God Of football

Chapter 485: Taming The Foxes [GT Chapter]

The roar that rose from the Emirates was less a welcome and more a challenge.

Arsenal were back, and so was the boy genius.

Izan Hernandez jogged out alongside Nwaneri and Declan Rice as the sun crept through the slight September haze, casting long shadows over a crisp green pitch.

The commentary buzzed into life.

“Welcome back to the Emirates, where Arsenal, fresh from a dominant performance over Manchester City and Wednesday’s 5-1 Carabao cup thrashing of Bolton Wanderers—host newly promoted Leicester City.

But the name on everyone’s lips? Izan Hernandez. Just sixteen, and already the talk of football. Two goals, one assist, and a performance against City that some are calling generational. Can he do it again tonight against a Jamie Vardy-led Leicester?”

Kick-off came sharp and fast.

Arsenal dominated the early exchanges, settling into their rhythm like an orchestra playing a well-rehearsed overture.

Rice broke lines. Nwaneri shone. Saka teased his marker. And Izan? He was just that guy on the pitch.

Leicester, to their credit, were compact and aggressive, pressing in packs and clattering into duels with purpose.

For the opening fifteen minutes, Arsenal probed without penetration, their best moment coming from a fizzed Martinelli cross that flashed across goal untouched.

Then came the moment.

In the 27th minute, Nwaneri slid a clever ball to Saka on the right channel.

The winger cut inside, skipped past his man, and unleashed a vicious left-footed strike that crashed off the far post.

The rebound came out fast—too fast for most.’

But Izan read it like a book.

Outside the box, dead-centre, his first touch set it, his second was a hammer.

The ball swerved mid-flight, smashing into the top corner before the keeper even left his feet.

“GOAL!!! IZAN HERNANDEZ!!! From downtown! The sixteen-year-old lashes it into the net with a strike of venom and composure! The Emirates erupts!”

His teammates rushed him, Izan running towards the corner flag before sliding on his knees.

A slight, almost ironic gesture to the crowd before Saka clattered into him, laughing.

The camera panned to Mikel Arteta on the touchline, arms folded, a thin smile playing on his lips.

Leicester looked stunned.

They tried to respond, pushing higher, but Arsenal began to smell blood.

Izan dropped deeper now, dragging markers out, creating lanes.

In the 38th minute, he picked up the ball just inside his own half, skipped away from a sliding challenge, and with one motion, pinged a diagonal pass to the charging Ben White on the right flank.

The Latter squared it quickly across the goal, and Martinelli was there to tap in. 2–0.

“That’s brilliant from the youngster again. It won’t go down as an assist, but every bit of that move is sparked by Izan Hernandez. Intelligence, vision, weight of pass—it’s all there.”

As the players jogged back, Arteta gave a subtle nod to his staff.

But the half ended with a warning: a Leicester counter saw Vardy flash a shot just wide after a mistake from Gabriel.

The halftime whistle blew, and the Emirates buzzed.

After they returned for the second half, nothing changed much.

Arsenal still controlled. The tempo dropped, but Izan didn’t.

He was gliding past players now, drawing fouls, exchanging flicks with Rice, and feeding runners with disguised passes.

The crowd responded to every touch.

Then came the 66th minute.

Carlos Cuesta leaned over to Arteta, nudging him lightly.

“Mikel. Izan.”

Arteta blinked, chuckled to himself.

“Right. Forgot.”

He told the fourth official about the upcoming change and whistled sharply just as the ball went out for a throw.

“Izan!”

The boy looked up, saw his cue, and nodded before jogging over to the sideline.

“And here he comes. Izan Hernandez—what a shift. A goal, a key contribution to the second, and a performance that once again shows maturity well beyond his age.”

As he left the pitch, the entire Emirates rose.

Applause rippled like a wave.

As Izan crossed the touchline, he gave a small wave back, still catching his breath.

Arteta greeted him with a hand on the shoulder and a rare, earnest smile.

“You did good,” he said, voice low under the noise of the crowd.

“Very good.”

Izan nodded, sweat clinging to his hair, chest still rising and falling.

He grabbed his coat from a staff member, took his seat, a bottle of water passed into his hand, and a towel flung over his shoulders.

Still, his eyes were on the pitch.

“At sixteen, he shouldn’t be this good,” the commentator muttered as the feed continued.

“But he is, and we will be entertained for a long time because this is just the start.”

A few moments later, Leicester tried to push forward, but Rice intercepted with composure, sliding the ball quickly to Nwaneri, who was filling the midfield with a profile different from Odegaard’s but as good as the latter’s.

The youngster, confident and alert, spun away from his marker and saw Saka darting between two defenders.

One glance, one perfect ball.

Saka didn’t hesitate. He met it with his left, curling it into the bottom corner.

“Saka makes it three! And the assist? Ethan Nwaneri! The youngest player in Premier League history, combining with one of Arsenal’s finest—there’s a torch being passed here at the Emirates!”

The crowd surged again, a chant rising across the stadium.

Izan smiled faintly, clapping once from the bench as Saka pointed toward Nwaneri in celebration before being mobbed by teammates.

But Arsenal weren’t done yet.

In the 76th minute, Arteta sent on Havertz, and within moments, the German had found his rhythm.

A neat one-two between Martinelli and Zinchenko pulled Leicester apart, allowing Havertz to drift into space at the edge of the box.

He took one touch to set himself and whipped it low past the keeper.

“That’s four! Kai Havertz off the bench and straight into the action. Arsenal are putting on a show here at the Emirates!”

Arteta clapped his hands together as he turned to his coaching staff.

Another dominant display.

Another full-throttle performance.

On the bench, Izan sat leaning forward, still watching.

The final whistle soon came, just a formality.

4–0.

………..

The hallway buzzed with laughter and half-shouted banter as the Arsenal squad made their way off the pitch and into the Emirates tunnel.

The energy hadn’t dulled; if anything, the 4–0 rout had only amplified it.

The players were flying—some literally jumping, others swapping high-fives, shoulder bumps, mock shoves.

Inside the locker room, it smelled of victory and sweat.

Shirts were half-tugged off, boots kicked away in clatters, music already pulsing low from a speaker in the corner.

Havertz leaned back in his seat grinning while Nwaneri was being mobbed by the older players, with Saka giving him a noogie.

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(MID-A/n; For those illiterate like me who had to explain to Google the name of what I wanted to describe, a noogie is like rubbing a person’s body part, like head or shoulder, with your knuckles. That’s a noogie. Okay, author signing out.)

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Arteta entered not long after, his shoes sounding against the tiled floor, drawing a quiet hush as the squad looked over.

He stood just past the door, his arms folded, the faintest hint of a smile playing at his lips.

“That,” he said, eyes sweeping the room, “was clean. Controlled. Ruthless. That’s how we handle our business.”

The players nodded, some clapping lightly.

“We did good,” he added, glancing toward the bench where Izan sat tying his shoelaces, “perfect balance. Well done. All of you—well done.”

And just like that, the silence broke into whoops and whistles.

The short, sharp debrief was done.

Arteta waved a hand.

“Go home. Recover. We’ve got a big one next.”

As the players began moving again, Izan stood and headed for the showers.

He took his time under the spray, rinsing off the sweat, letting the water carry away the adrenaline still thumping in his chest.

By the time he came out with his hair damp and a fresh hoodie thrown over his club tracksuit, the locker room had thinned.

Saka and Martinelli were still chatting near the door.

A few others, like Havertz, were already heading out.

Izan checked his phone—four messages from Olivia, one from Miranda, and a missed call from the driver.

He replied quickly:

“On my way. Give me five.”

Stuffing his boots into his bag, Izan gave a nod to the staff tidying up around him and walked out toward the players’ exit, hoodie up, headphones in.

The Emirates was quiet now, emptied of the roar it had held just an hour ago.

But the echoes of the win still seemed to hum through the walls.

Outside, under the amber glow of the car park lights, the black SUV waited.

The driver spotted Izan and stepped out to open the door.

“Good game, sir.”

“Thanks, Jones. Let’s go home,” Izan said simply, sliding in.

The door shut with a soft thud, and the city waited ahead.

A/n: Okay. Here it is. GT chapter fulfilled.

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