Chapter 610: Spirit Of Mestalla [GT ]

Chapter 610: Spirit Of Mestalla [GT Chapter]

“Just settle,” someone muttered in the fourth row.

A Valencia scarf twisted in his grip.

“Just get the next five minutes right.”

Mestalla wasn’t silent, but it wasn’t erupting either.

The volume had dropped into something more dangerous: tense hope.

Because Izan had just turned them inside out, and the stadium—no matter how tribal—knew greatness when it walked past.

But football has a short memory, and the crowd now turned its eyes forward again.

Across the pitch, Nwaneri found himself drifting centrally.

Izan, without ceremony or instructions, had dropped behind him—an unspoken shuffle of roles.

Nwaneri had hesitated, and looked toward the sideline, but

Arteta’s nod was instant.

Small. Calm.

That was enough.

Now it was Nwaneri in the false 9, youthful and bright, linking play in tighter spaces.

Izan played behind him with a low centre of gravity, sweeping across channels with the calm of a chess master who had already seen how this would end.

Further back, Ødegaard dropped deeper to aid Rice, forming a double pivot to control the storm they knew was coming.

Because Valencia weren’t finished.

They weren’t falling apart.

They were angry.

And from anger came impulse.

The next five minutes were chaos, calculated, unclean and dangerous for both parties involved because Valencia, for some part, had thrown caution to the wind and were playing their hearts out.

A deflection in midfield saw the ball fall to Guerra, who turned and slipped a short diagonal into space behind Zinchenko.

Rafa Mir latched on, racing down the outside and cutting inside just past the corner of the box—but his shot sliced across goal and out.

The crowd murmured of the flicker and then came the next one.

This time, with a quick one-two from Piatelli and López on the left touchline, the ball fizzed into the half-space behind Ben White.

Piatelli continued his run, ghosting into the blind side and made a low cross into the box.

Gabriel, tense and prepared, got in the way and blocked it—but only partially.

The rebound fell to Sosa, who lashed at it wildly.

The ball spun toward the near post, forcing Raya to dive and parry it out with both hands, his gloves slapping turf as he skidded.

“That’s more like it. Much better from Valencia,” Drury noted, voice leaning forward.

“It’s frantic, but it’s something. You don’t respond to a moment like Izan’s with silence. You respond with pressure, and Valencia might just be the team with the idea to do just that.”

Arsenal, didn’t continue laying down either as Izan sparked another counter, slipping the ball into Martinelli’s path but the latter went alone, before smacking the ball across the face of goal and then smacking the post before being cleared out by Rioja who was closest to the loose ball.

“Almost, but not enough” Peter Drury called as Martinelli turned towards Izan to give a thumbs up.

Another throw-in came in high into the box of Arsenal after Javi Guerra had forced one.

Pietro rose with Saliba and nudged the ball backwards with the top of his head.

It looped into no-man’s land, and for a second—just a heartbeat—Piatelli was there again.

He struck it—first time.

But the ball cannoned off Rice’s thigh and clattered away to safety.

‘Oohhhhhss’ and the sound of a team trying to get a grip on something that was slipping away rang through the stadium.

“Valencia are now doing the attacking now. Arsenal seemed to have lost the edge to attack after going ahead, but things might turn for the worse if they don’t reignite the spark they were playing with”

Down on the touchline, Baraja clapped twice.

“¡Otra vez!” he barked. Again!

His players heard him.

They pushed forward.

They hunted second balls.

But Arsenal didn’t panic.

They just shifted, reset, and absorbed.

Nwaneri dropped deeper into midfield now and again, picking up loose passes and shielding the ball with his back like a veteran.

Odegaard and Rice just stayed solid in midfield, providing an outlet whenever the pressure in their half began to mount.

And behind it all, Izan prowled, pressing Valencia’s press and just waiting for a moment to strike.

“The match has taken on a strange rhythm,” Tyldesley said.

“Valencia are louder, more urgent… but Arsenal, especially Izan, look like they’ve seen this exact storm before.”

A final cross came in from Gaya. Low. Driven. Smart.

Gabriel read it early, stuck out a leg, and cleared it high into the stands and with that the referee glanced at his watch.

A second passed.

Then came the whistle.

Halftime.

Valencia fans applauded—not in celebration, but in demand.

The players jogged off with their heads up. Not broken. Not yet.

But for all the noise, all the movement, all the effort…

Arsenal still led.

And Izan—the calm in the storm—hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“It’s 3-1 for Arsenal here at the Mestalla at halftime, and what an exciting brand of football these two sides have shown here. Unfortunately for Valencia, they don’t have Izan to tilt the game on his head, but Piatelli hasn’t been doing too badly, with his goal to cancel out one of Arsenal’s three. We now await the second half”

…..

[Valencia Dressing room]

The door slammed behind them, muffling the roars of Mestalla into a heavy hum.

Inside the dressing room, the air was thick with sweat, tension, and adrenaline.

Players dropped into benches, some breathing hard, some silent, others murmuring as they took off their socks.

Water bottles cracked open, the scratching sounds of tape being peeled echoing around the room while someone muttered about how close they’d been.

At the front, Baraja stood still for a moment, arms crossed, staring at the floor as the final echoes of the first half ran through his mind.

Then he looked up.

“Bueno,” he began, low and direct, eyes sweeping across the room.

“You’ve done well.”

Heads tilted up, some nods.

“But well,” he continued, his voice tightening, “isn’t enough.”

He let that sit for a second.

“It’s the simple truth because doing well against a player like Izan just doesn’t cut it,” he said, nodding toward the door.

“Not against a player who plays like the game owes him something.”

Nobody said a word.

“Make no mistake,” Baraja went on.

“Izan is special. We know this. We’ve seen it before, and we’re seeing it now. But he’s not alone. Look around you—Saka, Martinelli, Ødegaard, Rice… ”

“Arsenal isn’t a team that needs to be carried by one kid. But it’s happening anyway, which means, take out Izan, and you break their flow. Don’t be afraid to go at him,” he said, that last part causing the players to look at their coach in a new shade.

“Don’t look at me like that. We all know that kid isn’t going to get injured from your sorry to say, but ineffective kicks. We saw it during his time here, so don’t have any reservations and go for the ball because if we don’t commit, we’ve already lost the game.”

He stepped forward now, pace measured, arms loose at his sides.

“They are not better than us,” he said, voice rising slightly, “Not by default. Not by blood. They play their football—we play ours. And they bleed, same as you. So hold fast. Stay in this game.”

He turned slightly, nodding to his assistant, who unfurled the tactical board.

“New structure—Piatelli, I want you floating more between the lines. Pietro, stop getting dragged too high. Let Sosa take the pressure in the middle, but don’t lose shape trying to rescue every possession. Let the wide balls come.”

He looked up again.

Now his eyes found Rioja, seated near the end, shirt half-off, chest still rising and falling from chasing shadows.

“And you.”

Rioja sat straighter.

“Foulquier,” Baraja said next, turning to the other defender, still staring at the floor.

“You both were tested,” Baraja continued.

“Dragged, twisted, cut through like paper. But you know what I saw?”

Neither answered.

“I saw you still standing. I saw you still running. And now—now you adapt.”

He took a step closer, his voice levelling into calm, dangerous clarity.

“If Izan isolates you, do not confront him. Don’t throw your foot in. Don’t lunge. Don’t try to win it.”

He raised a finger.

“That’s what he wants. You stall. You delay. You let your teammates close in. You show him the space he doesn’t want. You make him think, not play with instinct, because the moment he does, 11 times out of 10, you lose because he’s going to beat you twice on the 10th try.”

Baraja turned away from them now and walked toward the far end of the room.

Piatelli sat there, arms on his knees, sweat glistening on his brow, jaw set like granite.

Baraja crouched slightly, resting a hand on the bench beside him.

“You want to be remembered?” he asked, voice low.

Piatelli didn’t blink.

“You want them to stop saying ‘the one who came’ and start saying your name?”

Still nothing.

Baraja nodded.

He stood upright again.

“You break out of your cocoon.”

Then louder, to the room:

“Forty-five minutes left. We play our football and play like it’s the last time this crowd will ever see us together.”

“Let’s go give them what they came for”, he uttered before Gaya roared, ‘Vamos’, setting the tone as they got out of the dressing room.

A/N: GT Chapter. I have a class again, so see you with the last of the day and hopefully another early GT Chapter because I’m sure we will reach 360 GTs after this. Have fun reading, and I’ll see you in a bit.

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