Chapter 735: Big Ask.

On the Arsenal dugout, Sterling leaned back against the padded bench, one leg stretched lazily over the other, his training top zipped halfway as if to remind everyone he was still easing back from injury.

He caught Izan sitting forward, elbows resting on his knees, eyes unblinking as they tracked the movements on the pitch like a hawk tracing prey.

The veteran shook his head, a grin tugging at his mouth.

"Mate," he said loud enough for the lads nearest to hear, "if Mikel doesn’t put him on soon, I swear we’ll see the gaffer’s face plastered on the six o’clock news, and his mugshot right next to it. The whole country’ll think you lost the plot and finished him off in the dressing room."

The nearby players erupted with Jakub Kiwior doubling over with a wheezing laugh, while Neto, who was sat two seats away, slapped his glove against his thigh with a bark of amusement.

Ethan Nwaneri, wide-eyed and always quick with the cheek, leaned closer, grinning.

"Yeah, but imagine the price we’d get for that mugshot if it stayed confidential. Blue eyes, hair falling all perfect, someone’d pay millions for it. You’d be bigger than Beckham."

The laughter doubled in volume as a couple of the younger and the youth squad members who had made the squad started making exaggerated poses, pretending to be paparazzi snapping Izan as if he’d just walked out of a police station.

Izan forced a smile, the corner of his lips lifting, though it didn’t linger.

Their words barely scratched through the wall of focus he had built around himself.

The system’s faint overlay glimmered before his eyes, impossible for anyone else to see.

Above the pitch, the world shifted.

It was no longer the flat view of the stands, nor the shifting angles of television cameras, no!

To him, it was higher, almost omniscient.

A bird’s-eye sweep of the Emirates unfolded in luminous detail, every passing lane, every patch of space, every player’s movement represented by faint glowing outlines.

It was the add-on he had sunk credits into a week ago, one he hadn’t truly tested in a live match until now.

Arsenal looked comfortable to the naked eye.

Possession ticked along, red shirts knocking the ball about with the confidence of control.

Yet the system told another story.

The lines of pressure PSG had drawn shimmered faintly across the grass, invisible to everyone else but bright to him, deliberate, calculated.

They were allowing Arsenal to have it.

Almost daring them.

Declan Rice received the ball, pivoting in midfield, arms spread as though commanding traffic.

But the moment he turned, the map flickered with movement of two white outlines converging, the trap springing.

"Careful, Dec," Izan muttered under his breath, though no one heard.

Rice, on the pitch shuffled, then offloaded to David Raya, who was already being closed down by Dembele and Doue.

The keeper, unwilling to take risks so deep in their half, thumped his clearance long.

The ball soared, cutting through the cool London night.

For a heartbeat, it felt like Arsenal might break the press.

But Fabian Ruiz and Vitinha had dropped back cleverly, shepherding it into the space behind.

Joao Neves was already there, timing his leap with an archer’s precision.

"Neves wins it back for PSG!"

Alan Smith’s voice rang through the commentary.

The ball dropped onto the Portuguese midfielder’s chest, cushioning like velvet before he swept it forward.

And suddenly, in a blur, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was in full stride, the Georgian’s long hair bouncing as he surged into space.

"Here comes Kvaratskhelia, danger now!"

Alan McInally’s tone spiked as

Timber moved to close, his feet set, but the system had already painted the outcome in red for Izan.

Kvicha’s body dipped once, twice, then rolled the ball under his studs before slicing inside.

Timber lunged a half-step too slow, his balance wrong, and the Georgian was through.

The crowd gasped in unison, a ripple of panic swelling.

"Kvaratskhelia, he’s made a mess of the defender there!"

Alan Smith roared.

Every Arsenal shirt in the vicinity retreated desperately, but Kvaratskhelia, instead of firing at goal, slipped a devilish ball sideways at the perfect instant.

And there, in that space, Ousmane Dembélé arrived like a storm.

The Frenchman didn’t hesitate.

The pass had a faint bounce, awkward for most, but he timed it superbly, lashing his right foot through the ball before it could settle.

"

Dembéléeeeee

!"

The strike cracked like a whip, reverberating as the ball skidded upward, venomous in its trajectory as it slid just over Raya’s outstretched arm and behind the Spaniard, the net bulged violently.

"GOAL! PSG lead at the Emirates!"

Smith bellowed, voice straining over the eruption in the away end.

Blue flares burst into smoke clouds behind the goal as the PSG substitutes leapt off their bench in a wave, arms raised, sprinting toward the touchline.

Dembele, screaming with delight, slid on his knees toward the corner flag, fists hammering his chest as his mates piled onto him.

"Magnificent from Paris and with devastating speed! First goal of this semi-final tie, and it’s PSG who takes the lead."

McInally piled on, nearly shouting over the chaos.

"One moment Arsenal think they’re in control and the next it’s torn away and who else, than this man, Dembélé, with the finish, clinical, ruthless! What a revelation he’s been since the start of the year. It’s a totally different person."

The away supporters were a sea of limbs, bodies tumbling over railings, scarves whirling as if the entire section had combusted.

Izan sat frozen, eyes locked on the overlay still glowing across the grass.

Every pathway, every trap, had been there, pre-written.

Arsenal had been dancing on strings they hadn’t even seen.

And PSG had just cut them with a single stroke.

...

The groans from the home crowd still echoed faintly when Arteta was already storming out to the very edge of his technical area.

He was animated, arms carving through the air, his voice sharp and urgent, cutting through the low murmur of disappointment.

"Keep your heads! Keep the ball moving, faster, faster!" he barked, gesturing with both hands as though he were physically shoving the ball along the grass.

Then he stabbed a finger toward Rice, then Odegaard, demanding composure, urging them not to get dragged into PSG’s trap.

His left hand circled in the air, urging calm, then immediately he was clapping furiously, trying to drive energy back into his players’ legs as they trudged into their positions.

The players, still wearing the sting of conceding, nodded and jogged back, Rice thumping his chest in acknowledgement and Timber raising a hand in apology for being beaten by Kvaratskhelia.

Arteta shouted again, his voice raw with insistence: "Reset! Reset! We go again!"

He punctuated it with another chopping motion of his arms, his whole body alive with the intensity of a man refusing to let momentum slip entirely.

The cameras caught him in full frame, prowling the touchline like a conductor trying to whip an orchestra back into tempo, only his lips didn’t stop moving.

"Believe, believe, believe!"—the message was clear even without the mic picking it up.

Up in the gantry, the commentators couldn’t ignore it.

"Just look at Arteta there,"

Alan Smith’s voice pitched above the swell of the stadium.

"He’s desperate to lift his players back up. You can see the fire; he’s almost playing every ball with them, waving, shouting, trying to restore some order. He knows how quickly a game like this can unravel if the heads go down."

"He’s urging them to keep calm, but at the same time, you can feel the urgency, can’t you? He wants more zip, more intensity. He knows Paris will try to pounce on any hesitation now, and now that they are down, it’s almost guaranteed that they will hesitate on occasions."

Alan McInally chimed in, noting the balance.

As Arsenal lined back into shape, PSG already gathering for the restart with an extra spring in their step, the camera briefly cut to the bench where Izan was still seated, his eyes trained on the pitch, jaw clenched.

The commentator hesitated a moment before adding with a hint of intrigue in his tone.

"And you wonder... is that the moment that forces Arteta’s hand? We’ve seen him resist so far, but with the home crowd restless, the game slipping, and Izan sitting there ready... perhaps this is the straw that finally brings him on."

The thought hung in the air as the whistle blew for play to resume.

77’

Finally—"

Alan Smith’s voice lifted, a spark of life coursing through the broadcast.

"It’s taken seventy-five long minutes, but Arsenal’s talismanic teenager has been told to get ready. Izan Miura Hernández is warming up, and by the looks of things, we’ll be seeing him very soon."

The home fans, ecstatic by the sight of Izan warming up, showed it in their roar as Alan McInally let out a low chuckle, his tone carrying a mix of relief and anticipation.

"About time, isn’t it? You could feel the Emirates starting to get restless, almost urging Arteta on with every passing minute. And now he’s listening. Just watch the noise levels rise the moment that number goes up on the board."

The cameras caught Izan along the touchline, peeling off his padded top, the floodlights catching the sheen of his sweat despite having only jogged and stretched.

The crowd nearest to him was already surging to their feet, phones raised, scarves swinging as a murmur began to build into a chant, a wave rippling across the stadium as if the supporters themselves were welcoming back a storm they’d been waiting on.

"It’s a big ask of a player this young to change the game,"

Alan Smith continued,

" but that’s what happens when you’re a special player. You’re the one they turn to, and tonight the responsibility falls squarely on his shoulders. Strap yourselves in, this could change everything."