5 calories

August 20th. The first match of the new season. Bayern Munich secured a 3-1 victory over Bayer Leverkusen at the Allianz Arena, a beautiful way to kick off the campaign.

This was Karl's first time wearing the captain's armband in an official major tournament this season. After battling hard for the entire match, his hair was matted with sweat, but under the brilliant spotlights, the moisture only made him shine more brightly. That familiar, handsome face—now appearing on the giant stadium screens and in living rooms across the country—paired with his redesigned jersey, made every fan finally feel that the new season had truly arrived.

After the final whistle, he led the entire team in thanking the home crowd.

The first match of the new season was exceptionally chaotic. Most of the fans were so excited they couldn't stop, chanting the team anthem for a long time and clapping along with Karl’s gestures, looking like a group of well-behaved children led by a teacher.

However, the South Stand, home to the die-hard ultras, was filled with angry shouts today. Objects were continuously thrown after the match—thrown at their own players—in protest against the new round of Bundesliga voting that Bayern was pushing, which would leave no room for any changes to the 50+1 policy.

For them, there was no line more fundamental than this. Whenever the Bayern board tried to sneakily touch that policy, they would immediately jump up, ready to storm Säbener Straße, stab Rummenigge and Hoeneß, and hang them from the lampposts outside the Allianz Arena as a warning that no one should ever think of crossing that line again.

This made the Bayer Leverkusen players reluctant to leave. They lingered on the pitch, moving slowly, frequently looking back to watch the spectacle.

It was easy to tell that the younger players lacked experience in watching such drama. The veterans would just stand with their hands on their hips, chatting while glancing over. But the twin stars of Leverkusen, Havertz and Brandt, who had burst onto the scene over the past two years, had no such reservations. They stood at the tunnel entrance, openly staring in bewilderment. At one point, they were even huddled together, looking genuinely shocked. Eventually, they seemed to grasp the absurdity of it all, and after sharing a moment of "I just remembered something funny," they covered their mouths and ran off.

Although Bayern fans later trashed the pair on social media for their laughter, it didn't stop others from mocking Bayern fans for starting the season by causing chaos at their own home ground.

Moreover, the reason this protest gained so much attention was that the most popular captain, Karl, was caught in the middle of it. The broadcast captured many shots; one sign was scrawled in bright red paint: "Captain (crossed out) Traitor (enlarged)." Another depicted Rummenigge and Hoeneß leading a dog, with the captain's armband on the dog’s arm, implying that Karl was a lapdog for the board.

These fans were protesting because Karl had not publicly stated his opposition to the board, nor had he stood with the fans. Several small but notoriously loud ultra groups had spent the summer calling out to Karl, hoping the captain would clarify his position, yet he had remained silent.

They believed Karl should stand with them, just as he had always expressed, and just as the fans had always believed. That was precisely why they loved, trusted, and supported him.

If he couldn't do that, he was a traitor!

The latter sign, due to its intense personal insult, was entirely scrubbed from the broadcast after the fact. Anything circulating on the internet was met with legal action. While this was standard procedure, some felt it was a restriction of free speech, claiming that Karl’s team was covering up the truth, deleting all the "dirt" to maintain the image of a flawless captain.

Although the club relied on its fans and was currently in a precarious situation, the Bayern board was furious. They might ignore protests against the 50+1 rule, but insulting both Karl and the two chairmen was a public slap in the face that they would not tolerate. The fan responsible was not only identified and evicted but also banned from the stadium for life. This ignited the ultra group he belonged to, as well as several other smaller factions. Rummenigge, however, openly declared in the evening paper:

"I will never acknowledge such people as Bayern fans. Their violence, discrimination, and insults only smear the image of our community. True supporters with the Bayern spirit would never stab their own comrades in the back!"

*Bild* almost printed this statement with a red line through it and an annotation: "Oh, really?" Or perhaps they would have rewritten it to: "True supporters with the Bayern spirit would never stab their own comrades in the back! P.S. Fists excluded."

The Bayern board often "revoked" the fan status of ultras, but since they were "ultras," would they ever care? The ultra groups were already going mad over the 50+1 issue. That very night, they united with more opposition groups, issuing a statement that Rummenigge was the true parasite of Bayern, calling for everyone to unite, impeach him, and drive him out of the sacred Allianz Arena!

This also reignited protests regarding the charity match. The 50+1 policy was most closely tied to the economic interests of the fans; for example, as long as 51% of the club was controlled by members (fans), they could never force through unfavorable terms, such as raising ticket prices.

In the eyes of many fans, the charity match was also a form of economic exploitation. They shouted:

"If you want to help Augsburg, why not use your own budget to donate instead of making your fans buy extra tickets?"

Other fans didn't oppose the form of the charity match, but still opposed the recipient:

"Augsburg’s downfall is their own fault! They are showing how terrible the outcome is when you let a dictator control a club. We should never help such a club!"

The match was a done deal; if you didn't buy a ticket, someone else would. The Bayern board covered their ears and acted as if they heard nothing. Rummenigge was too arrogant to even address questions about the charity match, dismissing any criticism from fans as mere overreaction.

This drove his opponents to the brink of rage, leading them to call for even more intense protests.

Even though fans of most Bundesliga clubs despised Bayern, they found themselves glued to their phones, newspapers, and televisions every day, watching the drama with great enjoyment, unable to look away—

*Oh, Bayern, you really do spoil us!*

*Without you, who else would give us such a chaotic show to watch every day?*

Many didn't know if Karl saw the protests from the sidelines. They hoped he hadn't, but most were aware that someone like Karl couldn't possibly be oblivious to the public opinion storm surrounding him. And indeed, he wasn't. While he was sitting in the locker room after the match, his agent, Ulrike Bauer, sent him screenshots and told him she was already handling it, so he shouldn't worry.

Karl couldn't say if he cared or didn't care.

To say he cared sounded overly sentimental; he had been here for so many years and was accustomed to these things. Plenty of others had been insulted. He was truly a favorite; he couldn't lie and say the fans didn't love him—even the ultra groups rarely expressed dissatisfaction with him. But to say he didn't care wasn't true either. He could never like how the murky, ignorant malice flowed out of the bright, purely red South Stand, like mold crawling over a perfect tomato.

The tomato could never escape the mold, for the tomato’s own rich, abundant juices were the very foundation upon which the mold grew.

The essence of any human or human group was a tomato crawling with mold. It was only because hate existed that love could exist; only because ugliness existed could beauty be defined. Karl knew this, yet after all these years, he still couldn't accept it. He even loathed this trait within himself, hating that he, too, was a tomato destined to grow mold—or perhaps, one that already had plenty.

"I wish I weren't human," he once said while watching horses at Müller’s house. "I'd rather be one of your horses."

It was a rare moment of genuine vulnerability, but Müller choked on his water and, after a long while, told him never to say that again. Karl realized immediately that even Müller wouldn't understand this fundamental self-loathing, so he never spoke such "wrong" words again.

Recently, he hadn't dared to tell Müller that he wanted to retire—or more accurately, he especially couldn't tell Müller. It was like a shadow walking into the sun; once touched by the light, it automatically retreated.

Karl wasn't afraid that the other person wouldn't understand; he was afraid that after not understanding, they would try to change or "help" him.

He didn't dare gamble with his most important friendship.

While Rummenigge was firing cannons abroad, Hoeneß wasn't idle either. That evening, he called Karl, bragging that he had gotten the director from the broadcast team who had given the "inappropriate" camera shots fired.

"Everyone wants to step on Bayern to make headlines, without even looking at what they are!" the old man sneered, before happily chatting about the match.

Aside from the fans protesting over off-field factors, everything on the pitch was perfect, and everyone was clearly happy. This match gave Ancelotti, who hadn't had a good day since taking office, a bit of breathing room. Hoeneß and Rummenigge were finally smiling, giving the media some polite platitudes about how they were looking forward to the new season and trusted their coach.

*Bild* was full of distrust toward these empty words, even drawing a cartoon overnight of a pitiful, miniature Ancelotti holding his head, huddled under the giant figures of Rummenigge and Hoeneß, with the caption: "Trust? Really?"

However, James Rodríguez, who had been sitting on the bench at Real Madrid, put in a stunning performance at Bayern. Ancelotti’s insistence on signing him showed some foresight, which actually satisfied the board a little. It was the only part of his requested transfer package that the board had fulfilled: James wasn't playing at Real, and a loan was cheap, so they had indulged him without much harm.

If they had actually had to dig into the bank to buy someone, they wouldn't have been so willing.

Now that they had rented a high-quality product, they were overjoyed and quite satisfied.

Two people who were both currently quite lonely in the team found a surprising mutual connection, finally finding a glimmer of warmth in the difficult world of Bayern.

The one-sided skepticism toward Bayern before the match suddenly evaporated. In Hoeneß's words: "Just thinking about how twisted their faces must look now that they've seen us win makes me laugh 'hahahaha,' and I can't stop."

Originally, with both Lahm and Xabi Alonso retiring and the renowned coach Guardiola having dumped Bayern, the team was left with gaping holes—not just in terms of combat power, but in leadership and the "group of intellectuals."

When people looked at the Bayern roster, they felt worried, feeling that Karl was the only one left in that reassuring group of geniuses.

"The team's average IQ must have plummeted off a cliff," was *Bild*'s spicy, schadenfreude-filled comment during the summer window.

The balance of the nearly perfect left-back/center-back pairing between Lahm and Karl, maintained for years, had been broken. It was one of the focal points of the pre-match skepticism. Commentators generally believed that Alaba, who had finally waited out Lahm to secure the left-back spot, might not keep up with Karl's pace, or that Karl wouldn't adapt to the change in his partner's style.

But after the first match, the media's tone changed, claiming Karl was flawless. His super performance—zero errors in tackles and clearances—made all the speculation about his mysterious whereabouts over the summer vanish into thin air. The media began to suspect that he hadn't been on vacation or doing something bad, but had been in some deep mountain forest undergoing closed-door training.

"The media was so anxious when you took a month off; they were practically ready to drill into the ground just to find where you were."

Hoeneß joked, then sighed suddenly:

"Ah, but why did you suddenly decide to go to Switzerland? Although her health wasn't good, to be blunt, that was her own responsibility, not yours. One look was enough; staying for so long was completely unnecessary. Karl, you're good at everything, but sometimes you're too kind, which makes you indecisive. That’s not good for you, you know?"

He had indeed gone to Switzerland and stayed in the vicinity, but he never entered the nursing home to see his mother—not even once.

He would just go for walks every day, walk down to the foot of the mountain road, look up at the quiet, white cluster of buildings above, bathed under the clear sky, and then walk away.

"Yeah," Karl paused, then suddenly countered: "Did you go to see my father too, Uli? He wrote to me in prison."

Hoeneß coughed violently: "Ouch, ouch, why is my throat suddenly so itchy? It feels like I'm about to grow feathers, ouch, ouch!"

"If it's serious, let me introduce you to a poultry veterinarian." Karl ended the call with a cold joke.

The radicals were, after all, a minority. Most fans on social media were happily celebrating. They expertly used the "triple threat"—"More stable than wearing a seatbelt," "Daddy! (with a gif of someone kneeling)," and "..."—to express their enthusiasm under the tweets managed by Karl's official team.

That "Vater!" meme had actually been started by Chinese fans. Later, for some reason, it spread in multiple languages. Now, whenever a player performed exceptionally, the comment section would be filled with "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy," scaring some clueless players into crying out that they hadn't secretly fathered any children.

The Chinese fanbase was large and highly active, always quick to take over the top comments. For instance, they loved posting pictures of ancient figures offering incense under the new season’s official tweets, saying things like, "I pray that Daddy lives a thousand years, that his wide frame remains healthy, and that we may see him every year like the swallows in the palace," things that Germans would spend all night automatically translating on their phones. They knew it seemed to express hope for the new season, but they couldn't fully understand it.

The fans had their strange quirks. Some images would be translated with great care and passionately spread to international friends; these images were specifically kept in Chinese, and even if asked, they wouldn't tell you what they meant.

As a result, every time this message was forced through a translator, it came out as: "Chinese fans hope that everyone's dads' heads can be stored for a thousand years, that fat people should also be healthy, and that we can meet every day, like swallows in an unknown palace (possibly a famous Chinese palace)."

Everyone felt that Chinese fans really said a lot of mysterious things... but they didn't understand and didn't care. Anyway, it was enough to keep thanking them in the thank-you letters!

This year, they had started translating earnestly again, with new lines: "First, I wish for victories in every match; second, I wish for Karl’s health; third, I wish for all savings to be cashed out, and may we see the champion every year..."

The comment section learned it with great enthusiasm, even using the "prayer style" to compose their own.

Karl hadn't looked at social media for a long time, except for major events like teammates' birthdays, weddings, births, or team title wins, which he would specifically open to "like." Otherwise, he neither posted about himself nor looked at others. With the new season starting, he was busy as a top. Beyond the heavy training volume and dense match schedule, he had plenty of off-field media work. Even though he had compressed his personal commercial activities as much as possible, he couldn't be careless about things like Adidas and Mercedes-Benz, which were also major club sponsors.

Moreover, his agent, Ulrike, was an incredibly ambitious woman with a strong sense of career. Although when they first met, Karl was deeply moved by her spirit—the kind of spirit that would kick through a coffin to crawl out of the dirt even if she were buried alive, just to shatter all doubts—and risked huge controversy to cooperate with a young agent with no name or experience. Over the years, they had become a golden partnership, achieving dazzling results with each other's help.

But even as a long-time friend and partner, Karl began to feel he was afraid of being around Ulrike. She seemed never to get tired and assumed Karl would never get tired either. Sometimes she even acted like a parent, encouraging him not to give up, not to retreat, and feeling genuine disappointment and confusion at the fatigue he showed—she didn't understand where the Karl she knew had gone.

But she was a professional, and she would eventually sober up, apologize sincerely to Karl, and promise to improve next time. Now, such situations rarely happened; whenever Karl refused, she would unconditionally turn down the work for him. However, Karl could feel her confusion and unhappiness. He could feel her disappointment and regret, and that feeling made him think he was hurting someone else while being negated himself.

Because he knew that Ulrike’s existence was the correct one. Her energy, ambition, and struggle were correct; at least in the football world, they were. Simply staying beside what was "correct" was, for him, a form of self-criticism and humiliation.

As he grew older, everyone around him became increasingly hungry for honors and fame, more invested in their careers, and more mature. Only he seemed to have lost his drive, barely managing to hold himself together, trying not to fall.

Last year, during the Ballon d'Or, Ulrike had hoped to use leverage from sponsors to gain public opinion support and pressure the board into marketing for Karl. She had even attracted support from the German Football Association, but Karl’s own passive attitude forced her to abandon the plan. She had been angry throughout Christmas and New Year. When they made up, she said:

"Karl, I’m not coming back as an agent. As an agent, I couldn't be more disappointed or pained. I’m coming back as a friend. I still want to work with you, but if you were willing to be a bit more proactive about certain things, everything would truly be better."

Karl was touched. He hoped not to let down Ulrike’s years of help and dedication, but he couldn't tell her that he even had thoughts of retiring. His therapist, however, disagreed. When he sought consultation daily during the summer, the therapist often reminded him that he might have instinctively surrounded himself with too many such parental figures and endured their prodding like a masochist, unable to leave even when in pain.

"I do feel tired, but if it weren't for this, I wouldn't have achieved the results I have today," Karl countered.

"Do you genuinely need these achievements? You need money, but do you need this much? You need victory, but does it have to be every single match? You need to perform well, but do you have to be incapable of making a single mistake?" The therapist shook his head: "Maybe you only need an 80, but you and those around you demand a 100, so of course you’re tired."

"Isn't 100 a good thing?"

An A+ report card brings happiness—this was the first truth little Karl had learned.

A club like Bayern and its players were always title contenders. If you didn't want to be at the top of the pyramid, you had undoubtedly lost the most essential character. Walk away, don't pollute those around you, and make them feel discouraged and degenerate too.

The therapist's words were, in Karl’s world, detestable rhetoric that encouraged degeneration. Yet, Karl seemed moved by them. Perhaps he was truly too tired—tired to the point where love, praise, and honor could no longer drive him. He just wanted peace, to hide in a world where no one would contact him.

After defeating Werder Bremen away in the second league match, they only had two days in Munich before having to head to Augsburg for the charity match. Just these ten days of life made Karl once again certain that he really didn't want to continue his current life. Moreover, he feared that if his form dipped and he became widely questioned, he would affect the team. Rather than that, he would rather withdraw with some dignity.

He opened the envelope on the passenger seat while at work, tore up the letter, and rewrote a new one—more sincere, more honest, honest to the point of ripping his heart out and placing it on the ground to be trampled. He sealed it and placed it on Rummenigge's desk.

Although, like Hoeneß, he often appeared inhumane, Rummenigge was slightly better at understanding human nature. Karl didn't expect him to agree, but he hoped he would at least see it and know what he was thinking. A decision like retirement had too great an impact and was too selfish. He couldn't just abandon the team; he had to give them time to prepare.

The charity match would help ease things for a few days, so when he returned, regardless of the board's attitude, they could at least start talking about it.

Having truly taken this step made Karl feel as if it were the most courageous, solid, and genuine thing he had done in years. Walking down the street, he couldn't help but wear a small smile. With this mindset, playing the charity match didn't seem so exhausting. On the bus ride there, he didn't sleep, but instead returned to the Sheepshead card group, winning left and right as if he had suddenly transformed into a god of war. He played more and more strangely, threw his cards down, and said with a bitter smile:

"What's wrong with you all? Why are you letting me win?"

Hummels hung his head and said nothing; he automatically became mute around Karl. Müller blinked his eyes at him, and Neuer put his arm around his shoulder: "Isn't this happy? —Are you happy playing?"

"What's happy about winning all the time?" Karl pushed his cards aside, and sure enough: "You could have played this earlier, but you didn't?"

Neuer didn't look at the cards at all, still watching him. Even with the photographer standing right there, he leaned his nose against Karl's ear, smiling and staring at his eyelashes, teasing him on purpose: "Because I love you."

"Eww!~~~"

This greasy, nauseating tactic worked every time. The teammates peeking over couldn't help but boo. Neuer burst into laughter, retracting his neck before Müller could stomp on his foot under the table, but his arm remained draped there, affectionately asking for another round, pretending to peek at Karl's cards, only to be pushed away by him.

Müller couldn't stand it anymore and shouted: "Second captain, watch your image!"

"How excessive, Thomas. Why don't you manage the first captain? He’s pushing me, you know. You just think I’m easy to bully." Neuer feigned grievance: "Karl, look, a bad striker is bullying your goalkeeper."

"If you keep arguing, I'll throw you both out," Karl declared. "Replace you with two others."

"Pick me!"

Kimmich was truly incredible. Nobody knew he was even sitting there, yet he heard everything, shouting out of the blue, and very seriously, clearly—as with everything he did—not joking.

The whole bus was filled with laughter. Those who didn't know what was happening asked quickly, then started laughing too. As everyone knows, once laughter starts, it becomes a perpetual motion machine. They were truly laughing like crazy.

Augsburg was the third-largest city in Bavaria after Munich and Nuremberg. The stadium was small, seating over 30,000 people. But they hadn't held such a high-profile event in a long time. After the Bayern team bus arrived, a large number of supporting fans poured in, making the whole city feel tense.

Because the Bayern fans weren't just here to watch the match; they were here to protest.

Protesting the 50+1 rule was the biggest thing on their minds right now. Although most fans had expressed disapproval of the captain-insulting incident ten days ago, Rummenigge’s hardline stance against the fans was unreasonably counted as a fresh crime, added to his main list of grievances. This caused protests everywhere in Augsburg, with people chanting, "Rummenigge, your soul has been bought by money!" and "Rummenigge, you are the gravedigger of German football!"

The Augsburg fans were dejected, lacking even the enthusiasm to watch the show.

The Bayern fans were just shouting here, but their club's board really had sold their souls for money.

The Bayern fans were just shouting here, but their club had almost been destroyed by its own board—as a club in a major city, they had never played in the third division, and now, they were almost falling into the abyss.

Augsburg had no deadly rivals domestically, no derby in the state, and the club was always in a happy-go-lucky mood. Fans went to the stadium as if they were watching TV at home; the main theme was companionship. If not for this massive disaster this year, they would never have been dragged into a charity match, nor into the fierce confrontation surrounding Bayern.

Their fans had been excited for a few days, but once the board went to prison, they just sat back down. Once the charity match was confirmed and the season was saved from sliding into the third division due to lack of funds, they returned to their peaceful lives, at most feeling a bit of youthful melancholy, sighing about the unpredictability of human nature.

So, although they had hired extra security in advance and specifically deployed more police in the city to ensure everything was foolproof, they lacked the experience to deal with such an event. The next day, during the charity match, a massive disaster occurred.

Nobody could have predicted this. After all, the people of Augsburg were full of gratitude for the charity match, and the local fans were thrilled to see their own team play against the Bayern All-Stars.

This was a charity match of saving and being saved. Giant posters of Bayern players hung from buildings in the city center, making every local who passed by look up, as if watching the heroes who had saved them.

Nobody expected that the conflict wouldn't break out between the fans drinking outside, nor between the teams on the pitch, but in the stands belonging to Bayern themselves.

Due to a lack of experience, security checks were too relaxed, leading to irreversible consequences. The Augsburg fans on half the stand were terrified, huddled together in their seats, watching the Bayern fans throw insults, protest signs, car keys, mineral water, and cups of beer at their own players. What was even more terrifying was that they threw smoke bombs that were bursting into flames.

And then, they set their own captain on fire.

Even for a stadium riot, burning the captain was truly "next level."

Bayern hadn't achieved a "next level" evaluation on the pitch, but they had on the battlefield level.

How could this not be considered a different kind of international lead?

Honestly, the level of shock at the scene was so great that for a long time afterward, people would still tell others:

"I really don't know how Karl Hellmann managed that situation... he was practically a superman..."