Chapter 110: [110] "Paris Royal Part 6"
Fontaine then jogged back toward the center circle, locking eyes with Luc as he passed.
He had responded to the Valois goal, and with a bit of ease.
"Reset!" Luc shouted over the deafening noise, clapping his hands. "It’s one goal! Do not break the shape!"
The final ten minutes of the half were a grueling, suffocating test of endurance. Paris Royal, fueled by the equalizer and the rabid home crowd, poured forward in waves. But Valois held firm. Klaus and Baini operated as a twin fortress in front of the backline, while Amadou, furious at being beaten by Fontaine’s feint, began winning every aerial duel that entered the box.
As the clock ticked toward the forty-third minute, Idriss Konaté was growing restless.
He had spent almost the entire half doing the dirty work...tracking back, tackling, forming the defensive block. He was a striker. He wanted his reward.
Minute forty-four.
Baini intercepted a sloppy pass from the Paris Royal right-winger deep in the Valois half. Baini immediately zipped the ball to Hugo in the center circle.
Bastien Leroux rushed in to press his former teammate.
This time, Hugo didn’t try anything considered ’his normal’. He didn’t try to pass it with the outside of his boot. As Bastien closed in, Hugo executed a flawless and breathtaking Zidane roulette, dragging the ball back and spinning around the older midfielder.
Bastien grasped at empty air, completely beaten.
Hugo accelerated into the Paris Royal half, the 4-2-3-1 attacking shape instantly springing to life. Gabriel made a blazing run down the right, dragging the left-back with him. Luc sprinted straight down the center, pointing to his feet.
Hugo slipped a perfectly weighted through-ball into Luc’s path just outside the penalty area.
Once again, the Paris Royal center-backs panicked. The memory of the first goal was fresh in their minds. They both stepped up aggressively to close Luc down, fully expecting him to shoot or something.
Luc didn’t shoot. He didn’t even need to use his last consumable. He simply let the ball roll across his body, using his frame to shield it from the center-backs, and played a soft, perfectly angled pass out to the left side of the penalty area.
Idriss Konaté had crashed the box perfectly. This move was becoming signature striker play from Luc.
The Ivorian had abandoned his defensive duties on the left flank the exact moment Hugo beat Bastien. He arrived onto Luc’s pass, completely unmarked because the Paris Royal right-back had tucked out too wide.
Idriss didn’t take a touch. He put his laces through the ball with every ounce of frustration, pride, and hunger he had built up over the last week.
The ball rocketed past the Paris Royal goalkeeper near the near post, an absolute bullet that nearly tore the net off its moorings.
Goal!!!
2-1.
Idriss sprinted toward the away section, sliding on his knees, screaming in pure, unadulterated triumph. He beat his chest, pointing to himself, making sure every single person in the stadium knew exactly who he was.
Luc arrived a second later, grabbing the Ivorian by the shoulders and pulling him into a celebratory embrace.
"Don’t you miss our partnership!" Luc roared over the crowd. "That’s why you start!"
Idriss yelled something back, his face alight with adrenaline.
The referee looked at his watch and blew the whistle for halftime.
Piii. Piii.
The Paris Royal players dropped their heads, utterly stunned by the lethal attack. The sixty thousand fans in the stadium fell into a shocked, murmuring silence.
SC Valois walked toward the tunnel. They had come into the most hostile stadium in the country, deployed a massive tactical lie to their very own club owner, and survived the wrath of the King Fontaine.
As Luc walked down the tunnel, the Captain’s Aura quietly existing in his chest, he looked up at the scoreboard.
Paris Royal 1 - 2 SC Valois.
There were forty-five minutes away from knocking the empire out of the Cup.
---
The away locker room was filled with localized adrenaline. The concrete walls seemed to hum with the residual noise of the stadium above them.
Henri stood in the center of the room, his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. He didn’t look like a regular manager anymore, he looked like a general who had just successfully ambushed a superior army.
"Listen to me!" Henri barked, clapping his hands to cut through the heavy breathing of his squad. "We have them right where we want them. They are bleeding thanks to our fluidity. Every time they look up, they see a rigid 4-4-2, and the moment they lose the ball, we cut their throats with the 4-2-3-1."
He turned to Gabriel Assis, who was slouched on the bench, pouring a bottle of water over his head. The Brazilian winger looked exhausted, his chest heaving, his bright yellow boots scuffed with Parisian mud.
"Gabriel," Henri said, his voice dropping slightly. "You have tracked back. You have defended. You have suffocated their left flank. I need forty-five more minutes of that exact same suffering. Do not give him an inch to breathe."
Gabriel nodded slowly, tossing the empty plastic bottle into the bin. The arrogance was still there in his eyes, but it was currently tempered by the grueling reality of physical labor. He had tasted the assist in the third minute... he knew the defensive suffering was worth the attacking glory.
Henri pivoted to Idriss. "Idriss, excellent finish. But remember your assignment. The moment we lose the ball, you are a left midfielder. If you linger up top celebrating your goal in your head, anything can happen and we will concede."
"I know my job, Coach," Idriss replied, his voice brimming with a confident energy. He had proven his worth. He had justified his inclusion.
Luc sat quietly by his locker, letting the physio staff quickly massage the rapidly tightening muscles in his calves. Juliette had become scarce due to her promotion, she was regularly absent from being Valois’ main physio during recent matches.
The physical toll of battling the two massive Paris Royal center-backs was immense. Every time he held the ball up, he was absorbing elbows to the ribs, knees to the thighs, and constant, grating verbal abuse.
"They are going to change something," Klaus Becker rumbled from the corner of the room. The German veteran was wiping mud off his face with a white towel. "Their manager is not a fool. He will see the overload in the midfield. He will push the boy, Bastien, further up the pitch to disrupt me and Baini."
"We’ll adapt to whatever," Luc said, standing up and shaking out his legs. He looked around the room. The system’s passive was working beautifully, acting as an invisible glue that kept the varying egos from fracturing under the pressure of the occasion. "If they push Bastien higher, Hugo, you exploit the space he leaves behind. We don’t sit back and defend a 2-1 lead for forty-five minutes. We step on their throats."
"Two minutes!" the match official shouted, poking his head through the locker room door.
The squad stood up as one synchronized unit. There was no fear in their eyes anymore. They had walked into the belly of the beast and taken a bite out of it.
As they marched back out of the tunnel, the noise of Parc des Royals hit them with a renewed, hostile ferocity. The Parisian ultras had unfurled a massive, intimidating tifo behind the goal, a depiction of a king sitting on a throne composed of broken crowns. It was a direct message to Luc.
The referee blew his whistle to commence the second half.
Piii.
Immediately, Klaus’s prediction manifested into reality. Paris Royal adjusted their tactical shape on the fly. They abandoned their standard midfield structure and pushed Bastien Leroux into an aggressive, advanced role, effectively operating as a shadow striker right behind Olivier Fontaine.
Their 4-2-4 assault had begun.
Minute forty-eight.
The pressure was suffocating. Paris Royal pinned Valois deep into their own half, locking them inside a desperate defensive third. The ball moved with blinding speed, left to right, right to left, stretching the Valois 4-4-2 block to its absolute physical limits.
Gabriel Assis was forced into a desperate sliding tackle near the corner flag, knocking the ball out for a throw-in just to give his burning lungs a five-second reprieve. On the opposite side, Idriss was practically playing as a second left-back, doubling up with Owusu to stop the relentless waves of deep blue jerseys.
Minute fifty-three.
Bastien received the ball in the right half-space. Hugo stepped up to press him, but Bastien didn’t try to dribble. He played a rapid, one-touch pass off the overlapping right-back, entirely bypassing Hugo, and surged toward the edge of the Valois penalty area.
Baini slid across to cover, but Bastien had already picked his head up. He saw the tiny gap between Amadou and Hernandez.
He clipped a delicate, perfectly weighted lofted pass over the Valois defensive line.
Olivier Fontaine was on the move.