God Of football

Chapter 1033: Should Have Been!

Izan frowned, but the label wasn’t going to go away because of a frown.

Before he could think any further, Pedri jogged over, placing a hand over Izan’s back in his bent posture.

”You good?”

”Yeah,” Izan said as he straightened, but he wasn’t really looking at Pedri.

His attention stayed fixed on Araújo, and the defender hadn’t taken his eyes off him.

[Reminder.]

The system’s voice appeared before the rest of the message followed.

[The difficulty of elite tournament fixtures increases significantly during knockout qualification stages.]

Izan stared.

Then his expression slowly changed as everything began to make sense, at least for him.

Not every opponent arrived carrying the same version of themselves.

Some players stepped into certain matches and became more.

Faster.

Stronger.

Sharper.

The occasion dragged something extra out of them, and as his eyes returned to Araújo, with the label still there, he began to realise what the player was going to have going for him all night, that is, if nothing happened.

[HEIGHTENED]

Suddenly the way he’d felt during the collision made a lot more sense.

Izan exhaled slowly.

”Oh.”

The word came out somewhere between understanding and disappointment.

Then he glanced toward the Uruguayan defender one last time.

”So it’s one of those games.”

As Izan contemplated it himself, the whistle went, bringing him back to the current affairs of the game.

Pedri stood over the ball for barely a second before nudging it wide, right into the space Lamine was moving into.

”Spain restart quickly,” Drury said. ”And perhaps they’re looking to answer a question that Uruguay have just asked.”

Lamine received near the touchline and this time didn’t bother sizing up his defender.

He simply went.

The Uruguayan left-back shuffled across, but he couldn’t keep up.

Lamine skipped past him with his first touch and accelerated into the space beyond, dragging a roar from the Spanish end of the stadium.

”There goes Yamal.”

The defender recovered enough to stay alongside him, but only alongside.

Lamine glanced up once, making use of the space and time.

He saw movement, saw red shirts and saw one in particular that appealed the most to him.

Then he smiled.

Before the Uruguayan defender could make sense of what was going on, the ball disappeared behind his standing leg.

His left foot hooked it backwards, and a split second later his heel redirected it again, nudging it into the space he’d created behind himself.

”Oh, that’s lovely,” Drury said curtly as the Spanish crowd cheered.

But now, all eyes were on who the ball was meant for.

Izan took hold of the ball and put his head up.

The entire Uruguayan back line sat in front of him, waiting and watching for what he would do next, all while the noise inside the Akron swelled.

”Now then...” Drury murmured.

”What exactly does he have in mind here?”

The question hung across broadcasts.

Izan didn’t seem interested in answering it immediately.

He moved forward with small touches, carrying the ball and just keeping the whole Uruguayan defence on their toes.

And then suddenly he accelerated.

One moment he was jogging, the next he was gone.

”Oh!”

The reaction escaped Drury before the words did.

Izan burst through the first gap and pushed the ball right, forcing Ugarte into a desperate chase that immediately looked uncomfortable.

The midfielder kept running, kept trying but kept failing.

The distance wasn’t growing dramatically, and that somehow made it worse because it always looked like the Uruguayan could get there.

Yet no matter how hard Ugarte pushed, he wasn’t getting there.

Izan reached the edge of the area, and right as he did, his body opened.

The shape screamed cross, and the Spanish attackers reacted instantly.

Oyarzabal attacked the near post, and Nico began arriving at the far one.

In reaction to that, Uruguay’s defenders turned toward their own goal.

And Ugarte launched himself.

”He’s going to deliver it.......”

Izan had sold the move, but he hadn’t delivered.

The ball rolled untouched beneath Izan’s boot, and in one smooth sweep, Ugarte flew past him, and the entire stadium gasped.

The midfielder landed on the turf and looked back just in time to see Izan already moving into the space he’d vacated, and in his place, Jiménez stepped across.

Someone had to.

Izan met him with stepovers, fully executing a string of them, so much so that Jiménez had already leaned in.

He forced, and Jiménez tried to hold his ground, but it was getting too tedious to follow, so he guessed, and he guessed wrong.

The ball vanished left as his leg lunged after it, and in that split second, Izan was already beyond him.

The opening appeared, tiny at first but then suddenly enormous.

His leg came rose, and the crowd rose with it!

Even Drury’s voice rose with it.

”IZAN—!”

The strike left his foot like it was acting under different gravity.

The shot came so fast that the Uruguayan players facing it leaned away instinctively.

Muslera, on the other hand, didn’t move, and not because he didn’t want to.

His eyes could follow but not his body.

The ball screamed toward the bottom corner, dragging grass and debris with it, and for one perfect second it looked inevitable.

Then something blue and white appeared.

Araújo came in, throwing everything he had into the path of it.

The shot crashed into his shin, sparking a deflection that exploded upward until it smashed against the underside of the crossbar.

CLANG.

The sound rang around the Akron, and all at once, the whole stadium inhaled.

The ball dropped almost vertically, and Muslera finally reacted.

There was no catching the ball with all the Spanish players that were reacting to it.

He sprang forward and tipped it over the bar before the arriving Spanish shirts could turn chaos into a goal, and in the next second, the referee pointed toward the corner as the stadium fell into a collective exhale.

”Oh, my word!” Drury shouted.

”What a block by Ronald Araújo. He’s kept the game still.”

The replay was already beginning on the giant screens.

Everything happening too quickly for the eye the first time.

Back on the pitch, Araújo was being surrounded, almost being treated like a war hero by his mates.

Meanwhile, a few yards away, Izan remained bent forward with his hands on his knees.

Breathing steadily and then licking his lips once.

His eyes followed the path the ball had taken.

Then they shifted to Araújo.

The defender was still being congratulated like a man who had just dragged someone from a burning building.

”And that, ladies and gentlemen, is perhaps the clearest sign we’ve had all night,” Drury’s voice softened slightly.

While the commentary went on, the broadcast camera zoomed in straight at Izan as he stood up.

”That,” Moreau came in, ”is the expression of a man who knows he should have a goal to his name in this game. Absolutely splendid from Araujo.”

While this went on, a smile, a genuine one, appeared, tugging at Izan’s lips as he turned towards the corner flag and began jogging to restart the game!