Ten days before the first leg Schmidt changed the training schedule.
Not dramatically — one additional session per week, the film work extended by twenty minutes, a specific tactical phase added to the end of Wednesday's session that had not been there before. Small shifts that individually meant nothing and collectively told the squad that the preparation had moved into its final, most serious phase.
Richard felt the shift from the first session.
Monday's film session ran fifty minutes.
Arsenal. All of it.
Schmidt had divided the analysis into three areas — their pressing structure, their attacking patterns, their set piece organization — and spent roughly equal time on each. The co-commentator from the Bayern broadcast had called Arteta's pressing the most sophisticated in the competition and the film confirmed why. It was not a high press exactly — not the kind that committed bodies recklessly forward. It was more coordinated than that. Triggers built into the shape that activated the press at specific moments — when the ball went to the center back's weaker foot, when the goalkeeper had the ball and the fullback was slow to offer, when the opposition midfielder received with his back to goal. The press arriving not randomly but at the exact moments the opponent was most vulnerable to it.
Richard watched it twice.
Then watched Ødegaard specifically for fifteen minutes.
The Norwegian captain was the brain of the entire structure. His positioning without the ball told the system when to press and when to hold. His movement with it created the spaces the wide players arrived into. He was not the most spectacular player in the Arsenal squad — Saka's direct running and Martinelli's energy were more immediately visible — but he was the most important. The axis around which everything else rotated.
Richard understood this instinctively because it was what he was for Dortmund.
Two number tens. Two axes. One pitch.
He wrote three things in his notebook.
Then went out to train.
Tuesday Adeyemi texted.
That Miles Davis album. What did you think?
Richard was in the car with Chidi, heading to the training ground, and typed back one-handed: The spaces. The way he uses silence.
A pause. Then: exactly. You get it.
Then: Lena wants to set up that video thing. Low key. Your house, one camera, you just talking about football. No brand stuff. Think about it.
Richard put his phone away.
Thought about it for the twenty-minute drive.
By the time Chidi pulled into the Brackel car park he had not decided but the idea had moved from a no to something more honest than that.
Wednesday's session was the most intense of the week.
Schmidt had set up a specific defensive shape drill designed to replicate Arsenal's press triggers — using the analysis team's data to identify the exact moments and positions from which the press came, then running Dortmund's build-up through those triggers at match speed until the responses were automatic.
It was hard. Arsenal's timing was precise enough that even in a simulated environment the press arrived with uncomfortable speed. Richard gave the ball away twice in the first twenty minutes — both times caught slightly wrong-footed by the timing, the half-second he usually had to see the picture compressed to nothing.
Schmidt stopped the drill.
"The trigger is the center back's right foot," he said. "When the ball goes to Schlotterbeck's right foot they activate. Not before. Not after." He looked at Richard. "Which means before the ball arrives at Schlotterbeck's right foot — you must already be moving."
Richard nodded.
They ran it again.
This time he moved before the trigger. The press arrived and found the space he had just vacated rather than him inside it. The sequence continued. The picture opened.
Schmidt said nothing.
Which meant correct.
After training Jobe appeared alongside Richard in the corridor.
"You saw the Arsenal press clips," Jobe said.
"Yes."
"Ødegaard's positioning."
"Yes."
Jobe was quiet for a moment. "He's the one who sets the tempo. If we can disrupt his positioning in the first twenty minutes — not press him aggressively, just make him slightly uncertain about his starting position — the whole press becomes less coordinated."
Richard looked at him. "Schmidt said the same thing. Thursday's session."
Jobe smiled slightly. "Then we're all watching the same thing."
"That's usually how it works," Richard said.
They walked out to the car park together.
"Arsenal away," Jobe said. "The Emirates. If we get there."
"When we get there," Richard said.
Jobe looked at him sideways. "Since when are you the confident one?"
"I'm not confident," Richard said. "I just watched the film. We can play through their press. We've done it against better pressers than Arsenal this season."
Jobe thought about that. "Real Madrid weren't pressers."
"Bayern were."
"Fair," Jobe said. "Bayern were."
They reached the car park. Chidi was leaning against the car eating something from a paper bag with the contentment of a man who had found a good market stall that morning.
"Bratwurst?" he offered.
"Where did you get that?" Richard said.
"Market near the training ground. Old man. Very strong opinions about cycling."
Richard stared at him.
"Werner?" he said.
Chidi looked at the bratwurst. "He didn't give his name. He gave his opinions about cycling and then the bratwurst." He looked at Richard. "You know him?"
"We met last Saturday."
Chidi looked at the bratwurst with new respect. "Small city," he said, and ate.
Thursday evening Richard called his mother.
She answered on the second ring.
"The shelf," she said immediately.
He laughed. "Hello to you too."
"Your aunt saw the photograph Chidi posted. She called me this morning. She wanted to know if the awards were real."
"They're real."
"I told her they were real. She didn't believe me. I sent her the Bundesliga website." A pause. "She still thinks it's edited somehow."
"It's not edited."
"I know it's not edited. I watched every match." A pause that carried something larger than its length. "The shelf. How does it look now?"
Richard walked to the living room.
Stood in front of it.
"Like a beginning," he said.
His mother was quiet for a moment on the other end of the line.
"Good," she said softly. "That's what it should look like."
"There's a lot of space still," Richard said. "Around the trophies. Empty wall."
"Good," she said again. The same word carrying a completely different weight the second time — not reassurance, recognition. She understood what he meant. "Fill it slowly. Properly. One at a time."
"Yes."
"And don't put them too close together," she said. "Give them room. Each one deserves its own space."
Richard looked at the shelf.
The two Player of the Month trophies. The four Champions League MOTM certificates. The eleven Bundesliga MOTM plaques. Fifteen things. Half a season.
And all around them — to the left, below, above — the empty wall.
"Nine days," his mother said. "Arsenal."
"Nine days," Richard said.
"Come home after the season," she said. "Before Nigeria. Before everything. Come home for a few days."
"I will," he said.
"Promise me."
"I promise."
She said goodnight in the way she said goodnight — warmly, completely, with the specific quality of a woman who put everything she had into small daily moments because she understood that small daily moments were what a life was made of.
He stood in front of the shelf for a moment after she hung up.
Then he straightened one of the MOTM plaques — it had been slightly crooked, or he had decided it was slightly crooked — and went to make tea.
Friday Lena texted.
Not Adeyemi. Lena directly, which meant she had gotten his number from Adeyemi, which meant Adeyemi had decided the conversation was happening whether Richard had made a decision or not.
One hour. Your house. One camera. You talk about football the way you actually think about it. I edit it properly. We release it after the Arsenal first leg when the conversation around you is at maximum. No brand integration. Just you.
Richard read it.
Typed: After the Arsenal first leg.
Lena: *After the Arsenal first leg. When you're either through to the semifinal final or — *
Richard: We'll be through.
A pause.
Lena: Then after the first leg. Deal?
Richard looked at the message for a moment.
Then: Deal.
He put the phone down.
Picked up his tactical notebook.
Eight days.
Arsenal.
The empty wall waited.
Saturday morning Richard woke at seven and went to the shelf before he went to the kitchen.
He stood in front of it in the early light — the May morning coming through the living room window at the angle it had found, warm and certain.
Fifteen awards.
He looked at them properly. Not quickly, not in passing — the way he had started looking at the shelf recently, with the full attention he gave to things that mattered.
The first Player of the Month. February. Six weeks into his Dortmund career. He remembered receiving it and not knowing quite what to do with the feeling — too early to celebrate, too significant to dismiss.
The Madrid MOTM certificates. Both legs. The hat trick night's certificate in the middle — slightly larger than the others, the Champions League branding more prominent. He looked at it for a long time.
Then the Bayern ones.
Then the Bundesliga plaques — eleven of them, each one a match, each match a full story compressed into a small piece of engraved metal.
He thought about the Ballon d'Or without saying the thought fully to himself.
He thought about World Cups and AFCON trophies and the Super Eagles shirt and what it would feel like to add something to this shelf that represented not just a club but a nation.
He thought about the empty wall.
Then he went to make coffee.
Chidi arrived at eight-thirty without announcement — he had a key, which had happened gradually and without formal discussion, the way certain things happened between people who had known each other long enough.
He came in, set his keys on the counter, and stood in the living room doorway looking at the shelf.
"Lena's video thing," Chidi said.
"After the Arsenal first leg," Richard said.
"Good timing." Chidi looked at the shelf for a moment. "You moved the plaques."
"I spread them out more," Richard said. "They were too close together."
Chidi studied the shelf. "Your mum told you to give them room."
"Yes."
"She's right." He looked at the empty wall. Then at Richard. "You know what that wall looks like to me?"
"What."
"A career," Chidi said simply. "The beginning of one." He looked at it for another moment. Then headed to the kitchen. "Make coffee. Eight days to Arsenal. Let's go through the film."
Richard looked at the shelf once more.
The beginning of one.
He went to make coffee.