The walk from the pitch to the dressing room was the longest of their lives.

The taunts from the few remaining Burton Albion fans were a distant, meaningless buzz. The only sound that mattered was the deafening, thundering silence in their own heads.

They filed into the room one by one, their movements slow, heavy, as if wading through thick mud. There was no shouting, no throwing of equipment, no angry recriminations. The disaster had been so total, so absolute, that it had gone beyond anger and settled into a state of profound, collective shock.

They took their usual spots on the benches, but the familiar, boisterous energy was gone, replaced by a vacuum of shame.

Ben Gibson, the man whose inexplicable dribble had started the avalanche, sat with his head in his hands, staring at a spot on the floor as if trying to will it to swallow him whole.

Angus Gunn, the goalkeeper who had attempted a Cruyff turn, just leaned back against his locker, his eyes closed, replaying his moment of madness on a loop.

Jonathan Rowe, usually a whirlwind of cheerful energy, was methodically unwrapping the tape from his ankles, his movements slow and deliberate, his gaze fixed on nothing.

David Kerrigan, the agent of chaos, was perhaps the most telling.

He wasn't smirking. He wasn't making excuses. He was just sitting there, arms crossed, staring at the wall, a look of genuine, unadulterated confusion on his face. He had tried to be a menace, but the entire team had out-menaced him. He was a solo artist who had just watched his orchestra spontaneously combust.

Even the veterans, Kenny McLean and the suspended Grant Hanley who had watched the horror unfold from the stands, were silent.

They knew there were no words.

What could you possibly say after a 15-minute performance that had defied the very laws of football and common sense?

The door opened. Ethan walked in.

The room, already silent, somehow became quieter.

Every player looked up, their eyes a mixture of dread, shame, and a desperate plea for an explanation. They were expecting a hurricane.

They were expecting the fury he had unleashed after the Accrington loss, magnified by a thousand. They were expecting him to tear them apart, limb by verbal limb.

Ethan walked slowly to the center of the room.

He looked around, his gaze passing over each player, one by one. His face was a perfect, unreadable mask. He didn't look angry. He didn't look disappointed. He just looked.

He stood there.

And he said nothing.

He just stood in the dead center of the room, a silent statue in the eye of a hurricane of shame.

The seconds ticked by, each one a small, sharp torture. The players shifted uncomfortably. They had been prepared for a shouting match. They had no defense against the crushing weight of this silence.

Ethan's mind, however, was a whirlwind.

He was looking at his team of lovable, brilliant idiots, and he wasn't angry. He was... fascinated. He was replaying the notification in his head. 'Team Complacency' modifier. 'Tilted'.

The game, the system itself, had a built-in self-destruct button for arrogance.

It was a brutal, but brilliant, piece of design.

The system's recommendation was a squad overhaul.

To sell these passionate, flawed, human players and replace them with sensible, professional robots with high 'Professionalism' stats.

He thought about it for a second.

A team that would never 'tilt'. A team that would never have a 15-minute meltdown.

It would also be a team that would never produce a nine-man miracle. A team whose defender would never score a last-second equalizer. A team whose keeper would never try a Cruyff turn.

And in that moment, in the dead, suffocating silence of his broken dressing room, Ethan made a decision. He would not sell a single one of them.

He would not trade his chaos for their control.

This wasn't a weakness to be fixed. This was his team's identity.

He knew what they were expecting. They were expecting him to scream.

But screaming now would be pointless. It would be a release for him, but it wouldn't teach them anything. The silence, however... the silence was a mirror.

It was forcing them to look at themselves, to confront the absurdity of what had just happened without the easy out of a manager's rage.

He had let his passion run wild after the Accrington loss.

This time, he would use the opposite. He would be the calm in their storm. This was the next step in his own evolution as a manager.

He stood there for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only two minutes.

Finally, he gave a single, almost imperceptible nod, as if coming to a private conclusion.

He turned, without a word, and walked back towards his office.

The players watched him go, their faces a mask of utter bewilderment.

His silence was a thousand times more unsettling than any shouting match could ever have been.

Ethan was about to log off, to leave them to stew in their own collective confusion, when his assistant manager, James Pearce, appeared at his office door, his face a perfect mask of AI neutrality.

"Gaffer," James said, his calm, monotone voice cutting through the heavy silence like a knife.

"The post-match statistical analysis is complete and ready for your review."

The sheer, ridiculous normalcy of the statement, coming after fifteen minutes of pure, unadulterated madness, was the most surreal moment of the entire day.

"Thank you, James," Ethan said, a slow, tired smile touching his lips for the first time.

"I think... I'll pass on that for now."

He logged off.

He sat up in the pod, the silence of his bedroom a welcome, peaceful blanket.

The 6-2 defeat, the bizarre 'tilt', the silent team talk—it all felt like a strange fever dream.

He felt drained, but also strangely clear-headed. He had faced his team's greatest weakness, and his own, and he had come out the other side with a new sense of purpose.

He was tired. He just wanted to sleep, to let his brain process the chaos of the day. He was about to put his phone on silent when it buzzed with a text from an unknown number. He frowned. It was the same number from the night he had received the cryptic invitation to "meet the other managers," the message he had deleted as a prank.

He was about to delete this one too, but a flicker of curiosity, born from the sheer strangeness of the day, made him open it.

The message was short, and it made the blood in his veins turn to ice.

We saw the 'tilt'. Unlucky. The System is designed to punish arrogance.

Ethan stared at the message, his heart pounding. They had been watching. They knew.

A second message came through a moment later.

But there is a counter. A way to control the chaos. A hidden managerial trait called 'Composure'.

It makes your team immune to the 'Complacency' modifier.

He read the words, a wild, desperate hope surging through him. An immunity. A way to keep his brilliant, chaotic team without the risk of another meltdown.

He was about to text back, to ask who this was, how they knew, when the third and final message arrived, a hook so sharp and so brilliant that it snagged him completely.

But like everything in this game, it has a price. It can't be earned. It can only be won. From another manager. In a wager.

GridironGuru has it. And he's looking for a game.

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