Football: Maxed Out The Wrong Stat

The dressing room after the final whistle was a chaotic wall of sound, unlike anything Mateo had experienced all season. The quiet satisfaction of the Twente win and the pure relief of the Frankfurt match felt completely small-time compared to this. The Revierderby belonged in an entirely different stratosphere, and the historic comeback they had just pulled off was in a league of its own. Looking around at the shouting, hugging, and absolute madness, it was clear every single person in the room knew exactly what kind of miracle they had just pulled off.

Jones’s goal was the subject of conversation before the door had fully closed behind them. Multiple teammates were attempting to reconstruct it from different angles — Farfán with his hands forming the shape of a forty-metre arc, Jurado insisting the contact point on the ball had been specific and visible on the replay, Per Kluge saying nothing but nodding with the expression of a man who had been in the right place at the right time and understood his own fortune.

Jones sat right in the thick of the chaos, the rigid composure he’d managed to maintain until the final whistle finally softening around the edges. It wasn’t an emotional breakdown or a show for the cameras; it was just the genuine, glowing warmth of a guy who had just been asked to explain the absolute pinnacle of his professional career and hadn’t quite found the words to process it yet.

”The ball was just sitting there,” Jones muttered, answering someone’s question about what the hell he was thinking in that moment. ”So I hit it.”

Farfán snorted, shaking his head. ”That’s not an explanation, man.”

”It’s the only honest one,” Jones said, a small grin finally breaking through.

Huntelaar, still in his training top from the bench, was across the room describing the backheel in injury time — Mateo triple-pressed, the stop that sent Kagawa sliding past, the single line behind him that he’d played without turning. He was using his water bottle as a prop for the ball’s trajectory. Annan was listening with the focused attention of a professional filing information for future reference.

Magath came in.

He stood at the door for a moment and looked at the room — the noise, the faces, the particular evidence of people who have done something together that they wouldn’t have believed possible four hours earlier.

He started to applaud. The coaching staff behind him joined. After a few seconds, the room matched them.

”That was a great match,” Magath said, when the noise had settled enough to hear. ”Not because of the result. Because of the forty-five minutes after halftime. That was a team.” He paused. ”Go get changed. I need Farfán with me in ten minutes.”

On the pitch, a few minutes later, Mateo was completing the standard post-match obligations — handshakes with the Dortmund players who passed, a brief conversation with the referee, the normal administrative courtesies that followed ninety minutes of football.

Kagawa walked over.

He didn’t say anything at first — he just pointed at Mateo’s jersey, making the universal gesture. Mateo pulled his shirt over his head and held it out, and Kagawa handed his over in exchange.

For a brief moment, they just stood there in that quiet, unspoken respect shared by two players who had just pushed each other to the absolute limit and had nothing left to prove to anyone else.

”Good match,” Kagawa said, his English brief but sincere.

”Thanks,” Mateo replied, nodding back.

Kagawa gave a quick tap on Mateo’s shoulder and turned to track down Uchida.

Mateo carefully folded the yellow-and-black shirt over his arm and finally walked toward the tunnel. He was back through his own front door before eleven o’clock.

He was home before eleven.

The new house was quiet in the specific way his dormitory hadn’t been — not the institutional quiet of an empty building but the quiet of a space that was his. He had really come to value the deep quiet over the three weeks since he’d moved in. There was a rare, uninterrupted stillness to the space that finally allowed him to actually hear his own thoughts — a massive luxury when whatever he was working through demanded his absolute, undivided focus.

He pulled up the system interface, watching the holographic notification flash to life:

[Ding... Mission: ”Turn the Tide” Completed!]

[Rank: SSS]

[Reward: Beckham Curve Fragment (1/3)]

The entire interface had shifted. A brand-new tab had unlocked right beneath his attributes and equipment slots, having quietly processed the moment the final whistle blew. Mateo began scrolling through it methodically.

First, he checked his new Match Points bar: 3 / 50.

He stared at the number, breaking down the math. A 5-4 thriller, clawing all the way back from a three-goal deficit against Dortmund, and it only yielded three points. While he didn’t know the system’s exact point-calculation formula yet, one thing was crystal clear: if a massive, historic victory only gave him three points, filling this bar was going to be a long, brutal grind. It was going to require tracking every single performance.

Next, he browsed the System Shop. The pricing on the consumables revealed exactly what the system valued most. There were stamina potions and condition boosters, but a specific recovery potion caught his eye. Unlike the others, it lacked the ”Host Only” tag. He noted this last one. Without the restriction, it meant he could actually use it on a teammate in a pinch — a massive tactical advantage if someone picked up a nasty injury.

Then he opened the Skill Card gallery.

He scrolled through it —At the very top sat the legends like Pelé and Maradona, priced at an astronomical 2,000 points each — grayed-out, completely untouchable, like looking at another galaxy. Just below them were the SS-level cards: Messi, Ronaldinho, and Cristiano Ronaldo, all sitting at 800 points. Mateo did some quick mental math. At his current rate, buying one of those would take almost a year of flawless performances. They weren’t meant to be bought; they were meant to be earned.

Down in the S-level section, he spotted Iniesta’s La Croqueta, the skill he already owned. It was listed for 200 points, with a small note indicating he’d unlocked it via a mission reward rather than purchasing it directly.

Finally, he scrolled down to the Fragment section and stopped. There was a card featuring a photograph of David Beckham.

Only one-third of the image was illuminated, glowing softly. The system text indicated that individual fragments cost 10 Match Points each. Since the ”Turn the Tide” mission had handed him the first piece for free, he only needed two more to complete the set.

He ran the numbers again. If a high-stakes match yielded roughly 3 points, buying the remaining two fragments would require 20 points total. That meant he needed about seven more high-level, meaningful performances on the pitch. Looking at the schedule ahead — with the Champions League group stage heating up alongside the regular Bundesliga grind — that goal felt entirely within his reach.

The backheel in injury time had been a forced choice — the only pass available when he couldn’t turn, playing it behind himself to where the line showed Farfán running. With a proper Beckham Curve skill, the space from twenty-five metres with the ball at his feet would become a genuine set-piece threat rather than something he’d need to improvise around. That was a different kind of weapon — one that opponents had to account for from the first whistle, not one they discovered mid-sequence.

He closed the system.

The next match was in the Bundesliga. His defence was at 70, his overall at 74. The cap lift to allow attributes above 80 came at overall 75. He was one meaningful attribute push away from that threshold.

He set his alarm for five.

Outside, Gelsenkirchen was still audible — distant noise, the city not yet quiet from what had happened at the Veltins-Arena. He listened to it for a moment before the room went dark.

Then he went to sleep.

Don’t forget to drop those Power Stones on your way out!

Why wait for tomorrow when you can read the advance chapters today?

/Shadownarch_