The three days between Leon’s final conversation with Coach Chivu and his flight to England were a strange, beautiful, and slightly surreal whirlwind.
The cloud of uncertainty that had been hanging over him had been replaced by the bright, terrifying, and thrilling sun of a decision made.
He was leaving. He was starting a new adventure.
And he wasn’t going alone.
The scene at Milan Malpensa Airport was a masterclass in controlled chaos, orchestrated by one woman: Elena, Leon’s mother.
"Okay," she said, doing a final, frantic check of their docunts for the tenth ti. "I have the passports. I have the boarding passes. I have the ergency cookies." She patted a large, suspiciously cookie-shaped lump in her handbag. "Sofia, you have your book? Leon, you have your... very white hair?"
"It’s all here, Mom," Leon said, laughing as he put an arm around her shoulders. "We’re ready."
"I don’t know," Elena fretted, looking around at the bustling terminal. "England. It seems so... grey. And do they have good coffee? This is a very important question. A country without good coffee cannot be a truly happy country."
"We will find the best coffee in all of Liverpool, Signora Elena," Sofia said with a calm, reassuring smile, her presence a perfect, steady anchor in the middle of Elena’s loving storm. "It will be our number one mission."
As they waited in the priority lounge, a comfortable, quiet space away from the main terminal, Leon’s phone buzzed with a notification from the "Inter Champions " group chat. He grinned. It was inevitable.
[Julián Álvarez]: Okay, team. I have a very important and ti-sensitive question. Leon is currently on a plane. If the plane flies over the exact middle of the ocean, is he technically in a neutral country? And if he scores a goal in his dreams at that exact mont, does the transfer fee get split between both leagues?
Leon just shook his head, showing the ssage to Sofia and his mom, who both burst out laughing.
"That boy," Elena said, wiping a tear from her eye. "He has a beautiful, strange brain."
"He’s a tactical philosopher," Sofia agreed with a mock-serious expression.
Feeling a surge of affection for his chaotic, wonderful team, and a thrill for the new Chapter ahead, Leon opened up his social dia app, "Dave Look." He snapped a quick, happy selfie of the three of them—him in the middle, his mom on one side, beaming with pride, and Sofia on the other, her head resting gently on his shoulder, a bright, adventurous sparkle in her eyes.
He typed a simple caption: "The next Chapter. "
He hit ’post’. Before he could even put his phone down, the notifications began to flood in, a digital tidal wave of likes, comnts, and shares.
He glanced at his follower count. 7.2 million.
It was a number that still felt like a typo.
His agent, Marco, had told him that the mont the Liverpool transfer was officially announced, he would easily clear 10 million.
On the plane, the sense of adventure truly began. Elena, who hadn’t been on a plane in over twenty years, had her face pressed against the window like a little kid, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Mamma mia," she whispered as the plane soared over the magnificent, snow-capped peaks of the Alps. "It is like a painting. It is so beautiful."
"It’s incredible, isn’t it?" Leon said, leaning over to look. "That’s Switzerland down there. And soon we’ll be over France."
"The French have good cheese," Elena noted with a serious nod. "This is a good sign."
Sofia, who was sketching in a small notebook, looked up and smiled.
"Hannibal crossed those with elephants, you know," she said, her inner art historian coming out. "Imagine trying to get an elephant over those mountains. It makes a four-hour flight seem like a walk in the park."
They talked and laughed for the entire flight, a happy, self-contained little bubble of excitent and anticipation, 30,000 feet in the air.
For a few blissful hours, Leon completely forgot about the pressures of the Premier League, the weight of a world-record transfer fee, and the cryptic, unsettling warning from his forr coach.
The ’Briatore Clause’.
The thought appeared, unbidden, a small, dark cloud in his perfectly blue sky.
Chivu’s words echoed in his mind.
Liverpool’s offer to Inter... it is not as straightforward as you think.
What could it be? A hidden sell-on percentage? A complicated buy-back option?
Knowing the flamboyant, unpredictable reputation of their new president, it could be anything.
He pushed the thought away. Not now. Now was for family.
They descended through a thick blanket of clouds, and the brilliant, sunny blue of the continent was replaced by the soft, famous, and surprisingly beautiful grey of an English sky.
They had arrived.
Navigating through Liverpool John Lennon Airport was a smooth, easy process.
They collected their bags, went through passport control, and walked out into the arrivals hall, a bustling sea of waiting family mbers and taxi drivers.
And standing there, holding a simple sign that just said "LEON," was David, the calm, professional Liverpool scout.
"Leon," he said, a warm, welcoming smile on his face as he shook his hand. "Welco to Liverpool. I trust you had a good flight?"
"It was perfect, David," Leon said, introducing him to his mother and Sofia.
"Wonderful," David said, his smile extending to them.
"We have a car waiting. We’ll take you to the hotel, let you get settled in. The dical is scheduled for tomorrow morning, and then we can finalize the paperwork." He picked up one of their bags. "Everything is ready. We are all incredibly excited to have you."
"Thank you," Leon said, feeling a new wave of excitent.
"I’m just glad everything got sorted out between the clubs. For a minute there, with the new president, I was worried it might get... complicated."
David let out a short, knowing laugh, a flicker of sothing unreadable in his eyes.
"Ah, yes," he said, leading them towards the exit
. "Mr. Briatore. He is certainly... a unique negotiator." He paused, a wry, almost impressed smile on his face. "He drove a very hard bargain. But in the end, we were happy to agree to his... unusual terms."
"Unusual terms?" Leon asked, a flicker of the old unease returning.
"What do you an?"
David just smiled, a polite, professional, and completely non-committal smile.
"Don’t you worry about that," he said smoothly.
"That’s all sorted. All you need to worry about is scoring goals for Liverpool." He pushed the door open, revealing a sleek, black car waiting at the curb. "But I will say," he added, a final, cryptic thought as they stepped out into the cool English air, "your new president is a very, very clever man. He made sure that Inter Milan will benefit from your success for a long, long ti to co. Especially in the Champions League."
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