Chapter 173: What He Won

Klopp insisted on handling the post-match press conference himself.

His assistant had offered to do it for him, to spare him the worst hour of his professional life.

Klopp waved him off immediately. Running away from the wreckage went against everything he believed in. A record derby defeat demanded that someone stand behind the microphone to take the hits, and being the manager meant carrying the full weight of the afternoon.

The press room was packed to the doors, buzzing with nervous tension. Surrendering the league lead by conceding six goals at home in the biggest fixture on the calendar was the kind of disaster that drew every sports journalist in Germany into one small, humid room. The questions started firing before he even adjusted his chair.

"Herr Klopp, does this kind of humiliation put your job on the line?"

"Mr. Klopp, has the title race slipped out of your hands?"

He pulled the desk microphone toward him, rested his forearms on the table, and met their eyes without blinking.

"A loss is a loss," he said, his voice surprisingly steady. "Dortmund lost this match because my tactical setup was wrong from the opening whistle. That rests entirely on my shoulders, nobody else."

He paused, letting the room take it in.

"Silva put in an extraordinary performance today, absolutely, and he deserves every bit of praise the newspapers are going to heap on him. But a coach who points fingers at an individual opponent after letting in six goals is just looking for cheap excuses, and I have never done that in my life."

He leaned back slightly, adjusting his glasses.

"There are plenty of matches left on the schedule. Trophies are handed out in May, not in March. Borussia Dortmund will still be standing when this goes down to the wire."

It was a good answer, honest and dignified, and the room respected it. For a few questions, the conference stayed civil.

Then a reporter representing one of the Gelsenkirchen dailies leaned over his recorder with a thin, knowing grin.

"Herr Klopp, Silva spent time inside Dortmund's own academy before Schalke brought him in on a free. Given your club's reputation for having the premier youth scouting network in the country, how do you look back on allowing a talent of that caliber to walk straight across the valley to your biggest rival for nothing?"

The room went completely dead.

It was an intentionally cruel jab, the kind of question meant to drive a thumb directly into an open wound on the darkest night of a proud man's career. Klopp drew a breath to speak. He managed the start of a word, then caught himself and closed his mouth. There was no clever defense to offer, and he refused to spend five minutes concocting PR spin for a man who had clearly shown up just to gloat.

Klopp stood up from the table, buttoned his track jacket, and pushed his chair back.

"We are done here," he said softly, and walked straight out through the side door.

A barrage of shutter clicks chased him into the hallway, and several reporters in the back row exchanged uneasy glances, feeling a quiet touch of sympathy for the Dortmund boss. He had fronted up to the cameras, shouldered the blame without complaint, and had been baited anyway. Choosing to walk out rather than put on an undignified show for a hostile face felt like the only self-respecting move left.

Felix Magath's appearance in the media room was an entirely different spectacle.

He strolled through the doors wearing a broad, cheerful grin that never left his face, playfully deflecting every bait to brag with an exaggerated false modesty that fooled absolutely no one and kept the room chuckling.

"It is just three points and a temporary look at the top of the table," Magath said, settling into his seat and spreading his palms. "The season is still very long. We happen to be the only German club left competing in the Champions League, so unlike some other sides, our focus has to be split across two tournaments. Today mostly came down to a bit of good fortune. And, naturally, having Silva out there helped."

He caught himself mid-sentence, remembering how carefully the teenager avoided self-indulgence.

"What I mean is, Silva delivered a clinic today, quite possibly the finest individual showing I have seen in forty years of coaching. We caught our breaks, we have an exceptional young player, and tomorrow morning we get right back to the training pitch."

The journalists chuckled, scribbling down the quotes anyway. A manager who had assembled a squad on a shoestring budget and guided them to first place in the league while preparing for a European quarter-final had earned every bit of swagger he wanted to show.

When the reporters finally cornered Mateo in the mixed zone, the young Brazilian gave them nothing to sensationalize.

He found himself surrounded by a dozen microphones, with journalists already comparing his touch to Messi, Kaká, and Cristiano Ronaldo before he could even set his gear bag on the floor. He smiled politely, took a breath, and deflected the spotlight away from himself with practiced ease.

"Honestly, I am still an ordinary player who has an enormous amount to improve on," Mateo said, wiping a bit of sweat from his hairline. "I got very lucky with the bounces today. If you want to talk about who really shaped this performance, you should look at Raúl. He has spent countless hours on the training pitch showing me how to read spaces, when to time my runs into the box, and how to arrive late. Everything I managed to do out there this afternoon came directly from the lessons he has been drilling into my head. If you are going to write a headline, put his name on it."

It was a brilliant bit of misdirection. The second the name Raúl left Mateo's mouth, half the room immediately forgot about the derby goals and pivoted to the biggest off-pitch mystery in German football: the legendary striker's knee rehab, the silence around his return, and the swirling whispers of retirement. Several journalists gathered their recorders and hurried back toward the hallway to hunt down Magath for medical updates, leaving Mateo with a quiet pocket of breathing room.

Across the mixed zone, Magath caught Mateo's eye through the crowd, recognizing the tactical detour the boy had just engineered at his expense. The manager shook his head with an amused grimace, clearly pleased to see his young playmaker handling the press room with the same sharp instincts he showed on the pitch.

Mateo caught an early ride home before midnight, slipping away while the rest of the squad headed into central Gelsenkirchen to celebrate an evening that would keep the local pubs overflowing until daybreak.

Inside his apartment, with the door locked and the distant sounds of car horns filtering through the window, Mateo sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled up his system interface.

The familiar chime echoed in his mind.

[Ding.]

[Mission complete: Win the Revierderby.]

[Difficulty: SSS. Completion grade: SSS.]

[Reward issued: Golden Skill.]

There it was, resting quietly in his digital inventory. The prize that had lingered in his thoughts ever since kickoff was finally hovering before him, radiating a deep, warm amber glow unlike anything the interface had displayed before.

Right beside the new skill icon sat the orange upgrade card.

Mateo studied the two icons side by side for several minutes. An unrevealed Golden Skill with unknown mechanics, paired with an upgrade item capable of boosting a technique to its absolute peak. He could crack the skill open right now and read the description, or he could apply the orange card blindly, gambling that whatever the system had generated would only become more devastating with a maximum multiplier.

His finger hovered inches from the interface, ready to confirm the choice.

Then he paused, pulled a long breath through his nose, and let his hands drop into his lap. Making a permanent decision while riding a high of adrenaline at midnight felt like a foolish risk.

He decided to wait until morning.

Mateo dismissed the glowing screen, collapsed back across the pillows with his training pants still on, and fell into a deep sleep within minutes.

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