God Of football Chapter 1010: Football’s Holy Grail!

~4 minute read · 1,114 words
Previously on God Of football...
Izan completes a historic, back-to-back title win with Arsenal, scoring an unprecedented number of goals and assists across all competitions. Despite facing brutal physicality from opponents like Wolverhampton Wanderers, Izan emerges even stronger, leaving statisticians and fans in awe of his record-shattering season.
Then came March, and the international break, ushering in a forty-eight-hour period that Mikel Arteta would later characterize, in a club documentary filmed at the close of the season, as one of the most nerve-wracking spans of his entire managerial career. He was seated in his office, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows through the blinds behind him. Izan had been summoned by Spain for the break, a sequence of two friendlies, both held in Seville. These matches held no competitive stakes, serving primarily as tune-ups for the impending World Cup. The initial encounter concluded successfully, with Spain securing a 3-1 victory. Izan contributed a goal and an assist, and immediately after, Luis De La Fuente substituted him. The second match, against Brazil, seemed to be unfolding similarly until the incident occurred. A Brazilian midfielder, lunging for the ball, misjudged his timing slightly, catching Izan's right ankle as the latter shifted his weight. This was the exact image captured by the cameras, the one that Arsenal's medical team watched on their phones from a thousand miles away, their hearts lodged firmly in their throats. Following the incident, Luis De La Fuente promptly removed Izan from the game, unwilling to jeopardize the player crucial to their World Cup aspirations. Scan results, received the subsequent morning, revealed that Izan had sprained his ankle, necessitating a minimum of ten days' rest. Back at Colney, Arteta received the news over the phone in his office. After expressing his thanks to the doctor, he placed the phone down. Then, as recounted by two members of his coaching staff who were present and corroborated the account in the documentary, he remained perfectly still for a full minute, his gaze unfocused. Afterward, he rose and began pacing the training grounds in the darkness, well past ten in the evening. "He didn't utter a word upon his return," one of them recalled. "He simply sat down and commenced preparations for the ensuing training session. But his countenance. I had never witnessed such an expression on him before. It was as if he had peered over a precipice and glimpsed something on the other side that he desperately wished to unsee." Izan made his return ten days later, precisely according to schedule. In his very first match back, against Tottenham at the Emirates, he achieved a remarkable hat-trick within forty-nine minutes. The third goal, a flicked redirection executed with impossible dexterity within a crowded six-yard box, prompted Martin Tyler, in what would be his final commentary after a distinguished four-decade career, to fall silent for a complete four seconds before simply stating: **"Well. He’s back."** The Champions League final for that season graced a warm Saturday evening in Budapest, a city imbued with its own unique significance. There was a certain poetic resonance, or so the sports media proclaimed, and by the morning of the match, a compelling narrative had been meticulously crafted and disseminated: the very city where the world had once undergone a profound transformation was now destined to be the backdrop for the season's climax. Arsenal was set to face PSG. By unanimous pre-match consensus, it was hailed as one of the finest Champions League finals witnessed in at least a decade. Two exceptionally talented teams were poised to compete, led by two managers renowned for their tactical acumen. The stage was set for stars such as Dembele, Doue, and Izan to grace the grandest club football stage on Earth. The match itself, however, did not unfold as a classic in the conventional sense. It was not a chaotic, end-to-end affair, nor was it a breathless, high-wire spectacle from the opening whistle to the final one. One might describe it as evenly contested among the remaining 21 players on the pitch; for Izan, however, the dynamics were vastly different. For him, the contest was not even remotely balanced. Whenever he received possession of the ball, he found himself immediately surrounded by defenders. At times, he was brought to the ground before he could even secure control of the ball, yet the game still concluded with a 3-1 scoreline. Izan found the back of the net in the twenty-second and fifty-eighth minutes, and he orchestrated the third goal for Saka with a pass of such exquisite precision and delicate weighting that the PSG defensive line, witnessing its effortless passage between them, exhibited the bewildered expressions of individuals who had grasped the geometrical implications of what had transpired, yet found no solace in that understanding. As the final whistle reverberated and Arsenal's players embraced amidst the encroaching crimson haze from the flares igniting the Arsenal section, drifting slowly across the pitch, Dembele located Izan near the center circle. They shared a prolonged embrace before turning to face the relentless barrage of camera flashes. "It seems destined to be yours once more," Dembele murmured, eliciting a subtle smile from Izan. "It never stopped being mine," he retorted, leaving Dembele momentarily stunned as he departed to rejoin his teammates. Arteta found Izan three minutes later, as the coveted trophy was being transported toward the presentation podium, the roar of the crowd escalating to a decibel level that rendered individual thought nearly impossible. He placed both hands gently on the young player's face, an almost reflexive gesture from the manager. He paused for a brief moment, then exclaimed, "You've achieved it again!" Izan met his gaze. "Indeed," he affirmed. "However, this marks the second chapter of an extensive dynasty." Arteta chuckled, a touch of surprise in his expression as he embraced Izan briefly before releasing him. "My gratitude," he expressed. The arrival of summer brought with it the accumulated weight of the preceding season and the burgeoning excitement for all that was yet to unfold. Records had been shattered, meticulously documented, and subjected to fervent debate. The coveted trophies now occupied their place in the cabinet, and celebratory photographs adorned the covers of magazines and the walls of taverns across nations that had previously shown no interest in Arsenal, but now, inexplicably, did. Amidst all this, Izan Hernandez Miura, a mere eighteen years of age, son of Komi, brother to Hori, a native of Valencia, and forged by both the abundance and the scarcity that city had bestowed upon him, packed his duffel for the Spanish training camp, his mind fixated on the World Cup. He had participated in tournaments prior. He had clinched the Euros at sixteen, yet this occasion felt distinctly different. This was the World Cup. This was the ultimate prize that awaited at the culmination of all endeavors. He was prepared.