The bedroom looked primitive.
That was Alexander’s first irrational thought.
Nothing in the room had changed during the night.
The same Bayern pennant hung above the desk.
A mechanical clock glowed faintly on the bedside table.
Schoolbooks stood beside a radio whose plastic casing would one day seem charmingly antique.
Dawn pressed grey light through the curtains.
Yet Alexander had spent the equivalent of almost eleven months moving through training grounds, laboratories, stadiums, and tactical rooms drawn from four decades.
He had lived with instant replay, multi-angle analysis, and opponents assembled from the highest level of football history.
Now the clock ticked once per second and refused to explain anything.
He lay still.
The body beneath the blanket was not the one he had inhabited inside every scenario.
It was the real seventeen-year-old body: rested, reinforced, neurologically transformed, and physically finite.
He could feel the mismatch before moving.
His mind expected limbs with precisely calibrated responses.
The limbs had never performed most of those actions against real gravity.
Alexander raised his right hand slowly.
The path was exact.
His elbow brushed the water glass on the bedside table.
Before the glass tipped, his left hand caught it by the rim.
Cat Reflexes had answered without panic.
The water barely trembled.
He returned it to the table and sat up.
Thousands of movement memories offered instructions at once—how to place his feet, align the pelvis, distribute pressure, and rise without wasting force.
Steel Mind prevented the volume from becoming noise.
The correct action simply felt natural.
Alexander stood.
Balance arrived so perfectly that he almost overcorrected.
The original body had carried a subtle preference for the right leg after an old ankle sprain.
That preference was gone.
Both feet accepted weight equally.
His spine stacked without conscious effort.
He felt taller despite knowing his height had not changed overnight.
The system panel appeared.
Host: Alexander Maximilian Falkenberg
Age: 17 years, 8 months
Football Talent: 5.0 Stars
Current Technical Development: 99+
Current Tactical Development: 99+
Current Match-Mental Development: 99+
Current Overall Ability: 97
Age-Adjusted Physical Ceiling: 98
Adult Maximum Potential: 99+
Sports Prestige Balance: 401,584
The number 97 required context.
It did not mean he would play every official match at a fixed numerical level or defeat entire teams alone.
Overall ability assumed appropriate fitness, tactical role, and ordinary match conditions.
Poor chemistry, a hidden illness, bad decisions, or an opponent’s collective superiority could still affect results.
It meant that his complete present capacity already belonged among the world’s best players.
The final point towards the age-adjusted ceiling would emerge as dream learning settled into real movement and his body resumed football conditioning.
Adult growth could take him beyond that conventional rating later.
Alexander closed the screen.
Knowing the number was less useful than learning how reality felt.
He walked to the washroom and turned on the light.
The mirror showed the same face refined by recovery: high cheekbones, blue-grey eyes, and dark-blond hair fallen across the forehead.
Swelling from the electrical accident had vanished.
The skin looked clearer.
Muscular tension no longer pulled one shoulder slightly higher.
The change was visible if someone knew him intimately.
It was not a magical adult transformation.
He washed, dressed in loose clothes, and went downstairs before the household woke fully.
The kitchen staff had left fruit and bread ready for early risers.
Alexander picked up an orange, felt its weight and texture, then stopped himself from testing a volley against centuries-old cabinetry.
He carried it into the breakfast room.
The carpet reduced the consequences of failure.
He placed the orange on the floor and rested his right sole lightly on top.
Dream technique understood spherical objects.
Real touch reported the orange’s fragile skin, uneven shape, and lighter mass.
Alexander rolled it backwards, lifted it with his toe, and cushioned it on his left instep.
Once.
Twice.
Ten times.
He kept it below the knee, adjusting to every imperfect bounce.
The fruit never struck hard enough to bruise.
On the fifteenth touch, the door opened.
Helena stopped.
Alexander caught the orange in one hand.
For three seconds, neither spoke.
“Breakfast,” he said.
Her gaze moved from the orange to his bare feet and then to the cleared space around the table.
“What were you doing?”
“Testing coordination.”
“With an orange?”
“The apple seemed less cooperative.”
She crossed the room and took the fruit from him.
Her thumb examined the peel for damage.
“The doctor said no training.”
“That was not exertion.”
“It was football performed against breakfast.”
“Then breakfast won.
I stopped.”
Helena should have laughed.
Concern prevented it.
“Do it again.”
Alexander had intended to reveal improvement gradually, but refusing now would look stranger.
He took the orange, dropped it from waist height, and alternated six gentle touches before catching it.
Her expression changed.
The original Alexander could juggle a proper ball a dozen times on a good attempt.
He could not do it with perfect control, alternating feet, while looking at his mother.
“Where did you learn that?”
“I have been thinking about movement.”
“For two nights?”
“For much longer than it looked.”
The sentence was dangerous.
Alexander softened it.
“I always understood more football than I could make my body perform.
Since the accident, everything feels aligned.”
Helena touched his cheek.
“Your eyes look older.”
Steel Mind preserved personality, but eight thousand conscious hours had left weight.
Alexander remembered months that nobody else had lived.
He remembered teammates who were constructs, defeats that never entered history, and stadiums not yet built.
“I had time to think.”
“You slept for eight hours.”
“Good sleep.”
She did not accept the explanation.
She accepted that no ordinary explanation would arrive at breakfast.
“You will tell Dr Weber.”
“About the coordination.”
“About everything.”
Alexander agreed because medical evidence would support him.
The system had not damaged the brain or heart.
He needed adults to see tests improving rather than catch him hiding from them.
Dr Weber came to the estate that afternoon for the promised follow-up.
He examined resting pulse, blood pressure, pupils, reflexes, and joint movement.
The heart rhythm remained normal.
Blood values from the hospital showed no delayed organ damage.
Alexander’s neurological responses were unusually quick but symmetrical.
“Walk heel to toe,” the doctor instructed.
“Touch your finger to your nose.”
He did.
“Now with your eyes closed.”
He repeated it.
Dr Weber looked at Helena.
“Coordination appears excellent.”
“It was not excellent last week,” she said.
“Adolescents can improve.”
“Between being struck by electricity and leaving hospital?”
The physician turned back to Alexander.
“Any altered memory?
Difficulty recognising people?
Unusual sounds or lights?”
Alexander almost appreciated the question.
“No hallucinations.
No missing memory.
I feel more focused and more coordinated.”
“Compulsive energy?
Inability to sleep?”
“I slept eight hours.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
Dr Weber repeated the cardiac check after a short walk through the house.
Everything remained normal.
He maintained the prohibition on maximal exercise but allowed light individual ball contact from 8 May if no symptoms appeared and a controlled academy return on 9 May.
“No contact,” he said.
“No sprints.
Stop if you feel dizziness, pain, or an irregular heartbeat.”
“Understood.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
The doctor seemed surprised by the absence of argument.
The original Alexander had negotiated every restriction as though caution insulted him.
After Weber left, Otto entered the breakfast room carrying the orange Helena had apparently preserved as evidence.
“Your mother says this is now sporting equipment.”
“It has retired undefeated.”
Otto rolled it across the table.
“Show me.”
“The doctor said light work begins tomorrow.”
“Since when do you hide behind doctors?”
“Since one restarted my heart.”
The answer stopped the older man’s teasing.
Alexander did not perform.
That decision impressed Otto more than juggling might have.
Talent without restraint had destroyed athletes he knew.
A seventeen-year-old who had suddenly acquired both invited cautious hope.
“Hartmann telephoned,” Otto said.
“He will follow the medical plan.”
“Did you tell him anything?”
“Only that you were returning.”
“No request for special observation?”
Otto bristled.
“I know what you think of my calls.”
“I know what they have done for me.”
“Kept you at Bayern.”
“Yes.”
The admission removed Otto’s defence.
Alexander looked towards the window, where the private pitch lay beyond the terrace.
“I am grateful.
But what happens next has to belong to football.”
Otto followed his gaze.
“Do you believe one accident changed you into a player?”
Alexander considered the eight thousand hours.
“No.
Work changed me.”
“Work nobody saw.”
“They will see the result.”
That evening, he reviewed the remainder of May.
Bayern hosted Fortuna Düsseldorf on 17 May, travelled to Stuttgart on 24 May, and finished at home against Eintracht Braunschweig on 31 May.
The title remained to be secured.
West Germany’s European Championship preparation would begin immediately afterwards.
Eleven days separated waking from the first league match.
The original Alexander would have needed years to reach senior consideration.
The completed player needed medical clearance, believable exposure, and a manager willing to trust his own eyes.
Forty years of football existed inside him.
The next task was making 1980 believe what it saw.
On 8 May, Alexander carried a ball onto the private pitch behind the Falkenberg house.
Helena watched from the terrace with Dr Weber’s written restrictions in one hand.
Otto stood beside her, pretending to inspect the lawn.
Friedrich remained inside for nearly four minutes before appearing at a library window with a newspaper he did not turn.
The family had agreed that “light individual contact” meant exactly that.
Alexander intended to honour the limit.
The grass was damp from morning dew.
A rebound wall stood near one touchline, painted with squares the original boy had used for passing practice.
Cones waited inside a storage box.
At the far end, a full-size goal wore a net maintained better than many amateur clubs could afford.
He began without the ball.
Walking.
Gentle mobility.
Controlled ankle and hip movements.
A few minutes of easy jogging at a pace too low to challenge the heart.
He monitored his pulse and stopped where the doctor had specified.
Only then did he place the ball beneath his foot.
The leather felt familiar from Dream Training and different because this blade of grass, this air, and this body were real.
He rolled the sole across the surface, moved the ball from inside to outside, and took short touches with both feet.
The first ten were deliberately slow.
The next ten found a rhythm.
Neural learning mapped cleanly.
His foot knew the angle required before his conscious mind completed the instruction.
The ball stayed within the exact radius he chose.
When the uneven seam changed one bounce, Cat Reflexes corrected without breaking posture.
Alexander passed gently against the wall.
The return arrived towards his right.
He cushioned it across his body and played left-footed into another square.
Right to left.
Left to right.
One touch.
Two touches.
He varied distance without increasing exertion, allowing accuracy rather than power to reveal the difference.
Helena lowered the medical paper.
Otto stopped pretending to inspect anything.
The original Alexander could complete a basic wall sequence.
He could not strike fifty alternating passes into hand-sized target areas while keeping his gaze lifted from the ball.
Alexander ended the drill at fifty.
“Why did you stop?” Otto called.
“The purpose was calibration, not demonstration.”
“It looked like both.”
Alexander collected the ball and moved to the cones.
He dribbled at walking pace, using small changes of angle.
No sprinting.
No sharp maximal cuts.
Yet the quality of his body position made even gentle movement look unlike the boy they remembered.
Helena descended the terrace steps.
“The doctor said gradual.”
Alexander stopped immediately.
“You are right.”
He put one foot on the ball rather than attempting to finish the pattern.
Her suspicion deepened.
“You never stop that quickly.”
“I used to think stopping meant admitting weakness.”
“Stopping at the planned load means tomorrow’s session still exists.”
That was future sports science translated into common sense.
Helena approached until she stood an arm’s length away.
“Where did you learn to move like that?”
Alexander could not claim the accident had created technique without raising medical alarm.
He offered the explanation he had prepared.
“I trained badly because I was ashamed of being bad.
I rushed every exercise, looked at who was watching, and tried to force improvement.
At the hospital, I realised how much of the problem was tension.
The ability was not entirely absent.
I could never organise it.”
“That explains some improvement.”
“Not all.”
She waited.
“I cannot explain all of it yet.”
The admission was safer than a detailed falsehood.
Helena valued truth enough to notice elaborate evasions.
“Are you in danger?”
“No.”
“Are we?”
“No.”
“Did someone give you drugs?”
“No.”
“Did the electrical accident do something the doctors have not found?”
“Possibly.
Everything they have found is healthy.”
Helena looked towards the ball.
“And you intend to take this to Bayern.”
“Carefully.”
“That word has become very popular with you.”
“I nearly died.
It improved the word.”
She allowed him another ten minutes of gentle work.
Alexander used them to test ball flight.
He did not shoot at full power.
From twenty metres, he struck controlled passes towards the empty goal, first with the inside of each foot, then with the laces at perhaps sixty percent effort.
The first right-footed ball reached the lower corner.
The first left-footed one struck the post.
Real air and muscle expression differed slightly from the dream estimate.
Alexander adjusted the plant foot by less than two centimetres.
The next left-footed ball entered the opposite lower corner.
Otto came down from the terrace.
“Again.”
Alexander repeated the two finishes.
“Harder.”
“No.”
The older man looked offended.
“Tomorrow at the academy, coaches may ask,” Alexander said.
“Today, Dr Weber did not.”
Otto paced around him, examining his shoulders and legs as if a hidden mechanism might be visible beneath the training clothes.
“You are not larger.”
“I noticed.”
“Your stride is different.”
“Better alignment.”
“Your left foot was decorative.”
“It objected to the description.”
Otto’s mouth twitched, but emotion made the humour fragile.
He had been a renowned athlete in his youth and retained the eye of one.
He knew improvement did not arrive in this form.
“Alexander, I have defended you to coaches who were correct.”
“I know.”
“I told them your body would mature late.
That pressure was harming you.
That talent appeared differently in our family.”
“You were protecting me.”
“I was protecting my hope.”
The confession belonged to a grandfather rather than the powerful chairman outsiders knew.
Alexander rested both hands on the ball.
“Then let me repay the time you bought.”
Otto looked at him for a long moment.
“Do not repay me by breaking yourself trying to prove a miracle.”
“I will not.”
“And if the doctor stops you?”
“I stop.”
“If Hartmann sends you back to basic work?”
“I make basic work impossible to ignore.”
The answer satisfied the athlete in Otto without violating the promise.
After lunch, Alexander met Weiss and Vogel in a small study.
The first ten million marks had not yet moved.
Formation documents, guardian approvals, and banking arrangements were underway.
Weiss had prepared a separate memorandum concerning football.
“You remain registered in Bayern’s youth structure,” he said.
“Any senior appearance, contract, or image use must be reviewed.
The club will assume a grateful family accepts standard academy terms.”
“We do not.”
“We accept fair sporting control,” Weiss said.
“We do not assign your name, likeness, or future commercial rights indefinitely.”
Vogel opened a ledger.
“Your direct football income may be trivial at first.
It still enters the record from the first mark.”
Alexander explained that selection might accelerate.
Neither man laughed.
System loyalty did not grant them knowledge of Dream Training, but their compartmentalised awareness included the certainty that Alexander possessed unusual capacities.
Weiss asked only operational questions.
“How soon could a senior contract be offered?”
“Within weeks if training reflects my ability.”
“Then I need approved guardian language ready before anyone mistakes urgency for consent.”
“Do not make the club believe we are buying a place.”
“My job is to keep commercial caution separate from football evaluation.”
That evening, Alexander studied Bayern’s likely training structure, staff relationships, and the personalities awaiting him.
Dream Training had reproduced teams from the period, but real men differed from models.
Paul Breitner’s intelligence and force of personality could not be reduced to tactical data.
Rummenigge was approaching the height of his power.
Csernai had already guided Bayern towards the title and would not risk dressing-room trust for a family favour.
Alexander needed the manager to see value before family influence contaminated the conclusion.
He set three rules for the academy return.
Obey the medical restriction exactly.
Display control, awareness, and two-foot quality while hiding maximal physical output.
Create actions coaches can verify under pressure rather than performing circus tricks.
He added a fourth after studying his own excitement.
Do not humiliate youth teammates merely because he could.
The first days would establish how people interpreted his power.
If every possession became an exhibition, teammates would defend their pride by rejecting him.
If his decisions improved their runs and made their strengths visible, resistance would weaken.
A completed player was not the same as a selfish one.
Alexander took the ball back outside at sunset for five final minutes of allowed contact.
He stood near the rebound wall and closed his eyes before each pass, opening them only after the strike returned.
The exercise was not designed to prove blind control.
It tested whether the physical sound, timing, and rebound matched his dream memory.
On the sixth repetition, a patch of damp grass slowed the return.
His foot adjusted late but successfully.
Reality would always contain information the simulation had not supplied: a seam, a gust, a teammate’s mood, or a referee’s private threshold for contact.
His advantage was not knowing every event.
It was possessing enough experience to update before others finished being surprised.
When Helena called him inside, he stopped on the first word.
The date on the calendar read 8 May 1980.
The next morning, he would return to Säbener Straße.
He no longer wondered whether he was good enough.
The uncertainty lay in how quickly completed ability could pass through institutions built to distrust impossible change.