Andy gave a nod toward the rest of the team. "Come on, I'll walk you in. Let's get you introduced."
But Rafael shook his head lightly, eyes drifting back toward the training ground.
"Not just yet," he said. "There's something I need to take care of first."
Andy looked like he wanted to press but thought better of it. "Alright then. We'll be here."
As Andy jogged back toward the rest of the squad, Mark Dempsey appeared beside Rafael, hands tucked into his jacket pockets.
"You sure you don't wanna say a few words?" he asked. "They're waiting."
"There's a time for speeches," Rafael replied. "Right now, I've got more important things to figure out."
Mark gave a quiet grunt of approval and walked with him across the grounds. Bearwood Park's corridors were clean and quiet, the hum of fluorescent lights echoing slightly off the walls. Rafael took it all in—the sterile halls, the framed photos of old squads and matchday moments. He felt like a stranger in someone else's home.
Rafael and Mark stepped into the manager's office—a room that felt more like borrowed space than his own. It was clean, orderly, and strangely untouched, like no one had truly lived in it despite the presence of a desk stacked with reports, a laptop humming faintly, and a tactics board already filled with magnetic discs.
Rafael's eyes landed on the whiteboard first.
"Five at the back," he said, reading the formation like a bad omen.
Mark gave a light shrug. "Standard 5-3-2. That's what we've been running with. Defensive solidity. Or at least that was the idea."
Rafael stepped closer, fingers brushing the magnets as if their positioning offended him. "That's not solidity—it's suffocation."
Mark raised a brow. "Go on."
"With five at the back, we're essentially sacrificing wide attacking threat. Our wingbacks are stuck doing double duty—expected to press high and still cover ground defensively. Which means they're gassed by the hour mark. That midfield three? It's flat, uninspired. No real creativity. No width, no natural passing lanes to unlock a defence. And when we're chasing games, it turns into a 5-4-1, isolating our striker like he's being punished."
He began pulling the magnets off the board, one by one, reorganising them with focused hands. Two centre-backs. Fullbacks that could push up when needed. A double pivot. Three behind the striker.
"4-2-3-1," Rafael muttered. "We keep the defensive shape when needed, but now we've got an outlet in attack. A natural 10 behind the striker. Wingers who stretch the pitch and create space. This way, we can actually play football."
Mark crossed his arms and tilted his head. "Fair point. But there's a catch."
"Of course there is."
Mark pointed at the centre of the pitch. "We don't have a true number ten. Nobody in the squad's got the vision or touch to play in that pocket behind the striker."
Rafael was quiet for a moment, then a memory surfaced. The folder. The system. The U21 squad.
"Casadei," he said. "Cesare Casadei."
Mark blinked. "From Chelsea? The Italian lad?"
Rafael nodded. "He's in our U21s now. He's got the makings of something special. Good touch, smart movement, and he isn't afraid to shoot." He laughed internally at the thought, a player who was his teammate just a year ago is now someone he's managing and promoting from the youth team.
Mark looked thoughtful. "He's raw. Shows flashes, sure, but he's still growing into his frame. Learning the pace of the game."
"I'm not saying we throw him in tomorrow," Rafael replied. "But keep an eye on him. Get him involved in first-team training. I want to see if he can adapt."
Mark gave a small nod. "Alright. Worth a look, I suppose."
Rafael stepped back from the board again, this time eyeing the striker magnet. That lone red disc up top, symbolising a question that was harder to answer.
"So who's leading the line?"
Mark sighed. "Andy Carroll's got the experience. Dominant in the air, a real target man. But his knees are hanging by threads. Then there's Lucas João. Portuguese, better technically, quicker on the break—but inconsistent. One week he's electric. The next, invisible."
Rafael considered it. "What about the goals?"
Mark shrugged. "Carroll's chipped in a couple, but he can't do 90 minutes. Lucas has pace, but his end product's hit and miss."
"I'll start whoever shows me they want it more," Rafael said simply. "Training starts tomorrow. No one walks into the starting eleven."
Mark smiled. "That'll ruffle a few feathers."
"I'm not here to make them comfortable."
Rafael stepped back, taking one last look at the board. The 4-2-3-1 was in place. The pieces weren't perfect yet, but at least now, there was a shape—an idea.
And that was more than they'd had before.
A few hours had passed, and Rafael was still tucked away in his new office, the buzz of his first day slowly giving way to silence. The building was nearly empty now, the echo of boots and chatter long gone, but Rafael remained, sleeves rolled up, eyes fixed on his laptop screen and tactics board.
Stacks of player reports were spread across the desk like a coach's personal puzzle. Every name, number, and stat had become a piece of the picture he was trying to shape. The glowing screen showed heat maps, player ratings, and physical condition reports — all delivered and broken down by the system that had quietly become his greatest asset.
He leaned back, rubbing the side of his head as he stared at the three highlighted names on the screen.
Junior Hoilett – LW – 71 Rated.
Tom Ince – RW – 71 Rated.
Lucas João – ST – 71 Rated.
"Thirty-two and thirty-one," Rafael muttered, eyeing the age column beside Hoilett and Ince's profiles. "Wings with wear on them."
But they were smart players — experienced, technical, and capable of reading space. More importantly, they were still the best he had. Replacing them wasn't an option, not yet. They didn't need replacing — they needed supplementing.
He clicked through a few more tabs, pulling up positional data on his fullbacks. Both had a clear pattern — lots of forward runs, high positioning in transition, plenty of involvement in wide areas.
Rafael sat forward, eyes narrowing slightly as the pieces began fitting together.
"If they're pushing up anyway," he said, mostly to himself, "then let's make that an advantage."
Overlapping fullbacks. Let the wingers drift inside, operate between the lines, link up with the attacking midfielder. Give the opposition something to think about.
He grabbed a marker and started plotting on the whiteboard again — arrows curving out from the fullbacks, Hoilett cutting in on his right, Ince ghosting between the fullback and centre-half. João's name stayed central, but Rafael underlined it with a second stroke.
"He'll need to hold it up, bring others in," he muttered, staring at Lucas João's file again. "He's got the build. Needs the mindset."
The shape was taking form. It wouldn't be flashy or perfect, not yet. But it would be his.
He glanced at the clock. It was well past ten, and the air outside the window had turned dark and still. But Rafael didn't feel tired — not really. The real work was only just beginning.
Rafael leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, staring at the midfield section of the board like it was the final riddle in an escape room. He had already settled on his shape — the 4-2-3-1 was here to stay — but a formation was only as good as the players inside it. And in modern football, the double pivot wasn't just about shielding the backline. It was the engine room — the gears that turned defence into attack.
His eyes scanned the list again, narrowing in on two names.
Mamadou Loum – CDM – 71 Rated.
Loum was ready. Tall, physical, with a natural ability to break up play and win second balls. A classic six — not flashy, not adventurous, but solid. He read the game like an old veteran, even if he was only twenty-five. Tackles, interceptions, strength — that was his language.
But then came the problem.
Dejan Tetek – CDM – 63 Rated.
Young. Raw. Still learning. Rafael had watched some of his clips and seen the eagerness — maybe too much of it. Tetek wanted to be involved in everything, but his positioning often left gaps. It was clear he had potential, but not in a role that demanded maturity and consistency right now.
"Can't have two holding midfielders and only trust one of them," Rafael muttered, tapping the side of his pen against the desk.
What he needed was balance. Someone to partner Loum — not mirror him. A player who could collect the ball from deep, shift the play into wide areas, or carry it forward into the final third. A connector. A passer. Maybe not a second CDM, but a central midfielder who could play deeper when needed and support when the team had the ball.
That's when his eyes landed on another name.
Jeff Hendrick – CM – 70 Rated.
On loan from Newcastle. A veteran of the game. His heatmap wasn't impressive — Hendrick didn't cover much ground, and his pressing stats were average at best. But when Rafael opened up his passing chart, everything changed. Long switches to the flanks. Line-breaking passes. Calm, composed distribution under pressure.
He could be the balance.
"Loum holds," Rafael said quietly to himself, "Hendrick builds."
It wasn't perfect, but nothing at Reading was. Still, with Loum acting as the defensive anchor and Hendrick as a deep-lying playmaker, they might just have the start of a midfield that could carry a system. One could win the ball, the other could use it.
Rafael reached for the magnets again, placing them side by side beneath the front four.
It was starting to take shape.
The CAM situation, however, was proving to be the trickiest piece of all.
Rafael leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk, eyes fixed on the magnet sitting just behind the striker. The number ten — the brain of the system. In a 4-2-3-1, this player was the thread that stitched everything together. He had to drift into space, pick out key passes, draw defenders, and be the one to turn pressure into chances.
And the truth was, there wasn't a natural ten in the senior squad.
Rafael exhaled, reached for his laptop, and pulled up the file he'd already studied earlier that day. The screen flickered to life with clips of a tall, sharp-looking midfielder in a navy kit.
Cesare Casadei — Age: 19.
Still a teenager, technically on loan from Chelsea, and playing with the U21s. But the footage… it was different. He watched Casadei drop between the lines, receive the ball on the half-turn, and with a smooth touch, shift past a marker and thread a pass into space that cut open the back line.
There was confidence there. Control. And more than anything else — vision.
"He's not ready for ninety every week," Rafael murmured, "but he's the closest thing we've got to a creator."
It was a risk. But this whole job was a risk. And sometimes, the reward was in backing the players no one else saw coming.
Rafael reached for the number ten magnet, eyes flicking to the board again.
"Casadei starts," he said, clicking it into place behind João. "He's ready."
Even if the world didn't know it yet.
His backline, thankfully, wasn't much of a concern.
Rafael had skimmed through the defensive profiles earlier, expecting a headache — but what he found instead was something close to stability. No standout stars, no commanding ball-playing defenders like a prime Bonucci or Van Dijk, but a handful of centre-backs who were solid, dependable, and experienced enough to hold their ground.
Tom Holmes, Scott Dann, Tom McIntyre, and Amadou Mbengue — none of them world-beaters, but each with their own strengths. Holmes was a homegrown lad, good in the air and rarely caught out of position. Dann brought leadership and experience, even if his legs weren't what they used to be. McIntyre was left-footed, a bonus for balance, and Mbengue had raw athleticism that could be useful against more physical forwards.
"They won't win any awards," Rafael thought to himself, "but they won't lose me games either."
He'd rotate them smartly, pick the right duo based on the opposition, and keep the unit disciplined. With Loum shielding them in midfield and the fullbacks pushing up to create width, the backline didn't need to be flashy — just consistent.
For now, that was enough.
He glanced at his watch — 7:46 p.m. The office was quiet now, shadows stretching long across the walls as the winter sky outside darkened.
Rafael leaned back in his chair and looked over at the calendar pinned on the wall.
Millwall - Away Dec 19th.
Then a week's break.
Swansea – Home Dec 27th
West Brom – Away. Dec 31st
And then, the transfer window opens.
Three tough fixtures. Physical, intense, no room for errors. Millwall away was always a battle, Swansea could play, and West Brom had firepower. But oddly enough, Rafael didn't feel the nerves he thought he would.
He stood up, rolling his shoulders as he shut the laptop and swept the tactical notes into his bag. He'd done enough for tonight. First day, and he'd already restructured the entire gameplan. It was a start.
As he made his way out of the office, the hallway lights flickered slightly overhead. The building was quiet, only the faint hum of the heating and the soft tap of his boots on the tile floors keeping him company.
He passed through reception on his way out, not expecting to see anyone. But behind the desk sat a young woman, blonde hair tied neatly, eyes flicking up from her laptop as he approached.
She offered a warm smile.
"Hi, you must be Rafael."
He stopped, a little surprised. "Yeah. That obvious?"
"Just a little," she laughed. "I'm Lara. Lara Holloway. My dad's David — the chairman."
Rafael blinked, then smiled and extended a hand. "Nice to meet you, Lara."
"You too. Big day?"
He nodded. "Something like that."
"Good luck with the team," she added, watching him with a spark of curiosity in her eyes.
"Thanks," he said, offering a small smile before stepping out into the night.
The cold hit him the second he walked outside. He pulled his coat tighter, slung his bag over his shoulder, and started the short walk back to his flat. His head was already spinning with line-ups, player roles, and what he still had to figure out.
But despite it all — the pressure, the challenge, the uncertainty — there was a strange feeling growing in his chest.