Limitless Pitch-Chapter 98 – Into the Rhythm

The days no longer dragged like they had at first.

Thiago’s first week at Borussia Dortmund settled into a rhythm that, while still foreign, had begun to feel less like stumbling through the dark. His body had started adjusting to the brutal schedule—waking before dawn to the shrill beep of his alarm, forcing down breakfast while his stomach still protested sleep, making the quiet trek through streets still slick with morning dew to reach the training ground as the sun crept over the industrial Dortmund skyline.

The cold still gnawed at his fingers and turned his breath to fog, but it no longer shocked his system the way it had that first day. He’d learned to layer up properly—thermal base layers beneath his training gear, gloves with grip for ball work, a beanie tugged low over his ears during warm-ups. The sharp bite of winter air still stung his lungs during full-pitch sprints, but he’d stopped gasping like a fish out of water after every drill.

By the third morning, Marina stopped accompanying him to the training ground entirely. She still checked in daily—sometimes in person with coffee and that scrutinizing look of hers, other times via terse texts that simply read "You alive?"—but she’d begun trusting him to navigate this new world on his own. And to her quiet surprise, he did.

The sessions with the reserve squad—dubbed the "transition group" by the coaching staff—were relentless. It wasn’t just the physical demands that wore on Thiago, though those were punishing enough. It was the mental toll of constantly recalibrating—the way every drill required split-second decision making at a pace he’d never encountered in Brazil. The other players moved with an ingrained understanding of space and timing that Thiago had to consciously think through, his brain working overtime to translate instinct into action within Dortmund’s system.

But slowly, almost imperceptibly, things began clicking into place.

He didn’t dominate sessions. Didn’t dazzle with flashy stepovers or thirty-yard screamers. But he found ways to contribute—a perfectly weighted through ball during possession drills that split two defenders, a clever dummy run that opened space for a teammate, a tenacious tracking back to dispossess an opponent twice his size. Small moments that added up to something larger.

"Good. Keep going," one of the assistant coaches grunted after Thiago executed a slick give-and-go during a transition exercise. The praise was delivered without fanfare, tossed over the shoulder as the coach moved to the next station, but it landed all the same. It was real. Earned.

That afternoon, as Thiago sat in the recovery room sipping a chalky protein shake, he caught his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Same messy dark curls, same lean frame, same faint scar above his eyebrow from a childhood tumble. But something in his posture had changed—the way he carried himself, the set of his shoulders. He looked... settled. Like he wasn’t just visiting this world, but learning to live in it.

He sent João a voice note that night, sprawled across his hotel bed with the city lights bleeding through the thin curtains. "I think I’m getting used to this place," he murmured, his voice rough with exhaustion. "Still colder than Satan’s asshole, but... less scary."

João’s reply came through within minutes, his laughter crackling through the speaker. "Told you, idiot. You were built for this shit."

The days began folding into one another with increasing speed.

Video sessions with the coaching staff became a regular fixture—long, detailed breakdowns of pressing triggers and positional rotations that sometimes left Thiago’s head spinning. The tactical complexity was staggering compared to what he’d known in Brazil. Here, every movement had purpose, every run was calculated. He wasn’t just playing football anymore; he was learning to think it, to breathe it.

Off the pitch, he carved out small pockets of normalcy. The club canteen became his refuge between sessions, its sterile white tables and fluorescent lighting oddly comforting in their predictability. He’d claimed a corner table near the window where he could eat in relative peace, watching the reserve players come and go. A few had started acknowledging him—a nod here, a muttered "Moin" there. One gangly Dutch defender had even plopped down across from him uninvited one afternoon, shoveling schnitzel into his mouth while rambling about FIFA tactics in broken English.

Marina, ever the pragmatist, was already hunting for permanent housing. "This hotel life isn’t sustainable," she declared one evening, scrolling through listings on her tablet. "You need a real kitchen. A proper bed. Walls that don’t smell like industrial cleaner."

Thiago poked at his room service pasta—some sort of cream sauce atrocity that had congealed into a gelatinous mass. "I don’t know," he deadpanned. "I’m starting to develop a real emotional connection to this terrible food."

Marina didn’t dignify that with a response, just rolled her eyes and tossed a protein bar at his head.

The real turning point came at week’s end, when Henrik pulled them aside after training.

"They’re slotting you into preseason," the liaison said, his usual stoic expression giving way to something resembling approval. "Friendlies included. Full travel with the squad."

Marina’s eyebrows shot up. "That’s... sooner than projected."

Henrik shrugged. "Klopp wants to see him in match conditions. No promises beyond that."

Thiago’s pulse kicked up instantly, his palms going damp against his thighs. He forced himself to breathe, to nod. "I’m ready."

The words tasted like a lie in his mouth, but he’d been repeating them like a mantra since arrival. Ready or not, he’d have to be.

Preseason proper began with a brutality that took Thiago’s breath away.

The first team assembled on Pitch 1 at dawn, their breath pluming in the crisp morning air as Klopp and his staff laid out the day’s objectives. The intensity was several notches above what Thiago had grown accustomed to—every drill executed at breakneck speed, every instruction delivered with razor precision. Clipboards bristled with data sheets. Cameras whirred at every corner. GPS vests tracked their every movement.

Thiago tugged his numbered bib—#17—over his training top and fell into line with the midfield group. A few of the senior players eyed him with open curiosity; others barely glanced his way. The buzzcutted German midfielder—Gündogan, he’d learned—gave him an appraising once-over that revealed nothing.

No one treated him like a prodigy. No one treated him like an intruder. He was simply another body in the system, another variable to be assessed.

Warm-ups bled into possession drills, then into full-pitch scenarios. Thiago struggled early, misreading a pressing cue and getting ruthlessly exposed during a defensive transition. The mistake earned him a sharp whistle and a pointed look from Klopp, but no verbal lashing. Just expectation.

He didn’t let it unravel him. The next play, he tracked back ruthlessly, muscling a veteran winger off the ball in a clean tackle that drew approving nods from the defenders.

Then came the moment.

Midway through an 11v11, the left-back fizzed a pass into Thiago’s feet with two opponents closing in. One touch to kill the ball’s momentum, a quick pivot away from pressure, then a no-look pass sliced perfectly between the lines. The striker took it in stride and buried it.

From the sidelines, someone whistled. "Nicht schlecht."

Not bad.

By session’s end, Thiago’s calves burned and his kit clung to him with sweat, but there was a quiet satisfaction coiling in his chest. He hadn’t set the world alight—but he hadn’t drowned either.

The showers were nearly empty when he finally staggered in, the hot water turning his skin pink as it sluiced away the grime of the morning. He braced his forehead against the tiles, letting the steam fill his lungs.

He didn’t know if he’d see minutes in the upcoming friendlies. Didn’t know if Klopp would remember his name next week. Even with the manager’s adamant push to bring him here, nothing would be handed to him.

But as the water beat down on his shoulders, one truth crystallized with perfect clarity:

He belonged here.

And he wasn’t going anywhere.

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