God Of football

Chapter 762: The Main Character.

”Ninety-four minutes on the clock!” Darren Fletcher’s voice rang across the broadcast, rising with urgency.

”Arsenal, somehow, have themselves a free-kick and deep in Paris territory at that. And you just wonder... Could this be the moment that takes it all for Arsenal because the man approaching the ball, the kid, isn’t just any other? It’s Izan”.

Ally McCoist sucked in a breath.

”Oh boy... and look at the Paris players. They’re surrounding the referee, contesting this more than the penalty earlier! They’re furious. But I don’t blame them for contesting the freekick even more than they did the penalty because I am sure any team in the world would do it when a man, a boy, with a repertoire such as Izan’s was coming to stand behind the freekick.”

Indeed, the PSG shirts flooded the scene, hands raised, tempers flaring.

Nuno Mendes was at the front of it, his face twisted in disbelief as he jabbed a finger back toward Bukayo Saka, who was still on the ground clutching his shin near the right-hand edge of the box.

”He’s gone down too easily!” Mendes barked, first in Portuguese, then repeating it in English for emphasis.

His voice cracked with desperation as he pleaded with the referee, but the official, stern and unmoved, pointed at the patch of grass.

”There was contact. Clear contact.”

He then gestured with both palms down.

”But no card. No card.”

That detail mattered because Mendes was already walking a tightrope.

A yellow would’ve meant his second of the night, and a red card.

As it was, he was spared.

But the foul still stood, and the free-kick was given.

”And that’s exactly it,” Fletcher resumed.

”The referee says it was contact, maybe not reckless, not enough for another yellow, but enough for a foul. And PSG... they are livid.”

The half of the Parc des Princes painted in blue erupted, jeers cascading like thunder, while the Arsenal end rose in song, sensing the weight of the moment.

Then, just as suddenly, a hush rolled over the Parisian half.

Not because they accepted the decision, but because they knew what it meant.

Prayers began muttering in the stands.

Some covered their faces with scarves while others stared at the pitch in disbelief.

Because the man who now bent down to place the ball was not just any 17-year-old.

It was him.

Izan Miura Hernández.

The boy carrying the weight of Arsenal’s European dreams on his back.

The prodigy who had already Panenka’d Donnarumma into despair just minutes earlier.

And now, here he was again, dusting off his hands, rolling his shoulders, stepping into destiny.

The cameras caught Luis Enrique on the touchline.

He wasn’t standing.

He wasn’t pacing.

He was kneeling, one knee buried into the turf beside his technical area, his hands gripping his knees tightly.

His lips were pressed into a thin line as he muttered something beneath his breath, not tactical anymore, more like a prayer.

And as his eyes locked onto Izan, his mind drifted.

He remembered training at Camp des Loges weeks earlier, when Pacho had asked him an earnest question, the kind that young players sometimes asked when the spectre of a giant like playing in the UCL final loomed over them.

”Coach,” Pacho had said then, nervously twirling the strap of his shin pad.

”What about Izan’s free-kicks? They say... they say it’s something different.”

Luis Enrique had nodded, gravely.

He hadn’t sugar-coated it.

”It is Pacho. I pray we don’t concede that many fouls in dangerous areas during the game. But if that happens,” he had said, ”we pray for one of two things. Either Donnarumma pulls off a miracle... or Izan misses. Because if not—” and he had pointed to the whiteboard, where Izan’s conversion rate flashed in bold digits, 98%—”then it is as good as a penalty. Even from forty yards.”

And here it was.

The nightmare scenario.

They had conceded a lot of fouls, but none were as threatening as the one they were facing now.

Back on the pitch, the referee had paced out the ten yards, planting his boot firmly into the grass at the line where the Paris wall must stand.

His arms stretched wide, instructing them to hold their ground as Donnarumma, standing on his line behind, was frantically shouting, waving his gloves, demanding five in the wall, then six.

The stadium camera panned to Luis Enrique again, where he shook his head slowly, eyes dark, before forcing himself upright.

He couldn’t bear to kneel any longer.

Above him, the Arsenal end swelled, the red-and-white sea rising to its feet, their noise cutting through the Paris gloom like a blade.

”Come on, Izan!”

Behind the goal, the PSG fans were stiff, frozen.

Some still clutched their scarves, but the words caught in their throats.

A few finally whispered, barely audible, ”He isn’t going to score, is he?”

But their tone wasn’t one of doubt.

It wasn’t even a question.

It was resignation, an acknowledgement that they were about to witness something inevitable.

All eyes fell on Izan now, the prodigy with destiny at his feet.

And the referee, after one last check on the wall, pointed to the spot where Saka had fallen, telling Izan to place the ball there as he marked the spot with his foam.

Izan heeded and bent over the ball, dusting his hands against his shorts, before carefully placing it on the white foam spot the referee had marked.

He adjusted it once, then again, spinning it so the seams aligned perfectly before he took three steps back.

”Looks like he’s shaping to deliver this. It is still dangerous, though,” Darren Fletcher remarked, his voice taut with intrigue.

At first glance, his posture told a story that he was preparing to curl one in from his right foot, the classic delivery to the penalty spot.

His right side was open, his boot angled as if to swing the ball into the chaos of bodies waiting in the box.

The Paris defenders glanced at one another, whispering hurried instructions, bracing for a high, looping cross.

But then Izan shifted.

Ever so slightly.

At the last moment, he adjusted, sliding one step to the side, his body opening left instead.

His left foot now hovered in that dangerous, tell-tale posture.

The posture of a man about to go for glory.

The referee raised his whistle to his lips.

Piiiii!

And at once, the entire Parc des Princes seemed to hold its breath.

Noise drained into silence as time seemed to thin.

Twenty-two men on the pitch, 50,000 in the stands, and millions more around the world—every soul leaned into what came next.

Izan leaned forward, light on his toes, hair bouncing as he quickened the rhythm of his steps.

His stride was smooth, economical, but behind it was fire.

He closed the distance, shoulders tilting, body angling perfectly.

He leaned on his feet at the last instant, weighting his leg as he tried to imbue his strike with as much power as he could.

Then, with a whip of his left foot, he struck.

The ball rocketed up, spinning viciously as it climbed towards the Parisian night sky.

It rose so fast, so violently, that gasps rippled through the stadium.

Many Paris fans, desperate for salvation, began to exhale in relief.

Too high.

It had to be too high.

Their arms even lifted instinctively, ready to cheer its escape.

But the ball was not finished.

As though gravity itself suddenly remembered its script, the flight changed.

The spin bit the air, dragging it down with a wicked curve as the roar that had been bubbling in Parisian throats died mid-breath.

Hands froze halfway up.

And the Arsenal end, the red wall, felt the shift first, surging forward in anticipation.

From Donnarumma’s perspective, it was worse than a nightmare.

He had set off, lumbering his giant frame across the line, but as the ball climbed, he hesitated, just a split second, thinking it was gone.

Then he saw the dip.

Panic surged, and he threw himself, body arching like a bridge, stretching every tendon, fingers straining.

His gloves brushed it, just enough to redirect.

But not enough to deny.

The ball kissed the inside of the post, a metallic ring slicing through the silence, before nestling into the net.

Bedlam. Pure, unfiltered Chaos.

”HE’S DONE IT!” Darren Fletcher’s voice shattered, rising in disbelief.

”YOU COULDN’T EVEN WRITE THIS SCRIPT IF YOU TRIED. BECAUSE IZAN IS THE MAN OF HIS OWN STORY!”

”IZAN MIURA HERNÁNDEZ HAS SLAYED THE GIANT! A FREE-KICK OF THE HIGHEST ORDER! THE PRODIGY OF ARSENAL—THE PRODIGY OF WORLD FOOTBALL—HAS JUST RIPPED THROUGH PARIS, AND LISTEN TO THE NOISE! THIS IS UNREAL!”

The Arsenal bench erupted as Mikel Arteta sprinted onto the pitch, arms spread wide, unable to contain himself.

Staff, substitutes, everyone in red came tumbling onto the field, chasing their boy wonder, their talisman.

And Izan?

He was already gone.

Sprinting from the spot, hair flying, jersey clinging to his chest.

He cut towards the corner flag but slowed, slowed until his run became a deliberate walk.

He turned, faced the wall of Paris fans who moments earlier had rained bottles and abuse upon him.

And then, with the calm of a maestro, he bent forward in a slow, theatrical bow.

Like an orchestrator concluding his symphony.

The cameras caught it, the flames of flares still burning, the fury in Parisian eyes, the delirium in Arsenal’s section, the tears on Arteta’s cheeks.

The power of a kid to bend football to his will.