A searing, blistering white light tore across Eric Maddox's vision, as if the heavens themselves had decided to blind him with celestial fury. His eyes burned under the unrelenting assault, forcing him to squint against the glare.
The heat from a thousand stadium floodlights bore down on him, cooking the beads of sweat that had already begun to form on his furrowed brow.
He hadn't even had a moment to process where—or when—he was, but his body seemed to know instinctively that something was terribly, horribly wrong.
Then came the sound.
It didn't just hit him—it slammed into him with the force of a runaway freight train. Cheers erupted like thunderclaps, screams pierced the air with primal intensity, and whistles shrilled in a chaotic symphony that rattled his eardrums.
This wasn't the hum of a city street or the rhythmic pulse of a concert hall. No, this was something far more visceral, far more electric. It was the raw, unfiltered roar of a football crowd in the throes of ecstasy, a sound so overwhelming it felt like standing next to a jet engine at full throttle.
Eric Maddox's eyes fluttered open, struggling to adjust to the blinding stadium lights. His surroundings slowly swam into focus, the blurry edges sharpening into a scene he could barely comprehend.
Before him stretched a pristine football pitch, the grass a vibrant green under the artificial glow of the floodlights. White chalk lines marked the boundaries with stark precision, and behind him loomed the shadowed outline of a dugout, its benches sparcely occupied. On the sides were a few scattered water bottles and crumpled towels.
To his left, a massive replay screen flickered to life, and what he saw made his heart plummet into the pit of his stomach.
A fifth goal. The Crestford Colts had just scored their fifth goal.
His gaze darted to the scoreboard, and the numbers there confirmed his worst fears.
### Crestford Colts 5 – 0 Silvergate Youth Sailors
### 37:18
The clock was still ticking, each second a fresh stab of humiliation. Fifty-eight years of coaching experience—twenty-five of those as a respected professional in the U.S.—and nothing, nothing, had prepared Eric Maddox for this moment.
He was standing on the touchline of a youth match, but this wasn't any match he recognized. The players' jerseys, with their unfamiliar designs and logos, the team names—Crestford Colts and Silvergate Youth Sailors—and even the league name and sponsors emblazoned on the advertising boards… none of it existed in his world. In Earth's world.
And he sure as hell didn't remember waking up here.
"Where… where am I?" he rasped, his voice barely audible over the cacophony of the crowd.
He reached instinctively for the familiar curve of his stomach, expecting the soft, rounded paunch that had been his companion for the last decade of his retirement. But it wasn't there. Instead, his hands met a flat, taut torso, the lean muscle evident even beneath the slim-fit training top he was wearing—a top that was soaked through with sweat, clinging uncomfortably to his skin.
He looked down at his hands, blinking in disbelief. They were younger, smoother, devoid of the age spots and calluses he'd grown accustomed to. These weren't his hands. This wasn't his body.
A sudden, crackling voice sliced through his spiraling thoughts, sharp and mocking, amplified by the stadium's speakers.
[> "You've got to wonder what the Sailors' coach is thinking right now! Look at him—he's frozen on the touchline like a deer in the headlights! Absolutely shellshocked!" <]
The commentator's voice boomed from the press box high above, dripping with smug glee that made Maddox's blood boil despite his confusion. The crowd roared with laughter, their jeers a dagger twisting in his gut.
[> "If Silvergate came here to make a statement, they've certainly done it… just not the one they intended! Down 5–0, and we're not even at halftime! Maddox looks like he just woke up—literally!" <]
He had... Literally.
His legs wobbled beneath him unfamiliarly, threatening to give out entirely. He stumbled backward, grasping the back of the nearest bench to steady himself. His knees felt wrong—too light, too springy, as if they belonged to a much younger man.
The sideline reeked of liniment, damp earth, and the unmistakable stench of embarrassing defeat, a bitter cocktail that stung his nostrils with every ragged breath. The air was thick with the energy of the match, but all Maddox could feel was the weight of his own disorientation pressing down on him like a lead blanket.
"This has to be a dream. It has to be." He reassured himself.
He was supposed to be in Florida, lounging in his worn-out recliner with the springs poking into his back, watching reruns of MLS and European Leagues matches on his ancient television.
A half-eaten hoagie would be resting on his chest, crumbs scattered across his faded Hawaiian shirt, the kind of shirt his late wife had always teased him about. He was seventy years old. Retired. Gloriously irrelevant to the world of football, a world that had long since moved on without him.
But now… now he was what? Twenty-five? Thirty at most? Dressed in branded Silvergate training gear, the logo stitched proudly across his chest, and getting publicly humiliated by a bunch of sixteen to eighteen-year-olds who were running circles around his team?
His mind spun like a football caught in a vicious crosswind, spiraling out of control with every passing second. The Crestford Colts launched another attack, their striker rifling a personal-best sixth shot just wide of the post, and the crowd erupted into a wild cheer, their excitement a stark contrast to the dread pooling in Maddox's chest. He flinched at the sound, his body reacting on instinct even as his mind struggled to catch up.
"Transmigration?" he muttered to himself, the word tasting foreign on his tongue. "Did I… did I transmigrate into a youth coach during an absolute ass-kicking?"
That was the worst part about this. The thought was absurd, the kind of plot twist you'd find in one of those fantasy webnovels his grandson was always reading. But what other explanation was there?
He wasn't just in someone else's body—he was on the executioner's platform, the noose tightening around his neck with every goal the Colts scored. This wasn't a match; it was a public execution, and he was the one on display for the crowd to jeer at.
As he swayed in stunned silence, a new sound broke through the mayhem—a sound that didn't come from the stands or the pitch but from somewhere deep inside his own skull. It was cold, mechanical, and utterly alien, reverberating through his mind with a clarity that sent a shiver down his spine.
[Initiating Golden Finger…]
[…10% … 45% … 75% … 100%]
[Scanning host compatibility: Stage 1… Stage 2… Stage 3… Complete.]
[System Integration Successful.]
[Welcome, Host. You are now bound to the Pro Manager System (PMS).]
[Objective: Dominate the Football World. A new Era has begun.]
Maddox's eye twitched violently, a nervous tic he hadn't experienced since his early coaching days. The voice in his head was calm, almost clinical, but its words were anything but reassuring.
"PMS?" he whispered, a hysterical edge creeping into his voice. If the situation weren't so utterly humiliating, he might have laughed—or cried. Maybe both. The irony of the acronym wasn't lost on him, but humor was the last thing on his mind as the reality of his predicament sank in.
"A system? A Pro Manager System? What did that even mean?" Was he supposed to dominate the football world when he couldn't even keep a youth team from being slaughtered on the pitch?
Before he could process the system's message, the commentator's voice cut through the air again, sharp and unrelenting.
[>"Will Silvergate even survive until halftime? Or should the league just call this off and spare them the embarrassment? Bottom of the league with three games to go and on the verge of being excluded from youth league football for the next three years... This is appalling"<]
The crowd roared in agreement, their laughter a cruel echo that reverberated through the stadium. Maddox clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms as he fought to keep his composure. He wasn't sure what was worse—the relentless mockery from the stands or the cold, mechanical voice in his head that seemed to think he was capable of turning this disaster around.
Finally, he found his voice, though it came out as little more than a hoarse growl, laced with equal parts disbelief and frustration.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
The words hung in the air, swallowed by the roar of the crowd as the Crestford Colts launched yet another attack. Maddox stood frozen on the touchline, a man out of time, out of place, and out of his depth. But deep within him, buried beneath the confusion and humiliation, a spark of determination flickered to life.
He didn't know what this "Pro Manager System" was or why it had chosen him, but if it thought he could dominate the football world, then maybe—just maybe—he could find a way to survive this nightmare.
The clock ticked on, each second a reminder of the impossible task ahead. But Eric Maddox wasn't a quitter. Not in his old life, and not in this one, whatever it was.
He straightened his shoulders, his jaw set with grim resolve, and turned his gaze back to the pitch. The game wasn't over yet. And neither was he.