Chapter 171: [171] "Hugo fucking Blanc!!!"
Hugo slipped a short pass to Max. The teenager received it, dropping his shoulder and immediately turning to face the opposition goal. The Belleville midfielders panicked.
They remembered the devastating skill displayed from the first half. Two of them pressed Max instantly, desperate to prevent him from initiating another solo dribbling run.
By committing two men to Max, they left Hugo completely unmarked.
Max didn’t try to hard to beat them. He dragged the ball backward with the sole of his boot and laid a simple, one-touch pass right back to Hugo.
The playmaking prodigy now had the ball, facing the goal, with zero pressure.
Hugo looked up. Gabriel Assis was making a blistering run down the right flank, screaming for the ball. Dário Ferrão was doing the exact same on the left, stretching the Belleville full-backs to their absolute breaking point.
Hugo clipped a beautifully weighted, lofted pass over the top of the defense, dropping it perfectly into Gabriel’s stride.
The Brazilian winger collected the ball inside the penalty area, driving toward the byline. He chopped the ball inside, attempting to beat the recovering full-back, but the space was simply too tight. The Belleville defender managed to get a desperate toe on the ball, deflecting it out for a corner.
Luc nodded in approval. It didn’t result in a goal, but the attack was nearly flawless. They were pulling the low block apart at the seams.
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Minute forty-nine.
Belleville attempted to clear their lines following a sustained period of Valois possession. The clearance was weak, lacking both height and distance. It fell to the chest of Amadou Fall, who had pushed all the way up to the halfway line to maintain the suffocating pressure.
Amadou brought the ball down and immediately cycled it to Cillian. The Irish midfielder drove forward, eating up the open grass before slotting a pass to Dário on the left wing. Dário attempted to cut inside, utilizing a rapid sequence of leg feints rather than step-overs, but the Belleville right-back held his ground, forcing Dário to play the ball backward to maintain possession.
The frustration was beginning to mount slightly. The home crowd was growing restless, demanding a second goal to kill the fixture off completely.
Gabriel Assis, operating on the opposite flank, began throwing his arms in the air, visibly irritated that the ball wasn’t reaching him fast enough.
"Patience!" Henri roared from the edge of his technical area, waving his arms frantically to calm his players down. "Do not force anything! Keep moving, keep stretching them!"
Minute fifty-two.
The relentless shifting was beginning to take a physical toll on the ten men of Belleville. Their defensive block, which had been incredibly compact in the opening minutes of the second half, was starting to show microscopic fractures. The gaps between their midfielders and their defenders were widening by mere inches, but at the elite level of Ligue Alpha, inches were all that was required.
Hugo Blanc recognized the shifting on the pitch before anyone else.
The teenager began to float. He abandoned his fixed central position, drifting casually toward the right space, dragging a tired Belleville midfielder with him. He was operating with an eerie, detached calmness, orchestrating the tempo of the match without even touching the ball.
"Look at him," Klaus Becker shouted, pointing toward Hugo as he recycled possession through the backline. "Feed the kid!"
Zack Florez pushed a hard, flat pass across the pitch into the feet of Max Caster.
The false nine trapped the ball with his back to the goal. This time, the rookie center-back finally decided to chase. Terrified that Max was going to turn and shoot...or worse, the defender broke ranks, stepping aggressively out of the defensive line to challenge the teenager from behind.
It was the exact opportunity the Valois attack had been waiting for.
Max didn’t attempt to hold the ball up. He played a blind, first-time flick around the corner, perfectly directing the ball into the space he knew Hugo was occupying.
This was minute fifty-five, Hugo Blanc received the ball thirty yards from the Belleville goal.
The teenager didn’t take a heavy touch to set himself. He allowed the ball to roll smoothly across his body, his eyes instantly scanning the fractured line.
Gabriel Assis, seeing the center-back caught out of position, initiated a diagonal sprint into the heart of the penalty area. The remaining Belleville defenders panicked, frantically backpedaling to cover the Brazilian’s run.
The entire stadium expected a pass.
Hugo was a playmaker. He held the league record for assists in a single match as well as the number one position of assist leader, untop of Neji. His entire identity on the pitch was predicated on finding the lethal final ball to feed the goalscorers. The Belleville goalkeeper shifted his weight to his right, anticipating the through ball to Gabriel, preparing to rush off his line to intercept it.
But Hugo fucking Blanc didn’t pass.
Operating with cold-blooded clarity, the seventeen-year-old recognized that the defenders retreating to cover Gabriel had essentially created a massive, uncontested corridor of shooting space directly in front of him.
Hugo didn’t look for Dário on the left. He didn’t look for Max in the center. Hell he didn’t bat an eye at anyone.
He planted his right foot firmly into the turf, locking his ankle, and swung his left leg with venom. He didn’t attempt to curl the ball or finesse it into the corner. He struck it cleanly on the valve, driving his laces straight through the dead center of the ball.
The connection sounded like a percussive crack that echoed across the stadium.
The ball left his boot with zero spin. It was a pure knuckleball. It tore through the air, maintaining a flat, blistering trajectory before suddenly dipping violently at the last possible fraction of a second.
The Belleville goalkeeper, caught entirely flat-footed because he had anticipated a pass, didn’t even have time to raise his hands.
He simply turned his head, watching helplessly as the ball angled downward, and slammed into the back of the net.
Goal!!!!!
2-0.
A worldie!!!!!!
For a split second, Stade Valois was entirely silent, collectively processing the audacity and technical perfection of even attempting the strike from a kid who was supposed to be a pass-first midfielder.
Then, the stadium erupted. The noise was sent out a shockwave of jubilation that Luc felt even in the tunnel.
Hugo stopped moving, his chest heaving slightly, he sat on the grass with his legs crossed and raised a single fist into the air, a small, fiercely proud smile finally breaking across his face.
He was instantly mobbed. Klaus Becker arrived first, picking the seventeen-year-old off the ground, roaring in his face. Gabriel and Max piled on, dragging the prodigy back down to the turf in a chaotic, joyous heap of black and gold jerseys.
Luc stood in the tunnel, a massive grin spreading across his face despite the pain in his knee.
SC Valois was up two-nil. They were dismantling the opposition without their captain, without their top scorer. The team he had helped build and evolve into a self-sustaining, lethal machine was very capable without him.
The five-point gap between Valois in second and Phocéen in the Ligue Alpha table was more than officially secure.