Victor Hernandez wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, squinting against the glare of the blazing hot Lagos sun. The heat clung to his skin like a second layer of sweat.
For most, the weather would have been unbearable — oppressive, even — but Victor, he loved it.
It brought back a lot of memories... memories of the sweltering afternoons of his childhood on the coast of Veracruz, Mexico.
Here, in the heart of Nigeria's bustling metropolis, he felt an odd, prickling sort of kinship with the climate.
The football match unfolding below him, however, was another story entirely.
"Dios mío," he muttered under his breath as he leaned against the rusted railing of the stadium.
Victor pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. '...This is a waste of time.'
Not even nostalgia could make him feel otherwise.
The other scouts in the stands — a handful of middle-aged men representing lower-tier clubs in Egypt and South Africa — had already left by halftime. Victor had stayed out of stubbornness, or perhaps masochism...
'Three weeks in Nigeria,' he thought. 'And not a single player worth a second look.'
He checked his watch — 65th minute. The scoreboard read 1-1, and both goals were the results of defensive blunders rather than attacking brilliance.
'Shambles!' he thought with down turned lips.
Victor's phone buzzed in his pocket. A WhatsApp message from Javier, his former teammate at Los Tiburones, and good friend, who was now scouting in Spain:
[¿Encontraste al próximo Okocha ;-)?]
Victor typed a reply with more force than necessary:
[Aquí solo hay al próximo payaso.]
He shoved the phone back into his pocket.
His mind drifted to the email he'd received last week — a terse reminder from his boss to "expedite assessments" ahead of the quarterly report.
'Hah...'
Expedite what exactly? There was literally nothing of note to write home about.
Unless of course, if the boss wanted a long list of players not to sign. Victor's leather-bound notebook was full of their information in gross detail, all marked in red.
"Lagos is a goldmine," his boss had insisted when he left for the scouting mission. "You'll see."
Victor snorted thinking back to it.
Goldmine? So far, it was more like a landfill.
He'd been in Lagos for three weeks, dispatched by his agency to scour the city's leagues for hidden gems. It was supposed to be a straightforward assignment — Nigeria was meant to be a hotbed of raw athletic talent, after all.
But Victor had yet to see a single player who could survive a trial in Mexico's Liga MX, let alone Europe's top tiers.
Here, the players moved like they'd never been coached — no off-the-ball runs, no coordinated pressing, no understanding for positional play, just a chaotic scramble for the ball and completely unnecessary showboating punctuated by hopeful long balls that sailed completely nowhere.
The defenders were slow to react. The midfielders lacked vision. And the goalkeepers?! Don't even get him started with them.
Every match just felt like watching a very poorly rehearsed play. It was all energy and no precision.
Not to mention the blatant age fraud — an open secret here.
Last week, Victor had met an "eighteen-year-old" winger with the receding hairline of a pensioner. Victor was pretty sure the man had an eighteen year old son at home — yet, here he was, ludicrously trying to pass himself off as one.
It was a total mess.
"Oga, you no dey cheer?" A man sidled up to him, grinning through gaps in his teeth.
It was Okoro, a local who'd appointed himself Victor's unofficial guide — and chief source of unsolicited advice.
Okoro was a wiry man in his fifties, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a perpetual cigarette dangling from his lips. He wore a faded Barcelona jersey, a relic from what he claimed was a "glory days" stint as an assistant coach in Spain.
Victor doubted every word that came out of his mouth.
Victor forced a polite smile. His pidgin was rusty, but he tried nonetheless. "I dey watch. Good game." he lied.
He turned back to the game and sighed dejectedly. "I'm just tired..."
Okoro smirked after letting out a puff of smoke in the air. "Tired of watching rubbish, shey? I don't blame you. These clubs…" he gestured dismissively towards the football field. "They're run by big fools and their players play like bigger fools. You want real talent, abi? Go to the streets. The slums. That's where the hungry ones are. If you're lucky, you'll catch them young."
Victor almost rolled his eyes. He had heard this pitch from Okoro before.
Okoro had spent days hyping up a teenage striker from Makoko, a floating slum built on Lagos's lagoon.
"The boy's a wizard!" he'd insisted. "Floats past defenders like they're statues!"
But when Victor finally met the kid, he'd been underwhelmed — the kid's only strong point was his raw speed. Victor suspected the boy was related to Okoro by blood in some way, but he was sure Okoro would deny it to his dying breath if he asked.
It was a common thing here for many people to try to give their family members a leg up in the football industry. Another part and aspect of the root deep corruption in the country.
Victor replied. "Okoro, "talent" is not enough. Street football and professional football are not the same thing. I need people who've been in academies or played professionally — those who've already been through formal training — players who could slot into the system as soon as possible. Technical, tactical, physical—"
"Ah, yes!" Okoro interrupted with a chuckle. "You Europeans and your systems. You all want robots, not footballers. Why not just let them play? Let them feel the game!"
Victor didn't even bother arguing. Okoro's romanticism belonged to a different era, one where a flash of individual brilliance could mask a lack of fundamentals. Modern football simply didn't work that way.
Not at the highest level.
Sighing, Victor decided to stop subjecting himself to torture, and began making his way out of the stadium.
As they exited the stadium, Victor's phone buzzed.
A WhatsApp message from Oliver, his colleague scouting in Argentina:
[Just found a 17yo RW with Messi's left foot and Ronaldo's right foot. Ambidextrous young boy who runs tirelessly, has no significant weaknesses, and can do it all. Boss is already hot on his trail and we have competition from Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid. We're doing everything we possibly can to bring him to Manchester United. What about you?]
Victor typed a reply:
[Still alive.]
There was really nothing else to say.
It felt kind of pathetic.
With another sigh, he shoved the phone back into his pocket and continued on his way.
***
By the time Victor returned to his hotel — a faded, air-conditioned relic near the National Theatre — his frustration had hardened into resignation. He tossed his scouting reports onto the bed.
Their pages were filled with more red X's than a mathematics teacher's most difficult exam.
He grabbed a beer from the minifridge and sat on the lumpy mattress of his hotel room, scrolling through his inbox when his phone buzzed again.
This time, an email from his boss:
[Any progress? Board's asking about Africa. Need something by end of week.]
Victor groaned. He'd been dreading this.
The "end of week" ultimatum was code for: Find a body to fill the quota or come home empty-handed.
United's interest in Africa was mostly PR — a few signings to plaster on brochures about "global outreach." But Victor had hoped to deliver more than a token player.
Victor took a long swig of beer.
Unfortunately, Lagos had given him nothing so far.
In the beginning, Victor had held some naive hope that he'd uncover a sparkling diamond.
Now, that hope felt plain delusional.
There was nothing here, and it was time to give up. It was the end of the road.
Suddenly, his phone lit up with a calendar alert:
[PEPSI ACADEMY TRIALS – TOMORROW. NATIONAL STADIUM, SURULERE. 8 AM.]
Victor stared at the screen.
The Pepsi Academy was a local initiative, a glitzy annual event where hundreds of teenagers competed for scholarships and a shot at professional contracts.
Victor massaged his temples and frowned.
It was close by, but attending would be a waste of time. He would not be going.
Of course, in theory, it was exactly the kind of place a scout would find raw young talent.
But Victor wasn't looking for raw talent. He was looking for polished talents who were either in or had been through the crucible of a football academy — not players who were yet to receive formal training of any sorts.
Man United didn't need projects, and that was all he was going to find there at the Pespsi Academy trials — projects.
But...
Victor paused. Drumming his fingers against the covers of the mattress, he thought back to Okoro's words:
"You want real talent? Go to the streets."
He glanced at the boss's terse email again.
[...Need something by end of week.]
Victor sighed.
It was time to leave. All he had to do was explain the situation. Apologize to his boss. Take the L.
Still... what if?
Victor's finger hovered over the delete button. He'd already written a draft email to his boss:
[Requesting immediate reassignment. No viable prospects in Lagos.]
Sending it would mean admitting defeat, but wasn't staying worse?
He glanced at the scouting reports on the bed, full of the red X's screaming failure.
Then, he closed his eyes and made a resolve.
"Una última cosa antes de irme," he muttered to himself.
One last thing before leaving.
He deleted the draft email and set an alarm for the next morning.
He was going to see what the streets had to offer.