Alex walked into his math class on Wednesday morning. He was holding a very expensive, very shiny coffee cup that Milo had given him. It said "THE BRAIN" in neon lights.

He tried to hide it behind his bag.

"Nice cup, Finch," Mrs. Gable said, writing an equation on the board. "Does it help you calculate the hypotenuse?"

"It mostly just keeps my hands warm, Miss," Alex mumbled.

"Well, sit down. We have trigonometry today. And I don't care if you beat AC Milan. Triangles are undefeated."

Alex sat down. He looked at the triangles on the board.

He smiled.

Triangles. That was football. That was Barcelona. That was the Hurricane.

He started to solve the equations.

For forty-five minutes, he wasn't a wonderkid. He was just a student who liked angles.

The bell rang.

"Oh, Alex," Mrs. Gable said as he was leaving. "My nephew wants to know... is Mark really that fast? Or is it camera tricks?"

"He is that fast, Miss," Alex sighed. "And he is very loud about it."

The neon green car was waiting outside.

Mark was wearing a new hat. It was a giant, fluffy, red bucket hat. He looked like a confused strawberry.

"Get in, loser!" Mark yelled. "We are going to smash things!"

"Smash things?" Alex asked, buckling up.

"Steve sent a text," Mark said, revving the engine. "He said: 'Bring your helmets. Today we break walls.'"

Alex felt a shiver. Steve, the manager, only said things like that when he was planning something painful.

The training ground was cold.

Steve stood in the middle of the pitch. He had set up... a wall.

Not a metaphorical wall. A literal wall.

He had lined up ten mannequins—the plastic dummies used for free kicks—right on the edge of the penalty box.

Then, he had put ten reserve players in front of them.

It was a crowd. A forest of legs.

"Welcome," Steve boomed. "To Brentford."

The team groaned.

"Brentford," Steve said. "They are the 'Bus Drivers'. They do not want to play football. They want to park the bus. They want to stand there, ten men deep, and wait for you to die of boredom."

He looked at Alex.

"Professor. You are the brain. But a brain cannot solve a brick wall. You cannot pass through ten men."

He looked at Antoine.

"Magician. You cannot dribble through a forest. You will get tangled."

He looked at Mark.

"Speed. You cannot run. There is no space behind them. The bus is parked against the cliff."

Mark looked horrified. "So... I just stand there?"

"No," Steve said. He smiled. It was a scary smile.

"We do not go around the bus. We do not go over the bus."

He pointed at Jude Bellingham.

"We go through the bus."

Jude grinned. He cracked his knuckles. "I like this plan."

"The Sledgehammer," Steve said. "That is the new tactic. We use Jude. We use Bastian. We use power. We hit them. We make them crack. And then... when the crack appears... the Professor pours the water in."

Training was brutal.

It wasn't about finesse. It was about force.

Steve made them play "Attack vs Defense".

The defense just stood there. They blocked. They pushed.

Alex tried to pass. Blocked.

Antoine tried to flick. Blocked.

"USE THE HAMMER!" Steve yelled.

Alex got the ball. He saw the wall of defenders.

He saw Jude.

Jude was not making a run into space. He was backing into the defenders. He was fighting them.

Alex passed to Jude. Hard.

Jude controlled it. He held off two men. He turned. He shot.

THWACK.

The ball hit a dummy and knocked it over.

"GOOD!" Steve roared. "BREAK THE WALL!"

For an hour, they just smashed the ball at the defense. It was ugly. It was loud.

It was effective.

Saturday. The Gtech Community Stadium. Brentford.

It was a small, tight stadium. The fans were loud. They were close to the pitch.

"You're just a rich Arsenal!" a fan yelled at Alex as he warmed up.

"I am actually quite thrifty," Alex muttered to himself.

Mark was bouncing. He was wearing his silver boots.

"They are big," Mark whispered, looking at the Brentford defenders. "They eat rocks."

"Then we must be... bigger rocks," Alex said.

The whistle blew.

It was exactly as Steve predicted.

The Bus.

Brentford put all eleven players behind the ball. They stood on the edge of their box. They didn't move.

Arsenal had the ball. 80% possession.

But they couldn't get in.

Alex passed to Antoine. Antoine was surrounded by four players.

Alex passed to Mark. Mark ran two yards and hit a defender.

It was frustrating. It was boring.

The Brentford fans cheered every clearance. They loved the Bus.

"They are not playing!" Mark yelled at the referee. "They are camping!"

"Play on!" the referee said.

Halftime. Zero zero.

It was the most annoying forty-five minutes of Alex's life.

The locker room was hot.

"They are solid," Harry, the captain, said, wiping sweat from his brow. "We can't find a gap."

Steve stood up.

"Of course you can't find a gap," Steve said. "They didn't leave one."

He looked at Jude.

"Power. It is time. Stop trying to be polite. Stop trying to avoid contact."

He looked at Alex.

"Professor. Stop looking for the perfect pass. The perfect pass does not exist today."

"So what do I do?" Alex asked.

"You create chaos," Steve said. "You shoot."

"Shoot?" Alex asked. "From outside the box?"

"Yes. Shoot. Hit a defender. Make it bounce. Make them panic. Chaos creates cracks."

Steve looked at the whole team.

"Be the Sledgehammer."

Second half.

Alex came out with a different mindset.

He got the ball thirty yards out.

Usually, he would look for the slide-rule pass.

This time, he looked at the wall of red and white shirts.

He wound up.

He smashed it.

The ball flew. It hit a Brentford defender in the stomach. OOF.

The defender went down. The ball bounced loose.

Panic.

Mark pounced on the loose ball. He shot. The keeper saved it.

"YES!" Steve yelled from the sideline. "AGAIN!"

Arsenal changed. They stopped being artists. They became artillery.

Antoine shot. Blocked.

Jude shot. Deflected. Corner.

The Brentford wall was getting battered. They were getting tired of being hit by the ball.

Sixtieth minute.

Alex got the ball.

He saw Jude.

Jude was standing on the penalty spot. He was surrounded by three defenders.

Alex didn't pass to his feet. He passed to his chest.

A hard, driven ball.

Jude controlled it. He was a monster. He held off the defenders. He turned.

He didn't shoot. He laid it off.

To Mark.

Mark was making a run across the box.

Mark hit it.

Blocked.

The ball flew up in the air.

Chaos.

The keeper came out. A defender tried to head it.

Bastian, who had come up for the attack, jumped.

He won the header.

He nodded it down.

To Alex.

Alex was on the edge of the box.

The wall was broken. There were bodies everywhere.

Alex saw a lane. A tiny, narrow lane through the chaos.

He didn't smash it this time.

He remembered the "Control".

He side-footed it. A low, precise, rolling shot.

It went through the legs of one defender. Past the diving keeper.

It kissed the post.

And went in.

GOAL!

One zero.

The Arsenal fans went wild.

Alex didn't celebrate. He just let out a huge breath.

Jude ran over and lifted him up.

"THE SLEDGEHAMMER!" Jude roared. "WE BROKE THE WALL!"

Brentford had to come out now. They had to drive the bus.

And when a bus moves... it leaves space behind it.

Seventy-fifth minute.

Brentford attacked. They lost the ball.

Antoine got it.

He looked up.

The pitch was open.

Mark was running.

"Arrow!" Antoine yelled.

He hit the pass.

Mark was gone. He was in his element. The open field.

He ran forty yards. No one could catch him.

He rounded the keeper.

He stopped on the line.

He waited for the defender to slide past him.

Then he tapped it in.

Two zero.

Mark ran to the corner. He did the "Lightning" pose.

Then he pointed at Alex.

"THE BRAIN BROKE THE WALL! I JUST RAN THROUGH THE HOLE!" Mark screamed.

The final whistle blew.

Arsenal 2. Brentford 0.

It was an ugly win. A hard win. But a win.

Alex walked off the pitch. He was covered in bruises.

Jude walked next to him.

"You shot," Jude said, smiling. "From distance. I like this new version of the Professor. The 'Aggressive Professor'."

"I just wanted to hit something," Alex admitted.

Milo was waiting in the tunnel.

He was wearing a hard hat. A gold hard hat.

"CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE!" Milo yelled. "WE BUILT A WIN! I AM SELLING THE HAT! 'THE BUILDER' COLLECTION!"

Alex just laughed. He took the hat and put it on Mark's head.

"Here, Speed," Alex said. "You earned it."

Mark looked at his reflection in a window. "I look... safe. And dangerous. I like it."

Alex sat in the locker room.

He checked his phone.

A text from his dad.

"A shooting star! I saw that goal. Low and hard. Very stable."

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