“But he didn’t think I’d actually do it. When I did, he donated a small fortune to my football academy, so I’d say it worked out.”
“Wait, who was it?” she asks, eyes wide.
“Messi.” I take a sip of champagne, enjoying the moment her brain catches up. The look on her face is worth every goal I ever saved.
“Messi?” she repeats, nearly choking on her drink. “You… oh my God, wait, you have a football academy?”
I shrug, popping a macaron in my mouth. “I don’t talk about it much.”
“Tell me about it,” she says softly, surprising me.
After a pause, I do. “After we won the World Cup, I finally had time to go home to Ireland. Been playing abroad since I was a lad. There’s an old academy there, the one I grew up in, that was struggling to stay open. We raised funds, I pitched in what I could, and… SGA was reborn.”
“SGA?”
“Siobhán Gallagher Academy, named after my mum.”
Her lips part slightly, and her eyes shimmer with sudden tears she tries to blink away. It catches me off guard, how much it seems to mean to her.
“I know you lost your mom a few years ago,” she says gently. “I’m so sorry, Rogue.”
Her voice is soft, and it pulls something tight in my chest. I nod. “Thank you.”
“I can’t believe I never heard about your academy,” she says after a beat, chuckling. “And I did athoroughbackground check on you.”
I laugh, low and rough. “Should I be worried, then?”
She giggles. “No, I just like to do my research on players. Helps me understand how you present yourself to the world.”
“I don’t,” I state. “Had enough bad press to last a lifetime.”
Her smile fades slightly. She knows what I mean. She’s read it all, the tabloid headlines, the false accusations, the years of being treated like a villain in someone else’s story. But she doesn’t bring it up. She just looks at me, steady, unjudging, and it’s… grounding.
“Tell me more about SGA,” she says, turning toward me, her whole body angled in my direction now.
So I do. I tell her about the school programs, the kids’ and girls’ teams, the group we have for players with Down syndrome, how we use football to help with motor skills and confidence. About the street league we started last year, where unhoused youth and adults can play, eat, and feel like they belong somewhere for a while.
“It’s a football-for-all academy,” I mutter. “For anyone who loves the game, anyone who needs it.”
“Rogue, that’s beautiful,” she says, her smile warm, her eyes glossing over with emotion. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of it. Are they on social media?”
“They are.”
She’s already pulling out her phone, typing fast.
“Found it!” she says, scrolling through the feed, grinning at the photos. “Oh my God, these kids areadorable.And the green and black jerseys, they look so good.”
I can’t help it, I smile. Seeing her look at something that means so much to me fills my chest with a kind of quiet joy I haven’t felt in years.
“Are you ever going to tell the world you’re behind it?”
“It’s public. It’s on the site. I visit every time I’m home. But it’s not about me. It’s about them, the kids, the coaches, the community keeping it alive.”
She sets her phone down, eyes meeting mine. “Rogue, it’s your choice how you run it, and clearly, you’re doing an incredible job, but you could make an evenbiggerimpact. Your name, your story… it could inspire people to give, to care. You could open another academy here. People would show up just because it’s you.”
Her words land deeper than she knows. It’s been a long, long time since anyone’s made me feel believed in, not for my saves or my stats, but for who I am beneath it all.
Before I can say a word, she asks, “Who runs your socials?”
