It’s no exaggeration to say that if you love soccer and anime enough, Ao Ashi is basically porn. It seems almost unfair to get so much gratification every week, but the writing with this series is on such a high level that it really delivers. Soccer is a sport that lends itself perfectly to what anime and manga do – it invites analysis, and offers limitless complexities to explore. Even something as simple as formations – in baseball, you have nine positions and one guy in each one. American football moves guys around from play to play, but it’s driven by the situation, In soccer there are more or less six basic formations (depending on who you ask) but limitless tweaks based on those. And which one a manager chooses completely alters the shape of the game, literally and figuratively.

This journey of Ashito to try and discover who he is as a player is limitlessly compelling. Partly because it’s exposited in such a relatable way and because it’s a fascinating intellectual exercise (“a thinking reed”, indeed). But also because he’s a great protagonist, a likable and believable kid. Obviously when Kobayakawa – the starting left-back – returns to the A-team, he wants to watch what he does. And when Fukuda-san calls for a scrimmage between the starters and squad players, that provides a great opportunity to do so. But Ashito is supposed to be competing, not observing. In a way, this is also a trap.

He asks Togashi-kun, the far more experienced defender, for his take on what they’re seeing. But Togashi is feeling salty at Ashito getting ahead of him and declines to engage. Togashi being petulant is no crime – he’s just a kid after all. But Fukuda (he doesn’t miss a trick, this guy) calls him out for only correcting Ashito’s positioning after the squad guys are scored on. When Fukuda asks Ashito what he’s seeing out there, Ashito is able to describe what Kobayakawa’s role in the side is in broad terms. And a vital role it is too – he covers for the attack-minded center backs and takes charge of keeping the defensive shape intact.

But the most important part of Ashito’s answer is when he tells the coach he can’t be the kind of player Kobayakawa is. That’s exactly what Fukuda wants to hear, because that’s why he brought Ashito into the side. In case it’s not obvious, Fukuda is playing a long game here. He plans to be the manager of the main team someday and he’s already mapping that squad out in his head. Benzen-san scolds Fukuda for spending too much time coaching up the scrubs, but Fukuda slaps him down in no uncertain terms. The squad players, he says, are what sets the great teams apart. No one faces off against the starters more than they do. If they’re weak, the starters will eventually follow suit.

Fukuda has made it very clear in his dealings with Akutsu and Togashi that ego is a weakness these boys are going to have to outgrow. But Ashito is still left with the problem of how to level up as a defender. This is all new to him – his soccer childhood and adolescence was as a striker. What Togashi does by instinct he still has to think his way through, and at the U-18 PL level there’s no time for that. But he refuses to go back to Nozomi-san (the B-team coach) for advice, as Eisaku and Kanpei do. Akutsu is obviously out, and the approachable Taira-kun is injured and Ashito doesn’t want to trouble him. So who can he turn to?

Fortunately getting b-slapped by the manager in a scrimmage has jolted some sense into Keiji’s head. If Ashito has moved ahead of him (which he has), Togashi has to figure out why. And it’s a two-way street – he needs to share his experience if he wants Ashito to try and teach him how he views the game. Whether it’s the newspaper bar soccer he played with his brother as a grommet (reminiscent of a young Andre Iniesta, Anri-chan says) or not, Ashito’s field of vision dwarfs Togashi’s. He sees the forest, yes, but the trees too. It’s his superpower, and he knows how to translate it into attacking opportunities. But not defending, because that doesn’t come naturally to him.

This all builds to a late-night scrimmage lit by limo-light, with various B-teamers, Yuuma, and Miyako nee-san (on an underwear run) kidnapped to help out. The defenders have to stop the attackers with two balls in play, and Togashi is paying close attention to what Ashito is seeing. Teaching someone else does help Ashito learn (as is so often the case), as he’s forced to try and break down what he does in terms Eiji will understand. But Ashito still longs desperately for someone to teach him. It’s as if the guys who’ve been defending all their lives are speaking a language he doesn’t understand.

We know Fukuda-san getting involved is going to take things to the next level. In this environment – top level academy soccer – the manager’s time is a currency, no more and no less. When a squad player gets one on one instruction from him, they need to absorb every molecule of benefit from it that they can, and the ones not receiving it are inclined to seethe with envy. As much of a d-bag as Fukuda acts like most of the time – tough love is the only parenting style in his arsenal – he obviously favors Ashito to a degree I could easily see other players resenting. He’s doing his job – making sure the players he sees potential greatness in get every chance to succeed. But Ashito needs to understand just how lucky he is, and seize the opportunities that are presented to him.