diff --git a/PROJECT.md b/PROJECT.md
index e1703af..05260b4 100644
--- a/PROJECT.md
+++ b/PROJECT.md
@@ -491,6 +491,67 @@ zombie (now an occasional opponent, `TUNE.racketEvery`, not the every-game fixtu
   `RETURNED`, `DOUBLE KILL`) is a footnote to something you already watched happen. Sharing the loud
   FACE with the milestone cards is right; sharing their SIZE made every footnote read as a milestone.
 
+## THE SEASON — the tournament is the story (2026-08-31, AGREED in discussion; NOT BUILT YET)
+
+Oliver's diagnosis, and it is right: "alles ist irgendwie beliebig... die Menüführung und die Start-
+und Endscreens enforcen keine Story-Line". The cause is not a missing story — THE LEAGUES already
+are one. It is that the story runs UNDERNEATH while a mode picker sits in front: five modes as
+peers on a poster wall, the goal a caption on the plaque, and every ending dropping you back on
+the splash with nothing handed over. The one screen that already works is the PROMOTION, because
+it says *what you did, what is new, where you go next* — that is the pattern the rest is missing.
+
+### Decisions, settled with Oliver 2026-08-31
+
+1. **THE TOURNAMENT IS THE CANONICAL PATH.** It is the only thing that moves the career. Every
+   other mode is Beiwerk by design and stays that way — no second promotion route, ever.
+2. **A CUP ATTEMPT IS ONE EVENING.** No resume across sessions, and **no seeding**: reaching the
+   semi-final once does NOT let a later attempt start there. Elimination sends you back to round
+   one. That price is what makes the cup a test rather than a queue — explicitly weighed against
+   the friendlier alternative and rejected.
+3. **Classic tennis stays Beiwerk** with no narrative role. Gore and netplay likewise: "ausser
+   Konkurrenz" is their ROLE, not a demotion.
+4. **Guidance is structural, never a lock.** The leagues' rule holds: nothing that is playable
+   today gets sealed behind progress to manufacture a path. The player is POINTED, not fenced —
+   two taps still reach anything.
+5. **The story is carried by structure and screens, not by more prose.** The copy audit already
+   proved the failure mode: rules buried in modal text do not land. No narrator dumps.
+
+### The spine — five pieces
+
+1. **THE FRONT DOOR IS THE FIXTURE.** The splash's primary button stops saying PLAY MATCH and
+   names the next cup fixture instead ("LIGA 3 · THE CUP — FOUR ROUNDS · ROUND ONE: THE
+   GROUNDSKEEPER"), entering the draw directly. The poster wall moves one level down behind a
+   secondary door. One tap to the canon; one extra tap to browse.
+2. **THE CLUB REMEMBERS THE ATTEMPTS.** Two small profile fields per league: the best round
+   reached, and who eliminated you last. Shown on the plaque and the league panel ("BEST:
+   SEMI-FINAL"). A lost cup stops being a null event and becomes a line on the board — this is
+   what turns repetition into an arc, and it is the cheapest piece here.
+3. **BEIWERK IS DESCRIBED IN CUP TERMS.** The poster wall groups into DIE SAISON (the cup) /
+   DAS TRAINING (the climb, the training court, the drill) / AUSSER KONKURRENZ (gore, classic,
+   netplay), so the menu itself answers "what does this do for me?". The strongest coupling:
+   **after an elimination the training court preselects the body that knocked you out** — one
+   remembered rung and one line of copy turn a generic practice mode into the answer to the
+   last defeat.
+4. **EVERY ENDING POINTS BACK.** Non-cup endings close on the fixture line and its button. The
+   cup elimination gets its own small ceremony (the board notes how far you came) instead of the
+   generic death summary.
+5. **THE SEASON OPENS INSIDE THE PROMOTION.** No new screen: the promo screen gains a second beat
+   naming what waits in the new league (rounds, who stands at the bottom of the band). Ceremony
+   without another tap between the player and the court.
+
+### The phases
+
+- **Phase 1 — the front door.** The fixture line + button on the splash, and the same handover on
+  every ending. Presentation only; reads `cupRoundsFor` and the profile, adds no state.
+- **Phase 2 — the record.** The two profile fields, their display on plaque and league panel, and
+  the elimination ceremony.
+- **Phase 3 — the rooms.** Poster-wall grouping and the training-court preselect.
+- **Phase 4 — the season beat** inside the promotion screen.
+
+Open for the build (not decisions): the exact fixture wording; whether the fixture button skips
+the cup setup screen entirely (it has no court choice anyway); how the record reads at league 5;
+and whether the elimination ceremony is its own screen or a variant of the run-end summary.
+
 ## Session log: the copy audit — every modal says what it means (2026-08-29, Oliver's ask)
 
 A sweep over every modal/card message for decoding-required copy, four finds fixed: