The stadium lights glinted off the damp pitch as Pape Matar Sarr stepped into the circle, shoulders squared and eyes sharp. He wasn’t the loudest presence, but when the ball came to him, the tempo shifted.

“Hold it, hold it… now!” barked the coach from the sideline.

But Pape had already seen it—an open channel, a defender off-balance. He took a single touch and launched a pass that sliced through midfield like a thread through a needle.

“Man,” whispered his teammate, jogging up beside him. “How do you always know?”

Pape just smiled. “It’s like music. You just have to feel when the beat’s about to drop.”

And then he was off again—intercepting, passing, always thinking three steps ahead. A quiet conductor in a storm of motion.