God Of football

Chapter 1007: Beyond Special!

”Yeah. That should be checked because it was never a foul nor enough to warrant a red card,” Drury said as the referee got to the machine.

He stood over it for what felt like longer than it was as the angles came through one by one, starting from Izan’s challenge, which, from the main camera, had looked forceful and reckless, though the others seemed to tell a different story from everywhere else.

The leg had been low and clean, the ball had been won, and Kane had gone over it, not because of the tackle, but because his momentum had already taken him past the point of no return.

There was no malice, and there was barely even contact with the man.

With his decision made in mind, the referee straightened and walked back onto the pitch.

The Emirates stared on as the referee made the decision that could make or break the game for both teams and in the end, he waved away the red card.

The Emirates erupted with the noise of relief finding its release all at once as Drury came in over the top of it on the broadcast.

”The red card is rescinded. VAR has done its job tonight, and rightly so. A dead-ball situation for Arsenal, but Izan Fernandez remains on this pitch. And somehow, something tells me that matters quite a lot.”

On the pitch, Izan turned toward the referee and gave him a single thumbs-up, to which the referee reciprocated with a curt nod before the former turned and moved back upfield toward his position.

Afterwards, the referee picked up the ball before dropping it in front of the Arsenal defence.

Immediately, Saliba moved into it and passed the drop ball back to Raya, who took two steps and launched it.

The ball sailed into the Bayern half, and unsurprisingly, Izan was once again already underneath it.

With numbers around him, getting the ball away was the right option, but instead of flicking it on or clearing it, he simply absorbed it, cushioning the ball on his forehead so precisely that it bounced straight back up into the air instead of travelling anywhere.

The Emirates didn’t quite know what it had just seen.

A murmur ran through the ground like a current, wondering if it was intentional or not but either way, Izan had just done something wonderful again.

From the opposition, Gnabry and Pavlovic converged on him immediately together, because by now the lesson had been learned that sending one man at a time was a waste of everyone’s effort.

They came at him from either side as the ball descended again, and in response, Izan just opened his arms, planted his feet and gave absolutely nothing, and neither Gnabry nor Pavlovic could shift him as the ball dropped.

”Ist er ein verdammter Felsen[Is he a fucking boulder?]” Gnabry muttered as his attempt at overpowering Izan failed, and Izan, hearing those words in German, couldn’t help but chuckle.

”Lacht er?[Is he laughing?]” were the words running through Pavlovic’s mind as the ball hit the turf, and the moment it kissed the turf and began its rise, Izan’s boot was on it.

He stuck his leg out, practically drawing the ball to his feet like a magnet, but it didn’t end there.

Because in that same motion, he slipped the ball through Pavlovic’s legs, slipping it through the gap between the legs of the German defensive midfielder and making it look bigger than it felt.

”Oh, Lovely touch and meg by Izan. You just can’t stop this boy’s inventiveness,” Drury said as Gnabry lunged for his shirt and got hold of it.

And Drury, watching from above, found the word instantly —

”Tossed.”

That was all.

Because that was what happened.

Gnabry’s grip held for precisely the amount of time it took Izan to shrug his shoulder, and then it was gone, and Izan was gone with it, moving toward the Bayern goal with that low, urgent stride that looked unhurried even when it was covering dangerous ground at pace.

The next in line was Laimer, who stepped up from left back.

It was brave, but it was also, perhaps, a fraction too early.

Izan’s right foot nudged the ball delicately, almost like a feather-touch, but it was enough to send the ball over Laimer’s outstretched leg as Izan ghosted past him and then controlled the ball again in less than a second.

It was done so fast and so sharply that Laimer couldn’t see anything, but for the rest of the stadium, he might as well have gone on a break because of how clear and dumbed down it was for them.

And then Izan didn’t keep running.

He stopped.

Or rather, he didn’t stop, but his body shifted, changed its language entirely, from a runner’s motion to something else, and the Bayern defenders read it and reacted, but the reaction came a beat too late because the ball was still wobbly and still bouncy.

On the next touch, the ball rose to a height you couldn’t manufacture if you tried and waiting for absolutely no one, Izan’s left foot came through it.

The half-volley left his boot like a decision that had already been made before the drop ball had even happened.

And Drury inhaled the feel.

”IZAAANNN—”

The ball was a straight line for a moment, a streak of white heading toward the top left corner, and for a fraction of a second, the thought arrived that it was going wide, that physics wouldn’t allow it, but then it dipped at the last second.

Suddenly, savagely, as if it had changed its mind at the last possible moment, it caught the underside of the crossbar, smashed through to the post, and the two collided with a sound that rang around the Emirates before the ball buried itself in the back of the net.

”IZANN! Oh — wow. OHHHHHH—” Drury let out, sighing heavily as his head spun —because he needed it.

”That is beyond special. That is in a different category from special. That is absolutely brilliant, and Arsenal are dreaming. Count your blessings one by one, Gunners, because Izan is the gift that keeps on giving.”

The noise at the Emirates had no ceiling anymore.

It was just sound, pure and enormous and sustained, vibrating in the chests of the home crowd as the scoreboard flicked once to show;

Arsenal[2]:[1]Bayern

”It is done. Izan is finally the player with the most goals in the calendar year, ninety-two, and what a way, in all of football’s history, to do it.”

On the advertising boards at the edge of the pitch, Izan had come to a stop, but he continued a second later, jumping onto the top of the adboards before he spread his arms wide.

And let it come to him, the noise, the light, the names being screamed from every corner of the ground, standing there with his eyes closed and his chest open, as if he already knew, and had always known, that this was exactly where he was supposed to be.