“Hey, kid!
That is completely useless!
If you keep striking the ball like that, you are never going to clear the wall!”
Allen froze just as he was about to initiate his run-up.
He turned around to see a man in his early forties walking onto the pitch.
The man had a wild, thick mop of curly hair and a confident, almost arrogant smirk plastered across his face.
Despite his relatively short stature, the man radiated a terrifying, undeniable aura of absolute authority.
Allen’s analytical mind rapidly scanned his encyclopedic knowledge of football history.
The hair, the swagger, the sheer presence…
“You…
you’re Keegan,” Allen said, his stoic demeanor breaking slightly in genuine surprise.
“You are Kevin Keegan!”
In the 1970s, Kevin Keegan was the undisputed king of English football.
Following the eras of Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer, Keegan was the man who ruled Europe.
He had won three league titles and a European Cup with Liverpool, and then moved to Germany to win back-to-back Ballon d’Ors.
He was a global icon.
To a football fanatic, standing face-to-face with Kevin Keegan was like standing in front of a living god.
Seeing the genuine excitement on the seven-year-old’s face, Keegan chuckled softly.
It was nice to know that even after all these years away, the children of Liverpool still remembered his name.
Keegan closed his eyes for a moment, letting the crisp Anfield breeze wash over him, reminiscing about the glory days when he and John Toshack tore European defenses to shreds under Bill Shankly.
“Mr.
Keegan?” Allen asked, tilting his head.
“Are you alright?”
Keegan snapped out of his nostalgic trance.
He looked down at the tiny seven-year-old and sighed inwardly.
I am a two-time European Footballer of the Year, Keegan thought, shaking his head.
Why am I getting sentimental in front of a child?
“I am fine, lad,” Keegan smiled, walking over to the ball.
“So, you are practicing free-kicks.
Tell me, why?
From what Gérard tells me, you are a lethal center-forward.
Strikers need to practice finishing in the box.
Leave the dead balls to the midfielders.”
“I am practicing free-kicks because my finishing is already perfect,” Allen stated calmly, his voice completely devoid of childish arrogance.
It was a simple statement of tactical fact.
“I have mastered the mechanics of open-play shooting.
Repetitive drills in the box won’t improve me further.
I need to add a new weapon to my arsenal.”
Good God, Keegan thought, genuinely taken aback.
Is this kid delusional, or just terrifyingly confident?
I am Kevin Keegan, and even I wouldn’t dare claim my finishing is ‘perfect’.
“Is that so?” Keegan laughed, his competitive ego instantly flaring up.
“If your shooting is truly that flawless, why don’t we have a little competition?
Let me show you that there is always room for improvement.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Keegan felt a sharp pang of embarrassment.
What am I doing?
Keegan grimaced internally.
I am a retired forty-one-year-old Ballon d’Or winner, challenging a seven-year-old boy to a shooting contest.
This is practically bullying.
“You’re on!”
Before Keegan could withdraw the challenge, Allen immediately accepted, his eyes blazing with a fierce, competitive light.
To Jack Vance, this was the ultimate combat simulation.
He didn’t care about the age gap.
He was about to test his tactical mechanics against one of the greatest forwards in the history of the sport.
Seeing the boy accept without a second of hesitation, Keegan’s embarrassment vanished, replaced entirely by the ruthless pride of a champion.
Alright then, you cheeky little brat, Keegan thought, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
Let’s see what you’ve got.
Keegan smoothly hooked the ball with his foot and flicked it up into his hands.
He walked to the penalty arc, dropping the ball exactly twenty yards from the net.
He didn’t take a run-up.
He didn’t adjust his stance.
He simply looked at Allen, pointed to the goal, and in the exact same millisecond, violently snapped his right leg through the ball from a dead standstill.
THWACK.
The ball exploded off Keegan’s boot with terrifying velocity, ripping straight into the top corner of the net before the imaginary goalkeeper could even blink.
Allen’s eyes widened in genuine admiration.
It was a masterclass in zero-telegraph finishing.
Keegan had generated massive, lethal power without any backswing or kinetic wind-up.
(It was a technique very similar to Ronaldinho’s famous toe-poke against Chelsea, designed entirely to catch defenders and goalkeepers completely off guard.)
Damn it, I’m getting old, Keegan thought, ignoring the goal and rubbing his knee.
The power was off, the speed was slow, and I barely caught the sweet spot.
If I hadn’t scored that, I would have ruined my entire legacy right here.
“Alright, my dear George,” Keegan said, turning back to the boy with a smug smile.
“Your turn. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Let me see what Liverpool’s ‘Super Predator’ can do.”
Allen nodded.
He jogged to the net, retrieved the ball, and placed it on the exact same blade of grass Keegan had used.
Allen bent over, adjusting the ball with both hands.
He slowly rotated the leather, seemingly trying to find the perfect valve placement.
Keegan watched with amusement, assuming the boy was feeling the immense psychological pressure of following up a legend’s strike.
Keegan opened his mouth, preparing to offer a few words of comforting encouragement.
Before Keegan could speak, Allen struck.
While still bent over, with both hands hovering inches above the ball, Allen suddenly snapped his right foot forward.
He stabbed the underside of the ball with his toe, generating a vicious, rising trajectory.
Because Allen’s body was completely bent over, the biomechanical telegraphing was absolutely zero.
It was completely invisible.
Keegan hadn’t even registered that Allen had initiated a shooting motion until the ball was already flying into the back of the net.
The speed and power were naturally inferior to Keegan’s strike—Allen was still trapped in a seven-year-old body, after all—but the sheer, terrifying deception of the shot was undeniable.
Keegan stood frozen, staring at the net in absolute shock.
The little bastard actually beat me, Keegan thought, his jaw tight.
In terms of pure deception and zero-telegraph execution, his strike was better than mine.
But the God of Anfield was too proud to admit defeat to a child out loud.
Keegan simply nodded, fetched another ball, and the true battle began.
For the next hour, the legendary veteran and the reincarnated operator threw everything they had at the net.
They executed thunderous volleys, delicate chips, outside-of-the-boot curlers, and acrobatic bicycle kicks.
They tested every single angle and trajectory in the striking playbook.
Eventually, Allen missed.
Keegan had set up a complex volley scenario: he deliberately chipped the ball hard against the crossbar, sprinted forward, and executed a flawless, mid-air scissor kick on the blindingly fast rebound.
Allen perfectly replicated the sequence—chipping the crossbar and timing the jump flawlessly—but his seven-year-old leg muscles simply couldn’t generate the required torque to keep the rebound shot on target.
The ball sailed just wide of the post.
Seeing the ball miss, Keegan let out a massive, silent sigh of relief.
Thank God, Keegan thought, wiping cold sweat from his brow.
If he had nailed that, I would have had to officially retire my ego.
Keegan had won the shootout, but the victory felt incredibly hollow.
He was a forty-one-year-old global icon, and he had been forced to dig deep into his absolute physical limits just to edge out a seven-year-old boy.
In truth, Keegan knew he had lost.
When Keegan was seven, he was kicking a deflated leather bladder against a brick wall in Yorkshire.
Allen George was operating on an entirely different evolutionary plane.
Keegan walked over and patted Allen on the head.
He was fully, unequivocally convinced.
The boy was the chosen one.