First Match In Europe IV - HAMADI MAGIC

Jan Wouters sat with his arms folded, elbows tucked tight, coat zipped high against the biting cold. But his focus wasn't on the weather. His sharp eyes, honed by decades in the trenches of professional football, were locked onto the pitch — tracking every movement of Number 37.

Utrecht wasn't just holding on anymore. They were dictating. The game had a new pulse, and it beat through that boy — the Kenyan kid wearing red and white like he'd been born into it. Every pass, every turn, every pocket of space that opened and closed — Amani was at the center of it all, weaving silk into a game that had started as pure scrap metal.

Wouters' brows knit together. The feet were perfect. The decision-making is sharper than most academy players twice his experience. But something didn't quite match.

It wasn't his touch. It was his frame.

The kid was lean, almost too lean, but there was something else. His face was still soft around the edges, none of that hardened look you expect from 16-year-olds who've spent years grinding in European academies. His limbs were long but not yet fully filled out, the way young trees stretch skyward before their trunks catch up. And though he stood taller than some of his teammates, there was a youthfulness to how he carried himself — a rawness under all that elegance.

Jan leaned toward Mr. Stein, voice low like he was afraid the truth might get out. "Carlos… why's your wonderkid built like that? Most of these lads are sixteen, maybe seventeen. He looks like he still argues with his mum about bedtime."

Stein didn't answer right away. His attention was fixed on the pitch, just as Amani, under pressure from two AZ midfielders, slid a pass through the tightest of seams with the outside of his left boot. The ball kissed the grass like it was drawn by a magnet, curling into the exact path of Utrecht's striker before AZ could even process the danger.

The move didn't lead to a goal — but it didn't have to. It was a statement.

Only then did Stein speak, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth."That's because he's not sixteen. He turns fourteen next month."

Jan's head whipped around so fast Stein thought his neck might crack. "Fourteen? No… thirteen? Are you telling me that boy out there..."Stein's nod cut him off. "Thirteen years old."

Jan's jaw hung slightly open, his breath curling into the cold air. "You put a thirteen-year-old into an under-17 match against AZ? Are you people insane?"

Stein's smile didn't fade. "I didn't put him anywhere. Pronk did. Told me himself: 'Amani's not here to take pictures. He's here to show us if he belongs.'"

Jan let out a slow whistle through his teeth, shaking his head in disbelief. "I see what Pronk was doing — trying to break him early, expose the cracks, scare the shine off him. Typical old-school test. But Carlos…" He paused, eyes flicking back to the pitch where Amani was already demanding the next pass, arms out, body language screaming confidence.

"It's not working. The kid's too damn good."

But Jan wasn't just impressed by the skill — he saw something deeper, something that separated the flashy prospects from the ones who actually made it. Presence.

Amani wasn't a tiny kid hiding from the physical battle. He stood tall, maybe too tall for thirteen, already brushing against 5'9", with legs that looked like they were built for 800 meter sprints. He didn't slouch or shrink from tackles; he leaned into them, absorbing the bumps and shoves like they were all part of the conversation.

There was strength there — not the muscle-packed bulk of a teenager who's lived in the gym, but the natural athleticism of a kid who'd run barefoot on sand, played through the bruises and built his core strength chasing balls over broken fields in the midday sun.

And then there was the bracelet.

Jan spotted it as Amani turned to track back — a thin, worn band of green, red, black, and white wrapped around his wrist. Kenyan colors are faded but unmissable.

That wasn't just jewelry. That was home, carried onto this frozen Dutch pitch like a secret weapon.

"Thirteen…" Jan muttered again, almost to himself. "At this age, we're supposed to be teaching them the game. But he's teaching us."

He turned to Stein, voice dropping lower. "Whatever contract you have him on — rip it up. Offer him a new one. 1,000 Euros a month. Minimum. And if anyone in the boardroom argues about budget, you tell them they can either pay now or cry later when someone else steals him."

Stein's smile widened, his breath curling into the cold. "Already ahead of you, Jan."

Back on the pitch, the clock dragged into the 88th minute, the kind of minute when football forgets systems and shape and becomes pure survival. AZ was desperate... and desperate teams are dangerous. They pushed everything forward, emptying the tank. Their midfielders deserted their posts, their fullbacks sprinted forward with reckless abandon, and suddenly, the pitch was chaos.

Amani saw it first.

The over-commitment. The unraveling. Gaps open like cracked glass under pressure — the kind you don't notice until it's too late.

Tijmen lunged into a tackle near the top of Utrecht's box, studs scraping frost, winning the ball with sheer willpower. It spun loose, bouncing unevenly off the grass.

Tijmen's head turned immediately to his left — out of instinct, out of habit — because after 40 minutes, he knew.

Amani would be there.

And Amani was.

Already moving. Already reading the next line in the story while AZ was still stuck on the first paragraph.

The pass came — ugly, spinning awkwardly off Tijmen's boot — but Amani's left foot had the touch of a locksmith. One velvet caress and the ball settled at his feet, perfectly still, like it wanted to be controlled.

One glance up, just long enough to see the chessboard and Amani saw everything.

The right-back? Out of position, too high up the pitch, scrambling back like a man chasing his own mistake.

The center-backs? Backpedaling clumsily, unsure whether to step up or retreat, gaps yawning between them.

The striker? Peeling off, trusting the boy from Kenya completely now, waiting for the pass before it was even played.

Any normal player would've gone textbook — down the line to the winger, safe and sensible.

But safety was for tourists.

Amani's body shaped like he would play the easy ball, selling the illusion perfectly — but his left foot had other ideas. He cut across the ball with a whisper of spin, slicing it diagonally through the narrowest crack, bending it into existence before AZ even realized it was there.

A reverse pass; the kind you don't play unless you see football like a chess master sees five moves ahead. It didn't just slip through the defense — it curved into the striker's stride like a magnet pulling steel.

Gasps flickered through the small crowd — even the AZ bench stood up, eyes wide.

The striker didn't need a touch to settle. He didn't need time to think. The ball didn't just arrive — it begged to be hit.

Left foot. Full volley. The strike sounded like a gunshot in the cold air.

The keeper flung himself sideways — but too late, hopeless.

Net rippled.

3-1.

The entire stadium froze for a heartbeat as if football itself needed a moment to process what had just happened.

Then the world exploded.

The Utrecht bench emptied, and substitutes charged down the sideline, screaming Amani's name. Malik nearly fell over the railing, his voice cracking from screaming so loud that his breath fogged the entire row of seats in front of him.

"WOOOAAAH! WHAT A BEAUTY!"

Kristen's pen slipped from her hand, forgotten entirely. She just stared, her smile wide, her notebook abandoned in her lap.

Mr. Stein leaned back, arms crossed, like a man who already knew the ending to a movie everyone else was watching for the first time.

But it was Jan Wouters, the man who never overreacted — who said the only thing that mattered.

He exhaled, low and slow, shaking his head with something between disbelief and admiration.

"Carlos, what a player you've brought."

***

The referee's whistle split the air, sharp and final, cutting through the cold like a knife.

For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then, as if the sound released some invisible tension, Utrecht's players threw their arms up, some roaring toward the sky, others collapsing to their knees. It wasn't just celebration — it was survival. They'd weathered a storm they hadn't been ready for, and somehow, they'd come out on top.

Amani stood alone near the center circle, hands on his hips, chest rising and falling, each breath curling into the air like smoke from a dying fire. He didn't shout. He didn't jump. He just stood there, letting the weight of it all settle in his bones — his first match in Europe, his first impact, his first win.

Across from him, the AZ captain - a broad-shouldered defender with the build of someone who could probably wrestle cows for fun, walked straight over. He stopped in front of Amani, studying him for a moment, brow furrowed like he was trying to figure out how this kid had cut his whole team apart.

Then, without a word, he stuck out his hand.

"You're good," the boy said, his English crisp and deliberate. "Really good."

Amani shook his hand firmly, but inside, something warm flickered in his chest. Not the system. Not the crowd. This was something else — the feeling of earning respect the hard way.

No shortcuts. No hype. Just football.

The handshake lingered a second longer than usual — player to player, not opponent to opponent. When the captain turned to walk off, others followed. One by one, AZ players came over. Some clapped his back, others just nodded, but they all came.

None of them had known his name before today. Now they did.

As Amani turned toward the tunnel, Tijmen fell into step beside him. For days, Tijmen had treated him like an intruder — the unknown player from some nowhere town, a temporary guest in his team's house.

Now, Tijmen's hand slapped Amani's shoulder hard enough to make him stumble half a step. "Not bad, Kenya," Tijmen muttered, but there was a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth — small, but real.

It wasn't friendship. Not yet. But it was the beginning of something close enough.

Then, from the stands, a human foghorn shattered the moment.

"HAMADI MAGIC! LEGEND ALREADY! THEY'RE WRITING SONGS ABOUT YOU, BRO!"

Malik, hanging half over the metal fence, arms waving wildly, his smile so wide it looked like his face might split open. His breath fogged up the air in front of him, but he didn't care. He was shouting loud enough to wake up Nairobi.

Amani shook his head, laughing softly, but the sound caught in his throat — because somewhere beneath that laughter, there was relief. Real, bone-deep relief.

He had come all this way, carrying every hope from home on his back, and tonight — for the first time — he had proved he belonged.

Not with words.Not with promises.Just with football.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

***

DING

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THANK YOU FOR 20K

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