The training ground was called the City Football Academy.
Richard had been inside it briefly on the day of the medical — corridors and meeting rooms and the specific functional quality of a facility built not for appearance but for output, the specific design of a place that existed to produce football at the highest level and had been designed by people who understood what that required.
Now, on Wednesday morning, he arrived for his first proper session.
The building was different when it was full.
Players moving through corridors. Staff. The hum of a football operation at full capacity, the specific organized energy of a club preparing for a season that would begin in three weeks.
Chidi dropped him at the entrance at eight forty-five.
"First day," Chidi said.
"Second day," Richard said. "The ceremony was yesterday."
"First real day," Chidi said.
Richard got out.
Stood for a moment outside the entrance.
The City Football Academy.
The facility that had produced Phil Foden. That had been the daily environment of Kevin De Bruyne for a decade. That had housed the training sessions of a squad that had won six Premier League titles.
He looked at it.
Thought about Brackel.
About the Dortmund training ground in January — arriving in the cold, the pitch enormous, Lukas falling into step beside him.
Different building.
Same purpose.
He went in.
The first session was managed.
Guardiola had structured the pre-season with the specific logic of a manager who understood that July was not August and August was not September — each phase of preparation building toward the next, the body and the tactical understanding developing in parallel, neither rushed.
The opening forty minutes were technical — possession work, short passing sequences, the kind of session that existed to reestablish physical rhythms after the summer break rather than to push boundaries.
Richard moved through it.
Finding the touch. Finding the surface. Finding the specific quality of the City training pitch — slightly softer than Brackel, the grass longer, the ball responding differently in ways that required half a session to calibrate.
He calibrated.
Around him the squad moved with the ease of familiarity — players who had been in this building together for seasons, who knew each other's tendencies and timing, who had the specific shorthand of a group that did not need to explain everything because everything had already been learned.
He was the new variable.
They were assessing him.
Not hostilely — professionally. The specific attention of excellent players encountering someone new and measuring the reality against the reputation.
He understood this.
Had been through it in Belgium. In Dortmund. In the Nigeria camp.
He let the session speak.
On the third rondo of the morning Haaland was in his unit.
The Norwegian received the ball from Richard twice in the first five minutes of the sequence — both times the pass arriving at exactly the weight and angle his movement demanded, the ball finding the specific pocket his body was moving into before his body had fully arrived there.
After the second one Haaland looked at Richard briefly.
Said nothing.
Kept playing.
But something shifted in the unit around them — the other players registering what had happened, adjusting their understanding of what the session contained, the specific recalibration of people who had watched something and updated their information.
After the rondo Rúben Dias — the Portuguese center back, the captain, the specific authority of a player who had been at the center of everything for four seasons — appeared beside Richard.
"The second pass," he said. "To Erling. How did you know the run was coming?"
"His left shoulder dropped," Richard said. "When his left shoulder drops he's about to go right. He always goes right after the shoulder drop."
Dias looked at him.
"I've played with him for three years," Dias said.
"I know," Richard said. "I watched the clips."
Dias was quiet for a moment.
Then he walked back to his position.
Richard heard him say something to the player beside him in Portuguese.
He did not catch all of it.
He caught enough.
Guardiola stopped the session on forty-eight minutes.
Not to correct anything — to add something. The manager moving to the tactical board that was positioned at the edge of the training pitch, the squad gathering around it with the specific focused attention of a group that had learned to treat these moments as important because they always were.
"The shape for the first preseason match," Guardiola said. "We try something."
He drew on the board.
The system Richard had been studying since the transfer was announced — Guardiola's 4-3-3 shifting into a 3-2-5 in possession, the fullbacks inverting, the center backs splitting, the whole shape becoming something more complex and more dangerous as the ball moved forward.
And at the center of the attacking shape — the ten.
The specific position that the whole system pointed toward.
Guardiola drew the movement lines. The options. The spaces the ten was supposed to occupy and vacate and re-occupy in the specific rhythm of the system.
He looked at Richard.
"You see it," he said. Not a question.
"Yes," Richard said.
"Tell me what you see."
Richard looked at the board.
"When the right fullback inverts and the left fullback pushes — " he pointed at the positions — "the central space here opens. The six is drawn to cover the fullback's position. The eight is occupied by the press from our striker. This space — " he pointed to a specific area between the lines — "exists for approximately three seconds."
"And in three seconds?" Guardiola said.
"The ten receives. Turns. The striker has already started the run because the three seconds have been long enough to read the opening." He paused. "The pass goes before the space fully closes."
Guardiola looked at the board.
Then at Richard.
The squad around them had gone quiet — the specific quiet of players watching something between a manager and a player that was worth paying attention to.
"Yes," Guardiola said simply.
He erased one of the movement lines on the board.
Drew it slightly differently.
"But here — " he pointed — "the angle is better. The pass is earlier. Not when the space opens. Just before."
Richard looked at it.
The difference was small. Maybe two yards. Maybe half a second.
He looked at it and understood it immediately — the way the earlier angle changed Haaland's approach run, allowed him to arrive at full pace rather than having to adjust, the delivery becoming the beginning of the finish rather than a separate event.
"Yes," Richard said.
Guardiola looked at him.
The specific look of a manager who had worked with Xavi and Iniesta and Silva and De Bruyne and was adding something new to that list.
"Good," he said. "We run it."
They ran it twelve times.
On the third attempt it worked perfectly — the shape shifting, the space opening, Richard receiving between the lines and playing the early pass to Haaland arriving at full pace, the finish in the training goal clean and certain.
Haaland raised one fist.
Not celebrated. Acknowledged.
Richard ran back to position.
On the seventh attempt it broke down — the timing slightly off, the space not opening as predicted because one of the midfielders had tracked incorrectly. Guardiola stopped it immediately. Adjusted. Ran it again.
On the tenth attempt it worked again.
On the twelfth it worked with a variation — Haaland dropping slightly, drawing the center back, Richard arriving into the space behind him, the sequence completing differently to the designed version but arriving at the same result.
Guardiola blew the whistle.
Looked at Richard.
"You changed it," he said. "On the twelfth."
"Haaland dropped," Richard said. "The space moved. The pass moved with it."
"You didn't think about it," Guardiola said.
"No," Richard said.
"How long did you think about it?"
"I didn't," Richard said. "It was already happening."
Guardiola turned to the squad.
"This," he said, "is what we have paid for." He paused. "Not the goals. The seeing. The thing that cannot be coached because it is already there." He paused. "Our job is to build the structure around it. His job is to trust it." He looked at Richard. "You trust it?"
"Always," Richard said.
"Good," Guardiola said. "Same time tomorrow."
He walked off the pitch.
The session ended.
In the changing room afterward Foden found him.
Phil Foden — twenty-six years old, the City academy product, the player who had grown up inside this system and had become one of the best players in England through the specific combination of talent and the right environment. He sat beside Richard with the ease of someone comfortable in the space.
"The twelfth repetition," Foden said.
"Yes," Richard said.
"When you changed it — you saw Erling drop before he'd dropped."
"His weight shifted," Richard said. "Left hip. When his left hip loads he's about to drop."
Foden looked at him.
"The shoulder tells you he's going right," Foden said. "The hip tells you he's going to drop."
"Yes," Richard said.
Foden was quiet for a moment.
"De Bruyne used to say — " he stopped. Reconsidered. "KDB used to say that Erling was the most predictable striker he'd ever played with. Not as a criticism. As the highest compliment. He meant his movement was so specific and so consistent that once you understood the language of it you could speak it fluently." He paused. "Took KDB about three weeks to learn it."
Richard looked at him.
"How long did it take you?" Foden said.
"Two days of film," Richard said. "And twelve repetitions this morning."
Foden looked at him for a moment.
Then he smiled — the specific warm smile of someone who had found what he was looking for in an answer.
"Yeah," he said. "Alright."
He stood up.
"Welcome to City," he said.
"Thank you," Richard said.
Foden walked off.
Richard sat with his boots for a moment.
The changing room around him — the sound of a squad finishing a session, the comfortable noise of people who shared a purpose and a space and the daily work of trying to be excellent.
He listened to it.
Let it become familiar.
After the session Guardiola held a brief individual meeting with Richard in his office.
The manager's office was a reflection of the manager — functional, the tactics board large and central, the desk secondary to it, the shelves containing books and notebooks rather than trophies. The trophies were elsewhere in the building. In here was the work.
Guardiola sat across from him.
"How was it?" he said.
"Good," Richard said. "Different to Dortmund. The shape asks for different starting positions. The distances between the lines are different. The pressing triggers are different."
"You noticed all of that in one session," Guardiola said.
"I notice things quickly," Richard said.
"I know," Guardiola said. "That is not a surprise." He paused. "What surprised you?"
Richard thought about it.
"The pace," he said. "The rondos are faster than I expected. The decisions are faster. Not because the players are better necessarily — because the system demands faster decisions. The structure removes some options which makes the remaining options clearer but the window to execute them is smaller."
Guardiola nodded.
"And you adapted," he said.
"I started to," Richard said. "Three sessions. Maybe four. Then it will be automatic."
Guardiola looked at him.
"Three sessions," he said. The tone of someone cataloguing information.
"Maybe four," Richard said.
"Three," Guardiola said. "I think three."
He leaned forward.
"The season starts in three weeks," he said. "Community Shield first. Then the Premier League opener. Then the Champions League begins in September." He paused. "The Premier League will ask things of you that the Bundesliga did not. I want to be honest with you about that."
"The physical demands," Richard said.
"The physical demands. The travel. The frequency. Thirty-eight league matches against opponents who have specifically prepared for you." He paused. "Every team in this league will have a specific plan for you. For what you do. For where you receive and how you move and what you do when you get there." He paused. "Because that is what they do to the players who matter."
"They had plans for me in the Champions League," Richard said.
"They had plans for you in seven matches," Guardiola said. "With weeks between each one to prepare. This league — " he paused — "every three days. New plan. New opponent. New problem to solve." He paused. "Are you ready for that?"
Richard looked at him.
"I've been ready for problems since I was eight years old," he said.
Guardiola looked at him for a long moment.
Then he stood.
"Three sessions," he said. "Then we see."
He extended his hand.
Richard shook it.
Walked out.
The Manchester evening outside the City Football Academy.
Chidi waiting.
Richard got in the car.
They drove through Manchester — the city doing its evening thing, the specific quality of a northern English city in July that was neither warm nor cold, grey and functional and alive in its own considered way.
"How was it?" Chidi said.
"Good," Richard said.
"Haaland?"
"He has a shoulder tell and a hip tell," Richard said.
Chidi looked at him sideways.
"What does that mean?" Chidi said.
"It means I know where he's going before he goes there," Richard said.
Chidi drove for a moment.
"Two days," he said. "You've been here two days."
"The film helps," Richard said.
"Other players watch film," Chidi said. "They don't come away knowing where Erling Haaland is going before Erling Haaland knows where he's going."
Richard looked out the window.
"I see things," he said. "That's what I do."
Chidi drove.
"Is it what De Bruyne did?" he said after a moment. Quietly. The question he had been building toward.
Richard was quiet.
"De Bruyne saw the pass," Richard said. "The specific pass. What was available and what was correct." He paused. "I see the sequence. Not just the pass — everything that produces the pass and everything that follows from it." He paused. "Different."
"Better?" Chidi said.
Richard looked at him.
"Different," he said again. Firmly. "He was one of the greatest players this league has seen. Different is not better or worse. Different is — what I am."
Chidi nodded.
They drove.
Manchester around them.
"The pressure," Chidi said eventually. "Two-twenty. The fee. The De Bruyne comparison. The skeptics. The phone-ins." He paused. "You feel it?"
Richard looked out the window.
The Manchester streets. The grey July evening. The city that was his city now whether it had become familiar yet or not.
"Yes," he said honestly. "I feel it."
"And?" Chidi said.
Richard thought about what he had said in the press conference.
About what he had said to the Petra Haas interviewer in January.
About what was still true.
"Pressure is information," he said. "It tells me what's at stake." He paused. "Two-twenty tells me what City believe I'm capable of. The skeptics tell me what I have to prove." He paused. "I know how to prove things. On the pitch. One match at a time." He paused. "That's the only place any of it gets answered."
Chidi drove.
The apartment appearing ahead.
"Three sessions," Richard said. "Then I'll have the system."
"Three sessions," Chidi said.
"Guardiola said three sessions too," Richard said.
"Of course he did," Chidi said. "He's been waiting for you since January."
They arrived at the apartment.
Richard got out.
Stood for a moment outside.
Manchester evening around him.
The succulent waiting on the windowsill upstairs.
The shelf boxes in the corner of the living room waiting to be assembled.
The tactical notebook on the table waiting to be opened.
The work waiting to be done.
He breathed in the Manchester air.
Then went inside.
Ready.
The way he was always ready.
He just had to keep going.