Friday morning at Ciutat Esportiva arrived with crisp air and empty corridors.
Lorenzo walked in at eight, a full hour before the rest of the squad was due to report. Sofía was already inside the medical room, tablet in hand, her dark hair pulled back into the exact same tight arrangement from Monday. She glanced up as the door swung open, skipping any morning greeting.
"Up on the treatment table."
Lorenzo hopped up onto the padded vinyl without a word.
She spent the next twenty minutes running through her assessment checklist, checking muscle flexibility, measuring joint resistance, and asking targeted questions about pain thresholds. Lorenzo answered directly and cleanly. He had quickly realized that trying to downplay discomfort with Sofía was pointless because the bio-sensors gave away the truth before he could finish a sentence.
At the end of the examination, she set the tablet flat on the counter and folded her arms.
"You're cleared for tomorrow," Sofía said, tapping a note onto her screen. "Sixty minutes maximum. If Martino tries to push you past that mark, I will quite literally walk down to the touchline and drag you off myself. Are we clear on that?"
Lorenzo managed a faint smile. "Yeah, loud and clear."
"Good." She glanced back up, studying his face for a beat. "Honestly, your muscle tissue is bouncing back faster than I expected. The baseline markers look significantly better today. Whatever you were doing on Wednesday night with your legs up, just keep doing it."
"So, sitting in the stands with Cecilia works?"
"Sitting pretty much anywhere that isn't running full sprints on a pitch," she corrected, tapping the tablet twice. "Sixty minutes, Lorenzo. Say it back to me so I know it actually registered."
"Sixty minutes, doctor."
"Great. Go get your activation work in. Pintus is probably already pacing the gym."
An hour later in the manager's office, Martino was clearly struggling to get on board with the whole thing.
"Look, the kid isn't fragile, Sofía," Martino said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his temples. "He literally scored a hat-trick against Real Madrid less than a week ago."
"He scored three goals and then his hamstring completely locked up because his workload was off the charts," Sofía countered smoothly, not giving an inch. "I'm just laying out what his body can realistically tolerate right now. Sixty minutes is the safe limit. If we push him any further, we're basically gambling with a soft-tissue tear right before Lisbon. That's just the reality of the data, coach."
Martino stared across the desk at her for a long, quiet second, weighing the risk. Finally, he let out a resigned grunt. "Fine. Sixty minutes."
As Sofía slipped out into the corridor, Pautasso leaned in through the open doorway, raising an eyebrow. "You're actually going to stick to that cap, Tata?"
"Sixty minutes is usually more than enough time for him to grab a couple of goals anyway."
"Well, yeah, assuming you start him."
"Of course I'm starting him," Martino muttered, tapping a marker against his tactics board. "That's the whole point of having him ready."
MD32: Osasuna vs Barcelona. El Sadar Stadium, Pamplona. Saturday, March 29th.
El Sadar was a fraction of Camp Nou's size, holding just under twenty thousand spectators, but the close-quartered ground made every single hostile voice ring out clearly across the turf. Osasuna was locked in a brutal relegation scrap, and the atmosphere turned venomous the moment Lorenzo's name echoed through the stadium speakers.
The Osasuna fans booed relentlessly. Lorenzo ignored the noise, focusing on tying his laces.
In the tunnel, Messi glanced sideways, catching Lorenzo rolling his shoulders loose. "You feeling actually ready for this?"
"Feeling pretty well-rested, at least," Lorenzo replied, giving his boots a quick tap against the concrete floor.
"Those aren't really the same thing, you know," Messi said, tilting his head slightly.
"Well, it's definitely close enough for today."
Messi let out a quiet chuckle, offering a wry grin. "Fair enough. Let's see if sixty minutes is really all you need out there."
As it turned out, he needed far less than that.
In the 8th minute, Iniesta clipped a curling ball into the left channel. Neymar gathered it in stride, isolated the Osasuna fullback with quick feet, and drove a low cross toward the edge of the six-yard box. Lorenzo timed his diagonal cut between both central defenders, meeting the delivery first-time with his right instep to lift it hard into the roof of the net.
Fweet—!
0-1.
The home stands went completely silent. Lorenzo jogged to the corner flag with a faint smirk, trading low-fives with his teammates.
"Look at that, a completely refreshed Lorenzo Valentini," Santiago remarked from the commentary booth, leaning into his mic. "First clean touch of the match, his very first look on goal, and he buries it without a second thought. Barely eight minutes on the clock."
Inés gave a quiet laugh, nodding along. "Honestly, Santiago, Osasuna probably spent their entire week banking on a leg-weary Barcelona front three after that exhausting Clásico. Instead, Lorenzo looks just about as sharp and explosive as ever."
Barcelona controlled the tempo from there. In the 24th minute, Messi doubled the tally with a signature curling effort from the edge of the D.
0-2.
And just before the interval, Neymar capped off a swift transition after picking up a through-ball from Xavi. By halftime, Barcelona held a commanding 3-0 cushion while Valdés had comfortably dealt with Osasuna's few long-range attempts.
Inside the quiet dressing room at the break, Martino made his way over to Lorenzo's locker, keeping his voice down. "How's that leg holding up?"
"Just the usual match fatigue, mostly," Lorenzo replied, carefully unlacing his left boot to relieve the pressure. "The hamstring feels a little tight if I stretch it out, but there isn't any sharp pain or anything. I can definitely handle the full sixty."
Martino studied him for a second, then gave a firm nod. "You give me the sixty, and then you're coming straight off."
"Fair enough, coach," Lorenzo said, looking up with a slight smile. "I'm good with that."
Fifteen minutes into the second period, Iniesta found the net for a fourth. In the 61st minute, the fourth official raised the electronic board near the touchline.
Out: #9. In: #20 Sergi Roberto.
A smattering of polite applause rippled across the away section as Lorenzo trotted off. He shook Martino's hand, draped a jacket over his shoulders, and sat down beside Pintus. Sofía sat a few seats down, scrolling through his live output metrics.
Sofía glanced up from the glow of her screen, raising an eyebrow at him. "You went two minutes over your limit, you know."
Lorenzo reached for a water bottle, letting out a breathless laugh. "Come on, sixty-two isn't that bad, right?"
"It is sixty-two minutes," she corrected, tapping a note onto the display.
"That's basically right on target."
"It barely sits inside my acceptable margin of error," Sofía replied dryly, though her tone softened just a fraction. "Just don't make a habit of pushing your luck out there."
The final whistle blew at 4-0, extending Barcelona's historic unbeaten run to thirty-two games. The team boarded the charter flight back to Catalonia with three points, a clean sheet, and a striker resting comfortably without aching joints.
By Sunday morning, the Spanish press had entirely flipped the narrative. Media outlets that had questioned the resting policy earlier in the week ran bold spreads about the tactical benefits of managed minutes. Even the Madrid dailies conceded that a healthy Barcelona attack presented a massive tactical headache for the rest of the continent.
Lorenzo paid little attention to the sports pages.
He spent Sunday afternoon relaxed on his living room sofa with an ice wrap soothing his left thigh, watching German football archives on the flat screen. Bayern Munich was looming large on the European horizon, with five weeks left to study their defensive setup.
Manuel Neuer appeared on screen, making an acrobatic reflex save that defied standard physics.
Lorenzo paused the footage, rewound the clip five seconds, and watched the positioning again.
You know what time it is! Drop those Power Stones to keep us climbing the ranks!
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