Chapter 199: Cards and Tape

With the Milan incident still lingering in everyone’s thoughts, Magath had tightened team rules considerably. No late outings were allowed. The squad stayed locked in their hotel rooms or at the complex, and a bunch of grown men with hours of free time quickly realized how slow the evenings could pass.

So they started playing cards.

What began as a simple way to kill an hour after dinner turned into an everyday ritual. Around ten or twelve players would squeeze into one bedroom. Neuer, Jones, Farfán, and Mateo usually held down the center table while the rest leaned over the headboards, joking and placing friendly side bets.

Neuer turned out to be an absolute shark. He won far more hands than anyone else, leaving the losers groaning and promising revenge the next evening. It was loud, competitive, and quietly became the exact thing pulling the dressing room tighter together.

Anthony Annan sat quietly in the corner, keeping to himself. His short spell in the reserves after the Milan nightclub fiasco had humbled him quite a bit. The swagger was gone, and while the senior players ribbed him about it now and then, nobody held a grudge.

Everyone had fallen in line. After those headlines, nobody wanted to risk becoming the next cautionary tale. Apart from training sessions and matchdays, the squad had become almost monkish in their routine, and card games were their only outlet.

Mateo enjoyed every minute of it. He was frankly terrible at cards and surrendered his chips with a grin, but he liked sitting in the middle of all that chaotic banter far more than he ever let on.

Up on the third floor, in a quiet office suite, Magath and his assistant coach did not have the luxury of relaxing.

They were staring down a tactical puzzle that felt completely impossible to solve, which was usually the case whenever Barcelona showed up on the schedule.

“The medical staff checked on Raúl this afternoon,” the assistant said, trying to offer a bit of positive news. “His knee is responding well to treatment. The doctors think he might be ready for the second leg in Gelsenkirchen.”

Magath let out a low sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “That is good to hear. Assuming we survive the ninety minutes at the Camp Nou to make the second leg matter.”

He stared at the tactical sheet laid out across the desk. Across every single line of the pitch, Schalke were outmatched on paper. Only Manuel Neuer in goal could realistically push for a spot in Barcelona’s lineup. Everywhere else, the gap in technical quality was glaring.

Lionel Messi had already hit fifty goals across all competitions that season. David Villa and Pedro flanked him on either wing, while Xavi, Iniesta, and Busquets controlled the center of the park. Those three could easily pass around an entire eleven until the opponent’s legs turned to lead.

“Boss.” the assistant said quietly, choosing his words with care. “Nobody expects us to knock out Barcelona. Reaching the semi-final is already an incredible achievement for this club. Maybe we should be practical and protect our players for the Bundesliga. We have a four-point cushion at the top of the table. That is the trophy within our grasp. Does it really make sense to exhaust the squad on a tie we probably cannot win?”

It sounded completely sensible. Magath knew the logic was sound on paper. Sacrificing a historic league title just to chase an impossible European dream against one of the best teams in the world right now seemed reckless.

Magath stared at the squad list for a long moment, tapping his pen on the desk.

“You make a good point,” Magath finally replied. “We stick to our standard routines. We will not run the players into the ground just to chase Barcelona’s shadows. If we lose in Spain, we hold our heads high, travel home, and finish the job in the league.”

Magath pushed his chair back and stood up, rolling his shoulders with a quiet grunt.

“Still, I have to say something, Hughes. I certainly did not take this Schalke job just to play it safe. We will prepare properly, put our best eleven on the grass, and fight for ninety minutes. I refuse to surrender this tie before we even step onto the pitch.”

Over in Catalonia, at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, Pep Guardiola was studying Schalke just as intensely.

Guardiola leaned over his desk with a small silver remote in hand, rewinding the same piece of match footage over and over. It was Mateo’s assist to Vardy against Wolfsburg: the sharp lofted pass that dropped right onto the striker’s stride.

“Look at this boy,” Guardiola murmured, half to himself and half to the analyst sitting beside him. “The speed at which he processes the space is extraordinary.”

The video analyst slid a printed dossier across the table. “The data matches what you are seeing. His pass completion rate under pressure is 96.4 percent this season. For an attacking playmaker operating between the lines, we simply do not see numbers like that. Xavi sits around 93 percent.”

Guardiola stared at the numbers on the sheet for a while.

He was not particularly anxious about the upcoming match. When his staff started outlining ways to mark Mateo, isolate the wingers, and let Dani Alves push Farfán back, Guardiola listened with a quiet nod.

All of those tactical adjustments were valid, and Barcelona had more than enough quality to execute them. Schalke was essentially a squad with one extraordinary teenager surrounded by hard-working, disciplined pros. As a rule, a single individual did not beat Barcelona over two legs.

Yet as Guardiola watched the Wolfsburg clip play once more, another thought began crossing his mind. He found himself wondering where an eighteen-year-old with that kind of vision could eventually fit into his own midfield.

Xavi was thirty-one years old now. He had plenty of brilliance left, but nobody played at the absolute top forever. This kid was already reading passing angles like a veteran playmaker.

Guardiola placed the remote back onto the table. If Mourinho made a serious push to bring the boy to Madrid in the summer, Barcelona would have to enter the conversation, if only to prevent their rivals from securing him.

Still, looking at that looped pass again, a slight bit of caution lingered in the back of his mind. Mateo did not look like a player who needed a team to carry him or tell him what to do. He looked like someone who elevated the players around him, knowing down to the exact yard where a teammate needed the ball to make an impact.

Even so, doubling up on him in midfield was usually enough to shut down any threat. It worked against almost everyone. Guardiola told himself that, and for the most part, he believed it.

The semi-final was right around the corner, and on paper, Barcelona held all the cards.