Dr Weber cleared Alexander for full football work on Tuesday morning, 13 May.
The decision came with conditions rather than celebration.
The club doctor would monitor him.
Any chest pain, dizziness, unusual breathlessness, or irregular rhythm ended the session immediately.
Workload would rise over several days despite the clean tests.
Alexander signed the acknowledgement beside Helena.
“Full work does not mean foolish work,” Weber said.
“I understand.”
“He keeps saying that,” Helena told the doctor.
“It has become threatening.”
Weber looked at Alexander’s latest cardiac trace.
“In this case, I prefer it.”
At Säbener Straße, Josef Becker waited with two senior coaches near the academy pitch.
He had moved the formal performance tests to the next morning but wanted one thing first: evidence that Alexander’s technique survived unrestricted opposition.
Machines could wait.
Football pressure could not.
Hartmann gathered the strongest available academy players, including several reserve prospects.
The possession area was larger than the square used the previous day, with two small goals at each end.
The rules allowed full contact within ordinary training limits.
Alexander pulled on a yellow bib.
Keller wore blue and volunteered to mark him before Hartmann finished dividing the teams.
“You do not need to follow him everywhere,” the coach said.
“Someone has to.”
Alexander heard insecurity dressed as duty.
The whistle sounded.
For the first minute, the yellow team avoided him.
Teammates understood the rumours and did not want their own evaluation reduced to serving the Falkenberg test.
They circulated along the outside while Keller stayed close enough for Alexander to feel breath near his shoulder.
He did not demand the ball.
He adjusted his position, drawing Keller away from the central lane.
The yellow midfielder recognised the opening and drove forward.
When a second defender stepped, Alexander moved behind him and received the return pass.
The ball came hard from Alexander’s blind side.
Keller pressed through his back.
The original boy would have braced, trapped it under his sole, and lost the next action.
Dream memory offered several answers.
Alexander selected the simplest.
He opened his body at the last instant and allowed the pass to travel across him.
His first touch redirected the ball around Keller’s reaching foot.
His second split two midfielders.
His third became a reverse pass into the right winger’s run.
The winger reached the small goal alone and scored.
Becker stopped speaking to the assistant beside him.
Keller looked towards Hartmann, searching for a foul that had never occurred.
The next sequence began on the opposite side.
Alexander dropped into midfield.
Keller followed, determined not to lose him in the blind space again.
That was exactly the decision Alexander wanted.
The yellow striker occupied both centre-backs.
Alexander checked towards the ball, felt Keller accelerate, and spun away before the pass was struck.
One teammate saw the run late.
The delivery arrived behind Alexander.
Cat Reflexes adjusted the stride.
He killed the ball with the outside of his left foot, maintained forward momentum, and finished through the near small goal before Keller recovered.
Hartmann glanced at Becker.
The senior assistant remained expressionless.
Pressure increased.
Blue players began closing Alexander with two men.
He responded by playing faster rather than dribbling more.
One touch into a teammate.
Movement around the cover shadow.
Receipt in a new lane.
Whenever the second defender committed, someone else became free.
His teammates began seeking him voluntarily.
The quality of a first touch was not how impressively it stopped a ball.
It was how much of the next problem it solved.
Alexander’s touches removed defenders, opened passing angles, and protected teammates from immediate pressure.
After ten minutes, Becker asked Hartmann to narrow the field.
Space disappeared.
The blue team interpreted the change as help.
Keller pushed close and caught Alexander’s shirt while a pass travelled towards them.
Alexander felt the grip, shifted his centre of gravity, and used Keller’s pull to disguise a turn in the opposite direction.
The defender’s hand released too late.
Alexander escaped with the ball and remained upright.
“Play,” Hartmann called.
Alexander drove towards goal.
The goalkeeper rushed.
A defender slid across the lane.
Alexander shaped to shoot, waited until both committed, and rolled the ball sideways for the winger to finish.
No individual highlight would record the choice as a goal.
Becker wrote for the first time.
Keller’s frustration broke discipline on the next challenge.
He arrived after Alexander had released a pass and extended one leg towards the ankle.
Dream experience registered the danger before contact.
Alexander lifted the foot, allowed the shin to brush harmlessly beneath, and landed balanced on the other leg.
Hartmann’s whistle sounded.
“Keller.
Out.”
“He jumped.”
“Because you tackled after the pass.”
“Everyone is protecting him.”
The accusation turned the entire pitch quiet.
Hartmann walked towards Keller.
“I am protecting training.
Leave.”
Keller looked at Becker, perhaps expecting the senior coach to recognise courage against privilege.
Becker pointed towards the dressing room.
“If you need a late tackle to evaluate a first touch, you are evaluating yourself.”
Keller pulled off the blue bib and threw it beside the line.
Alexander did not watch him leave.
Mercy did not require pretending the foul was harmless.
Restraint meant allowing the coach’s consequence to stand without adding humiliation.
The game resumed eleven against ten until a substitute joined.
Without Keller’s personal pursuit, blue defended more coherently.
They held zones and denied central access.
Alexander changed from central creator to wide forward, stretching the shape until gaps appeared between full-back and centre-back.
He received near the touchline with his back to goal.
The defender expected a turn outside.
Alexander’s first touch went inside.
A second opponent closed.
He lifted the ball just over the reaching foot—not a theatrical high flick, only the minimum height required—and accelerated through the seam.
Becker moved one step nearer.
At the edge of the box, Alexander could have shot.
He saw the holding midfielder retreating towards goal and clipped a diagonal behind him.
The left winger met it first time.
Another goal created.
For thirty-five minutes, Alexander presented a different solution whenever the problem changed.
A layoff under contact.
A blind-side run.
A left-foot switch.
A disguised pass.
A near-post finish after moving away from the ball.
A defensive sprint that closed the passing lane without diving into a tackle.
He did not repeat a trick to prove mastery.
He repeated principles until the team’s structure improved.
When Hartmann ended the match, the score was 8–3 to yellow.
Alexander had scored three and created four.
More important to Becker, he had lost the ball only twice under genuine pressure and responded correctly both times.
The players bent over to recover.
Alexander’s breathing was elevated but controlled.
The club doctor checked his pulse, waited two minutes, and checked again.
“Rapid recovery,” he said.
“Abnormal?”
“Excellent.
Not abnormal by itself.”
Becker approached.
“How long have you been able to receive like that?”
“Not long.”
“That answer is becoming irritating.”
“It is still accurate.”
“What position are you?”
“Where the team can create a spare man.”
Becker frowned.
“That is not a position.”
“Centre-forward, second striker, either wing, or attacking midfield.”
“Better.”
He looked towards the senior building.
“Tomorrow at eight.
Performance room first.
If the numbers support this, you play in a reserve training match Thursday.”
Alexander nodded.
“Not with the youth?” one teammate asked before stopping himself.
Becker answered without looking away from Alexander.
“We have seen enough youth pressure.”
After the staff left, the right winger sat on the grass beside Alexander.
“You could have scored instead of passing to me.”
“You had the better finish.”
“Keller says you want everyone to serve you.”
“Did you feel like a servant?”
The winger considered his three goals.
“No.”
“Then let the ball answer him.”
In the dressing room, Keller’s locker stood open and empty.
Hartmann had sent him home for the day, not released him.
Alexander understood the difference.
One poisonous week should not decide an eighteen-year-old’s life.
He asked Hartmann not to make a formal disciplinary report beyond the training note.
“Why protect him?” the coach asked.
“Because the tackle failed.
If he repeats it, the pattern matters.
Today, fear made him stupid.”
“You are very generous after winning.”
“I am practical.
Punish danger.
Do not turn resentment into martyrdom.”
Hartmann studied him with the same unsettled expression Helena often wore.
“The first touch is not the strangest thing that changed.”
Alexander tied his boots together and placed them in the bag.
“No,” he said.
“It is only the easiest to see.”
At home, Alexander replayed the two possessions in which he had lost the ball.
One came from a teammate changing direction after Alexander had committed the pass.
The other came when he attempted to protect possession instead of using the immediate layoff.
Neither failure threatened his confidence.
Both entered the same internal library as thousands of dream corrections.
That was another difference nobody could observe.
The old Alexander carried mistakes into the next session as evidence against himself.
The new one stored them as data with an expiry date: relevant until understood, useless afterwards.
He wrote both sequences in a notebook and beneath them added:
Real teammates are not constructs.
Learn their habits before assuming the ideal run.
The senior performance room on 14 May contained no machine advanced enough to explain Alexander.
It contained enough to make denial uncomfortable.
Josef Becker supervised beside Bayern’s club doctor and two conditioning staff members.
Hartmann observed from the wall.
No Falkenberg relative had been invited.
Alexander arrived ten minutes early with his medical papers, boots, and a plain training kit.
The doctor began with baseline checks.
Resting pulse.
Blood pressure.
Heart rhythm.
Joint range.
Reflex response.
Every result remained clean.
Alexander did not mention the numerical panel floating beyond their perception.
It showed current ability at 97 and real-world calibration at eighty-nine percent complete.
Acceleration came first.
Electronic timing gates existed, but the staff also used hand stopwatches for comparison.
Alexander ran five metres, ten metres, and thirty metres from both standing and moving starts.
He had planned restraint.
The first five-metre time still beat the club’s youth record and approached the best senior mark on file.
The technician checked the starting sensor.
“Again.”
Alexander returned to the line.
“Same effort?” Becker asked.
“If that is what you want.”
“I want a true result.”
The conflict was immediate.
Producing elite but deliberately reduced data could look like manipulation if later numbers improved too sharply.
Using everything risked revealing performance beyond any plausible player eleven days after cardiac arrest.
Alexander chose a controlled ninety-five percent—high enough to be honest about elite capacity, low enough to protect the medical ramp.
The second time improved by three hundredths.
The technician inspected the gate anyway.
“Start was legal,” he said.
Over ten metres, Alexander’s compact first steps converted force efficiently.
Over thirty, present aerobic conditioning mattered less than mechanics and natural speed.
He placed among Bayern’s fastest recorded players without visibly straining.
Becker looked at Hartmann.
“Was he this quick?”
“No.”
“Was he ever close?”
“No.”
Hartmann did not soften the history for the family.
The doctor listened to Alexander’s heart after recovery.
“Normal.”
Jump testing followed.
Standing leap.
Running leap.
Single-leg stability after landing.
Alexander’s height and timing produced first-team quality.
Steel Body protected the joints, but he used the dream-taught landing mechanics rather than relying on protection invisibly.
“Again, left side,” the conditioning coach said.
Alexander repeated.
“No hesitation.”
“Should there be?”
“Most players favour one landing leg.”
“I trained not to.”
Reaction testing used a board of lights.
A signal appeared and Alexander struck the corresponding pad as quickly as possible.
Cat Reflexes threatened to expose an inhuman edge, so he responded at the fastest plausible range.
The result still broke the machine’s club record.
The technician reset it.
Alexander repeated within one point.
“Wiring is fine,” the man said.
Becker began writing numbers on a separate sheet, no longer relying on the standard form.
Ball speed caused less concern because Alexander limited maximal striking.
Accuracy caused more.
He drove ten balls towards marked goal sections with his right foot and ten with his left.
The weaker-foot series showed almost no loss in placement.
Power differed slightly, consistent with the present body’s natural asymmetry.
“Which foot do you prefer?” Becker asked.
“Everyone has a stronger foot.”
“The right is stronger.
The left is trained.”
That explanation was acceptable.
Elite two-footed ability existed, even if rare.
The most useful test required no stopwatch.
Becker led Alexander outside to a walled training square.
Four reserve midfielders waited, irritated by being removed from their schedule.
Their instruction was simple: win the ball from Alexander within two minutes.
He could use no more than two touches and could pass against the rebound walls.
“No teammates?” Alexander asked.
“The walls return it.”
“The walls do not move.”
“Then you should appreciate their discipline.”
The four players laughed.
The whistle began.
Alexander received the first service and passed against the wall before the nearest midfielder arrived.
The rebound travelled behind the second presser.
He moved through the gap, touched once, and used another wall.
Four opponents compressed.
The square offered no escape except angles.
Alexander manipulated them into one another’s lines.
He allowed the ball to appear exposed, drawing a foot, then used the wall at the instant the tackler committed.
Eagle Eye tracked movement at the edge of his vision.
Tactician projected which lane would close next.
Thirty seconds.
One midfielder stopped chasing individually and guarded the central rebound.
Alexander changed height, clipping the ball against a higher section of wall.
It returned over the guarded lane.
He controlled it with his thigh and passed before the second-touch limit expired.
Sixty seconds.
The players became angry.
They used their shoulders and attempted to pin him near a corner.
Alexander protected the ball with his body, accepted contact through the reinforced frame, and redirected pressure rather than opposing it.
Ninety seconds.
Becker called, “One touch.”
The condition changed without warning.
Alexander adapted.
His scanning moved earlier.
He no longer received.
He redirected.
Ball to wall.
Wall to foot.
Foot to another wall.
The four opponents ran harder and reached less.
At one hundred and fifteen seconds, a midfielder anticipated correctly and stabbed towards the return.
Alexander allowed the ball through his legs.
It struck the wall behind him and returned on the other side.
He pivoted and continued.
The whistle ended two minutes.
Hartmann laughed openly this time.
One reserve midfielder put his hands on his hips.
“That is not football.”
“It is when the walls wear shirts,” Becker said.
He removed the touch limit and ordered another minute.
The four pressed with wounded pride.
Alexander accepted the invitation.
He nutmegged the first, spun away from the second, and carried the ball through the only open corner before returning to the square.
Becker stopped the exercise after twenty seconds.
“Enough.”
The senior assistant did not look pleased.
Serious coaches often responded to extraordinary evidence with more questions rather than applause.
Inside, the conditioning staff compiled a three-page report.
Elite first-team acceleration
Exceptional bilateral coordination
Club-record reaction data
Senior-level jumping and balance
No abnormal cardiac response
Technical performance consistent under pressure
Medical recommendation: progressive workload and continued monitoring
The report did not say best player in the club.
Tests could not measure complete match behaviour.
It said something more dangerous to existing assumptions: no physical or technical reason remained to exclude him from senior evaluation.
Becker placed the report in a folder.
“Thursday morning, reserve training match.
Full pitch.
You will play for the youth-and-trial side against the established reserves.”
“What role?”
“Forward.
Solve the rest.”
“How long?”
“As long as the doctor allows and the match remains useful.”
Alexander nodded.
“One question,” Becker said.
“Did anyone in your family arrange private equipment or testing that could have prepared you for today?”
“We have a pitch, a rebound wall, and excellent medical care.
No one altered these tests.”
“That was not my question.”
“No.
My family did not secretly train me into these numbers.”
Becker watched his face.
“Then what did?”
“Time used properly.”
“You are seventeen.”
“That was enough time to waste.
It was also enough to learn.”
The answer satisfied nothing, but Becker could not test metaphysics.
As Alexander left, he saw the assistant carry the folder upstairs rather than towards the academy office.
Pál Csernai had not attended.
The manager was preparing Bayern for Fortuna Düsseldorf and would not abandon first-team work to observe a youth mystery.
He would read the report.
Some directors would believe the numbers had been influenced by Otto.
Some coaches would believe the equipment had failed.
Stopwatches did not lie, but men could accuse the hands holding them.
Before leaving, Alexander requested a copy of his medical workload limits rather than the performance numbers.
Becker noticed.
“You do not want to see the records?”
“I know I was fast.
I need to know what the doctor permits tomorrow.”
The club physician specified total high-intensity minutes, hydration breaks, and post-session monitoring.
Alexander asked whether those limits were medical or merely cautious.
The physician explained which signs would justify extension and which would end participation regardless of how he felt.
“Perfect,” Alexander said.
“Most boys ask how to escape the restrictions.”
“Most boys have not watched a monitor show their heart stopping.”
The room quieted.
The extraordinary test sheet could make the accident feel like a convenient origin story.
Alexander’s answer returned its cost.
Becker placed the report inside a second envelope and signed across the seal.
Hartmann added the time, names of witnesses, and equipment serial numbers at Weiss’s earlier suggestion, passed through Helena to the club doctor.
Nobody called it legal preservation.
It looked like unusually careful medical documentation after a near-fatal event.
If accusations came later, the people who controlled the test could show exactly what had happened.
The precaution also protected Bayern.
A club accused of falsifying results for a director’s grandson needed more than indignant denials.
Alexander wanted his rise tied to evidence sturdy enough that honest staff never had to choose between defending him and defending themselves.
Tomorrow, twenty-two players would occupy one pitch.
The ball would travel through tackles, mistakes, and choices no laboratory could stage.
Alexander wanted that evidence more than any record.