The sun hadn't yet climbed high enough to burn, but the heat already clung low over the secondary pitch like a second skin.
Cones laid out in tight grids stretched in sharp lines across the half-field.
Bright, unforgiving.
Precise.
Demien walked the width once, hands loose at his sides, noting every angle without glancing at his clipboard.
No wasted space.
No excuses today.
Boots scuffed lightly against fresh-cut grass as the players jogged out from the tunnel in clusters.
Light training kits clung damp already, breaths visible in sharp exhales as they shook stiffness from their limbs.
Giuly led one group, bouncing slightly on his toes.
Evra adjusted his wrist tape mid-stride, loose and half-distracted.
Rothen lagged a pace behind the others, tugging absently at the hem of his shorts.
Demien caught all of it without slowing.
Michel and the assistants gathered by the equipment trolleys, watching with careful faces.
No protests yet.
Only the wary alertness of men measuring the distance between understanding and skepticism.
Demien stopped at the center grid.
Raised a hand once — crisp, no theatrics.
Conversation trickled into silence, boots shuffling closer.
No speeches.
No history lessons.
Only the work.
Demien's voice carried easily across the warm air.
"First wave holds."
He lifted his fingers slightly, marking imaginary lines between cones.
"Second wave triggers on the second pass. Not the first."
A few players exchanged glances — quiet ones.
Not challenging.
Not sold either.
Demien didn't slow.
"Midfielders collapse vertically, not laterally. Delayed collapse — don't chase unless it's baited."
He stepped once between the grids, dragging an invisible line across the setup with his gaze.
"Scan early. Shape first. Then press."
Simple.
Tight.
Merciless if done right.
The first whistle from Michel split the morning.
Training began.
The first runs cracked open the session like a dropped plate.
Giuly charged on the first pass — too soon — dragging the line forward unevenly.
Evra barked something short, sharp, and adjusted, but it left a hole at the back.
A clipped ball from the neutral floater slipped between the lines, releasing an attacker into open space.
No shot — not yet — but the press shattered under its own eagerness.
Demien's hands folded behind his back, face unreadable.
The whistle restarted them before frustration could settle.
Again.
Rothen hung wide on his side, half a step outside the central collapse.
Enough to let the floater dance past him untouched, opening a seam where there should have been teeth.
Demien's voice cut the air — soft, surgical.
"Scan earlier, Rothen. Trust the delay."
The winger glanced over his shoulder — brief flash of tight-lipped irritation — but nodded without argument.
No public scolding.
No performance punishments.
Only corrections.
Only the standard.
The next few runs fared little better.
Midfielders compressed too late, attackers escaped too easily, lines wavered under pressure that demanded cohesion and patience — two things Monaco hadn't been asked to master yet.
Water broke across faces flushed with effort.
Boots dragged sluggish half-circles between resets.
Muttered words floated low over the turf, half frustration, half calculation.
Demien watched everything.
When Giuly's trigger timing finally matched the second pass, collapsing the space with Bernardi closing in behind, Demien's stance eased a fraction.
A small flash.
Not enough.
But a beginning.
The next cycle Rothen tightened his channel half a step sooner.
Forced a backpass.
Forced panic.
No wild celebrations.
No fist pumps.
Just sweat soaking into kits, breathing hard, muted shifts of understanding growing beneath the skin.
The rhythm sharpened in flashes now.
Brief, halting symphonies that collapsed again under exhaustion but proved something real:
They could learn.
Demien nodded once toward Michel, signaling the first proper water break.
The whistle blew.
Players slowed, peeling toward the coolers set at the sideline.
Giuly dropped onto one knee, pulling at the laces of his boots absently.
Bernardi hunched over a bottle, water streaking down his forearms.
Evra lingered near the edge, toweling sweat from his neck, eyes darting sideways.
Toward Rothen.
Demien caught it — a lean in, a hand brushing against a shoulder too casually to be casual.
Words slipped out, low and tight, too far to catch in full.
But enough floated back across the heat-wavered air:
"If we don't believe in it... it's suicide."
Demien didn't move.
Didn't correct.
Didn't confront.
Not yet.
His arms folded slowly across his chest, body still relaxed.
As the players sprawled loosely around the sidelines, Demien's eyes tracked slow patterns across the pitch — Evra bending at the waist, Rothen wiping sweat into the crook of his arm, Bernardi kicking at a stray bottle cap near the cooler.
Conversations low enough to sound harmless rippled between them, but he caught the shape of it.
Not rebellion.
Not yet.
Just the familiar weight of minds still trying to decide if change was worth bleeding for.
He let it hang a few seconds longer — let them believe he hadn't heard anything at all.
Then turned without announcement, flipping the whiteboard to the next sequence, the marker cold and solid between his fingers.
The players straightened instinctively, a few necks craning toward the new diagrams.
Demien tapped the top grid once, sharp and deliberate.
"Groups of six. Narrow grid this time."
Boots shifted, water bottles snapped closed, towels were tossed aside.
"Wide players collapse earlier. Midfield triggers reset. Third man covers inside press."
No lectures.
No time for doubt.
Giuly already started nudging players into the new shape, muttering instructions under his breath.
Demien stepped back toward the edge of the new drill, arms folded loosely again, watching movement organize itself from the wreckage of fatigue.
A few slower reactions.
One hesitation from Rothen.
Demien said nothing yet.
The second whistle from Michel pierced the morning haze.
Movement exploded off the cones.
And the real work resumed.