Chapter 580: Louder Than The World

“Well, whatever conversation Brighton were having about control, it’s shifted. Arsenal are level, and there’s a tempo shift now. Not just in the legs. In the body language.”

The ball soon began moving after the referee restarted the match and it was quick and quiet for a while.

Nothing forced—but the pulse of the game had changed.

Martinelli peeled wide, hugging the touchline after Arteta had gestured toward him.

Rice, in the double pivot with Odegaard, began retreating as Odegaard stepped up more to take hold of the midfield with his one-touch passes and that kept the home team on their toes.

Brighton regrouped quickly.

Their backline kept the shape tight and their midfield retreated a step deeper.

But it wasn’t going to matter when you were playing against an inevitability.

When you were playing against something unfair and from the way distressed manner the Brighton coach gestured from the touchline, he too had recognized the cause of his stress.

Izan suddenly began dropping deeper to connect with Trossard, moving like the game belonged to him and it did, at least from what the fans saw.

On the touchline, Mikel Arteta stood still—arms crossed, head tilted, eyes locked on the boy in red and white drifting between shadows.

On the other side, Brighton’s young manager Fabian Hürzeler stepped forward too, waving his arms to his midfielders.

“Don’t give him the lane!” he shouted.

They tried but how do you close lanes when the runner sees spaces you haven’t noticed?

Trossard darted inside.

The ball moved to Ødegaard once again and Brighton pressed high—briefly—hoping to catch something out.

They didn’t.

Because when Ødegaard received and turned, Izan was already making the angle.

Two touches elapsed between the two.

Ødegaard to Izan and Izan back with it before turning to space.

The crowd buzzed—but softer now.

Like it knew something was stirring.

Baleba stepped in.

Again.

This time, not just to press—but to stop.

He lowered his stance and was ready to hold his ground but Izan, who had gotten the return ball again didn’t even break stride.

First, he rocked the ball side to side, rhythm sharp, compact.

Then a lunge—right shoulder forward—then a swift drag back, quick enough to turn a shoulder check into a desperate stumble.

Baleba missed completely and Ayari stepped up to cover, with a wide stance that made him look more like an NBA player than a footballer.

Izan looked up, met his eyes, and slowed.

One second. Maybe two.

Then he snapped into a stepover, faked inside, chopped out, spun—a 270-degree turn that broke Ayari’s positioning and left him upright but frozen, watching air.

“Oh that’s just wicked,” the commentator muttered.

“Izan, now away from Ayari with a move I don’t think the latter will forget for a while.”

Izan now moved into Brighton’s third.

Igor was coming—body large, steps measured.

Izan touched it forward, inviting the challenge and Gross took the bait.

He reached—too far—and Izan slipped by him like the ball had rolled downhill on command.

“Izan away again. Who’s going to stop him?”

Now twenty-eight yards out, wide on the left, and the angle narrowing with every step.

Estupiñán stepped forward, shoulders low, boots squared—his body the final checkpoint before the box.

Ødegaard darted inside for a quick option, and for a second, it looked like Izan might play it.

He glanced at his captain, then at Trossard peeling away and dragging his man, and then his eyes dropped—not in hesitation, but calculation.

The ball rested beneath him like it had nowhere else to be.

Estupiñán lunged—strong side forward, looking to force a decision—but Izan read it a beat earlier.

With the lightest of toe-rolls, he shifted the ball just a foot to the right, just far enough to pull the defender’s stance out of sync.

Then, with a delicate flick of his instep, he guided it back across his body in one smooth motion, like it had always meant to be there.

Estupiñán tried to recover, shifting weight to chase the move—but Izan was already past him, dragging him out of the picture before the left-back could reset.

One more touch carried him inside the D. Close enough to feel the defenders panic.

Close enough to hear the sound drop around him.

The arms behind him weren’t reaching.

The shouts weren’t catching up.

He had space—and for Izan, space meant time.

He didn’t rush the shot.

He didn’t load up or throw his body into it.

He just stepped into the ball like he was finishing a sentence that had written itself five passes ago—striking it with the kind of clean, intentional contact that came from knowing exactly what he wanted it to do before it even left his boot.

The ball curled early, bending out before shaping in—rising just high enough to draw the keeper’s leap, then dipping hard under the bar, catching the metal with a kiss and dropping into the roof of the net like it was being tucked in for the night.

“Oh, my word…. What is this?” the commentator breathed.

“You talk about rumors. You talk about noise. But there—right there—is your answer. Izan is still in red and in red hot form.”

Izan turned, exhaled hard through clenched teeth, and let the rush hit him.

He didn’t jump.

He didn’t fall to his knees.

He clenched both fists and let out a deep, guttural sharp shout—not to anyone in particular.

Just upward.

Just to let it out.

Ødegaard got to him first again—arms wrapping around him in a way only a captain could.

Then Martinelli.

Then Rice.

The away end went volcanic.

“This… is theatre. This is Cinema. This is football and this boy—this seventeen-year-old—is at the center stage.”

“BRIGHTON 1 – ARSENAL 2.”

Arteta smiled now.

A brief one.

He turned to Carlos Cuesta on his right and just tapped his notepad.

On the other touchline, Hürzeler covered his mouth with a gloved hand.

He had nothing to say.

Just a look in his eyes.

Like he had seen something that didn’t belong in his game plan.

The camera caught Izan jogging back toward the center line, chest rising and falling, but nothing showed that he was tired.

Just breathing like someone who had carried something important to where it needed to be.

Halftime loomed.

But whatever Brighton were planning to say in the dressing room—it had already been interrupted.

By a goal.

Not for the record books.

But for the rooms where football is felt before it’s told.

A reminder of what talent looks like when it’sready.

……….

The sound of the net still seemed to ring in the air when the screen cut to a quiet living room somewhere in North London.

Komi sat forward on the sofa, one hand cradling a cup of tea she’d stopped drinking minutes ago.

The television lit up the room with post-goal replays, showing Izan’s face—damp, flushed, his scream mid-release as he turned toward the away end.

Beside her, Hori sat cross-legged on the carpet, clutching a throw pillow like it was part of the matchday ritual.

Then came the sound.

Even through the speakers, even from thousands of miles away, you could feel it.

That scream.

A sound pulled up from somewhere deeper than the lungs.

Komi paused and lowered the mug slightly, lips pressing into a tight line as she watched the replay slow down again.

Then that scream.

And her eyes narrowed just a little, not in suspicion—but in something softer.

Familiar.

Mothers know things.

She didn’t say it aloud, but the thought brushed through her mind like a breeze:

He needed that.

Not just the goal.

The release.

She took a quiet breath.

Beside her, Hori finally spoke, still staring at the screen.

“Haven’t seen him scream like that before. Seems serious this time?”

Komi smiled faintly, brushing her thumb along the rim of the cup.

“He’s always been serious,” she murmured.

“But now the world’s loud. So he has to be louder.”

Elsewhere, Olivia sat in the middle row of a lecture hall that had slowly emptied as the hour crept on.

The professor still paced at the front, notes scrolling behind him on a digital board—but her eyes weren’t there.

Her laptop sat open, but the tab switched itself to the match stream the moment she saw the push notification pop.

Now, one earbud in, she leaned slightly to the side, watching the muted replay—then scrolling back to watch it again.

The scream wasn’t audible through the stream.

But she felt it.

Her fingers paused on the trackpad, then lifted.

She sat there for a second, letting it wash over her.

“Let it out, Miura,” she muttered as the Arsenal players sent Izan tumbling to the ground.

A/N: Hello guys, sorry for the late update. Have fun reading and I hope this was a lot better because personally, I’ve been feeling a bit stuck and I feel like the writing has stagnated a bit. Sorry if it didn’t meet you expectations. Byee and see you in a bit.

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