Chapter 613: Same But Not The Same [GT ]

Chapter 613: Same But Not The Same [GT Chapter]

“Valencia still have the ball, but they are treating it like glass—passing, lingering, resetting without much edge to it.”

And it was just as Peter Drury described it.

It wasn’t a lack of ideas; it was a room full of ghosts.

No one wanted to be the one caught in Izan’s shadow again.

Then Piatelli snapped.

He stepped into a lazy backpass meant for Gaya, stuck out a boot, and spun in one fluid motion.

His body jerked forward, dragging the ball under his sole before snapping his head toward the halfway line and then switching the ball to Fran Perez, who had replaced Rafa Mir before.,

“¡Vamos, hostia!” he roared.

“That’s the face of a player who’s not here to play second fiddle to anyone. Not even Izan,” Tyldesley said, voice tight with adrenaline.

“Piatelli isn’t letting this night belong to just one boy.”

Piatelli waved violently, both arms swinging like he was tearing pages from a playbook.

Shift.

Get up.

Follow.

And his teammates obeyed—not perfectly, not fluidly, but like men who had just remembered something they’d been trying to forget.

On the touchline, Baraja watched, eyes widening like he had just remembered something.

He stepped once into the technical area, eyes tracing the rotation of bodies like a master reading a chessboard.

His voice came low but deliberate.

“Aarons, shift your positioning. If he advances, you track. We flood zone 14 and trap Izan on entry.”

There was a pause.

Then a murmur to Assistant Coach Moreno.

“He’s baiting us into the low block. We flip it. Cut the midfield depth and force the transitions. It’s the only line left.”

Moreno blinked.

“That’s risky.”

Baraja didn’t even glance at him.

“It’s not a risk when we are already down. It’s survival with teeth”

Now, Valencia pressed again.

Max Aarons was no longer holding his line.

He was overlapping hard.

The midfield surged up in waves.

Their previously conservative 4-4-1-1 compacted and reshaped itself into something jagged and aggressive.

It wasn’t controlled anymore—it was a disruption.

And Piatelli led the charge.

He drove at Partey purposefully, not trying to dazzle or create a highlight, just trying to break something open.

He feinted, cut inside, saw the smallest opening, and struck low.

His shot was parried by a loud save from Raya, but the roar from Mestalla that followed was loudear.

“That’s what they’ve been missing!” Drury exclaimed.

“A shot with intent. A run with conviction. Valencia have stood up!”

The drums started again—not rhythmically, but violently.

The ultras weren’t chanting lyrics anymore, just banging out a beat that sounded like it belonged to a warband.

The away end responded instantly.

Faster, sharper, louder.

They sang over the chaos, their anthem thrown across the stadium like a shield over Izan’s name.

Two crowds. Two storms.

And between them—

Izan smiled.

It wasn’t a smirk, and it wasn’t mockery.

He looked interested.

Like he had been waiting for the match to start, and only now, finally, it had.

He didn’t wait for a cue.

Javi Guerra took a heavy touch in midfield, and Izan moved.

His foot snapped around the ball—clean, predatory.

He took it, turned a drove eagerly towards Valencia’s half.

“Oh, he’s gone again!” Tyldesley shouted.

“He’s stolen it—just taken it like he owns it!”

“He gave them their moment,” Drury followed.

“Now he’s taking it back.”

Valencia’s fans screamed.

Arsenal’s fans howled.

Piatelli spun from the far side to chase.

Aarons reversed direction in full sprint, scrambling to close the gap.

But Izan was already breaking away—past one, a quick touch to shift his weight, past another.

The space on the pitch opened, and the match unravelled further.

It wasn’t Valencia versus Arsenal anymore.

It was Izan versus momentum.

It was Piatelli versus gravity.

And as the game teetered on the edge of madness, with one storm crashing into another, the chapter closed.

……..

FWEE, FWEE, FWEEEEEEEE

The whistle came not with fury, but with finality.

One short, sharp exhale of the referee’s lungs, and everything fell still.

Players didn’t collapse to the ground.

No one screamed. No arms thrown skyward.

No running to the corner flag.

No, the situation and setting couldn’t accommodate such scenes.

Just silence.

First in motion.

Then in sound.

Izan stood where he had last touched the ball, chest heaving gently, face blank—not from pride or exhaustion, but like a boy whose pulse hadn’t yet slowed down enough to tell his brain it was over.

Across the pitch, the referee lowered his whistle.

The linesman dropped his flag.

And in the stands, a slow murmur began to ripple through the crowd.

Some stood.

Some sat.

Some clapped.

But most just watched.

Because how do you react to something like that?

To him?

Arsenal had won 5–2, after Izan won and scored another penalty, but the score felt smaller than the story.

The headlines tomorrow would carry numbers.

But those in the stadium tonight would only remember moments.

The silence before the knuckleball.

The gasp after the Rabona.

The noise Izan walked into after his third.

And now, the quiet.

Arteta moved slowly from the bench, clapping gently, his expression unreadable.

On the other side, Baraja remained in place.

His arms had uncrossed at some point during the last ten minutes.

His hands now hung by his sides, fingers tapping against his thighs as if still counting positions.

Then he walked towards Arteta, shaking the hands of his fellow Spaniard with a firm nod before he turned again, this time unhurried.

Straight toward Izan.

He reached him at the centre circle, their shadows long under the lights.

“I didn’t even speak to you before the match,” Baraja said quietly, barely loud enough for the pitch mics to catch.

Izan blinked, surprised by the honesty.

“No, you didn’t.”

Baraja gave a tight-lipped smile.

“Maybe if I had, you’d have shown us some mercy.”

Izan let out a laugh, small, real, breath.

“You might’ve gotten away with a draw.”

They shared a look.

One of those rare ones between two football minds.

Baraja nodded, then extended a hand. Izan shook it firmly.

Behind them, players were trading shirts, hugging briefly, dragging their tired legs toward the tunnel.

But Izan lingered.

Sosa walked past and gave him a tap on the back while Javi Guerra offered a half-joking nod of surrender.

Max Aarons muttered something under his breath in English—”what a freak”—but smiled when Izan caught it.

And still, one figure remained.

Piatelli.

He hadn’t moved from where the final whistle found him, just near the far touchline, close to the ultras.

His head was low.

Not bowed in shame—just tilted slightly, like he was still thinking.

Processing.

Izan walked to him, slowly.

No camera rushed them. No mics hounded them.

Just the two players embodying very different magnitudes of the number 10s.

“Hey,” Izan said.

Piatelli looked up, eyes clear and a little red trim around his eyes, but they were not from tears.

Maybe from just feeling too much.

“How do you do it?” he asked, voice smaller than his game.

His expression, something akin to a golden retriever watching a magician.

Izan tilted his head, squinting slightly.

“Do what?”

“All of it,” Piatelli said.

“At your age, I didn’t have things under control like you do and even now.”

Izan looked away, toward the lights, toward the dugouts, then back again.

“It’s not easy,” he said at last.

“But it’s easy. This is the only place that feels like breathing.”

Piatelli nodded, almost reverently.

Then he reached up and tugged at the hem of his jersey.

“Can we trade?” he asked.

“Jerseys. And… numbers. Just for tonight.”

Izan raised his brow.

Not because he was shocked, but because the tone, the warmth, and the simplicity were so different from the player he had faced for ninety minutes.

“Of course,” he said, peeling off the red and white Arsenal number 10 as

Piatelli did the same, pulling his Valencia kit over his head and offering it forward like a treasure.

They swapped, sweaty and wrinkled, but perfect.

And then Piatelli held it for a moment, just looked at Izan’s name on the back, thumbs brushing over the lettering.

“You’re different up close,” he said, smiling softly.

“So are you,” Izan replied.

And when they turned to walk toward their respective fans, Mestalla rose, both fans, applauding their men for the show they had provided them with.

“You wait for nights like this,” Drury said, voice warm and full.

“You wait through the boring fixtures, the missed passes, the throw-ins… for nights where football reminds you what it can be.”

“Two number 10s,” Tyldesley added, “trading shirts like warriors sharing armour after the battlefield clears.”

The camera panned out.

Izan and Piatelli stood on opposite halves of the field, each holding the other’s jersey, each soaked in a different kind of legacy.

“To those here. And to those watching around the world. Thank you for being part of it. Good night from us at Mestalla.”

“And may the next one try to live up to this,” Tyldesley added, one final beat.

“Good night.”

A/N: GT Chapter. Have fun reading, and I’ll see you in a bit with the last of yesterday and the first of the day.