"Four-nil at halftime! I could never have imagined this scoreline before kickoff."
Lead broadcaster Mario shook his head in absolute disbelief.
"They might genuinely seize the top of the table in matchweek one," Kiko added.
Of the fixtures already concluded, Barcelona had dismantled Real Sociedad 5-1, holding a goal difference of plus-four. Atlético currently held the same goal difference. If they could bag one more, they would officially leapfrog the Catalan giants into first place.
Of course, it was only the first matchweek. Most rational people didn't take the league table seriously in August.
Inside the away dressing room, the atmosphere was completely suffocating.
The Athletic Bilbao players sat with their heads buried in their hands. The sheer violence of the first half had entirely shattered their morale.
"That kid is an absolute monster," someone muttered under their breath.
No names were needed. Everyone in the room knew exactly who "that kid" was.
Fans only looked at the goals and assists. But down on the pitch, in the trenches, only the players truly understood the terrifying gravitational pull Shane Carter exerted on a football match.
Marcelo Bielsa walked into the room and immediately felt the thick stench of dread.
His players were completely broken. The Atleti Number 10 had ripped their souls out.
Bielsa sighed internally. Being down four-nil at halftime was a professional disgrace. They needed to find a consolation goal in the second half just to salvage a shred of their dignity.
When the second half commenced, Atlético Madrid notably dropped their defensive line.
They no longer pressed aggressively into Bilbao's penalty area, instead establishing a suffocating blockade in the middle third. This finally allowed Bilbao to string a few passes together, though they remained entirely pinned down by Atlético's structural discipline.
With the tempo significantly reduced, the match entered a controlled, rhythmic state.
Simeone began rotating his assets.
Young academy product Saúl Ñíguez and veteran Mario Suárez were sequentially subbed onto the pitch.
Simeone knew the physical toll this season would demand. Competing in the Champions League was a vastly different beast than the Europa League. The Europa League was a secondary priority, filled with inferior opposition. The Champions League was pure, high-stakes warfare.
Every single victory in the elite European bracket paid out millions of euros.
Clubs were willing to bleed for those nights. Atlético was no exception.
The group stage draw hadn't even happened yet, but the Calderón was already buzzing with European anticipation. Over the past decade, Atlético's presence in the Champions League had been woefully inconsistent.
Establishing themselves as European regulars was critical for the club's financial survival. The tens of millions in broadcast revenue was the only way to build a sustainable empire capable of challenging Real Madrid and Barcelona.
To survive the impending schedule, Simeone needed to trust his bench.
Fortunately, the bottom half of La Liga lacked the lethal cutting edge of the Premier League. As long as Shane Carter was anchoring the pitch, the team possessed an incredibly high baseline. This gave Simeone the confidence to rotate.
Seeing the substitutions, Bilbao assumed Atlético was taking their foot off the gas.
They attempted to push bodies forward, desperately hunting for a face-saving goal.
But Shane completely denied them the privilege.
He operated in the center of the park like a cold-blooded terminator. Mapping the space. Tracking the runners. Intercepting the lanes. Launching lethal transitions.
Under his absolute command, every Bilbao attack died before it even reached the final third.
Instead, in the seventy-ninth minute, Atlético struck again.
Diego Costa controlled a loose ball near the 'D' and laid it perfectly into space. Shane arrived at the edge of the box without breaking stride.
He didn't even take a touch. He simply lashed a right-footed volley toward the heavens.
For a split second, the phantom silhouette of legendary Uruguayan striker Diego Forlán seemed to overlap with his massive frame.
Crack!
The ball smashed violently off the underside of the crossbar and bounced down over the line.
Five-nil.
The commentators were completely out of superlatives. They just yelled his name.
Shane jogged over to the touchline, opening his arms wide to bathe in the absolute pandemonium of the crowd.
A piece of corrugated cardboard suddenly fluttered down from the lower tier of the ultras.
Shane picked it up. Scrawled across it in thick black marker was a message in Spanish.
Shane! We believe in you! Lead us to that damn title!
Shane held the makeshift sign high in the air. He pointed directly at the words, locking eyes with the seething mass of supporters in the South Stand.
Then, he dropped the sign, clenched his right fist, and hammered it violently against the Atlético crest on his chest.
"¡Viva! ¡Viva!"
"¡Atleti! ¡Viva!"
"SUUUUUUUUUUU!"
The Vicente Calderón detonated into a pure, religious frenzy.
The final whistle blew.
Atlético Madrid secured a historic 5-0 victory to open their campaign, officially taking the top spot in La Liga on goal difference.
The broadcast cameras locked onto Shane's face.
Deep inside his mind, the familiar mechanical chime echoed.
[DING! Match concluded. Initiating reward calculation...]
[Match Intensity: Medium. Match Rating: Excellent!]
[DING! Congratulations! Silver-Tier Random Chest awarded. Open now?]
Shane walked toward the tunnel, his expression entirely calm.
Why was he so completely confident in his declaration to win the league?
Athletic Bilbao was not a weak team. They were a top-half La Liga squad, regular contenders for European spots. Yet, the System had only graded the match intensity as "Medium."
That meant this current iteration of Atlético Madrid was operating on a vastly superior tier.
They might still be slightly behind Real Madrid and Barcelona on paper, but they were comfortably above the rest of the chasing pack.
The logic of a thirty-eight-game title race always boiled down to consistency.
In the heavyweight clashes against Madrid and Barca, walking away with draws or narrowly splitting the points was acceptable. The true battleground was the other thirty-four fixtures.
Beating Real Madrid earned you three points. Beating Rayo Vallecano earned you exactly the same.
If a team could beat the giants but constantly dropped points to relegation fodder, they would never touch the crown.
Before Roman Abramovich's Chelsea changed the landscape, the English Premier League was defined by the legendary war between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger.
In their direct head-to-head clashes, Arsenal often matched Manchester United blow for blow.
So why did Ferguson usually walk away with the trophy in May?
Because Manchester United possessed a psychopathic, terrifying consistency when dispatching the mid-table teams. Arsenal lacked that ruthless efficiency, frequently slipping up against physical, inferior opposition on cold, rainy nights.
Shane fully intended to build that exact ruthless efficiency here in Madrid.
Open the chest.
[DING! Congratulations! Speed Attribute +1. Vision Attribute +1.]
The image of Shane holding the cardboard sign instantly hijacked the front pages across Spain.
Regardless of their club allegiances, fans and pundits were completely mesmerized by the sheer audacity of the eighteen-year-old.
In an era totally dominated by peak Messi and prime Ronaldo, possessing the pure arrogance to publicly challenge their throne was a spectacle in itself.
His terrifying five-goal contribution only threw fuel on the fire.
"Five-nil opening day statement! Shane Carter orchestrates an absolute masterclass. Two goals, three assists. He is completely unplayable."
"When he picked up that cardboard sign, the message was absolute. Atlético Madrid is not playing for third place this year."
"A powerful showing, but let's be realistic. The squad depth is too thin. One match proves nothing."
"A title charge? Still the biggest joke of the season. Let's see where they are in December."
The media was deeply polarized.
Some acknowledged Atleti's terrifying new high-press system. Others insisted the league was a marathon, and early sprinters always collapsed down the stretch.
But nobody could deny Shane Carter's individual brilliance. The tactical debate had officially shifted from "This is a joke" to "Wait, is this actually possible?"
One week later. Matchweek Two.
Atlético traveled east to face Levante at the Estadi Ciutat de València.
The press box was packed to the brim with journalists eager to see if the opening day was a fluke.
The second the match kicked off, the journalists began spouting their tactical drivel.
"Levante is absolutely terrified. Look at that low block."
"Scoring five goals last week might have been a curse. Now every team is going to park the bus against Atleti."
"This is the real test. Can they break down a ten-man defense? This has historically been their fatal weakness."
"Exactly. Barca just comfortably beat Osasuna 2-0. If Atleti drops points here, the title dream is instantly dead."
Right as the journalists were exchanging smug smiles, a sudden roar ripped through the stadium.
They snapped their heads toward the pitch.
The Atlético players were already sprinting toward the corner flag to celebrate.
The press box fell into stunned silence. They scrambled to watch the stadium jumbotron for the replay.
The footage clearly outlined the sheer tactical genius of the sequence.
Shane had received the ball on the edge of the penalty area. Knowing Levante was deeply terrified of his shooting range, he feinted a heavy strike. The entire defensive block instinctively panicked, throwing bodies into the firing line.
Instead of shooting, Shane executing a brutal cut-back, killing the ball dead.
He created a fraction of a second of pure pausa.
The exact moment the Levante defenders exhaled and attempted to reset their defensive line, Shane simply scooped his boot under the ball, executing a delicate, perfectly weighted chip.
The ball floated beautifully over the completely disorganized defensive wall.
Raúl García had perfectly timed his late, blind-side run into the box. He met the dropping ball with a thunderous header.
"Good heavens..." a journalist whispered.
"It looked so effortless."
"An absolute masterclass in tempo manipulation."
"He had the entire Levante defense on strings."
Pause. Control. Execute.
The slower journalists finally noticed the off-the-ball movements on the replay.
While García and Koke crashed the box, Diego Costa and Griezmann had deliberately dragged their markers away from the center. It was a perfectly choreographed, devastatingly simple tactical overload.
But it only worked because they had a dictator in midfield capable of executing that chip under immense pressure.
Vision. Rhythm. Technique.
With the deadlock broken, Levante's low-block strategy was entirely compromised. They had to push out, and the match instantly fell into Atlético's rhythm.
In the second half, Griezmann was violently brought down inside the box after a weaving run.
The referee pointed directly to the spot.
Shane picked up the ball and walked to the penalty mark.
Last season, Radamel Falcao was the undisputed penalty taker. After his departure, Simeone immediately handed all penalty and direct free-kick duties to Shane.
He stepped back. There were no mind games. No stutter steps. No psychological warfare with the goalkeeper.
He picked his corner before the whistle even blew.
The referee signaled.
Shane strode forward and unleashed a terrifying, raw strike. The ball rocketed into the absolute top corner of the net. Even if the keeper guessed right, saving it was physically impossible.
Two-nil.
The scoreline held until the final whistle.
Two matches down. Atlético Madrid remained perched at the summit of La Liga.
Following the victory, the squad immediately packed their bags for Monaco.
They were heading to the Stade Louis II to contest the UEFA Super Cup against Chelsea.
But before the whistle blew against the Champions of Europe, the footballing world's eyes would turn to the Grimaldi Forum.
UEFA was set to hand out the annual awards and, more importantly, conduct the group stage draw for the Champions League.
For the fans back in Madrid, beating Chelsea for a one-off trophy was a nice bonus.
But discovering their fate in the Champions League group stage? That was the true beginning of the European war.
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