Chapter 126: [126] "The Garonne rematch 3"
The ball rolled out of bounds near the AS Garonne technical area, bouncing harmlessly against the advertising boards.
It was the eightieth minute. The score was still 3-0.
The Garonne player tasked with retrieving the ball for the throw-in barely did more than skow walking. His shoulders were slumped, his head angled downward, staring at the perfect grass of Stade Valois as if it had wronged him.
The fight in him was gone.
SC Valois had spent the last eighty minutes executing a flawless dismantling of the team that had bullied them in the first half of the season. Every physical challenge had been met and returned with interest. Every press had been picked apart by Hugo Blanc.
Garonne was just waiting for the final whistle to put them out of their misery.
On the touchline, Coach Henri turned to his bench. He didn’t need to bark any commands. Idriss Konaté was already stripping off his training jacket, his eyes locked onto the pitch with the terrifying focus of a starved animal.
"Go finish them," Henri told the Ivorian striker.
The fourth official punched the numbers into the electronic substitution board and hoisted it into the air.
Red number. Green number.
Luc saw the board. He was standing near the center circle, his chest heaving slightly, the familiar ache in his lower back aching slightly once again. He had bagged two goals. He had tied Fresko for the Golden Boot. The job for the night was done.
He reached over his arm, pulling the velcro of the captain’s armband loose from his bicep.
As he began to jog toward the touchline, the ambient noise of Stade Valois shifted. It didn’t happen all at once. It started behind the goal in the ultras section, a low, rhythmic clapping that rapidly spread down the sidelines, reaching into the upper tiers, until the entire stadium was on its feet.
Thirty thousand people stood up.
They weren’t cheering for a substitution. They were roaring for their team’s captain. They were chanting his name, a unified wave of sound that resonated through the stadium.
It was a standing ovation.
Luc slowed his jog to a walk, the sheer magnitude of the noise washing over him. A few months ago, he had walked into this stadium as a college kid with a massive ego and a now meaningless wager holding his career together. He had been an outsider. A raw, unproven American athlete.
Now, they were almost bowing to him.
He passed Klaus Becker near the touchline. Luc held out the armband.
The massive German veteran took it, wrapping it around his own massive arm with a single, sharp nod of absolute respect. "Rest, Captain," Klaus rumbled. "We will see the match off from here."
Luc reached the sideline. Idriss was standing there, practically vibrating with pent-up matchless energy.
They slapped hands, the sharp crack echoing beneath the roar of the crowd.
"They’re dead on their feet," Luc said directly into Idriss’s ear. "Their center-backs aren’t tracking runs anymore."
"I’m going to get my goal," Idriss replied, his eyes dark and hungry.
Luc crossed the white line, immediately wrapped in a heavy winter coat by a junior physio. He took his seat on the bench, leaning back, and exhaled.
---
The match resumed, but the tempo had irrevocably changed. Idriss Konaté didn’t play like a man managing a 3-0 lead. He played like a man who believed the score was 0-0.
Minute eighty-eight.
Mallorca intercepted a weak, looping clearance near the halfway line. The Englishman took one touch on his chest and drove a lethal, skidding pass straight down the central channel to Idriss.
The Garonne center-backs, utterly exhausted from battling Luc for eighty something minutes, simply didn’t have the reaction time to turn and match the Ivorian’s fresh, explosive sprint.
Idriss blew past them like they were training cones. He collected Mallorca’s pass in stride, entered the penalty box, and didn’t even bother trying to be cute with a chip or a placement shot.
He dropped his head and shot the ball with power.
The Garonne goalkeeper managed to get a hand on it, but the force of the strike bent his wrist backward, sending the ball crashing into the roof of the net.
Goal.
4-0.
Idriss sprinted to the corner flag, knee-sliding into the turf and screaming into the fans. It was a statement. He was a benchie in the new 4-3-3 system, but he was still one of the most lethal finishers in Ligue Alpha.
Luc stood up on the sideline, clapping his hands above his head, genuinely thrilled for his teammate.
[System Notification]
[Match Complete: SC Valois 4 - 0 AS Garonne.]
[Revenge Objective Achieved.]
[Locker Room Cohesion: 90% (Elite).]
The referee blew the final whistle seconds after the restart.
Piii. Piii. Piiii.
AS Garonne collapsed onto the grass. SC Valois walked off it like conquerors.
There were no wild celebrating, no music blasting from the speakers or anything of that kind in the locker room. This wasn’t on the same level as the Cup victory against Paris Royal. This was a league match they were expected to win, and they had executed it with ruthless efficiency.
Bachra Goza suddenly let out a loud, highly disruptive shout from the corner of the room.
"Yo! Everyone shut up and look at your phones!" the teenager yelled, waving his device in the air. "It dropped! The GQ issue just went live!"
Half the squad immediately reached into their bags.
Luc didn’t pull his phone out. He didn’t need to. Bachra sprinted across the locker room and shoved his screen directly into Luc’s face.
There it was.
The digital cover of GQ France.
The blinding white background. The bold, black typography slicing across the top: THE NEW KINGS OF PARIS.
And beneath it, the image.
Fresko was standing on one side, draped in his blood-red velvet blazer, his dark sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose, exuding the untouchable arrogance of the...then league’s top scorer.
Luc was on the other, dressed in the midnight-black tailored suit. His arms were crossed, his jawline sharp, staring through the camera lens with intensity that looked out of place in a fashion magazine but absolutely perfect for the narrative it was trying to convey.