God Of football

Chapter 455 Inked In Derby History

The minutes burned fast, the game becoming a tangle of sprinting bodies, snapping tackles, and heavy legs.

No space was given freely; every inch of the pitch was a battlefield.

Yet, slowly, almost imperceptibly, Arsenal began to stitch themselves back into the rhythm of the game and all could see the reason for Arsenalʼs change.

Izan, quietly but deliberately began leaving his footprints all over the match.

He pressed when needed,and made himself available in the right moments, never demanding the ball with noise,but with movement.

The kind of movement a good teammate feels without needing to look.

A small combination with Zinchenko near the touchline.

A clever shield against Bentancurʼs pressure, letting the ball roll across his body before releasing it simple and clean.

A sudden sprint forward when Porro dared switch off for half a second.

Arsenal felt it — a pulse quickening across the team.

Ødegaard started finding gaps again.

Saka grew more direct, asking questions of his marker.

Rice advanced higher, chewing up ground, winning second balls that used to bounce Tottenhamʼs way.

The shift was on.

”You can just sense it, canʼt you, Lee?” Peter Druryʼs voice hummed over the roar of the crowd, rich with tension.

”Arsenal, very quietly, very patiently...turning the screw.”

And then — a moment visible to all.

It started with a mistake.

Rice, all raw drive and timing, nicked the ball off Maddison near the halfway line sending the ball spinning wildly.

He sprung up with the agility of a cat and got to the ball before any of the white shirts could.

He looked behind and felt the pressure coming from around before he slid the ball to Ødegaard, who barely needed a second touch to pivot into space.

Izan lurking in the Tottenham setup saw it, the gap between Tottenhamʼs fullback and center-back.

It was narrow, but for him, it was okay.

A breath of space and he needed no invitation.

He was gone in a flash, sprinting through the channel like a bullet through mist.

Ødegaard saw his run and slipped the pass, weighted to perfection, bending softly into Izanʼs path.

The Away corner of the stadium rose to their feet, voices ragged with hope of stealing the win.

Izan took it in stride, with no extra touches to slow him down before racing toward the penalty box.

Van de Ven desperately scrambled back, trying to angle him wide, but Izan had already planned two moves ahead.

Near the corner of the box, he feinted inside — hips dropping sharply — and Romero bit, lunging across.

Too eager. Too late.

”Look at that, Lee! Izan making grown men bite on feints like that!” Peter Drury barked, half-disbelieving.

Inside the box now, Izan scanned quickly and saw Havertz arriving unmarked at the penalty spot.

He whipped a low ball across, fizzing with just enough pace to tempt and demand.

Havertz slid forward between two Tottenham colors, sticking his left leg out.

The contact was good, almost clean but the finish wasnʼt clinical enough.

Thud.

Vicario, Spursʼ keeper, smothered it into his chest with a thankful grunt as the Tottenham fans behind roared in approval.

”A let-off!” Drury cried. ”Arsenal so close to snatching the lead again but Havertz wastes a carefully crafted chance! ”

On the sideline, Arteta clapped his hands hard, shouting across the technical area, ”Thatʼs the move! Right idea! Faster next time! ”

Izan gave Havertz a single nod — respectful, understanding — and turned back without drama, his mind already clicking back into gear.

Vicario wasted no time.

The moment he clutched Havertzʼs shot to his chest, he sprang to his feet and hurled a flat, vicious throw out wide — a perfect spiral that found Son Heung-Min peeling into space on Arsenalʼs left side.

The away crowd shouted in warning, but the Spurs fans were already on their feet, voices rising like a tidal wave.

Son shifted into gear immediately, burning past Zinchenko, who was left scrambling.

The break was on — the kind of break that guts you in derbies.

White shirts flooded forward.

Dark ones turned desperately, trying to recover.

Son ate up the ground like a man possessed, the ball barely a whisper ahead of him, each stride a blade slicing through Arsenalʼs retreating shape.

Gabriel backpedaled, unsure whether to step or hold while his defensive partner Saliba shaded across, cautious of Kulusevskiʼs ghosting run on the far side.

For a heartbeat — a dangerous, thudding heartbeat — it looked certain.

Son angled his run toward the box, cutting inside slightly, eyes narrowing toward the far corner.

He shaped to shoot, Raya immediately tensing for what was to come but then — a blur.

Izan appeared.

From nowhere.

Like a specter pulled from the mist, he arrived — not with reckless fury, but with terrifying precision.

Tracking back with an intensity that defied the rhythm of the match, he darted across Sonʼs shooting lane and launched himself low, sweeping the ball clean off Sonʼs toes with a tackle that was all timing, all control — no foul, no hesitation.

The ball spun loose.

Rice pounced, thumping it out of touch.

The red end of the stadium roared a savage, grateful noise.

”And Izan Hernández... with a tackle that might just define his arrival in the North London Derby!” Peter Druryʼs voice cracked with the moment.

”He had to get that right or it would be a sending off and a penalty to Tottenham. Lovely challenge from a player not much defensive heroics is expected from.”

The clock bled into the final moments, the stadium trembling under the weight of hope and fear.

Both sets of fans were almost braced for the whistle — a ceasefire, a truce neither side wanted but both might have to accept.

”And now the board is up, Lee,” Peter Druryʼs voice cut crisply through the electric air,

”Two minutes. Just two minutes more in the North London Derby... and right now, it feels as though theyʼll share the spoils. Neither side giving in. Neither side quite good enough to tear the other apart.”

But derbies — real derbies — were never truly scripted.

Not when something more was still lingering in the air.

Arsenal, sensing it, refused to settle.

Rice surged down the left, winning a late corner off a desperate sliding tackle by Bentancur.

The red section behind the goal roared with whatever breath they had left.

A chance. One more.

Ødegaard grabbed the ball but didnʼt trot to the corner.

He looked up once and tossed it across the ground to Izan.

Because some crosses needed something more than routine.

They needed precision born from instinct, not rehearsed drills and Izan had that and more.

He set the ball with one touch, taking a half step back.

Eyes scanning.

Heartbeat steady.

”Max, you know the drill” Izan instructed mentally, a whirring mechanical sound echoing in his mind.

Ding, [Pinpoint Accuracy Lv 3, Activated]

[Focus Lv3, Activated]

[ I detect two traits in use. System Issuing UNION protocol ]

These series of notifications rang through Izanʼs mind as he looked at the ball, even seeing the minute details around the Valve.

The whistle from the referee sliced through the noise, sending the two players from the two sides tussling in the box.

Izan approached with a smooth run-up, effortless, and then,

Crack.

The ball flew — vicious, bending, and dipping wickedly toward the near post.

Gabriel Magalhães met it with a thundering header, rising highest among a sea of flying bodies.

The net seemed destined to ripple.

But Pedro Porro — scrambling backward, almost inside the goal — hacked it clear off the line at the last desperate second.

”Cleared! How?!” Drury cried, voice jagged.

”Pedro Porro... somehow, somehow keeps Tottenham breathing!”

The ball didnʼt leave the danger zone.

It spun upward, pinwheeling toward the edge of the box.

Izan was already moving, trotting back from the corner flag.

Reading the flight of the ball.

He adjusted his run, body weight tilting forward, as the ball began its descent.

Cristian Romero stormed toward him — a collision course, a challenge already loaded.

But Izan, young and unshakable, showed none of the panic the stadium expected.

He let the ball roll across his body, selling Romero with a sharp faint of his left shoulder in a flash of motion that made the Argentine lunge the wrong way.

The space opened for a breath, the Tottenham fans hoping that the cross they expected would be cleared.

But Izan had a different thing in mind.

[Gravity Arc Lv 4, Activated]

He took a half step back, opened his body, and swung his left foot through the ball.

The ball bent — an impossible shape, a dreamerʼs shot — curling through the crowded box, past a sea of bodies, past Vicarioʼs desperate leap before nestling into the far corner.

The red section of the stands exploded into madness, bodies flinging themselves over barriers, strangers grasping strangers in sheer disbelief.

Izan didnʼt stop to think.

He tore off his shirt in one fluid motion, muscles flexing under the floodlights, and turned to the Spurs fans behind the goal.

Name and number facing them.

IZAN 10.

Held aloft like a banner, a battle cry as booes cascaded down, vile and bitter.

But Izan stood there, unmoving —

defiant, fearless.

Peter Druryʼs voice, somehow rising above the chaos, captured it all.

”Oh, he has written himself into this derby with ink that will never dry!” he roared.

” Young but brave, he dares to silence them! He dares to own them!

This is a boy who plays with a manʼs heart. My goodness... what have Arsenal unleashed?”

On the touchline, Arteta punched the air, shouting words lost in the tide of sound.

Ødegaard sprinted over, grabbing Izanʼs head in both hands, shaking him, and laughing like a man who couldnʼt believe what heʼd seen.

The other Arsenal players flooded toward him, mobbing their young talisman.

Gooners chanted —

”Weʼve got Super Mik Arteta!”

”He knows exactly what we need!”

”Izan at the wheel, scoring from the wing!”

”Tottenham in the mud — again!”

It was written now.

Tottenham 1 — Arsenal 2.

The Boy Wonder had done it again.

A/N: 2nd of the day. I think i might be a little bit down with a cold but donʼt mind me. That little cold wonʼt stop me from writing the greatest football scenes in Novel History. Anyways, UCL football is up ahead, both IRL and in the novel as my team Barcelona goes agaisnt inter while Izanʼs Arsenal goes against Atalanta. Have fun reading and I will see you tomorrow. Also thanks for the gifts, the tickets and the powerstones. It really helps the novel.