Chapter 424: Chapter 30: To Munich I
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Carrington Training Centre
Morning
The air was still cool when Demien stepped out of his car with the travel bag in one hand, and the difference reached him before he was halfway to the coach.
His first step landed sharper than it should have, the weight settling clean through his hips instead of catching the way it used to, and when he shifted the strap higher on his shoulder it didn’t bite the way it always had after a long week.
A staff member called his name from near the hold, and he turned toward the voice before the second syllable finished, catching the man’s wave and the crate going up behind him in the same glance.
Ninety-three overall hadn’t announced itself overnight, and it didn’t announce itself now either. It only sat underneath the small things, in the way his balance held when he adjusted the bag and the way his eyes caught two movements at once where they’d have caught one.
The squad drifted in around him without the usual noise.
Bruno stood near the front in his club tracksuit with his phone in his hand and no smile on his face, scrolling rather than talking. Casemiro spoke with one of the analysts in a low voice that didn’t carry. Onana walked past with his headphones on and gave nothing away, and the defenders kept their greetings short because Bayern’s attack had been discussed enough that nobody needed to say it out loud anymore.
The Brighton draw still hung over the group like weather that hadn’t cleared, and the staff worked through the departure without ceremony, checking names against the manifest and loading bags into the hold while the players boarded.
Ten Hag stood near the steps with a tablet under his arm and didn’t make a speech, because there was nothing left to add to what the screen had already shown them.
A crate went up ahead of Demien with the label printed in black along its side.
FC BAYERN MÜNCHEN — ALLIANZ ARENA
He read it once and kept moving, climbing the steps and finding his seat near the back.
The coach pulled away from Carrington, and the panel surfaced as the gates closed behind them.
「CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PREPARATION MISSION ACTIVATED」
「OPPONENT: FC Bayern München」 「LOCATION: Allianz Arena」 「SESSION TYPE: Travel + Tactical Familiarisation」
「OBJECTIVE 1: Complete all team preparation activities」 「OBJECTIVE 2: Maintain focus through travel and media pressure」 「OBJECTIVE 3: Identify Bayern’s primary pressing triggers」 「OBJECTIVE 4: Complete final tactical session without positional correction」
「REWARD: +15 TP」
「BONUS OBJECTIVE: Earn direct coaching staff notation before matchday」 「BONUS REWARD: +20 MP」
「FAILURE: No penalty」
He read it once and let it fade, and the balance came up behind it the way it always did now, a reminder rather than a temptation.
「CURRENT BALANCE」 「59 TP | 3 SP | 28 MP」
There was no second pull waiting to save him, because he’d spent almost everything the night before, and that fact sat in the back of his mind without weight as the coach turned onto the motorway and pointed itself toward the airport.
Manchester Airport
United moved through the airport inside the club’s travel bubble, the staff guiding the group past the public areas and through the security channels reserved for the squad while the pace stayed steady rather than rushed.
Camera flashes broke against the glass partitions where small groups of fans angled their phones over the barriers, and the players kept their heads down and their faces neutral while liaison staff stepped between them and the questions that came through the gaps.
Demien stayed inside the group and kept his expression flat as the cameras tracked the squad from a distance, and the noise stayed on the other side of the glass where it couldn’t reach him.
On the plane the squad broke into routines.
Some of the players reclined and pulled hoods over their eyes, a few put headphones in and stared at clips, and the analysts moved down the aisle with tablets and short notes for anyone who wanted them.
Demien opened the Bayern package and started the same sequences he’d watched in the analysis room, and his perception of them had shifted since the last time.
Before the pull, Bayern’s speed had looked like a wall coming at him. Now he saw the timing underneath it, the spacing between the pressers, the half-second where the trap committed and the gap behind it opened.
The clips ran through the danger one threat at a time.
Sané attacked the inside channel where a fullback couldn’t follow him without leaving the flank. Gnabry arrived late on the far side, unmarked because the ball had pulled everyone toward the near post. Kane dropped off the front line to link the play, then turned the moment he’d dragged a center-back out of position. Musiala received between the midfield and the back four, in the exact pocket that opened when a pivot stepped too high.
Demien rewound one clip where Bayern pressed United’s center-back, cut the lane into the pivot, and forced the ball wide into a corner they’d already loaded.
His finger paused on the screen.
On the weak side, for half a second before the wide presser arrived, the switch was on — the fullback alone, the whole far flank empty — and the ball had gone short into the trap instead.
He played it again from the same point. The lane opened the same way the second time, and he held the screen on it a beat before letting the clip run on.
Munich
The squad landed in Munich and stepped into a sharper press than the one they’d left.
German cameras lined the route through the terminal, the security was tighter and the staff closer, and the airport felt less familiar than the domestic trips, the signage and the language and the cold air all reminding the players where they were. The group kept its shape and moved through it without breaking stride.
At the hotel the staff handed out the schedule — recovery slots, meal times, the Allianz familiarisation session, and the final meeting the next day — and Demien went through his part of it without fuss, taking the room key, dropping his bag, drinking the water that had been left for him, and eating when the squad ate.
Nobody raised their voice the whole way through, the staff moving the squad room to room with a quiet nod here and a hand on a shoulder there, the size of the night sitting in how careful everything was rather than in anything anyone said.
His phone buzzed once while he was unpacking, and Marco’s name sat on the screen.
Marco: Landed? Good. Europe remembers the players who turn up twice, not once. Do the job tomorrow, then get ready to do it again on Saturday.
He read it and set the phone down, and it buzzed again a few minutes later with Sophia’s name above the text.
Sophia: Tell me you got there okay. And don’t let all that noise out there into your head — just go and play. That’s the part you’re good at, remember?
He typed back to Marco first — Landed. I know — and then to Sophia — Got here fine. Not listening to any of it — before he set the phone face-down on the desk, because the stadium session was next and there was nothing more either message needed.
Allianz Arena
United arrived at the Allianz Arena in the late afternoon, and the bowl was almost empty, but the scale of it landed anyway.
The red seats climbed in clean tiers all the way around, the pitch sat flat and immaculate under the lights, and the sound of studs on the surface carried up into the stands and came back changed, the way it only did in a stadium built to hold seventy-five thousand voices.
The place felt like something waiting to become loud.
The staff kept the session light to begin with, the squad jogging the width of the pitch, working through mobility, then breaking into short passing while the boots found the surface.
Demien’s body showed the change in small ways here.
His first turn came cleaner than he expected, the pivot tighter through his standing foot. His studs gripped and released without the tiny delay he’d grown used to feeling on a fresh pitch.
When he checked over his shoulder he caught both things at once — the coach pointing toward the next station and Bruno already drifting into the lane for the following pass — and he adjusted before either of them finished the movement.
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The first real ball work came in a rondo run on Bayern rules, the space tight and the touch limit low, the defenders inside told to swarm the instant possession was lost rather than press one at a time.
Demien took a firm pass with a presser closing from behind, and a week ago he’d have needed a settling touch to buy himself the angle.
「TECHNIQUE ACTIVATED」 「First-Touch Set — RARE」
His first touch opened his body and laid the next pass in the same motion, the ball already leaving his foot before the presser got close enough to affect it.
One of the players on his side caught the speed of the release with a quick look, and on the following pass that teammate started his run earlier, trusting the ball to come back faster than before.
The next sequence settled around him rather than spiking off him.
「LEGENDARY SKILL ACTIVATED」 「Toni Kroos — Metronome」
Demien received, shifted, released, received again, and the tempo of the whole group steadied to his weight, every pass arriving on the right side of the body so that nobody had to fight the ball or break stride to control it.
Bruno began taking sharper angles into the rondo because the return kept reaching him cleanly, and Casemiro held his position instead of stepping out to cover, because the outlet was always there on time.
It didn’t look like anything dramatic, and that was the point — the ball simply moved better when it ran through him.
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The staff broke the rondo and shaped the squad into the main tactical drill, one unit set up to simulate Bayern’s high press while the other tried to play out from the back.
The striker on the pressing side cut the return lane, the wide player jumped at the fullback, and the midfield stepped forward together to trap the pivot, exactly the connected wall the clips had shown.
The first run exposed United the way Brighton had.
A center-back received under pressure, the pass into midfield came a beat too late, the ball was forced wide, and the simulated Bayern side won it near the box.
Ten Hag stopped the drill and walked the structure through without raising his voice, the correction practical rather than angry — the first pass had to arrive before the trap closed, the receiving midfielder couldn’t stand flat and square, and the far-side switch needed to be prepared before the pressure ever landed.
Then he put Demien into the same pattern.
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