Chapter 141
Translator: uly
Chapter: 141
Chapter Title: Start (4)
First half, 4th minute.
[Zambo Angissa!]
The commentary team shouted.
Fulham's defensive midfielder Zambo Angissa succeeded in cutting the ball simply by attempting a sliding tackle in Fulham's arc.
Screech-!
Right after, Angissa sprang up from sweeping the field with his entire body and poked the ball forward with a short pass.
Thud-!
Ooooh-!
It was the moment the Cottagers on the away end let out a gasp.
Shin-seong—no, Amad Diallo took the short pass to the left with a turn and immediately burst forward on a dribble.
“Huff, huff-!”
Even as he exhaled short breaths, he elegantly pushed the ball with the instep of his right foot, then his left.
Inside, he ground his teeth.
‘Bolton...!’
To Amad Diallo, Bolton was a team that left only bad memories.
Hadn't they handed him a crushing defeat in his first preseason friendly last season?
After that, Solskjær had completely excluded him from the starting lineup.
For Diallo, it was inevitable that he felt like he'd lost his starting opportunities because of Bolton.
Thud-!
This time, he struck the ball with an outside-of-the-left-foot shot.
Screech-!
Just then, Frank Gerrard charged in from the flank at his previous position and went for a standing tackle.
Gerrard grimaced slightly at the divot left in the turf by the studs and lifted his head.
In that instant, Diallo had shifted from the half-space to the side.
Thwack-!
Not stopping there, Diallo accelerated and instantly opened up a gap with Frank Gerrard.
Ooooh-!
The Cottagers' cheers grew even louder at his tremendous pace.
Diallo felt a thrill from having pierced the opponent, even if briefly.
Then he thought ahead.
‘I’ll drop into the half-space to shake them off...!’
Diallo had tremendous confidence in his speed.
And so, as he pushed forward again and again, he quickly devised a plan.
In one moment, he’d shift to the flank, drawing the opponent out, then ramp up the speed to create a shooting chance.
“Go on, yes, just like that!”
Marco Silva, watching from the technical area, shouted with an excited expression.
In that time, Diallo had advanced the ball all the way to the side, right at the corner of the left edge of the penalty area.
Right on cue, Fulham's Aleksandar Mitrović surged from the right, and Tom Cairney from the center.
Bolton's two center-backs had stuck to them man-to-man.
“Perfect!”
There was no need for long thought.
Silva yelled at the top of his lungs with a flushed face.
“Cross it!”
It was a call to loft a cross to Mitrović, who had an edge in the air.
But Amad Diallo, just as he’d originally planned, immediately turned toward the half-space with the outside of his right foot.
Swoosh-!
Thud-!
Elegantly turning and crossing the byline!
“Ooh!”
Marco Silva loved everything about it.
At a glance, Bolton's defensive line was completely disrupted by Fulham's counter.
Even the hardworking Frank Gerrard had been thrown off by the change of direction and reacted late.
“Grr!”
Instead, Bolton's David Dignity quickly closed in from behind, but he was outpaced.
The corner of Silva's mouth curled slyly upward.
‘This might let us taste a goal early...!’
Thwack-!
“Damn it!”
Just from Diallo striking the ball once, Dignity spat out a curse.
The gap had opened up by more than two steps before he could even reach out.
Ooooh-!
Now the Cottagers were on their feet, faces full of anticipation.
Their arms were already raised to chest height, ready to thrust them skyward at any moment.
‘It’s on...!’
Amad Diallo was convinced too.
As he'd anticipated a cross from him, Bolton's center-backs were all marking his teammates man-to-man as they penetrated the box.
And Diallo spotted several gaps in between.
Between the tangled Mitrović and the opposing center-back, the goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu huddled low, poised to jump.
And shooting lanes straight to the left and right posts.
Screech-!
The moment he locked onto his target, Diallo reached the center of the arc and twisted his right foot powerfully as if stepping down.
At the same time, his left foot drew back like a bowstring and snapped forward, slicing through the air.
He aimed to go straight for goal with a shot early in the game.
Moreover, he was certain.
‘It’s a goal...!’
From his position to the feel of his shooting stance—it had never felt fresher or better.
Whenever he got this sensation, he always scored effortlessly in the direction he wanted.
Shoooosh-!
But in an instant, sweat drenched Diallo's back.
An unpleasant sound scraped in as studs slid across the field.
Swoosh-!
The ball that should have met his instep glanced off instead.
Instead, he struck thin air, and his balance crumbled as he staggered.
“...What?!”
He reflexively dropped his gaze downward.
What he saw unfolded in slow motion.
A young man in a headgear appeared in a blink, threading through his open legs like a tollgate but stopping midway.
In his now-shaking pupils, something else reflected.
The ball, deflected by the tip of that sliding foot, rolling relentlessly out over the touchline.
In the end, Gary Todd's body and headgear-wrapped head never touched him.
It had passed cleanly only through Todd's lower body between his legs.
Even as the ball went out over the touchline, Diallo stood there in an awkward pose.
A perfect clearance, followed by the Cottagers' sighs as a bonus.
Aaaah!
* * *
First half, 7th minute.
Fulham was rated as a mid-to-upper-table force even in the Championship.
As expected by everyone, they created several threatening attacking chances against the newly promoted Bolton right from the early stages.
At the center of it all was none other than Manchester United's prodigy, Amad Diallo.
Thud, tap, thud-!
Though left-footed, his dribbling was so fluid he used both feet freely.
Dropping to the halfway line and penetrating deep toward the opponent's corner flag happened effortlessly.
Just now, Diallo received a pass from a teammate, drove deep into the left flank, and attempted an underlap beyond the area.
But his expression was dark.
Thump-!
“Guh!”
Before he could cross into the area, a massive young man charged from the side and slammed a shoulder barge.
Wobble!
The single shove pushed Diallo out over the dead ball line.
Grit-!
Of course, Diallo clenched his teeth and quickly stepped back into the field.
But it was too late.
Twaang-!
The commentary team, as if forgetting any doubts, shouted toward the headgear-wearing youth.
[Gary Toooood-!]
[Todd steals the ball right from under Diallo's feet with just a shoulder challenge and threads a straight pass to Owen waiting at the base of the arc!]
In the 16th minute of the first half, Diallo once again led Fulham's attack like a spearhead, penetrating deep into Bolton's half on a dribble alone.
But again, he couldn't create a shooting chance.
“Ughhh!”
Thud!
In the blink of an eye, Gary Todd let out a bizarre roar and threw his body at Diallo like a body check, only to suddenly plant his back foot.
That alone blocked Diallo's view, and the ball that should have been ahead now sat at Todd's feet.
“You bastard...?!”
First half, 28th minute.
Thud, thud, thwaaack-!
Diallo dropped to the halfway line and then exploded into a massive surge forward.
‘This time it’s a one-on-one chance...!’
Shearer Kane's shot had been deflected by goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga's punch.
A center-back, Tim Nim, had headed it out from the penalty box toward where he was.
At that moment, Diallo turned and sprinted with all his might.
Bolton's half was wide open.
Bolton's two tall center-backs couldn't even keep up with his speed.
‘He’s late too...!’
A quick glance showed Gary Todd, who had been on the same line, reacting a beat late and only now chasing him.
But Diallo was confident.
No way he could catch his ferocious speed...!
Swoosh!
“Urk!!$!#! ”
Diallo, charging powerfully, let out a grotesque yelp.
“Uwaaaah!”
Gary Todd had caught up to the same line in a blink with the same bizarre shout as before.
Whish-!
Two seconds later, he overtook him by more than a step...!
Thump-!
With momentum built, he yanked his upper body sharply to the right and shoulder-checked Diallo like a ricochet.
Crash, tumble, roll!
Right after, Diallo rolled like a log all the way to the touchline.
* * *
“...”
The flushed expression on Fulham manager Marco Silva's face had vanished completely.
Instead, it was tinged with bewilderment.
“What the hell is this...”
Senior coach Tom White beside him was too shocked to even speak properly.
Both men's gazes fixed solely on Gary Todd at the center of the back three.
“Huff, huff-!”
Todd exhaled in short bursts.
Not from exhaustion, but a kind of breathing technique.
Even as he did, he felt alive anew.
‘This is it, this is what I’m talking about...!’
Back in his Manchester United days, after the injury, Todd hadn't gotten proper playing time.
Doubts about soccer and fear of physical challenges had only grown.
But not now.
Honestly, his fear of headers lingered, but compared to his United days, the pressure was nothing.
Hadn't the manager acknowledged his burden first and foremost?
‘Don’t do headers. The others will handle it. You just crush the speedy, physical guys charging in with your pace and physique. Wreck them.’
At first, it had been bewildering.
He was deployed as a center-back, not even a striker.
The central sweeper, no less.
And center-backs naturally emphasized headers.
But no.
‘Really... I don’t have to?’
Now he got it.
Why they paired him with 2-meter tall center-backs.
They handled the aerial battles against Fulham's striker Mitrović and others throughout the first half.
In exchange, he transported the cleared balls to certain areas or passed to the playmaker Owen.
Sometimes he stuck close to Owen for cover play.
‘Man-marking the guys dribbling in...!’
Competing against opponents in his own zone without headers brought no great pressure.
Instead, every time he saw attackers wobbling and pushed back in challenges, a strange thrill washed over him.
On the other hand, it was touching.
‘That’s how much they trust me!’
He was just making his debut.
But the role assigned to him was clearly high-priority at a glance.
That trust, evident from the usage compared to United days, naturally filled him with energy.
Now he understood why Jeong-woo had sought him out with such conviction.
‘He believed in me, the me I couldn’t even believe in.’
Moreover, he taught exactly what plays to make, vividly through tactics.
Like a lighthouse shining a new destination for him, adrift and lost in a dark ocean.
Meanwhile, Jeong-woo stood crookedly in the technical area, a somewhat baffled smile on his lips.
“That guy’s even better than I thought...? No, more than that, his lips match up, right?”
In Bolton's defensive third and below the halfway line, he showed no trace of trauma or lip service.
Just like now.
“Uwaaaargh!”
Thump-!
Todd roared and flicked away even the physically strong Mitrović like a rugby player swinging a shoulder like a bat.
Then he pounded his chest toward the roaring Wanderers.
“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!”
This time roaring like a gorilla.