The call-ups arrive on the same morning. Different senders but Same weight.
By evening, both call-ups are public. And the internet does not stay quiet.
Brazil:
Klaus's name is celebrated immediately and his numbers speak for themselves. The Brazilian press call it obvious. Long overdue. Brazil's next great number nine.
@CanarinhoNacao: "Klaus Santos gets called-up. O Touro is going to tear this tournament apart."
@FutebolPuro: "Nobody carries a team like Klaus just watch what happens."
But it is Lucas's call-up that splits the internet in two.
@CanarinhoNacao: "Wait. Lucas Santos called up by GERMANY?? . But his father is Rico Santos. He leaves Brazil and he chooses Germany? This is a betrayal"
@BrazilFanatics: "They dropped him and now he runs to Germany. No loyalty. No spine. He's dead to me."
@FutebolPuro: "Can we talk about how Brazil's coaching staff let Lucas go? He was our player and we pushed him away. This is on us."
@SantosWatch: "People are angry at Lucas for choosing Germany but won't talk about Brazil dropping him and humiliating him publicly. What was he supposed to do?"
@RicardoSantosLegend: "His father is a Brazilian legend. His blood is green and gold. Germany can have his passport but they'll never have his soul."
Germany:
The German reaction is louder than anyone expected. Lucas has been dismantling Ligue 1 defenses with a brand of football that German football rarely produces from within. His signing is treated less like a call-up and more like a discovery.
@DFBOfficial: "Der Brasileiro kommt! 🇩🇪⚽ Welcome to the Mannschaft, Lucas Santos!"
@GermanFootballTalk: "This is exactly what our U-21 squad has been missing, technical quality, unpredictability. Someone defenders can't sleep on. Lucas Santos is the spice this team needs."
@BundesligaFans: "He's Brazilian in his soul and German in his discipline. Best of both worlds. Der Brasileiro. 🔥"
@TaktikFussball: "Analytically, Lucas Santos solves Germany's biggest problem in the final third. We've been too predictable for two years. Not anymore."
@KaiMuller_Fan: "I just want to see him and Kai combine on the left. Please. Coach, please."
Rico watches all of it from his apartment, phone in hand, scrolling through comment after comment.
He doesn't post anything. Doesn't defend anyone. Just watches.
Rico: (to himself, quietly) "Here we go."
Brazil U-21 training camp. Porto Alegre. Tuesday morning.
Days later
Klaus arrives early. The camp is still half-empty when he checks in, kit bag over one shoulder, headphones around his neck. The staff greet him.
He drops his bag in his room tidy, minimal, same as everywhere he lives and heads straight to the pitch.
The head coach of Brazil U-21
COSTA: You're early.
KLAUS: I'm always early.
COSTA: I know. I watched your last few matches.
Klaus looks at him.
COSTA: I need more from you Klaus I need more hunger.
KLAUS: My coach at Queenspark says the same thing.
COSTA: Then listen to both of us. we have players who will create for you. Your only job , the only job I am giving you is to score.
Can you do that? Can you be selfish?
KLAUS: I can.
COSTA: Good. Because I don't want a team player in that box. I want a killer.
Lucas Arrives at Camp
Lucas arrives with Rico, who insisted on flying with him just for the first day. Lucas didn't argue. He didn't say it out loud, but he was glad.
The facilities are immaculate. Precise. Everything labelled, timed, organized. Walking through the training complex feels like walking through a machine.
Lucas looks at Rico.
LUCAS: It's very... German.
RICO: (smiling) Be respectful.
LUCAS: I'm just saying.
The head coach of Germany U-21 is Felix Brandt 52 years old, former Bundesliga midfielder, the architect of Germany's recent shift toward a more technical, possession-based game. He meets Lucas in his office before the first session.
Brandt speaks excellent English. He doesn't waste time.
BRANDT: I know what you can do with the ball, Lucas. I've watched you play, the dribbling, the creativity, the ability to make something from nothing, It's real and It's special. But you play like a man who doesn't trust anyone around him, When you're on the pitch, you hold the ball too long. You try to solve every problem yourself and sometimes not always, but sometimes you make it harder than it needs to be, sometimes it's like you don't know how to pass.
LUCAS: I know how to pass.
BRANDT: (calmly) I know you do. I'm asking you to know when to.
Over the next two weeks, Lucas finds his footing.
It isn't easy. Germany's squad moves with a precision he's never played inside before runs timed to the second, spacing maintained like clockwork. For the first time in his life, Lucas feels like the slowest thinker on the pitch, not physically, mentally.
Brandt is patient but direct. He doesn't ask Lucas to stop being Brazilian. He asks him to pick his moments. Know when to take the man on and when to let the move breathe. Be more physical in the press, win the ball back, not just admire it. Add an edge to his game that defenders can't predict, because right now they know he'll always try to dribble.
By the end of the second week, a journalist covering camp writes a short piece. The headline says it simply:
"Der Brasileiro settles in and Germany U-21 suddenly looks like a very different team."
The FIFA U-21 World Championship. Hosted across three cities. Sixteen nations. Six weeks.
The draw is made. Brazil and Germany are on opposite sides of the bracket.
The path to the final runs through each other only if both win everything.
The world immediately starts doing the mathematics.
Brazil Group Stage:
MATCH 1 — Brazil vs. South Korea U-21.
Klaus starts centrally. He scores twice one tap in from Pedro's cutback, one header from a left wing cross. Brazil win 3-0. Klaus barely celebrates either goal. Just turns and jogs back. Hunters don't celebrate the chase.
MATCH 2 — Brazil vs. Mexico U-21.
Klaus is marked by two defenders for most of the match. He doesn't fight it. He holds his position, drags them wide, creates space. His teammates score three times through the gaps he made. He gets an assist on the third a perfectly timed lay-off and nothing else. Brazil win 3-1.
MATCH 3 — Brazil vs. Ivory Coast U-21. Klaus scores a hat-trick. The first from a backheel flick in the six-yard box. The second from a left-foot curler after turning two defenders in a single movement. The third from a penalty, placed low and hard to the right with no run-up and no hesitation. Brazil win 4-0. After the match, a Brazilian journalist writes: "O Touro is here. Klaus Santos has arrived at this tournament not as a prospect but as the most dangerous striker in the competition."
Germany — Group Stage:
MATCH 1 — Germany vs. France U-21.
Lucas starts on the left. Germany are well-organized, structured, hard to break down. Lucas creates Germany's first goal with a combination play through the middle a give and go with Kai that opens the France defense like a lock. Second goal comes from a Lucas run in behind, square pass, tap in . Germany win 2-0.
MATCH 2 — Germany vs. Japan U-21.
Tight match. Japan are organized and sharp. Germany are struggling to find the final pass. Lucas drops deeper, takes the ball in midfield, and starts pulling the strings from a position that isn't even his. He creates four chances. Two are taken. Germany win 2-1. Brandt says nothing after the match except: "That's the player I see in training."
MATCH 3 — Germany vs. Portugal U-21.
The toughest test so far. Portugal press high and fast. Germany are disrupted. Three minutes in, Lucas wins the ball back with a tackle that earns an enormous cheer from the German fans in the stadium. Lucas scores Germany's only goal, a solo run from his own half, beating three players, before slotting it under the keeper. Germany win 1-0. The goal goes viral before the final whistle has even blown.
@GermanFootballTalk: "Der Brasileiro. FROM HIS OWN HALF. ARE YOU SERIOUS. Brazil is watching this and crying. We had him. we had him, this is what i want
Both teams finish the group stage unbeaten. Both teams finish first.
The Round of 16 draw is tomorrow.
The internet is not waiting. The internet is already at war.
Brazilian U-21 fans:
"Give us Germany in the Round of 16. I want Klaus to end Lucas right now. No mercy, no sentiment, just football."
"No. We save Germany for the FINAL. Let Lucas think he's safe. Let him build hope. Then Klaus crushes it on the biggest stage."
"I just want Lucas to look Klaus in the eyes before kick-off and remember what he walked away from."
German U-21 fans:
"Give us Brazil. NOW. I want them to see what they threw away."
"Lucas vs Klaus. Brother vs brother. This is the game the tournament was built for."
"Brazil rejected Der Brasileiro and now he's going to make them regret it in front of the entire world."
The draw begins in twenty minutes.
Lucas is in his hotel room. He has the draw stream open on his phone but the volume is muted. He is staring at the ceiling.
He doesn't need commentary. He doesn't need noise. He knows what he wants from that bowl. He has known since the day Brazil looked at him and decided he wasn't enough. This isn't about football anymore. It never really was.
It's about the door they shut in his face. The call-up that never came. The silence that followed. And everything he has been building since , every dribble, every goal, every moment the crowd chanted Der Brasileiro has been pointing at one thing.Brazil. On a pitch, with nowhere to hide.
For Klaus this was never about anger. Anger was Lucas's territory. Klaus felt something quieter and heavier the kind of feeling that doesn't shout, it just sits in your chest and waits, legacy, honour. The responsibility of a name that an entire country already worships, and the need to prove that he earned it, not inherited it, not borrowed it, earned it. He knew if they get drawn with Germany it will be more than just another game , it would be personal
Rico sits alone in his apartment. He hasn't eaten. He hasn't moved in an hour.
He is thinking about two boys in two separate rooms, in two separate cities, wearing two separate flags and how both of them, might face eachother, what will happen, will it go as last time, now that there is even more on the line than last time.
The presenter steps up to the podium.
The bowl is full.
The world holds its breath.
End of chapter 15