The folder sat on the kitchen counter all evening, untouched.
Richard had opened it once, flipped two pages, then closed it again. Not because the numbers were difficult. Amara had made everything clear. It was more that every time he looked at the charts and the structured projections and the careful handwriting of her notes in the margins, he felt oddly unsettled in a way that had nothing to do with money.
He ate alone, reheated jollof rice Chidi had convinced him to order from the one Nigerian restaurant Ella had somehow already found for them, and watched the ceiling with his fork halfway between the plate and his mouth.
Tomorrow was training. Then the weekend was a match. Then Europe was coming.
He needed to sleep.
He went to bed at ten and lay awake until midnight.
Training the next morning was the cure for everything.
The moment Richard's boots touched the grass at Brackel, his mind emptied. There was no folder, no ceiling, no Amara's handwriting in the margins of anything. There was only the ball and the space and the noise of men who made their living with their bodies.
Schmidt had them running shape drills for the first forty minutes. Long diagonal switches, third-man combinations, press triggers off the striker's shoulder. Richard had done versions of this in Belgium, but Schmidt's system had more layers. The spacing was tighter. The timing demands were sharper. The players moved like they had been doing it for years — because most of them had.
Reus called out early, pointed at Richard, and said something in German too fast to follow.
Lukas jogged alongside Richard and translated without being asked. "He said your first touch is different. He means it as a compliment."
"Different good or different strange?" Richard asked.
Lukas grinned. "In German, those are sometimes the same thing."
Richard laughed and pressed into the next drill.
Emre Can was playing the holding role in the midfield unit and he was not gentle about it. He challenged everything — pressed into space, blocked passing lanes, bodied Richard off the ball twice in the same sequence. No apology, no explanation. Just the expectation that Richard would figure it out or get moved on.
Richard figured it out.
On the third attempt he dropped his shoulder, drew Can's press, slipped the ball inside to Brandt, and continued his run to receive it back on the far side of the box. The whole sequence took five seconds. Schmidt blew his whistle once — a sharp, approving sound — and the drill reset.
Can looked at him briefly.
Not warmly. But with the beginning of something close to acknowledgement.
That was enough.
At the water break, Füllkrug appeared at Richard's shoulder with a bottle and a calm, matter-of-fact expression.
"You don't celebrate small things," he said.
Richard looked at him. "What?"
"The drill. Can almost never gets beaten in that pattern. You beat him and just kept running. Some of the new signings do a little — " he mimed a brief fist pump — "thing. You didn't."
Richard shrugged. "It's training."
Füllkrug nodded slowly, like that answer confirmed something. "Good." He handed over the bottle and walked off.
Richard took a long drink and watched him go. Lukas appeared at his other side.
"That is basically Füllkrug saying he respects you," Lukas said quietly.
"By not saying he respects me."
"Yes. Welcome to Germany."
The second half of training shifted to match scenarios. Schmidt stood at the edge of the technical area with his arms folded and his eyes scanning the pitch like a man reading a complicated text. He did not shout often. When he did, it was precise and clean, never theatrical.
"Richard — narrower," he said once, in English, without raising his voice. "The space is left, not right. Trust the shape."
Richard adjusted. The next sequence ran better.
Schmidt said nothing, which meant it worked.
By the end of the session Richard's lungs were burning and his legs had the specific heaviness of a session that had genuinely tested him. He walked off slowly, head down, hands on hips, taking the breath in.
Mats Hummels fell into step beside him.
"First week?" Hummels asked.
"Second," Richard said.
Hummels considered that. "You look more settled than most after a month. Don't lose that. It's easy to tighten up once the real pressure arrives."
"When does it arrive?" Richard asked.
Hummels glanced at him sideways. "Saturday."
Saturday was Bochum at home.
Not the most fearsome fixture on paper. But the table was what it was, and Dortmund in fifth could not afford to drop points against a team fighting at the bottom. Schmidt laid it out plainly in the tactical meeting on Friday afternoon: Bochum would come compact and physical, try to keep it at zero as long as possible, and hope for something on the break. They had done it to better teams this season. They were not to be disrespected.
"Bochum will press your first touch," Schmidt said, looking at Richard directly. "They will send two men to wherever you receive. Your job is to move the ball before they arrive and keep moving. We will find you in pockets. Don't hold too long."
Richard nodded. He had already studied the clips the analysis team had sent the previous evening — Bochum's defensive shape, their press triggers, the left center-back who was slow to step on diagonal passes, the gap that opened between the eight and the six when their winger was pulled wide.
He had written notes. Amara's financial folder was still on the counter. His match notes were on the coffee table with three pages already filled.
The night before the match, Chidi called.
"You nervous?" he asked, before Richard had even said hello properly.
"No," Richard said.
"Lie."
"I'm focused."
"Same thing when you're you." Chidi's voice softened just slightly. "Oya, listen. You've had nervous before. You had it in Belgium. You had it when you signed for Dortmund. You always feel it and then you go and do the thing anyway. This is no different."
Richard was quiet for a moment.
"The stadium will be loud," he finally said.
"It's always loud. You just haven't heard this particular loud yet." A pause. "You like loud. Don't pretend."
Richard smiled despite himself. "Go to sleep, Chidi."
"I'm in London, it's only nine o'clock here."
"Then go eat something and let me rest."
"I already ate. Fine. Sleep well. Score one for me."
"I'll try."
"No try. Do."
Richard laughed. "Goodnight."
He set his phone on the nightstand, lay back, and this time, the ceiling held nothing that kept him up. He thought about the gap between Bochum's eight and six. He thought about Schmidt's voice: move the ball before they arrive and keep moving. He thought about Füllkrug handing him a bottle without a smile and meaning something large by it.
He was asleep before eleven.
Match day arrived the way match days always do for a footballer — with that specific shift in the air, something electric and unavoidable that starts the moment you wake up and doesn't leave until long after the whistle.
Richard went through his morning carefully. Breakfast was light — eggs, toast, fruit. No jollof rice before matches, Chidi had once told him, half-joking. He stretched on the living room floor, the house quiet around him, the sunlight coming through the blinds in long warm bars.
He checked his phone. A message from Evan:
Medical team says you're fully cleared. Schmidt names the squad at noon. You're starting.
He put the phone down. Breathed once, slowly.
Starting.
He picked the phone back up and read it again. Then he put it back down.
Starting.
By the time the coach pulled up outside to take him to the stadium, Richard was dressed, calm, and completely ready. He stepped out into the cool Dortmund morning, felt the air on his face, and looked briefly up at a sky that was grey and still and heavy with the kind of quiet that always came before something large.
He got in the bus.
The city moved past the windows. Yellow and black everywhere — scarves in windows, flags on buildings, a man in a replica shirt waiting at a bus stop with a coffee, checking his phone, looking up as the team coach rolled past.
Richard watched him.
The man raised his coffee cup.
Richard didn't know if the gesture was for anyone in particular. But he held it anyway, privately, like a small thing worth keeping.
Then the stadium came into view.
And the city stopped mattering because only the pitch did.