Become A Football Legend Chapter 401: Unbelievable

Lukas returned the pass first time, sliding it straight back into Foden’s stride.

The Etihad lifted again.

"Foden and Brandt combine..." Drury began, the danger already unfolding in front of him.

Foden entered the box and, rather than shooting from the angle, tried to put it across goal for Haaland. The Norwegian was arriving at the back post, ready for a tap-in, but De Ligt read it superbly. The Dutch defender threw himself across the passing lane, stretching one long leg to cut out the square ball. It struck his boot and ricocheted out toward the edge of the area, spinning loose toward the top of the D.

For a moment, United thought they had survived.

They hadn’t.

Bruno had not sensed the danger behind him. After returning the ball to Foden, Lukas had continued his run, gliding into the exact space where the clearance now fell. De Ligt was still pushing himself back up from the turf. Ugarte was facing the wrong way. Dorgu and Amad were both stranded on the far side after the earlier phase of play.

The ball bounced once, and Lukas arrived to lash through it first time with his laces.

The strike screamed toward the top corner.

Bayındır launched himself across goal, but the ball was already past him, rising viciously, kissing the inside of the net before he had completed his dive.

For one heartbeat, the stadium seemed too stunned to react.

Then it erupted.

Peter Drury lost himself in the noise.

"OH MY WORD! OH MY WORD! LUKAS BRANDT HAS A HAT-TRICK IN THE MANCHESTER DERBY! A FIRST-TIME THUNDERBOLT INTO THE TOP CORNER, AND THE ETIHAD IS WATCHING THE BIRTH OF SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY!"

Gary Neville could only exhale, almost laughing in disbelief.

"I don’t know what you say to that. I really don’t. United actually deal with the first danger. De Ligt makes a brilliant interception, but Brandt keeps running, keeps believing the second ball might fall, and when it does, the finish is outrageous. Absolutely outrageous."

Lukas grabbed the front of his shirt as he sprinted toward the corner, fingers clamped around the City badge. The noise chased him. He lifted one hand into the air, three fingers raised, while the other hand kept hold of the crest as if to tell the entire stadium exactly where he now belonged. Foden reached him first, wrapping him from the side before Haaland crashed into both of them, smacking Lukas lightly on the head as he shouted something nobody could hear above the roar. Doku arrived laughing, Bernardo behind him, and soon the blue shirts were piled around the corner flag again.

Drury continued over the celebration, his voice still shaking with wonder.

"What are we seeing in the Premier League? What have Manchester City brought into English football? 16 years of age, and he has just scored a hat-trick against Manchester United. The youngest hat-trick scorer this league has ever seen, on derby day, under the heaviest spotlight, after weeks of questions about when his first Premier League goal would come. Well, it has come. And then another. And then another."

On the touchline, Guardiola did not look surprised anymore. He looked delighted. He stood with a smile stretching across his face, clapping steadily as if confirming what he had already believed was possible. Beside him, Pep Lijnders and Kolo Touré embraced in celebration, laughing at the absurdity of it all, while the rest of the City bench bounced in front of their seats.

In the stands, Joanna was screaming with both hands raised, her voice lost completely inside the roar of the Etihad. Javi stood beside her, clapping with pride written across his face. Lexi, still in her United shirt, had both hands on her head, half horrified and half amazed. Jane stood more slowly, her eyes fixed on the boy wearing number 17, the boy she had once known only from a distance, the boy now holding the Manchester City badge in front of an entire stadium.

Drury’s voice softened slightly as the camera stayed on Lukas, still celebrating near the corner.

"His age says he is still a boy. But the talent, the danger, the audacity... it belongs to something far beyond his years. Manchester City have not merely found a player. They may have found the next face of this rivalry."

The scoreboard changed again.

Manchester City 4–0 Manchester United.

60’

Lukas Brandt had his hat-trick.

And the Etihad was singing his name.

The game restarted, but Manchester United looked like a side that had lost more than control of the scoreline.

They had lost belief.

At 4–0 down, with half an hour still to play, every red shirt seemed to carry the same humiliation. It was not just the deficit. It was the manner of it. They had come to the Etihad needing pride, needing resistance, needing proof that the derby still belonged to both sides of Manchester, and instead they had allowed a 16-year-old to score a hat-trick against them before the 61st minute. The United players still ran, still pressed when the ball came near, still tried to keep their shape, but the energy had been hollowed out of them. Every City pass drew cheers now. Every Lukas touch dragged anticipation from the stands.

Down on the touchline, Rayan Cherki had begun warming up.

Around the 65th minute, Guardiola turned from the technical area and called him back. Cherki jogged toward the bench immediately, already pulling off his warm-up top as one of the staff handed him instructions. From the pitch, Lukas saw it. He did not need anyone to point toward him. He remembered what Pep had said at halftime. Get the hat-trick before the 70th minute, and I take you off to a standing ovation. The promise had sounded playful in the dressing room, almost absurd. Now it was real.

For a moment, Lukas felt the strange pull of two emotions at once. A standing ovation in the Manchester derby, after a hat-trick and an assist, was the sort of memory a player could carry for the rest of his life. But he didn’t really want to come off.

His legs still felt light, the pitch still looked open, and United still looked wounded. He had the match ball secured, Man of the Match all but guaranteed, and his first Premier League goals had arrived in the most dramatic possible way. If these were going to be some of his final touches, then caution no longer had any use.

Bernardo Silva received possession near the right half-space and zipped the ball toward him.

Lukas opened his body near the touchline, already aware of Dorgu rushing out again and Amad closing from behind to trap him. He let the pass come across his body, then took a deliberately heavy first touch, pushing the ball slightly ahead of himself and inviting the tackle. Dorgu saw the chance and went for it, sliding in with more desperation than calculation, his leg stretching across the grass to block the path down the line.

Lukas had wanted exactly that.

He rolled the ball through the space between Dorgu’s legs as the tackle arrived, then hurdled cleanly over the challenge, landing on the other side without breaking his stride. Amad was almost on his back now, reaching to close him down before he could lift his head, but Lukas had already seen what mattered.

Ahead of him, a huge channel had opened between United’s recovering defenders. Haaland saw the same thing at almost the same instant. The Norwegian looked at Lukas’ face, followed the direction of his eyes, and began to run.