God Of football

Chapter 1027: Time And Time, Again!

The roar that went up in Puerta del Sol was heart-stopping and goosebump-evoking.

The square had been transformed three days before the tournament started and was going to be like this until the end, because to them, Espana was nothing but going to the end.

On the far end, a giant screen had been erected with barriers lining the perimeter and the whole thing turning one of Madrid’s most recognisable spaces into something that looked and sounded like a stadium without a roof.

By the time the second half began, the crowd in it was beyond counting.

People, mainly kids, sat on other people’s shoulders.

Others got comfortable on the same thing they weren’t supposed to be on, the barriers.

They watched the second half, not losing any interest even after a quarter of an hour had passed.

Until the square came apart when the Spanish number 10 showed up on the touchline, fixing his kit as the fourth official’s board went up and with that came the chants.

”I-ZAN. I-ZAN. I-ZAN.”

From old people to the youngest toddler, all mouths addressed the name, making it sound almost like a hymn.

Back in Atlanta, the stadium was the same as the square in Madrid, just slightly bigger and with walls.

Izan stood at the touchline in his number ten, waiting as Víctor Muñoz came toward him from the pitch.

They met briefly at the line with a touch of hands, and then Muñoz was past him while Izan stepped onto the grass and jogged toward the left flank without looking around.

He didn’t need to look around to know everyone was watching him.

The Saudi players tracked him with their eyes as he found his position.

They’d been irked at the start when he wasn’t in the lineup, reading it as disrespect, trying to use it as fuel, and then being quietly grateful as the first half went on, because one-nil with Izan on the bench was a scoreline they could work with.

But now he was on.

And the question that had been theoretical for forty-five minutes was suddenly very practical.

What do you do about him?

On the Saudi touchline, their manager Hervé Renard was already making his moves.

He had both hands up, gesturing toward his midfield and pointing toward a repositioning by one of the Saudi players.

The instructions travelled across the pitch quickly, and from the upper stands or from every broadcast screen showing the game, you could see one of the Saudi midfielders shifting his position, drifting wider and orienting himself toward the left flank where Izan had settled.

Mirroring the same movements was the Saudi right full back, who also inched closer than ever towards Izan.

”Ah, and it seems a tactical input has been made,” Drury said from the gantry.

”The Saudi Arabia manager already reorganising his midfield to account for the new arrival, and no one is going to blame him there!”

Raya restarted the game with a long ball up the pitch toward Omorodion, who got to it first and won the aerial duel cleanly, the ball dropping to his chest.

The Saudi centre back was tight behind him, and ultimately Omorodion couldn’t hold it, causing the ball to spill loose.

The other side of the defensive pair gathered it quickly, looked up, and immediately found his right back wide on the Saudi right side, with plenty of space.

He was about to play it to him, but something just kept hitting him, and when he glanced a bit further, he realised that if he played the ball, there was no way his mate was getting it with the speed that Izan was coming with.

The pass that had looked the most viable suddenly didn’t feel so safe anymore.

The defender turned away from it and sent it long to the left flank instead, clearing his lines and getting it away from whatever Izan was threatening to do to that option.

Pedro Porro contested for it with the Saudi left winger but lost by some margin after he couldn’t get his head to it, and taking advantage of that error, the winger pushed forward, bearing down on the Spain box until the space he had a while ago suddenly started squeezing him as Cubarsi and Porro edged closer and closer.

With nowhere to go, the Saudi winger glanced once to his right and tried playing the ball across to the edge of the box where a Saudi shirt stood, but in a flash, Pedri was there.

The Barcelona man controlled it on his instep, and before the Saudi midfielder pressing him could arrive, he flicked it back to Rodri, who had come short and played it first time back into the space behind the press, giving Pedri a clean return.

Pedri, after that, looked up to play the ball long but stopped midway when he saw Izan dropping deeper.

Not making the run in behind that the situation seemed to call for, but coming back toward midfield, asking for it short, asking to be involved.

And so Pedri involved him, playing the pass right into his feet.

”It’s Hernandez here with his first touch of the game. What can he do here?”

”Well, what can’t he do here, Peter?” the co-commentator said with a laugh as on the pitch, the Saudi player nearest to Izan came across to engage him with the particular form of someone who had just learnt something and was trying to apply it.

He stayed well on his feet and opened up well while making sure he didn’t dive in.

He did everything a good defender could be asked to do in the situation.

Izan went past him anyway, and he did so without even a single stepover.

Just a change of direction so sharp and so complete that the Saudi player’s momentum carried him two steps in the wrong direction before he’d registered it had happened.

And by the time he did, Izan was past him and driving forward with the Spanish crowd rising behind him.

”He’s gone past his man. Hernandez Miura is driving forward now, the stadium coming alive around him—”

Forty yards from the goal.

Then thirty-five.

His head came up while his eyes found the goal, and as they did, the stands and in the square in Madrid and in living rooms and bars across the world, everyone who was watching leaned forward slightly because that was what he did when he was going to shoot.

His head coming up, and his eyes settling like it had locked onto something.

For any other player, it was out of the question, but the person who had the ball could be called anything but normal.

The Saudi keeper shifted his weight, his centre backs compressed, and the whole defensive shape braced for what was to come, but Izan never shot the ball and just dragged it wide with the outside of his left foot, killing his own momentum, and slid it left to Dani Olmo, who was arriving in space.

The pass was perfect, the timing was perfect, and the weight of it was exactly what Olmo needed to take one touch and go.

But the ball went under Olmo’s foot, skipping under him and through his legs after he tried to control it with his instep before settling onto the foot of the Saudi player who had tracked him across, and just like that, the attack was over.

The Saudi player turned away with it and began venturing forward.

The press from Spain hadn’t got back yet, and suddenly there was space and the Saudi team began moving forward with a confidence they hadn’t shown since the goal went in.

The sense that they’d weathered the worst of it and might now find something of their own kept them going.

For a stretch of four or five minutes, they kept the ball well.

Moved through the Spanish press and even started trying things they hadn’t tried in the first half.

It was creativity that came when one stopped being afraid of things and started remembering that they could do things too.

It was fun as it gave a new dynamic to the game, which had so far been dominated by Spain.

Until Porro won the ball back on the right touchline.

Lamine had dropped deeper to ask for it, and Porro found him.

The youngster, immediately on the first touch, nudged it slightly to the left, causing the left back who had chased to falter.

At the same time, his midfield support went behind him, and so Lamine switched it.

With his left foot, he sent the ball travelling forty yards diagonally in the air across and dropping toward the left flank with some pace to it.

But that ball wasn’t going to be a problem for who it was meant for.

The Saudi right back tracking him had his eyes on the ball in the sky, head tilted up, following its arc.

He was thinking about getting there before Izan.

He was thinking about the defensive header.

He was thinking about any number of things, all of them related to the ball descending toward him.

What he wasn’t thinking about was Izan’s left leg as the ball came down.

And in the fraction of a second between the ball arriving and the Saudi defender getting his head on it, Izan was there first.

He didn’t control it, nor did he take a touch.

Instead, his left leg was already coiled back when the ball reached him, the movement beginning before the ball had fully dropped, and when he connected, the sound was something that one could not help but revel in.

It was daunting, it was enchanting, but most of all, it was moving towards goal.

The Saudi keeper hadn’t set himself.

He’d expected a cross or a control or anything that gave him half a second to position.

He got none of those things.

He saw the ball leave Izan’s foot and tracked it and understood immediately that there was nothing he could do.

It was moving too fast, bending slightly and aimed at the top right corner with a precision that looked less like football and more like someone had calculated the exact coordinates.

The ball hit the underside of the crossbar, and when it came down, it settled into the back of the net as the Spanish fans in the stadium erupted.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL

”Oh. Wow!!”

That was all Peter Drury could manage before the noise from the stadium filled the broadcast.

Because sometimes the commentary is the crowd, and the crowd was saying everything that needed to be said.

”YESSSS,” he managed when he finally recovered.

”IT’S HIM AGAIN. TIME AND TIME AGAIN It’s Izan Hernandez again with a goal for the ages, and Spain are two to the good!!!!!!”

Before the ball had even found the net, Izan was already running.

He slid towards the corner flag, knees deep into the turf, before he bounced back up off the grass in one movement and turned toward the stands with one hand pressed flat against his chest.

I am him.