God Of football

Chapter 1025: Too Much To Hold!

As the minutes passed without Spain scoring or remotely making an attempt at their goal, the Saudi fans behind the goal got louder and louder.

Louder than their numbers suggested they should be.

The Spanish sections responded with the two of them feeding off each other and keeping the stadium at a pitch that the football on the pitch was not yet justifying.

Then, when a loose ball broke, Balde got to it first.

He was in his number three position on the left when it arrived at his feet.

When he looked up, he saw the Saudi right back stepping toward him and saw the space, and at that, it was almost like something inside him broke.

He nudged the ball ahead once, but quickly caught up to it to push it further ahead as the Spanish crowd rose behind.

Soon, he was past the fullback before the man had fully committed to closing him down.

"Balde! Past his man. First time anyone has beaten a Saudi defender one-on-one tonight, he’s cutting inside....."

The Saudi centreback caught up, got across and showed Balde the outside, cutting off the central route.

The Spanish left back slowed a moment, waiting for the right run.

By the time Fermín López arrived alongside him, the window had narrowed but not closed, and so after spotting him, Balde sent the ball across his body only for Fermín to take it back the same way it had come from, through off the Arabian full back that had just recovered.

Fermin took it, forcing his way inward with the kind of direct intent that required a decision from the defender: foul him or let him shoot.

The defender chose neither cleanly, and before he could get his thoughts right, Fermín got the shot away.

The shot felt heavy and powerful, but the Saudi keeper got both hands to it and pushed it wide.

"OHHHHH," Peter Drury groaned as Saudi Kepper got off the floor instantly and began berating his backline for letting that shot through.

"On target! Spain’s first shot and it’s on target. Fermín López forcing the save and Spain win a corner."

Lamine took the corner, but it didn’t really amount to anything.

Instead, Spain took an opportunity to replicate what their opponents had been doing to them, which was to fill the opponent’s half with themselves, but Spain took it a notch.

They were so invested in their opponents’ half that the only player remaining in their half was Raya, their keeper.

Trying to take advantage of this, the Saudi keeper sent a long ball into Spain’s half looking for the runners, but just like they had done to Spain, Pedro Porro took the ball before the Saudi wingers could catch up.

The game went stale after that.

A quarter of an hour of it, but with the back and forth, something was almost going to give.

It was only a matter of who and when Pedri got the ball from Porro; the ’who’ question got decided because, without controlling it and with no hesitation, he curled it.

He caught the Arabian midfield off guard, and the ball rose sharply over the Saudi backline before bending into the channel on the right side, where you know who chased.

"Pedri, oh, lovely ball over the top. It’s right into Yamal’s stride. A telapathy between players playing for the same teams on the club and international level"

The Spanish fans, once again, rose to their feet as Lamine controlled it on his thigh while the Saudi fullback arrived alongside him.

It was one-on-one, a treasure for Lamine, with everyone in the stadium expecting him to push forward, do what Lamine does best, but he didn’t.

He slowed, almost completely.

It was not quite a stop, but close enough that the Saudi players tracking him slowed with him, reading it as a dead end and began adjusting their defensive shape to compress around the ball.

But before they could, Lamine split them with a low ball, threaded past the last Saudi defender’s ankles, into the space that the defensive line had just vacated by stepping up to close Lamine down.

"Oh, Omorodion, he hasn’t stopped running—"

Samu Omorodion had been running since before the ball left Pedri’s foot.

While Lamine was receiving it, while the Saudi defenders were tracking the winger, while everyone’s attention was on the ball, Omorodion had just kept going.

When the ball arrived, he was already at full speed and with that, two Saudi defenders tried to get across.

The space was there for him to round them, but he didn’t.

It was almost like he wanted to prove a point.

Six foot two, twenty-two years old and built like something meant for any other sport than football, he took the ball on and took the contact from both of them.

Despite them almost trying to kill him, he stayed upright and right as the keeper came out, Omorodion sent the ball into the net off the post, sending the Spanish fans rumbling.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAL! Samu Omorodion! Built like a tank. He’s shrugged off the Saudi Arabians to put Spain ahead. What a beast of a player."

"Might feel like a flash in the pan, but Spain are now ahead here in Atlanta!"

As Drury ranted on the broadcast, Omorodion wheeled away with his arms wide, the contact from the two defenders having done nothing except make the goal feel more earned.

His teammates converged on him from all directions while the stadium kept breaking sound barriers.

On the bench, Luis De Ls Fuente, who was staring at his celebrating players, suddenly turned to look at the person beside him.

"Do you want to be my assistant?" he said as Izan snorted.

After being left out, Izan had advised De La Fuente to play Samu instead of Ferran since he felt the latter would get bullied should the Saudi team decide to play the way he thought, and his words had come through.

"I will consider it if you sub me in right after the half," Izan said, causing De La Fuente to turn away, not wanting to look at him again.

Izan shook his head at that and then returned his gaze to the pitch where the players were now returning to their half.