Chapter 542: Inevitable

Fweeeee,

“So we are back underway for the start of the second half and Arsenal are ahead by 3 goals. We were expecting a bit of competition due to Sporting’s recent performances but they’ve been outclassed at home by Arsenal, led by their teenage spearhead, Izan like he’s trying to remind the world of something.”

The second half had opened with noise.

Sporting’s fans didn’t just cheer—they howled, hammered, clapped and stomped like they could will something real into existence.

The green-and-white end swayed as their team returned to the pitch with fire in their legs, not fear.

They’d been down three before.

Not like this.

But still—they believed.

And belief was something dangerous when just the right amount of ability was attached to it.

In the first four minutes after kickoff, Arsenal barely made it out of their own third.

Sporting pressed like they’d found oxygen again.

Trincão picked Timber’s pocket and whipped in a near-post cross.

Marita beat Gabriel to the header but flicked it over the bar.

A let-off.

Then another.

Inácio intercepted Ødegaard’s lazy pass, sparked a triangle with Giovanni Quenda and Morita, and rolled it into Edwards who cut inside—curling a shot with venom that forced Raya into a leaping save.

The rebound was there and was nearly buried.

But Gabriel dove across the grass and cleared it before danger could bloom.

“Sporting have their teeth back!” One of the commentators shouted.

“This match should be dead—but nobody’s told the Lisbon crowd!”

“They’ve flipped the mood completely,” his partner added.

“It’s Arsenal on their heels.”

Arteta’s arms were flailing on the touchline, trying to signal composure but it wasn’t sticking.

Odegaard called to slow it down.

Timber held the ball for an extra beat.

Then it happened.

It started from nothing—just a loose ball popping up at the halfway line.

A clearance with no clear target.

And Izan stepped toward it.

His boot cushioned the drop like a landing pad.

He let the momentum carry him forward and—somehow—everything quieted.

Not the crowd.

Not the players.

The noise inside.

It flattened like someone had shut a door in a storm.

Two defenders sprinted toward him.

He didn’t look up.

Just touched the ball into space.

Then shaped to sprint.

Except—he didn’t.

He slowed.

Waited.

Waited for the center back to over-commit, to shift his body just enough—

Then he was gone.

One movement.

A shoulder dip and drag-back pulled him through the line like he’d slipped into another layer of the pitch.

Another pass was there—Saka was open on the right.

But Izan ignored him.

He’d seen the gap.

Just a sliver, right between the trailing legs of the second defender.

He feinted left.

Chopped the ball back with the inside of his boot.

The first defender slipped and the second was now recovering his feet but it all seemed too late.

Izan planted his left foot and shifted his weight,

And struck.

Almost something in between a drive and a lob.

The ball floated like a silent bullet that bent inward, curling around the keeper’s shoulder.

One blink.

Then the net snapped.

Goal.

The stadium sound turned surreal.

The away fans exploded.

Some of the home fans clapped, half-shocked into respect.

Izan stood there with a smile etched on his face.

He just stood there for a second, like he was waiting to hear the ball strike the net again in his head.

Then he turned and walked away.

Brace.

4–0.

“Ruthless and Relentless Izan leading the charge for Izan. Utterly rampant performance here in Lisbon. It’s 2 for him on the night but I don’t think it’s staying the same from the way he’s playing.”

“There’s still twenty-five minutes left,” the other voice said, lower, more serious.

“If he gets one more—just one more—he becomes the youngest player in Champions League history to score a hat trick.”

The broadcast team went quiet for a beat, like letting that settle.

“How high is the ceiling on this boy’s talent”

Arteta looked to his bench and gave a nod—not yet.

Izan could stay on.

Sporting’s players stood near the center circle, hunched, waiting to restart.

Their fight had finally, truly, been answered.

And across from them, Izan stood still, one arm draped casually over Merino’s shoulder.

…

Substitution,

#11- Off

#29-On

The announcer’s voice came through loud and clear as Martinelli jogged off, high-fived by Havertz who barely looked up before slipping into the flow of the match.

Izan drifted left, almost instinctively.

No signal from the bench.

No tactical board.

Just a whisper between the lines—a feeling.

He knew where the space would live now.

And so he moved.

The first time he got the ball on that flank, the crowd rose—not in volume, but in posture.

You could feel the tension shift.

Every touch had purpose.

Every drop of the shoulder peeled open Sporting’s fragile press.

Amorim screamed from the touchline.

Waved both arms in frantic arcs.

His plan was falling apart in real-time.

None of his players were tight enough.

None had the courage—or cruelty—to foul early.

Izan drove up the sideline, tight to the chalk, as if daring the defense to shadow him properly.

He spun one defender, dragged another toward the edge of the box, then played a no-look pass behind him that found Havertz’s trailing run.

The shot missed.

But the warning was sent.

The next time Izan received the ball, it came off a long switch from Ødegaard.

One bounce.

Two.

Izan brought it down with his laces like a whisper and immediately turned into his marker.

Sporting collapsed on him again—three this time.

Still, it was like trying to catch smoke in a wind tunnel.

He weaved.

Stopped.

Rolled the ball under his studs and looked them in the eye.

Then accelerated.

Gone again.

“You can throw men at him all you want,” the commentator said, laughing under his breath. “They’re not marking a player—they’re chasing a rumor.”

“Rúben Amorim’s system doesn’t have a page for this,” his partner added “You can’t tactically trap someone who disappears into pressure.”

But even domination doesn’t come without its losses.

Sporting finally bit back in the 78th minute.

It came from nowhere—chaos in a bottle.

A whipped-in corner pinged around the box, bouncing between Gabriel’s knee and Ben White’s shin before falling kindly for Victor Gyökeres.

He didn’t finesse it.

He lashed it—straight through the legs of Timber and past Raya before the keeper could even register the shape of the strike.

4–1.

A flare went up behind the Sporting net.

Green smoke hissed into the air like the goal had struck the fans like lightning.

They roared—not in joy, but in refusal.

It was one goal, yes.

But it was their goal.

Gyökeres grabbed the ball from the net and sprinted back toward the center circle, pointing at the crowd as if to scream we’re not dead yet.

“Arsenal, or Izan, has been wanting another but he has to do it within these final minutes as Sporting are now hellbent on not conceding another and they certainly don’t want to become the team that gave Izan his first UCL hat trick. ”

But there is a saying, that you can’t stop greatness, and certainly not when the greatness had the name, Izan.

The match ticked past the 89th minute.

Sporting were done chasing the score.

But they weren’t done chasing Izan.

Every time he touched the ball now, it was like stepping into a magnetic field.

Shirts clung to him, elbows hovered too long, and studs snapped just short of his ankles but still moved.

“Dying minutes here and it seems like Izan will have to wait for that hat trick because sporting are on him like a pack of Hyenas chasing a wounded Lion”

The crowd noise was fading to static.

Not because it was quiet—but because it was overwhelmed.

Arsenal kept the ball now like a puppeteer holding the final string refusing to let up even in the dying minutes.

“Odegaard has the ball now and switches play to Saka”

Saka took it perfectly on his toe and waited—just one second—as he saw Izan ghosting behind the last defender, untracked, unseen.

He whipped it in.

A line drive across the grass, rising slightly—a bullet looking for a destination.

And Izan was there.

He timed his run perfectly.

Between center-backs and nobody picked him up.

“atrás de você! (Behind you)”Amorim roared from the touchline as Izan chested the ball—clean, controlled, perfect.

And then, before it even touched the ground, his body twisted, hips snapping as the ball dropped into his orbit.

He met it with a full strike.

A volley with every fiber of his left leg thrown into it—clean, diagonal, destructive.

It screamed off his boot.

And it ripped into the net.

The goalpost shuddered.

The net ballooned and then snapped back with a violent whip.

Hat trick.

GOOOAAAAAALLLL

“Izan has cemented his name in the annals of history. You’re looking at the greatest young footballing talent alive. And he is becoming inevitable.”

Izan sprinted toward the fans, arms wide, eyes blazing—not joy, not arrogance.

Just fire.

He slid on both knees into the corner, teammates pouring onto him like an avalanche.

Behind him, the scoreboard flickered one last time:

5 – 1.

And beside it, a name lit brighter than the rest:

IZAN HERNÁNDEZ.

The night was his.

A/n: Hi. First of the day, I’m feeling okay so I’ll try to release the second early and maybe put in an extra chapter for the powerstones. Have fun reading and bye.

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