Advice for the young at mind

Figueira spent the whole session lying on the mat beside me, left eye black. Bruises on the face. The talking he did was for telling the others he hadn't caught them as he should. There's a dead silence around. It's 6:40, session everybody attended. All of them late.
"Haven't I told you five gangsters won't make up a team? You deny it one day just to be living proof one day later. Take a look at Figueira. And he didn't even come by car, as Panotti."
If I can't arouse the rascals' pride now, it will be never more.
"Figueira is always spilling the beans", said Galhardo, laughing out loud, "he's cheeky. When the heat turns on him, well, that's just his tough shit."
"Seems to me it's a situation you know very well, don't you, Galhardo?"
Galhardo stopped laughing. Now it was Panotti laughing. And Morales.
"You're more about to sell protection than to one beautiful day figure out why you got stuck with wrestling", I said, staring at them.
"You think you know a whole lot about what wrestling is, don't you?", questioned Morales.
Turned my eyes to him and, as Figueira one day, sustained the look into his eyes.
"I really don't know a lot of it. But I know enough to tell you wrestling and wanton violence have nothing in common."

At dusk, I met Figueira once again. We went to a snack bar nearby, got a table. He was shady. Silent and stern. I felt terribly bad, because I had to fell the tree. Tell him he had to be combative to the end if he wanted to follow competing. Because soon he would be forsaken and forgotten if he insisted on giving his prizes away. It didn't match the milkshake in front of him. But the milkshake had to go down bitter, he wouldn't be allowed to have it sweet as everybody else does.
"I talked to Coach Rodrigo and Panotti about you", I said to him, "the two opinions were so alike, they see something in you you can't see apparently."
He just kept shoe-gazing. Figueira makes shoe-gazing an art. I told him to look at me and not at the ground.
"Listen kid, feeling sorry for yourself is not going to solve your problem. Fighting as you know is. Panotti asked me to tell you this. He seems angry that you give your chances to a bunch of absolute beginners, he said. Asked me to tell you to win like you have to. Panotti respects you very much and seems hurt to see you do it. Let alone being in the team with you. So do the others."
Figueira was looking at me in silence, those black eyes, the left one especially black from the bruises. Said nothing. I feel uncomfortable working on solutions that come from the outside and try to adjust people to patterns even if you have to break their arms and legs fitting them in the hole. But in competitions there's no escape being shaped to winning. Either you are shaped or you are shaped, you just can't afford losing all the bouts you fight as this is sporting suicide.
"Can't you see it's absurd to tell you things that as a fighter you had to know by design?"
He sniffed. Once more. More. We are filling his young mind with advice. To leave no room in his brain for anything but advice. Advice he shouldn't need.
"You have to promise you will fight to win. Always. Win or lose, you'll fight to win."
He looked at me without knowing what to say. And he said yes. For the first time, a decided yes, sound, strong, making his eyes glitter even more under the lighting of the snack bar. But no more words. He said nothing more.

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