Football: Maxed Out The Wrong Stat

Monday morning felt different.

It wasn’t loudly different, nobody was making speeches about it. But the 4–0 had done what wins do to training-ground atmospheres: it had created a small amount of goodwill that everyone was spending carefully, the way you spend money you weren’t expecting to have. The session was recovery-focused, light work, nobody asked to push hard. Players who had barely spoken to each other on Friday exchanged comments about the match. Bujerab moved through the session with a visible looseness that hadn’t been there the previous week, the confidence of a player who has reminded himself and everyone else what he looks like when the conditions suit him.

He made a point of talking to Raúl before training. Raúl responded with professional warmth and then went to do his own warm-up.

Mateo was now on speaking terms with most of the German players, which was the Neuer dividend, an informal currency that he hadn’t planned to earn and was slightly amused by. Neuer himself had appeared at training with dark glasses and the philosophical dignity of a man who had nothing to prove and was choosing to prove it again anyway. He’d pointed at Mateo across the pitch and held up two fingers. Rematch. The terms were apparently to be negotiated.

”You should let him win,” Farfán said, watching this from beside Mateo.

”He’ll know if I let him win.”

”Then at least let it be closer.”

Mateo thought about this. ”Maybe.”

In Magath’s office, Hughes Yves was looking at the fixture list with the expression of someone reading a document that has been written specifically to ruin their week.

”Thursday at Hannover for the cup first round,” he said. ”Then Frankfurt away on Sunday. Back-to-back away fixtures, four days apart.”

”That’s right.” Magath had a coffee and wasn’t particularly interested in the complaint. ”The cup is what it is. We can’t lose in the first round, the fans have had a bad enough start.”

”So we field a proper squad.”

”Half and half. Rest the regulars who need rest, give minutes to the rotation players.” He reached for the squad list. ”Huntelaar starts. Jurado rests, use the second pivot. Farfán on the left.” He tapped the sheet. ”Silva starts.”

Hughes Yves wrote it down. Then, after a moment: ”He’s only been with us ten days.”

”I know when he joined.” Magath set his coffee down. ”He’s been training correctly. He handled the scrimmage situation without causing problems. Raúl rates him.” He looked at the sheet. ”And I said I’d give him cup minutes. I keep my word.”

Hughes Yves nodded. He wasn’t questioning the decision, just confirming his notes. ”Starting position?”

”Attacking mid.” Magath thought for a moment. ”Alongside Farfán. Double AM. Hannover will be motivated, this is a big occasion for them. We need the ball to move.”

Tuesday morning, Magath announced the travelling squad.

Eighteen names. Mateo heard his own read out between two players and felt the same neutral acknowledgement he felt when most things.

Farfán, standing beside him, gave him a single sideways look and said nothing. The look said enough.

After training Mateo called Ben Kehi from outside the building.

”I’m on the cup squad.”

A pause on the other end. ”Starting?”

”Apparently.”

Another pause, longer this time. He could hear Ben Kehi working out whether to be excited on his behalf or wistful about his own situation, and settling on both simultaneously. ”That’s only been, what, ten days? Eleven?”

”Eleven.”

”That’s - okay. That’s good. That’s genuinely good.” A breath. ”How do you feel?”

Mateo thought about it. ”Ready,” he said. ”I think. I’ll know more on Thursday.”

”You’ll be fine.” A short pause. ”Don’t show off.”

”I wasn’t planning to.”

”I know. I’m telling you anyway.”

They flew out Tuesday afternoon.

The plane was small - a charter, the kind of short domestic flight where you were on the ground again before the seatbelt sign felt worth taking off. Mateo sat toward the back with a window seat and watched the flat northern German landscape for thirty minutes until Hannover Airport appeared below.

The team bus took them to the hotel. Magath had scheduled a light field session at the AWD Arena the following morning to let the starting players feel the pitch, and otherwise the evening was theirs. Mateo ate dinner with Farfán, went back to his room, and trained in the hotel corridor for an hour with a ball he’d brought in his bag, which the night receptionist apparently considered less unusual than it should have been.

Wednesday. The stadium session.

The AWD Arena held 49,000 and had the facilities of a ground that had been built with Bundesliga ambitions even when the team itself was in the 2. Bundesliga. The pitch was well-maintained, the markings sharp. Mateo walked the surface and thought about spacing - where he’d want to receive, where the lines would likely run given a Hannover defensive shape that would probably be compact and aggressive given the occasion.

Magath gathered the starting group for fifteen minutes and walked through the tactical framework. Simple. Maintain possession, move the ball early, use the flanks when Hannover’s press committed centrally. Farfán and Mateo in the double AM role, Mateo the circulation point, Farfán carrying forward when the moment came.

”Questions,” Magath said.

Nobody had any questions.

Thursday evening. Seven forty-five.

The team bus pulled into the AWD Arena approach road and the noise reached them before the windows showed the reason for it. The Hannover fans had turned out for this - all 49,000 of them, or close enough that the difference didn’t matter, in a stadium that had spent years waiting for a night worth filling it.

Mateo stepped off the bus and heard it properly. A different quality from the Garden Stadium’s home roar. This was directed, there was something pointed in it, the particular sound of a crowd that has been told, explicitly, that the opposition doesn’t rate them.

He’d seen the press conference headlines on Farfán’s phone at breakfast. Magath, caught flat-footed by a reporter’s question about fielding rotation players, had said something diplomatically sufficient but not quite sufficient enough. The Hannover manager had walked out. The story had written itself.

”Forty-nine thousand people who all want to see us embarrassed,” Farfán said, falling into step beside him as they walked toward the tunnel.

”Good atmosphere then,” Mateo said.

Farfán looked at him. ”You’re going to be fine, aren’t you.”

”I think so.” A pause. ”Ask me again in five minutes.”

In the tunnel the Hannover players were lined up opposite. Focused, physical, the energy of a team playing in front of their own crowd for a result that meant something to the city. Mateo looked down the line and then looked at the pitch framed at the end of the tunnel.

The system notification arrived before the teams moved.

[Ding... Host detected in Senior Team Debut]

[First Team Debut reward unlocked.]

[Perfect Partner Card - unlimited use, one binding per match.]

[Read description before proceeding.]

He opened it. Read it. The card allowed him to bind one teammate before the match - that teammate’s attributes increased by 20%, and the connection between them would sharpen in a way that was difficult to describe and immediately obvious to anyone watching.

He looked at Farfán beside him.

Farfán was adjusting his sleeve, staring at the pitch, running through whatever he ran through before matches. He’d been at professional football since he was sixteen and he still did it. Mateo thought about the eleven days of training they’d done together, the shape of how they moved, the timing they’d already started to build.

He opened the system and confirmed the binding.

Farfán blinked. Just once, a fractional thing, the kind you’d only notice if you were standing close enough and paying attention. He looked at his hands briefly, then at Mateo, with an expression that was slightly uncertain in a way that hadn’t been there five seconds ago.

”You alright?” Mateo said.

”Yeah.” Farfán flexed his right hand once, slow. ”Yeah, fine. Just - focused.”

He looked forward again. The teams began to move.

The noise from the stands arrived in full as they stepped out of the tunnel, pressing against the chest and the ears simultaneously. The Hannover fans were on their feet. The floodlights were sharp on the green pitch.

Mateo walked out into it and felt, for the first time, like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

Plz Drop Some Power Stones.

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