Three months passed. Marco stopped watching real football. Why bother, when Pronxcalcio Gold knew that a certain 17-year-old in the Argentinian third division had a "destiny index" of 97.4? He signed the boy. The boy, a digital phantom named only "L.V.", scored 47 goals in a season. The game’s text commentary described one goal as: "He does not celebrate. He simply turns to the center circle, breathes out, and the stadium’s floodlights flicker. The referee checks his watch, confused."

Pronxcalcio Gold. The only game that plays you back.

The margins were just wider than he ever imagined. And somewhere, in a server farm buried under an abandoned training ground in Bergamo, a log file updated: USER: MARCO R. – STATUS: CONVERTED. ASSIGNING NEW ROLE: OBSERVER, TIER 1.