It was probably best not to mention the club salary, at least not in front of his teammates near his age. Sure, there were professionals on the team, many of them - Michael was the keeper for Atlanta United, one of the other forwards was on Man City across the Atlantic - but soccer wasn't like American football or basketball in the U.S. yet. Unless you got picked out by a European club when you were fourteen, you played in high school, you played in college, and then maybe - if you hadn't fucked up - you went pro. The average nineteen to twenty year old was going to desperately pretend not to be impressed with Gael's enviable status as a pro.

No matter what his American father's opinion on the whole thing was.

In any case, Carlos exchanged a look with Keegan - if Shaw couldn't take a joke as mild as that it was going to be a rough time - and shrugged his shoulders. "We can do penalties," he said. "If you don't think the jet lag has you off your game."