God Of football

Chapter 902: A Crowd Too Big for Training

The noise hit them before the heat did.

It rolled out of the tunnel in a thick wall of sound that made Saka slow down mid-step and lean forward like he needed to check if his ears were lying to him.

He glanced around at the others, then muttered under his breath with his mouth half open.

”What the fuck.”

It slipped out so naturally that even Nwaneri snorted.

No one blamed him.

The National Stadium wasn’t just busy, it was overflowing.

Fifty-five thousand people crammed into an arena for a training session.

Not a match, not a trophy parade, not a farewell.

Just a run on the grass under the Singapore sun.

The players walked out first, followed by staff in their usual calm stride.

Arteta stepped beside them, hands in his tracksuit pockets, trying not to look impressed, but his raised brow gave him away.

He turned toward Albert Stuivenberg without slowing down.

”They said a small crowd, right? Or did they say a large one, and I heard wrong?”

Albert could only shrug.

The noise made it impossible for him to pretend he knew the answer.

Every chant bounced off the roof, circling the pitch.

Some were general Arsenal songs, but one name cut through the rest again and again.

Izan, and the timing was almost theatrical.

He appeared at the end of the tunnel with his boots already tied, head lowered, then he stepped into the light, and the volume somehow climbed higher.

Even he stopped for half a second, brows lifting, before he walked onto the pitch to join the rest.

Arteta greeted him with a faint smile as Izan stepped beside him.

”If this is something regular, then we could play home games here and no one would know the difference.”

He wasn’t wrong.

The place felt like the Emirates with different colours.

”Then let’s not keep our lovely crowd waiting,” Izan said before stepping into stride beside his mates.

The session began with simple drills.

Warmups, rondos and a few short sequences.

The moment the players got into their rhythm, the stadium settled.

Not because people were bored, but because they were waiting.

Watching for something.

The silence was strange, heavy, almost expectant, and it broke the instant Izan received a pass.

He killed the ball with one touch, ghosted past Odegaard with the next, and released it into space, something simple for him but not for the spectating crowd.

The roar came back like a wave and rolled through the whole stadium.

Izan felt the corner of his mouth lift as he jogged away, lifting one hand to give the crowd a small wave.

Training moved on as usual with finishing runs, short possessions and the new signings too, also getting in tune.

At the end, everyone split into smaller individual routines, at least that was how it was supposed to be until Saka drifted toward Izan with a grin that was already up to something.

He mouthed a sentence at him from a few steps away.

Do some tricks for them.

Izan rubbed the back of his neck, ignoring the Saka, but he could feel it.

The crowd was still buzzing.

He could feel thousands of eyes following him expectantly.

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded to himself.

They came out for a training session in the heat.

He could at least give them something to take home.

He picked up a ball, flicked it onto his foot, and started juggling.

Slow at first, simple touches with simple touches, and almost instantly, several fans pulled out their phone to record.

Izan, seeing this, smirked and began to get serious.

The juggling height grew bit by bit.

The ball floated higher each time before dropping, and each time he brought it under control without effort.

The crowd murmured, then cheered once they realised he wasn’t losing it.

The rhythm changed, sharper, more precise.

Thigh, chest, boot laces, repeat, each touch cleaner than the last.

Then he went for it.

He let the ball drop onto his instep and smashed it straight up.

The hit was so clean that the ball shot up in a perfect vertical line and kept going until it disappeared through the open panel in the stadium roof.

Gasps filled the entire arena as every neck craned upward.

For a few heartbeats, no one breathed.

Then, the ball finally reappeared, dropping fast.

Izan jogged to the landing spot like he had already mapped it out.

When it fell toward him, he angled his body slightly and caught it on the toe of his boot so softly that it didn’t bounce at all.

It touched his boot and the grass in the same heartbeat and stayed there.

The stadium erupted, a few fans in the stands putting their hands on their heads like they couldn’t believe what they had just seen.

”Did you catch that? Did you catch that? Bro, we gotta upload this to YouTube,” a guy said to his friend, who held a camera with a stand in his other hand, nodding aggressively.

”Broo, I got it! I got it.”

Back on the pitch, Saka jogged in laughing, bumping his shoulder.

”You’re an actual show off.”

Izan only shrugged with a smile.

The coaches ended the session a minute later, and the players began heading toward the tunnel, clapping toward the stands.

Izan lifted his head at the big screens where a kid was shown holding a sign asking for his jersey.

Instead of peeling off his shirt, he placed the ball by his feet and struck it toward the boy’s section.

It flew straight to him, almost unceremoniously, before slowing down as it neared.

The kid caught it awkwardly against his chest, froze for a second, then hugged it like it was gold while Izan waved toward him, then toward the rest of the crowd as he jogged into the tunnel with the others, where the noise followed him all the way in.

....

”Okay, guys, come on, let’s be quick and leave for the hotel. We do not want to be late for dinner,” Albert Stuivenberg said as the players began changing out of their training kits.

In the middle of it all, Zubimendi let his towel hang over one shoulder and pointed it at Izan like he was giving a lecture.

”You know, you could run for president here,” he said, his English tinged with a Spanish accent, while shaking his head as if the idea genuinely troubled him.

”Not even in a party. Just you. One person. You would give them a real fight.”

Saka, already halfway to the showers with his socks dangling from his fingers, muttered, ”No lies were told,” before disappearing behind a row of lockers.

Kepa leaned back on the bench and stared at Izan properly, as if he had been waiting for a quiet moment to ask.

”But seriously, how do you have that many fans in Singapore? I thought you were big, but that... that was different.”

A few of the players around him turned too.

The room shifted, attention sliding toward Izan in one wave.

Before he could answer, Saka’s head popped back around the corner.

He had heard the question.

”Oh no,” Izan muttered, rubbing his forehead. ”Please. I beg.”

It was too late. Saka was already dragging the tactical board away from the wall, the wheels squeaking while Nwaneri handed him a marker like he was passing a sword to a knight, grinning because he already knew where this was going.

Saka stood in front of the board like a schoolteacher who enjoyed his job a little too much.

”Class, settle down.”

Groans and laughter rippled through the room, but the players did settle down.

”Right,” he said, clicking the marker like a lecturer about to drop wisdom.

”Reason number one.”

He turned the board dramatically.

It was blank.

”Look at the boy’s face.”

The whole room burst into laughter while Izan covered his face with both hands.

”No, seriously,” Saka went on, waving the marker like a conductor.

”Look at the hair. Look at those stupid blue eyes. Women see that and lose their minds. Did you not hear the crowd? Every two seconds, someone was screaming his name. And he’s seventeen. Seventeen!”

The laughter doubled while Izan looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.

”Reason two,” Saka said, turning the imaginary page.

”He’s actually been one of the best players in the world for a while. Since he was fifteen, he’s been cooking for people for fun. And just this past season? He was the best player alive, and I do not want to hear those Messi and Ronaldo talks. They are still good, but come on.”

The players laughed a bit while Saliba raised a hand, but Saka shut him down before he could say anything.

”Saliba, put your hands down because your boy, Mbappe, has never won a game of football against Izan, while he is on the pitch.”

A few players laughed at that while Saliba set his hand down with a grin, knowing Saka had hit the nail on the head.

”And before anyone argues... Nwaneri, you want to say it?”

”Izan is the Uncrowned King,” Nwaneri shouted from the back, hand raised.

”There we go,” Saka said proudly.

”And that is because some panel of judges decided to give it to someone because Izan wasn’t old enough.”

A few players began nodding in agreement, the laughter softening into something more thoughtful.

”And reason three.”

Saka rubbed his index and middle fingers against his thumb. ”He has the moola.”

The room cracked up again as Izan grabbed his slides and launched them at him.

One hit Saka’s back before he disappeared into the showers with a triumphant holler.

But even after he was gone, the room didn’t snap back to normal.

A quiet settled in pockets of the group as several players took another look at Izan, this time without jokes.

Just a slow, shared realisation.

They had known he was special, but moments like today and the crowd’s reaction made it hit in a new way.

What kind of person had they been training beside all this time?

And for a second, the dressing room felt different.

As if everyone saw him a little more clearly than before.