Football: Maxed Out The Wrong Stat

The week between the away 1–1 and the next home match had been quiet in the specific way of a squad that had drawn a game they should have won and hadn't decided yet how they felt about it. Magath had them back on Monday, worked them hard Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Thursday the mood had settled into something approximating focus.

Saturday came.

The home match against Borussia Mönchengladbach was a different experience from the away fixture. This time Mate went with a group - four non-squad players who'd been told to turn up in decent clothes and sit in the allocated staff section. There was a small difference in how it felt to arrive with people rather than alone, even people he'd only known for a week. He sat next to Smedley Lev, who had come up from the U18 on Wickliff's rotation and was quietly thrilled to be anywhere near a Bundesliga matchday.

His phone buzzed fifteen minutes before kickoff. Ben Kehi.

He answered.

"We lost six-nil to Werder's reserve team today," Ben Kehi said.

"I heard." He'd seen the message from Clarence an hour ago.

"Six-nil, Mateo. Six."

"Werder's reserve side are a decent outfit."

"Don't defend them. We were horrible." A pause. "I'm not blaming you, by the way."

"Okay."

"I mean, I am a little. Not seriously. But a little."

Mateo leaned back in his seat. "How's the ankle?"

"Fine, honestly. Another week and I'm back. The physiotherapist is thorough - too thorough, she makes me do these tiny exercises for twenty minutes that feel completely useless and apparently aren't." A short exhale. "Are you sitting in the stadium right now?"

"Yes."

"That's extremely unfair." Then: "Tell me what it's like."

Mateo looked around - the lower tier already filling, the noise starting to build in that physical way that didn't come through a television screen, the pitch an almost aggressive green under the floodlights. "It's loud," he said. "Even before anything's happened."

"Of course it is, it holds almost sixty thousand people." A pause where he could almost hear Ben Kehi calculating something. "I'll be there in a week. Save me a seat."

"You'll be in the U18 section."

"Then save me a better attitude about the U18 section." The line went quiet a moment. "Enjoy it. Seriously."

"I will." He ended the call.

The stadium had filled by kickoff. The noise that came with sixty thousand people all registering the same moment - the whistle, the ball moving, the shape of the match establishing itself was something Mateo had been aware was coming and was still not entirely prepared for. It didn't just enter through the ears. It came through the floor, the seat back, the air.

He watched the match and thought about positions.

Specifically he watched Raúl, who moved differently from anyone else on the pitch in a way that took a few minutes to identify. It wasn't pace - Huntelaar was faster. It wasn't strength. It was that Raúl arrived at his receiving position a fraction of a second before the ball came, which meant his first touch was always under control, which meant his second touch could go anywhere. He never received the ball in an uncomfortable position because he'd already solved the body-angle problem before the ball arrived.

The first goal came in the 9th minute. Bujerab from the right, a good forty-five-degree delivery, Huntelaar glancing it goalward and the goalkeeper pushing it around the post. Raúl on the rebound - one touch, inside of the right boot and the Garden Stadium became something that had to be felt to be understood.

Mateo was on his feet before he'd decided to stand.

Raúl at the corner flag, ring to his lips, the gesture as natural as breathing. Then the crowd noise again, rolling back in. Lev was shouting something. The man two rows behind was embracing the man beside him. The man beside him didn't seem to mind.

This is what I'm working toward, Mateo thought, and then the thought was gone and he was just too immersed watching the match.

The second goal arrived in the 15th minute off a Bujerab switch to the left. The third came just before halftime - Raúl reading the goalkeeper's position from forty metres out and chipping it, the ball kissing the underside of the bar on its way in. The kind of finish that only looked inevitable in retrospect.

3–0 at halftime.

Mateo bought coffee and stood in the concourse thinking about the switch pass that had started the second goal, the weight of it, how Bujerab had shaped his body in the opposite direction before releasing it. Sixty metres, perfectly weighted. This was what Bujerab looked like when nobody was pressing him. The extra touch was irrelevant when you had time.

He went back to his seat.

The fourth goal came from a substitute in the 70th minute, a simple tap-in after a cutback from the right. The stadium celebrated it warmly. 4–0. Mönchengladbach were not at their best but they were also not at their worst, and Schalke had been the better team in every part of the pitch.

As the stadium emptied out, Raúl caught sight of the non-squad players huddled near the exit. He paused, his expression softening. A sudden, bright energy broke through his usual stern exterior, and he stepped into their path, a rare, relaxed warmth in his eyes.

"All of you," he said, gesturing between them with a faint tilt of his head. "Tonight."

He didn't wait for a reply, turning on his heel with a definitive nod, but the heavy tension of the evening had completely vanished. The guys exchanged quick, knowing glances and followed right behind him.

The venue was the kind of place where the maître d' knew Raúl by name and didn't glance twice at a table of footballers ordering a round of drinks at ten-thirty on a Saturday. Mateo sat near the end, nursed his first drink slowly, and watched the room the way he watched football, trying to understand what was actually happening rather than just what was visible.

Neuer, it turned out, was deeply competitive about nearly everything. He was the best goalkeeper in Germany, he was aware of this, and he treated any contest in any arena with the same focused intensity he brought to a penalty shootout.

So when he made a comment about Mateo's drinking pace after midnight, it turned into an unwritten contest. Thanks to the high metabolism of a seventeen-year-old, Mateo actually held his own. By 1:00 AM, Neuer was done. After that, the German players looked at Mateo with a new level of respect - in Germany, surviving a night like that proved something a good training session never could.

Mateo finally caught a taxi home at 2:00 AM. He slept in until 11:00 AM, which was incredibly late for him. He felt a quick flash of guilt about messing up his training diet but then he grabbed some food, and headed out.

Though the guilt didn't last long as the afternoon training session ended up running for a brutal two hours and forty minutes.