CHAPTER 174: THE DERBY D’ITALIA (3)

The Juventus players celebrated their second goal, a roaring island of black and white in a vast, desolate sea of blue and black.

On the pitch, the Inter players looked shell-shocked.

Stefan de Vrij stared at the spot where he’d made his mistake, his face a pale mask of horror.

"A gift! A complete and utter gift from Stefan de Vrij, and the predator Dušan Vlahović does not miss!" the commentator lamented, his voice dripping with drama. "From a lucky lead to a catastrophic deficit in the blink of an eye! The league leaders are imploding in the Derby d’Italia! Thirty minutes left, but this feels like the end of a Chapter!"

On the sideline, Coach Chivu turned to his bench with the speed of a viper. He didn’t yell. He didn’t scream. He simply pointed. "Álvarez! Darmian! Warm up! NOW!" He was making a change. A huge, desperate gamble. He was taking off the devastated de Vrij and a defensive midfielder, shifting to an ultra-attacking formation. It was either going to save them or lead to a complete humiliation.

The game restarted, and for ten minutes, Inter was a mess.

They were trying to force the issue, their passes rushed, their movements disjointed.

Juventus, confident and organized, looked happy to let them burn themselves out.

In the 71st minute, Inter won a corner. It felt like a meager consolation prize.

Hakan Çalhanoğlu trotted over to take it, his shoulders slumped. But as he placed the ball, he looked at his teammates in the box.

He saw the fire was still there, banked low but not extinguished. He saw Alessandro Bastoni, his face a mask of furious determination, wrestling for position.

Çalhanoğlu raised his hand and whipped in a vicious, in-swinging corner. It was a perfect delivery, aimed right into the heart of the six-yard box.

The ’Twin Towers’ of Bremer and Danilo rose to meet it, a formidable defensive wall.

But Bastoni wanted it more. He launched himself into the air, a blue and black missile, getting above everyone.

He met the ball not with his forehead, but with the sheer force of his will, powering a header that was unstoppable from three yards out.

The net bulged. 2-2!

The San Siro exploded from a silent tomb into a roaring volcano. Bastoni didn’t celebrate. He roared, a primal scream of defiance, pointing at the center circle. "COME ON! LET’S GO!" he bellowed at his teammates, a general rallying his troops from the brink of defeat.

The belief was back.

The equalizer turned a football match into a bar fight. The game became a breathtakingly chaotic, end-to-end spectacle. Both teams were going for the kill.

And in a game of chaos, Federico Chiesa thrived.

In the 83rd minute, the ball was cleared to him on the right wing. He was isolated, one-on-one with Matteo Darmian.

The ’Big Game Player’ trait in Leon’s Vision was glowing like a miniature sun. Chiesa feinted to go outside, then with a devastating drop of the shoulder, he cut inside, leaving Darmian stumbling.

He was now running at the heart of the defense. Barella came across to close him down, but Chiesa was in his element.

He opened up his body and struck the ball. It wasn’t a blast of power; it was a stroke of genius. He curled the ball with the inside of his boot, a beautiful, impossible arc that started outside the post and bent, as if guided by a string, perfectly into the far top corner.

It was a goal of such sublime, heartbreaking beauty that even the Inter fans could only watch in stunned silence for a moment before the weight of it crushed them.

3-2 to Juventus.

The commentator was almost singing. "CHIESA! FEDERICO CHIESA! A MOMENT OF PURE, UNSTOPPABLE, WORLD-CLASS GENIUS! HE HAS RIPPED THE HEART OUT OF THE SAN SIRO WITH A GOAL PAINTED BY AN ANGEL! JUVENTUS LEAD AGAIN!"

This time, it truly felt over. The magic had run out.

With the clock ticking into the 89th minute, Inter threw everyone forward in a final, desperate surge. The ball was hoofed into the box and bounced around like a pinball.

It fell to Julián Álvarez.

The chaotic Argentine went on a ridiculous, mazy dribble, bouncing off one defender, nutmegging another by complete accident, before finally being tackled. The ball squirted free.

It came to Lautaro, who was immediately swarmed.

He tried to turn but was tackled. The ball rolled loose again, a frantic scramble of legs and flailing bodies.

Somehow, the ball popped out of the chaos and rolled perfectly to Leon, who was positioned just outside the penalty area.

He was instantly faced by Manuel Locatelli.

The entire stadium rose to their feet. This was it. The last chance. The ’Leondona’ moment.

Leon looked at Locatelli.

His Vision flashed.

[Zidane’s Roulette: Ready!]

He didn’t think.

He planted his left foot, dragged the ball back with his right, and spun in a dizzying 360-degree motion.

Locatelli, completely wrong-footed, was left grasping at thin air as Leon glided past him.

"A ROULETTE! A ZIDANE ROULETTE IN THE FINAL MINUTE!" the commentator screamed.

Leon was through. He drove into the box.

The ’Twin Towers’ of Bremer and Danilo converged on him, the silver synergy link between them flaring, the ’Intimidation’ debuff washing over him.

He could shoot, but the angle was tight, the pressure immense.

But in that split second, his Vision showed him a single, perfect possibility. A tiny pocket of space had opened up to his left.

A teammate was there. Unmarked.

He didn’t shoot.

He didn’t try to be the hero.

He squared the ball with a simple, selfless pass.

It rolled perfectly into the path of Cole Palmer, who had made a ghosting, intelligent run into the box.

Palmer met the ball with a first-time, side-footed shot. It wasn’t powerful. It was precise. It rolled past the despairing dive of the goalkeeper and nestled gently into the bottom corner of the net.

3-3.

The stadium didn’t roar. It imploded. An atomic bomb of sound and emotion went off. Players, coaches, and fans were lost in a shared moment of pure, unadulterated delirium.

The final whistle blew seconds later. An epic.

A classic. A 3-3 draw that felt like a victory for one team and a gut-wrenching defeat for the other. The players, completely spent, collapsed to the grass.

They had given everything.

As Leon walked off the pitch, arm-in-arm with a grinning Cole Palmer, he felt a profound sense of peace.

He had faced the monster and survived.

As he entered the tunnel, the roar of the crowd finally fading, his system, which had been buzzing with the frantic energy of the match, sent a single, clear notification to his mind.

[Synergy Link Broken: ’Predator & Jackal’ and ’The Twin Towers’ have been successfully analyzed and countered.]

[SYSTEM UPDATE: Tactical analysis module ’Manager Mode’ is now at 100% completion.]

[’Manager Mode’ Unlocked.]