God Of football

Chapter 951: On A Hatrick!

Saka didn’t waste a heartbeat.

He clipped a low ball across the box, sharp and quick, forcing everyone inside to react before they’re ready.

The away end rose again, a wave of bodies pushed upright by instinct because they knew what that kind of delivery could cause.

The ball skipped across the grass and met Izan in stride while the commentator’s voice tightened as the play unfolded on the broadcast.

”Here’s Izan again...”

But as if he had heard someone call out to him, Izan let the ball roll between his legs, lifting himself just enough to jump over it.

Casemiro lunged in, expecting contact, and the dummy left him stranded.

The crowd roared in response, a burst of noise that sounded almost incredulous.

The ball slipped through the gap Izan had created and ran straight to Gyokeres.

The striker stepped into it, planting his standing foot cleanly before putting his entire weight behind a first-time strike.

”Gyokeres! He’s caught that well...”

The hit was pure.

It hissed toward the near post and should have been in the back of the net, but Bayindir stretched and got his fingertips to it.

The touch was everything and enough to send the ball onto the upright with a heavy thud.

A sound like wood snapping echoed across the stadium as the fans, who were halfway to throwing their hands over their heads, halted because the game had twisted again.

Before United’s defenders could even turn, Izan burst through the pack, with the arms of Luke Shaw and De Ligt all over him.

He’d read the rebound before anyone else, reacting with the kind of speed that seemed to ignore everything happening around him.

Then, he lunged forward, stretching his leg and stabbing the ball past Bayindir before the keeper could get back up.

The net rippled, and Izan pushed himself off the turf, rising to his feet in one fluid motion before he began jogging towards the corner flag.

”Izan again! He’s put it in! That is unbelievable. Two goals in three minutes. He’s on a hat trick now, on their first game of the season, and it hasn’t even been a quarter of an hour.”

The replays flashed on the big screens, but they hardly mattered.

People were too busy reacting live, grabbing the nearest shirt or stranger, some laughing in shock, others yelling Izan’s name like that was going to make him come over.

Down on the pitch, Izan slowed to a stop at the corner flag before just pumping his fists slightly while his teammates swarmed him.

Away from the players and standing on the edge of his technical area was Ruben Amorim, expression bare, like he was fed up but couldn’t show it.

The match had tilted sharply against his team, yet he refused to let panic seep into his players.

”Stay patient,” he called out, motioning with both hands. ”Don’t force it. We’re still in this. Keep your shape.”

His players nodded, absorbing his words in the middle of the storm.

They moved with more care than they had earlier, almost protective of the ball as if one mistake might widen a gap they couldn’t close again.

For the next ten minutes, the shift showed.

Their passes were cleaner, their lines closer, and they pinched the ball off Arsenal a few times in dangerous spots.

One move down the right even had the home fans rising, but it fizzled out before it could become anything more.

They were fighting, pushing, giving everything.

But amidst all the could do, one thing they had no answer for was Izan.

Whenever the ball went near him, the stadium held its breath like they were walking on a tight rope.

United players didn’t quite know how to close him down.

Each time they stepped toward him, he seemed to choose a different solution, a different rhythm.

The commentator’s tone sharpened as Izan drifted across the pitch with the ball glued to his boots.

”Here’s Izan again on the ball.”

He slowed just enough to freeze his marker, then sliced the ball outward with a smooth trivela using his left foot.

The pass curved away from him, bending around two red shirts before dipping perfectly into Martinelli’s stride.

Izan didn’t linger.

He moved into space immediately, expecting the one-two.

But Martinelli had other ideas.

He cut inside, teasing his man on the edge of the box, rolling the ball across his body to find an angle for a shot.

The opening didn’t come.

Instead, he was pushed wide, lost momentum and was eventually swallowed up by two recovering defenders who took the ball cleanly from him, just before Arteta sprang up from the bench on the touchline.

”Gabi, release it! He’s right there!”

His voice carried even through the noise as United tried to flip the moment into a counter.

Bruno collected the loose ball with a bit of room and shaped his body to slip a pass toward the left channel for Mason Mount.

The angle was there, and the pass looked right, yet it never arrived.

Izan rose above it, climbing for the ball as if he had springs in his legs.

He didn’t even go for it with his head, but instead, he controlled it on his laces while still descending, dropping back onto the grass like it had cushions in it.

”That’s... unorthodox,” the commentator said, not hiding his surprise, ”but it’s worked. He’s kept it under control somehow.”

Izan landed, touched the ball out of his feet, and turned sharply.

He burst forward through the heart of the pitch, sliding through gaps that had no right to exist.

A defender, Lenny Yoro, reached toward him while another tried to time and step in, but he slipped past both, leaning his body one way, flicking the ball the other.

He stepped to the edge of the area, opened up, and shaped a shot with his right.

The defenders bit, and even Bayindir shifted toward that expected strike, but all they watched come was Izan, who dragged the ball onto his left and curled it toward the far corner in the same breath.

The shot bent earlier than anyone read it, drifting from an awkward angle into a pocket of space.

The keeper couldn’t react fast, only diving a second later as the net behind him snapped back.

For a moment, it felt like the entire stadium forgot how to make noise.

Then the sound rushed back in a wave as the commentator’s voice cracked with disbelief.

”It’s in! Izan has a hat trick, and we’re barely past the half-hour mark. He’s back in the Premier League like the season never stopped.”

Izan slowed his run and lifted his hand amid the push and shoves by his mates.

He raised one finger, then two, then three, counting his goals with a small, calm gesture.

Then, he pressed three fingers together, blew a kiss toward the Manchester United fans, and lowered his hand again.

They hardly reacted.

’

Most just stared, shoulders slack, as if unsure what they were witnessing.

On the pitch, Izan jogged back toward his own half, but nothing suggested that he was done with Manchester United.

.

While the stadium buzzed and the players jogged back into shape for the restart, the internet was already tearing itself apart.

Clips of Izan’s hat trick spread like sparks in dry grass, with each angle making the goals look even more ridiculous.

On one fan forum, a comment shot to the top in minutes.

”Same old Manchester United. This is becoming a tradition at this point.”

Someone replied under it almost instantly.

”Forget tradition, it’s getting embarrassing. A top six club shouldn’t be getting opened up like this in half an hour.”

A third user joined in, throwing a different kind of jab.

”Funny how everyone’s talking like their own teams didn’t get cooked by Arsenal and Izan last season. Stay humble lest you also end up like them or worse.”

That comment got a wave of laughing reactions, but it didn’t stop the debate.

More posts appeared, each more chaotic than the last.

”So you’re telling me clubs already struggled against the other ten Arsenal players, last season, and they still decided to go for Zubimendi and Gyokeres too? Eze too. Who’s supposed to deal with all of them?”

Someone else quoted that message with a short response.

”Not even fair. Add Izan to that mix, and you might as well flip a coin for second place.”

Another thread spun off entirely, talking about the lack of Clinicality amongst the other Arsenal players.

”Not trying to downplay their efforts here, but this is just Izan carrying Arsenal. I mean, how did Gyokeres miss that ball Izan got on the end of to rebound it for his second?”

The conversation kept looping back to him, no matter the angle.

Back at Old Trafford, the referee checked his watch as the players drifted into their last positions of the half before letting his whistle sound as the ball rolled toward midfield, the crowd settling for a moment.

”And that brings the first half to a close. Arsenal leads by three, and the story so far is impossible to ignore. Izan has lit up Old Trafford yet again, and this is getting detrimental for Manchester United by the minute.”