Title: Concrete Jungle to English Fire
Opening Scene
The room was darker than expected.
A faint beam of light spilled from the overhead spot, warming only the stool in the middle of the black studio floor. Cables twisted like veins around camera tripods. Someone behind the glass pane nodded at the cameraman.
A hand clapped once. "Rolling."
I sat down, pulled the Bradford jersey straight over my shoulder, and inhaled once—deep through the nose.
The interviewer, somewhere behind the lights, spoke softly.
"Renan, who are you… away from football?"
I blinked.
That was always the hard question. They think you're just tricks, goals, YouTube highlights. They don't know the cracked pavement. The mother washing shirts at dawn. The brother who dreams because you dared to.
So I answered quietly, in English that still carried Rio in the vowels:
