Icardi ran back toward the centre circle, ball in hand, but his mind was still on the goal he’d just scored.
The Argentine was twenty years old.
He’d transferred from Sampdoria to Inter Milan in the summer of 2013 for thirteen million euros, and in his first full season, he’d scored nine goals in twenty-three appearances.
This year, he was sharper still, seven goals in ten league rounds, the kind of return that marked him as Milito’s true successor, a penalty-area predator who could turn a half-chance into a headline.
His positioning was his greatest weapon.
Not pace, not power – positioning.
The ability to find the half-yard of space that separated a blocked shot from a goal.
The instinct to start a run a fraction of a second before the pass arrived, so that ball and body converged at the perfect moment.
Which was why the equaliser was bothering him.
At first, like everyone else, Icardi had assumed Thomas’s pass was a mishit shot.
The ball had come screaming across the turf with far too much venom for a through ball, it looked like a drive on goal that had gone wide and happened to land at his feet.
Lucky break.
Move on.
But something nagged at him.
His own movement, the angled run between the two centre-backs, the drift into the inside-right channel, had been subtle.
Instinctive.
He hadn’t called for the ball.
Hadn’t signalled.
He’d just moved, the way strikers move when they sense a possibility forming.
And the ball from Thomas had arrived in that exact corridor, at that exact angle, as if it had been designed for the run Icardi was only just beginning to make.
Was that really a coincidence?
He’d asked the kid, quickly, on the restart.
Was that a shot or a pass?
Thomas had hesitated, then offered a sheepish half-smile.
“I was trying to pass it to you.
But, well…
you saw the weight on it.” Which was honest and also, somehow, made the whole thing more confusing rather than less.
Icardi filed it away.
There were more pressing concerns.
The clock at the Meazza read 88:35.
The fourth official raised the electronic board on the touchline: four minutes of added time.
Genoa had retreated into a defensive shell.
Every outfield player was behind the ball, some of them occupying positions usually reserved for centre-backs.
Their forwards had dropped into midfield.
Their midfielders had dropped into defence.
The penalty area was a thicket of red shirts — twelve, thirteen bodies crammed into a space designed for six.
Mancini abandoned any pretence of tactical structure.
“Forget the build-up!
Long balls into the box!
Ranocchia, Juan – get up there!
Get into the penalty area!” With a wave of his arm, Inter Milan transformed into something close to a five-forward formation.
Centre-backs pushed up to the halfway line.
Everyone pressed forward.
The only shape that mattered now was the shape of desperation.
Nagatomo took over crossing duties on the right.
The Japanese wing-back was running on fumes, ninety minutes of non-stop shuttling up and down the flank but his stamina was remarkable.
Even in the dying minutes, his technique held: accurate crosses, good trajectory, consistent delivery.
But it wasn’t working.
Cross after cross sailed into the Genoa box.
Cross after cross was headed clear by tall defenders who’d been waiting for exactly this.
Eight deliveries and not a single one produced a shot on target.
Genoa’s centre-backs were winning every aerial duel because they could see every ball coming.
There was no surprise, no variation, just the same predictable arc from the same position on the right, and the same wall of red heading it away.
The Curva Nord was on its feet, sixty thousand fists in the air.
“Come on!” “Head it in!” “One more!
Just one more!” Up in the VIP box, Sneijder’s friend shook his head.
“This is painful.
The crosses are so repetitive – how is that supposed to break through?” Sneijder didn’t take his eyes off the pitch.
“Because they have no other option.
If you don’t have someone who can change the angle with a single pass, all you can do is bombard the box and hope.
Quantity over quality.
It’s ugly, but it’s honest.” His friend thought about that.
“A change of angle, you mean like what the number 99 kid did earlier?
The shot that accidentally became a pass?” Sneijder opened his mouth to respond, then stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
“Wait.
He’s got the ball again.” A Genoa clearance had looped into the air, travelling maybe twenty yards before dropping toward the edge of the penalty area.
Thomas watched it fall.
His blood was up.
Exhaustion and adrenaline were fighting for control of his body, and adrenaline was winning.
Volley it.
Just smash it.
He stepped back, planted his left foot, drew his right leg behind him, eyes locked on the descending ball.
The angle wasn’t bad, he was twenty yards out, slightly right of centre.
If he caught it cleanly, with power, maybe it would find a gap in the wall of defenders.
His body was already committed to the shot when the Engine intervened.
It didn’t feel like time stopping.
It felt like the world becoming suddenly, overwhelmingly clear, every detail sharpening to a razor edge, every movement on the pitch registering simultaneously, as if his brain had shifted into a higher gear and the rest of reality was still catching up.
The Engine’s assessment arrived as a wave of certainty rather than a voice: The volley is a dead end.
63 percent chance a defender blocks it.
35 percent it flies wide.
1 percent it goes in.
But the right flank is open – Nagatomo is unmarked, twenty yards wide, already in stride.
If you redirect the ball to him instead of shooting, the scoring probability jumps to 30 percent.
The switch of angle will catch Genoa completely off guard.
Thomas understood all of this in a fraction of a second.
He agreed with all of it.
The problem was his body.
His right leg was already swinging.
His torso was already rotating into the shot.
His weight was committed forward.
To change direction now, to abort the volley and redirect the ball to the right flank, would require a physical adjustment that his current skill level might not be capable of making.
But he tried.
In the last instant before his foot struck the ball, Thomas wrenched his entire body sideways.
He twisted his ankle, contorting the contact point from the instep, where a clean volley would connect, to the outside of his boot.
The result was ugly.
His body corkscrewed mid-air, momentum carrying him off balance, and the ball didn’t fly where a volley should fly – low, hard, toward goal.
Instead, it pinged off the outside of his right foot and looped high toward the right touchline.
Thomas’s awkward follow-through sent him sprawling into a Genoa defender who’d come sliding in.
They collided in a heap of limbs and Thomas hit the turf hard, pain flaring through his inner thigh.
For a heartbeat, the ball floated through the air toward the right wing, seemingly destined for the touchline and a wasted opportunity.
Mancini, on the sideline, covered his face with both hands.
The Curva Nord groaned.
Genoa’s defenders exhaled.
And then a small figure in blue and black – five-foot-seven, soaked in sweat, running on nothing but stamina and instinct, burst out of nowhere on the right flank and intercepted the ball in full stride.
Nagatomo.