NUR DIE SGE

Let Him Cook (Markus/Dino)

Let Him Cook

The problem with working with always younger and younger coaches is that Markus will end up being left on the sidelines, due to not being from the same generation. At the moment, everything's still going well, Dino is an experienced middle-aged man like him, but he can't help imagining himself ten or twenty years from now if he's still doing this, and he's not likely to enjoy himself with young people (even less if they're like Julian) if he finds himself having to play chaperone to keep them on the straight and narrow. But as he said, he's fine at the moment, and Dino is his choice, so he completely trusts him not to drive him crazy.

They have known each other since Leipzig, and if there is one thing that could have forged them, it was this year they spent together, struggling to keep the team united against covid and the transfer numbers gradually decreasing because of the bad impressions of some players in the Premier League... Dino was already Julian's assistant coach at that time, before following him to Bayern, and Markus cannot say that everything went extremely well for them there, even if he didn't have the time to follow precisely how everything was going. He just knows that Julian and Dino dated for a while, after Julian broke up with his girlfriend, before he fell in love with a journalist, and Dino found himself on the sidelines entirely. Markus reconnected with him at that time, wishing him to get better.

The first messages were really sent to comfort him, and after that, when Markus realized that things couldn't really go on with Oliver, it wasn't really to convince Dino that things were going to work out with Julian anymore,, but to make him understand that he had the opportunity to leave all that behind him. He sweetened things up by telling him about the promising start to his career and the young players in the team he could help develop, and for the rest Bayern did their part of the job, unknowingly. Julian got fired, Tuchel arrived, the end of the season was a disaster and yet Dortmund managed to do worse. Everyone knows the story.

Now, Dino has signed his very first contract as a head coach, and Markus intends to create a perfect team for him, so that his friend stays here as long as possible. Of course, he won't defend him through thick and thin just because Markus has always been deeply jealous of his complicity with Julian. Even less because the absence of Dino's light-hearted jokes and shy smile weighed on him. The board will never need to know that. Dino neither. In fact, no one will ever need to know that, because he will wisely get back to work and forget that the name Dino came to him first because he missed his friend.

Dino saves a small mole on his first day, and Markus is forced to watch from his office window, as he can see him gently putting down the animal he was holding between his two hands, and even if he's too far to see the mole returning to the wild from where he is, he's sure to catch a glimpse of Dino's huge grin. Markus is working on this new transfer, this little youngster from Ecuador, but he's ready to put it all aside, when he sees Dino and the cameraman exchange a high five as they return to the training center. He suddenly wants time to pass more quickly, to see him succeed with the players and surprise the Bundesliga, and well, he imagines that Dino will get along well with Paxten and Seppl...

It was when he was planning to call South America that Dino once again caught his attention (despite all his efforts not to think of him, just long enough to complete this transfer), that Markus cast a glance towards the lawn where Dino stands, his arms flapping in the wind to catch his eye and take all of his concentration away. A smile still lights up his face, and Markus feels like he's seeing a different Dino again, when they were slightly younger, in another town...

He's still adorable, when he shouts at him that he saved a mole, for his first day , and Markus replies that he hopes to see him do other miracles during the rest of the season , before finally favoring his transfer, if he really wants to be able to protect his new coach as best as he possibly can...

The End