CHAPTER 164: THE ANSWER KEY

The ball nestled in the back of the net. 2-0.

A deathly silence fell over the San Siro, so profound that you could hear the jubilant shouts from the small pocket of traveling Atalanta fans.

On the pitch, the Inter players stared at the ground, the fight Leon had just ignited in them seemingly extinguished by a single, perfect volley.

The commentator’s voice, once booming with hype, was now a somber, funereal whisper. "And that, you have to feel, is that. A hammer blow from Teun Koopmeiners. The heroes of the Derby look utterly broken. A harsh lesson is being taught here today: in football, fairy tales have a nasty habit of coming to an abrupt and brutal end."

On the sideline, Coach Chivu stood motionless, his face like stone. He didn’t yell. He didn’t scream. He just watched, his expression one of cold, hard disappointment.

But as the Atalanta players celebrated, Leon felt a strange calm wash over him. The fury was gone, replaced by an ice-cold clarity.

He looked at the scoreboard, at his dejected teammates, at the celebrating opponents. He saw the problem. It wasn’t a lack of heart. It was a lack of understanding.

They were trying to win a fistfight with a chess master.

He jogged into the center circle, grabbing the ball and placing it on the spot.

Then he turned to his teammates as they trudged back.

"Everyone, listen to me. Now," he said, his voice not a shout, but a sharp, clear command that cut through their despair. They gathered around him, their eyes hollow.

"Stop trying to run through them," Leon began, his voice low and intense. "Stop trying to fight them. Can’t you see? That’s what they want. They are a machine built to run. We are trying to out-sprint a train."

He looked at Barella, at Çalhanoğlu. "Their midfield is a swarm of bees. They press, they press, they press. But what happens when you press?" He didn’t wait for an answer. "You leave space behind you. It’s a simple rule. They are so aggressive, so focused on the man with the ball, that they forget everything else."

His eyes scanned the pitch, his Vision painting a tactical map only he could see. "We are trying to force long passes and dribble through three players. It’s stupid. It’s what they are built to stop. From now on, the ball does the work. One touch. Two touches. Simple passes. We play a triangle around them. We make them chase us. We make their greatest strength—their running—their biggest weakness."

Goosebumps rose on their arms, but this time it wasn’t from a roar of passion. It was from the thrill of a sudden, brilliant revelation. It was the feeling of being handed the answer key to an impossible test.

"Look at them," Leon said, nodding towards the Atalanta players. "They think they’ve won. They are arrogant. Let them be. We are going to pass them to death. We will be patient. We will be intelligent. And we will tear them apart, one simple pass at a time. Forget being heroes. Let’s be footballers."

The whistle blew. The game restarted. And the soul of Inter Milan was reborn on the San Siro pitch.

What followed was not a frantic comeback. It was a footballing masterclass. The ball was passed back to the defense and then it began.

A simple pass from Bastoni to Barella. Barella, under pressure, played a one-touch pass back to de Vrij. De Vrij to Çalhanoğlu. Çalhanoğlu to Dimarco.

The ball moved with a hypnotic rhythm, never staying in one place for more than a second.

The Atalanta players, as predicted, chased relentlessly. But they were always one step behind.

They would sprint to close down one player, only for the ball to have already moved to another.

The San Siro, once silent, began to murmur, then to buzz, as they witnessed the transformation. This was beautiful.

This was art.

Leon was the conductor at the heart of it all, playing the False 9 role to perfection. He would show for the ball, drawing defenders, and then lay it off with a single, deft touch into the space his movement had created.

For fifteen minutes, Inter just kept the ball. They made Atalanta run.

The symbols of fatigue began to appear above the heads of the visiting players.

Then, in the 67th minute, the moment came. After a sequence of what felt like fifty passes, the ball was with Leon at the edge of the center circle.

He played a quick pass to Palmer, who had drifted inside. Palmer played it back instantly.

A one-two. As he played the return pass, Palmer spun and sprinted into the channel. The Atalanta defense, mesmerized by the passing, reacted a fraction of a second too late.

Leon’s return pass was perfectly weighted, a delicate slice that cut through the line. Palmer was in.

He took one touch and calmly slotted the ball past the keeper.

2-1. The goal wasn’t a thunderbolt. It was the inevitable result of a thousand perfect, simple actions. The San Siro erupted.

Now the belief was back, but it was a different kind. It was the cold, hard belief of a team that knew they were smarter, better.

They continued their patient, suffocating passing game. Atalanta was visibly wilting.

Koopmeiners was still running, a machine as promised, but his teammates were gasping for air.

In the 82nd minute, the dam broke again. Barella won the ball back with a clean tackle and gave it to Leon. He was immediately surrounded by three exhausted Atalanta players.

This time, he didn’t try to dribble. He simply shielded the ball, turned, and saw Lautaro Martínez making a clever, arcing run.

With a perfectly disguised pass, he slid the ball into his captain’s path. Lautaro was one-on-one.

He feinted to shoot, sending the keeper to the ground, and then coolly rounded him to tap the ball into the empty net.

2-2. Pandemonium.

The final minutes were all Inter. Atalanta was broken. In the 91st minute, with time running out, the ball was worked out to Julián Álvarez on the right wing.

He cut inside and passed to Leon, who was positioned at the top of the penalty arc.

The entire stadium screamed "SHOOT!" The ’Leondona’ moment was right there for the taking.

But Leon saw something else. His Vision showed Hakan Çalhanoğlu, the man with a cannon for a right foot, making a late, untracked run from deep.

A golden arrow appeared.

Instead of shooting, Leon performed a sublime, no-look drag-back, leaving the ball perfectly in the path of the oncoming midfielder.

Çalhanoğlu didn’t break his stride.

He met the ball with a first-time shot of such ferocious power that it was a blur.

The ball rocketed into the top corner of the net.

3-2. Inter.

The final whistle blew a minute later, confirming the victory. It was a comeback that felt even more satisfying than the Derby. That had been a miracle of heart. This was a masterpiece of intelligence.

The players celebrated, a joyous, exhausted pile in the center of the pitch.

As the celebrations began to wind down, Leon saw Coach Chivu walking towards him, striding purposefully across the grass.

He expected a hug, a clap on the back, a shared look of triumph.

Instead, Chivu’s face was a mask of stone. He looked not at Leon, but through him.

He stopped directly in front of him, the roar of the crowd fading into a dull hum.

"My office," Chivu said, his voice dangerously quiet, devoid of any emotion. "Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock sharp. Don’t be late."

Without another word, he turned and walked away, leaving Leon standing alone in the middle of the celebrating stadium, a cold, confusing dread washing over his triumphant heart.