The corridor is quiet in that familiar way – not empty, just waiting. Boots are lined up by the wall, cleaner than they will ever be again, names written on tape that will not survive the season. Somewhere a door closes. Somewhereelse, coffee goes untouched. I’ve learned not to trust first days. Youth intakes don’t announce themselves with certainty. They arrive on paper first, then in rooms like these. In conversations held slightly too early. In decisions that feel small at the time and enormous later.

This isn’t a ranking, or a promise. It’s simply one intake, seen as I first met them – through four rooms.

I. The Meeting Room

The meeting room gives you distance, and sometimes that’s useful.

Names are discussed without faces attached yet. Positions are written down, then questioned almost immediately. We talk less about what these players are and more about what they might become – which is a much harder conversation. There is a shape to this intake that we notice quickly. Balance across the pitch. A familiarity, in some cases, with the environment we want to build here. Graubünden features again, not because it has to, but because the work there keeps producing players worth the discussion.

Michael Janutt’s name comes up early, almost casually. A local lad, comfortable as a wing-back, technically ahead of where you’d expect at his age. Nobody oversells it. Being local doesn’t buy you patience here – but it does mean we understand the road he’s already walked. Leadership is mentioned more than once, though never loudly. Josua Testoni’s name is noted in that context, less for what he does on the ball and more for how he positions himself around others. The Spanish passport is just a detail at this stage, but it hints at a different football education somewhere in his past.

By the time the meeting ends, we haven’t decided who these players are. Only that they are worth meeting properly.

II. The Changing Room

The changing room removes the abstractions. Bags are dropped. Boots are tied, then untied, then tied again. Some of the boys speak easily, others carefully. You can tell who has been in environments like this before, and who has had to earn every step towards it.

Joseph Ballo stands out here. You hear pieces of his story in fragments – parents leaving Ivory Coast when they were young, difficult beginnings, help from a local company that gave him a chance to focus and rebuild before deciding to stay when their son was born, trying to give him the life that they never had. None of it is volunteered. It comes out because someone asks, and he answers plainly. There’s a groundedness that often comes with that kind of background. Not hardness – awareness. Valerio Christen is different again. Basel comes up quickly in conversation, and with it Eren Derdiyok. He talks about him the way kids always talk about idols – not tactics or numbers, just moments. Goals remembered out of context. Movements copied in the playground. It tells you something about why he’s here, even before he steps onto the pitch.

By the time we leave the room, the group already feels less like an intake and more like a starting point.

III. The Pitch

The pitch gives you honesty, but never the full truth. We keep the session simple. Patterns, rondos, small games. Nothing designed to crown anyone too early. Still, moments slip through.

Janutt is comfortable straight away. His technique is clean, his speed is noticeable . As a wing-back he understands when to step and when to hold, which is rarer at this age than people think. He doesn’t force himself into the session – he lets it come to him. Christen plays like someone who has watched a lot of football but played more of it on his PS5. In front of goal he spins, loses a defenders, finishes one chance with a deft chip and then drifts out of the game for a spell, as if still learning when to demand involvement. That, too, is information. Ballo’s influence is quieter. He keeps the ball moving. He doesn’t hide from pressure. He is technically sound if physically underdeveloped. There’s an appreciation for structure there, perhaps born from knowing what instability feels like elsewhere. Testoni is harder to pin down on a first day. He reads instructions quickly, and adjusts without needing repetition. He ran all day and never once backed out of a challenge. Nothing spectacular – which, on a day like this, can be a compliment.

No one dominates. No one disappears. That’s usually a good sign.

IV. The Physio Room

This is where optimism is slowed deliberately. Some of these boys are still growing into their bodies. Coordination lags behind intention. Strength arrives unevenly. We talk about loading, about patience, about letting time do its work. Background matters here too. Players like Ballo, who have already lived with constraint, often understand the idea of waiting better than most. Others need to learn that development isn’t something you rush just because you’re excited. Valerio proudly tells us he’s never as so much had a bruise, let alone a break or a sprain but

We make notes, then leave them alone.

—

The corridor is quiet again.

Boots are drying. Tape curls at the edges. Somewhere, one of these boys is replaying a moment he liked. Somewhere else, another is worrying about one he didn’t.

The intake doesn’t belong to today.
It belongs to a future we won’t try to hurry.

And that, for now, is exactly where it should be.