The morning after the championship dinner, Mateo woke to find himself at the center of a media storm unlike anything he had ever experienced.

His phone, which he had left on silent overnight, was buzzing with an endless stream of notifications. Messages, mentions, tags, articles it was a deluge of digital noise that was both exhilarating and overwhelming.

He sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and opened his social media apps. The first thing he saw was a trending hashtag: #MateoMagic. He scrolled through the feed, his eyes widening with each passing post.

There were videos of his goals, slowed down and analyzed from every conceivable angle. There were memes of his celebration, his face frozen in a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. There were fan art tributes, some beautiful, some bizarre, all created with a passion and a love that was truly humbling. The world, it seemed, had fallen in love with the mute boy from Málaga who had conquered Germany.

But it was the headlines that caught his attention, that made him pause, that stirred a complex mixture of emotions in his chest.

"MATEO ALVAREZ: THE BEST SIGNING OF THE SEASON" - Kicker

"FROM BARCELONA REJECT TO BUNDESLIGA CHAMPION: THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF MATEO ALVAREZ" - Bild

"FREE TRANSFER GENIUS: HOW DORTMUND STOLE THE BARGAIN OF THE CENTURY" - Sport1

"BARCELONA'S BIGGEST MISTAKE? RELEASING MATEO ALVAREZ" - Marca

He read them all, one by one, his expression a mixture of pride and discomfort. They were praising him, celebrating him, calling him a genius, a steal, a miracle. But there was something about the way they framed the narrative that felt... hollow. Recycled. As if his entire journey, his entire life, could be reduced to a simple, clickable headline.

"Barcelona reject makes good." "Free transfer becomes superstar." "The one that got away."

It was all true, of course. But it was also incomplete. It was the CliffsNotes version of his story, the sanitized, media-friendly version that left out the pain, the struggle, the countless nights of doubt and despair.

They saw the triumph. But they didn't see the cost.

Isabella, who had spent the night in his room, stirred beside him. She opened her eyes, saw the look on his face, and immediately understood. "The media?" she asked, her voice still thick with sleep.

He nodded, handing her his phone. She scrolled through the headlines, her expression growing more and more concerned. "They're making you into a fairy tale," she said softly. "The underdog who conquered the world. It's a good story. But it's not the whole story."

"It feels strange," Mateo signed, his hands moving slowly, thoughtfully. "Like they're talking about someone else. Like I'm a character in a movie, not a real person."

"That's because to them, you are," Isabella said, her voice tinged with a sadness that mirrored his own. "You're not Mateo Alvarez, the boy who loves physics and plays with orphans and misses his mother. You're 'Mateo Alvarez, the Barcelona reject who became a champion.' You're a headline. A hashtag. A narrative."

She paused, then added, "But you know who you are. And the people who matter know who you are. Don't let them define you. Don't let them reduce you to a story."

He took the phone back and continued scrolling. There was an article in El País with the headline: "BARCELONA'S LOSS, DORTMUND'S GAIN: THE MATEO ALVAREZ PHENOMENON." The article was a deep dive into his time at La Masia, complete with quotes from former coaches and teammates.

"He was always talented, but he was too small, too fragile," one unnamed coach was quoted as saying. "We thought we were making the right decision. In hindsight, maybe we were too hasty."

Mateo felt a flash of anger.

Too hasty? They had destroyed him.

They had taken a broken boy and had told him he wasn't good enough for making money, that he would never make it, that he should give up on his dreams. And now, now that he had proven them wrong, they were trying to rewrite history, to soften the blow, to make themselves look less cruel.

He kept scrolling. There was a Twitter thread from a prominent football analyst, breaking down his season statistics, comparing him to other young talents, predicting a glorious future.

The thread had thousands of likes, hundreds of retweets. People were debating his position, his potential, his market value. They were dissecting him like a lab specimen, reducing him to numbers and percentages and projected transfer fees.

And then there were the Barcelona fans. Some were gracious, congratulating him on his success, admitting that the club had made a mistake.

But others were bitter, defensive, even hostile. They claimed that he had only succeeded because the Bundesliga was easier, because Dortmund's system suited him, because he had gotten lucky.

They claimed that he would never have made it at Barcelona, that he was too limited, too one-dimensional, too... something.

He read their comments, their tweets, their hot takes, and he felt a familiar ache in his chest. The rejection, even a year later, still stung.

The doubt, the dismissal, the casual cruelty of strangers on the internet, it was a reminder that no matter how much he achieved, there would always be people who wanted to tear him down, who wanted to diminish his accomplishments, who wanted to prove that he was a fraud.

Lukas, who had been sleeping in his own bed across the room, finally woke up. He took one look at Mateo's face and immediately knew something was wrong. "Let me guess," he said, sitting up and stretching. "You made the mistake of reading the comments section."

Mateo nodded, a wry smile on his face.

"First rule of being famous," Lukas said, walking over and snatching the phone from his hands. "Never, ever read the comments. It's a cesspool of hot takes, bad opinions, and people who have never kicked a ball in their lives telling you how to play football." He tossed the phone onto the bed. "Come on. Let's get breakfast. You need to get out of your head."

They went down to the hotel restaurant, where the rest of the team was already gathered. The mood was relaxed, celebratory, but there was also an undercurrent of exhaustion. The past few days had been a whirlwind, and the players were starting to feel the effects.

Marco Reus, who was sitting at a table with Hummels and Großkreutz, waved them over. "Ah, the man of the hour," he said with a grin. "Have you seen the headlines? You're the most talked-about player in Europe right now."

Mateo signed that he had, his expression a mixture of pride and discomfort.

"Don't let it go to your head," Hummels said, his tone serious but kind. "The media builds you up so they can tear you down. Enjoy the praise, but don't believe the hype. And definitely don't believe the criticism. Just keep doing what you're doing. Keep working hard. Keep being humble. And let your feet do the talking."

It was good advice, the kind of wisdom that only came from years of experience at the highest level. Hummels had been through the media circus countless times, had been praised and criticized in equal measure, and had learned to navigate the treacherous waters of public opinion with grace and dignity.

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