God Of football - Chapter 525

Chapter 525: Blindsided
A pause where everyone processed what had just happened.

Then came the noise.

From the Liverpool end—detonation.

A thunderous wave of red shirts surging to the front rows, fists pumping, limbs colliding, strangers embracing like they’d just seen lightning strike gold.

“Virgil Van Dijk. Towering. Relentless. And just like that, Liverpool draw first blood in North London.”

Van Dijk didn’t sprint to the corner flag.

He didn’t rip his shirt or dive into a celebration.

He turned slowly, walking back to his half like a man clocking out of a shift.

Eyes straight, chest out, and adjusting his armband on the way back.

As if to say: This was always going to happen.

Gabriel stood motionless near the penalty spot, staring at the place he’d lost the duel.

His jaw clenched, teeth grinding, while Saka punched the post with his bare hand and mouthed a curse.

Partey shouted at no one in particular, both arms raised in fury.

Raya stayed kneeling, hands on his thighs, shaking his head softly, like a man watching his house flood after sealing every window.

The Emirates made a sound that wasn’t quite a groan, wasn’t quite disappointment.

It was the sound of a crowd realizing the narrative had slipped for a moment—just a moment—and that was all it took.

In the booth above the chaos, Peter Wallace leaned into his mic, voice heavy.

“So, it’s Liverpool 1, Arsenal nil here at the Emirates.”

Marsha’s tone dropped. “You felt the tension building… but you never expect it to break this clean. Arsenal were in control. Now they’re chasing.”

Dion barely spoke.

Just let out a breath and muttered, “That’s a real captain’s goal. No noise. Just execution.”

And amid the noise, amid the fury and readjusting of boots and minds, Izan walked slowly back toward the center circle.

With a little smile on his face.

He looked at the ball.

And nodded once as Martinelli passed the ball back.

The match restarted, but Arsenal weren’t aggressive with their plays.

Arsenal didn’t sprint.

They didn’t storm.

They shifted back and forth, making sure to bore Liverpool out of their minds.

Rice took the first touch back, calmly playing into Partey, who turned with deliberate ease and fed Gabriel.

The ball moved across the back line like a breathing exercise—controlled, slow, meaningful.

On the touchline, Arteta stepped to the edge of the technical area, yelling something with both arms outstretched, his fingers twitching as he pointed toward the left flank.

But the sound was swallowed whole.

The Emirates wasn’t quiet anymore.

It was roaring—not in panic, but in defiance.

Thousands of fans sang, chanted, clapped, stomping rhythm into the foundations, trying to lift the players with sheer volume.

Only those nearest to the touchline caught Arteta’s words.

The rest? Reading cues in body language, in glances, in the way Izan spread his arms and called for shape.

Arsenal shifted into gear.

White carried the ball forward, drawing Luiz Diaz out of position, then slipped a smart inside pass to Izan, who turned away from Mac Allister and immediately found Rice with a clipped ball.

Rice didn’t force it.

He waited, scanned, and dropped it backward when nothing clean emerged.

They weren’t chasing the game.

They were trying to reclaim it.

Arteta clapped hard from the sideline, pointing at the tempo, urging calm, but again, only Timber on the near side saw him.

The rest played through instinct, through habits drilled into muscle and memory.

Izan dropped deeper to receive, touched the ball with the inside of his boot, and shielded it as Alexander-Arnold pressed in.

He held, turned, and let the pressure soak before laying it off to Merino with a quiet flick.

The rhythm was slower now. But it wasn’t passive.

It was measured.

And Liverpool, though ahead, didn’t press recklessly.

They knew what one false step could cost.

Arsenal were playing it safe, but it was getting boring for the fans.

The Emirates began to murmur—not angry, but restless.

You could hear the voices splitting into fragments, pockets of unease drifting across the stands.

“Get forward!” someone barked from the East Stand.

“We’re one down, not one up!”

A clatter of hands slapped thighs, boot heels shuffled anxiously.

Arsenal were playing like a team trying not to concede a second.

But what the crowd wanted—what the match demanded—was response. Fire. Intent.

Then, finally, something cracked the pattern.

It came from Merino.

Just as the ball cycled back to him and Mac Allister started to step up, he turned on his first touch—shoulder dropped, head swiveling—and saw what no one else had.

Izan on the wing.

He was hugging the touchline tight, a few yards behind Alexander-Arnold, almost like he’d been biding his time out of sight.

Merino didn’t hesitate.

He slid the ball diagonally through the half-space with precision, like threading a needle at full speed.

The pass sliced the field open.

Trent turned and ran, but the race was over before it began.

Izan was already at full tilt.

Boots pounding into the turf, arms pumping, head up—he devoured the ground between him and the ball like it had insulted him.

Trent chased, stretching every stride, but Izan didn’t even check his shoulder.

There was no fear. No doubt.

“Here comes Izan!” Peter Wallace’s voice surged into the feed.

“That’s the first time they’ve found him clean—and look what it’s caused!”

“He’s eaten that gap alive!” Dion shouted.

“Trent’s chasing shadows!”

The crowd rose.

It wasn’t cheering yet—it was anticipation like thousands of lungs holding one collective breath.

Izan reached the ball just as it neared the edge of the box, his first touch perfect, pulling it slightly inward to set up the cross.

But he never got to strike it.

A red blur slammed into him from his blind side.

Konaté.

It wasn’t a reckless tackle.

It was force.

Sheer, unforgiving mass, thrown into motion with the intent to stop everything and everyone.

Shoulder met ribs, hip met hip, and Izan was launched off balance, his body twisting mid-air before crashing down hard on his right side.

The ball rolled away harmlessly, and then the whistle came a second later.

But Izan didn’t move.

He clutched his midsection—one hand splayed across his chest, the other curled near his stomach.

His face was locked in a grimace, mouth open, trying to suck in air that wouldn’t come.

The Emirates exploded.

“Foul! That’s a foul!” Peter shouted.

“And it’s a clear one—Konaté didn’t play the ball at all!”

“You can hear it from here,” Marsha added, voice tight.

“That’s not a simple collision. That’s brutal. That’s deliberate.”

Players swarmed the scene.

Saka ran to the referee, arms out, voice raised, while Rice tried to pull Konaté aside, but the centre-back just shrugged him off and turned, walking away like nothing had happened.

The referee followed him, whistle in hand, face stern—but then only reached into his back pocket for a warning.

Just a wave of the hand.

No card.

The groans turned to fury.

Boos rained down from all sides.

Konaté jogged back to position and gave Van Dijk a quick fist bump on the way, smirking.

Van Dijk didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

“This is outrageous,” Peter said.

“No yellow. No caution. That was a body check, not a tackle.”

“And it’s on Izan,” Dion added.

“They’ve been targeting him since he danced past MacAllister and Trent earlier. You knew something like this was coming.”

On the sideline, Arteta was screaming now, directed at the fourth official, at the referee, at anyone who would listen—but the stadium drowned him out.

In the VIP section, a figure stood up and slammed her fists against the front barrier.

Hori.

Her face was red, her mouth wide open as she roared toward the pitch.

“THAT’S A RED! HE COULD’VE BROKEN HIM!”

Miranda reached out instinctively, trying to steady her, but Hori wouldn’t sit.

Komi held her daughter’s arm, her own lips tight in silence.

Even Olivia, usually calm, was glaring down at the officials with clenched fists.

On the field, Izan finally rolled to his side, still holding his solar plexus.

Timber and Saka knelt beside him, waving to the bench for the medics.

The match had turned now, not in the scoreline, but in the mood.

This wasn’t beautiful anymore.

It was war.

And everyone knew it.

The medics knelt quickly beside him, one hand checking his ribs, the other gently pressing against his back.

“You alright, Izan?” one of them asked, his voice low but urgent.

Izan nodded faintly, still on his side, eyes clenched shut as his breathing began to slow.

One sharp inhale, then another—shaky but steadying.

“Just got the wind knocked out,” he muttered, voice hoarse.

The other medic tapped his shoulder.

“Take your time. We’ve got you.”

As they helped him to a seated position, the camera panned to the referee, now organizing the wall at the edge of the box.

“He’s okay,” Peter said.

“It looked bad at first, but Izan’s sitting up. Breathing again. He’ll want to take this himself if they let him.”

“They won’t,” Marsha added. “But you get the sense he might anyway.”

A/N: Second of the day. Have fun reading and I’ll see you in a bit or tomorrow.