Limitless Pitch-Chapter 112 – System

The sun hadn’t yet crested the horizon when Thiago’s feet hit the pavement.

Dortmund slept around him—windows dark, streets empty except for the occasional night worker trudging home. His breath came in steady clouds, dissipating into the predawn gray. The air carried that peculiar stillness found only in the hour before a city wakes, when even the birds hesitate to break the silence.

He ran not because Klopp demanded it. Not because some system notification prompted him. But because his body refused to stay still after yesterday.

After watching.

The Wolfsburg match had settled in his chest like a stone—cold, heavy, impossible to ignore. Dortmund’s comfortable 1-0 win should have pleased him. The team’s cohesion, Barrios’ clinical finish, the three points—all good things. He’d even smiled when they celebrated, clapping quietly in his empty hotel room like a ghost at the feast.

But this morning, his muscles burned with restless energy.

The roads stretched before him, slick with dew, his shoes slapping against wet asphalt in a rhythm that matched his pulse. By the time he reached the training ground gates, the first hints of dawn painted the eastern sky in streaks of orange and pink. The floodlights still blazed across the empty pitches, their harsh white glow clashing with the soft morning light.

Perfect.

No staff. No teammates. Just him and the crisp morning air that smelled faintly of cut grass and damp earth.

Thiago stretched methodically, ignoring the tight pull in his right quad—a remnant from yesterday’s extra training session. The grass, still silvered with frost in shadowed patches, crunched under his cleats as he began working through drills. Simple touches at first—inside, outside, rolling the ball beneath his sole. Then sharper movements: quick turns, one-twos played against the chain-link fence, body feints that sent imaginary defenders stumbling.

Nothing flashy. Nothing for show. Just the quiet, relentless work of honing an edge.

By the time the first staff members arrived around 8:30, their breath visible in the chill, Thiago was already inside getting a rubdown from one of the physios. The treatment table felt cold against his back, the antiseptic smell of the room sharp in his nostrils.

"Starting early again?" the physio asked, digging his thumbs into Thiago’s tight hamstrings.

Thiago exhaled through the discomfort. "Better than starting late."

When the full squad assembled for training, the atmosphere crackled with a different energy.

The Pokal match against Wehen Wiesbaden loomed—a cup game against lower-league opposition, the kind of fixture that bred upsets if taken lightly. But more than that, it meant rotation. Opportunity.

Eyes burned brighter during drills. Tackles came in harder, though never dirty. Players who normally conserved energy in training now pressed with extra urgency. It wasn’t selfishness—just the unspoken understanding that performances here could mean minutes there.

And Thiago?

He matched it. Not with shouts or showboating, but with a quiet, razor-sharp focus.

During a possession drill, he anticipated Götze’s turn, intercepting the pass with a perfectly timed lunge that sent the ball ricocheting off his shin and into open space. The sharp whistle from Buvač—usually as expressive as a stone—echoed across the pitch.

Later, in the 8v8, he didn’t score but carved open the defense with a chipped through-ball that found Schmelzer’s ghosting run. The left-back smashed it first-time into the net, the sound of leather striking nylon like a gunshot in the morning air. From the sidelines, Klopp clapped once—a sharp, staccato sound—before scribbling in his notebook.

That meant more than any praise.

Because when Klopp wrote your name down, you were being considered.

As training wound down, Thiago watched.

Not just the ball, but the groupings—who worked on set-pieces, who was held back for extra fitness work. The subtle clues that hinted at the coach’s plans.

His pulse kicked up a notch.

He had a shot.

When the final whistle blew, Klopp gathered them by the center circle, his voice carrying easily in the crisp air.

"Listen up. Wehen Wiesbaden in the Pokal. These are the matches where teams like us get embarrassed if we take them lightly." A pause. "And I don’t like being embarrassed."

Scattered laughter.

"But more than that," Klopp continued, "these are matches where I see who’s hungry. Who actually wants the minutes." He glanced at Buvač. "So we’re mixing things up."

The assistant coach unfolded a sheet of paper, the rustle loud in the sudden quiet.

Names were called. Starters. Second-choice players. A few wide-eyed academy kids.

Then:

"Thiago."

Just that. No fanfare.

But it hit like lightning.

He blinked, certain he’d misheard.

Klopp’s voice cut through the moment, casual but deliberate: "You’ll be on the bench. Might come on depending how it goes."

Thiago nodded once, his throat suddenly tight. "Understood."

Kuba grinned, nudging him hard enough to stagger. "See? Told you."

"You also said we’d get pizza if we scored six in training today."

"We still might," Kuba whispered, eyes gleaming. "I bribed one of the kit guys."

Thiago laughed despite himself, the sound swallowed by the sudden buzz of conversation as the team dispersed.

The locker room hummed with the particular energy of a cup game lineup announcement—players subtly checking who made the squad, some nodding approval, others masking disappointment behind blank stares or forced smiles.

Thiago showed nothing. Not in front of the others.

But beneath his ribs, something thrummed—not the giddy excitement of a child, nor the nervous energy of fear.

Just focus.

A wire drawn taut.

The DFB-Pokal wasn’t the Bundesliga. But it was real minutes. Real consequences.

And as he packed his bag, the weight of his boots in his hands felt like a promise.

He’d be ready

Back in his room, the buzz of training had faded, replaced by the low hum of silence and radiator heat.

Thiago dropped his bag beside the bed, let out a long breath, and collapsed backward onto the mattress. The ceiling stared blankly down at him, pale and patterned with the faint ripples of cheap plasterwork. The kind of detail you only noticed when you were trying not to think about anything else.

But his mind kept ticking anyway.

He had a shot.

It wasn’t a guarantee. It wasn’t even a promise. But it was something.

He could feel it under his skin—that restless charge that never fully went away anymore. Not even after good sessions. Not even after two assists in his first two appearances. That was the thing. There was always more to prove.

Always someone faster. Someone sharper. Someone older with more games. Someone younger with more hype.

Thiago rolled onto his side and reached into the drawer beside the bed.

Pulled out his notebook.

Flipped past sketches of formations, scattered notes, tactical patterns Klopp had drilled into their heads, little doodles he didn’t remember drawing. Until finally—blank page.

He paused.

Then opened his system.

SYSTEM STATUS

Level: 16

EXP: 95 / 800

Skill Points Available: 11

Attributes:

Pace – 72

Dribbling – 73

Shooting – 68

Passing – 71

Physicality – 67

Mentality – 67

Sub-Attributes:

Ball Control – 75

Trick Execution – 67

Stamina – 68

Vision – 71

Perks: Anchored Presence

Trait Fragments: None

He stared at the numbers for a long time.

Eleven points. That was a lot. He’d earned them slowly—match by match, training by training. Every completed objective, every tiny breakthrough. And yet... they just sat there. Waiting.

He could dump a few into pace. Make himself harder to catch on the counter.

Or dribbling. Push himself closer to the kind of control the top wingers had.

Even mentality tempted him. It was the lowest-rated stat, and yet he felt it mattered the most—composure, decision-making, confidence. The little things that turned solid players into consistent ones.

But something stopped him.

A question, really.

How did any of this work?

Thiago leaned back against the headboard, still staring at the faint glow of the system interface hovering silently in his peripheral.

No one else had this. Not that he knew of. No teammate ever hinted at it. No online forums. No articles. Just him.

This system had always felt like a gift dropped into his lap without a name tag.

And like every gift too good to be true, it made him nervous.

"What exactly are you?" he asked quietly, like someone testing their voice in a chapel.

No response.

Just the flickering numbers.

Level 16. EXP 95 / 800.

Nothing changed.

He blinked slowly. "Are you... real?" he tried.

Still nothing.

It wasn’t like he expected a voice to come booming through the walls. He’d accepted early on that the system was passive. Quiet. Mechanical. It didn’t coach. Didn’t cheer. It just... existed. Cold and strange.

And yet...

Sometimes, late at night, he felt like it was watching. Not with malice, but with purpose. Like it was waiting to see what he’d do next.

He tapped his pen against the notebook.

The screen didn’t move.

"I don’t even know why I got this," he muttered. "Why me? What’s the point?"

Still silence.

It was stupid to expect anything. He didn’t even know who he was talking to. The system wasn’t alive. It was numbers and prompts. A layer under reality.

But that didn’t stop him from wondering.

Had he been chosen?

Had someone sent it?

Was it some kind of weird experiment?

Was it even from this world?

He rubbed his temples, suddenly annoyed at himself. There was no point chasing questions that didn’t have answers.

Not yet, anyway.

Thiago stood up and closed the system interface with a blink.

The screen vanished.

He looked down at his notebook.

On the blank page, he wrote just one thing:

Train hard enough that no one even thinks about benching you.

He underlined it twice.

Then shut the notebook and set it on the bedside table.

Tomorrow wasn’t about mystery or theory or systems.

It was about the DFB-Pokal.

And if he got even ten minutes, he’d make them count.