God Of football

Chapter 811: Blink, And You’re Dead.

Fifteen minutes had gone by, and already the match had the restless pulse of something that might swing either way.

Barcelona’s opener had tilted the stadium, but Arsenal weren’t shrinking, not even after the Odegaard scare.

They were probing, passing, knitting themselves into a rhythm designed to squeeze out an opening.

Ødegaard, alongside Rice, coaxed the ball across the grass with gentle touches, always demanding it back, always dictating tempo.

While Izan drifted between the lines, head swivelling as though mapping escape routes before the pressure came.

”Look at Arsenal here,” Martin Tyler’s voice cut through. ”It’s not rushed, it’s not frantic. They’re just trying to calm this down, to stretch Barcelona’s shape, but it is easier said than done, because Barcelona are not giving them an inch of space to work with. Hansi Flick has really turned these players into tireless workhorses.”

The ball fizzed across the pitch once more, Timber slipping it into Rice, who turned smoothly under the shadow of Pedri and laid it forward to Trossard.

The Belgian spun infield, but almost instantly, he was enveloped by the Catalan press, three bodies swarming to deny him even the scent of space.

He tapped back, safe.

The crowd groaned softly, the familiar noise of tension without release.

”They’re asking questions,” Peter Drury murmured. ”But Barcelona... they’re answering everyone.”

Then it came, an acceleration out of nothing.

Izan ghosted between the lines, pulled wide by a Rice pass, and in a single motion rolled the ball under his studs before shovelling it inside to Ødegaard.

The Norwegian popped it straight back, and suddenly, Izan had space to glide.

He accelerated, weight shifting, dragging defenders with him, while the commentary followed.

”Ooooh, he’s wriggled through there!” Tyler’s tone sharpened. ”Now what can he see?”

The teenager clipped a ball out to Saka, who had darted into the half-space, chesting it down cleanly.

The Arsenal end surged in expectation as Saka shifted onto his left, winding up for the kind of curling delivery he’d practised a thousand times.

The cross swept in wickedly, arching toward the penalty spot where Havertz stretched his neck muscles and leapt.

For a heartbeat, the ball seemed destined to land perfectly.

But then Inigo Martínez stepped across like a wall, brushing the German off balance.

Havertz made contact, but the header skidded tamely into Szczęsny’s gloves.

”Barcelona’s line again, this time stepping up directly”, Drury noted, his voice holding just the right trace of admiration.

”They know when to step, when to lean, when to make the attacker feel half a yard smaller, and they can also fight for the ball in the air too.”

The Polish keeper didn’t hesitate.

He clutched the ball to his chest, glanced once, and then launched forward with a sweeping throw to Pedri, who immediately began moving the ball towards the opponent’s half as Arsenal began to retreat instinctively, the tension snapping back the other way.

Pedri didn’t linger after crossing the halfway line.

With the outside of his boot, he wrapped his leg around the ball in that trademark flourish as he sent a trivela, spinning through the air, curling wickedly down the flank.

”Pedri... with a little magician’s whip,” Peter Drury’s voice rode on the sound of the crowd, low and reverent.

Raphinha was there in a blur of blue and red, cushioning the pass on his instep, body already turning inwards.

The Brazilian’s stride was quick, shoulders shimmying, one feint then another as Timber backed off, wary, but the danger was not at his feet, it was in the idea.

A sudden slip of the ankle, and the ball sliced through a seam.

A through ball, threaded with surgical precision, straight to the run of Robert Lewandowski.

And for a breath, it looked inevitable.

”Lewandowski! This is his stage,” Tyler’s voice caught with the expectancy of it.

The Polish striker drew his right boot back, the Allianz already rising, knowing how this story was meant to end.

But then, like steel on grass, coming to the rescue was Saliba.

The Frenchman had read it, sprinting across in desperate, perfect timing.

A slide that wasn’t just a tackle but a rescue, his long leg flicking the ball clean away before Lewandowski’s foot could kiss it.

”Magnifique!” Drury erupted, his words tumoring into admiration. ”William Saliba with a tackle from the heavens!”

The danger was gone, but only for a second.

Timber was first to the loose ball, snatching it under control as Barcelona shirts descended like wolves.

Raphinha snapping.

Olmo darting.

It wasn’t the most optimal situation for what he was about to do, but that was all he knew he could do in the moment.

With a little shoulder drop, a shuffle of feet, and he ghosted through the closing trap with a skill no one expected, as Raphinha’s leg clipped the ball, but Timber was still able to go.

Suddenly free, he looked up.

And there he saw him.

Izan.

Standing between two lines, not yet alive, not yet urgent.

Timber drew back his leg and punched the ball forward with all the faith of a man who believed in destiny more than probability.

One might have seen the pass as overkill from the way the ball was soaring, but from what Timber had seen, in their previous training, from all that Izan had done, it was just the right amount.

Inigo Martínez turned and saw the ball hurtling.

He measured the distance, judged the timing.

And in that same instant, his gaze flicked up, calculating where the opponent might be.

He saw Izan.

A boy still twenty yards away. Too far. Safe.

Then Martínez blinked.

And when his eyes opened again.

He wasn’t safe.

Izan was there, in front of him, like a figure stepping straight out of a shadow.

A blur, no, more than that, an apparition.

The distance had vanished, the grass eaten alive by his stride.

One blink, one heartbeat, and time itself had folded.

The crowd gasped, not a cheer, not a roar, but a ripple of disbelief, a noise that ran like static across the Allianz.

”Where did he come from?!” Tyler’s voice cracked into astonishment as Izan killed the ball with an elegance that mocked the violence of his arrival.

And with a single touch, velvet-soft, he dragged it through the very gap between Martínez’s legs.

The defender spun, reacting late and heavily, a veteran chasing a ghost.

And then Izan turned.

Head up, shoulders squared, standing right before Trossard, who had drifted infield.

Even the Belgian paused, caught for a moment not in the game but in the spectacle, like he too couldn’t quite comprehend how quickly it had happened as the ball sat obediently at Izan’s feet, under his command now.

Arteta’s breath caught on the touchline.

It was the same look in Izan’s stride back when they were training for the final.

The way he had gone for the ball, the snap of acceleration, it wasn’t human.

It was like watching a creature disguised in a footballer’s body, a predator wearing predators, that seemed to give him boosts.

The Spaniard’s hand went to his chest, fingers pressing against the fabric of his jacket as though to steady the thud of his own heartbeat.

”Dios mío...” he whispered as the camera raced to catch up with the chaos.

”Martínez is grappling, grabbing, trying anything to hold onto Izan’s shirt!” Peter Drury’s voice, electric, filled the air.

The Spanish defender clawed at the red fabric, knuckles white with strain, but Izan barely seemed to notice.

He edged him out, shoulder to shoulder, as though teasing him, mocking the desperation.

A boy against a man, yet it looked the other way around.

”Martínez hanging on, tugging, twisting, he clips him!” Drury roared as

Izan’s legs tangled with Inigo Martinez’s.

His body pitched forward as the crowd gasped.

He hit the turf, with the Arsenal players ready to protest but then the roar that followed wasn’t protest but astonishment.

Because he bounced right back up.

Like he’d been wired to the earth, pulled upright by some unseen force.

The fall was nothing, almost like dust shaken off a lion’s mane.

The ball was still there, spinning loose, rolling with menace, and Izan was already there again before half the crowd had blinked.

But now Cubarsí was in front of him.

The young Barcelona defender came like a wall, body low, chest braced, muscles set.

He launched himself full force into Izan’s path, shoulder colliding with him like iron slamming into iron, but it was Cubarsí’s face that broke.

His mouth tightened, eyes narrowing with strain.

It was as though he had struck not a boy but a slab of immovable stone.

Izan barely shifted, the impact absorbed in motion, and then came the twist.

Izan cut back, in Cubarsi’s direction, and then dragged the ball back, slicing away from the collision, and Cubarsí’s legs betrayed him.

His boots skidded, his hips buckled, and in the frantic scramble, his body dropped into an ungraceful split on the turf.

The young defender’s palms slapped the ground in a useless attempt to steady himself, disbelief flashing across his face as the stadium erupted.

And Izan... Izan didn’t even look back.

It was the indifference of it all, the way he simply carried on, as though tired of swatting flies.

His left leg drew back, muscles flexing with coiled rage, the crowd sensing it before it happened as Drury’s voice cracked with anticipation.

”He’s wound it up—he’s going to hit it—”

And then—

BOOM!

The left foot thundered through the ball, the sound alone like a cannon loosed into the night.