Ethan's carefully prepared, passionate, "us against the world" speech suddenly felt naive.

He wasn't facing a generic Premier League manager. He was facing a legend from his own secret world, a master of a defensive, suffocating style of football that was the tactical equivalent of being slowly strangled by a pillow made of silk.

He had no time to process it.

The roar of the crowd, the pre-match anthem, the handshakes—it was all a blur.

He took his place in the technical area, his mind racing, trying to recalibrate his entire understanding of the match ahead.

The referee's whistle blew, a sharp, piercing sound that kicked off the biggest match in Apex United's short history.

"AND WE ARE UNDERWAY AT A ROARING MOLINEUX STADIUM!" the commentator's voice exploded, filled with the electric energy of a cup night. "It's the Premier League powerhouse, Wolverhampton Wanderers, in their iconic gold and black, against the fairytale story from League One, the giant-killers, Apex United, in their all-black away strip! Can the impossible dream continue for Ethan Couch and his young band of heroes?!"

The first ten minutes were... weird.

Apex, fueled by their manager's pre-match speech, came out of the gates flying.

They pressed with their usual ferocious intensity, swarming the Wolves players, trying to force a mistake.

But there were no mistakes to be forced.

The Wolves players, all world-class athletes, played with a strange, almost lazy calm. They never seemed to sprint.

They passed the ball in simple, unhurried triangles, absorbing the Apex press not with speed, but with a kind of serene, unshakeable composure.

It was like trying to punch water.

On the pitch, the Apex players were bewildered.

"They're not even trying!" David Kerrigan grumbled, after chasing a shadow for the third time.

"It's like they're out for a Sunday stroll!"

"Stay on your men!" Ben Gibson, the stand-in captain, barked from the back. "They're trying to lull us to sleep!"

In the 12th minute, Apex finally won the ball back high up the pitch. Jonathan Rowe pounced on a loose pass and drove at the Wolves defense.

He had Emre to his left, Viktor making a run to his right. He tried to slip a pass to Emre, but a Wolves defender, who seemed to materialize from thin air, simply stepped across and intercepted the ball with an ease that was almost insulting. He didn't even make a tackle; he just... took it.

"How did he see that coming?!" Rowe yelled, throwing his hands up in frustration.

Ethan watched, a cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach.

This was Catenaccio. It wasn't about winning the ball; it was about never being in a position to lose it.

The Wolves players weren't slow; they were just so perfectly positioned that they never needed to run. They were a living, breathing tactical diagram.

He looked over at his counterpart. 'CatenaccioKing' was just standing there, arms folded, watching the game with the calm, detached air of a man watching a perfectly executed simulation.

The game continued in this frustrating pattern.

Apex would have the ball, pass it around, and then run into a perfectly placed golden wall.

Then Wolves would win it back and play a few simple, unhurried passes before Apex won it back again.

It was a game of zero chances, zero excitement, and rising frustration for the team in black.

In the 24th minute, the frustration boiled over into a mistake.

Jacob Sørensen, trying to force a pass through the congested midfield, had his pocket picked.

And then, for the first time, Wolves moved.

The "slow," "lazy" players exploded into life. It was a devastating, three-pass move.

A simple ball forward to their striker, who laid it off first-time to a midfielder, who then slid a perfectly weighted through-ball behind the Apex defense for their onrushing winger. It was a move of ruthless, clinical efficiency.

The winger was one-on-one with Angus Gunn.

The stadium held its breath. The player didn't try for power; he just opened up his body and tried to calmly slot it into the bottom corner.

But Gunn, who had been a spectator all game, had stayed alert.

He exploded off his line, making himself huge, and the shot cannoned off his outstretched leg and spun away for a corner. It was a world-class save.

The Apex players sprinted back, patting their keeper on the back, but the warning shot had been fired.

"That's what they're waiting for!" Ethan screamed from the sideline, his voice hoarse.

"One mistake! Don't give it to them! Stay patient!"

But it was too late. The seed of doubt had been planted.

His players, so used to their all-action, high-energy style, were being mentally dismantled by an opponent who refused to play their game.

In the 30th minute, the inevitable happened.

Emre Demir, who had been completely neutralized, dropped deep to try and get on the ball. He was immediately surrounded by three gold shirts.

He tried to be clever, to flick the ball around the corner, but a Wolves player simply stuck out a leg and won the ball.

The transition was instantaneous.

The ball was fired into the feet of their star Portuguese winger.

He wasn't moving at a blistering pace, but he was gliding, his head up. He drew the Apex full-back towards him, then, at the last second, he played a simple, elegant reverse pass into the space he had just vacated.

The Wolves full-back, who had been "strolling" up the pitch, suddenly engaged the afterburners, latching onto the pass and whipping a first-time cross into the box.

The cross was low and hard. It fizzed across the face of the goal.

Ben Gibson, lunging desperately, just missed it.

And arriving at the back post, having made a run that was so quiet and unassuming that no one had even noticed him, was their veteran central midfielder.

He didn't blast it. He just passed it into the open net.

1-0 to Wolves.

The goal was met with a roar from the home crowd that was less about explosive joy and more about a sense of satisfied, inevitable confirmation. It was the goal they had been waiting for, the goal their system was designed to produce.

"And there it is," the commentator said, his voice almost resigned. "Wolverhampton Wanderers have the lead. It was a goal of brutal simplicity and patience. They waited for their moment, they waited for the mistake, and they punished it with a clinical, ruthless efficiency. The young Apex United side, for all their heart and energy, have been caught in a classic Italian trap. Catenaccio is alive and well at Molineux."

Ethan stood in his technical area, watching the Premier League players celebrate their simple, perfectly executed goal.

He looked at his own players, who were now looking at each other with dawning horror, the realization of what they were up against finally hitting them.

He looked over at 'CatenaccioKing'.

The Italian manager hadn't celebrated. He hadn't even smiled. He had simply taken a sip of water and turned to say something to his assistant.

For him, this wasn't a moment of joy.

It was just a variable that had played out exactly as his calculations had predicted.

Ethan felt a cold, helpless dread creep into his heart.

How do you beat a team that doesn't make mistakes?

How do you out-think an opponent who seems to have already solved the game?

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