The second half had begun exactly the way Alex had dread it during his sleepless nights. Lecce didn’t just co out of the locker room, they exploded out of it. For ten glorious minutes, they played like n who’d just been told they had nothing to lose. The low block? Forgotten. This was a storm, a siege, a declaration.
And the fans? They were stunned into belief.
Lecce, the underdogs known for grinding matches into stalemates, were suddenly pressing like champions. Passes zipped across the turf. Players pressed like their lives depended on it. For a mont, the rhythm was poetry and chaos wrapped in one red-and-yellow blur.
Banda’s near-miss in the 48th minute, after a subli through ball from Berisha, had been the highlight. The shot was sharp, angled low and hard, but Fiorentina’s goalkeeper had made himself big and denied what could have been the perfect second goal. It had shocked the visiting bench and sent a ripple of panic across the Fiorentina backline.
Unfortunately, that miss seed to flip the script again.
Fiorentina weren’t pushovers. They hadn’t climbed the Serie A table on luck. And by the 55th minute, they began to settle. The way a storm settles into a stronger, colder silence. Their midfield trio finally began to click. Short, sharp passes. Angled balls. Diagonal switches. They didn’t look rattled anymore, they looked calculating.
Alex felt it from the touchline. The tide was shifting again.
In the 58th minute, the first major warning ca.
Arthur, graceful and patient, slipped a reverse ball through Lecce’s tight line. It was almost invisible to everyone, except Beltrán. The Argentine forward made the run at just the right mont, perfectly threading the gap between Baschirotto and Pongracic. Suddenly, he was in.
["Beltrán! One-on-one with Falcone! This could be it!"]
Alex’s heartbeat shot into his throat.
But Wladimiro Falcone, Lecce’s unshakable wall between the sticks, didn’t hesitate. He had seen it a second earlier than anyone. He was already charging off his line. Arms wide. Shoulders squared.
Beltrán took the shot.
And Falcone t it with his whole body.
The ball slamd off his shoulder and spun wide.
["OH MY HOLY GOALKEEPING GOD!"] the other comntator cried. ["Falcone just cannonballed into that like a war hero! That is not a save, that is a goddarn force field!"]
["What a save! He just cos out, makes himself big to narrow down the angle. It’s basic textbook stuff but what we just saw was the textbook practice done to perfection!]
The crowd went wild. Even so Fiorentina fans stood, clapping out of sheer disbelief.
Alex turned to his bench, half laughing, half wheezing. "Wlad, I swear if you were any better, I’d marry you."
But the danger wasn’t over.
In the 62nd minute, it was Bonaventura’s turn to unlock Lecce’s defense.
He drifted into the half-space, drawing two red shirts to him. Then, with a quick look over his shoulder, he slotted a perfectly tid ball across the edge of the box. Nico González arrived in a blur, hitting it first-ti, low and deadly.
["Here cos the equaliser... González hits it... "]
["AND FALCONE AGAIN! You are joking! That man is a living cheat code!"]
["What a save! What a night he’s been having so far, almost singlehandedly keeping his side in this tie!"}
Falcone flew sideways like he had springs in his ribs. His fingertips touched the ball just enough to redirect it around the post.
Alex clapped once, slowly, grinning.
"Alright, alright. This is your ga, Wlad. Keep playing it." A mont later, he paused as if he was in deep thought about sothing. "Yeah, I’m not marrying him". He muttered under his breath.
By now, even the fans knew what was happening. Lecce had poked the beast. And now the beast was wide awake and very, very angry.
The freedom of those first ten minutes was gone.
Alex started barking orders again. He waved his arms, telling his midfield to drop back. He yelled at Dorgu and Gallo to close the flanks tighter. The low block returned, not by design, but by necessity.
Fiorentina attacked with thodical rage. They overloaded the wings. They zipped passes through tight channels. At tis, it felt like there were ten purple shirts on the pitch instead of eleven. And yet, Lecce didn’t break.
They bent. Lord, did they bend.
In the 68th minute, Fiorentina completed a twenty-pass sequence that pulled Lecce in and pushed them back. The ball was then whipped to the far post, looping, tempting, lethal.
Gallo, out of breath and running on fus, rose like a man possessed. He t it clean with his forehead and sent it flying back toward midfield.
The danger wasn’t over.
Falcone sprinted to collect the second ball. He looked up, took one heartbeat, and then launched a pass.
It wasn’t a clearance. It was a weapon.
A perfect diagonal rocket that spun through the air, heading straight for Dorgu.
["Now it’s Lecce’s turn! What a counter! Falcone with a missile, and Dorgu is tearing down the left!"]
Alex leaned forward, eyes wide. He had drawn this counterattack up in training. Now it was happening in real life.
Dorgu took the ball with one graceful touch. He didn’t slow. He just sprinted forward, his boots tearing the turf apart. Fiorentina’s full-back was already caught out. Only Duncan stood between Dorgu and a free run at goal.
Dorgu tried to cut inside.
Duncan went for the ball.
And what ca next... wasn’t football.
Duncan managed to catch the side of Dorgu’s calves stud first sending the twenty year old Dane tumbling on the floor while holding his legs. As for Duncan, he just stood there with wide eyes, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he just did.
"This can’t be real". He muttered to himself as he stared at the young wingback who had started pounding the floor in agony. "I couldn’t have done that"
But it was real. And the referee’s whistle made it realer than he could care to deny.
A/N: Bonus Chapter if we make it to 50 Power Stones this week, or three reviews. Two if we smash both targets.
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