The red heart emoji on Sofia's phone screen was not a small, pixelated symbol.

It was a giant, blinking, neon sign of pure, unadulterated panic in the middle of Leon's otherwise perfect universe.

His brain, a supercomputer of tactical analysis and footballing genius, had just short-circuited.

Marcus Rashford. The superstar. The face of Manchester United. The enemy. And now, the man sending heart emojis to his girlfriend.

He just stared at the screen, a thousand disastrous scenarios playing out in his mind. He imagined Sofia being whisked away on a private jet to a fancy Manchester restaurant. He imagined having to play against Rashford, his new romantic rival, and being so consumed with jealousy that he'd forget how to kick a ball. He imagined his next conversation with Julián Álvarez: "Okay, new question. If your girlfriend leaves you for a rival player, do you lose 'emotional bonus points' in the league table?"

"Leon? Are you still there?" Sofia's voice, full of a strange, mischievous amusement, pulled him from his spiral of despair. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"A ghost?" he mumbled, his eyes still wide with horror. "No, I've just seen the man who is about to make me a ghost."

And then, she did something that completely broke his brain. She laughed. A full, bright, beautiful, and utterly merciless laugh. "Oh, you absolute idiot," she said, shaking her head, her eyes sparkling with a fond, teasing light. "You think... you think he sent me that?"

She took her phone back, tapped the screen a few times, and then angled it towards him again. The message was now open. It was from three years ago. It was a generic, automated thank-you message from a charity fundraiser that Rashford had sponsored, a fundraiser Sofia had donated to. And the little red heart... it was the "like" reaction she had just added to the old message a few seconds ago while they were talking.

"I was just scrolling through my old messages while you were talking about your 'tactical poetry'," she explained, a huge, triumphant grin on her face. "And I saw this and thought it was funny. I had no idea it would cause you to have a full-blown existential crisis."

Leon just stared at the screen, then at her, then back at the screen. The wave of relief that washed over him was so powerful it almost made him dizzy. It was followed by a wave of profound, all-encompassing embarrassment.

"So... you and Marcus Rashford are not...?"

"No, we are not," she confirmed, still laughing. "But for the record," she added, leaning in with a playful, conspiratorial whisper, "the fact that you got so jealous is actually very, very cute."

The week leading up to the Manchester United match was a pressure cooker. Old Trafford, the "Theatre of Dreams," was their next destination, a fortress where many a Liverpool team had seen their own dreams turn into nightmares. The city was buzzing, the newspapers were filled with dramatic headlines, and the training ground was a hive of focused, intense energy.

But the tension was constantly, beautifully, and hilariously punctured by the one man who seemed to be immune to pressure: Julián Álvarez.

"Okay, so," he began during a water break, addressing a captive audience that included Leon, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and a very tired-looking Andy Robertson. "Cole Palmer is the enemy now, yes? But he is also our friend. This is a paradox. A 'frienemy', if you will. So, if I tackle him, is it a hostile act of aggression, or is it a very firm, football-based hug to show him that we miss him?"

"Just tackle him, you madman," Robertson grumbled, a grin on his face. "And if you get the chance, give him a little kick for me. For leaving."

"But what if he has told them all our secrets?" Julián pressed, his eyes wide with a new, terrifying thought. "What if he has told them about Robbo's secret weakness for a good high-press? What if he has revealed the secret source of Trent's power is his ridiculously bright boots? We are strategically compromised!"

"He knows us," Trent said, a thoughtful, serious look on his face. "But we know him, too. We know he hates being pressed on his left foot. We know he always looks to play the one-two. We can use his own secrets against him."

The conversation was a perfect encapsulation of their mood: a strange, funny, and deeply affectionate pre-battle analysis of how to best defeat their own brother.

In the final tactical meeting before they left for Manchester, Arne Slot stood before his team, his face a mask of calm, analytical focus. "This is not just another game," he began, his voice a low, steady hum. "This is a derby. It is a battle of emotions, of history, of pride. And they will try to use our own emotions against us."

He looked at them, a powerful, unshakeable belief in his eyes. "They have a new weapon in Cole Palmer. A player we love. A player who knows us inside and out. Do not be afraid of that. Be smarter than that. He knows what we are going to do. Good. Then we will do something new."

He tapped his tablet, and a new formation, a slight, subtle, but brilliant tweak to their system, appeared on the screen. "We are not just a storm today," he said, a slow, confident smile on his face. "We are a hurricane with a misdirection. We will be unpredictable. We will be relentless. And we will be Liverpool. Now, let's go and remind our old friend why he made a very, very big mistake."

The tunnel at Old Trafford was a narrow, intimidating corridor of deep, blood red. The roar of 75,000 Manchester United fans was a deafening, visceral force. This was the heart of the enemy's territory.

Leon stood in the line of red shirts, the 'Unshakeable Heart' bracelet a cool, familiar presence on his wrist. He looked across the divide and saw him. Cole Palmer, in the red of Manchester United, a strange, surreal sight. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. A single, almost imperceptible nod passed between them. A nod that said, 'For the next ninety minutes, we are not friends. We are enemies.'

The teams walked out into the cauldron of noise. The whistle blew. The match began.

And from the first second, it was clear that this was not the game anyone had been expecting. Manchester United, in their own stadium, a team known for their swashbuckling, attacking football, did not attack. They sat deep. They were a compact, organized, defensive wall, a formation so conservative it was almost a betrayal of their own history.

"What on earth is this, Clive?" the commentator, Barry, asked, his voice a mixture of confusion and disappointment. "This isn't Manchester United! They're playing like a team that is terrified! They've given Liverpool the ball, the space, the entire pitch! It's a very, very strange tactic from the home side!"

Leon felt a jolt of pure, ice-cold confusion. This made no sense. This wasn't their style. He activated his Vision, his new, clean HUD a perfect map of the battlefield. He scanned the United players, their stats, their positions. And then he saw it. The reason. The trap.

Cole Palmer was not playing as an attacking midfielder. He was playing deep, almost as a third central defender. But his role was not just defensive. As Leon's Vision focused on him, a new, terrifying Hidden Trait, a tactical adaptation he had never seen before, flashed into existence.

[Player: Cole Palmer | Tactical Adaptation: 'The Anchor & The Blade']

[Description: Player acts as a deep-lying defensive anchor, baiting the opposition forward. Upon winning possession, player is designated as the primary trigger for a high-speed, direct counter-attack, utilizing their 'Vision' and 'Passing' attributes to become the team's primary offensive weapon from a defensive position.]

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