"Do you think he is going to get picked?"
The television was on in the corner of the apartment, some pre-show panel talking over a graphic that had been on the screen for eleven minutes.
The boys were scattered everywhere. Gavi had one leg over the arm of a chair. Fermín was on the floor with his back against the couch. Casadó had a plate on his knees, and Balde was in the middle of the couch with a container of loaded fries balanced on his own chest.
Casadó looked up.
And gave Balde a look normally reserved for the very slow.
"What?"
He put his fork down.
"Dude. Are you seriously asking that?"
Because with the season Mateo had just had, that was a genuinely stupid question.
But Balde was not that slow.
"You doofus."
He sat up a bit and dug another fry out of the container.
"I was not talking about Mateo."
He gestured at the screen with it.
"I am talking about Ramos."
"Ohhh."
Fermín sat forward.
"Yeah, man. There has been massive news about that. Do you think he is actually going to pick him?"
"He should," Gavi said.
Balde shrugged.
"Nah, man. Romero said the national coaching staff are not planning on him."
Casadó's head came round.
"The streamer guy?"
"Yeah."
"You are getting your news from the streamer guy."
"To be fair." Balde pointed the fry at him. "His stuff is mostly accurate. Genuinely. He was right about the Koeman thing in November before anybody else."
"Then that makes no sense."
Gavi had gone up in his chair.
"The national team needs defenders. That is literally our weakest area. That has been our weakest area for three years, so why would you—"
"Wow."
Fermín had turned round.
"Wow. I never thought I would live to see the day."
"What?"
"Gavi. Fighting for a Real Madrid player."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"OHHHH!"
Gavi's entire face collapsed.
"Please." He put a hand up. "Please do not remind me. I feel sick."
"HAHAHA."
And the bedroom door opened.
Mateo came out still slightly damp, in track pants, drying the back of his own neck with a towel, looking at his phone in his other hand.
"What is going on? Has it started?"
He dropped down onto the end of the couch.
Balde shifted about a foot away and lifted his food.
"Dude. At least dry off properly first."
And Mateo grinned, leaned over, and shook his own head like a dog.
"AH. DUDEEE."
Balde curled over his container with both arms round it.
"MY FOOD."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"They are just starting," Casadó said.
Everybody turned to the screen.
"Who turned the volume down?"
Gavi already had the remote and was pushing it up.
"—and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming."
Luis Enrique was sitting at a long table with a Federation backdrop behind him and about four hundred cameras in front of him.
"I will take a few questions first and then we will go through the list."
"Coach, what are your hopes going into this tournament?"
"My hopes." Enrique smiled slightly. "My hope is that we play well. Genuinely. I know that is not the answer anybody wants, but I have been in this job long enough to know that if we play the way we are capable of playing, then everything else takes care of itself. We are not going to talk about winning it in May."
"Barcelona won the Champions League last night. Any thoughts, as a former coach there?"
"Ah." He sat back. "Well. It is a wonderful thing. That club has had a very difficult few years and what they did last night was extraordinary, and I am very happy for a lot of people in that building."
He shrugged.
"And I would remind everybody that four of the men on that pitch last night are going to be in this squad, so it is good for us too."
"There is a lot of talk about Mateo King. What will his role be in this side?"
"His role will be to play football."
"Coach—"
"No, I am serious." Enrique put a hand out. "I am not going to sit here two weeks before a tournament and announce a role for anybody, and I am certainly not going to do it for a seventeen-year-old. He will be given the same thing every other player in this squad is given, which is an opportunity."
He paused.
"And then it is up to him what he does with it. Same as all of them."
"And Sergio Ramos?"
The room shifted slightly.
"What about him?"
"Is he in your plans?"
"You will hear the squad in about four minutes."
"Coach, with respect—"
"You will hear the squad in about four minutes."
On the couch, the others were still going.
"Romero said they are planning to use Rodri as a centre-back to compensate," Balde said.
"Yeah, I kind of get that." Gavi shrugged. "With Busquets in the midfield, it is not right to just leave Rodri sitting on the bench for a whole tournament. So if you can get him on the pitch somewhere—"
"But he is not a centre-back."
"He has played there."
"Twice."
"He has played there."
And Mateo was still on his phone.
He had a hundred and something replies half-answered and he was working through them slowly, going back and forth, not really reading the television.
Then he opened the squad group chat.
And stopped.
There was a message in it from three hours ago, and he had been tagged in it.
Coach: @Mateo — come by the medical building whenever you can today or tomorrow morning. Nothing urgent, they just want to look at that ankle properly before you go off with the national team. Let me know what time works.
Mateo looked at it.
Right.
The scans.
And something went slightly cold at the back of his neck.
Because they were going to look at that ankle.
They were going to put it in a machine and photograph it, and what they were going to find was a completely healthy joint with absolutely nothing wrong with it at all.
What did they see yesterday?
What did the physios actually feel when they had their hands on it after the match?
How am I going to—
Something hit his arm.
Balde was tapping him with the back of his hand and pointing at the screen.
Mateo looked up.
On the television, Luis Enrique had reached down and picked up a single sheet of paper.
He put it flat on the table in front of him and straightened it with two fingers.
And the room in that press conference went quiet.
Mateo watched.
And honestly, he was not nervous.
He was not going to sit there and pretend. Mateo King was many things and oblivious was not one of them, and he knew exactly what kind of season he had just had.
He had scored twelve in the Champions League. He had won a league. He had scored twice in a European final.
If he was not in that squad, then there was no Spanish forward alive who deserved to be.
"So."
Enrique looked up.
"These are the twenty-five men who are going to represent this great national team at the European Championship."
Mateo's phone was still in his hand, dangling between his knees, completely forgotten.
"Goalkeepers."
"David de Gea. Manchester United."
Fermín snickered.
"Just why?"
"I mean." Casadó shrugged. "It is not like he is going to play."
"HAHAHA."
"Unai Simón. Athletic Club."
"Robert Sánchez. Brighton and Hove Albion."
Enrique looked back down at the sheet.
"Defenders."
...
"..."
In a house outside Seville, a television was on in a very large and very quiet living room.
Sergio Ramos had come forward on the sofa.
Elbows on his knees. Hands together. Eyes locked on the screen.
And beside him, his wife had a hand on top of his and was holding it, and had not said anything in about two minutes.
His heart was going.
If you had told Sergio Ramos five years ago that he would one day be sitting in his own house with his heart hammering over a national team announcement, he would have laughed directly in your face.
He had a hundred and eighty caps. He had a World Cup and two European Championships. He had lifted things in that shirt that most people in that squad had watched on television as children.
He had been picked for eighteen years.
But.
He really wanted to be in it.
He wanted it badly.
He loved that team. Genuinely, uncomplicatedly loved it, in a way he had never quite managed to explain to anybody. He wanted to go and fight for another one. He wanted to stand in that back line one more time and win a tournament for that country.
He wanted it.
And on the screen, Luis Enrique's voice went on.
"César Azpilicueta. Chelsea."
Ramos did not move.
"Jordi Alba. FC Barcelona."
His wife's hand tightened slightly.
"José Luis Gayà. Valencia."
"Aymeric Laporte. Manchester City."
He leaned another inch forward.
"Eric García. Manchester City."
"Pau Torres. Villarreal."
His wife was squeezing hard now.
"Diego Llorente. Leeds United."
A pause.
And Enrique looked up from the sheet.
"And those are the defenders."
His wife's hand went limp in his.
Sergio Ramos did not say anything.
He sat there for a second, and then he sat back, slowly, all the way into the sofa.
And let out a breath.
That was it.
"Honey."
She said it very quietly.
He did not answer her.
And it was not only him.
In that press room, a very large number of reporters had stopped writing. Several of them looked up at the same time. Two people turned to the person beside them. Somebody near the back said something out loud that got picked up on about six different microphones.
Because they had all half expected it and none of them had entirely believed it.
An argument. A fight. A media war. An enormous defeat. Contract negotiations that had gone nowhere in eight months.
And now this.
It truly did look like Mateo King's story with Sergio Ramos had finally been wrapped up and put away.
And with the Real Madrid captain and talisman out of the picture entirely, the Bernabéu was now going to be looking for somebody to fill those boots.
All of which meant that this summer's transfer window was going to be one that people talked about for a very long time.
For everybody involved.
Back in the apartment.
The second that list of defenders finished, Balde threw a hand out.
"See. I told you."
"Wow." Fermín shook his head at the screen. "Wow, I actually believed he was going to get called."
"He is thirty-five, man."
"So? He is SERGIO RAMOS."
"Was."
"Ohhhh."
"Cold."
Mateo was looking at the screen too, and did not say anything.
But before any of it had fully landed, Enrique had already moved on.
"Midfielders."
"Sergio Busquets. FC Barcelona."
"Koke. Atlético Madrid."
"Marcos Llorente. Atlético Madrid."
"Rodri. Manchester City."
"Pedri. FC Barcelona."
"EYYYY!"
"WOOOOO!"
The whole room went up.
"PEDRIIII!"
Mateo was grinning at the screen.
Then he looked round.
"Wait. Where is he? Has he still not come back?"
"He has been in there for forty minutes."
"He is definitely on the phone."
"He is one hundred percent on the phone."
"HAHAHA."
"Thiago Alcântara. Liverpool."
"Fabián Ruiz. Napoli."
"Forwards."
"Álvaro Morata. Juventus."
"Gerard Moreno. Villarreal."
"Mikel Oyarzabal. Real Sociedad."
"Ferran Torres. Manchester City."
"Dani Olmo. RB Leipzig."
"Ohhh."
Mateo sat up slightly, smiling properly now.
"Ferran and Olmo both made it."
He was still looking at the screen.
Because he had spent a week with those two at the qualifiers, in a hotel and on a training pitch and in the back of a bus, and he had liked both of them enormously, and he had not been sure he would see either of them again.
"Pablo Sarabia. Paris Saint-Germain."
And now four people were looking at Mateo instead of the television.
Fermín had turned round on the floor. Casadó had put his plate down. Gavi was already grinning.
Balde had a hand on Mateo's shoulder and had started shaking him.
"Dude."
"Get off."
"DUDE."
"I am WATCHING."
"HAHAHA."
Mateo was laughing, both hands up, and then he thought about it and got his phone up and pointed the camera at the screen.
"Adama Traoré. Wolverhampton Wanderers."
A pause.
"And Mateo King. FC Barcelona."
"WOOOOOOOOOO!"
The room came apart.
"AHHHHH!"
"LET'S GOOOOO!"
Mateo was up off that couch laughing with the phone still in his hand and the camera still recording about four seconds of ceiling.
Balde had both arms in the air. Gavi was on his feet. Fermín had grabbed the back of Mateo's shirt and was shaking him with it.
"THE EUROS!"
"HAHAHA!"
"THE EUROS, BABY!"
Luis Enrique carried on talking on the television and not one person in that apartment heard a single word of it.
"Wait, wait, wait."
Balde was pointing at him.
"Wait. Imagine you win the Euros as well."
"Ohhh."
"No, seriously. Imagine. The league. The Champions League. And then the Euros."
"In the same year."
"IN THE SAME YEAR."
Casadó had both hands on his own head.
"Has that even been done before?"
"Has it?"
"Somebody google it."
"I am not googling it."
"Dude, imagine."
Mateo was laughing so hard he had to sit back down.
"Just make sure you shape your hair before the Euros start."
Fermín said it entirely flatly, from the floor, without looking up.
"HAHAHA."
"Yeah, actually." Mateo put a hand up on top of his own head and rubbed at it. "Yeah, no, I have been thinking about that. It is getting long. I should shape it up a bit before I go."
Balde already had his phone out.
"Then you should check this guy out."
He was scrolling.
"A-Star. He does footballers' hair, like properly, he travels and everything."
He turned the screen round.
"Look. He did this mad cut for Pogba. Just look at his page, man, you can DM him, I am sure he would be down."
Casadó leaned in over Balde's shoulder and looked at the phone.
Then leaned back.
"This guy looks expensive as fuck."
He turned to Mateo.
"You are better off just going back to La Masia and getting it done there like normal."
And Balde slowly turned his head and looked at Casadó's hair.
For about three full seconds.
With visible disdain.
"Of course you would say that."
"OHHHHH!"
"AHHHH!"
Casadó punched his arm.
"Get the FUCK out of here, bro."
"HAHAHA!"
"I said what I said."
"GET OUT."
Balde took his phone back out of Mateo's hand, still laughing.
"Dude, listen to me. You are about to be rolling in absolute mula."
He waved the phone at him.
"You need to start treating yourself properly."
Then he looked at Mateo's head.
"And I would advise you start with your hair."
Mateo's hand went up to his own head.
"Why."
He looked at him.
"Why did you say it like that?"
"Dude." Balde shrugged. "Those barbers are not professionals. I am just being honest with you. Your hairline is already getting pushed back a bit."
"You are lying."
"I am not."
"You are LYING."
"HAHAHA."
Mateo pointed at him.
"I am not Marc, bro."
"HEY."
Casadó's hand shot up.
"HAHAHAHA!"
"Come on, come on."
Fermín had got up off the floor and come round behind him.
"Let me see. Come here."
He put a hand on Mateo's head and turned it slightly.
"No, come on. His hairline is fine."
"Thank you." Mateo nodded. "Thank you. I check it, by the way. I check it all the time."
"Yeah, no, it is—"
Fermín stopped.
"Oh."
Mateo's eyes came up.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"No, it is just." Fermín tilted his head. "Your left side. It does actually look like it is pushing back a little bit."
"You are lying."
Mateo was already moving.
"You are lying to me."
He went straight across that living room to the mirror by the door and put both hands on the frame and got about four inches from it.
"It does not look—"
He stopped.
He turned his head slightly to the left.
There was a notch. Small. Genuinely small, the kind of thing you would never see unless somebody had told you to look for it.
But it went in.
"No way."
"HAHAHA!"
"NO WAY."
"Dude." Gavi was gone. "At least you are not Marc—"
Casadó punched him in the shoulder before he had finished the word.
"HAHAHAHA!"
"WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME?"
And Mateo was still standing at that mirror, turning his own head from side to side, one hand up at his temple.
He did not turn round.
"Balde."
"Yeah?"
"What did you say his handle was?"
...
And the rest of that morning went exactly the way those mornings used to go.
Minus the training.
They switched the television off the press conference, and somebody was already reaching for the cables, and you know exactly what happened next.
FIFA.
Of course it was FIFA.
The only real difference from every other morning of the last six years was that Pedri came out of that room about twenty minutes later, put his phone face down on the arm of a chair with the specific casualness of a man who has just spent forty minutes on a call he does not intend to discuss, and picked up a controller without a word.
Nobody let that go, obviously.
But he did not answer any of it.
And for the next few hours it was just that.
Jabs. Laughing. Arguments about handballs that were not handballs. Somebody accusing somebody else of using a broken team. Two separate incidents of a controller being put down very hard.
They played and they took calls and they ate and they texted and they scrolled and they ate again.
Balde lost four in a row and blamed the connection every single time.
Fermín won two and would not stop mentioning it.
Casadó took a call from his mother and had to go into the hallway, and came back to find that somebody had used his paused game to sell three of his players.
Gavi did not stop talking for a single minute of the entire morning.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, Mateo's phone went and it was Adrián.
He took it out on the balcony.
"Yes, I know. Tomorrow. I will come in tomorrow morning."
"..."
"No, honestly, it feels completely fine. I have been walking on it all day."
"..."
"Yes. Yes, I know."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"No, I understand. I will come in and get it done properly."
And he would.
Because it did feel fine, and because he knew exactly why it felt fine, and because none of that was going to be worth anything to anybody unless there was a scan sitting in a file somewhere saying so.
They needed to see it.
So he would let them see it.
"Tomorrow. Yes. Nine is fine."
Then, at about half past one, both their phones went at the same time.
Mateo looked down.
Pedri looked down.
You have been added to a group.
SELECCIÓN ESPAÑOLA — EURO 2020
"Ohhh."
Mateo sat up.
"It is the national team chat."
"WHAT?"
"Let me see."
"Show me."
"Get off, you are not in it."
"Let me SEE."
Four heads came over the back of the couch at once.
The names came in one after another as everybody got added, twenty-five of them, and then a few staff, and then a message came through from a number saved as Luis Enrique.
It was long.
He congratulated all of them. He said that being selected for this team was not a reward for what any of them had done last season, and that anybody who thought of it that way would be going home early. He said that twenty-five men had been chosen out of a country of forty-seven million and that they should think about that at least once before they arrived.
He said he was looking forward to seeing all of them.
And then he sent a schedule.
Reporting date: 1 June.
Exception: players involved in the UEFA Champions League final are permitted to report no later than 3 June.
"Ohhh, look at that." Balde pointed at the screen. "Look at the special treatment."
"It is not special treatment."
"It is literally special treatment. It says exception. It has your name on it."
"It does not have my name on it."
"It has your name on it in spirit."
"HAHAHA."
"Two extra days." Gavi shook his head. "Two extra days because you were busy winning a Champions League. Must be nice."
"HAHAHA!"
"It must be so hard for you."
"You are all so annoying."
And they were still arguing about the schedule, and still eating, and still playing, and Gavi was still talking, when Mateo's phone went again.
Different chat this time.
The Barcelona squad group.
Leo: Boys. Anto and I are having everybody over tonight. Dinner and drinks, at the house, to celebrate the season properly.
Leo: Families welcome. Bring whoever you want.
Leo: From about eight. Do not be late, she will not have it.
Mateo read it.
Then he read it again.
Then he looked up.
"Guys."
"What?"
"Messi is having a party."
The room did not react immediately.
"What?"
"Tonight. At his house."
Casadó put his controller down.
"At his HOUSE?"
"At his house."
"Like his actual house."
"Yes."
"HIS HOUSE."
"Yes, Marc, his house."
"Oh my God."
Fermín was up.
"You are going to Messi's house."
"Mateo is going to the GOAT's house."
"Both of them are going."
"Oh my God, PEDRI is going too."
"Pedri, how are you feeling?"
Pedri did not look up from the game.
"I have been to his house."
"WHAT?"
"AHHHH!"
"HE HAS BEEN TO HIS HOUSE?"
"WHEN?"
"HAHAHAHA!"
"He said it like it was NOTHING!"
Pedri laughing said " when i first joined the team he invited me there for a talk and all"
Mateo seeing them like that finally opened his mouth saying " why are you guys acting like this, i have told you i have been there before havent i?"
"ooh yeah that's true "
"OOh yeah i remember "
And Mateo, sitting in the middle of all of that, was already typing.
He looked at the message for a second first, because it is a slightly strange thing to send into a group chat that contains eleven Champions League winners and a man who has won six Ballons d'Or.
Then he sent it anyway.
Mateo: Leo, would it be alright if I bring a couple of friends?
The dots came up almost immediately.
Leo: of course
Leo: bring them
Mateo turned the phone round and held it up.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The noise that came out of that apartment was, and this is being said without any exaggeration at all, louder than anything any of them had produced last night when Barcelona won the Champions League.
Gavi went over the back of the couch.
Balde threw his controller into the air, caught it, and threw it again.
Fermín had both hands on top of his own head and was walking in a small circle saying "no way" over and over like a man who had received news of a death.
Casadó grabbed Mateo by both shoulders and shook him so hard the phone went out of his hand.
"WHAT DO I WEAR?"
"WHAT DO WE WEAR?"
"AHHHH!"
"DUDE. DUDE. WILL RONALDINHO BE THERE?"
"How would I know?"
"FIND OUT."
"I am not asking him if Ronaldinho is coming."
"ASK HIM."
Pedri paused the game, looked around the room at four boys losing their minds attacking mateo, and went back to it.
And while all of that was going on, several miles away, after an extremely long time in traffic, the girls finally got back.
A/N
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