CHAPTER 89: SECOND HALF COLLAPSE

"We’re changing everything now," Yves declared, his voice slicing through the halftime silence.

Players lifted their gazes from their boots, hands, and the floor where they had been staring for the past ten minutes. The dressing room felt like a funeral. Cold concrete walls surrounded them, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and the smell of defeat hung heavy in the air.

"Formation changes to three-five-two," Yves continued, grabbing a marker and wiping the tactical board clean. "Givet drops back. Rothen and Evra push higher. We need to flood their box."

Alonso raised his head. "Coach, they’re picking us apart on the counter—"

"I know what they’re doing." Yves’s marker squeaked against the whiteboard. "But we can’t play it safe anymore. Two goals down against Lyon? You don’t come back with patience."

The Spanish midfielder’s jaw tightened. He had been dominated by Juninho for forty-five minutes, made to feel ordinary. That hurt more than the scoreline.

"Emmanuel." Yves turned to Adebayor, whose eyes were red-rimmed and close to tears. "You’re not dropping deep anymore. Stay high. Force their center-backs to make decisions."

"They’re too strong, coach. Too fast."

"Then be smarter." Yves crouched down to meet the teenager’s gaze. "Speed isn’t everything. Movement is. Make them think."

In the corner, Michel worked quietly, checking hamstrings and ankles. Professional preparation continued even as dreams crumbled. That’s what separated elite football from everything else—the show must go on.

Giuly stood near the door, the captain’s armband feeling like a weight around his bicep. His face was stone, betraying no emotion or panic, but his knuckles were white as he gripped his water bottle.

"We go down fighting," the captain finally said. "No regrets. Give everything."

The tunnel felt longer on the way back out. Lyon’s players looked relaxed and confident. Why wouldn’t they? This was routine for them—another team learning the hard way what championship football truly meant.

Monaco’s small corner of support tried their chants again, but even they sounded hollow now. Hope was a fragile thing, easily shattered.

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SECOND HALF: LYON 2-0 MONACO

The formation change was evident from the first whistle. Monaco emerged like cornered animals—desperate and dangerous, embodying the fierce spirit of a team with nothing left to lose.

Evra surged forward immediately, overlapping Rothen as if his life depended on it. The cross was fierce, whipped into the penalty area where Adebayor wrestled with two defenders.

The young striker twisted and turned, somehow getting his head to the ball. It flashed toward a goal—

And hit the side netting. Inches wide. The Lyon fans behind the goal erupted in laughter, cruel and mocking.

But Monaco pressed on. D’Alessandro dropped between the lines, demanding the ball and trying to thread passes that weren’t there. His frustration mounted with every blocked attempt and every intercepted ball.

In the fifty-second minute, Alonso finally won a tackle in midfield and immediately played forward. A quick combination with Rothen followed, and the winger cut inside, shaping for the shot.

But the Lyon defender was there again. Another block. Another rebound spinning away to safety.

"Come on!" Giuly screamed, his voice raw with urgency.

The pressure was building. For five minutes, maybe less, Monaco resembled the team they aspired to be—quick passes, intelligent movement, the ball zipping between blue shirts with precision and purpose.

Then Lyon remembered who they were.

In the sixty-first minute, Monaco threw bodies forward for a corner. Evra was in the box, as was Givet—everyone except Roma and one center-back.

The corner was cleared, not cleanly, but cleared nonetheless.

Lyon’s transition was poetry in motion.

Three passes. That’s all it took. Three perfectly weighted passes, and suddenly Govou was flying down the left wing, with nothing but green grass ahead of him.

Givet sprinted back, lungs burning, legs feeling like lead. But he was already beaten, and everyone knew it.

Govou’s cross was measured and precise. Their striker didn’t even have to break stride—he redirected it past Roma’s desperate dive.

3-0.

The stadium erupted. Fireworks lit up the stands, and songs echoed, culminating seventy years of history. This wasn’t just a win—it was a statement.

Monaco’s players stood like statues. Adebayor had his hands on his hips, head tilted back toward the gray January sky. Alonso stared at the turf, while Giuly wore a mask of professional composure, but his eyes...

His eyes looked hollow.

On the bench, Michel was already preparing substitutions—not tactical ones, but mercy substitutions, to get tired legs off the field before something broke.

Yves made no movement, no gestures, no animated instructions. He watched his dream get torn apart by professionals doing this since his players were children.

Clara typed mechanical match reports up in the press box, maintaining a professional distance. Yet her hands shook slightly on the keyboard. She had witnessed him build something beautiful, and now she was watching it crumble.

The substitutions came in waves: fresh legs for tired ones, different faces, the same helpless result. Lyon had five gears, and they only needed the third to dismantle Monaco completely.

In the seventy-eighth minute, a moment of mercy arrived.

D’Alessandro, blood on his shin from yet another tackle, picked up the ball in his own half. Maybe it was pride, maybe stubbornness, or perhaps just professional instinct.

His pass found Adebayor, making the run they had practiced a hundred times in training. The young striker’s touch was perfect, removing him from the last defender.

For a second, just a second, the stadium held its breath.

Adebayor’s finish was clean, low, hard, and into the bottom corner where goalkeepers couldn’t reach.

3-1.

The celebration was muted, a sigh of relief more than a shout of hope. It was about dignity rather than triumph. Adebayor pointed to the small section of Monaco fans who had never stopped singing, even when the score was 3-0 and the game felt lost.

Lyon didn’t seem bothered. They had made their point. The margin of victory no longer mattered.

The final ten minutes crawled by like hours. Monaco kept trying, as professional footballers do, but their hearts weren’t in it. The lesson had been learned.

They weren’t ready. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

When the final whistle blew, Lyon’s players exchanged handshakes with Monaco’s like victorious generals accepting surrender—polite, professional, and utterly devoid of malice. That somehow made it worse.

Yves walked the touchline afterward, shaking hands with Lyon’s coaching staff, accepting congratulations that felt more like condolences. Forty thousand people celebrated a title already decided in January in the stands.

The away dressing room felt like a morgue. Players sat in their kits, boots unlaced, saying nothing. What was there to say? They had been schooled, humiliated, and shown where they belonged in the football hierarchy.

Not at the top.

Not yet.

Giuly was the first to break the silence. "Long season ahead," he said. "We learn from this." But his voice was unconvincing. Learning was one thing; bridging a gap this wide was another entirely.

Michel handed out clean towels, checked for injuries, and maintained professional standards even in defeat. That’s what separated good medical staff from great ones—they stayed calm when everything else fell apart.

"Press conference in ten minutes," Stone said quietly to Yves, avoiding eye contact. There was no discussion of tactics, transfers, or what came next—just duty.

Professional obligation in the face of professional humiliation.

The bus ride back to Monaco would be silent. Two hours of French countryside passed by windows that might as well have been showing the moon—different worlds, unreachable distances.

Yves sat in the front seat, his tactical notebook open but blank. No notes were taken, and no adjustments were planned—just empty pages staring back at him like accusations.

This was the gap. It was the reality that all his knowledge, planning, and secret advantages couldn’t bridge the gap overnight.

Champions weren’t made in dressing rooms or on training grounds. They were forged in moments like this, when everything fell apart, and you had to choose whether to rebuild or surrender.

Lyon had chosen to rebuild years ago. They had earned this dominance through seasons of work that Monaco was only beginning.

The timeline was changing, but some things couldn’t be rushed. Excellence took time, patience, and the willingness to endure humiliation at the hands of your betters until you learned to be better yourself.