Become A Football Legend-Chapter 285: D-Day

Ekitike laughed quietly.

"That sounds like family."

"What about you?" Larsson asked him.

Ekitike shrugged.

"Depends."

"Depends?"

"France call-up list comes soon," he said. "If I get called, I stay with the national team."

"And if not?"

He spread his hands.

"Vacation."

Knauff leaned back against the glass.

"I’m going somewhere warm," he said. "Somewhere with no football fields."

Larsson nodded approvingly.

"That sounds like a good plan."

Then Knauff looked toward Lukas.

"And you?"

Lukas shrugged lightly.

"Same thing as him," he said, nodding toward Ekitike. "National team list comes out Friday."

Knauff laughed.

"If they don’t call you," he said, "I’d like to know who they plan to call instead."

Larsson shook his head.

"Seriously."

Even Ekitike smiled slightly.

They continued talking quietly for several minutes, the conversation drifting between small jokes and half-serious thoughts about what came next once the season ended.

Then the sound of a door opening further down the hallway made them look back.

Robin Koch stepped out of his room first, rubbing his eyes.

"Don’t tell me none of you can sleep either," he muttered.

"Welcome to the club," Larsson said.

Koch walked over and joined them at the window.

A few moments later another door opened.

Kristensen stepped out.

Then Uzun.

Each of them walked down the corridor, drawn by the quiet voices gathering near the window.

Soon there were seven or eight players standing there in the hallway, leaning against the walls or resting against the glass as they talked softly.

Nobody said it out loud, but it was obvious.

No one could sleep.

The conversation drifted from plans after the season to random memories from earlier matches in the year, the tension easing slightly with every passing minute. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Eventually, a door further down the hallway opened again.

This time it was Dino Toppmöller.

The coach stepped out wearing a tracksuit, clearly having heard the quiet voices echoing through the corridor. He stopped when he saw the small group gathered near the window.

For a moment he simply stared at them.

Then he sighed.

"You know," he said calmly, "there is a match tomorrow."

The players turned toward him.

"I know the nerves are high," he continued, his tone softer now. "That’s normal."

He looked around the group.

"But you still need sleep."

Nobody argued.

"Eight hours," he added firmly. "Minimum."

A few players chuckled quietly.

Toppmöller shook his head slightly.

"Go back to your rooms."

He paused briefly.

"Tomorrow we make history."

The players slowly began dispersing, each heading back down the hallway toward their rooms.

Lukas lingered by the window for one last moment.

Outside, Bilbao continued glowing beneath the night sky.

Tomorrow night, those lights would surround San Mamés.

And everything would change.

* * *

Even hours before kickoff, San Mamés was already alive.

The massive stadium stood glowing under the Bilbao night sky like a giant red lantern, its outer façade illuminated by thousands of lights that shimmered against the steel panels wrapping around the structure. The plaza surrounding it had transformed into something closer to a festival than a sporting venue. Streets had been closed to traffic since the afternoon, replaced instead by an endless sea of supporters wearing colors that clashed loudly under the evening lights.

Red and white.

Black and white.

Tottenham Hotspur on one side.

Eintracht Frankfurt on the other.

The air vibrated with chants long before the players had even arrived. English voices roared from one corner of the plaza, singing songs that echoed down the nearby streets, while Frankfurt fans answered from another side with their own thunderous choruses. Flags waved everywhere—some enormous banners stretched across entire sections of barricades, others tied around shoulders like capes. Flares occasionally burst into life somewhere in the distance, sending red smoke curling upward into the warm night air.

Security lines stretched across every entrance, stewards directing waves of supporters through the gates in carefully controlled streams. Television trucks filled entire parking lanes, their antennas reaching toward the sky as reporters delivered live broadcasts to audiences across Europe. Every few minutes the roar of a new chant rose up from one section of the crowd and rolled across the plaza like a wave crashing against the stadium walls.

Inside, the stadium was filling quickly.

By the time the Frankfurt team bus arrived beneath the underground entrance, the sound above them had already grown deafening. The players stepped down one by one into the tunnel area, each of them greeted by the muffled thunder of 50,000 voices echoing through the concrete corridors.

For some, the noise brought a rush of excitement.

For others, something closer to nerves.

Lukas stepped off the bus near the end of the line, his bag slung over his shoulder as he walked toward the dressing room entrance. The sound above him felt like a living thing—vibrating through the stadium structure, humming through the concrete beneath his boots.

He had played in loud stadiums before.

But this was different.

This was a final.

Inside the dressing room the players changed quietly, pulling on their warm-up kits as staff moved through the room checking equipment and distributing final instructions. Some players joked lightly with teammates, others sat silently taping their wrists or adjusting shin guards. The tension sat in the room like an invisible weight.

Eventually the door opened again.

"Warm-up."

The squad rose almost in unison.

They moved down the tunnel together, the narrow corridor curving upward toward the entrance of the pitch. As they approached the final bend, the noise from the stadium grew louder and louder until it felt like standing beside a waterfall.

Then they stepped out.

The sight was overwhelming.

San Mamés was completely full.

Tens of thousands of supporters filled the stands from top to bottom, their colors blending into a vast mosaic that wrapped around the entire stadium bowl. On one side, Tottenham fans had gathered in a massive white block, their flags waving constantly above the crowd. On the opposite side, Frankfurt supporters had turned their section into a swirling storm of black and red banners.

Chants clashed from both ends of the stadium, rising and falling in waves that crashed against each other across the pitch.

Drums pounded.

Scarves stretched overhead.

Fireworks burst briefly somewhere outside the stadium walls, the flashes reflecting faintly through the upper tiers.

The players jogged onto the grass for their warm-up, the pitch beneath their boots perfectly trimmed and glowing under the floodlights.

Lukas tried not to look up too much.

Instead he focused on the routine he had followed before every match since he was a child.

Light jogging first.

Stretching.

Short sprints.

Touch the ball.

Repeat.

He moved through the exercises almost automatically, trying to keep his breathing slow and steady. Every few seconds he reminded himself of the same thing.

"Just another game."

"Just ninety minutes."

"Maybe one hundred and twenty."

The noise around him tried to tell a different story.

At one point he glanced upward toward the stands, scanning the rows of VIP boxes that lined the stadium walls.

Then he found them.

One of the glass cubicles high above the pitch was filled with familiar faces.

Javi.

Anne.

João.

Joanna.

Ruben.

Carlos and Sofia Gimenez.

And standing slightly behind them with his arms folded was Marco, his agent.

All of them were watching him.