God Of football

Chapter 1021: Six And Sickening!

In the France camp in Dallas, a few of the players at first, had gathered in one of the common rooms after their own training session wrapped up.

The Spain game had been put on, and gradually chairs had filled up around the screen.

Mbappé had been one of the last to sit down.

He’d come in for some fruits, seen the screen, seen the scoreline and had decided to stay.

”Damn,” Upamecano muttered as he stretched on the couch.

”Come on, bro. It’s Cape Verde,” Camavinga said, from somewhere behind him.

He wasn’t trying to be dismissive about it, but it came out that way.

”Hate to say it, but yeah,” Tchouameni agreed. ”Still, they qualified, so they’re not nothing.”

”Do you think we could do the same?” Lucas Hernandez said a second later.

At that, the room went quiet, like they were introspecting, before, ”Hell Yeah,” Desire Doue spat, causing the players around to chuckle.

It wasn’t only the French team, though.

Across the nation, similar scenes played out in other camps.

”You feel for them,” one of the Brazilian players said, and he meant it.

”First tournament,” Vinicius said, still watching the screen.

It will not be easy to get out of the shadow that looms over them after this!”

Back in Atlanta, the game settled into something resembling a contest for a while.

Cape Verde regrouped.

Their shape tightened, the gaps between their lines closed up, and for a stretch of twenty minutes or so, they made Spain work for everything.

The scoreline was 2-0, and they were making it feel, if not reversible, then at least containable.

”Cape Verde, are finding some stability here. Spain, not quite as fluid as they were in those opening nine minutes,” the main commentator observed.

”I don’t think it is Spain not being fluid as much as them cooling off. The openings are there, but they are just not taking them,” the co-commentator replied.

Just two minutes later, the Spanish team found their attacking edge again.

Pedri, taking the ball from Rodri, wormed his way through bodies, and the moment he was clear, found Lamine on the right with a pass that split two players.

The Cape Verdian players shifted to cover, but in the next second, Lamine shifted the ball outward in the opposite direction and then, using the bodies as cover, whipped a low curler past Varela into the bottom left corner to make it three-nil.

”Yamallllllllllll!!. Three nil. Spain is up 3 goals and Cape Verde, who had just started to believe they might hold this, are back to where they started.”

The Cape Verde drums in the away section, which had been going for the better part of the game, went quiet suddenly.

It was turning sour now, but that wasn’t even the end of it because just five minutes after the third, Lamine played it centrally to Izan from the right.

Izan raced towards the ball and then, with a simple two-touch movement, got past one of the Cape Verdia players, but now, his shooting option was closed.

Still, that wasn’t going to stop him because with a simple feint forward, he got numbers to commit.

The Cape Verdian players moved with the feint, but in the next moment, Izan spun around in one smooth movement and, seeing the space opening towards the goal, he didn’t hesitate to take it.

”HERNANDEZ!!!!!!!!” the commentator made out as the ball left his left foot on a low trajectory that rose with each yard it covered and then, in the next second, smashed into the back of the net.

”UAAAAAAAHHHHH—” the crowd roared a split second later.

”That is simply majestic. Two goals and an assist from Izan. Yet we haven’t reached halftime. Spain are running away with it here, and Cape Verde can’t catch a clue.”

The Cape Verdian section sat in silence.

The joy they had coming into the game was now turning into apprehension.

Their flags were still up, but they were not waving.

The drums they had were tuned, but weren’t beating.

As this went on, the broadcast cameras found Luis de la Fuente on the touchline.

He had his arms folded and a neutral expression on his face.

The only reaction he had given was the first goal from Izan, but that was it.

He hadn’t so much as smiled in the following goals.

”Luis De La Fuente, if he is pleased, is not giving anything away!”

The match went on for a while until the referee’s whistle came.

The players jogged off to a round of applause, but the sound seemed to come only from the Spanish fans.

A quarter of an hour later, the second half began, and still nothing changed.

The Cape Verdians had started hoping that Luis De La Fuente, with the huge lead, would start taking off his men, but no changes were made to the lineup.

And just 7 minutes after the restart, Lamine whipped a ball into the box from the left.

The ball loomed over the heads of those who tried to get it away before dropping into the box at the perfect height for Pedri to meet it on the volley.

Varela couldn’t even see the ball zoom past him.

The Spanish fans, however, did as they jumped to their feet in celebration for the fifth time since the start of the game.

Six minutes later, the scenes were almost getting sadistic when Izan went past a defender in the box, felt the contact, and went down.

The referee pointed to the spot without hesitation as Spain got another chance to put the ball in the back of the net.

Varela went the right way, but it didn’t matter as Izan smashed it low and fast into the bottom corner to complete his hat-trick.

It was now six and sick.

”Disturbing scenes here at the Atlanta stadium. Spain have ripped another one for the Cape Verdians, and they are showing no signs of stopping!”

The stands erupted as Ferran, followed by Pedri and then the rest of the Spanish team, huddled with Izan inside the opponent’s box.

It was then, finally, that De la Fuente showed some movements on the touchline.

And it was three at one.

Oyarzabal on for Ferran.

Zubimendi on for Pedri and then Víctor Muñoz for Lamine.

”De la Fuente is making changes, three at once, but the captain stays. Hernandez Miura stays on, and honestly, from the outside looking in, that might be the most ominous thing about this substitution board for any future opponent watching tonight.”

The broadcast cameras found De la Fuente again.

He had his hands in his pockets and looked like a man watching a training session that was going broadly as expected.

The game died after that.

Both teams seemed to reach a mutual and wordless understanding that six-nil was the shape of the evening and that nobody needed to add to it.

The football became loose and unhurried while the noise of the crowd dropped into a comfortable lull.

In the 75th minute, the board went up again, and this time, the crowd in the stadium went up with it.

All seventy-one thousand of them got on their feet as Izan jogged toward the touchline.

He raised a hand toward the crowd in acknowledgement, and with that, the crowd went up a notch with their shouts.

.

”And there it is. Izan Hernandez Miura coming off to a standing ovation in his first World Cup game. And I’ll say this, if you’re planning on watching this tournament from start to finish, you might want to get used to that sound. Because I have a feeling it’s going to follow this young man everywhere he goes.”

At the touchline, Rodri was waiting.

Izan unstrapped the armband from his left arm and then handed it across.

Rodri took it, clasping Izan’s shoulder in the process.

On the touchline, Fermín Lopez was there with his hand up.

Izan met him up top before sidestepping him past the touchline.

His job was done.