The chartered Barcelona team flight crossed into Portuguese airspace a little after midday, the steady drone of the engines humming through the cabin.
Lorenzo sat next to the window with Leo Messi in the aisle seat beside him, keeping to their usual travel routine. The tablet rested completely flat on the shared fold-down tray, its screen dark and locked. Both of them had stared at enough footage over the past fortnight to memorize every phase of Bayern's shape. Now they were just two footballers flying toward the final hurdle of a marathon campaign.
Lorenzo glanced over at the Argentine, who was quietly watching the clouds drift by below. "Do you still get nervous before a match like this, Leo?"
Messi gave a faint, nostalgic smile without looking away from the glass. "Always. Every single final, Lorenzo. People from the outside assume that feeling goes away once you gain experience, but it never really does."
"Even after winning three Champions League titles?"
"Every one of them," Messi said, turning his head back toward him. "I felt that knot in my stomach before Rome, before London, and I definitely feel it right now. To be completely honest, if the nerves ever stop showing up before a European final, it probably means I do not care about the game anymore. And the day I stop caring is the day I hang up my boots. The anxiety is simply part of the package. You accept it because missing out on the occasion altogether feels so much worse."
Lorenzo let that sink in, leaning back against the cushioned headrest. "This is my first time walking into something this massive. How do you actually manage it?"
Messi considered the question seriously.
"You don't try to suppress it. You let the occasion be as massive as it actually is. It is supposed to feel enormous. If you try to convince yourself that this is merely another league fixture, your mind immediately knows you are lying, and that only ramps up the tension. So just be real with yourself. It is the biggest game of your life so far. Accept that reality, and once the referee blows the first whistle, you just play the game you grew up playing on the streets as a boy."
"Sounds straightforward enough when you put it like that," Lorenzo said with a dry chuckle.
"Well, it is far from straightforward," Messi admitted, offering a quiet grin. "It is probably the most difficult mental barrier in modern football. But genuinely, it is the only approach that keeps your head clear."
A couple of hours earlier, on a crowded commercial flight out of El Prat, Cecilia and Lucia shared a row together.
They had booked their seats weeks back, right before the Clásico in Madrid, when reaching the final in Lisbon was still just an exciting possibility rather than a confirmed reality. Now they were soaring over the Iberian peninsula to watch Lorenzo contest the biggest prize in European football.
Cecilia turned her head to look at her companion. "Have you thought about what you want to say to him once the match is over?"
Lucia leaned against the cabin wall, watching the Spanish countryside roll beneath the wing. "I told him back home that I would wait until everything in Lisbon was finished. I really just want to give him that space."
"I know that," Cecilia said gently, nudging her knee slightly. "I was just wondering what you actually want to tell him when that time comes."
"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure yet," Lucia confessed, a quiet, vulnerable note creeping into her voice. "I know where my heart stands with him, and I think I've known for quite a while. Still, whatever conversation we have is going to depend on how he feels too, and I have learned not to second-guess what Lorenzo will do next. He always finds a way to catch me off guard."
Cecilia nodded slowly, looking down at her intertwined fingers on her lap. "Can I admit something to you without making things weird between us?"
Lucia turned to face her with a warm look. "You know you can tell me anything, Cecilia."
"I think, at the end of the day, I just want him to be truly happy, even if it turns out I am not the one standing beside him," Cecilia murmured, her voice steady but soft. "I didn't think I would look at it that way at the start. I assumed I would be completely stubborn about holding on. Maybe I still will, a little bit. But deep down, I just want him to be alright and fulfilled. Does that sound ridiculous coming from me?"
Lucia reached out, placing her hand gently over Cecilia's. "It doesn't sound ridiculous at all. That is pretty much the exact feeling I carry around with me every single day. Maybe that is why we ended up becoming good friends instead of tearing each other apart over him."
They sat quietly for the rest of the descent, their fingers lightly linked, two women who cared deeply for the same teenager and had managed to find genuine support in one another through the chaos of his rise.
The Barcelona squad arrived at their team hotel on the outskirts of Lisbon in the middle of the afternoon.
Sofía had traveled alongside the medical staff, and her very first order of business was transforming one of the ground-floor conference suites into an operational recovery base, complete with portable ice tubs and monitoring consoles. She caught Lorenzo just as he grabbed his room key from the reception desk.
"Lorenzo, ice bath at four sharp," she said, tapping the edge of her tablet with a ballpoint pen. "After that, deep tissue massage at five, team briefing at six, and you are in bed by ten tonight. No exceptions, no debating the schedule, and absolutely zero extra workouts in the hotel gym."
Lorenzo raised his hands with an easy smile. "No extra heroics, I promise."
"You always say that with a straight face, and then you do the exact opposite anyway," she said, giving him a dry look. "Tomorrow night is the real deal, Lorenzo. Stick to the routine today, and your legs will be right where they need to be. Try to sneak in extra work, and you'll have to deal with a very annoyed physio all weekend."
"I have no doubt about that," he laughed.
"Good." She turned toward the hallway, then stopped and looked back at him, her expression softening. "You've had an unbelievable season, Lorenzo. Seriously. Whatever happens out there tomorrow, nobody can take that away from you. Just get some proper rest tonight."
She walked off toward the recovery room before he could even thank her.
Later that evening, Lorenzo stood by the window of his hotel room, looking out across the Lisbon skyline. He watched the streetlamps flicker down below for a quiet moment, finally pulled the blackout curtains shut, and walked over to bed, letting the weight of tomorrow's match wait until morning.
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