The Star's Path #2
Had Yohan's inspired long-range strike been the spark that lit the fuse?
From that moment on, Roma's counterattack began in earnest.
A soft touch. A heavy thud.
Then a thunderous strike!
"Ahh... damn it..."
Solomon, bulling his way through with pure physical force, managed to manufacture a clean shot on goal from dead center. Miguel, too, sent a sudden early cross from midfield that left Juventus cold with dread.
Lorenzo was no different.
A light touch of the ball.
"Insane..."
Watching Yohan seemed to stir something from years past. He dribbled with the hunger of a man who'd found a second youth, leaving defenders scrambling in confusion.
But Juventus were no pushovers. They quickly reorganized, built a wall of iron across their back line, and still flashed enough attacking threat to snuff out Roma's brief surge of momentum. By the time the first half ended, they had wrested control of the entire pitch back into their own hands.
"God... I'm going to lose my mind."
Back in the locker room, Lorenzo was the first to speak.
Lose his mind over what, exactly?
Because the match wasn't going their way? Or was this a dressing-down aimed at the defense?
While everyone sat wondering, Lorenzo's expression hardened, and he said:
"I wasn't going to put it like this, but bring me that trophy. This isn't a request. Just bring it."
Before kickoff he'd been all easy charm. Now he'd flipped completely, issuing orders like a man demanding tribute. Even his face burned with the fierce competitive fire that had always defined him.
The moment the words left his mouth, the locker room erupted into a clamor of raised voices. Get back on defense faster. Tighten the lines. At a glance it looked like finger-pointing, but the truth was simpler — the heat had risen in all of them, and their communication had turned raw and rough.
Coach Ferraro, who had been listening in silence, glanced at the clock, then slammed his fist against the whiteboard.
Two hard knocks.
"Everybody shut up and listen! Eki! When Miguel pushes all the way up, shift over just a little and cover the left. Richie, drop a touch deeper..."
One by one, he fine-tuned each player's instructions, preparing them for the second half.
When halftime ended and Yohan returned to the pitch, he studied the Juventus players carefully. They looked every bit as serious as Roma. Whatever fire the Giallorossi had stoked in their locker room, the Bianconeri had done the same.
Judging by the atmosphere, this wasn't going to be easy to crack open.
The team that forced the mistakes — and then seized them cleanly — would win. And that team, Yohan was certain, would be Roma.
While he steeled that resolve, Haley was gathered with Emma and the rest of their friends at school, watching the match together for the first time in a while.
Ugh...
Ever since Yohan's equalizer, a certain look had been lingering in her friends' eyes — and Haley could read every bit of that fondness. It irritated her. After everything she'd done for them, they still didn't know their place...
Before she left, she decided, she was going to make it clear: hands off Yohan. With that settled, she turned her eyes back to the television.
Even to Haley, who barely understood the sport, the match looked ferocious. The ball bounced this way, that way, then sailed through the air. Bodies collided and crumpled. When a foul felt unjust, a player would spring up snarling. Watching it, she half-wondered if someone might actually die out there.
That was how combat-like the clash between Roma and Juventus had become.
Ten minutes into the second half, amid heat that felt like a battlefield—
A solid thump!
Nwosu rose to head clear a long lofted pass from a Juventus player and laid the ball off to Richie.
A crisp strike!
Richie threaded a breathtaking through ball to Miguel, who was already racing down the flank. Miguel drove deep along the touchline, then cut the ball back to Yohan, who had found a perfect pocket of space.
A clean first touch.
Yohan took it smoothly, then slipped the ball through the legs of one of two closing defenders and linked up with Novak. Novak shaped as if to shoot, then spotted Lorenzo charging in with everything he had and rolled the ball into his path.
A thunderous strike!
The caster's passionate cry exploded across the airwaves. While he screamed himself hoarse over the goal, Yohan sprinted across the pitch toward Lorenzo, who was already shouting something up at the stands full of fans, and threw his arms around him.
Emotion surged through him — but the match wasn't over yet. So Yohan shared the joy with his teammates just long enough, then settled back into the restarted game without a trace of complacency.
A ringing crack off the woodwork!
"Ahhh...!!!!"
A Juventus attacker groaned in pure frustration as the ball struck the post.
"You son of a—! Hey! Mark him properly, damn it!"
Bastien's face hardened as he barked the order. Roma's back line snapped into conversation at once, adjusting their shape to his command.
Every single player on that pitch carried the same desperate light in their eyes, pouring out everything they had to claim the win.
Yohan was no exception. He concentrated so hard his head ached, giving every last ounce of strength he possessed.
A heavy collision!
"Ah, shit..."
When he was shoved down in a challenge, he scrambled back up without even thinking to protest, desperate to keep the game moving. His eyes never stopped sweeping the field, reading every angle. Body and mind both worked at a frantic pace.
Did he want to collapse and rest? Of course he did. But the thought of the immense reward waiting if they finished this match as winners was enough to cast that longing far, far away.
Juventus's primary attacking routes were the triangular combinations that form the foundation of modern football — but they also had one more, older pattern. A single straight line of attack.
Center back to central midfielder to attacking midfielder.
Or wing-back to winger.
A pipeline that ran clean and direct. Yohan was currently filling the spot left by Rossi's substitution. If Juventus started their attack from the center, he thought he might just be able to pounce on the gap.
"Huuuh..."
Steadying his ragged breath, Yohan's eyes flicked rapidly across the pitch, reading the possession phase Juventus had just begun. Solomon, Lorenzo, and the rest of the front line were pressing them hard. Guidotti, fresh off the bench, was using his surplus of energy to hunt the ball — and that left Juventus's defense with no room to breathe.
They have to play it forward.
That was the only way Juventus could open a path.
A quiet step back.
Yohan slipped into a line directly behind a Juventus midfielder who had his back turned, using the man's body as cover, and waited at a measured distance for the pass to come from their defensive line.
A soft touch of the ball!
The moment he'd been waiting for arrived — and he exploded into a full sprint.
"Hey! Hey!!! He's unmarked!! Look properly! Look upfield!!"
The Juventus manager's roar erupted from the touchline. He'd been shouting for some time already — mark Yohan. Yohan was on the far side from the bench, so the message hadn't carried cleanly, but the manager had been watching him the whole time.
A few Juventus players had noticed him as well. But Yohan had already predicted a step ahead of them, and the result was an interception.
A clean touch.
Even on a pass that was genuinely quick, he took it beautifully and stripped possession. Looking up at the wall of defenders ahead of him, a complicated feeling stirred — it looked nearly impossible. But football wasn't a game he played alone. Through combinations with his teammates, chances could always be made. Both Roma and Juventus had scored that way already.
A sharp touch!
"Return!"
A one-two with Miguel, whose understanding with him was exceptional, carried Yohan forward. Then he exchanged passes with Guidotti, who had dropped deep to receive. The purpose behind that lightning-fast sequence of links — so quick the eye could barely follow — was something only Lorenzo read.
Seeing Lorenzo, who had somehow read his mind, Yohan arrived at the very edge of the Juventus box. The moment defenders swarmed toward him, he played a through ball in a direction that, to most eyes, might have looked almost eccentric.
A soft touch!
Just inside the penalty area — exactly where Lorenzo was surging.
Roma's passing had been blisteringly fast, but the mix of lateral balls had created just enough of a seam for the slower Lorenzo to force his way through.
"Get... off me, you bastard...!"
Using his arm with just enough subtlety to avoid a foul, Lorenzo peeled away the wing-back who had latched onto him and closed in on the ball. Then, as if there was nothing left to see, he didn't even trap it — he struck a first-time lofted shot with his left foot.
A clean ring of contact!
Yohan's pass had carried just enough distance that the goalkeeper had to come off his line. Naturally, the keeper rushed out to claim it — but Lorenzo's shot was already sailing over his head.
The lofted finish was Lorenzo's signature. Speed, distance, height — every element was perfect. The ball traced a breathtaking arc that could have come straight from the peak of his prime, then—
A bounce... another bounce...
—kissed just short of the goal line and rolled in.
The stands erupted in a single, deafening roar. Lorenzo howled. His teammates sprinted toward him.
The caster didn't pause for breath, praising Lorenzo at a level that bordered on a hymn to the man himself. Officially, he would never admit it — but he was a Lorenzo fan. That made the emotion of receiving this particular goal something altogether different.
It was a shot so purely Lorenzo it hurt. And it had come as the crowning blow.