Rooney stood in the center circle, his chest heaving as he glared at Allen.
The brilliant opening goal had ignited a blazing inferno within the young Evertonian.
Rooney was a prodigy in his own right, the undisputed pride of the blue half of the city.
His own ego—fueled by his terrifying local goalscoring record—refused to let him be reduced to a mere stepping stone in another player’s highlight reel.
You might be strong, Rooney thought, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white.
But I am Wayne Rooney.
I don’t lay down for anyone.
The referee blew the whistle to restart the match.
Allen instantly surged forward, plunging deep into the Everton penalty area like a dagger.
He positioned himself between the center-backs and waited for the midfield to feed him.
But the tactical landscape had shifted.
Terrified by the opening goal, the Everton midfield ceased their heavy press on Welsh.
Instead, they dropped deep and formed a suffocating, five-man blockade in front of their own penalty box.
They assigned one man to shadow Welsh, preventing him from distributing cleanly, while the rest collapsed inward to ensure Allen never saw the ball.
Even when Welsh managed to thread a pass through the blockade, the Everton defenders swarmed Allen with desperate, borderline violent aggression.
The heavy pressure threw off Allen’s timing, and his next few shots sailed harmlessly wide.
With Liverpool’s attack temporarily blunted, and Everton heavily committing to defense, the match ground to a grueling, physical stalemate.
Up the other end of the pitch, Rooney was experiencing his own frustrations.
He was running himself into the ground, desperately searching for pockets of space near the Liverpool penalty area.
But Jon Otsemobor—the highly athletic Liverpool fullback—had attached himself to Rooney like a shadow.
Otsemobor was quiet, relentless, and incredibly annoying.
He constantly harassed Rooney, throwing physical checks and cutting off passing lanes.
Combined with Liverpool’s numerical advantage in midfield, Everton struggled to get the ball forward.
Whenever a stray pass did reach Rooney, Otsemobor was immediately there to disrupt his touch, allowing the rest of the Liverpool defense to recover and clear the danger.
The lack of service and the constant man-marking infuriated the young bulldog.
Realizing he was completely isolated up front, Rooney made a tactical adjustment.
He dropped deep into the midfield, transitioning into a number ten role, desperate to get the ball at his feet.
Meanwhile, Stephen Warnock had completely forgotten Joss’s pre-match instructions.
Joss had explicitly ordered Warnock to stay disciplined and provide defensive cover whenever Everton attacked. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
But intoxicated by the adrenaline of his brilliant assist on the opening goal, Warnock abandoned his defensive post.
He transformed into an aggressive, marauding wingback, constantly pushing high up the pitch in search of more glory.
With Warnock completely out of position, the Liverpool defense was exposed.
Rooney dropped deep and successfully collected a pass from his midfield.
As the ball arrived, he felt Otsemobor instantly press against his back.
Enough of this, Rooney thought.
The moment the ball touched his boots, Rooney planted his feet and violently threw his weight backward.
The sheer, explosive power generated by the bulldog’s stocky frame caught Otsemobor completely off guard.
The Liverpool fullback was physically bumped off his mark, losing his balance for a crucial fraction of a second.
Rooney did not hesitate.
He spun cleanly off the stumbling defender, put his head down, and accelerated toward the Liverpool penalty area.
Otsemobor quickly recovered and sprinted after him, but the gap in raw power and speed was suddenly glaring.
Rooney was a physical freak of nature for a pre-teen.
He possessed the sheer brute strength to completely ignore Otsemobor’s desperate attempts to pull him back.
If Allen’s opening goal was a masterclass in tactical close-quarters combat, Rooney’s counter-attack was a display of pure, unstoppable brute force.
There were no step-overs.
There were no feints.
Rooney just dropped his shoulder and bulldozed his way straight through the remaining defensive line.
He shattered the Liverpool blockade through sheer kinetic energy.
Warnock, desperately sprinting back from the opposition half, realized with a sickening jolt of panic that he was entirely out of position.
He watched helplessly as Rooney battered his way into the Liverpool penalty box.
Oh God, Warnock thought, his stomach dropping.
If he scores this, Joss is going to murder me.
Joss had given Warnock one primary directive: track Rooney.
Warnock had blatantly ignored it to chase an attacking high, and now the entire defense was collapsing.
Warnock could do nothing but pray that Kirkland could bail him out. New chapters come out on g.com first.
From the moment Rooney initiated his run, Chris Kirkland had been hyper-focused.
As the captain and the last line of defense, Kirkland knew the capabilities of his backline.
When he saw Otsemobor get bullied off the ball, he knew immediately that the rest of the defenders were not going to be able to stop the charging bulldog.
When Warnock failed to appear, Kirkland made his decision.
He could not wait on his goal line.
If he gave Rooney time to set his feet inside the box, the powerful striker would rip the net off its hinges.
Kirkland had to close the angle immediately.
He sprinted off his line, charging aggressively toward the Everton captain.
Rooney saw the keeper coming.
He didn’t panic, and he didn’t slow down.
He simply kept his body between the trailing defenders and the ball.
When Kirkland was just four yards away, Rooney pulled his right leg back.
Kirkland launched himself forward, spreading his body wide in a desperate, sprawling dive to block the shot.
But the shot did not come from finesse.
It came from pure, concentrated fury.
Rooney swung his leg with terrifying, unnatural power.
The football exploded off his boot like an artillery shell.
The sheer velocity of the strike was absolutely staggering for a player his age.
Kirkland’s reflexes were elite, but human biology had its limits.
He barely registered the blur of the ball before it ripped past his outstretched fingertips.
The ball smashed violently into the back of the net.
1-1.
Everton had equalized.
Rooney spun away from the goal, his face twisted in a ferocious, triumphant snarl.
He leaped high into the air and unleashed a guttural roar, pumping his fist furiously toward the stunned Anfield crowd.
He had just fired a warning shot into the heart of Liverpool territory.
The bulldog had announced to the entire stadium that he was not here to be a victim in Allen George’s story.
He was here for war.