CHAPTER 679: LIFELINE.

The moment Trent released the ball, Izan had already burst out from the central channel, adjusting his path in real time like a bloodhound locked onto scent.

He tore after Salah with an engine that didn’t understand fatigue — seventeen years old and chasing history, chasing ghosts, chasing this game.

Salah felt him crawling up his neck, and the Egyptian slowed up, drawing Izan in like bait, trying to pin him, trap him, flick it off him for a corner — something to kill tempo, maybe waste a few seconds.

But Izan wasn’t biting.

He stopped short at the last second, bracing as Salah swung his hips to angle the ball off him — and dodged.

"Wonderful read by the teenager!" Alan Smith exclaimed, not hiding his admiration.

"Izan Miura, absolutely switched on—he knew what Salah wanted, and he’s turned the tables brilliantly. Arsenal aren’t dead yet!"

"ARSENAL! ARSENAL! ARSENAL!" The crowd roared, embers turning to flame.

They weren’t dead yet.

The loose ball spun awkwardly on the slick turf, momentarily ownerless before Jorginho — calm as ever — bent his body low to cradle it under pressure.

But before he could even settle, Izan’s voice sliced through the noise.

"Gimme."

And with no hesitation, Jorginho shifted it into Izan’s path.

Curtis Jones surged forward — legs pumping, eyes locked — but Izan didn’t even glance at him.

The ball kissed his boot once, just once, and then slipped around Curtis with the elegance of a trained actor hitting his mark.

A swirl, a pivot, a gasp from the crowd as Jones was left twisting in the slipstream, the ball already resting obediently at Izan’s feet again.

"Goodness me," Jim Beglin breathed from the gantry.

"They’re trailing, it’s the dying minutes of a final... but Izan samba’s"

Alan Smith chuckled, part admiration, part disbelief.

"There’s pressure, and then there’s Izan. Doesn’t matter what the scoreboard says, or what the occasion is, he still plays like the pitch is his playground."

Izan’s eyes scanned the pitch once after that, and in that instant, the decision was made.

A sudden shift of weight to his left, then an explosion to his right.

The ball clung to his boot like a secret as he burst forward.

Gravenberch, lurking in the midfield, lunged, but Izan stopped on a dime, sent the midfielder stumbling past, then nudged the ball back into stride with a flick of his toe, already slicing through the next gap in the line.

"Here we go!" Martin Tyler’s voice surged over the stadium hum like some renowned journalist after confirming a transfer, his voice barely above the rising wave of Arsenal chants on the broadcast.

"Izan’s on it again. He’s refusing to let this final slip away!"

With urgency lacing every step, Izan fed the ball wide to Martinelli on the right, where Robertson came charging, red shirt flaring — but Martinelli, with a sudden flick of samba brilliance, lifted the ball right back to Izan and darted around the Liverpool defender before motioning towards the space he wanted the ball and Izan didn’t disappoint.

"Oh, that’s slick from Martinelli!" Jim Beglin exclaimed. "And he wants it back, too!"

Martinelli sprinted into space with the ball, and Izan — having slowed just long enough to let Robertson commit — ghosted past the full-back.

The Brazilian stabbed the ball into the pocket behind, releasing Izan again down the wing.

"Izan, carving through them like a scalpel!" Tyler shouted, and without breaking stride, Izan reached the ball and whipped in a vicious, low cross — a glinting arrow slicing through the box.

Inside, Havertz and Ødegaard were already moving.

Havertz, silent till now, ghosted in from Konaté’s blindside like a shadow flickering behind a curtain with a soft touch to raise it slightly and then smashed his leg through the ball like it had wronged him, but-

Clang.

The ball smashed against the upright, Alisson’s fingertips brushing it just enough to deny the German.

"That had to be the equaliser!" Beglin cried, but it wasn’t over.

The ball cannoned off the upright, spat back into the box like a gift rejected by fate — but fate hadn’t accounted for Izan.

He was already there, reading the ricochet before it even happened.

Eyes flashing, body coiled, he slipped into the six-yard box just as Konaté lunged toward the rebound.

The defender’s stride was long and desperate, a stretch of muscle and instinct — but Izan was first.

He clipped the ball leftward with his right and then back with his left toe, delicately, slipping it past the incoming Mac Allister and Konaté both — the slightest of nudges, just enough to carve space for the kill.

And then, the move: his right leg swung back, poised for a trivela finish, the kind of touch only artists and madmen attempt under pressure.

But the canvas shattered.

Konaté’s legs, splayed from his lunge, caught Izan mid-motion — not high, not malicious, but clumsy and unrelenting.

His right boot never met the ball.

Instead, Izan’s knee buckled, body tumbling forward in a sudden, sharp collapse.

The Wembley gasped as a dead silence cut through the roars like a guillotine — Ninety thousand heads turning to one man, and that man, the referee, didn’t disappoint.

He stretched his hands out and pointed to the spot.

Penalty.

And then — bedlam.

"HE’S GIVEN IT! HE’S GIVEN THE PENALTY!" Martin Tyler erupted as the camera shook from the noise.

"Konaté caught him — there’s no doubt about it! And Arsenal have a lifeline in the final minutes of the Carabao Cup final! What a story we have here, and wow, a climax of the final."

Arsenal’s bench exploded.

Arteta punched the air so hard his coat lifted

It was pandemonium — fists, flares, and voices all rising like a red tide.

"There is no question that to the Arsenal fans, that is the equaliser," Alan Smith said, a half-laugh caught in his throat. "They know who’s stepping up. They’ve seen this story before."

On the pitch, Liverpool players surrounded the referee — Van Dijk gesturing furiously, Alisson yelling, arms wide in disbelief.

"No! No way!" Trent shouted, eyes burning into the official.

"He goes down easy!" Mac Allister pleaded, though his tone betrayed the truth — they all knew what had happened.

It was clumsy. It was real. And it was too late.

Meanwhile, Izan was already back on his feet.

The referee stood firm — a figure of authority in a storm of red shirts and flailing arms.

"Enough!" he barked, palm stretched out like a shield as Van Dijk pressed dangerously close.

He stepped back once, then again, guiding the arguing Liverpool players out of the penalty area with short, authoritative gestures.

The referee’s face was tight, jaw clenched as he kept his body between the chaos and the spot.

Van Dijk followed, gesturing furiously, still barking in protest with Alisson close behind, eyes wide with disbelief.

Odegaard, meanwhile, jogged toward the penalty spot with a quiet calm, scooping the ball in both hands like he was picking up a torch in a relay.

He turned, saw Izan standing just a few paces off, and flicked the ball toward him.

"Here," he said simply, tossing it underhand as Izan caught it smoothly.

"AND IT’S HIM," Martin Tyler growled through the roar, "IT HAD TO BE HIM."

"Liverpool’s still arguing the call," Alan Smith said, his voice more clipped now, "but this referee’s had enough — and you can see it."

Van Dijk got in one more word, too close, too heated — but that was the final straw.

The referee’s hand flew to his pocket in a flash of warning-yellow.

"Don’t test me," he said, holding the card up square between them.

Van Dijk froze, chest heaving as he stared for a second — then backed off with a shake of the head.

One by one, the rest followed, muttering, still fuming, but backing off all the same.

Alisson jogged back to his line, wiping his gloves across his chest like it would help calm his heartbeat.

The box cleared, and the noise hovered like a storm about to burst.

Izan stepped to the spot, cradling the ball in his hands like it was alive.

He lowered the ball, squatting slightly to place it on the white dot, adjusted it once and then nudged it a fraction with his fingertips before backing up a few steps away.

Alisson was already bouncing on his line.

The Brazilian keeper muttered something under his breath — a prayer, maybe. Or a curse, but Izan didn’t look shaken.

He just stared.

"Look at that," Martin Tyler breathed, reverent. "This is it. This could determine the fate of the two teams. Is this it, or is Arsenal going to pull out an extra-time game affair?"

Izan tilted his head as the referee raised his arm... and brought the whistle to his lips for the umpteenth time in the game, and then the Shrill blast.

FWEEEEEE, and

Izan took one step—

A/N: Okay and scene. Damn, ya’ll are fast. I just said 60 GTs for the bonus Chapter, and then suddenly, Jacob_Hilton_7046, KingPengu, MonkeyDLuffy92 and 99+ other readers decided to spam a few Golden tickets my way. Fair play, guys, and nice checkmate. Anyway, this is the first Chapter of the day, and I will see you right after sleeping with the Golden Ticket Chapter and the last of the day.