The stadium at Wiesbaden wasn't anything like Signal Iduna Park.
Where Dortmund's home ground loomed like a colossus, this compact arena felt intimate—almost claustrophobic. The stands rose steeply from the pitch, close enough that Thiago could hear individual voices cutting through the din when he stepped off the team bus. Banners hung from the railings like laundry left out to dry, their edges frayed from too many matches in too many weathers. The pitch itself showed patches of uneven turf, the kind that came from winters spent battling frost and springs spent recovering. The DFB-Pokal didn't care about prestige. It cared about grit.
