Chapter 193: [193] "Shoulder-to-shoulder"

The impact was legal, a perfect execution of shoulder-to-shoulder leverage. The Aquitaine midfielder was sent sprawling into the brown sludge, the ball popping loose.

Klaus Becker collected the turnover with calm, veteran-like efficiency. The German general took one touch to survey the landscape of his surrounding pitch space.

Because Aquitaine’s three center-backs were anchored to the edge of their own penalty area, terrified of the space behind them, Klaus had an unbothered passing lane straight into the feet of Max Caster.

Max received the ball on the half-turn. The mud grabbed at the leather of it, slowing the pace of the game, but the teenager’s low center of gravity and immaculate close control allowed him to navigate the treacherous terrain. An Aquitaine defensive midfielder rushed him from behind, attempting to hack the ball away from under him.

Max didn’t try to outmuscle the older man. He simply dragged the ball backward with his sole, executed a sharp, fluid pivot, and laid the ball off to Hugo Blanc with a deft pass.

Hugo didn’t even look up before sweeping the ball wide to Dário Ferrão.

No look pass!

The sequence was hypnotic. SC Valois was playing rapid, one-touch tiki-taka football in a literal swamp. By refusing to engage the center-backs in a physical wrestling match, they were forcing Union Aquitaine to chase shadows in the midfield.

"They can’t touch us," Luc noted, watching Dário, Hugo and Max exchange another rapid one-two pass in the fifty-third minute. "They’re playing rondos around these bastards."

The frustration began to boil over on the pitch. Union Aquitaine was a proud, aggressive team, and being outplayed on their own home turf while down two goals was a psychological breaking point.

Minute fifty-six.

Hugo collected a pass from Zack Florez. The seventeen-year-old took a touch, looking for Bachra on the right wing. An Aquitaine midfielder, completely exhausted and blinded by rage, abandoned all pretense of playing the ball. He lunged two-footed, cleats raised, aiming directly for Hugo’s shin.

The tackle would have been horrific.

Before the cleats could make contact, Cillian Doyle materialized from the side of the screen. The Irishman had read the malicious intent perfectly. Cillian threw his own body into the trajectory of the tackle, taking the brunt of the impact against his thigh, shielding his young playmaker.

The referee blew a sharp, furious blast on the whistle, immediately brandishing a yellow card in the face of the Aquitaine midfielder. Cillian scrambled to his feet, unfazed by the collision, and got into the offender’s face almost immediately, chest-bumping the man backward.

"Don’t you ever try that on the again! Motherfucker!" Cillian roared, the broadcast microphones catching the raw, unpolished hostility of his warning.

Luc smiled, a deep sense of pride swelling in his chest. That was his team. That was the brotherhood he had helped forge. They didn’t need their captain on the grass to protect each other. They were a collective unit of enforcers and artists, operating in perfect symbiosis.

As the digital clock ticked past the sixtieth minute, the physical toll of the match became glaringly obvious. The Union Aquitaine players were dragging their boots. Their pressing had completely evaporated, replaced by a desperate, disjointed effort to simply stay upright in the mud.

Valois, on the other hand, looked remarkably fresh. The strikerless system meant they didn’t have to expend energy fighting fifty-fifty aerial duels or wrestling with center-backs. They simply kept the ball moving, forcing the opposition to run side-to-side, draining the last remaining reserves of oxygen from their lungs.

In the sixty-eighth minute, Aquitaine finally managed to string a coherent attack together. Their right wing-back pushed high, lofting a desperate, hopeful cross into the Valois penalty area.

Pinto, the backup goalkeeper who had nearly cost them the two goal lead in the first half before redeeming himself with the penalty save, stepped off his line.

"Command your area Pinto," Luc whispered, his hands tightening into fists. "Come on, Pinto. Claim it."

Pinto launched himself through the crowded six-yard box, rising above the head of an Aquitaine striker. The backup keeper extended his arms, catching the wet, heavy ball cleanly against his chest, bringing his knee up to protect himself from the impending collision.

He landed heavily in the mud but maintained absolute control of the ball. The Valois away section roared their approval.

Pinto stood up, pointing aggressively up the pitch, entirely shedding the nervousnes that had plagued his first-half cameo. He had stabilized himself with that confidence giving claim.

"Good man," Luc breathed out, feeling the residual tension regarding the clean sheet finally begin to dissipate.

The match entered its final phase.

By the seventy-second minute, Union Aquitaine’s manager threw tactical discipline out the window. Realizing that his three center-backs were entirely useless against a team with no strikers, he ordered one of them to step permanently into the midfield.

It was an act of desperation, a final gamble to overwhelm Valois in the center of the pitch.

But Coach Henri had anticipated the adjustment.

The moment the center-back stepped up, vacating his position in the defensive line, the entire geometry of the Valois attack shifted yet again.

"There it is," Luc said, sitting forward on the sofa, ignoring the compression machine as it cycled into a freezing squeeze. "The trap is sprung."

Minute seventy-five.

Klaus Becker intercepted a tired, sloppy pass near the halfway line. The midfielder didn’t cycle the ball sideways. He immediately drove a firm, grounded pass straight through the center of the pitch, directly into the feet of Max Caster.

The Aquitaine center-back who had stepped into the midfield rushed forward to engage the teenager.

Max didn’t try to turn him. He utilized his low center of gravity, taking a single, brilliant touch with the outside of his boot, shielding the ball while simultaneously laying it off to Hugo Blanc in the left space.

Because the center-back had pushed up, the space behind him was vast, empty, and devastatingly exposed.

"Run, Dário," Luc commanded the screen.

Dário Ferrão had already anticipated the sequence. The Portuguese winger abandoned the touchline, cutting sharply inside, driving his sprint directly into the massive void left by the absent defender.