Three minutes later, Zayn realized Brighton’s two center backs really were a nuisance.
They had the penalty area locked down, one marking him and the other covering, packing the middle so tightly there was no gap to exploit.
Zayn tried once to hold his position and receive the ball in the box, but before it even reached his feet, he was nudged in the back.
His footing went, and the ball was taken away.
Clearly, staying in the box was not going to give him much of a chance either.
In the 77th minute,
Ramsey received the ball in midfield and looked up, searching for an outlet up front.
He saw that Zayn was not making a run into the box.
Instead, he had dropped back seven or eight meters, pulling out toward the edge of the arc.
Ramsey played it to him without hesitation.
Zayn received the ball.
The Brighton center back behind him stepped in at once, pressing a knee into the back of Zayn’s thigh and resting a hand on his shoulder.
Zayn did not try to force the turn.
With one touch, he laid the ball back to Ramsey.
The next instant, he spun away.
Driving off his heel, he shot around the outside of the center back like he had been fired from a slingshot, darting straight in behind the defensive line.
The Brighton center back reached out to grab him, but his fingertips only brushed Zayn’s shirt.
The moment Ramsey received the return pass, he understood exactly what Zayn wanted.
They had come up from the U16s together, so of course he knew how fast Zayn was now.
He cushioned the ball with his right foot and pushed it through the gap, sending it perfectly into Zayn’s sprinting path.
Zayn and the other recovering center back set off at the same time, running shoulder to shoulder.
The opposing center back had the better position.
He was between Zayn and the goal, just one step away from clearing the ball.
But he never managed to take that step.
Zayn was too fast.
On his second stride, he burst ahead by half a body, his shoulder edging past the center back as his toe reached the ball first.
Only then did Brighton’s goalkeeper rush out, but it was already too late.
Zayn accelerated again, caught up to the ball, and guided it with the inside of his foot.
The ball rolled beneath the goalkeeper’s arm.
2-2!
On the sideline, David Hughes raised an eyebrow.
That little drop back had drawn the center back out, then he spun in behind.
The timing and route were spot on.
Clever movement too.
He knew how to create vertical space for himself by checking short.
Interesting.
Play resumed.
The two center backs exchanged a look.
They stopped positioning themselves one in front of the other and instead stuck to Zayn’s left and right like conjoined twins.
One marked him tight, knee against his thigh, hand on his waist, just short of pulling out a rope and tying the two of them together.
The other hovered two meters away, dedicated to cutting off Ramsey’s through ball lanes.
Stay tight.
Deny him space to accelerate.
That was the standard defensive manual for dealing with a speedster.
Since you have already proven you are a supercar, sorry, but this time we are welding your hood shut.
Let’s see you try to race now.
Zayn ran for three minutes without even touching the ball.
Then he changed his approach.
He stopped dropping back to offer support and instead drove straight into the box.
Brighton’s two center backs still stuck to their plan, following him step for step as they retreated.
But once the center backs dropped, the space between midfield and defense opened up.
That gave Villa’s midfielders and attackers room to receive the ball and turn.
Hughes noticed the detail from the sideline and immediately told his young players to push higher.
Ramsey moved ten meters forward, and the two wide midfielders also pressed into the half spaces beside the box.
More and more claret shirts flooded into Brighton’s attacking third.
Brighton no longer had enough defensive resources to go around.
Faced with Villa’s youth side pushing up in numbers, they had to spread their players out to block the others.
Of the two center backs who had been glued to Zayn, only one could stay with him now.
In the 87th minute, Zayn found another chance.
The right wide midfielder received the ball in the half space.
Ramsey’s forward run dragged another defender away, and inside the box, Zayn pinned the only remaining center back behind him with his back to goal.
The ball was played across from the flank and found Zayn’s feet.
The Brighton center back was tight to him, pressing into his back.
He knew exactly what this situation meant.
With a back to goal ball like this, a forward needed space to turn.
And there was not even a sheet of paper’s width between him and Zayn, so where could he possibly go?
He would either pass it back or have it poked away.
What he did not know was that against defending at his level, Zayn did not need space to turn.
Zayn received the ball with his right foot, but instead of killing it under his boot, he let it settle half a meter in front of him.
Then he used his left foot as a pivot and spun clockwise, while the outside of his right foot hooked the ball along with the motion, dragging it through a smooth arc.
The ball curved around the defender tight to Zayn’s right side.
Before the Brighton center back could react, Zayn had already completed the turn and was facing goal.
The ball was in the perfect position too, half a step in front of his left foot.
No adjustment, no extra touch.
His right foot, which had just guided the ball, naturally landed to the right of it.
Then Zayn lifted his left leg, bent his lower leg, and snapped it forward with force.
The ball flew on a straight line and buried itself high inside the near corner.
The goalkeeper stood rooted to the spot, not taking a single step.
3-2!
Zayn Ryder had scored his second of the match, a late winner!
Even if it was only a youth match, this was Zayn’s first time experiencing a moment like this, and he could hardly contain the excitement surging inside him.
He dodged the teammates rushing over to celebrate, sprinted toward the corner flag, and dropped into a knee slide, only to almost fall flat on his face.
None of the young Villa players cared.
They swarmed around him and kept celebrating.
Only Zayn felt a little embarrassed, secretly deciding that he had to practice his celebrations when he got back.
He could not afford to earn a reputation for neighborhood level celebrations.
Ramsey was at the back of the celebrating pack, his expression caught somewhere between wild joy and total disbelief.
A week ago against Liverpool, Zayn had also scored twice in the second half.
Why did this script feel so familiar?
Ramsey quietly made a decision.
From now on, he was definitely passing to him more.
This kid really had something as a forward.
He might be able to pad Ramsey’s assist numbers.
Who knew?
Maybe sticking with him could help Ramsey move up another level too.
On the sideline,
David Hughes wore an expression as complicated as if he had just eaten Britain’s famous Stargazy pie.
A kid who had played in defensive positions for seven years, four days after being moved to forward, had come off the bench for twenty minutes, buried two chances, and taken all three points.
He could not help cursing every one of Zayn’s previous coaches in his head.
God, did those people have eyes in their arses?
Defensive midfielder?
They made this guy play defensive midfielder?
He could draw out space when dropping back and was frighteningly quick when bursting in behind.
Even when marked tightly, he did not panic.
He knew to drive into the box and force the opponent to compress their defense.
And that explosiveness, that speed on the turn, that shooting power…
You are telling me he spent seven years stuck at defensive midfielder?
Hughes could not help feeling a surge of respect for Gordon Cowans.
As expected of a club legend, a player who had reached the summit of Europe.
He had the eye for talent to dig this piece of gold out from the defensive end and personally push him onto the front line.
…
At the Bodymoor Heath Training Center,
Gordon Cowans, who was drinking tea in his office, suddenly sneezed.
He rubbed his nose, thinking the weather really had turned a bit chilly.
He had absolutely no idea that someone behind his back had imagined him into the role of a master talent scout discovering a prized horse.