Chapter 110 – Move onwards
It didn’t matter that he already had two assists. The pitch didn’t remember.
Training started at 8:00 AM sharp, and by 8:15, Thiago was already sweating through his base layer. The sky was the kind of washed-out gray that made everything feel colder than it actually was, and the wind had teeth again. He adjusted his neck warmer and kept moving.
One good pass wouldn’t keep him in the squad. One moment of vision wouldn’t protect him from the bench. He’d played two matches for Dortmund—his debut and then the next one, where he’d somehow picked out Barrios again with a cross that looked simple but came from hours of practice hitting the same ball at slightly different angles. Two assists. Two tiny cracks of light.
And still, none of it meant anything now.
What mattered was today. This drill. The next drill. Then tomorrow. Then the next week.
He jogged out onto the pitch with the others, already shifting through mental notes. The mistakes he’d made in the last match. The space he’d failed to close fast enough. The run he should’ve made but hesitated on. His lungs had been tight in the second half. That had to change.
He wanted to be sharper. Quicker.
The warm-up jog turned into short sprints. Then cones. Then ball work. Touch, turn, pass. Again. Thiago kept his eyes on the ball, even when the wind whipped across the field and made his ears sting. His fingers were numb by the time they got to possession drills, but his brain had kicked into gear.
6v3. Two-touch max. Don’t lose the ball.
He stayed light on his feet, intercepting a lazy pass from one of the academy defenders and returning it clean with his left. Götze gave him a quick nod. That was enough. No celebration. Just reset and repeat.
Klopp watched from the far sideline, hands jammed deep into his coat. Buvač stood nearby, occasionally muttering into a notepad.
No one yelled much in the cold. The corrections came quick and clipped.