Chapter 166: [166] "Impact"
The referee’s whistle pierced through, restarting the match.
The ball rolled backward from the center circle, tapped by a Belleville forward into the feet of their midfield. The atmosphere inside Stade Valois remained deafening. The home supporters were still riding the high of the opening goal, their chants echoing, demanding a total routing of the visiting side.
Down on the pitch, the 1-0 deficit was settling into the minds of the FC Belleville players. The plan their manager had drawn up all week had been shattered by a single, brilliantly disguised dummy run.
Luc glanced at the Belleville defensive line.
The rookie center-back, who had completely abandoned his zone, was visibly trembling. He kept checking his spacing, looking over his shoulder every three seconds, terrified of making another catastrophic error. His confidence had been deleted.
But the veteran next to him was experiencing a completely different emotional response.
Khalil’s face held only fury. He wasn’t looking at the ball circulating in the midfield. He was staring intently at the back of Luc’s jersey. The seasoned defender had spent his entire career surviving in the top flight by establishing physical dominance early, and he had just been made to look like an absolute amateur.
"Press!" Klaus Becker roared from the Valois midfield.
The German veteran stepped up aggressively, triggering the high press. Hugo Blanc and Cillian Doyle moved in perfect synchronization, boxing the Belleville holding midfielder into a narrow corridor near the touchline. The away side was suffocating. They couldn’t string three passes together without a black and gold shirt suffocating the receiver.
A panicked Belleville fullback blindly booted the ball up the flank.
Zack Florez, maintaining his flawless positioning from the opening minutes, easily tracked the flight of the ball. The eighteen-year-old leaped, cushioning a header down to Dário Ferrão.
Valois recycled possession instantly.
For the next ten minutes, the match had a brutal rhythm. Belleville realized they could not compete with the technical fluidity of Hugo, so they resorted to the only weapon they had left. The fouls began to accumulate.
Cillian took a heavy, late shoulder charge that sent him tumbling across the grass. The Irishman popped back up immediately, laughing in the face of the offender, but the intent was clear. Belleville was trying to drag the fixture out.
In the thirty-first minute, Hugo received a short pass from Klaus. The teenager took a flawless first touch, his head swiveling to scan the left. Before he could even set his foot to distribute the ball, a Belleville midfielder lunged in recklessly, studs raised, catching Hugo across the top of his ankle.
Hugo went down hard, clutching his leg.
The referee blew the whistle, jogging over to issue a stern verbal warning, but inexplicably kept his cards in his pocket. The home crowd erupted in a chorus of boos, disgusted by the leniency.
Luc walked over to the spot of the foul, offering a hand to haul his playmaker off the turf.
"You good?" Luc asked, his eyes scanning the teenager’s face for any sign of genuine damage.
"Just a scrape," Hugo muttered, testing his weight on the joint. He winced slightly but nodded. "They are abandoning their shape. They are just hunting the ball carrier now."
"Stay quick on the release," Luc advised. "Don’t hold it for more than two touches. Let them chase shadows."
Play resumed. The resulting free-kick was played short, maintaining possession.
Luc drifted back toward the final third. He positioned himself deliberately in Khalil’s zone. If the veteran wanted a physical battle, Luc was more than willing to provide it. The Physical Anchor was fully integrated into his muscle memory. He understood exactly how to manipulate his center of gravity to absorb and redirect barges.
Minute thirty-four.
Klaus Becker threaded a low pass through the center of the pitch. It bypassed the initial line of Belleville’s press and found Luc stationed twenty-five yards from goal, his back turned to the target.
Luc checked his shoulder. He saw Khalil stepping up rapidly, closing the distance with momentum.
This was standard procedure. The center-back would attempt to drive into his shoulder or a forearm into his lower back, forcing a heavy touch or a turnover. Luc planted his feet wide, dropping his hips to lower his center of gravity. He locked his core, preparing to absorb the hit, shield the ball, and lay it off to Gabriel Assis, who was already making a blistering run down the right flank.
But Khalil didn’t play the standard procedure.
The anger that had been boiling inside the veteran since the opening goal finally boiled over into complete irrationality. He didn’t want to win the ball. He wanted to hurt the man who had humiliated him.
Instead of slowing his approach to jockey for position, Khalil accelerated. He launched himself completely off his feet, bypassing the ball entirely.
Luc heard the scrape of studs against the grass a fraction of a second before the impact.
Khalil’s cleats came in high, reckless, and loaded with the full weight of a grown man. The challenge connected sickeningly with the side of Luc’s right knee, just below the joint.
The force of the tackle swept Luc’s leg out from under him. The Physical Anchor was designed to resist upper-body pressure and leverage, it could do absolutely nothing against a high-velocity strike to the lower extremities.
Luc was violently spun through the air, crashing onto his side, his shoulder digging hard into the turf.
A sharp, blinding spike of pain shot up his right leg. It wasn’t nothing close to a dull ache. It was a searing and almost immediately triggered alarms in his brain. He rolled onto his back, gripping his knee, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw popped.
The immediate vicinity exploded into chaos.
Klaus Becker arrived before the referee even had the whistle to his lips. The massive German grabbed Khalil by the collar of his jersey with both hands and launched the veteran center-back backward. Khalil stumbled, nearly falling over, before squaring up, but ex-Phocéen player, Amadou Fall and Leo Hernandez’s replacement, Hadj, were on there way, forming a barricade around their captain.