My Football Legends Chat Group-Chapter 89: Noise

WHOOSH

"What was that noise?"

The Arsenal fans in the front row of the East Stand heard the sound of something cutting through the air near the corner flag, causing a few tourists to jump in fright.

WHOOSH

Once again it sounded, allowing them to finally pinpoint the source of the noise.

"Who is that guy? And why is he sprinting like a maniac over there?"

WHOOSH

"W-What the hell..."

The sound of Rio’s high knees was so loud and aggressive that the spectators were having difficulty focusing on the match in front of them. Since the majority of them were used to polite Premier League warm-ups, seeing Rio’s fierce expression while performing plyometrics that could be classed as a deadly weapon was enough to deter anyone from asking him to politely sit down.

Even the few stewards who had decided to monitor the away section were intimidated by the sight, choosing to do their best to ignore the "Leeds Missile" charging up.

"Halftime is approaching. Hold it!"

The 44th minute ticked by without another score from the home team, keeping the game at 3-1. Joe Rodon, the Leeds center-back, trudged out of the penalty box with some annoyance on his face, feeling humiliated by the Mateo Joseph volley he just suffered.

Since he was the senior defender, expectations were high. But something about the smug look on the young striker’s face when he celebrated pissed him off.

"Christopher, how are the boys looking?" Farke asked his assistant, deciding whether or not it was time for a tactical nuke.

In the midst of checking his iPad, the assistant turned and replied nervously. "They are shell-shocked, Boss. But holding."

"Mmm. Let’s get to halftime without conceding again. I’ll figure something else out for the second half." He said mysteriously.

Farke’s eyes were focused on the boy in the distance who had been sprinting away for the entire last five minutes. He had noticed it from the moment Mateo scored.

Each sprint that Rio performed was timed perfectly with the counter-attacks on the pitch. He was visualizing and adjusting his runs perfectly, despite being in a bib on the sidelines.

’Looks like he’s eager to eat.’ The manager thought, rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"Just another 20 sprints or so and I’ll be fully activated," Rio mumbled to himself.

He found it easier to warm up when watching the game flow; it helped him visualize and calibrate his Tactical Blueprint with the physical reality.

Unaware of the fear his warm-up had brought to the North London faithful, Rio continued to do the same with Gnonto (who had given up and was lying on the grass) watching in horror.

Despite the score being 3-1, the Leeds defense still persisted.

’There’s no way we concede a fourth... Not before I get on.’

Channeling his inner Neuer, Meslier began his wind-up and sent a goal kick flying towards the midfield.

THUD

The ball was headed poorly straight towards Declan Rice. Ampadu didn’t even have to move from his spot to intercept the second ball, but Rice was too strong.

"Foul!"

"Free kick to Arsenal."

’Shit! This is dangerous.’

Ampadu was all panic as he retreated to the wall. He only needed to survive one more set-piece and they would be in the changing room.

Luck seemed to be on their side as Odegaard curled the ball straight into the wall. It deflected up into the air and into the waiting gloves of Meslier.

"Nice hands Illan!"

The Leeds bench cheered in response to the save.

"Whistle! Blow the damn whistle!"

Even the players on the field were getting into it, eager to escape the Emirates pressure cooker.

There were only two people on the Leeds bench who seemed out of sorts, not matching the desperate atmosphere.

One was Gnonto, who had somehow managed to crawl back to the heated seats after barely surviving Rio’s devilish warm-up regime. Judging by how sweaty his training top was, he looked as if he had played 90 minutes already.

The other was Archie Gray, who currently had a pouting look on his face.

’Here I thought he would give me a thumbs up after Mateo scored... Stupid Rio.’

He wasn’t really upset, just a little disappointed. It was one thing if Rio was focused on the game, but he had ignored Archie’s attempt to chat right after the third goal.

In a huff, he decided to go look for Rio.

Leaving the technical area, he hobbled over on his crutches to the open space beside the corner flag and coincidentally saw the man he was looking for doing shadow boxing. His gaze was focused intently on the field as he continued to sharpen his mental blade.

Archie’s face softened considerably.

’He must want to beat Mateo so badly.’ He thought, inwardly forgiving him for the silent treatment earlier.

Meanwhile, Rio was busy counting down his remaining activation seconds in his head, feeling his muscles begin to twitch with S-Grade power.

Even though it had only been a few days since he unlocked The Zone, he could already feel the electricity waiting to be unleashed.

"Hey Rio. I finally tracked you down," Archie said, feeling his stomach flutter a little from the cold wind.

Rio was so focused that he didn’t even hear his soft voice over the crowd noise.

PEEEP! PEEEP!

"Halftime. Change!"

The players on the field began to head back to their respective tunnels, heads down.

"Ahem." Archie cleared his throat, feeling a little awkward standing there in his suit with crutches.

Rio turned around from the field, finally noticing him. His eyes went wide since he wasn’t expecting the kid to be standing so close to the "danger zone" of his warm-up. He felt his heart skip a beat seeing how professional Archie looked with the Arsenal stadium lights reflecting off his tie.

His bright eyes were staring at Rio curiously, leaving the captain feeling almost out of breath.

"Hey, sorry I was a little preoccupied. I was visualizing a hat-trick," He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck and smiling awkwardly.

Despite vowing that he would treat Archie as a professional teammate, there was still a deep part of him that found it difficult to not treat him like a little brother. Perhaps it was the protective instinct rising to the surface, eroding at his "tough guy" persona.

After all, he had promised to protect the club’s future.

Archie too felt his ears heat up in response to the intense focus in Rio’s eyes, yet it didn’t feel scary like when Farke shouted. In fact, it caused him to feel confident, even bringing a smile to his face.

"Okay everyone, get inside! 15 minutes to fix this shit show!" Farke announced, storming down the touchline.

’SAVED BY THE WHISTLE!’

Rio inwardly rejoiced, he had been saved by the manager’s rage. However, he still needed to smoothly extricate himself from the kid in front of him, hopefully making up for the intense atmosphere.

"Okay, see you inside."

With that, he turned around and jogged to the tunnel.

’W-What the hell was that!?’

Rio was mortified. He would need to set up a performance meeting with his brain at a later date to talk over why he couldn’t just have a normal conversation without turning it into a dramatic anime scene.

Archie blinked a few times before...

"Pfft hahaha."

He broke into one of his giggling fits.

Thankfully the crowd noise covered his laugh and others were preoccupied with booing the referee that no one but the subs heard him.

Both Cooper and Ayling had witnessed the whole situation and were about to step in when they saw Archie was unsteady on his crutches. That was until Cooper noticed Rio storming back over quickly with purpose.

Using his veteran’s intuition, he was able to see the shining white knight in the form of Rio who had come back to help the "wounded soldier." With a practiced ease, he grabbed Ayling and retreated to the tunnel entrance where they could watch the proceedings.

However, they were left speechless at the abrupt ending.

Cooper and Ayling looked at each other as if to confirm they had seen the same thing, only to be interrupted by the muffled giggles of Archie who seemed to be in a great mood.

"Is he in love with the captain or something?" Ayling commented, watching the kid giggling violently.

Rio brute-forced his way back to Archie, almost flattening a cameraman who was filming the walk-off. He grabbed Archie’s bag of tactical notes, drawing a funny sight as the star player acted like a caddy.

After helping Archie to the tunnel entrance, Rio placed his head down and felt his face heat up.

Thankfully he managed to recover a few seconds later by the time everyone got into the dressing room.

"Looks like we have most of the survivors here." Farke said, standing up at the center of the room and getting everyone’s attention.

His face turned up into a grimace, "There’s still one person who thinks this game is over." 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

With that, he moved to the side to reveal the tactical board.

"We are too passive! Respect is good, but fear is death!"

"Rio!"

"You’re on."

"Haha, go save us, Skip."

Morale was instantly boosted, despite the players already being exhausted from chasing shadows for 45 minutes, the atmosphere reaching an even higher level knowing their talisman was entering the fray.

Rio waved to the teammates he had watched struggle for the past half and couldn’t help but smile. He moved his gaze, looking for a certain person in particular.

Archie lifted his head from the corner of the room, his eyes locking with Rio.

A look of excitement appeared on Archie’s face, telling Rio everything he needed to know. Rio then made his way through the messy room and spoke up, pointing to the empty spot next to him.

"Mind if I lace up here?"

"No worries."

The two sat in silence for a little over 2 minutes into the 15-minute break, however, it wasn’t awkward.

"Thank you."

Rio didn’t respond, nor did he feel he had to. To him, the only natural conclusion was to come on and fix the mess, since he knew about the tactical gaps thanks to the System.

He also did not want Archie to watch his team get humiliated, hence his desire to play wasn’t completely selfish. It was all for the end goal of winning the FA Cup.

Archie didn’t seem to be phased by the lack of response.

"The analyst said their left-back Zinchenko is inverting too much. There’s space behind him," He stated, feeling a smile form on the corner of his lips.

"Good. I’ll exploit it," Rio replied, tightening his boots.

"Yeah..."

Once again the two were silent for a while before Archie turned towards Rio with a serious expression.

"Rio, if it wasn’t for y—"

"Don’t sweat the tactics, man." Rio interrupted him, already feeling the Zone activating.

"Just make sure you watch closely. We’ll need you to analyze the replay later."

Archie stared at his captain with a stunned expression for a moment, however, it was quickly replaced with a smile. It seemed that Rio was already in game mode, so he decided to drop the matter entirely.

"Yeah, no worries. I’ll be taking notes," He stated confidently.

There were no more words the rest of the halftime between the two, yet they still enjoyed each other’s company.

Soon enough the bell rang, yet everyone stayed in their seats besides Farke.

"Okay guys, the second half starts in five minutes so I want everyone to head straight for the pitch and get ready. Rio, you replace Gnonto. Go wide. Kill them."

"Alright, no dilly-dallying, let’s go."

With that, he ushered everyone out of the room, not leaving until there was no one left behind.

The team walked out of the tunnel and headed towards the pristine Emirates pitch. It almost felt like walking into a gladiator arena dressed in their white kits.

There was a massive crowd of 60,000 people who had come to watch the cup tie, mostly made up of confident Arsenal fans.

The opposition manager, Arteta, walked out to his technical area and crossed his arms. He was an intense man, yet his eyes were sharp and filled with intelligence.

"Thanks for making it easy for us, Daniel." The Arsenal manager mumbled to himself, a harmless smile plastered on his face.

"Don’t thank me yet, Mikel."

Farke muttered under his breath as he took his seat.

Rio stood on the touchline. The fourth official raised the board.

OFF: 29 (Gnonto)

ON: 7 (Lance)

Rio stepped onto the grass.