Offside |João Félix

Isolde never cared about football. It wasn't that she disliked it-she just never had a reason to pay attention. That changed when her cousin Sofia, a lifelong AC Milan fan, dragged her to a match at San Siro one cold February night.

She wasn't expecting much. But then she saw João Félix.

It wasn't just that he was talented-though even her inexperienced eyes could tell he played differently from the others, smooth and calculated, as if the ball obeyed him. It was his presence. The way the crowd chanted his name. The way he never smiled, not really, but still acknowledged the fans with a nod or a brief lift of his hand. There was something distant about him, like he was there but not entirely reachable.