Chapter 61 – First Whistle
The city of São Paulo simmered with anticipation, its streets pulsing with the kind of energy that only comes before a derby of this magnitude. By Friday morning, the Palmeiras training center was surrounded—a fortress under siege. Journalists crowded the gates like vultures, their cameras clicking incessantly. Fans pressed against the barriers, their faces alight with hope and fear in equal measure, craning for glimpses of their heroes. Everyone knew who was coming. Everyone knew what this meant.
Palmeiras vs Santos. Semifinal. Neymar on one side. Thiago on the other.
For Thiago, the noise was distant—like thunder outside a closed window. The shouts of reporters, the whir of helicopter blades, the constant murmur of speculation—it all faded into white noise. Inside, he felt still. Calm. The eye of the storm.
The dressing room buzzed with its own energy—more contained, more real. Players taped ankles with practiced efficiency, laced boots so tight the leather creaked, leaned into last-minute stretches that pulled at tired muscles. The air smelled of liniment and sweat, of ambition and fear. Eneas stood in the center with a clipboard clutched in his hands, his voice low, steady, cutting through the pre-match chatter like a knife.
"No distractions," he said, eyes scanning the room. "They’ll want to isolate Neymar wide and draw pressure. We shift compact. We don’t chase shadows."
Thiago sat on the far bench, headphones resting around his neck rather than covering his ears. He didn’t need music to drown out the noise. The rhythm was already in his bloodstream, the beat of his heart syncing with the pulse of the stadium outside.
Kickoff was an hour away.
When he stepped out for the first warm-up, the stadium was already half-full, a sea of green and white banners stretching across the stands like a living tapestry. Chants echoed off the concrete walls, rising and falling like cannon blasts. The sun had dipped just enough to cast long shadows across the pitch, and Allianz Parque looked less like a football ground and more like a theater ready to burn.
As they jogged, Thiago caught sight of Neymar on the far side—juggling the ball with that effortless grace, laughing at something a teammate said, already drawing cameras with every flick of his foot. The Santos squad wore all white, pristine as ghosts against the emerald turf. Thiago didn’t stare. Didn’t linger. Just took the picture in, filed it away, and kept moving.
Focus.
In the tunnel, moments before kickoff, Nando looked over, his face a mask of concentration. "Stay sharp."