Carrington Training Base.
The morning sun had just climbed over the wall when the first-team locker room door was pushed open.
De Gea held a fresh copy of the Metro, his expression strange, as if he were holding back laughter hard enough to injure himself—or had seen some indescribable creature.
Without a word, he walked straight to the whiteboard in the middle of the locker room and slapped the newspaper onto it with a magnet.
The front page.
A bold red headline sat above a blurry but recognizable candid nightclub photo:
"Manchester United's Three Musketeers Party at a Nightclub: Rooney Returns to the Battlefield, Lingard Leads the Dance, Rashford Plays the Innocent College Student!"
The subtitle was even harsher: "Wayne, you don't love girls—you love madams?"
The locker room fell silent for two seconds.
Then.
"OH!!!"
Lukaku was the first to leap up and rush to the whiteboard, his face nearly pressed against the paper. "Fuck! Wayne's pose! Is he doing pole dancing?"
Danilo squeezed over and pointed at a blurry figure in the corner of the photo. "Look! Jesse's sequined jacket! Even that paparazzo's lousy camera captured the disco effect!"
"How did Rashford manage to look shy while making such shameless moves?"
The locker room erupted with laughter.
"Who wrote this? Who wrote this? What a genius!"
"Thompson from the Metro. I recognize his style. It's on par with Smith from The Sun."
Just then.
Footsteps sounded from the doorway.
Rooney walked in first, his cap pulled low, though it could not hide the huge dark circles under his eyes. Lingard followed behind, still swaying slightly as he walked, as if the nightclub bass were still echoing in his head. Rashford came last, his hoodie pulled over his head and both hands in his pockets, trying to pretend nothing