"Leon! How are you settling in Milan?"
"I already had a word with Francesco beforehand. He's a decent enough guy, right?"
"Leon, I'm telling you, I've been going to Sarria Stadium to train every single day at four in the morning now."
"I will be back in Milan by the end of this season."
"Wait for me!"
Leon smiled faintly and ended the call with Hachim Mastour.
He had been in Milan for a week now.
And tonight, Leon would play his first match for the youth team.
AC Milan's U18 youth side were hosting Fiorentina's U18 youth side at home.
"Leon! Did Hachim Mastour mention me at all?"
Francesco asked from beside him, barely containing his excitement.
It had to be said that Hachim Mastour carried genuine standing within the youth team.
Having arrived here, Leon had quickly discovered that youth team players were rated by grade.
Hachim Mastour was a five-star prospect.
He was also one of AC Milan's primary targets for development and investment.
Seen in that light, it was hardly surprising that Francesco, rated only three stars, had ended up as one of Hachim Mastour's circle.
Leon himself was currently rated four and a half stars.
Keeping a clean sheet against Ronaldo was more than enough to justify a rating like that.
The reason he had not been given a straight five stars was that AC Milan wanted to observe him up close through actual matches first.
After arriving at Milanello, Leon got his first real taste of what a major club looked like.
Both the facilities and the training grounds left him genuinely wide-eyed.
Thanks to Hachim Mastour's word put in on his behalf, the youth team players were reasonably friendly towards Leon.
Most of the youth squad were sixteen or seventeen years old.
At eighteen, Leon was practically one of the older ones in the group.
That said, not every player was welcoming towards him.
The one who was not was Donnarumma, the player whose starting spot Leon had taken.
In Leon's previous life, Donnarumma had risen to fame young and earned the nickname [Gigio the Money Man].
Due to the strong recommendations from Watson and chief scout Polly, combined with the novelty of Leon having beaten Ronaldo, the AC Milan coaching staff were very interested in Leon.
As a result, they had put him straight into the starting lineup.
"Hmph."
Donnarumma glanced at Leon's back and let out a dismissive grunt.
As a gifted young player, Donnarumma had already been making a name for himself in the Primavera league.
Going into this match, Donnarumma had kept five consecutive clean sheets.
He had shown exceptional talent.
That kind of form had naturally attracted the attention of a number of clubs.
Donnarumma was riding high on it.
Having his starting spot suddenly taken by Leon had put him in a foul mood.
"Don't get worked up."
"He's just a goalkeeper from the East who happened to have one decent match."
"This next game will expose him for what he really is."
"Exactly."
A number of youth team players who had sided with Donnarumma were talking about Leon in loud voices, clearly intending for him to hear every word.
Leon had indeed heard it all.
"Hey! Leon! Just ignore them!"
Francesco, walking beside Leon, had heard it too and offered a word of advice.
"It's fine."
"The pitch will tell us what we need to know."
Leon said it with a calm smile.
Since joining AC Milan, he was no longer the same Leon who had been playing in the Segunda División B.
By the time he reported to AC Milan, Leon had accumulated 5,264 System Points.
He set aside 1,000 System Points as a reserve for emergencies, and used everything else to exchange for attribute upgrades.
Physical Attributes:
Explosive Power: 6 → 15! 700 Points
Agility: 6 → 15! 700 Points
Balance: 5 → 15! 750 Points
Jumping: 6 → 15! 700 Points
Speed: 7 → 15! 650 Points
Stamina: 5 → 15! 750 Points
Total expenditure: 4,250 System Points.
Leon had 1,014 System Points remaining in reserve.
This time, Leon had put everything into physical attributes.
Without exaggeration, the Leon standing here now had a physique that could hold its own at the top tier of Serie A.
Whether in football or basketball, the body is the hardware.
All the technical attributes are the software.
If the hardware is not there, even the best software in the world is useless.
That was one of the main reasons Leon had invested all his System Points into physical attributes this time.
A youth team match did not attract much attention from the stands.
The seats were occupied almost entirely by coaches and scouts.
"Ahh."
Standing on the pitch again, Leon felt completely different.
On one level, it was the professionalism evident in every corner of a major club.
On another, having played in competitive adult professional football, this kind of youth team match simply failed to fire him up in the same way.
Fiorentina were a classic technical side in Serie A, placing heavy emphasis on control and passing.
It was a style very much in the mould of La Liga.
Fiorentina's U18 youth team naturally carried on the same philosophy as the first team.
Just five minutes in, Fiorentina's youth side used a brilliant three-man combination to cut straight through AC Milan's youth team defence with short passes.
Forward Marco D'Abro found himself with a straightforward shooting opportunity inside the penalty area.
"Ha! Conceding from the off. Serves them right!"
Donnarumma on the bench was not doing a great job of hiding his glee.
AC Milan's youth team defence had clearly been torn completely open.
For a shot like this, as long as Marco D'Abro kept it on target, the standard of youth team goalkeeping was usually not going to be enough to keep it out.
Donnarumma put himself in the situation for a moment and figured that if it were him, he would probably be conceding straight away too.
Out on the pitch, Marco D'Abro struck a driven shot aimed at the top right corner.
"Thud!"
Marco D'Abro was pleased with the strike the moment his foot connected.
He already felt the goal was coming before he had even finished the follow-through.
He had already started thinking about how to celebrate, whether to go for a sliding knee celebration or spread his arms out like an aeroplane taking off, the way his idol Ronaldo Nazário used to do.
"Oh, f**k!"
Everyone watching in the ground could not hold back the exclamation.
Faced with a shot from Marco D'Abro that had the angle but lacked the power, Leon launched himself into the air and caught the ball cleanly in both hands.
It felt easier than taking the ball in training.
And the visual effect was absolutely stunning.
With his physical attributes now averaging 15 across the board, out of a maximum of 20, any gap in Leon's technique could simply be covered by his body.
Overwhelming physical superiority cancels out everything else.
In youth team football, that showed itself in the most emphatic way.
"Hiss."
On the bench, Donnarumma could not help drawing a sharp breath.
That save had genuine quality behind it.
Donnarumma's expression turned serious.
He felt that he had encountered a genuinely formidable rival in the youth team.