God Of football - Chapter 763

Chapter 763: The Last Two

Izan straightened from his bow, turning his back on the raging wall of Parisian fans.

His teammates were already swarming him, dragging him away, tugging at his jersey, pulling him back toward the centre circle.

Their hands weren’t just celebratory.

They were protective.

Every one of them remembered the yellow card he had been shown earlier for provoking the crowd, and the fear that lightning might strike twice hung heavy.

Another booking here would have been the cruellest twist.

“Come on, Izan! Enough!” Timber barked in his ear, one arm hooked tight around his shoulder.

Saka and Rice both shoved him gently from behind, their faces flushed with joy and panic in equal measure.

They were laughing, shouting, grinning, but the urgency in their movements was clear: get him away before the referee thought too hard about it.

The commentary raged above the chaos.

“That’s three tonight!” Darren Fletcher’s voice was almost cracking, carried by disbelief.

“A hat-trick for the ages! And not just any hat-trick. It’s one that has dragged Arsenal, kicking and screaming, into the Champions League final!”

Ally McCoist piled in, almost shouting over him.

“You’ll tell your kids, your grandkids, if you were lucky enough to see this boy live tonight. Because this, this isn’t normal. This is rare air, this is genius, this is history being written right in front of our eyes.”

Izan, finally shepherded back into Arsenal’s half, tugged at his shirt and glanced once more at the scoreboard.

96:24

The game was already beyond the time allotted.

The Paris players looked broken, their shoulders sagging, their feet heavy, their eyes staring at the grass as though wishing it would swallow them whole.

The ball was rolled back into play almost half-heartedly, a token restart.

No passes, no ambition. And then—

FWEEE, FWEEE, FWEEEEEE!

The final whistle.

The away end of the Parc des Princes erupted like a dam bursting, a tidal wave of red and white scarves surging with uncontainable joy.

Flags shook violently, voices thundered, and tears spilt down the cheeks of fans who had travelled hundreds of miles for this night.

The Arsenal bench flew forward, sprinting onto the pitch, and the substitutes who hadn’t played a single minute joined the chaos as if they’d been there all along.

On the other side, Paris collapsed.

Pacho dropped to his knees immediately, clutching at his shorts.

Vitinha pressed his palms to his face while Donnarumma lay flat on his back inside the box, staring blankly at the night sky, unable to process what had just beaten him.

Some players were already sobbing before the whistle, and now their tears fell freely, glistening under the lights.

“And there it is,” Darren Fletcher declared, his tone both triumphant and reverent.

“Arsenal, are into the Champions League final for the second time in their history. And this time, with this boy leading them, you feel they don’t just dream of being there. They believe they can go all the way.”

On the pitch, the players had converged on Izan.

He was tackled to the ground in a pile of limbs, Saliba landing across his back, Havertz hugging his neck, Trossard pounding his chest with an open hand.

For a moment, he was lost beneath them, swallowed by joy.

But slowly, the bodies peeled away.

Izan rose from the turf, breathless, hair, now loose sticking to his forehead with sweat, and instead of roaring with them, he moved deliberately towards the Paris players.

He found Vitinha first, helping him to his feet with a firm hand.

Then Pacho, still kneeling, only shook his head.

Izan placed a hand on his shoulder anyway.

Slowly, he went from one to another, offering handshakes, small words, gestures of respect.

Football could be cruel, but the boy understood.

Tonight it was cruel to Paris, but the next time, it could be him and seeing how they were, he was going to make sure nothing like that ever happened to him.

Fans were filtering out of the stadium now, streams of blue shirts disappearing into the exits, their chants long since silenced.

Near the touchline, a familiar figure stepped forward.

Luis Enrique.

The Spanish coach’s face was drawn, but his eyes still glowed with intensity.

He caught Izan’s arm as he passed.

“They will not treat you badly here,” Enrique murmured, his voice low, almost drowned out by the roars.

“Not in Paris. Not after this.”

Izan shook his head softly, sweat dripping from his chin. “Not this time.”

Enrique studied him, frowning at the boy’s calm refusal.

But somewhere beneath the disappointment, a smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

He didn’t reject it fully, he thought.

Not forever.

From a few paces back, Mikel Arteta watched, lips pressed tightly together.

Nervousness lingered in his eyes, but he shook his head, knowing these moments belonged to his player.

Still, he stepped forward eventually, shaking Enrique’s hand firmly, nodding once before retreating back toward his staff.

Then the announcer’s voice rang across the stadium, cutting through the chaos.

“Ladies and gentlemen… your UEFA Man of the Match tonight… Izan Miura Hernández!”

A roar went up from the Arsenal end as Izan walked forward, his face unreadable but his body electric.

He accepted the award, the hollow sphere shaped with stars and then turned to find Odegaard, who grinned widely as he held out the match ball.

The captain had taken it straight from the officials.

“This is yours,” Odegaard said simply.

Izan smiled, flicked the ball up with his foot, juggled it once, and caught it with a single hand as the cameras flashed, capturing the moment.

And then he turned, ignoring the reporters who swarmed at the edge of the tunnel, their microphones thrust forward, their voices clamouring for words.

He walked on, head high, the award in one hand and the match ball in the other, disappearing into the shadows of the tunnel.

Behind him, the chants thundered louder and louder.

“I-ZAN! I-ZAN! I-ZAN!”

The night belonged to him.

…

The CBS studio lights gleamed against the polished desk, the backdrop now flashing between the jubilant scenes of Arsenal in Paris and the calm, resolute celebrations in North London.

Kate Abdo leaned forward slightly, her papers in one hand, the other resting on the desk as she allowed herself a smile.

“So,” she began with that soft lilt of curiosity that always seemed to coax more out of her guests, “it’s finally down to the last two.”

She glanced at Thierry Henry, who was sitting upright but clearly buzzing with a restrained excitement, almost like he’d been caught between the nostalgia of his playing days and the sheer madness of what he’d just watched.

Behind her, the crests of the two clubs, Barcelona and Arsenal

“Thierry,” Kate continued, tilting her head, “you’ve got Barcelona, you’ve got Arsenal… who are you cheering for in this final?”

The camera cut briefly to the highlight reel looping behind them: Barcelona’s comeback from two goals down, the roar of the blaugrana crowd in Milan as the scoreboard flipped from despair to triumph, and the sight of a slender figure weaving past defenders.

Lamine Yamal, dazzling, electric, relentless, though not on the scoresheet, still the catalyst.

Henry chuckled, shaking his head.

“Ah, Kate, you don’t make life easy for me, eh?” His French accent wrapped warmly around the words.

“You know, it’s… It’s crazy, when you think about it. After Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, when they started to get on in years, everybody was waiting, waiting to see who would take that crown, who would fill that void.”

“We had Neymar for a while, but more than anyone it was Mbappé. Then Erling Haaland arrived, the two of them, boom, suddenly we had this duel again. People said, ‘Okay, these two, they are the heirs.’ And they are. They are phenomenal. Mbappé is electric, Haaland is a machine.”

He gestured with his hands, widening his eyes.

“But now… now we are seeing something even more absurd. A seventeen-year-old from Spain, Lamine Yamal. A seventeen-year-old from also from Spain, Izan Miura. Two boys, boys! And look at them: both about to play their first Champions League final. The final! Can you imagine? At that age?”

The desk erupted in small nods of agreement from the other pundits, but Henry wasn’t finished.

His voice lowered a fraction, carrying weight, the way only someone who’d been there could.

“It’s not supposed to happen this way, Kate. It’s not normal. But that’s football. These kids, they don’t care about normal. Lamine tonight, he didn’t even score, but you saw the courage, the creativity, the way he changed the game with every touch. He gave Barça belief when they were gone. And Izan? He has been doing it all season for Arsenal, carrying the weight of expectation like it’s nothing.”

Kate leaned back, letting the words breathe before nudging him again. “So Thierry… which way does your heart go?”

Henry laughed again, holding his hands up as though surrendering.

“My heart? My heart is torn in two, Kate. You know my story. Barcelona gave me that Champions League medal, and Arsenal…” He exhaled, the smile softening into something almost bittersweet.

“Arsenal gave me everything, but I could never give them this trophy. The Champions League is the one thing we never managed together, and they still don’t have it. So listen, may the best man win. Truly. But…” He gave a small grin, pointing gently towards the camera, “if Arsenal can do it, I’ll be a happy man. Because then it will mean they achieved what I couldn’t. And that’s a beautiful thing.”

The moment hung for a second, almost cinematic in its honesty, before Kate stepped in again, smoothing the transition with her usual ease.

“Well, there you have it,” she said, her smile broadening, “Barcelona against Arsenal, Yamal against Izan, two prodigies lighting up the stage, two giants of Europe chasing history. The Allianz Arena is waiting, and so are we.”

This is the first of the day. have fun reading and spare me some Golden Tickets if you are enjoying the story