Chapter Text
Max Verstappen was 3 when he first touched a football and realized he had talent. He was little then — he barely knew his numbers, but he knew how to control the ball a way other toddlers didn't. And he liked it.
When Max told his father as a kid that he didn't want to do karting but rather football, Jos Verstappen almost exploded from anger.
Eventually, he was convinced by his son, but he made sure Max never forgot he was the one who wanted all this. In front of his friends, he proudly proclaimed that his son was a football prodigy, but behind closed doors, he belittled him for every mistake.
A missed goal? God, his son was so useless. A small injury? Why couldn't he just take care of his body and leave him alone from all the paperwork needed to heal him?
The Dutchman grew up like that, his motivation being his want to make his father proud before everything else. But no matter what he did, a harsh critic was always waiting for him at home. His sister Victoria was his only escape.
When he was 11, he got into Ajax's academy, another fact for his father to boast about while he was trying to make a name for himself out there. It was an opportunity to get away from his father's claws. He loved it there. Being away from his family was kinda hard, but everyone looked at him like he was the best thing that happened to the academy, like he was their future.
The coaches were impressed by his maturity, as he never complained when they trained him harder than the others. They didn't know that his own father had made sure he never did by punishing him if even a little complaint slipped past his lips before.
The day Max turned 15, he expected his father to cheer him up, to tell him happy birthday. The only text he received from him that day was one asking when he would get a professional contract. Apparently, he was getting impatient and criticizing his every move was more important than wishing him a happy birthday.
Max Verstappen was 16 when he signed a professional contract for Ajax, making his official debut on the stage a few weeks after his birthday. He thought he would receive a congratulatory text from his father.
He didn't. He celebrated alone in his apartment in Amsterdam.
His first goal came soon after, his lips only slightly stretching from the happiness. After all, there was so much to do to become the best. His father was never going to be satisfied from a little professional goal.
He was good. Like, crazy good. Pundits praised him, newspapers said he was the best rookie to have graced the scene since Lionel Messi himself, and of course, his father drank up the compliments. Never gave them to Max himself.
Football legends like Vettel, Ronaldo or even Hamilton praised him before Jos did. A small hug was the only thing he had gotten after the end of the successful season, and even then, his father sprang away from him like Max's skin was burning.
Was it so wrong of him to want his dad to say he was proud of him? That he was doing good? That he loved him no matter his performance?
Max had understood from a very young age — he was still a teenager — that his only use was football. He wasn't a son. He wasn't a lover. He wasn't a man.
He was just a footballer. Nothing less, nothing more.
He was first selected for the national team the next year in June for the euros. The team was good, had a solid defense and a new shiny rookie. Max was so happy he got to sing the dutch anthem and play for his country, and he put his whole heart into his plays each and every time he wore the Netherlands' crest on his chest, Verstappen 33 proudly spread across his back.
Max Verstappen was 17 when he first felt the joy of winning an important trophy with his national team and when his father first told him he was proud of him.
He whispered it in his ear after Max's brace in the final, only a few words, but Max was going to remember it for his whole life ; "I'm proud of you, son."
Max cried. Max let himself feel, let himself be a teenager for once. He laughed at Virgil's jokes, danced with the other young adults on the pitch, pretended to throw the Euro's trophy at the crowd and grinned each time they yelled his name.
He stopped when kids asked for autographs, filmed videos for them, and nodded when journalists asked him if he was happy. He wondered if he was happy because his father was proud, or because he won. Because despite every bad thing his dad did, Max still thought it was thanks to him that he was that good at football.
Ajax tried keeping him at the club, but Real Madrid called him and..nobody can say no to the white house, can they?
He started the new season in a pure white shirt, his head held high and his game flashy as ever. He proved to everyone that he was the best current young player.
People were still praising him for now, screaming for him to win every award there was for young players. Defenders trembled before him, and they finished on their knees after Max dribbled past them.
When he won the golden ball at the end of this year, his father's name was the first one he talked about. He accepted the trophy with both hands, smiling brightly into the camera as if he had suddenly remembered how to act like a human since he had been shown a little bit of love.
That was when he started talking. Max didn't understand why they seemed to get mad each time he said he was the best young player — it was true, no? Why did he need to be humble if he really was the best and worked his way up to be?
Max Verstappen was 18 when he understood that the pundits who praised him all until now could very well criticize him and when the first headlines calling him an "arrogant, overrated little shit" appeared in a journal, and the nickname "mad max" was created.
He was the same age when he realized he didn't give a fuck what people thought about him.
Each time he opened his mouth since then, his words were turned into a scandal. No one said anything good about him anymore, not unless they were forced to.
That didn't bother him. He had a goal to achieve. Being crowned golden boy was nice, but he wanted to know what it was like not to be the best young player, but the best player in the world. Holding a ballon d'or in his hands was his only goal at the moment, and if he had to crawl to get it, he would.
No matter what people said, he kept scoring for madrid, winning, and making the haters angry. He was a footballer. He was winning. He had no reason to listen to them, not when he was doing what he had been raised for. People couldn't, wouldn't understand why he was acting like that.
Jos was more and more present in his life now, and with time, as he started paying attention to him, Max forgot all the bad deeds he had done before. The slaps his cheeks had suffered from, the yelling on match days after he had lost the ball or missed an easy goal — everything was almost erased from Max's memory, and he welcomed his father with open arms in his house in Madrid.
Max remembered the 2020-21 season like it was yesterday. Real Madrid had suffered a few years of champions league drought, and had to give the La Liga title back to their neighbors, Atletico. It was then that the new coach came, and Max's play immediately clicked with him. He became a regular starter, unleashing his complete potential.
He displayed incredible performances, helping his team finally win the champions league and la Liga. Football wasn't fun, only satisfactory because he could see he was good at the thing he was raised for.
At the end of this year, he won his ballon d'or with much controversy. Some people said that Lewis Hamilton should've won it instead because of his performance in Bayern Munich, and that if Max hadn't won the final against them he never would've won his ballon d'or, but he didn't care.
There was nothing that could compare to holding the shiny France Football trophy in his own hands after having attended the ceremony for three years and having to watch Hamilton sweep all the awards that were now his.
Jos had hugged him, a real hug, and he felt like he was back three years ago after winning the Euro when his father told him he was proud of him.
Really, being the best player in the world didn't have inconvenients, only advantages.
Max Verstappen was 20 when he discovered what it felt like to be on top of the world even when people criticized you.
People threw themselves at him, and he now knew what it was like to be wanted, maybe only for his status, but at least people liked him.
He concentrated enough so that this ballon d'or wouldn't be the last, and his performances paid.
At 24, he had 4 ballon d'ors sitting on a shelf in his living room, perfectly polished in a way only him could master. Some people said that it was unfair, that Max had the best team so obviously he would win it, but everyone always had something to say, and he didn't have time to listen to all of the complaints.
Not when he was the best player in the world. Not when he had sacrificed his childhood for this. Not when his father was finally smiling when he looked at him.
No one dared say it ( they probably thought Max's ego didn't need any more flattery, and they were right), but Max knew he was already a legend of dutch football. The first dutch footballer to have won the ballon d'or since Van Basten. The first footballer to have won it 4 times in a row since Messi.
His efforts were what brought him to where he was now, laid on his bed in a ridiculously huge house in Madrid, waiting for his alarm to ring to know he could prepare for training at Valdebebas.
The tv was on, a Barcelona match playing on it. He didn't necessarily like their game philosophy, but the clasico was nearing and it was out of the question for him to lose so he was trying to understand how to neutralize them.
He was getting bored when the stadium started shaking at the announcement of a replacement. Charles Leclerc, number 16 was coming in. Max recalled playing against him for a few minutes during a past clasico, nothing more.
Max heard of him a few months before when the guy won the golden ball, as he apparently was the perfect rookie. Well behaved, he played well and looked good. He didn't swear, not even when he was really mad.
The whole contrary of Max, then.
The dutch footballer wanted to turn the tv off, but he just couldn't. He was mesmerized by the way this guy played, like it was freeing him, not like he was forced but like he was born for it.
He looked like he owned the midfield at barely 19, and Max couldn't recall the last time he just..enjoyed playing on the pitch without feeling like it was something he needed to do.
His smile was gorgeous, youthful. He was having fun. Defenders were in despair when he ran past them and he was having fun.
Max Vertappen was 24 when he first started liking, despising Charles Leclerc because he was too unlike himself.
_______
Charles was born into a great family in Monaco.
When he was a little kid, his parents made him try a few sports so that he could choose one, and football was his choice. Pretty surprising. They probably expected something more...Monegasque. Football wasn't exactly the most popular sport there. He didn't even choose to follow how godfather's path, rather asking to enter a close football academy.
Nonetheless, he was still allowed to play, and by the time he was 8, he was absolutely stealing everyone's hearts at the AS Monaco academy. He was a cute kid, but what they liked most was the passion he held for the sport. They could see his parents didn't force him or train him too much, no, he was just talented.
At 10, for a youth competition, Charles' club played against Barcelona. He wasn't scheduled to play in this competition because he was at some kind of relative's home, but the trip was cut short so he was able to participate.
And Charles still thanked God that it was like that. That competition was a turning point for his career — until then, football had only really been a hobby, but the second the Barcelona coached approached him after he destroyed their team, Charles knew he wanted to be a professional footballer.
Charles Leclerc was 10 when he moved to another country, alone.
A few months later, he was settling in the la masia dorms. He didn't even speak a word of Spanish or catalan, so he shared a dorm with other french speakers who were in the academy.
That was when he got to know Pierre Gasly, who would go on to become his best friend. He was three years older than him, but it felt good to have someone who spoke the same language as you in another country.
His days were spent juggling between football practice, and catalan lessons in the late hours of the day.
La masia was competitive, he knew it, every single kid here had to let go of their family in order to maybe achieve their dream, but Charles didn't even feel an ounce stressed. No, he was doing what he liked, and that somehow worked. In fact, he was climbing the ladder at a frightening speed, getting into Juvenil C at a young age.
For Charles, football had always been fun. He had never been in danger of getting kicked out of la masia, not when his performances were so good.
He only understood when he was 16 and he found Pierre making his suitcase in tears that it wasn't everyone's case.
"I'm going to Manchester" He had said between tears. "They're getting rid of me, Charles. Everyone but you has been aware for a few weeks. Some kids even threw a party for me, but you weren't there. Too busy playing with a ball."
Charles tried hugging him, but it was of no use.
Charles Leclerc was 16 when he first let his passion for football destroy a friendship.
It wasn't the last time.
When Barcelona B played against Manchester United in the youth champions league and Pierre celebrated destroying them, Charles couldn't even bring himself to be mad. Because he saw how happy he was there. How he somehow made a shitty team shine.
Charles wasn't Catalan, but the team still pushed the "perfect Barcelona kid" agenda on him. He didn't mind. As long as he could play, he was ready to make a lot of sacrifices.
His play became more refined as he grew up, and so did his face. He was so suddenly pushed at the front of the scene despite not even having debuted — after all, how could Barcelona refuse sponsor deals?
He started training with the first team, being able to see legends closer. It was incredible to be able to talk to other kids who grew up in la masia, the ones who were already grown when Charles arrived and he couldn't talk to them, not when he was so shy.
He debuted under the team's colors, "Leclerc 16" proudly displayed on his back.
Young and sweet, only seventeen.
The other youngsters in the team immediately took him under their wing, and Charles felt like he was home. His play matched theirs, and fans said watching him play with Gavi and Pedri felt like watching Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets back in the day.
As if life wanted to make fun of him, his first champions league game was against Manchester United. The team wasn't as good as they expected them to be, so it had been easy to beat them despite Pierre's goal.
When Charles tried to ask for his shirt, calling him out like he used to — Pierrot —, he was only met with the Frenchman's cold stare.
"Call me Gasly. We're not friends anymore, and we'll probably never be again. Did you ever realize how much you and your perfect face hurt people?"
His words were full of jealousy, of poison, and maybe..regret? But Charles still felt them hit deep. It somehow wasn't the first time someone told him that. He knew he and Pierre played in the same position back at la masia. He knew that for a few years before he came, Pierre was expected to get to the first team.
He felt like saying sorry, but Pierre was already gone, his accusatory words hanging in the air.
Charles didn't let that make his play worse. Football was his dream too, after all. If Pierre hadn't been good enough to keep his position back in that academy, that was only his problem.
This mentality apparently helped him to improve, because soon enough, the whole world had eyes fixed on him.
Charles Leclerc was 18 when he won the golden ball, following in his older teammates' steps. He proved he was good, that like always, la masia had produced a perfect player.
Charles still found football fun. He didn't regret any decision, any sacrifice, even if sometimes when he received good news, his first reflex was to call Pierre, only to be met with awkward silence and realize he had been blocked for years.
Barcelona was his second home. He spent more time there than in Monaco, but his family didn't care. No, as soon as Charles had the money to buy a house big enough for all of them in Catalunya's capital, they moved in with him.
They still couldn't beat real madrid, not when they had Max Vertappen, the most dangerous player of his time, but it was okay. Some things were worse.
He had to watch as the people he grew up with in la masia were getting transferred, while he only received more sponsor deals, and did more and more photoshoots while also playing on match days.
Charles Leclerc was 19 when he realized that Barcelona was taking advantage of him and his nice and polite personality.
He was the same age when his life changed forever.