for showing me who I really am"

The referee blew the whistle. It was the end of the first half.

1–1.