Chapter 88: [88] "Fucking back!"
The sluggishness drained from his limbs.
His peripheral vision snapped back into sharp, widescreen clarity. He could see Idriss peeling off the left shoulder of the defender. He could see the Vannes right-back struggling to turn in the mud. He could feel the exact distance between himself and the goal line without looking.
He was fucking back!
---
Minute fifty-eight.
The dynamic of the match had fundamentally shifted. Klaus Becker wasn’t playing above the team anymore, he was operating as its anchor.
The German was a revelation when he actually followed instructions. He was stronger than anyone on the Vannes roster. He anticipated every loose ball, stepping into passing lanes with terrifying efficiency. When Vannes tried to clear it, Klaus was there, chesting the heavy ball down and immediately distributing it to Cillian or Hugo with one touch.
He was starving Vannes of possession. He was suffocating them.
"This," Luc thought, watching Klaus dismantle a counter-attack before it even began, "is what thirty-five million euros buys you."
Valérie was a ruthless, terrifying woman, but she wasn’t stupid. Klaus was an elite unit of a player, even at his age. He just needed to be put to work.
---
Minute sixty-seven.
The frustration in the Vannes squad boiled over. They were chasing shadows in the rain, being systematically dismantled on their own pitch.
Hugo received the ball near the touchline. A Vannes center-back, furious and exhausted, charged at the teenager. It didn’t look like he was going for a tackle meant to win the ball. It looked to be a tackle meant to leave a mark by the expression on his face. The defender came in studs high, aiming straight for Hugo’s recently healed ankle... although he didn’t know that.
Before Hugo could even brace for the impact, a blur slammed into him, helping him evade the Vannes defender by pushing him forward into the ground.
Klaus Becker had crossed ten yards of mud in less than a few seconds.
The Vannes defender took the ball from between them. But Klaus hit the Vannes center-back with a perfectly timed, brutally hard sliding tackle of him own that took the ball entirely and also sent the defender flipping through the air.
The referee blew his whistle for that one.
The Vannes players swarmed Klaus, shouting and shoving. Klaus stood up slowly, completely unbothered by the five angry men surrounding him. He towered over them, moving his blonde hair which was plastered to his forehead due to the rain.
He pointed a thick, mud-stained finger at the center-back who was pulling himself off the grass.
"Be careful how you go about sliding," Klaus said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that cut through the shouting, "it didn’t feel good, did it?"
The Vannes players backed off slightly. There was a difference between playing aggressive and dealing with someone who just was exactly that.
Luc arrived at the scene, pushing a Vannes midfielder aside. He looked at Klaus.
The German didn’t look back. He just adjusted his shin guards and walked away to prepare for the free kick.
He had protected Hugo... although a bit roughly. "Alright," Luc muttered. "He’s in."
---
Minute seventy-four.
The Vannes resistance was broken. The physical toll of the mud and the psychological toll of being choked to death by Klaus’s midfield anchor had drained their legs.
Klaus intercepted a weak clearance near the halfway line. He took one touch, looked up, and hit a stunning, thirty-yard diagonal ball over the top of the Vannes defense.
It was the exact same pass he had refused to play in the first half.
Luc had already started his run. The Blind Side Run Timing placed him two yards clear of the last defender. He tracked the ball over his shoulder, the rain stinging his eyes.
The Vannes keeper came rushing off his line, desperate to close the angle that was available for Luc to shoot.
Luc didn’t bring the ball down. The pitch was too muddy to trust a bounce. He met the ball in mid-air, catching it perfectly on the volley with the laces of his right boot.
It was a thunderbolt. The ball bypassed the keeper’s outstretched hands and slammed into the roof of the net, ripping water off the net’s mesh.
Goalll!!
2-0.
Luc landed in the mud, sliding on his knees towards the away end. Then he got up, turned, and jogged back toward the midfield.
Hugo was there, but Luc walked past him. He walked straight up to Klaus Becker.
The German was standing near the center circle, his chest rising and falling, his face expressionless.
Luc raised his hand.
Klaus looked at the hand for a second. Then, slowly, the Champions League winner raised his own mud-caked glove and slapped it against Luc’s palm.
It wasn’t a celebration. It was a contract.
"Good ball," Luc said.
"Wait till you receive the next one," Klaus replied deadpan.
The final fifteen minutes were a formality. SC Valois locked the game down into professional game management. Klaus dictated the tempo, moving the ball side to side, draining whatever clock and energy Vannes had left.
When the final whistle blew...
Piii Piii Piiii
...the Stadium was nearly empty, the home fans having abandoned the freezing rain for the warmth of their cars.
SC Valois 2 - FC Vannes 0.
Luc walked toward the tunnel, the rain washing the worst of the mud off his face. The headache was gone. TES was stable. Valérie’s thirty-five-million-euro egoist had been broken and rebuilt into the exact anchor they needed for the second half of the season.
[System Notification]
[Match Complete: SC Valois advance to the next cup round. Only Ligue Alpha teams left]
[Locker Room Cohesion: 75% (Optimal)]
[TES notes: A King requires soldiers. You just got yourself a general. Well played.]
Luc smiled faintly, as it faded into the rain.
The mud of Vannes was behind them. The real war, Matchday 18 away at AC Nord was waiting. They had already beaten Nord, but what is the beauty of football if not for uncertainties lying in the most certain of places.