On Saturday 29th October 2022, an email is both leaked and not leaked in Spain.

If there is an email, it contains a list of the 26 players who have made Spain’s World Cup squad for the following month. Included in those names is one Rodrigo Moreno.

For reasons known only to the Premier League, Leeds United are kicking off late that Saturday. Imagine Rodrigo on the coach to Liverpool, idly scrolling through Twitter and, among the usual tweets telling him how rubbish he is, spotting something he can hardly believe: the news of that leaked list of players, his name among those heading to Qatar. Subconsciously, his chest puffs out.

Or there is no such leak, and instead he just scrolls and scrolls, reading over and over again that he’s not good enough for the Premier League, that he doesn’t fit into the system or that people wish Patrick Bamford would start ahead of him. His head drops.

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