Jin Hayes, Borussia Dortmund's new darling, had been named in the starting eleven for two consecutive matches.
For the club's fans, this news was met with unbridled joy.
Another home game meant another pilgrimage to Signal Iduna Park. The Heinrich family packed up their truck and made the twelve-kilometre journey from their home near the training ground to the stadium.
The Heinrichs' pickup truck was impossible to miss on the autobahn.
In the bed of the truck, they'd secured a huge hand-painted sign: "UNSER RETTER AUS DEM OSTEN! JIN! FÜHRE UNS ZUM SIEG!" — "Our Saviour from the East! Jin! Lead us to Victory!"
Most of the surrounding traffic was also heading to the match. Drivers passing by rolled down their windows, offering thumbs-up and cheerful honks.
Some of the more enthusiastic fans leaned dangerously out of their cars, waving scarves and shouting.
"JIN! UNBESIEGBAR!"
"JIN HAYES! JIN HAYES!"
Jin Hayes's standing in the hearts of Dortmund's faithful had risen immeasurably.
"See? Today against Hertha Berlin, with Jin starting, it's a guaranteed win," Hans declared confidently.
"Absolutely," Maria agreed, nodding.
In the back seat, old Fritz was already celebrating, waving a can of beer. "Victory is certain! Jin is victory!"
His eldest son, Frank, had already departed with the team on the bus. Only Anna remained in the back, pinching her nose at the smell of her grandfather's beer.
"Can he really do it?" she murmured, more to herself than anyone.
She stared out the window, her eyes clouded with worry.
During that Schalke match, when Jin Hayes had been substituted in the eightieth minute, Anna had noticed something others missed. His jersey had been absolutely covered in grass stains and mud. Not a clean patch anywhere.
And his shirt had been soaked through with sweat. When he'd walked off the pitch, his steps had been unsteady, his legs heavy. A fifteen-year-old shouldn't have to push himself that hard.
European U17 matches were usually two forty-minute halves.
A fifteen-year-old playing ninety minutes of top-flight football, enduring relentless physical battles, and constantly using explosive, high-energy dribbling moves…
Frank had hinted more than once, in his professional capacity, that this kind of intensity put Jin Hayes at risk of injury.
Anna closed her eyes briefly, her lips moving in a silent prayer. She wasn't praying for the team to win.
Instead, she whispered words from Psalm 121.
"The Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm…"
>>>
The second time is never quite as exciting as the first.
Jin Hayes was, of course, thinking about starting.
*Get your heads out of the gutter!!!
Under pressure from the fans, from the media narrative led by club legend Matthäus, and from subtle nudges by CEO Watzke,
Head coach Thomas Doll had finally bent. He'd abandoned his stubborn insistence on a conservative, Tinga-centric approach.
Instead, he'd embraced youth. Nuri Şahin, Jin Hayes, and Mats Hummels were all now regular starters.
Thomas Doll had even gone one further, promoting a young attacking midfielder from the youth setup to the first team: Marco Reus.
For the past week, Reus had been training alongside Jin Hayes and the others.
It was almost as if Thomas Doll had simply given up.
Young players are so good, are they?
Fine. I'll play the young players then.
Marco Reus was quietly bewildered by it all.
He'd dreamed of breaking into the first team since his days in the Dortmund youth system. But he'd been repeatedly overlooked, his slight frame deemed too weak by academy coaches.
In 2006, he'd come within inches of being released. He'd even joined Rot Weiss Ahlen in the third tier, his career seemingly at a dead end.
But the academy coach had seen something in his dedication during training, allowing him to stay for another two years, playing for the U18s.
He hadn't been jealous when his friends Nuri Şahin and Mats Hummels had been promoted.
But then the first team had gone and loaned a fifteen-year-old kid from Arsenal. And he was… well, he was young. Very young.
Reus had felt a stab of injustice at first.
He's not faster than me. He's just as skinny as me. His technique is… okay, his technique is a little better than mine. But still. Why him?
Then Jin Hayes had started delivering. Match after match. That goal against Wolfsburg, dribbling past six players, had finally convinced Reus.
Now, sitting on the bench, watching Jin Hayes tear through the Hertha Berlin defence, Reus found himself on his feet, cheering.
"WUNDERBAR!! BRAVISSIMO!!"
Anyone watching might have thought they were at the theatre.
Jin Hayes had just executed a perfect Marseille roulette on the wing, gliding past two defenders. The ball had seemed destined for the touchline, but he'd somehow hooked it back, spun, and left a third opponent grasping at air.
Flawless.
The Borussia Dortmund fans had seen this move so often on their touchline that they'd given it a name.
"Kung-Fu-Roulette."
In the words of one fan interviewed after the match: "Watching Jin Hayes play is like watching a martial arts film. Every time he does something, it overturns everything you thought you knew about football."
The Kung-Fu Roulette had carried him deep into Hertha Berlin's half. There was simply no stopping him.
>>>
Heinrich Berenberg, the veteran Sport1 commentator, was in full flow.
"JIN! HE'S THROUGH! UNSTOPPABLE!! JIN—SHOOT!!!"
Beside him in the commentary box, guest pundit Lothar Matthäus could only stare, momentarily speechless. Berenberg's excitement was infectious.
One-on-one with the goalkeeper. Unmarked. The entire goal gaping.
Anyone would shoot.
Jin Hayes was no exception!
Shoot!
BANG—
His hips rotated, driving his thigh forward. His lower leg whipped through like a striking snake, connecting cleanly with the ball.
He'd spent six months working on his finishing. Surely, even with his dubious technique, he could score from here?
The result…
Jin Hayes stared in disbelief as the ball sailed past the far post.
It was meant to be a crisp, driven shot with his instep. Instead, he'd caught it with the inside of his foot, sending a looping, curling effort towards the corner flag.
The Hertha Berlin defenders could only watch, bewildered, as the ball arced harmlessly past the goal.
Until, at the last possible moment, a desperate, outstretched leg appeared.
A sliding challenge. A redirected ball. The back of the net bulging.
"TOOOOOOOR!!! ALEXANDER FREI!!!"
"Borussia Dortmund take the lead at home!"
"Another connection between Jin Hayes and Frei! That's Jin's eleventh league assist of the season—he now sits alone at the top of the charts!"
"And Alexander Frei has scored his sixteenth goal! Level with Bayern's Luca Toni at the summit of the scoring charts!"
"What an efficient, devastating partnership!"
Berenberg's voice was cracking with excitement, his commentary a relentless torrent that left Matthäus no room to speak.
Sport1 had specifically booked the legendary Matthäus to add gravitas to their Dortmund coverage. But the veteran commentator was stealing the show.
Only when Berenberg finally paused for breath did Matthäus manage to interject.
"That dribbling from Jin on the wing," Matthäus said, shaking his head in admiration. "That's his signature. It's almost impossible to stop if you don't have the physicality to match him."
He paused, studying the replay.
"And that ball into the box… It looked like a shot that got away from him, to be honest. But it ended up being a perfect pass."
From Jin Hayes's body language, it was obvious. That was a shot. A mis-hit shot.
Everyone else—the defenders, the goalkeeper, even Alexander Frei himself—had assumed it was a deliberate cross.
Frei wrapped Jin Hayes in a bear hug, almost crushing the air from his lungs with the enthusiasm of his celebration.
"JIN! WUNDERBAR! What a pass! How did you know I'd be there?"
"Uh…" Jin Hayes wheezed, trying to breathe. "Because you're the top scorer. I knew you'd find the space."
"You're my brother! MAN!"
Frei, the powerful Swiss striker, hugged him tighter. The force was comparable to one of Aunt Maria's embraces.
I was trying to shoot.
Jin Hayes's inner thoughts screamed silently into the chaos.
...
With a one-goal advantage, Borussia Dortmund played with a relaxed confidence. The midfield ticked over smoothly, orchestrated by Nuri Şahin.
After several Bundesliga appearances, the nineteen-year-old had grown into a reliable presence in the centre of the pitch.
Compared to the Brazilian veteran Tinga—who seemed increasingly prone to losing possession and strolling through games—Şahin was clearly the more dependable option.
Especially when it came to his telepathic understanding with Jin Hayes.
Just before half-time, Şahin spotted the run. A perfectly weighted long pass split the Hertha Berlin defence.
A yellow and black shirt surged onto it from the right flank.
"JIN!!! HE'S ON TO IT!! WHAT A FIRST TOUCH!!!"
Berenberg's commentary remained at its characteristic fever pitch.
Jin Hayes stretched to collect the ball, the Hertha left-back clinging to his shirt, tugging desperately, trying to disrupt his control.
In response, Jin Hayes did something utterly unexpected. He used a rabona—his right foot wrapping behind his left—to kill the ball dead and change direction in one fluid motion, leaving his marker completely wrong-footed.
The defender spun helplessly, grabbing at empty air. He didn't even see which way Jin Hayes had gone.
Clear of his man, Jin Hayes drove towards the goal.
His dribbling had already triggered the five-dribble threshold, and he felt the familiar surge of energy in his right foot.
But the moment lacked that elusive, ethereal quality required for a shot enhancement. The timing wasn't quite right.
So instead, he delivered a cross.
It was whipped in with pace and a vicious, dipping curve—the kind of ball that defenders hate and goalkeepers dread. It threaded the needle between two centre-backs, evaded the goalkeeper's outstretched gloves, and arrived perfectly at Alexander Frei's feet.
Frei barely had to move. He simply stuck out a boot, and the ball rebounded into the back of the net.
"THERE IT IS AGAIN!! ALEXANDER FREI!! HIS SECOND OF THE NIGHT!"
"The Jin–Frei connection strikes once more!"
Lothar Matthäus, now accustomed to Jin Hayes's dribbling wizardry, found himself praising the pass instead.
"The technique on that grounded cross is exceptional. The curve, the weight, the trajectory—all perfectly judged."
He paused, then added with a wry smile: "You could put a tin can in front of goal and he'd still find it."
Until recently, Jin Hayes had been known merely as a flashy dribbler. Now, his passing was developing into a weapon of its own.
How far could this kid go? What would he evolve into next?
The thought made Matthäus shiver.
"If only he played for our German national team," he murmured, almost to himself.