Triangle Foot
The fourth official raised the substitution board high.
And Ricardo Rodriguez, his face twisted in pain from the injury, slowly left the pitch with the medical staff supporting him.
In that moment the assistant coach gave my back a light shove, signaling me to go on.
"Hoo…"
I let out one long breath, then crossed the touchline and sprinted onto the field.
The roar packing the stands and the sheer scale of the stadium pressed down on my entire body.
Of course, the cheers I was hearing were more for Ricardo Rodriguez going off injured than for me — but I decided to savor this moment for the me who had made it back.
Not long ago I'd been getting squeezed out even of the Thai first division, and now I was wearing a Torino FC kit again, lining up against Juventus, one of the top sides in Serie A. It still didn't quite feel real.
But there was a problem.
The position I'd been handed wasn't the familiar striker's role. It was left center-back.
Even at my absolute peak I'd only been featuring against lower-table sides — and now, barely any time after switching to center-back, I was going up against a powerhouse fighting for a Champions League place.
A flicker of dread crossed my mind: if things went badly, today's match could become the single greatest black mark of my football career.
But… the simple fact that I was back on a stage like this made me forget everything else.
Alright. However it happened, I made it back here.
I got lucky.
I'm scared, but there's nowhere to run — so for the remaining thirty minutes or so, let's just give it everything.
I quickly checked my positioning.
Juventus were holding a 3-5-2. Up front they had Dušan Vlahović and Ángel Di María — an attacking pairing with elite experience and class in equal measure.
As left center-back, my primary job was to track Di María's movement first.
Depending on the situation, though, Alessandro Buongiorno — playing the libero role — would step up to deal with Di María, and I'd have to pick up whichever of Rabiot or Fagioli tried to burst into the space inside.
Having run through the reads quickly, I decided for now to lock onto the Di María right in front of me.
Damn…
But once the game restarted and a few passes had gone around, I realized those calculations didn't mean nearly as much as I'd thought.
Is the gap in quality really this big?
The moment I came on, Torino's defensive line started visibly hesitating.
Normally the back line would still manage some build-up from deep and gradually push up — but with a rotation player like Sazonov at right center-back and a youth player like me at left center-back, Buongiorno, the libero, was reluctant to raise the line.
That let Juventus step up naturally and pin us deep in our own half, and even when we tried to attack, the numerical disadvantage meant we lost the ball almost immediately. Before long the match had turned into something close to a half-court game.
Juventus circulated the ball at their leisure and squeezed Torino; we were constantly being dragged side to side, forced to defend and nothing else.
This way… that way?
I was going out of my mind just tracking Di María with my eyes.
Di María was not a player who stood still. He'd drift out to the right, then slip into the middle before you noticed, push all the way up front, then drop subtly into midfield — repeating the same pattern over and over.
Even without the ball he kept shifting his position, yanking the defenders' attention around.
I shadowed him a few steps at a time, determined not to lose him. The one small mercy was that he was getting on in years; this late in the second half, he wasn't quite as sharp as he used to be.
"Huh? Ah! I see."
Out of nowhere Di María looked at me and muttered something.
What's he trying to do?
Then he started moving more conspicuously this way and that, watching how I reacted.
Manager Jurić's defending was built on aggressive man-marking — but you still had to hold the team's overall shape. If I got dragged around by Di María alone, the half-space would open right up, and the second Rabiot or Fagioli burst into that gap, we'd be in far deeper trouble.
So I kept debating whether to step or hold, shuffling half a pace at a time.
I'd start forward and stop, drop back, then squeeze sideways again — the same awkward little adjustments over and over. Even I could feel how lacking in confidence my play looked.
And Di María didn't miss that tiny wavering. After watching me for a moment, the corner of his mouth lifted, just barely.
Ah… this feels bad.
Di María stopped worrying about Buongiorno entirely. Instead he circled around me, deliberately staying inside my field of vision.
He started changing position again and again, as if testing when I would follow, how far I would step out, which way I was slow to turn.
And at last he slipped a little toward the right flank and raised his left hand high.
Play it here.
He didn't say a word, but the intention could not have been clearer.
Di María had already figured it out.
Who the most unsettled player in Torino's back line was.
Boom!
Juventus's attacks kept coming straight at my side.
Another long ball from their defense sailed toward Di María.
This time the pass was so blatant the intent was practically written on it.
But I'd been half-expecting it myself.
The instant I confirmed where the ball was going, I exploded forward and swung my left foot through hard.
Thump~!
The ball flew clear long before it could reach Di María.
A clean clearance.
The bench, however, saw it differently.
"Teo!"
Ivan Jurić's voice boomed across the pitch.
"You don't need to boot it like that! Our players are right in front of you! Pass it!"
…
He wasn't wrong. Looking ahead, there were teammates there.
But Manager…
I don't have that kind of luxury right now.
If I start worrying about that, something terrible is going to happen.
Just getting the ball away is hard enough as it is.
With the other team listening, though, I could hardly announce that I was useless, so I just nodded once to show I'd heard him.
My real thoughts were nothing of the sort.
I'm sorry… This is my limit right now.
I'm going to have to keep doing it this way…
The ball I'd cleared went straight to Juventus's left midfielder, Manuel Locatelli.
"Damn it…"
I'd thought I had a second to breathe, but the attack restarted immediately.
Locatelli took a clean touch and calmly laid it off to central midfielder Nicolò Fagioli.
Fagioli glanced forward once, then stabbed another pass straight into Di María.
Not this time either. I had no intention of letting it through.
The moment the pass was played I drove my body in first.
Di María put his back into me to receive, but I leaned through with my shoulder and torso just enough that his first touch ran long.
I didn't waste the opening — I stretched out my left foot.
Thump~!
Somehow I managed to clear it again.
Phew…
The relief lasted about a second.
Into my vision stepped our left wing-back, Valentino Lazaro.
Ah…!
Lazaro was right there in front of me. If I'd rolled it instead of blasting it, we could have started the build-up from the back immediately.
If I'd just stayed calm for a moment I could easily have found him — but it was already too late.
I'm screwed. The manager probably saw that one too, didn't he?
He's going to think I can't even see a pass that short.
Meanwhile the ball sailed completely past Lazaro and stretched long toward Okereke up front on the right.
Still… does it connect?
If it reached him like this, it wouldn't be the worst outcome.
I clung to that scrap of hope for a second — but I'd put too much on it. The ball went too far for Okereke to chase, and rolled out over the touchline for a throw-in.
"…Ah."
A small gasp slipped out of me before I could stop it. I'd just handed possession right back.
Before the disappointment had even faded, the touchline grew busy. Juventus were preparing a substitution from their bench.
Allegri studied the pitch for a moment, then made his call.
The numbers went up on the board.
Ángel Di María off. Federico Chiesa on.
I frowned, puzzled for a second.
Did they decide Di María was getting shut down by me? Or is it just managing minutes?
There was no way to know.
Juventus's shape shifted naturally with the change. Chiesa was their most dangerous player from the left, so Vlahović moved over to the right — and just like that, the man I had to deal with switched from Di María to Vlahović.
I let out a short breath.
Hoo… So now it's Vlahović?
I was just starting to get used to Di María…
Vlahović was a completely different style from Di María.
Once again I had to adapt to a new type of opponent.
But the real problem came after that. Not long after the substitution was complete, the entire flow of the match flipped.
"…Huh?"
It happened in an instant. Juventus stopped hammering my side relentlessly.
Instead they started working the opposite flank.
It began with our right wing-back, Raoul Bellanova. Bellanova fought hard, but Chiesa showed his class from the very first run.
He took the ball and immediately piled on the speed against Bellanova.
One feint. Then an explosive burst of acceleration.
Before Bellanova could even close, Chiesa had already carved into the channel. In a blink the penalty box opened up.
Chiesa shaped as if he were cutting inside toward the middle.
The moment the defense braced for a curling shot from the inside…
Tap.
He twisted his body the other way and whipped a low, driven cross into the hardest space to deal with — right between the goalkeeper and the defenders.
My mind went completely blank.
Ah! This is bad!
Thankfully I was in front of Vlahović, but the ball was coming in at the most awkward height imaginable.
Goal in front of me. Vlahović at my back.
I'd have to stretch every inch of my leg just to reach it. On pure instinct I lunged at the same time as Vlahović.
I had the better position. I was sure I'd get there first.
But another kind of terror flooded in.
Wait…! If I mis-hit this, it's an own goal.
Even the keeper would struggle to get a hand to it from there.
Give it to Vlahović and it's a goal.
But if I touch it wrong, it could still get sucked straight into the net.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
Please…!
My toe got there first.
Tock.
A strange sensation ran through me. The ball that met my foot didn't go straight.
It glanced off the top of my foot, picked up spin, and rocketed upward.
Whoosh~
The ball soared high and sailed cleanly over the crossbar.
"Ohh!"
A collective gasp of relief burst from the stands.
At the same time, the Juventus fans clutched their heads.
"Bravo! Teo! Well done!"
Buongiorno, the libero — our central defender — ruffled my hair as he said it.
"Haha."
I got up with an awkward little laugh.
Thank god. What just happened?
That was when it appeared.
Letters formed in the air in front of my eyes again.
Triangle Foot
You cannot kick the ball into the goal from inside the penalty box.
…?
That includes our own goal too?