"Bruv. The way it's going, Madrid are gonna win it."
"Madrid?"
"Yeah. Madrid."
"Are you even watching this match? At all?"
"You clearly aren't."
"Okay, dude. Whatever you say, I guess."
"My thing is the reffing, honestly. We need this kind of ref in the Prem."
"Exactly, mate. If this was the Prem the ref would've been calling fouls over everything. Stopping the game every two seconds. Let them play, this fella."
"Yeah, man. Was just telling my mate that."
"Wait, you all rate it? Damn. I just thought it was shit officiating."
While the pubs across Europe were still chewing over the chaos of the first half they had just watched, the stadium back in Spain had not cooled an inch. With the two fanbases packed in at almost equal numbers, neither side let up on the other for a second.
On the sideline behind the half Barcelona had defended in the first period sat a cluster of television broadcasters, an outdoor set arranged in a loose circle, Real Madrid supporters massed behind them and a wedge of Barça fans off to one side. And seated among the pundits was the iconic Thierry Henry, along with a few other names the game knew well.
"Thierry," Steve McManaman said, turning to him. "As someone who has played in this fixture himself, how would you say the game's been going?"
Henry laughed.
"Well. I could ask you the same question."
The set laughed with him.
Then Henry turned serious. "But honestly, I don't really know what to say about this match. It feels more—"
"Personal," Rio Ferdinand cut in.
Everyone looked at him.
"Okay, okay," Rio went on. "Then what about this. Who do you think has got the game the way they want it?"
Henry thought for a moment.
"Anyone." He let it sit, serious now. "In a high-intensity game like this? It's honestly anyone's. And I'll tell you why it's scary, I haven't seen many big, clear-cut chances. Nobody's in control. That's what makes it dangerous. It's anyone's game."
"Me, personally," Rio said, "I've got Madrid to edge it." He closed his eyes a moment, glancing around at the white behind him. "There's just something about that club's mentality. No matter what's happening, they always seem to find a way to come out the other side."
Henry shrugged. "I won't say anything on that."
"And the kid?" McManaman came back in. "His first El Clásico. How do you think it's going for him? You think he scores?"
"Didn't you score on your first one?" Rio asked.
Henry answered it flatly. "2008. Bernabéu. Four-one. I got one of them."
Rio and McManaman both nodded.
"Honestly, though, I won't lie," Henry said. "When I played in this game, the tension was insane. I've played in some high-intensity matches in my career. I'm telling you, outside of a final, that was the most tension I've ever felt on a pitch."
He sat forward.
"As for whether Mateo scores tonight, I genuinely don't know what's going to happen out there." Then he looked at Ferdinand. "And Rio, remember one thing. Forget the implications of this match for a second. For Barcelona, for their season, this game is do or die."
As if he had heard it, a few miles away, Diego Simeone sat in front of a screen watching the broadcast.
He smiled. A small, humourless thing.
"Do or die, eh."
He scoffed, and leaned back, and the smile did not reach his eyes.
"It's just die."
Back in the tunnel, the players stood in their lines, waiting to walk.
The tension came off them in a low hum. Nobody on either side was speaking. Neither coach had made a change. There were only the looks, the subtle glances thrown sideways and the glares held a half-second too long, two teams standing shoulder to shoulder in a concrete corridor and refusing to acknowledge each other.
Vinícius kept turning his head toward Mateo.
He was still carrying the four words from the first half. Who even are you. He looked across, waiting for the boy to look back, to give him something to push against.
Mateo was staring straight ahead. He did not so much as flicker.
Vinícius scoffed. Who am I. Me? He scoffed again, looked forward, and muttered under his breath.
"I'm going to show you exactly who I am."
Oblivious to the death stare aimed at the side of his head, Mateo was somewhere else entirely.
Find a way.
He stood there turning Koeman's words over. And the truth, the truth he would not say out loud, was that he was not enjoying this match. It might look thrilling to the people watching. He was not having fun. He had not been able to sink into it, to find the rhythm where the game went quiet and simple for him the way it usually did. His performance had not been bad. He knew that. Good dribbles, good movement, sharp in the press.
But none of it was leading anywhere.
And then the anger came up again. If it weren't for that useless ref. He could have sworn there had been at least three fouls on him that on any normal day were straight red cards, and Lahoz had waved every one of them away like they were nothing—
No. No. Mateo. Don't.
He caught himself. He shook his hands out at his sides, rolling the thought off him.
There's no point thinking about that now.
He started it again, like a drumbeat, under everything. Ref tendencies. Ref tendencies. Learn what he's giving. Adapt. Play with it, not against it.
Find a way.
He pulled himself toward the cold clear place he needed. You've got Cruyff's football tactics in your head. Use them. Use all of it.
"Hey. Mateo."
A tap on his back.
Mateo turned his head, the thinking breaking, and found Messi behind him, Griezmann standing between them in the line. Messi caught Griezmann's eye and tipped his head, a silent ask, and Griezmann nodded and the two of them swapped places, Messi sliding in directly behind Mateo.
"Everything okay?" Mateo asked as Messi came forward.
Messi smiled. "Yeah. Everything's fine." A beat. "I just wanted to say something."
Mateo looked at him.
"Koeman's right," Messi said.
Mateo nodded. "Yeah. I've been thinking about it. About finding a way to—"
"No." Messi shook his head gently. "It's not that."
And then something in Messi's face opened, and his voice came down into a register Mateo had not heard from him before.
"I'm the captain."
He said it heavily.
"I should have handled it better out there. I should have kept everyone focused on the goal. That's my job." His face creased. "I just. I have been in that position before. The kicks. The falls. The—"
He stopped.
"Pepe. Ramos."
And both of them, at the same moment, turned and looked down the line at the Real Madrid captain, standing at the front of the white queue.
As if he felt it land on him, Ramos turned too.
The three of them held it, all three faces twisted into the same hard scorn, the air between them thick with everything the night had already been.
Then they broke it, and Messi turned back to Mateo.
"I know exactly how it feels to be targeted by them, that team" he said. "The kicks, the digs, going down and getting up and going down again, all of it. I have lived through those matches. I know what I faced." His voice caught. "And when I saw you out there going through the same thing, it opened something up in me. An old memory. And I just wanted to protect you. To stop it. Even if I failed to."
"You didn't fail."
Mateo said it instantly.
Messi looked at him.
Mateo laughed, soft, and there was nothing childish in it.
"You stood in front of me when the whole pitch was coming. That's not failing to protect someone. That's the opposite."
He let it sit a second. Then he grinned.
"And between you and me. When you cleaned out Ramos on that restart?" He shook his head. "Top five moments of my life. Easily."
They both laughed.
Then Mateo's face settled into something steadier, and he said it the way you say a thing you mean all the way down.
"Our promise. To each other." He held Messi's eyes. "Even Madrid can't stand in the way of that."
He put out his hand.
Messi looked at it, laughing under his breath, the warmth coming back into his face. He brought his own hand up and clasped it, the two of them gripping tight, both of them smiling in the dark of the tunnel with the noise of the stadium waiting on the other side of the mouth.
"And here I was," Messi said, shaking his head, "thinking I was the one who came over to cheer you up."
...
"Coach. Seems they're coming back out."
Up in the stands, surrounded by men in suits, Luis Enrique sat looking down at the pitch, where the players were filing back out for the second half. He gave a short nod.
The assistant beside him, one of his national-team staff, smiled wide and leaned in.
"Ramos has been very impressive tonight, don't you think?"
He watched Enrique's face as he said it, hunting for a reaction. The head coach gave him nothing. The assistant did not give up.
"He's done a real job. Against both Messi and the kid." He let it drift a little further out. "At the level he's playing today, he'd be a great asset to have at the Euros. At the very least, a man to shore up the back line. We might not even have to keep pulling Rodri back to play in defence."
He let it settle.
"Pedro," Enrique said.
The assistant smiled. "Sir."
"The game's starting. Let's be quiet."
His face fell a little. Beside them, the other two staff members started sniggering, and the assistant's expression soured further as he ground out a "Yeah," forcing an awkward laugh, and turned his eyes back to the pitch.
Watching the players settle for the restart, he thought it with a frown. Stubborn man. And then, letting it go: Well. I've done what I can. The rest is on you, Ramos.
Back on the pitch.
"And we are underway. The second half of what I'm fairly certain has been the most physical match of the season—"
"And we're back for part two," the second commentator came in.
Drury laughed. "Both coaches will have had their words at the break, you would imagine. And clearly both believe in what they set up, because neither Koeman nor Zidane has made a single change."
"Which I think will come as a real shock to a lot of the Barcelona faithful," the second man said. "Many of them were expecting the eighteen-year-old midfield prodigy to come on this half—"
"And with his ability to control a tempo, to slow a game down, he would have been a fine way to counter Real Madrid's pace," Drury said. "But no. Let us see what the Dutchman has in store for us instead."
"After a first half that intense, let's just hope the second's half as entertaining."
Find a way.
Standing over the ball at the centre spot, the thought had not left Mateo's head. He let it simmer through him one last time.
Then.
Piiiiip!
Everything moved at once.
Mateo turned instantly and rolled the ball back to Busquets behind him, and then, instead of pushing forward, he dropped, running backward, peeling deeper into his own half. And Real Madrid did not let up. They came exactly as they had all first half, fired up, vicious, ready to pick the war straight back up where it had been left. Kroos, Modric, Casemiro, Valverde, all of them rushed in, fast, pressing, hunting, snapping into the marks.
Too bad for them. Barcelona had decided to play a different game.
De Jong slid it square to Alba. Alba carried it forward, and Valverde came across to meet him, and Alba shifted it, beating him, and as Valverde planted a foot to recover Alba simply paused, let him commit, and rolled it off to the side. Mateo was there. Mateo took it, and Modric flew in, and Mateo back-heeled it, no look, away to the left where Dembele was waiting, and as Dembele took it the two of them ran past each other, Mateo peeling out toward the left this time.
"And, interesting, it seems Mateo King is dropping much deeper this half. Barcelona, for now at least, are dealing with the Madrid press, working their way out of it—"
Dembele carried it into the middle and Casemiro came onto him, all weight and intent. Dembele did not waste a touch on him. He stabbed it first time, right, all the way across to the far side, where Messi was.
Messi watched it drop. And in the time it took to fall, he scanned, reading the whole pitch in a glance, and what he saw was Mendy coming hot. So he drifted a half-step deeper to take it.
The ball came down. Mendy arrived.
Messi did not trap it.
He let it glide across his body, gave it the gentlest push, and the ball ran straight through the gap between Mendy's legs, and Messi tilted his shoulders and slipped past on the left to collect it on the other side.
Dead.
If Jose Mourinho had been watching, he would have face-palmed hard enough to leave a mark. It was 2021, and someone was still trying to body Lionel Messi like that.
Messi had the ball, and Messi did not hesitate. He went.
"And Messi has nutmegged Mendy and he is AWAY, oh, he is into space now—"
Griezmann tore in off the shoulder. Mateo pulled wide on the left. Dembele filled the middle. And Messi came through it all, his face emptied of anything at all, no joy, no strain, nothing, just the cold blank of a man doing the thing he was put on earth to do.
Casemiro got across and got a hand into him, dragging at his shirt, hauling. Messi did not go down. He did not look for the whistle, did not buy the foul, and this was his sweet spot, this was exactly the patch of grass where a free kick became a goal. He backed himself on something else instead. His core. His balance. His dribbling. He powered through the drag, shrugging Casemiro off his back, and kept going.
Modric had sprinted all the way back to cut him off, set across the lane, the last man between Messi and the box. The 2018 Ballon d'Or winner. And the 2018 Ballon d'Or winner was helpless. A quick double touch, a feint of the hips, and Messi rolled the ball wide of him and stepped past, into the area.
"He is in the box. Lionel Messi is in the one place on this earth you do not want him to be—"
Drury was climbing out of his seat.
Courtois was off his line, shuffling, hands wide, eyes huge. Ramos came across to meet the danger. Messi drove at him, put an arm out, and Ramos stayed with it, refusing to dive in, backpedalling, matching him step for step. Messi kept coming. And then Messi stopped. He chopped it, hard, cutting back inside, and Ramos's whole body had to whip back the other way to follow, his weight thrown, his momentum gone.
"Shit—" Ramos got out, flinging himself backward.
Messi had beaten him.
He tilted to the side and his left leg came through in a single vicious quick-draw, snapping at the ball before Courtois had finished setting his feet—
Ramos was lucky. Messi had gone for the corner, for placement, not for power. The ball cracked off Ramos's back as the captain threw his body across it, the block more accident than design.
"OHHH—WHAT—HE'S NUTMEGGED ONE, BEATEN TWO, BEATEN THE CAPTAIN, AND THE SHOT IS BLOCKED—" Drury had completely gone. "WHAT IS THIS? What is this match? Three minutes into the second half! THREE! What fixture have they given us tonight? What entertainment is THIS?"
But the ball was still live.
Griezmann lunged for the rebound, sprinting onto it, but it had spun back off Ramos's body at the wrong angle, dribbling straight into the safe gloves of Courtois, who gathered it to his chest and held.
Mateo, who had been tearing in toward the back post for any spill, pulled up. He stood there and watched the whole thing resolve, the gloves closing around the ball, the danger gone.
And he smirked.
Well, he thought, watching Messi jog back, the man who had just run through half of Real Madrid like they were cones on a training pitch.
That's one way to find a way in.
...
And the game went on like that.
Forty-sixth minute. Madrid came.
Kroos swept it wide and Vinicius got it on the left, driving at Sergi Roberto, knocking it past him and tearing into the channel. He reached the byline and pulled it back, low and hard, and Benzema was there on the edge of the area, one touch to set, a little side-foot roll into the path of the run behind him. Valverde arrived at a sprint and hit it without breaking stride, a thunderous strike rising as it left his boot.
"He shoots—OHHH—"
It screamed over the bar and away, a yard, maybe less, the whole white half of the ground rising and groaning in the same breath. Ter Stegen had a hand on his post, watching it go, and let out a long breath.
Forty-ninth minute. Madrid again.
De Jong tried to thread one into Mateo's feet and Casemiro read it the whole way, stepping in front, intercepting clean. He laid it to Kroos. Kroos took a touch and rolled it to Modric, and Modric did not waste a beat, wrapping his foot around it, a trivela, the ball curling off the outside of his boot and bending into the box. Benzema climbed, getting a forearm into Pique to make his yard, and met it on the volley.
"He volleys it—"
Ter Stegen threw himself across his line and got something on it, the ball ricocheting off his trailing leg and spinning away, behind, for a corner.
"And what a stop, just the leg, just enough—"
And before anyone could even breathe out from that one, the game was moving again.
Kroos stood over the corner. He swung it in. Casemiro and Benzema jostled and peeled in the six-yard box, and Benzema rose, and he almost got it, almost, but Ter Stegen came soaring through the bodies and palmed it clear off the top of the German's head.
And the ball dropped to the feet of Mateo, on the edge of the box.
He took it down. Modric was on him in a flash, chopping a leg out to nick it off him, and Mateo, in one motion, tapped the ball up off the turf and let it ride past the lunge, planting a hand on Modric's back and using the Croatian as a springboard to swivel clear.
"Thanks," Mateo said, pushing off him.
And he ran.
"OH—and Barcelona break—Mateo King with it, and there is GRASS in front of him—"
The counter exploded out of their own box. Everyone running. Mateo ate the ground, the ball glued to his feet, and ahead of him there was Messi, already moving, miles up the pitch despite the distance, and Dembele tearing across to join them.
"And this is three against two—THREE AGAINST TWO—but, oh, but the two are Messi and King—"
Mateo's speed closed the gap to Messi in a blink. He surged toward Casemiro, the Brazilian backpedalling in panic, the Madrid shape in disarray, men sprinting back and not getting there. Mateo cut inside Casemiro, left him, drove on toward the left, and Varane came across as the last cover. Varane got a touch on him, a hand, a clip that started to take Mateo down, but Mateo had already played it, the ball sliding away an instant before he fell.
Dembele had it.
He did not waste a touch. He clipped it first time, across the face of everything, all the way to the far side—
Ramos threw himself at it.
His whole body stretched out, his face contorted, every fibre of him pouring into the slide, the sweat flying off him, one thought screaming through him.
Please. Let me get there.
God did not answer the captain's prayer this time.
The ball flew past his face. All he could do was watch it zip beyond his fingertips, and as he turned, twisting in the air, fresh sweat bursting across his skin, he saw the thing he did not want to see.
Messi. Already in place. Already set.
Messi moved onto it, the ball still dropping, and he tilted his body and planted his left leg and brought it through with that same vicious force, the connection pure, the ball flying low and hard for the bottom corner—
And if not for that absolute beast Courtois.
He flew. A full-stretch dive, every inch of him thrown across the goal, one enormous hand reaching to a place it had no right to reach.
BAM.
The sound of it, the water bouncing off the ball, the glove snapping back with the force, and somehow, somehow, he got it. He kept it out. He saved it.
The ball spun back into play and Messi sprinted onto the rebound, but Mendy got there first and hammered it away, anywhere, into the stand.
The whole stadium came apart.
Koeman went down onto his haunches on the touchline, both hands clamped on top of his head. On the other bench, Zidane stood with one hand over his open mouth, frozen. High in the presidential box, Laporta shot up out of his seat and spun to his executives, forgetting entirely who was sitting beside him.
"What—what—did you SEE that? DID YOU SEE THAT?"
"AND COURTOIS! COURTOIS DENIES HIM!" Drury was gone, utterly gone. "This is HIS world! This is Thibaut Courtois's world tonight! Messi, the run before it, King, the counter, the whole length of the pitch, and the Belgian says NO! He says no! The best in the world, and tonight he proves it!"
Out in the box, the chance gone, Ramos stayed on the ground.
He lay there for a second, flat on his back, chest heaving, and then his eyes closed and the air went out of him all at once, pure relief, the prayer answered after all, just not by him.
Courtois jogged over and reached down and rubbed a hand over the top of his captain's head.
"We've got this. We've got this. Up. Come on."
Since the start of the match it had been the clearest chance of the night, the closest anyone had come. But the Clasico lived up to its name once more, this time in the shape of Thibaut Courtois, and the scoreline held.
0-0.
Somewhere across the world, in an apartment in Los Angeles, a young man was on his feet, screaming at a screen.
"I SAID IT! I SAID IT! This guy is a BUM! He's a BUM! Give that to Ronaldo, that's a GOAL, that's a GOAALLL! RAWWR RAWR RAWR—"
IShowSpeed was halfway off his chair, both arms swinging, his whole body in it.
"Get this bum outta my face! Bum! BUM!"
A sound chimed over the stream, a little electronic flourish, and the mechanical donation voice cut in over the chaos.
Damienn donated ten dollars through Super Sub.
Speed dropped back into his chair, reaching for his water, taking a long swig.
"Ay, thank you for the ten, Damien. Wsin the chat, Ws, Ws."
Another chime, another robotic line reading out a question.
Speed why did you cut your europe tour early I thought you wanted to stay for the champions league final.
Speed nodded slowly, the bottle still in his hand. And something in his face changed. The clowning dropped away. For a moment there was a rare, real seriousness sitting on him.
"You know," he said, "I went around all them countries. All of 'em." He shrugged, one shoulder. "And nobody knew me. Nobody knew who I was."
He turned the bottle in his hand.
"It's whatever. It was sad, I'm not gonna lie to you, it was demoralising. But, you know." He shrugged again. "It's normal. That's normal. For now."
He set the water down on the desk.
He looked straight into the camera.
"But I'ma tell you what."
And then he smiled, slow and certain, the kind of smile that does not have a single doubt anywhere inside it.
"Give me a few years. A few years. And I promise you."
He leaned in.
"Every single person on this planet gonna know who IShowSpeed is."
Fifty-fifth minute.
Alba moved the ball forward and looked to slide it inside, and Valverde came through him, shoving, kicking it away and putting Alba on the floor in one heavy challenge, the ball spinning out for a throw.
Alba was up first, snatching the ball, screaming at Lahoz.
"You can't see that? YOU CAN'T SEE THAT? What are you watching?"
But then he saw it, fast.
Mateo, peeling into space down the line.
Alba did not waste another word. He whipped the throw out quick and flat, right into Mateo's run, and Mateo took it, and Valverde came at him to close it down, and Mateo simply side-stepped him, a single shift of the body, and moved on.
Mateo looked up.
He saw Courtois a touch off his line. He saw Ramos, Casemiro, Varane, all of them taking a step back, vigilant, holding, refusing to dive in. His brows knit a fraction at that.
But that's not for now.
He ran. He drifted left, linking with Dembele, the two of them threading it between them, one touch, two, and Dembele tipped it forward into his path, and Mateo ran onto it, into the area—
And Ramos was on him. Not diving in. Bodying. Guarding. Steering him, leaning his weight in, refusing to give him the half-yard to shoot, walking him further and further from the angle until the ball rolled off Mateo's foot and over the line for a goal kick.
Mateo had lost the ball.
And Mateo smiled.
He looked at Ramos, and as the captain turned to jog back without so much as a glance at him, Mateo muttered after him.
"Hope you keep it up."
He said it teasing, light. Ramos did not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, just jogged away.
But the smile stayed on Mateo's face. Because after fifteen minutes of the second half, watching, reading, testing, he had finally found it.
He had found his way to his first goal of the game.
...
A move built in midfield, Barcelona stroking it side to side, the crowd swelling on every pass. Mateo took it deep, dropped his shoulder and slid past Modric, and as he came up he flicked his eyes toward the Madrid goal.
Now?
Before the thought had even finished, Casemiro slid in and took the ball off his foot. The Brazilian did not just win it, he covered it, body between Mateo and the ball, shielding, guarding, refusing to free it as more white shirts folded in around him, and the ball was shepherded out to the sideline.
Madrid throw.
"And there it is again, Mateo King, who you'll have noticed is sitting much deeper now, much more involved in the middle third than the front line—oh, and we're getting word. Barcelona's first change of the night."
"Expected and unexpected all at once," the second man said. "De Jong makes way. And on comes the midfield prodigy. Pedri."
A patch of the Barcelona end rose, clapping the teenager on.
The Madrid end had other songs.
"WHO'S THIS BOY MEANT TO BE? WHO'S THIS BOY?"
"WELCOME TO MADRID, NIÑO!"
"THIS ISN'T GETAFE! THIS ISN'T GETAFE!"
"YOU'RE NOT READY, SON! GO HOME!"
"ANOTHER FAKE! ANOTHER BARÇA FAKE!"
The Madrid faithful had been boiling all week. They had heard a boy, a kid who had won nothing, stand in front of a camera and say their club was no different from a youth team. They had heard him abuse their captain. They had heard the whole world line up to promise that Barcelona would destroy Real Madrid. And now? Now the kid could not even get forward. Sitting deep. Hiding. Had everyone forgotten this was Real Madrid? This was Los Blancos. You do not run your mouth at this club and walk away clean. The fifty-eighth minute, and the boy had nothing. Was this the team the league was supposed to fear?
The chants grew, and grew, and grew.
While the substitution was made, players drifted to the touchline for water or instruction. On the Madrid side, Zidane had Kroos and Valverde in close, pointing, drawing lines in the air, setting something.
On the Barcelona side, Mateo stood drinking from a bottle, Busquets beside him.
"Don't mind that," Busquets said, nodding at the noise raining down from the white end. "It means they're rattled. It's a good thing, them doing this. Honestly. It's a plus."
Mateo nodded.
A few feet away, Koeman had Pedri by the shoulder, talking fast and clear, the instructions pouring out, where to sit, when to press, how Barcelona would defend and how they would break. "And tell Griezmann to push higher. He doesn't have to stay pinned. He can float, move around, find the pockets, you understand? Be fluid. All of you, be fluid."
"Got it, gaffer," Pedri said.
Koeman rubbed the back of the boy's head. "My man."
De Jong came across and they clasped hands. Lahoz was already waving everyone back, calling them in, the break over.
Koeman clapped De Jong's back. "Good shift. Good luck out there, eh."
And as he said it, his eye caught Mateo, off to the side, setting his water bottle down, turning to head back onto the grass.
Koeman went after him.
"Mateo. Mateo!"
Mateo turned.
Koeman came up, already reaching for the instruction. "Mateo, listen, you can—"
"Don't worry, coach." Mateo smiled at him. "I've found my way to score."
Koeman stopped. He blinked.
"Okay. Okay." He waved Mateo back toward him, suddenly eager. "What is it? Tell me."
Mateo came back, grinning, and Koeman leaned in, nodding, ready, hungry for whatever piece of genius the boy had cooked up.
Mateo smiled.
"I'm going to take the ball."
Koeman nodded along.
"And shoot."
"...Eh?"
Koeman's face did a complicated thing.
"Eh? Wha—what do you—"
But Mateo was already turning, already jogging back onto the pitch, the grin still on his face.
Koeman stood there. His hands came half up and just hung in the air. His head tilted to one side. He did not move from the edge of the touchline, frozen, staring after the boy, his whole face a question mark.
Did I hear that right?
"And Ronald Koeman appears to have just heard the single most bewildering thing of his managerial career," Drury observed, a laugh in it. "He has not moved. The man is rooted to the spot."
The game went on.
Fifty-ninth minute. Pedri settled in fast, and with him on the ball the whole team breathed, the tempo coming under control, the panic draining out of Barcelona's play.
Madrid had a spell. Mateo dropped back to mark, and they passed away from him, around him, and he turned and looked at the Madrid goal once more, the players standing in front of it, and a small smile cracked across his face.
His time would come.
In the sixty-first minute, it came.
Pedri stepped in front of Modric on the Barcelona half and nicked it clean, and he was away with it, driving, and Mateo screamed his name, tearing off to the left.
"PEDRI! PEDRI!"
Pedri lifted it, a high ball into space.
Mateo took it down out of the air, let it slide off his chest and his thigh, let it touch the turf and roll a yard ahead of him, and then he burst, every ounce of his speed firing at once, eating the ground, his head coming up.
And his eyes went to work.
Up, down. Up, down. Up, up, down. They darted across the whole picture in front of him, the angle, the keeper, the empty grass between, and in that half-second everything fell into place exactly the way he had been promising himself it would.
Yes. He had not been lying to Koeman. This was the plan.
He was going to shoot.
Thirty-six yards out.
"Surely he's not—" Koeman, on the touchline, his eyes going wide. This madman. He's actually going to shoot it.
"He can't be thinking of shooting from—"
"HE DID—"
Mateo planted his standing foot and swung through it, and the ball left his boot like it had been fired from something.
It screamed off the turf, rising, spinning, knuckling, a vicious dipping rocket of a thing, and every player on the pitch froze. The runs died on the spot. Ramos's eyes snapped up and tracked it. Vinicius, stood in his position, watched it go with his mouth open. Nobody moved. There was nothing to do but watch.
The ball tore through the air, dipping and swerving, and Courtois, who had drifted a step, was suddenly scrambling, backpedalling, throwing himself up and across his line, stretching, every inch of his enormous frame reaching for it, his fingertips grazing it, the faintest touch.
Let that be enough. Please. Please, God. Please—
But just as it had been for his captain minutes earlier, tonight God was not in the Alfredo Di Stéfano.
The ball flicked off the very tip of Courtois's fingers, and for half a second the deflection felt like salvation, just enough to lift it, and the ball cracked off the underside of the bar, that comforting sound, and Courtois's heart leapt thinking he had shifted it just enough—
And it came down off the bar with all that same vicious power still in it and buried itself deep into the back of the net.
GOAL.
Before anyone could even process what their eyes had seen, the whole place was already screaming.
AHHHHHHHHH. GOALLLLLLL.
The Barcelona end detonated, an explosion of bodies, fans pouring forward against the barriers, falling over rows, grabbing strangers, the entire section a single shrieking mass. Drury was not making words anymore. There were no words. There was just sound.
The pitch was no different.
Mateo was already running, sprinting, and because the goal had come from thirty-six yards out his teammates had to chase him from miles back, and as they swarmed to reach him he was weaving away from them, his face twisted into something fierce and open, screaming.
"LEAVE ME! FREE ME! FREE ME!"
He tore on, arms wide, ducking the first hands that reached for him, running and running and screaming into the night air, and the whole stadium had gone mad, and he pulled away from one teammate and spun off another and kept going, driving toward the Madrid side of the pitch.
He reached the front of Ramos and pulled up dead in front of him, both arms thrown out.
"FOUL THAT! Foul THAT! Block it! EH? EH?"
Ramos tilted his head back. He said nothing. He did nothing. He just looked.
But Mateo's celebration was not done.
He spun off and kept running, past the assistants, past the advertising boards, off the pitch entirely, sprinting along the touchline toward the broadcast desk where Henry and the others sat, toward the corner where the Madrid fans were massed, and that, that was his destination.
No knee slide. No badge kiss. No choreography. Just pure, total chaos.
His teammates caught up and grabbed at him, trying to haul him back, and he dragged them along with him, the whole churning knot of bodies, and he was screaming up into the wall of white faces.
"NO MORE CHANTS! You're not singing now! WHERE'S THE SINGING? I TOLD YOU! NO DIFFERENCE! NO DIFFERENCE! NO DIFFERENCE! Talk now! TALK NOW!"
The veins stood out in his neck, spit flying, his teammates wrapping arms around his chest and his waist and pulling, dragging him bodily backward as he leaned into the Madrid section roaring himself raw, the fans above him losing their minds, screaming back, and the whole corner of the stadium a heaving, churning storm of noise.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
Mateo was not the only one screaming like this. And for once it was not his obsessive uncle, nor his crush Olivia, who matched his energy. It was his mother.
Isabella was on her feet, the veins standing in her neck, screaming.
"¡VAMOS! ¡VAMOS, MI AMOR! ¡ESO ES!"
She slammed a cup of water down onto the table hard enough to spill it, not caring, the whole match having been an ordeal for her, every hit, every crash, every studded challenge into her boy. She had sat through all of it. And she had watched him strike that ball and watched it go in.
She rounded on the camera David was holding.
"¿Viste eso? ¿VISTE ESO? ¡Ese es mi hijo! ¡HIJO DE—!" A string of Spanish curses came tumbling out of her, fast and joyous and filthy, her hands flying, her whole body in it.
And then, mid-word, her voice cracked.
The screaming caught in her throat and turned over into something else, and her eyes filled, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as the tears came.
David lowered the phone.
"Aw. Baby." He crossed to her and pulled her in. "Come here. Come here."
She buried her face in his chest, laughing and crying at the same time, her shoulders shaking, and David held the back of her head and grinned over the top of it, his own eyes bright.
Unaware that he had just made his mother cry, Mateo was still up on cloud nine.
He was still in front of the dejected, seated Madrid fans, still going, his teammates around him now in the same fever, screaming with him and at him. He chested Pedri so hard the boy nearly went over. Messi had both arms wrapped around him from behind, dragging him, roaring into the side of his head.
"I love you! I love you! What a goal!"
Piqué got an arm around him from the other side, hauling.
On the touchline, Koeman was on the floor.
He had gone down, and the assistants were rushing to him, and he was looking up at them dazed, half-laughing, half-stunned, his hands out.
"He really did it. He, he actually—he REALLY DID IT—"
He scrambled up and grabbed the nearest assistant by both shoulders and shook him, jumping now, up and down.
"HE DID IT! HE DID IT! Did you SEE? FROM THERE? HE DID IT!"
As the celebration spilled toward the broadcast desk, Henry was on his feet.
Mateo reached him, screaming, "¡VAMOSSS!", and the former Barcelona man was screaming right back, no neutrality left in him at all.
"YOU'RE THE MAN! You hear me? YOU'RE THE MAN!"
They clasped hands hard and pulled into a half-hug over the desk. Behind Henry, Ferdinand and the rest just sat back, laughing, shaking their heads at the madness of it.
As the players finally peeled away to head back, Mateo turned one last time. He looked up at the Madrid fans, and he laughed, and he opened his mouth.
"Don't be sad! This is just the start!"
Walking back onto the pitch, the handshakes kept coming, the laughing, the disbelief. Alba shoved him in the chest.
"How did you even THINK of that? Eh? You're a madman. You're MAD."
Mateo just grinned and shoved him back.
In the stands, Luis Enrique was on his feet, applauding, slow and even.
Beside him, his staff clapped along. All but one. The assistant from before clapped too, but there was no smile on his face, only a single thought turning behind his eyes.
What in the world was that.
Out on the pitch, Ramos stood alone.
He looked around, kicked at the air, his jaw working. Varane came over to him.
"Captain. It's not over. We go again, yeah? We go." He clapped his hands, trying to spark it. "Come on. Heads up."
Ramos smiled. He shook his head and tapped his own chest, pumping it once, trying to give Varane something back. But the smile did not reach anywhere, and when Varane jogged off still clapping, still hyping, Ramos let it fall away.
He looked around the ground.
He saw the Barcelona end, still going mad, still cascading down out of the stand. He saw his own fans, the Madrid faithful, still on their feet but quieter now, trying to gather themselves back into order. He saw Modric and Benzema moving among the players, lifting heads, pointing, organising. He saw the Barcelona players still celebrating out on the grass while Lahoz tried to wave them back into shape. He looked to the touchline, and the usual cool was gone from Zidane, who was up and clapping and barking instructions.
And then Ramos looked up at the sky.
He stood there in the middle of it all, and for one moment he looked utterly alone, an island in a stadium of fifty thousand people. A long breath came out of him.
"What now," he murmured.
"You're not saying anything, Peter."
In the booth, the second commentator was laughing as he said it.
And then Drury's voice came. But it was not the voice that hundreds of millions knew. It was drawn quiet, hushed, almost hoarse.
"Thirty-six yards."
Everything went still around the words.
Then he spoke again.
"Thirty-six yards." He said it as if he still could not quite believe it had happened in front of him. "I have said a great many things about Mateo King already. I have called him the finest young talent in the world game. I have called him the most exciting thing to happen to this sport in a generation."
A pause.
"Thirty-six yards."
He let it breathe.
"And I fear that even then, even saying all of that, we may still have mischaracterised him. Mateo King." A beat. "You are the truth."
"¡VAMOSSS!"
Mateo wheeled toward the Barcelona end and flexed both arms at them, and the whole section roared back, laughing, screaming his name.
"¡VAMOS! ¡VAMOS!"
On the Madrid side, Benzema was clapping his hands together hard, trying to drag the game back into motion, pointing at Mateo and then at Lahoz, complaining, telling him to get the boy back into position and get on with it.
Lahoz went to Mateo.
He warned him, a few firm words. Mateo listened, still smiling, nodding along, and then he bent down to fix his sock, looked up at the referee with that same easy smile, and Lahoz frowned, held the look a second longer, and backed away.
"Benzema. Get on with your game," Lahoz said, and turned for the centre.
With the Barcelona fans still in full voice, the match resumed.
Real Madrid might have been a goal down, but they did not let it show. They came again, sharp, refusing to fold.
"And you have to say, Real Madrid have not dropped their heads here, they're straight back at it—but Barcelona, my word, this Barcelona are not a side you can take your eye off for a second—"
The press came on. Mateo pressed with it now, hunting. Modric got it and broke free of him, turned, looked to find Kroos, and Pedri almost stole it in the gap, fingertips of a touch away, the ball just evading him. Pedri smacked the turf with his hand.
"Shit—"
Kroos gathered it. Sergi Roberto closed him down, and Kroos chose to calm it, rolling it back, Madrid resetting, the ball going back to Mendy, to Ramos, to Courtois.
"And Madrid take the heat out of it, back to the goalkeeper, sensible, let the noise settle—"
Courtois had it at his feet, shouting, organising, arms wide. Dembele came pressing at him, and Courtois shaped a pass one way, sold the dummy, and rolled it the other, out to the right, to Varane.
The ball travelled.
And Varane was not fully switched on.
"¡CUIDADO! VARANE, CUIDADO!" Ramos was screaming.
Varane turned to it, reaching, and his standing foot slipped out from under him on the turf, and in the half-second he went down all he felt was a body arriving against him, and all he saw was a sock, a set of studs stretching past, a leg reaching the ball before his, and as he looked up from the ground the only thing he saw was the number 7.
"And Griezmann's on it! Varane has slipped, Griezmann pounces—"
Griezmann took it clean and went, into the box, Ramos sprinting back, Courtois scrambling to set his feet, and Griezmann did not rush it, did not blast it, just opened his body and stroked it low and smooth toward the right-hand corner.
Courtois threw himself across.
But the ball slid under him, past the fingertips, and nestled inside the post.
GOAL.
Real Madrid 0, Barcelona 2.
"Oh, so unlucky. So, so unlucky for Varane, what cruel luck—" Drury's voice was rising again. "But football does not care about luck. Not here. Not now. That does not matter to a single soul in the Catalan half of this ground. It's a goal. Varane slips, Griezmann punishes, and it is a GOAL. From a nil-nil game, to a worldie, to a slip, and in the space of two minutes, TWO MINUTES, Barcelona lead by two! What is this team? What is this firepower? Barcelona two, Real Madrid nil!"
On the touchline, Zidane had seen the slip the instant it happened, his hand coming out of his pocket, lurching forward as if he might run on and defend it himself.
"No—no—NO—"
When the ball went in, his hands flew up and he flung them at the sky, spinning away, his face twisted with it, shouting at nobody and everybody. Then, slowly, he pulled it back in. He started clapping, hard, deliberate.
"It's alright! There's time! There's still time, eh? Heads up!"
The cheers from the Barça end were still washing over the touchline, Koeman going wild on the other side. Zidane's assistant came hurrying over.
"Gaffer—"
Zidane cut him off without turning.
"Get Hazard and Rodrygo ready."
Out by the corner flag, Griezmann sprinted to the edge of the pitch, fist-pumping, leaping, and as he landed his teammates piled onto him. Mateo got there and jumped clean onto his back, laughing, the whole knot of bodies swaying.
Back in Spain, in Mateo's apartment, Aina and Olivia were wrapped around each other, jumping, shrieking, the two of them giggling into one another's shoulders as the room went mad.
"BARCELONA TWO! Barcelona two, and I'll say it again, this league is NOT over! Atlético Madrid, get ready. Chelsea, prepare yourselves. This Barcelona side are not playing. They are not smiling. They did not come here to entertain you. They are serious, they are fast, they are deadly, and they are coming!"
"¡Vamos! ¡This is Barça! ¡VAMOS!" The players threw their arms up at their fans, the fans screaming back down at them, the players clapping it back up, until Messi started gathering them. "Okay, okay. Back. It's time. Back to position." They drifted back still celebrating, every one of them finding Griezmann to clap him, to grab the back of his neck, on the way.
And while the Barcelona fans roared, the Madrid players had gone fully flat.
"Arghh." Vinicius groaned, crouching down, watching the blaugrana celebrate all around him. He looked up at the scoreboard.
0-2. Large and bold across the top.
He looked at it a long moment, then sank down and sat on the pitch, just staring at it, the fight drained out of him.
Then he looked to the side, and saw Rodrygo and Hazard up off the bench, warming, pulling off their bibs, changing. He sighed.
So. It's time.
He thought he was coming off. He pushed himself up to his feet, watching the players gather for the restart, watching the substitutes step toward the fourth official's board, and then he froze.
Wait. He didn't take me off.
His eyes went wide.
"And the changes for Real Madrid, a double switch, and it's an attacking one. Valverde makes way, and on comes Rodrygo, another of these Brazilian wonderkids. And Luka Modric comes off for Eden Hazard, the record signing, who of course Real Madrid will be hoping is finally finding form, because waiting for them in two weeks in that Champions League final is the very club he left, Chelsea—"
"This is Zidane going for it. Two down, and he is throwing more attackers on. He wants goals, and he wants them now."
And with everyone back on the pitch, with the noise finally settling enough to play, Lahoz moved into position. He got the ball spotted. He looked around the two sets of players, lifted his whistle, and blew.
The match resumed.
...
Real Madrid were, in all honesty, a mentality club. Maybe it was that, with thirty minutes left on the clock, or maybe it was simply two fresh quality legs walking onto the pitch, but for a spell Madrid took the upper hand in the running.
Sixty-sixth minute. Rodrygo, only minutes on, got it wide and went at Alba. He knocked it past the full-back and into the channel, pace eating the gap, and he reached the edge and cut inside, sharp, serious, driving into the area. Piqué came across to meet him and Rodrygo shifted again, rolling it the other way, beating Piqué's lunge, working the half-yard.
"And lovely feet from the young Brazilian, in off the right—"
Ter Stegen edged off his line. Rodrygo opened up and shot, and Piqué got a shove into his back as he struck it, the contact enough to skew it, and the ball spun off into the side netting.
"Wonderful movement from Rodrygo, just couldn't get the clean contact with Piqué all over him—"
Barcelona were not to be outdone.
Sixty-ninth minute. Pedri got it off Hazard, riding him, and Hazard went down as Pedri shrugged him clean off the ball. Lahoz gave nothing. Hazard sat there on the turf, one arm raised, appealing to no one.
"Pedri! PASS!" Mateo was screaming.
Pedri did not waste it. He prised the ball fully clear and released it, and Mateo took it, and Casemiro came to close him and Mateo went straight past him.
Casemiro clicked his tongue and hissed. "Fuck—"
Mateo drove right, and Ramos and Mendy both came to meet him, and he pulled them right, dragged them across, and then chopped back, and as they scrambled to follow he used his other foot to dink the ball up and over the pair of their heads.
"Back! BACK! Get back!" Ramos and Mendy were both yelling, both turning, but the ball had already floated over them, dropping perfectly onto Messi's feet.
"And there it is again, that partnership, King to Messi—how is this even allowed in club football? HOW? These two are tormenting one of the great defences—"
Messi took it in his stride and went, Casemiro chasing, and on both touchlines Koeman and Zidane stepped forward at the exact same moment, both reading the same danger.
Kroos hared back to cover. Messi drove in, and there was no need to break his charge, none at all, and he cut inside, looked for the angle, did not like it, and shifted it once more before laying it off with the outside of his right.
Dembele had beaten Carvajal on the overlap.
"And Dembele's away, Dembele is in—"
Courtois saw it coming. Two is enough. No more. No more. He came off his line, charging out to narrow it.
And Dembele, seeing the keeper come, did not stop. Neither of them stopped. The two of them tore toward the same patch of grass, all determination, neither giving the other an inch of respect.
I need this goal.
Dembele, for all that he had started ahead of Griezmann, could not really have told you he had earned it tonight, not when Griezmann already had a goal on the board. A tap-in off a slip, fine, but a goal was a goal. And if his rival had one, then it was only right he got his own.
This was it.
He stretched out his leg as he reached it and turned the ball, feeling it leave his boot a fraction before Courtois got there, tilting it away from the onrushing keeper, and a smile broke across his face as he did it, his mind already screaming I did it, I did it, now to—
He started to wheel away, the empty net opening up in front of him, his smile climbing—
And then a massive force caught his legs.
Courtois, beaten to the ball, had come through the back of him, and Dembele's legs were swept clean out from under him. The smile fell off his face as the world turned over. He hit the ground hard, and from down in the grass all he could do was watch as Carvajal got across and hacked the ball away, his goal gone, slipping out of his hands as fast as it had arrived.
"PENALTY! That's a penalty all day! Courtois has taken the man, he's missed the ball entirely and taken the man, Dembele had rounded him—the Barcelona supporters are LIVID, they have just seen their goal denied—"
But the referee had not blown. And though the ball had been hacked clear, it was still live.
Piqué and Benzema wrestled for it, the ball squirting out, Rodrygo getting to it, Alba meeting him and booting it straight out for a throw. Alba did not care in the slightest that he had given the ball away, and neither did a single one of his teammates.
With the ball out, they rushed the referee.
Messi went. Mateo went, screaming, "Foul! FOUL! How is that not a pen? HOW?" Lahoz was shouting them back. Busquets barged in, "Check it! What is VAR FOR? CHECK IT!" Pedri, Alba, all of them, descending on Lahoz, the whole ground howling for it.
The Madrid players piled in to meet them, shoving the Barcelona players back, and the Barcelona players did not care about the shoving, just kept jabbing fingers at the referee, kept demanding he check it.
Vinicius got a hand into Mateo, pushing him back. "Stop crying, eh? Stop—"
Mateo did not even register the push. He looked back once, annoyed, and snapped: "Bro, who the fuck are you, really? Like, who ARE you?" And then he turned straight back to the referee, Vinicius forgotten.
The fans were no different.
In Mateo's uncle's house, Oriol had both arms around the television, screaming into the screen. "WHAT IS THIS? WHAT IS THIS?" Nora was beside him, shrieking, "How is that not a penalty? The ref's a PIG!" "It's Lahoz! That Bastard" Oriol roared, as if that explained everything, and then Grandma Nuria opened her mouth and a torrent of the hardest Catalan curses any of them had ever heard came pouring out, the old woman raining filth at the referee with both fists clenched.
And there were millions of households exactly like it. To the viewers, to the neutrals, that challenge on Dembele was, without a shadow of a doubt, a foul and a penalty.
In the broadcast booth on the sideline, Henry was up. "Pen. PEN. That's a pen—"
"I mean, he—" Ferdinand started.
"What are you even saying, mate?" Henry rounded on him, hot. "That's a clear penalty. He's taken his legs, he's missed the ball completely. The fans are angry and they're right to be."
Back on the pitch, Lahoz was overwhelmed, bodies pressing in from both sides. Dembele reached him, "He caught my legs, he caught my legs—" The Madrid players crowded the other side, "Ref, it's a fair challenge, it's a save—" the noise, the scatter, until Lahoz finally snapped, throwing both arms out, bellowing them all back, and slowly the players gave him air.
Dembele looked at him and said it level. "He caught my legs."
"And Lahoz has stepped away now, he's talking to the video official—Peter, what do you make of it?"
"I cannot lie to you," Drury said. "That is a penalty any day of the week. The boy has knocked it past him, the goalkeeper has come for the ball and got nothing but the man. If this is not given, there will be questions."
"Talk to me. What do you have," Lahoz said into his earpiece.
Off to the side, Mateo was pacing. "What is he still saying?"
"Mateo. Calm down." Alba had a hand on him.
Mateo shook it. "And why isn't he going to the touchline to look at it himself? Does he have an eye problem? Why won't he go and LOOK?"
And it was not only Mateo asking. On the touchline, Koeman and his assistants and half the bench had surrounded the fourth official, crowding him, demanding to know why Lahoz would not go to the monitor himself. The fourth official was waving them back. De Jong was in it. Riqui Puig was in it. The whole technical area a knot of pointing arms.
"You should all let the officials do their job."
They turned their heads. Zidane stood there, hands loose, calm, watching them. Koeman just stared at him, his eyes wide, and turned away. "What is this one even saying."
"Okay. Okay. Okay, then." Lahoz, getting the final word in his ear.
And while everyone was losing their minds, a decision had been reached.
Lahoz walked back toward the pitch. The fans came up onto their feet, both ends, silent for the first time all night, every eye on the man in the middle. He reached his spot. He lifted his whistle. He blew.
And he made the signal. Play on. No penalty.
"Come on!" Griezmann screamed. Mateo threw both hands in the air. "I KNEW it! I knew it!" Dembele just shook his head, lying back on the turf. Messi was already clapping, moving among them. "It's okay. It's okay. We regroup. We regroup."
"No penalty! NO penalty—" The booth was stunned. "And Ronald Koeman has gone absolutely ballistic on that touchline—wait—wait, that's a yellow card, a yellow card for Koeman, just to add to Barcelona's wounds—"
Koeman flung both arms away from himself. "Oh, FUCK OFF—" He turned, spinning away, ranting, his assistants moving to hold him. "This man. THIS MAN again. How is that not a pen? He's past him, the ball's gone, the keeper's taken him, and nothing? Him AGAIN? Who gave this man his licence? WHO?"
For all of it, Lahoz's decision stood.
No goal.
And the game restarted from the throw, from where Alba had booted it clear.
Rodrygo took it, threw it in flat to Kroos. The ball moved, Busquets, De Jong, Araújo all in it, and then it found Hazard, and for one moment the brilliance of a once-great man flickered back to life. He took a touch, dropped a shoulder, shifted it, and grunted as he slid a through ball into the run of Vinicius.
"And Hazard, a glimpse, a flash of the old Eden there—and Vinicius is away—"
Vinicius ran. Sergi Roberto chased him, and Vinicius bullied through it, a rough, shoulder-to-shoulder, both-hands kind of dribble, refusing to be put off, and he carried it into the box, knocked it past Araújo, and as the angle closed he turned and shot.
GO.
He almost fell as he struck it, the ball flying off hot and low and vicious. Ter Stegen flung himself down to his right and got both palms to it, but the shot was too much, the power tearing it out of his grip, and the ball bounced loose off his hands.
Loose ball.
In the box. Piqué scrambling, bodies everywhere. And a loose ball dropping in front of Big Benz.
Benzema got there. Ter Stegen, half up off the floor, lunged back for it, Piqué grabbing, reaching, and Benzema stuck out a long leg and the ball hit his boot and—
Goal.
Real Madrid scores.
What followed was high tension. Real Madrid hunting the equaliser, Barcelona pushing to restore the cushion, the ball flying end to end in a furious, ragged exchange.
Real Madrid had been underwhelming this season. No trophies, a campaign sliding to nothing. They had been underwhelming for stretches of this match too. They did not look it now.
Seventy-fourth minute. Madrid came.
Kroos clipped one out to Carvajal, overlapping, and the full-back stood it up first time into the box. Rodrygo peeled off Alba at the back post and rose to meet it, getting up above the defender, snapping his head through it.
"Header—"
It flashed wide. A foot, maybe less. Rodrygo landed and put both hands on his head, staring at the post, and the whole white end groaned as one.
"And that, that was the comeback, that was the moment right there—"
In the broadcast booth, Ferdinand was up out of his chair. "I TOLD you! I told you this team is something else! You can never count Real Madrid out, never! When I die, bury me in a Madrid shirt, I'm telling you, THIS is a team—"
Henry was laughing at him. "Sit down, Rio. Sit down, man."
Seventy-eighth minute. Barcelona's turn.
And it was the three of them again. Messi dropped, Pedri showed, Mateo pulled wide and came back inside, and the ball started to move between them at a speed that did not look fair.
"And who let these three find each other again? This combination, AGAIN—what are they cooking up here—"
One touch, two, Pedri to Messi, Messi clipping it first time, Mateo arriving onto it—
BAM.
Mateo met it and turned it in one motion, the ball spinning off at an angle, threading between the lines. Varane lunged a leg out at it, stretching, and as he reached he lost his feet and went down, and the ball skidded past him into space.
"He's free! Griezmann is free, what a ball—"
Griezmann burst onto it, but Ramos was already chasing, hauling himself across, herding the Frenchman left, blocking the angle, riding him wide. Griezmann set himself to shoot and Carvajal nipped in from the side and stole it clean off his toe, turning it back, and Griezmann's momentum carried him over, down onto the turf, slapping his palm flat against the grass.
"Shit—"
He was up again in a flash, sprinting back after the ball.
Seventy-ninth minute. The counter off the steal.
Carvajal fed Kroos, Kroos turned the field with one pass out to Hazard, and Madrid broke fast, Benzema peeling off the front, dragging Piqué, opening the lane. Hazard slid it into Casemiro arriving late, and Casemiro took one touch and let fly from the edge.
"Casemiro, from distance—"
Bodies threw themselves in front of it, Busquets, Araújo, a forest of blue legs, and the ball cannoned off a shin and spun up and away, hacked clear.
Eighty-second minute. Barcelona, not to be outdone, came again.
And it was Messi, on the ball, gliding.
"And he's at it AGAIN—what does he want now, does this man never tire—"
He drifted, drew two, and slipped a through ball into the gap with the inside of his foot.
Mateo burst onto it, between Ramos and Varane, splitting them, and he was past, and Ramos gritted his teeth and lunged, his fingers catching the fabric of Mateo's shirt, grabbing, clutching, the cotton stretching in his fist, and then it tore free of his grip and Ramos stumbled, almost going down, clawing at air, and Mateo was gone.
"He's through—King is THROUGH—"
He reached it, took a big touch, too big, the ball ricocheting off his boot and skidding ahead, and Courtois bolted off his line. Mateo sprinted after it, stretching, and got there a hair too late, and Courtois threw his whole body over the ball and smothered it to his chest. Mateo could not stop, leaping over the prone keeper, almost going head over heels, his arms windmilling for balance as he stumbled clear.
He caught himself. He stood for a second, hands on his hips, then let his head fall back and breathed a long sigh up at the lights. And then he just sat down, down onto the turf, and lay back, spreading his arms wide across the grass, chest heaving, staring up at the night.
THIS WAS THE CLÁSICO.
And anyone who knew anything about this fixture knew that at eighty-two minutes the game was not nearly finished. If anything, it had only just begun. There was a reason every single soul connected to that pitch was on their feet right now. The coaches. The substitutes. The fans. The elderly couple in the stands. The cancer-stricken old woman who had stood on that festival stage and told a team to fight. All of them, up, watching, seeing this. Even the readers at home, some changing hands on the book, some reading with every held breath, all of them standing too. Nobody could believe it.
This was the game. Barcelona had played many matches this season. This was the one. This was THE GAME. And everyone stood out of respect for it.
With the sole exception, of course, of Florentino Pérez.
And the game went on.
Eighty-Third minute.
Messi drifted in off the right, Mateo pulling across to support him, and the two of them rolled it between each other on the edge, drawing the white shirts in. Mateo cut inside, dragging a man with him, and then spun a sudden disguised pass back out, square, to the top of the box.
"¡MESSI!"
The shot came first time, low and skidding for the bottom corner—
"And DENIED again by Courtois! Denied AGAIN! He may have conceded twice tonight but the Belgian is having the game of his life, he is single-handedly keeping Real Madrid in this football match—"
Messi dropped to his knees on the edge of the box, staring at the goal.
Mateo jogged over to him. Messi looked up. "I missed that," he said, the disbelief plain on his face, as if scoring from a tight corner outside the box against the best goalkeeper in the world were the most natural thing he should have done.
Mateo hauled him up by the arm. "We'll get another. We'll get another one."
And he had not lied.
Eighty-Fifth minute. Barcelona built again.
Mateo dropped and switched with Dembélé, the two of them crossing, the one-twos starting, Pedri drawn into it, the ball pinging between the three. Pedri slipped it back into Mateo's run, and Mateo took it, and Carvajal arrived and bodied him, a hard shoulder, shoving him clean off the ball.
Mateo stumbled. "HEYY—"
Carvajal did not care.
He turned, and he was away with it, and this was not a man content to simply clear his lines. Ramos was not the only one out here with a point to prove tonight. Carvajal had heard the same talk all week, read the same lists of who Spain should pick, and he had spent a career being the name they forgot to mention. He would not be forgotten tonight.
He carried it, fed Kroos, kept running, took the return. He linked with Rodrygo, one touch, got it back, and surged toward the edge of the Barcelona box, and as the angle opened he hit it.
The shot cracked toward goal, and Benzema came tearing across the six-yard line, Piqué grappling at him, the two of them shoving, and Ter Stegen got down to it first, and Benzema fired into the block, the ball thudding off the keeper's chest and spinning loose.
And it dropped at Hazard's feet.
Hazard did not waste it. A drop of the shoulder, beating Busquets, and he slid his shot low through the gap between Busquets's legs, and with Ter Stegen stranded—
"GOAL! GOALLL! Madrid have done it, Madrid have completed the counter—"
The whole white half of the ground erupted. Hazard wheeled away, arms out, roaring, his old self for one shining moment. Zidane charged out of his technical area screaming, both fists in the air. In the booth Ferdinand was up again, "I TOLD you! I TOLD YOU!", McManaman beside him celebrating, and Henry just stood with both hands on his head. Ramos screamed up at the sky, fists clenched.
In Mateo's parents' house, David's hands went to his head. Isabella was shaking her head at the screen. "It can't be. It can't be—"
"And there it IS! This team! This TEAM! Atlético Madrid may despise them, the whole of Spain may have written them off, but NOT tonight! From two-nil down, Real Madrid have hauled themselves all the way back, and at the Alfredo Di Stéfano it is TWO—"
"Wait. Wait."
The second commentator's voice cut across him.
"I'm hearing—it's not a goal. It's not a goal. Lahoz is calling something in the build-up—"
"What?"
"A foul in the build-up. The referee has disallowed it. What a turn of events. It is NOT a goal. It stays two-one. It stays TWO-ONE."
Out on the pitch, Zidane was spinning, looking everywhere. "What? What's going on? WHAT?" His eyes found Lahoz, arm raised, pointing back upfield, ruling it out. Zidane's face came apart. He stormed toward the fourth official. "What is wrong with you? This is ROBBERY! ROBBERY!"
And a voice came from the side.
"You should let the officials do their job."
Koeman. Hands in his pockets. Not even looking at him.
Zidane turned and stared at him, a glare that could strip paint, and Koeman just let it sit there, the exact words handed back to the exact man who had given them.
"How? When? WHEN?" The Madrid players had swarmed Lahoz now, Benzema, Kroos, Carvajal, all of them, hands out, demanding. Lahoz stood his ground, pointing back to where Mateo had been bodied off the ball by Carvajal in the build-up. "Foul. There. Foul on the number seven."
"HOW IS THAT A FOUL?" Benzema was screaming.
The white shirts pressed in, desperate, furious, and the Barcelona players came to meet them, and Mateo was right in the middle of it, shouting back into the wall of Madrid faces.
"When you can't play football, play football! Play a NORMAL game! Stop looking for fouls, it won't always save you, eh? PLAY!"
"¡VOS! What did you—"
The two sets of players surged together, chests and arms, the noise climbing, until Lahoz drove his way into the middle of it, whistle shrieking, both arms flung wide, bellowing, scattering them back to their halves.
Two-one. Still.
"And the decision stands. It's two-one. Lahoz sticks to his guns—" A laugh entered the booth. "Well. Let us just see if Real Madrid can do it all over again. And whether Barcelona have any intention of allowing it this time."
The game restarted from the free kick.
Messi stood it up into the box, bodies grappling and peeling, and Ramos rose through the middle of them and hammered it clear with his head. He landed and screamed up into the night, both fists clenched.
"ARGHHHH! LET'S DO THIS! ¡HALA MADRID! LET'S GOOO!"
Eighty-Seventh minute. The ball flew end to end.
Barcelona worked it wide and Dembélé stood up a cross, and Griezmann met it at the back post on the volley, and a white shirt threw a body in the way, the ball cannoning off and behind. Straight back the other end, Hazard slipped Benzema in down the side of Piqué, and Benzema cut it back across the face and Casemiro arrived to smash it, and Ter Stegen flung up a hand and turned it over the bar.
"Sheeesh—" Koeman, on the touchline, both hands dragging down his face.
Eighty-Eighth minute.
And it built slow, and it built dangerous.
Barcelona had Madrid pinned now, the whole team camped around the edge of the white box, the ball circulating, probing, Messi here, Pedri there, the angles opening and closing. Madrid dropped deep and packed it, every man behind the ball, hunting the clearance that would not come.
Messi rolled it. Mateo took it, gave it, moved. Dembélé pulled wide and Mateo drifted across, the two of them crossing, switching, and the Madrid line shuffled to follow the swap, heads turning, and in the half-second their eyes went to the wrong man, Messi looked up and chipped it.
A soft, perfect ball, floating over the top toward the left of the box.
Mateo went for it.
Ramos went with him, a fistful of shirt already in his hand, hauling, dragging, screaming.
"You're not going! NO! You're not going anywhere—"
Mateo did not look at him. He felt the drag pulling him back and sideways, felt the whole weight of the captain trying to wrench him off his line, his chest heaving, his legs fighting for the ground, and he did not waste a single glance on Ramos. His eyes were on the ball. His eyes found Courtois.
And then it happened.
He leaned into the drag instead of fighting it, let Ramos's pull bend his body sideways, low, almost folding in half, and as the ball dropped he scissored his legs through it, his whole frame torquing around, every ounce of the force the drag had loaded into him snapping out through his boot—
WHAM.
The ball left him like a thunderclap.
Courtois moved. Courtois had no chance. The ball screamed past him before he had finished the dive, into the roof of the net, and the net snapped back and the entire world detonated.
GOAL.
"AHHHHHH—WHAT—WHAT WAS THAT? WHAT DID I JUST SEE?" Drury was gone, utterly, completely gone. "Off balance, held, dragged, falling, and he SCISSORS it in? He SCISSORS IT IN? What is this? WHAT IS THIS MATCH? What are we watching? WHAT ARE WE WATCHING?"
Mateo had hit the turf from the contortion of it, and he was up in an instant, and the sound that came out of him was not a word.
"AHHHHHHHHH—"
The whole stadium had lost its mind. He turned and he sprinted, tearing for the corner flag, and as he ran he stripped the shirt clean off over his head, the first time he had done it since his debut, and he flung it spinning into the air and dropped into a slide across the turf on his knees. The veins stood out in his neck and his arms, his bare chest heaving, and he came up off the slide and leapt onto the base of the corner flag, one fist punching it, standing on the turnbuckle of it, roaring up at the Barcelona end.
"AHHHHHH—"
He banged his fist against his chest, again, again, screaming himself raw at the wall of blue and red that screamed back down at him.
On the touchline, Koeman had ripped away too, jumping, both fists pumping the air, bellowing with the rest of them.
And everywhere, all of it, the whole of Barcelona came alive at once. People spilled out of houses. Back in the city they saw it, they felt it, they knew it in their bones. That was the end. That was their goal. That was it. That was FC Barcelona.
¡VAMOSSS!
On the pitch, Mateo had his shirt back, but he was not done. He moved back through his teammates, weaving away from their touches, their hands, their roars, taking the praise on the move, and he carried himself over to where Ramos stood. He held the shirt up at him.
"Didn't you want this?" He waved it. "Here. Take it. I don't need it again."
Varane shoved him in the chest. "Get out of here, man—"
"What?" Mateo kept going, half-laughing, all venom. "Didn't he want it? He kept pulling it. Ooh, do I need to sign it for him first, or—"
It tipped over into a scuffle, bodies coming together, and Mateo was still shouting through it.
"Then why was he pulling it? WHY WAS HE PULLING IT?"
"Who ARE you, eh? You've got no respect—" the white shirts roared back.
Lahoz arrived, driving in between them, shoving players apart, screaming them back. And then he turned to Mateo, reached into his pocket, and held up the yellow card for the removal of his shirt.
Mateo did not even look at it.
In the presidential box, Laporta was on his feet, shaking hands down the row with the Barcelona executives, laughing, beaming. He sat back down, turned to the man beside him.
"Good match. Good match, eh."
Pérez did not answer. He kept his eyes down on the pitch, where Lahoz was finally separating the two teams, where the Barcelona players were drifting back, where Mateo, his shirt back on now, was waving both arms at the crowd, hyping them, screaming into the noise.
"That your player," Pérez said.
Laporta laughed, looking down at him. "Ahh. Don't mind him. He's still young." He chuckled. "Still young."
Pérez watched Mateo a moment longer.
"He's good."
Laporta settled fully back into his seat. And he smiled.
"He's great."
...
"And THAT, surely, is that. Atlético Madrid's dreams, shaken to the core tonight—Simeone, back to the drawing board, my friend, because you will need something close to magic to stop this. Three-one, Barcelona, and they have one hand on the league—"
Benzema clapped his hands hard at the centre spot, urging everyone up, ready to restart. Both benches had moved by now. Koeman had made his changes, Dest on for Sergi Roberto, Pjanić on for Busquets. Zidane had gone again too, Isco on for Kroos, Marcelo on for Mendy.
And even with the fresh legs, even two goals down with the clock running out, the intensity did not drop a single degree. Real Madrid still believed in the comeback. Maybe that was just what it meant to wear the shirt.
Eighty-Ninth minute. Just a minute after the goal, Madrid came.
Isco took it in the half-space and threaded one first time, a clever ball, splitting two, into Benzema's feet with his back to goal. Benzema laid it off to Rodrygo breaking outside, and Rodrygo whipped it across the face of goal, low and hard, and Vinícius slid in at the back post stretching every sinew, and the ball flashed off his studs and a whisker wide.
"Ohh, inches—Vinícius almost there—"
Still the Eighty-ninth minute.
And it was Messi, drifting, with the ball at his feet and Marcelo in front of him.
He went at him. A shimmy, a drop of the shoulder, the ball rolled one way and his body the other, and Marcelo lunged, and Messi simply was not there anymore, gone past him on the outside before the Brazilian had finished committing.
"And Messi leaves Marcelo for dead—" a laugh broke into Drury's voice. "Welcome to the Clásico, Marcelo. Welcome along. You're only just on—"
Messi drove to the byline and pulled it back, and Mateo arrived onto it at the penalty spot and met it first time, and Courtois threw out a strong hand and beat it away, behind, for a corner.
Ninetieth minute.
Marcelo, stung, got forward to make amends, overlapping down the left and standing one up to the back post. Benzema climbed above Piqué and got his head to it, and it dropped to Isco on the edge, who took a touch and curled it, and it bent just past the upright, Ter Stegen watching it the whole way, beaten but saved by the woodwork's margin.
The white end howled. So close.
Ninety-second minute. The temperature flared.
Pedri picked the ball up between the lines and turned, and Isco came through the back of him, late, a clatter that took the man and not the ball. Pedri went down and wrapped himself around it, cradling it, shielding, exactly the way Busquets had done in the first half, screaming up at the referee.
"Foul! Foul, referee!"
This time Lahoz blew. And this time he reached into his pocket.
The yellow card went up at Isco.
"And finally a booking, Isco, only just introduced, and into the book already for that one on Pedri—"
Pedri got up still hugging the ball to his chest, glaring at Isco, who threw his hands wide in protest. Mateo jogged over and put a hand on Pedri's shoulder, said something low, and the two of them turned away as Barcelona set themselves over the free kick.
The clock ticked on, deep into the closing minutes now, and still the score held.
Real Madrid 1, Barcelona 3.
The game was ticking away.
Ramos was sweating hard, his chest heaving, and he kept glancing up at the board on the touchline. The large 94 glowed back at him. One minute of added time left. One.
No. It can't end like this.
Too bad for him. The ball was in the hands of Barcelona, and this Barcelona side knew only one thing.
Attack.
That was all this team understood, and that was what they did. Messi carried it, drifting infield, Marcelo tracking him, and Messi rolled it square into Mateo, who took it and drove into the box.
And Ramos was there to meet him.
The two of them faced each other one last time, and there was no smile on either face now. None left. Just the boy, and the captain, and the few yards of grass between them.
Nothing now. No more. No more.
Mateo went at him.
What followed was not a contest. It was a humiliation. Mateo rolled the ball right and Ramos shifted, dragged it back left and Ramos scrambled to follow, his legs heavy, his balance going, picking himself up and resetting only to be sent the other way again. Right. Ramos planted. Left. And Ramos could not go again. His body simply would not answer, and all he could do was throw a despairing leg out at empty grass.
Mateo shook his head. He turned. Varane was charging across, Courtois shifting his feet to set, and Mateo did not rush any of it. He opened his body and let a curling shot away off his left foot.
It bent past Courtois's hand and kissed the inside of the far post on its way in.
GOAL.
Mateo turned to where Ramos lay sprawled on the turf, and he pointed down at him with his thumb, and he shook his head, slow, side to side.
Then he jogged away, toward the corner, and he climbed to the front of it, and he raised both arms wide, and he closed his eyes, and he simply stood there, head tipped back, accepting all of it, the entire stadium pouring down over him, in front of the Madrid fans who had sung at him all night.
"And he gets his hat-trick! He talked his talk, and he has walked it! Mateo King three, Barcelona four, Real Madrid one! He said he liked his record against this club, and he has begun it in some style. And another piece of history repeats itself tonight, for in 2007, a nineteen-year-old Lionel Messi scored three against the Galácticos. Fourteen years on, a seventeen-year-old Mateo King has matched him, goal for goal, three against Real Madrid."
Drury let it breathe, and when he came back his voice had dropped into something close to reverence.
"And say what you will. Call it disrespect, call it arrogance, call it whatever lets you sleep. But I understand it now. I understand the attacks on this boy. I understand the hatred. Because they are afraid of him. They are afraid of the legacy writing itself in front of their eyes. A rate of history is happening here, and the penmanship on this story is divine. And it is right, it is only right, to be afraid of it."
Out on the grass, Ramos lay on his back where he had fallen.
He brought a hand up and laid it over his face, his chest still heaving, the breath dragging in and out of him. He stayed like that a long moment, alone in the middle of the storm, while a stadium roared a boy's name above him. No tears. Just the weight of it pressing down.
Then he let the hand slide off. He looked up at the sky.
Maybe it's time to leave.
This El Clásico was one for the history books. A pure classic, every minute of it. But the most memorable thing in all of it was the thing happening right now.
Mateo King, stood at the front of the corner, his teammates flooding toward him, his arms spread wide and his eyes shut, his chest still rising and falling, taking in every last decibel the Real Madrid fans had left to give him. They had welcomed him to the Bernabéu. They had told him he was not ready. They had sung that he would disappear like all the rest.
He did not say a word back to them.
He just stood there, arms open, and let them watch him become exactly who he had told them he would be.
End.
A/N
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