Chapter 12
1361 Words
The tunnel was cold and dark, as if the humiliation of the first half had been carved into the players’ skin.
Guti walked at the head of the line. He could feel the stares behind him—some doubtful, some mocking, some indifferent. He could still hear the murmur of the stands above, whispers like a thousand needles pricking his eardrums.
Fifteen minutes.
That was the wager—his coach’s authority, and his own pride as El Lobo.
The whistle for the second half cut through the air like a war cry.
The game restarted.
Real Betis, one goal ahead, pressed even harder. Their eyes burned with the hunger to bring down the defending champions.
In the broadcast booth, Spanish TV’s guest analyst—legendary captain Fernando Hierro—frowned.
“Madrid have made no changes. Same lineup, same shape. Looks like that young German is determined to run straight into a wall.”
He sighed. “I admire his courage. But at a club like Madrid, stubbornness usually ends in disaster.”
On the pitch, the ball found Guti’s feet again.
He raised his head.
Joaquín, Betis’s right-sided talisman, cut inside once more. A familiar pattern. Madrid’s back line instantly shifted toward him, pulled by his gravity.
Guti’s heartbeat spiked.
Now!
As Julian had predicted, Betis’s holding midfielder, Marcos Assunção, slid a step sideways toward Joaquín, ready to cover.
And in that instant, a gap—tiny, fleeting, no more than 1.5 seconds—opened in front of Guti.
His ankle froze.
Cold green lines from that damned laptop screen clashed violently with twenty years of instinct. His experience, his intuition, his pride all screamed at him to play the obvious ball into Fernando Morientes’s run.
That was the textbook pass.
And so, instinct won.
With the outside of his boot, he flicked the ball toward Morientes—
Smack.
Assunção stretched out a leg, intercepting with ease. He had seen it coming all along.
A collective groan rose from the Bernabéu, thick with disappointment and ridicule.
Guti spat on the grass in frustration, glancing toward the touchline.
Julian stood there, hands in his pockets, face rigid, eyes calm. Too calm. It was as if he’d expected this—“Variable A: player inertia”—already tested countless times in his simulations. He wasn’t surprised. He was taking notes.
That unbearable calmness only made the fire in Guti’s chest rage hotter.
Minutes later—58th minute.
The exact same situation. Joaquín cut inside. Assunção slid across. The ghostly, unnatural passing lane appeared again, flickering in Guti’s vision.
1.5 seconds.
This time, humiliation from his earlier failure and the memory of Julian’s icy gaze stabbed him like knives.
And then—Julian’s voice seemed to cut through the roar of the stadium, echoing in his head.
Trust me.
Guti clenched his teeth. Blood filled his mouth.
To hell with experience. To hell with instinct.
He locked his eyes on the empty patch of grass outside the box. He didn’t even glance at Morientes.
He raised his right foot.
This time, he chose to believe.
To believe in that mad German.
To believe in the numbers.
Every ounce of pride, instinct, and defiance poured into the pass.
The ball flew, straight and pure, like a white laser—into empty space.
“Who is that for?!” Hierro’s voice cracked, stunned. “Has Guti lost his mind? There’s no one there!”
Eighty thousand fans shared the same thought.
Until the next heartbeat.
A white figure burst from the channel like a ghost.
Fernando Morientes.
His run, his angle, his timing—all intersected perfectly with the ball’s flight.
It rolled to his feet as if guided by fate, needing no adjustment.
Betis’s back line was split open like paper. Their center-backs hadn’t even turned, staring in horror as Morientes surged clear.
Only the keeper stood in his way.
A calm push. Near post.
1–1.
For half a second, the Bernabéu was silent.
Then it erupted like a volcano.
Morientes sprinted toward the corner flag, arms wide—but halfway there he stopped, staring back at midfield in disbelief.
There stood Guti. Frozen. Staring at his own right foot as though it belonged to someone else.
What had just happened?
That impossible pass, Morientes’s run, the ball’s path—every detail overlapped perfectly with the simulation he’d seen on Julian’s laptop.
Not a tactic.
A prophecy.
A chill surged through him—terror and exhilaration in equal measure.
He lifted his head, gaze locking on the touchline.
Julian stood there, calm as ever amidst the chaos. His lips curved slightly—not joy, but satisfaction. A plan confirmed. A hypothesis proven.
He tapped a finger to his temple. Use your brain. Trust the plan.
Guti’s teammates swarmed him, slapping his back, his head. Their eyes burned with new fire. Doubt was gone. Replaced by belief—fanatic, blind, unshakable.
The team was alive.
By the 75th minute, Betis marked Guti relentlessly, clogging the passing lane. But when the ball came to him again in the same zone, there was no hesitation.
With the outside of his boot, he sent another diagonal pass. Sharper. Cleaner. Like it had been magnetized, it bent around the defender’s leg and tore through the line.
This time, not Morientes.
Soldado—the young academy striker, just subbed on.
The system had already predicted Betis would overcommit to Morientes, leaving space elsewhere.
Soldado met the ball, perfectly on time. No adjustment. A simple touch with his instep.
Into the net.
2–1.
Turnaround.
“They’ve done it again! Identical move! My God!” Hierro’s voice cracked. His worldview was shattering in real time.
The Bernabéu exploded. Cheers like thunder. The boos of the first half were gone, washed away by euphoria.
The applause was not just for Guti.
It was for the young German on the sideline.
Julian.
He nodded faintly. Around him the stadium shook with primal emotion, but inside he felt only the calm satisfaction of precision. The calculations had held. The experiment was successful.
The final whistle sealed it.
Players swarmed Guti, tossing him into the air. His smile was complicated, almost bewildered. Tonight, everything he had believed in had been overturned—by numbers.
In the mixed zone, cameras flashed. Reporters surrounded him.
“Guti, what happened in the second half? Those assists were incredible!”
“Were those combinations with Morientes and Soldado drawn up at halftime?”
Guti took the mic. His arrogance was gone. His voice was low, but steady.
“We won the second half.”
He paused, breathing deep.
“And we owe it to our coach.”
The press fell silent.
“His instructions at halftime…” Guti searched for the right word. His lips curled into something between awe and fear.
“That wasn’t tactics.”
He looked straight into the cameras.
“That was prophecy.”
The word detonated. Flashbulbs exploded. Commentators sputtered in disbelief.
“Prophecy?!” Hierro’s face turned stormy. “Football is played with your feet, not calculated on a computer!”
But it was too late.
Guti’s words had already traveled across Spain, across Europe. A star once defined by talent and defiance had just admitted—openly—that he was humbled by a coach’s “prophecy.”
The shockwaves were greater than any single win.
In his office, Julian sat before his computer. Victory chants roared outside, but he was buried in numbers.
“Variable G-1—player inertia. Triggered: 68%. Within prediction. Variable B-2—defensive shift. Triggered: 82%. Within prediction.” His voice was calm, his fingers tapping. “Overall tactical success: 95.3%. Margin of error mainly due to stamina decay. Next time—higher.”
He closed the report, leaning back. His eyes showed fatigue, but also certainty.
Guti’s “prophecy” line was only the tip of the iceberg.
Tonight’s win wasn’t just about advancing. It was the foundation—the proof of concept that would shake Madrid, Spain, and Europe.
Julian tapped his fingers against the desk, slow and steady.
A week until the league.
The next prophecy was already writing itself.
- Writer
