Free Web NovelChapter 25: [25] "The Engine Room"
[[[[[[[CHECK OUT THE SC VALOIS XI---IN AUXILIARY Chapter]]]]]]]]
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AS Lyon-Rhône didn’t arrive at Stade Valois to play football.
They arrived to issue a statement.
Groupama Stadium had been their house for years, but they had no problem bringing the brutality on the road. Their manager, a scarred Dutchman named Van Hooft, had publicly stated that Luc Beaumont was "a media product, not a footballer." He was set to play his most physical midfield trio.
The implication was clear. If they could not beat Valois, they would break them.
---
Haaaa. Haaaa.
"Fuck."
"Wait-- Luc, I-- I have to be in early."
"Fuck. Forget about work."
Haaaa.
---
Luc read Van Hooft’s quote over breakfast in Juliette’s apartment. He folded the paper in half and left it on the counter.
He stored the quote in his head, to retrieve it at full time.
[System Notification]
[Objective: Score and assist in the same match]
[Reward: +1 Vision stat (permanent)]
[Penalty: Temporary 20% reduction in passing accuracy for the next match. You will play like Mateo on a bad day.]
Luc glanced at it.
"Mateo would be offended by that."
---
Kickoff. Stade Valois. It was biting cold.
Lyon-Rhône went after Hugo immediately.
Their holding midfielder, a 28-year-old Portuguese, was not there to win possession. He was there to dismantle Hugo’s rhythm before it started. First tackle, 4th minute, studs out, caught Hugo’s ankle clean. The referee gave a yellow card.
Hugo limped for a minute. Then kept running. But his touch was nervous after that. Tight.
Mateo ran past Luc. "They’re targeting the kid."
"I know," said Luc.
"They will do it again."
"I know that too."
He held the information but didn’t react.
---
Minute 19.
Lyon-Rhône won a corner. Their right center-back, a 6-foot-3 giant, rose and planted a thumping header into the bottom left.
Blažek got a hand to it. Not enough.
1-0. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
The Lyon bench roared. Van Hooft clapped twice, slowly, like a man confirming a theory. They thrived off corners and set pieces.
---
The response from SC Valois was slow and ugly.
Hugo couldn’t find his rhythm. The Portuguese midfielder’s shadow never left him. Every time he turned, there was a body. Every time he looked up, the lanes were sealed.
Luc spent the next fifteen minutes not asking for the ball.
He watched Lyon-Rhône’s shape. The way their defensive line held its structure. The way the Portuguese midfielder drifted left when Hugo received on the right, a habit so ingrained the man didn’t even notice.
There it was.
A blind side.
---
Minute 37.
Luc dropped twelve yards deeper than usual. Mateo looked at him, confused.
Luc made a single gesture with two fingers. Pointing to the space behind the midfielder’s blind shoulder.
Mateo blinked. Nodded.
Lacombe carried the ball wide left. Figueiredo, Lyon’s Portuguese midfielder, drifted across. Automatically. Luc had heard his name when one of his teammates called out.
The pocket behind his right shoulder opened for exactly three seconds.
Hugo saw it. Moved into it.
Luc played a one-touch pass off Demirci’s lay-off straight through the gap.
Hugo had half a yard and a full second.
He didn’t hesitate.
He whipped a cross low and driven across the box. Hard enough to demand a decision. Soft enough to be converted.
Lacombe read it at the far post, toe-poke, scrambled finish.
Goal!!
1-1.
---
The stadium exhaled.
Hugo looked at Luc, slightly open-mouthed, as if he was surprised by the play.
Luc was already jogging back to the center circle.
---
Second half. Lyon-Rhône tightened their shape. Van Hooft shifted Figueiredo into a deeper position and put their winger on Luc directly.
Man-marking. Physical and deliberate.
The winger was quick and mean. He grabbed Luc’s shirt twice in the first five minutes of the second half and got away with it both times.
Minute 61.
Luc received a ball wide right and the winger lunged in immediately.
Luc let him come.
He took the contact. Let himself be spun half a yard sideways. Let the winger think he had won.
Then peeled off the back of him on the second step and collected his own deflected ball.
One touch.
He was on the penalty arc. Lyon-Rhône’s center-backs were scrambling back.
[System Notification]
[Predatory Aura — 5 General Points]
"No," Luc thought. "Not this time."
He trusted the technical stat.
He opened his hips. Right foot this time. Not to shoot. He would have favored a shot on his left leg instead.
He played it first time, a low, weighted through ball splitting the two centre-backs at a 40-degree angle, to Lacombe’s run.
Lacombe was pulled down inside the box.
Penalty.
The referee pointed to the spot without hesitation.
Mateo picked up the ball. He placed it on the spot and buried it.
2-1.
---
The next twenty minutes were survival.
Lyon-Rhône pressed with a raw, angry energy. They were a better team on paper. They had more resources. They were not supposed to be losing to SC Valois in their away kit on a cold Wednesday night.
Van Hooft threw his two strikers on.
Blažek made three saves. One of them was absurd, a full-stretch dive to his left on a near-post header from one of the strikers.
Minute 88.
A deep Lyon-Rhône cross came in. The ball was not dealt with cleanly, it fell to the edge of the box.
Figueiredo.
He caught it clean on the half-volley.
The net moved.
2-2.
---
Final whistle.
One point each.
Luc stood in the center of the pitch, chest heaving, as the Lyon players celebrated a draw. Van Hooft said nothing to the cameras. He walked directly down the tunnel.
The quote was still folded in Luc’s memory.
A media product, not a footballer.
"Big mouthed bullshit." Was what Luc referred the quote to during his post match interview.
---
[System Notification]
[Objective failed: Neither scored, nor assisted in this match]
[Updated Wager Tally: Open Play Goals: Beaumont 6 | Fontaine 5]
[MD8 incoming: RC Alsace. Away. Mid-table. Organised. No fear of you yet.]
Luc read it in the tunnel.
"Huh? Did Fontaine score? I could swear it he was on 4 goals." Luc rubbed his eyes.
A text arrived from Valérie:
Fontaine scored once against Dijon tonight. Open play. A clinical finish. His first clean one in three weeks.
Luc stared at the message.
He typed back slowly.
Good.
He meant it. Not sarcastically.
A reset Fontaine was more dangerous than a panicking one. Juliette had said it just this morning in her room: "pressure without an outlet becomes chaos. Chaos was unpredictable." Luc thought it was just sweet pillow talk after sex.
A composed Fontaine played into Luc’s terms.
A war with rules was still a war.
He pocketed the phone and walked back to the dressing room.
Six to five now.
The one goal gap held. And December was still a long way off.
