The air in Dortmund crackled with an electric tension for a week leading up to the match. It was more than just a game; it was Der Klassiker.
It was first against second in the Bundesliga. It was Jürgen Klopp's heavy-metal football against Pep Guardiola's symphonic tiki-taka. It was a referendum on the future of German football, and the Signal Iduna Park was its thunderous, vibrant parliament.
For Mateo, the match carried a personal, almost mythical weight. Bayern Munich was the benchmark. They were the reigning, treble-winning champions of Europe, a constellation of stars coached by a man who was a living legend at the club that had rejected him.
But they were also the team against whom he had announced his arrival in a blaze of glory.
