God Of football

Chapter 644: 2nd 45

”Two in three minutes,” a Dutch voice murmured behind the broadcast mics, not disbelief—just reluctant admiration.

”He scored the first, created the second... and it’s only half an hour in.”

In the Philips Stadion stands, the sound was strange now.

It was never quiet in Eindhoven, but there was a thinning at the edges.

A kind of nervous shuffle rippling through the home end.

Chants that had started loud were now broken across rows, patchy and uneven.

Still hopeful, but hopeful felt fragile now.

Down on the pitch, Arsenal moved like a machine just getting warmed up.

They were precise.

Saka’s touch was silk on granite.

Ødegaard dictated space like he had drawn the pitch himself.

And Izan? Izan was gravity, like the commentator had said earlier.

Every pass flowed to him.

Every decision pivoted around him.

And PSV could feel it.

Peter Bosz stood at the edge of his technical area, arms crossed, fingers biting into his elbows.

He shouted, but only once.

After that, he watched for a while and knew what kind of thing he was seeing.

Trying to cage it wouldn’t work.

The next ten minutes weren’t showreel material.

But they were Arsenal at their most terrifying — completely, ruthlessly in control.

The ball stayed largely on the floor.

The triangles along the right side — White, Ødegaard, Saka, and Izan — made for a dizzying carousel that PSV struggled to track.

When they won the ball back, Arsenal pressed in waves.

Their opponents were bent like bamboo, and as it never did, PSV didn’t break.

Repeatedly, they were forced to retreat, but they never let up.

Saibari dropped deeper while Perisic and Lang began to tuck inside, leaving the flanks and trying to overload the centre, looking for that one moment — the second ball, the bad pass, the deflection.

It never came.

Until Izan almost forced it again.

In the 37th, he dropped from midfield and opened his hips like he was going wide.

But then slipped a no-look pass inside to Ødegaard, who poked it to Saka.

A dart inside, followed by a cut onto his left and then bang— a low shot across the keeper.

Benitez tried smothering it, but the shot was too much for his hand.

The rebound bounced once, twice, and into the stride of Leandro Trossard.

Without much thought or aim, the Belgian smashed his leg through the ball, sending the net snapping back.

THREE.

”Three-nil! And it’s only the 31st minute!” the commentator barked, nearly leaping from his chair.

”PSV torn open again, and it’s the Belgian who cleans up the scraps.”

The camera panned across the faces of the PSV fans.

Some swore. Others exhaled through their teeth, arms still crossed.

Many just stared.

”Three in thirty,” the co-commentator said grimly. ”Is this already gone for Eindhoven?”

But down on the touchline, Peter Bosz still wasn’t done.

He turned to his assistant, pointed toward the pitch, then lifted three fingers and pointed forward.

No backpedalling.

No damage control.

”We score one before the half,” he muttered, ”and it’s a game again.”

They pushed.

Maybe it wasn’t logical.

But it was PSV.

And they had pride.

And Arsenal? After the third, they slowed.

Not out of laziness but in accommodation to the PSV players who had started playing like men with nothing to lose after the restart.

”PSV are down, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make it uncomfortable for Arsenal here”, the commentator croaked as Schouten slipped the ball to Noa Lang.

Lang began to roam.

Not as a winger anymore, but as chaos.

He started popping up between Arsenal lines, dragging markers, looking for anything to punch through.

And when a chance came, it didn’t go begging.

A long diagonal from Malacia, aimed at Luuk de Jong, caught Gabriel flat-footed.

The veteran striker cushioned the header beautifully toward Lang, who chested and fed it straight back.

Timber stepped forward, but it was too late.

De Jong was inside the box.

Lang glanced up and then slipped the ball towards the veteran with Raya tensing up in anticipation of the shot he knew was coming, but from behind De Jong, Gabriel leaned in, just a tad bit closer.

Shoulder to shoulder, and De Jong went down.

The whistle blew, signalling the pause in play.

Most of the Arsenal players halted, waiting for the referee to book De Jong for diving, but instead, he turned and pointed to the spot.

”Oh, an opportunity for PSV to come into the game and it comes from one of their unlikeliest sources as this team hasn’t had that many penalties this season”

The groan that echoed from the Arsenal bench was near universal.

Gabriel raised both arms while Arteta turned to his bench staff and asked something no one answered.

Ødegaard just shook his head before walking towards Gabriel, who was trying to confront the referee and pulled the Brazilian away.

Penalty, PSV.

Luuk de Jong didn’t reach for the ball.

He let Noa Lang take it.

And Lang didn’t look nervous.

He stared straight at Raya, rolled his shoulders back, then smashed the ball left-footed into the top-right corner like he wanted to break the net.

”And PSV are back in it!” came the shout from the Dutch feed.

”A lifeline at 3–1, and it’s Noa Lang who gives the Philips Stadion something to sing about again!”

Behind the goal, flags whipped back to life.

A flare hissed red as the drums returned.

It wasn’t a comeback.

But it was something to cling to.

”Arsenal would’ve loved to protect that clean sheet going into halftime,” the English commentator said, voice steady now.

”But Noa Lang just ruined that plan.”

.....

[Halftime]

[Away dressing room]

”Thirty brilliant minutes,” Arteta said, flicking a marker cap off.

”But you let them back in. You let them breathe.”

He drew a circle around the penalty box and jabbed toward it.

”They get numbers here. They time their runs. We cannot let them dictate those zones. Clear?”

Heads nodded as Arteta spoke, but his eyes flicked briefly toward Izan, already changed into a fresh base layer, sitting forward on the bench, elbows on his knees, gaze distant.

”You good?” Rice asked, voice low.

He nudged him lightly with his knee.

Izan gave a small nod, not looking up. ”Yeah. Just watching how they press.”

Ødegaard leaned in from the other side. ”You see something?”

Izan shifted, his tone casual but focused.

”When Lang pushes up, their left side gets loose. Malacia gets stuck between chasing and covering.”

There was a pause.

Ødegaard raised an eyebrow while Arteta, mid-sentence with Cuesta, tilted his head slightly in Izan’s direction.

Izan finally looked up.

”If I drift left and pull Malacia with me, that gap behind him opens fast. Saka can fill my spot inside. You,” — he glanced at Ødegaard — ”can play off the second line.”

Cuesta gave a small grunt of agreement, to which Arteta went silent for a beat, but then began nodding slowly.

”Alright. But if you’re going to do it, fully commit. Don’t half-draw him.”

A faint smirk touched Izan’s lips. ”Wouldn’t know how.”

At the back of the room, Trossard sat back against the wall, exhaling heavily, boots off.

”3-1 up and this is what we’re on,” he muttered, half-laughing.

”Still a game,” Saliba replied. ”Until it’s not.”

...

”Welcome back to Eindhoven. Half-time here at the Philips Stadion, and what a chaotic 45 minutes we’ve just witnessed. Arsenal lead 3-1 after an explosive opening half-hour—two from open play, one off a rebound, and then... well, a lifeline from the spot for PSV,” the lead commentator rattled off.

”Yeah, three in thirty minutes”, his co-commentator added. ”—It was starting to look like a mauling. But credit to Bosz and his men. They didn’t shrink. That penalty from Noa Lang was more than just a goal. It’s a message to Arteta and his men that the second half’s still alive.”

Back on the pitch, PSV were first out of the tunnel.

Bosz remained by the touchline, arms folded, jaw tight, before Arsenal followed moments later, and the noise swelled again.

The energy in the ground hadn’t vanished—it had just been thinned by shock and rekindled by hope.

As the whistle readied to blow, Ødegaard jogged to Izan and tapped his shoulder.

”That thing you said—Malacia, left side?”

”Still there,” Izan replied without looking.

Ødegaard gave a sharp nod. ”Then kill it early.”

The second half began not with hope, but with resignation.

Somewhere high in the stands, a PSV fan muttered under his breath, barely audible over the hush that had settled across the Philips Stadion.

”Alsjeblieft... laat het stoppen...”

Please... let it stop.

But it wasn’t going to stop.

Not with forty-five minutes still left.

Not with Izan still out there, hands on hips, eyes sharp, one foot resting on the ball as the referee’s whistle pierced the silence.

He tapped it to Ødegaard as Arsenal restarted the second half.

A/N: First of the day. Have fun reading and I’ll see you in a bit with the Golden Ticket Chapter.