History Altered
Time had passed since the day they lifted the Champions League trophy, and at last the final matchday of the league season arrived.
Well. The champions had already been decided long ago.
Barcelona sat atop the table with an overwhelming record of thirty-five wins and two draws, the title locked up ages ago. Because of that, some people might have assumed today’s final league match wouldn’t matter much to them. They would have been wrong.
Lose this one and the undefeated crown would slip away right at the finish line. Every Barcelona player intended to give everything they had.
Win today and it’s an undefeated championship!
Lee Junho of Barcelona was thinking the exact same thing.
“An undefeated league title and a Treble… in my very first season…”
The situation was anything but ordinary. Barcelona might have been a powerhouse, yet they hadn’t claimed a league title in six years. This season they had dethroned Real Madrid and every other contender to become the kings of La Liga.
Of course, even without me they would have won the league this season. But the Champions League… that outcome changed massively.
In the original history, Barcelona still finished first in La Liga during the 2004–2005 season. It had been an ordinary title run with losses along the way, though—not an undefeated campaign. And in the Champions League they had crashed out in the round of sixteen. Junho’s presence had rewritten that result from a last-sixteen exit into a Champions League trophy.
Add the Copa del Rey title on top, and Barcelona had achieved the first Treble in club history—four full years earlier than the one Pep Guardiola’s side would accomplish in the original timeline’s 2008–2009 season.
“At this rate, the future’s going to look completely different.”
Hans and Charles could barely keep their hearts from hammering out of their chests.
Only one step remained before Barcelona’s undefeated league title became reality.
“Man, I never thought I’d see the day Barcelona win the league without a single loss.”
“Tell me about it. I was ready to write the whole season off, figured we wouldn’t win anything again. Instead they didn’t just meet my expectations—they blew past them. Undefeated league title on the doorstep, Champions League and Copa del Rey already in the bag… a full Treble.”
Both men were trembling. Uncontainable joy raced through their bodies.
“Hah. Makes it impossible not to get excited for next season.”
“True. But if we want more of the same, we’ve got to keep the starting eleven together this summer and buy proper backups—or upgrades—for the positions that need strengthening.”
“You’re right, but I’m not sure Barcelona can actually pull it off.”
Their worries were completely justified. Barcelona ranked among the greatest clubs on the planet, yet they were hardly without peers. Teams with better recent trophies or deeper pockets existed. Nearby sat Real Madrid; farther afield loomed clubs like Manchester United. Those sides would naturally come hunting for Barcelona’s players—the same players who had just delivered a Treble.
Barcelona were no pushovers themselves, of course. Their bankroll lagged behind Real’s, but it was still respectable. More importantly, most of the first-team contracts still had plenty of years left. Any club that wanted to pry a player away would have to pay a fee beyond imagination.
“Anyway, we have to hold on to the starters at all costs!”
“Agreed.”
Kickoff.
The match against Mallorca proved tougher than expected. With relegation on the line, every Mallorca player moved with the reckless abandon of men who had swallowed something extra.
“Ah!”
Messi—youngest and smallest in the Barcelona squad—was once again being manhandled by brutal fouls. His body never got a break.
Then—
WHUMP!
Thud…
Jorge sent a ball straight into the groin of the player who had just fouled Messi, delivering perfect revenge.
Watching Jorge’s shot, I thought to myself:
Thank god he’s on my team.
Relieved by that simple fact, I wondered whether the guy would ever walk straight again. Jorge must have realized that actually destroying the area would be going too far, because he had taken a little power off the strike compared to usual. The problem was that Jorge’s normal shot already dwarfed everyone else’s power; even a half-strength effort hit like a full-blooded drive from an ordinary player.
Seriously, why mess with Messi?
If they had gone after Jorge himself, I doubted he would have retaliated that hard. When opponents tried to muscle Jorge, he usually just showed them the difference in strength and left it at that. He never went nuclear like this.
Actually, thinking about it… only a complete lunatic would try to body Jorge in the first place.
A moment’s reflection made it obvious: no sane player would ever initiate contact with Jorge. The physical mismatch was absurd. He had recently hit 199 cm and would clear the two-meter mark any day now. And he wasn’t just tall—every inch of him was packed with muscle. Normally a frame like that meant sluggish speed, yet Jorge possessed one of the quickest top speeds in the entire league. Still slower than me, of course.
If he were faster than me, that would be something beyond human.
My assessment wasn’t wrong. My own top speed sat at over 43 km/h; across La Liga and even the five major European leagues, no one outran Lee Junho. Jorge’s 38 km/h was still blistering—roughly Mbappé territory—meaning, in pure theory, he could catch Mbappé. Variables like acceleration time existed, sure, but the raw numbers were ridiculous.
Of course those figures measured pure sprinting. Football demanded more: carrying the ball, changing direction, decelerating, stopping. Still, overwhelming pace rendered a lot of that technical gap meaningless.
After Jorge’s shot forced a substitution, Mallorca seemed to take the lesson to heart. They stopped committing anything above a certain level of foul.
That shift was the best possible news for Barcelona. With the threat of reckless fouls dialed down, the attack finally unleashed its full ability—starting with me.
I left the defense for dead at a speed that drew pure awe from the commentators and opened the scoring.
Eleventh minute of the first half. An early opener, yet I wasn’t satisfied.
I need at least three more.
Next it was Ronaldinho’s turn. With those alien, otherworldly movements he sliced through Mallorca’s back line, then rounded the keeper for Barcelona’s second.
Spurred on, Messi refused to stay quiet. With his trademark compact dribbling he tore Mallorca’s shape to pieces and notched the third.
Then Iniesta—one of the finest midfielders alive—added his own name to the list, and the first half ended 4–0. After a brief rest the second half followed the same script; Barcelona kept pouring in goals and finally crushed Mallorca 7–0.
With that, Barcelona claimed the first undefeated league championship in club history—something they had never managed in the original timeline.