God Of football

Chapter 496: The Next One

The half-time whistle cleaved through the noise like a blade, and for the first time in forty-five minutes, the Emirates exhaled.

Clive Tyldesley’s voice came softly over the crowd’s aftershock:

“That… was a half of Champions League football that belongs in the archives. Explosive. Emotional. And utterly exhausting.”

“Could’ve been 3–1 either way,” Darren Fletcher added.

“A saved penalty, a retake, a rebound finish, and a free-kick that might already be a Puskás nominee. It’s everything this new format promised — and more.”

On the pitch, the players jogged toward the tunnel — some slowly, some with heads bowed.

Arsenal’s defenders looked like they were carrying invisible weights; Timber shook his head, muttering to himself.

Gabriel was deep in conversation with Saliba, lips tight.

Thomas Partey swatted at the sweat dripping down his temple, his usual composure frayed.

And then there was Izan.

He wasn’t walking like someone whose wonder goal had pulled his team back into the game.

He moved like someone still mid-hunt, still burning with some wild unfinished purpose.

No high-fives. No smiles.

Just a flick of sweat off his brow, a hard blink, and eyes forward.

Saka caught up beside him, tapping the teenager’s back.

Izan gave a curt nod but never broke stride.

The Emirates crowd clapped for their players as they left the pitch — one of those rare moments where awe turned an entire crowd into believers, no matter the scoreline.

But as the players disappeared from view, the noise didn’t fade.

In the stands, the air was electric, like the whole stadium had taken a jolt to the heart.

“I’m sorry — that goal,” a woman said to her friend two rows down.

“He bent it around the wall and somehow under it at the same time?”

“He wrapped it like a croissant around air,” her friend laughed, still in disbelief.

“And he’s sixteen! I was doing GCSEs at sixteen!”

Nearby, a middle-aged man with a South London accent turned to a Parisian fan sitting in front of him — red wine in hand, visibly shaken.

“You alright there, mate?”

The Paris fan gave a helpless chuckle, wiping his glasses with a scarf.

“Every time Izan touches the ball… my soul panics.”

The Arsenal fan grinned, then leaned closer, lowering his voice like a confession.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve watched that kid since the Euros. I knew he was good, yeah — but this?” He gestured toward the pitch.

“This is something else. This is… Messi at Barcelona energy. And I just hope he doesn’t burn out early because this kid is the one holding the torch for the next gen.”

On the other side, PSG fans were nervously clapping, trying to keep each other buoyant.

One of them — a younger guy in a Hakimi jersey — was practically biting his nails.

“Ça va aller,” his friend said beside him.

“We’ve still got weapons. But Izan… he’s different. Like… he smells blood.”

…….

Back inside the Emirates, in the tunnel, the tension thickened again — but this time it came from Arsenal’s end.

The locker room door shut behind them with a dull thud, and silence fell like a guillotine.

Arteta stood in front of them, hands behind his back, breathing deeply through his nose.

Then, without warning, his voice snapped through the room.

“Are you tired of being paid to play football?”

No one answered.

He took a step forward.

“Because the way some of you are running out there, I wouldn’t blame the crowd for thinking you’re not being paid.”

The silence grew heavier.

He let it breathe, let it sit like smoke in the lungs before continuing.

“Izan…” — his eyes flicked to the teenager, who sat on the bench unflinching — “…is sixteen. He was supposed to learn from you. Not carry you.”

Jurrien Timber looked down at his boots, Rice next to him had his jaw locked, arms crossed.

Arteta took a breath, grounding himself.

“I don’t care if one player carries us. Great teams always have one — Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé, take your pick. But when one player is doing that, the rest of you? You don’t become passengers. You don’t make his job harder. You make damn sure he’s not bleeding alone.”

Still nothing. Just the shuffle of boots.

Sweat dripping onto the tile.

The low hum of fluorescent lights buzzing like a countdown.

“I want fire in your eyes,” Arteta continued, voice soft now, but somehow even more dangerous.

“I want the kind of effort that makes their players question if they want to go into tackles. Because right now…” — he snapped his fingers — “…they are dictating the tone. You’re reacting. I want to see who among you can take control.”

From the back of the room, Carlos Cuesta cleared his throat, but Arteta held up a hand.

“I’m not finished.”

He stepped closer to the centre of the room.

“We’ve all seen what they can do. They’re good—yes. But I refuse to believe we’re not better. Not tonight. Not here.”

He pointed at the cannon stitched into his own jacket.

Then, slowly, he turned his finger to the badge on Rice’s chest.

Then Timber’s. Then Saka’s.

“You wear this? You bleed for it.”

He walked toward the door.

“And when you step back out there — I want the version of Arsenal that makes people sit forward in their chairs.”

“Now rest up because when the officials call, I want to see Spartans ready to die for the game.”

……..

The tunnel hummed with an anxious sort of static, the kind that always comes before the storm restarts.

Boots scraped concrete. Coaches murmured.

Shirts were tugged. Heads rolled side to side, stretching stiffened necks.

And among the din stood Luis Enrique, one hand braced on the wall, the other gesturing in clipped arcs as he spoke low and quick to his assistant, Rafel Pol.

“He reminds me of Leo,” Luis Enrique muttered, eyes flicking toward the Arsenal players lining up across the tunnel, where Izan stood just behind Saka.

Pol followed his gaze and nodded.

“Well, this one has one hell of a right foot. That cut-in from the left earlier had me praying.”

Luis Enrique exhaled slowly, the lines on his face pulling into the kind of expression only formed by years of being tormented by generational brilliance.

“Do you know what we used to do against Messi? When I was still coaching Celta and then Barcelona, in training.” He gave a wry, nostalgic chuckle.

“Box shadows. Zone swarms. The same old tricks.”

“And they worked… sometimes.”

“Exactly.” Luis Enrique turned to face Pol, voice tight with something like realism masked as hope.

“And that’s because Messi was Messi. You couldn’t stop him. Only hope to delay the damage.”

Pol crossed his arms, considering.

“You want to try it again? That same hybrid man-marking drift zone?”

Luis Enrique gave a short nod.

“It’s not perfect, but it’ll suffocate his channels. We don’t need to stop him entirely — we just need to slow him. Make the others play.”

He paused, glanced at the stadium tunnel where red-clad players were beginning to jog out into the buzz of the Emirates.

Then he saw him.

“Marqui!” Luis Enrique barked, just as the PSG captain crossed into the threshold of noise.

The Brazilian paused and turned back, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

Luis Enrique walked up to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and leaned in.

“I want a shadow on Izan. Not tight—not old-school marking—just… feel him. Wherever he drifts, I want you to know where he is.”

Marquinhos nodded once, jaw firming.

“He’s clever,” Luis Enrique continued.

“He’ll pull you into no-man’s land, force you to break shape. Don’t let him. Let Zaïre-Emery cover the half-space if he floats centrally. You protect the seam between Vitinha and Hakimi.”

“You want him outside?” Marquinhos asked.

“I want him where his passes don’t kill us,” Luis Enrique said.

“That means force him wide and keep him early. If he’s touching the ball in the final third, we’re already late.”

Marquinhos pressed his lips into a thin line, eyes scanning the pitch ahead as the crowd roared again, the second half moments away.

Luis Enrique added one last note: “And don’t dive in. Not once. He’ll punish it.”

The captain gave him a firm nod, then jogged out toward the centre circle where his teammates were already lining up.

Luis Enrique turned back toward the tunnel entrance with Pol beside him.

“Messi. Izan. Different generations, same problem.”

Pol chuckled softly. “Let’s hope the solution’s different too.”

Luis Enrique narrowed his gaze, muttering just loud enough for Pol to hear, “Let’s see if he really is the next one…”

“Welcome back to the start of the second half of this exciting fixture that has seen a goal at both ends. As it stands now, it’s Arsenal one, Paris Saint-Germain one, and we await the players who have now started taking their positions. It’s all to fight for here at the Emirates in London.”

A/N: Last of the previous day. I was a bit busy, so I couldn’t follow up quickly with this chapter. Sorry for the wait, and have fun reading.

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