CHAPTER 196: TARGET

Frankfurt were trying to play out again, methodical, patient. Kaua rolled the ball to Koch, who took two touches and laid it across to Theate. Athletic backed off a little to invite them on, then snapped forward together when the ball came into midfield.

Tuta received it just inside his own half, slightly to the right of the centre circle. He had Götze showing for it in the pocket, Larsson a safer option sideways, and Kristensen free but a little further out.

He chose the ambitious one.

With his first touch he tried to thread it straight into Götze between the lines. The idea was good. The execution wasn’t. The pass was underhit and a yard inside.

De Galarreta pounced.

"Danger here!" Cordero snapped. "Tuta gives it away in a horrible area."

The midfielder stepped in front of Götze, cut the ball out cleanly and didn’t hesitate. One touch to set himself, second touch to punch it wide left into Nico Williams’s path.

Once again, San Mamés came to life.

"Williams... space to run at Kristensen again," Wittyngham said, almost wincing.

Kristensen had been tormented all evening. This time he tried to close the distance early, sprinting out to meet Williams halfway up the flank. The Spaniard slowed just enough to make him think he might cut inside, dropped his shoulder, then pushed the ball down the line instead, exploding past him with a sudden burst of acceleration.

Kristensen reached, stretching out a leg, but there was nothing there. Only grass and the number eleven zooming past.

"He’s gone past him again," Cordero groaned. "Kristensen is having a nightmare with Nico Williams tonight."

Williams didn’t waste the angle. Two more touches brought him into the box, close to the byline on the left. Koch, recognising the danger, slid across to cover the six-yard line. Theate dropped a step closer to Sancet, who was ghosting toward the edge of the area. Brown tucked in on the far side to track Guruzeta.

Williams glanced up once and cut the ball back along the floor, just outside the penalty spot.

Koch threw himself across, stretching his right boot as far as it would go. He was a fraction late. The ball skipped under his studs and rolled nicely into Sancet’s path at the top of the D.

"It falls to Sancet!" Wittyngham shouted. "Edge of the box!"

Sancet didn’t rush. He opened his body, shaped as if to whip it high, then at the last second just passed it, side-footed, to the opposite corner of where Kaua was leaning. The young keeper had already taken half a step towards his near post in anticipation of a drive. The shot went the other way, low and calm, kissing the inside of the right upright before nestling into the net.

Kaua flung himself back across but he was never getting there.

"2–1!" Cordero roared over the eruption. "Oihan Sancet again for Athletic! And Frankfurt are punished for a terrible giveaway."

San Mamés shook. Players sprinted to the corner in front of the ultras, fists pumping, veins bulging in their necks as they screamed into the noise. Williams grabbed Sancet’s head with both hands and bumped foreheads with him, yelling something inaudible in his face.

On the Frankfurt side, Tuta stood rooted for a second where he’d lost the ball, hands on his hips, staring at the pitch. Larsson jogged over and gave him a pat between the shoulder blades, a quiet word as they trotted back towards the centre circle.

"That all comes from the turnover," Wittyngham said. "Right in the corridor of maximum danger. You just cannot, cannot miss that pass there against a team that breaks like Athletic do."

"And again it’s Nico Williams ripping them open down that left," Cordero added. "Every time he isolates Kristensen, there’s panic. Frankfurt have a big problem to solve on that flank."

The scoreboard flicked over to show 2–1. The camera cut briefly to Toppmöller on the touchline, jaw clenched, arms folded tighter across his chest. Then it cut to Lukas near the centre spot, hands on his hips, eyes fixed on the ball as it was placed for the restart.

The boos rained down on him again. He barely seemed to hear them.

Lukas did not need to glance at the scoreboard to feel the weight of the moment. Athletic’s second goal had rattled Frankfurt, not enough to break them, but certainly enough to shake the structure of the match.

The stadium had erupted like a cathedral struck by lightning, and the noise had barely subsided as the home players jogged back with the swagger of men who believed the night belonged to them. But while the red-and-white stripes basked in the moment, something flicked inside Lukas—a switch, a defiance, the refusal to be a spectator in someone else’s triumph.

For the next few minutes, it was as if the ball had acquired a gravitational pull toward his boots. Every time Frankfurt won possession, every clearance, every loose second ball seemed to find him. And every time he touched it, the decibel level inside San Mamés surged into a deafening wave of whistles.

The home fans were frantic now — not confident, not mocking, but scared. They had just seen the kind of player he was. They knew what could happen if he were allowed to breathe. And so they booed to drown their own fear.

It didn’t matter.

He didn’t hear them.

In the 65th minute, the stadium erupted again—but this time in fury. A sloppy Bilbao transition broke down, and the loose ball rolled invitingly toward Lukas near the halfway line. Before the home midfield line could blink, Lukas had already shaped his body to turn, scanning the horizon of green space ahead like a predator settling on a target.

Jauregizar panicked—truly panicked—and in his desperation to stop the turn, he grabbed a fistful of Lukas’s shirt from behind and yanked him down. It was an ugly, clumsy, and intentional foul.

The referee rushed in with the whistle already in his mouth, brandished the yellow card, and immediately found himself surrounded by complaining red-and-white shirts. But the decision was as obvious as gravity. Lukas sat up, dusted his palms, and adjusted his socks with the expression of a boy who had expected nothing less.

"They’re doing everything to stop him," Chris Wittyngham said.

"And honestly, can you blame them?" Andrés Cordero added. "When he faces forward, the alarm bells scream in this stadium."

But that was only a prelude to the real storm.

Athletic fell deeper and deeper with every Frankfurt push, especially once they realized they could not stop Lukas cleanly without risking another yellow. By the 74th minute, the entire Bilbao defensive block had collapsed into the final third, forming a compact wall of bodies around their own penalty box. Still, the ball found Lukas—because it always did—and this time it came through a short, sharp pass from Skhiri. Lukas, standing near the right edge of the arc, received it with his back half-turned and instantly dragged it backward with the sole of his foot, shifting the ball from right to left in a blur.

de Galarreta, already lunging in for the tackle, realized his mistake too late. The shift was too quick. The angle changed too sharply. And Lukas’s body—leaning away, ready to explode forward—was too unpredictable. The midfielder’s studs clipped Lukas’s ankle as he slid through the empty space where he thought the ball would be. Lukas’s legs tangled, and he fell forward with a grunt as the referee’s whistle blasted again.

Yellow card.

Clear as day.

The crowd lost its mind.

San Mamés booed so loudly it sounded like the air itself was vibrating, the jeers mixing with whistles that cut through the stadium like knives. They weren’t even booing the foul. They were booing the free kick. The fear of what they knew could happen from this exact range.

A/N: Hey guys... Writ here. I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far. This is me doing my monthly shameless gift begging. Help a broke writer out any way you can...

Thank you all.

Love you all.

-Writ.