As Zayn stepped onto the pitch, that familiar lightness spread through his body once again.
[Trait: Super Sub] had activated again.
But this time, Zayn could clearly feel that it was different from his previous appearances off the bench.
His body felt lighter, his senses sharper, and his strength fuller.
Zayn guessed that [Trait: Super Sub] must provide a fixed percentage boost to all attributes.
As his Realization Rate increased, the actual boost he received had become much greater than before.
Before he went on, Cooper gave Zayn a very simple task.
One word.
Press!
Crude, direct, and exactly to Zayn’s liking.
And “pressing” was something he knew very well.
For his original body, the past seven years had been spent doing the dirty work of covering ground, pressing, and intercepting.
As for Austin Sun, who had transmigrated into him, he had spent plenty of late nights in his previous life watching Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain.
That PSG side committed so thoroughly to pressing that they would even kick the ball straight into the opponent’s half from kick-off to force a throw-in.
All so they could counter-press immediately and pin the opponent deep in their own half.
…
The match resumed with Portugal U17 kicking off from the center circle.
Zayn instantly went to full speed and charged toward their back line.
Portugal’s coach had been prepared for England to keep pressing in the second half.
Steve Cooper’s team had such a clear style that he had already made targeted adjustments at halftime.
Move the ball faster and avoid getting bogged down in the middle or defensive third.
After kick-off, Portugal passed the ball backward, trying to draw England’s shape forward before exploiting the space behind the advanced defensive line, just as they had done in the first half.
But they had not expected the blond kid England had brought on to be this relentless.
The Portuguese center back had just received the return pass and was about to lift his head, looking for a teammate making a run in behind.
But when he looked up, Zayn was already right in front of him.
The young center back was startled.
He did not dare take risks and immediately launched the ball long.
A hurried clearance like that had no accuracy, and he did not get a full swing through it either.
The ball did not even reach the halfway line before wobbling out of play.
On the touchline, Cooper nodded repeatedly.
That was exactly what he wanted.
In the 49th minute, Zayn once again forced a hurried long clearance from a Portuguese center back, and the ball flew straight out of play.
After the restart, the Portuguese center back muttered something at Zayn in Portuguese.
Zayn did not understand him, so he ignored it, turned around, and ran back into position.
Only four minutes had passed since the restart, and he had already sprinted back and forth through Portugal’s defensive third several times.
But [Super Sub] had put his body in an incredible state.
That feeling of lightness meant his stamina drained far more slowly than usual.
More importantly, the teammates behind him were starting to match his rhythm.
Curtis Jones and Luis Longstaff, both from Liverpool, were the first to respond.
Klopp’s heavy metal football was clearly carved into their bones.
Pressing was second nature to them.
When Zayn sprinted forward to press for the first time, they had not fully reacted.
The second time, they followed him up.
The third time, they charged even harder than Zayn did.
Then the other young players were infected as well, and the entire team began pressing like mad.
Portugal soon discovered that their first-half tactic of drawing England forward and countering with long balls no longer worked.
It was not that the tactic itself was wrong.
They simply could not execute it anymore.
In the first half, their defenders had time to raise their heads, assess the situation, and deliver accurate balls into open space up front.
But ever since that blond kid had come on, every time a Portuguese defender received the ball, they felt the gust of wind arrive before the player himself.
Forget looking up to assess the pitch.
Not panicking and slicing the ball away already counted as impressive composure.
As a result, the long balls that were supposed to fly high and far into the space behind England’s defense began going everywhere.
Some went straight out of play.
Some were weak and floated gently back to England’s defenders, who headed them clear with ease.
In the 54th minute, under the high press, Portugal made yet another rushed clearance from the back.
The ball flew toward the center circle.
At the drop point, James Garner judged it perfectly and headed it to Jones beside him.
Jones received the ball, looked up, and saw Zayn already bursting into the space behind the defensive line. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Without hesitation, Jones clipped the ball straight over the defense.
Portugal’s back line had actually dropped quite deep under the pressure, but Zayn’s speed was simply ridiculous.
The tiny space between defender and goalkeeper, barely a space at all, was seized by him through pace alone.
The ball arrived.
So did Zayn.
Facing the goalkeeper rushing off his line, Zayn lifted his right instep and gently touched the ball in midair.
It floated over the goalkeeper’s head and dropped softly into the net.
1-2!
Proact Stadium finally erupted in cheers.
Zayn did not celebrate.
He pulled the ball from the net and quickly ran back.
That made the cheers from the stands even louder.
But they did not know that the main reason Zayn did not celebrate was not because England were still trailing.
It was because he had not perfected his celebration yet.
On the touchline, Cooper pumped his fist hard.
His tactical adjustment was paying off, but it was not enough.
The England youngsters on the pitch clearly felt the same.
Having tasted success, the Young Lions went completely mad, and the ferocity of their pressing soared.
Led by Zayn, England’s entire front line turned into a pack of howling mad dogs.
Their already frantic high press began evolving toward outright insanity.
Under that relentless pressure, Portugal’s defense started losing its shape completely.
In the 61st minute, after an England attack broke down, the Portuguese goalkeeper prepared to take a goal kick.
He had intended to pass to a nearby defender, slow the tempo, and steady things.
But when he turned to look, he realized his defenders had nearly lost the courage to come short for the ball.
With no other choice, he launched it long.
The goal kick flew high and hung in the air, but the landing point carried no threat.
England’s center back headed it firmly back into midfield.
James Garner once again claimed the second ball and knocked it sideways to Greenwood on the right.
At that moment, Portugal’s defensive line had been flattened by the sustained pressure, and somehow left a gap in front of him.
Greenwood did not hesitate.
He knocked the ball forward, accelerated, approached the box, cut inside, opened up the angle, and fired from distance.
The shot was powerful, bending toward the far corner.
The Portuguese goalkeeper was fully focused and palmed the ball away with both hands.
But he did not push it far enough.
It rebounded near the penalty spot.
And once again, Zayn was the first to arrive.
He had not thought too much about it.
With rebounds, whether the ball went in was one thing, but getting into position first was never wrong.
As it turned out, the ball really did fall in front of him.
Using his speed to win the position, Zayn gently pushed it forward, and the ball rolled into the empty net.
2-2!
Proact Stadium erupted.
In just seven minutes, England had scored twice to draw level, and both goals were full of pressure, force, and impact.
Every England player on the bench leapt up, wildly waving towels and jackets.
On the touchline, Cooper embraced Dewsnip in excitement.
His tactical gamble was turning into a perfect lesson in how to stage a comeback.
Portugal’s coach was shouting himself hoarse from the sideline, trying to get his players to settle down.
But everyone understood the idea in theory.
When you were actually on the pitch, facing wave after wave of charges from a pack of madmen, “settle down” was easier said than done.
If Portugal’s counterattacks in the first half had been a precise scalpel, then in the second half, that scalpel had not even left its sheath before England welded the handle shut through sheer brute force.
Even worse, the opponent had then pulled out their own knife and slashed twice, returning both blows from the first half.
That kind of impact was devastating to Portugal’s morale.
But England’s pressure only kept increasing, with no sign of letting up.
Jones and Longstaff had fully entered mad dog mode.
The two of them closed in from the left and right in front of Portugal’s penalty area, combining with Zayn to form three nooses that strangled Portugal’s back line until it could barely breathe.
Garner waited near the center circle, ready to collect those half-cleared balls that had been forced out under pressure.
Once England won the ball, they attacked.
No, it was not an attack.
Wave after wave of siege.
Portugal’s back line seemed to be trapped under a white net.
No matter which corner the ball flew toward, it would be forced back into Portugal’s half within five seconds.
England’s attack was not about any one especially clever combination.
It was that every time an attack failed, they won the ball back at once and immediately launched the next assault.
In the 73rd minute, Portugal’s defensive midfielder was forced into a sideways pass under pressure, but he underhit it.
Before the ball could reach his teammate’s feet, Zayn had already darted between the two of them like a gust of wind.
The center back, fully aware of Zayn’s terrifying speed, quickly stepped forward and launched himself into a decisive sliding tackle.
But Zayn’s feet were even faster.
He knocked the ball ahead just before the sliding center back could reach him, then made a small hop, gliding over the opponent as he slid past, and charged straight toward the box.
In an instant, Portugal’s defense was thrown into chaos.
The other center back had no choice but to abandon his position and rush across to cover.
“Pass!”
A voice rang out on the right.
It was Greenwood, sprinting forward at full speed.
But Zayn only had eyes for the goal.
He did not slow down, and he did not pass.
The moment the covering center back rushed in, Zayn touched the ball to his left.
The ball slipped past the center back, and Zayn flashed by with it.
The center back could not stop his momentum.
He crashed into empty air and stumbled two steps, nearly falling.
Only the goalkeeper remained.
The Portuguese goalkeeper rushed off his line, lowering his center of gravity and spreading his limbs as wide as possible to block every angle.
But Zayn gave him no chance.
While running, he lifted his toe and gently chipped the ball.
It traced a small arc over the goalkeeper’s fully outstretched hand and dropped into the net once again.
3-2!
After completing his hat trick, Zayn no longer needed to worry about how to celebrate.
His teammates all charged over and drowned him in a sea of white shirts.
Even Greenwood, who looked slightly awkward because Zayn had not passed to him, came over to celebrate.
After the celebration, Cooper made a gesture from the touchline.
The meaning was simple.
Drop back.
Stop pressing.
When the England players saw the signal, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
Truthfully, that mad dog pressing had been exhilarating, but it had nearly drained them dry.
Aside from the players who had just come on, most of the youngsters were already bending over with their hands on their knees and gasping whenever the ball went dead.
If they kept pressing, they would no longer be pressing the opponent.
They would be pressing themselves.
Cooper was no fool.
With this group of players, pressing was one weapon, and possession was another.
Since they had already completed the comeback, there was no need to spend more stamina fighting through the final twenty minutes.
So the tone of the match changed abruptly.
One moment, England had been a pack of howling mad dogs.
The next, they looked like unhurried old men.
For Zayn, however, this spell of possession was not especially friendly.
In such a refined passing rhythm, his presence dropped sharply.
He tried making two runs, but found that his teammates were not playing the ball forward at all.
So he could only drift around, occasionally dropping back to receive a pass before obediently playing it back.
After that, nothing else happened.
The final whistle blew.
3-2.
In the stands at Proact Stadium, the scouts had clearly gained plenty from the match.
Some filled half a page in their notebooks.
Others wrote only a few lines.
But one thing was the same.
Every notebook contained the same name.
Zayn Ryder.