Chapter 206: [206] "Finally, right choice"
The gap was down to a single goal. But he forced himself to make that a secondary problem, focusing on what’s in front of his team, every scoreless minute that passed felt like a missed opportunity to maintain the club’s momentum.
Minute forty-two.
Amadou Fall won a towering header near the halfway line, beating the lone Nantaise striker to a desperate clearance. The center-back directed the ball down to Klaus Becker.
He took one touch to settle the ball, scanning the pitch. The Nantaise defense had shifted heavily toward the left, attempting to lock down Dário Ferrão, who had been Valois’ only consistent threat.
Klaus recognized the imbalance, it was what Nantaise now relied on. He opened his hips and launched a precise, low-driven diagonal pass across the turf, bypassing the congested center.
The ball skidded rapidly toward the right flank.
Gabriel Assis tracked the pass, extending his right boot to kill the momentum. His first touch brought the ball to a dead stop just outside the corner of the penalty area.
Once again, he was isolated one-on-one with the Nantaise left-back.
The defender bent his knees, dropping his center of gravity. He braced himself for another sloppy step-over sequence, or another forced sprint down the touchline. He had comfortably contained the Brazilian for over forty minutes.
Gabriel stood over the ball. He squared his shoulders.
Up in the box, Luc tightened his grip on his crutch. He expected the winger to drop his head and charge. He expected another turnover.
Gabriel hesitated. He looked at the defender’s hips. He looked down at the ball.
Then, he looked up.
Hugo Blanc was operating in the center of the pitch. The young playmaker recognized the isolation on the wing. Instead of hovering near the penalty arc and waiting for a cross, Hugo initiated a sharp, aggressive diagonal dart toward the right channel, dragging a Nantaise defensive midfielder with him.
Gabriel saw the run. The internal conflict was visible in the rigid tension of his shoulders. His ego screamed at him to beat the defender and shoot. His tactical discipline, hammered into him by Henri’s benching, demanded the pass.
Gabriel didn’t nudge the ball forward this time. He conceded and planted his left foot firmly into the grass, opened his right foot, and executed a perfectly weighted ground pass directly into Hugo’s path.
It was the right choice. Finally.
The Nantaise defensive midfielder tracking Hugo immediately braced for the teenager to trap the ball. The defender stepped in aggressively, lowering his shoulder to contest the physical duel the moment the ball touched Hugo’s cleats.
Hugo didn’t trap it.
The young playmaker had scanned the pitch three seconds before making his run. He knew exactly where every player on the field was positioned. He recognized the momentum of the defender closing in on his back, and he tracked the velocity of Gabriel’s pass.
Hugo simply spread his legs.
He executed a flawless dummy. He didn’t touch the ball and let the leather roll smoothly right between his boots.
The Nantaise defensive midfielder was completely committed to the physical challenge. When Hugo let the ball run, the defender stumbled awkwardly forward, grasping at empty air, his momentum carrying him past the play entirely.
The ball continued its path, sliding into the massive pocket of space at the top of the penalty arc.
Bense Baini had read the sequence perfectly.
The Moroccan midfielder had made a late run from the deep double pivot. While the Nantaise defense was focused on Gabriel’s isolation and Hugo’s darting run, Baini arrived completely undetected on the blindside.
He collected the ball flawlessly in stride, arriving at the top of the eighteen-yard box with zero pressure.
Baini didn’t take an extra touch to set himself, that would kill time. The defensive line was already scrambling, realizing the catastrophic error caused by the dummy. The midfielder kept his head down, locked his ankle, and struck the ball first-time with his right instep.
The connection was pure.
The shot stayed low to the grass, generating immense power. It scrambled through the chaotic tangle of legs inside the penalty area, aimed with pinpoint precision toward the bottom left corner of the net.
The Nantaise goalkeeper was completely rooted to his spot. He had shifted his weight to his near post to cover Gabriel, then shifted to the center to cover Hugo. By the time Baini struck the ball, the keeper was wrong-footed, reduced to a spectator watching the ball speed toward the empty corner.
The stadium erupted. The fans rose to their feet, the collective intake of breath signaling the imminent celebration.
Up in the box, Luc leaned in heavily.
The ball crossed the six-yard box.
A Nantaise center-back, who had been dragged out of position by Idriss Konaté earlier in the sequence, realized the danger. The defender abandoned his marker entirely, turning and sprinting desperately toward his own goal line.
Just as the ball was about to cross the white chalk, the center-back threw his body sideways through the air in a final, frantic act of defense.
The ball smashed brutally against the defender’s forehead.
The impact generated a loud thud that echoed into the broadcast microphones. The trajectory of the shot deflected violently upward, rocketing over the crossbar and crashing into the advertising boards behind the net.
The referee blew his whistle, signaling a corner kick for SC Valois.
The Nantaise center-back crashed into the back of his own net, clutching his head, having miraculously kept the score level at zero-zero.
A ball boy ran across to collect the ball from where it settled, he rolled the ball over toward the corner flag where Hugo was approaching to take the corner kick as SC Valois’ designated set piece taker.
Hugo Blanc placed the ball inside the white chalk of the corner quadrant. Though it wasn’t really on the line, the linesman was okay with the placement.
He didn’t rush the setup. The seventeen-year-old playmaker used the bottom of his cleats to flatten a small bump in the grass, ensuring a perfectly even striking surface.