Tweet!
At referee Atkinson's whistle, the match resumed.
Liverpool showed no sign of panic after conceding. If anything, they picked up the pace, committing fully to Klopp's philosophy of attack as the best defence.
Their backline pushed high.
Every man on the pitch seemed to say the same thing: more attack was coming.
De Bruyne and Julien began swapping positions, weaving through the final third. Julien stopped waiting passively for chances and started dropping deep to collect the ball himself.
Through his movement and quick one-twos with teammates, he kept stretching City's midfield and defence apart.
De Bruyne drifted constantly between flank and centre, dragging City's defenders out of position and opening up space for Julien to drive into.
Defensively, the burden fell entirely on Gerrard and Kanté, both had to drop back to cover them.
Caught off guard by Liverpool's sudden high press, Pellegrini was reacting from the touchline, waving for his players to pull their lines in.
Down by only a single goal, holding the line and waiting for a chance to counter was City's only real route back into the game.
If they push forward blindly, Liverpool's press would tear them apart.
The first half had already proven that.
Time slipped by.
In the 72nd minute, Gerrard cut out a pass from Nasri in midfield. Without a moment's hesitation, he played it straight through to De Bruyne who had drifted into space at the edge of the box.
De Bruyne took the ball while in the run and began spinning away from a City defender's challenge.
He lifted his foot and let fly from distance!
Bang!
The shot was a heavy, driving strike, screaming toward goal. Joe Hart threw himself through the air with everything he had!
His fingertips just brushed the ball, deflecting it off the crossbar and out of play. A hair's breadth from a goal!
A gasp swept through the Liverpool end of Wembley.
It had looked, for a second, like a certain goal.
On the touchline, Klopp grimaced at the near miss, but he was already pumping his arms at his players, roaring, "Well done! Keep attacking!"
Moments later, in the 75th minute, City cleared a Liverpool attack inside their own box, and Hart launched a quick long ball out to Navas on the right.
Navas tore down the right wing at full speed!
Robertson struggled just to keep pace, let alone stop the cross, and Navas whipped the ball in without hesitation.
The ball flew toward Dzeko, arriving in the middle.
But this time Dzeko never got off the ground—Van Dijk muscled in ahead of him and hacked the ball clear for a throw-in.
Another City attack snuffed out.
Over the following minutes, the tactical battle only sharpened, the momentum was swinging back and forth.
Liverpool kept up the high-intensity press, hammering at City's defence again and again. With De Bruyne's help, Julien slipped Fernandinho's marking more than once to cut into the box only for Kompany to intercept the pass, or Hart to claw out the shot.
City, for their part, leaned on the counter, targeting the space behind Liverpool's high line.
Navas's pace on the wing remained the biggest threat, breaking past Liverpool's flank repeatedly but every cross was dealt with and City couldn't conjure another clear chance.
Back at the Boot Room Pub, the mood had turned tense and a world away from the first-half celebrations.
One fan filled with worries couldn't hold it in. "What's going on? We've had so many chances—why can't we put one away? We're not going to blow this, are we? If City score again, we're in real trouble!"
Before he'd finished, the fan beside him clapped him on the shoulder.
"No chance! What's there to panic about? We're Liverpool! We've got Julien, we've got Steven, we've got Jurgen, and we've got all of us who've stood behind them the whole way! They just haven't finished off a chance yet—if they keep this tempo, keep attacking, the goal will come. Trust the team. Trust our players!"
Heads nodded all around them. "That's right! Trust Liverpool! Trust our players! Hold the lead and we'll win this!"
On screen, though, the picture wasn't quite so well.
Liverpool couldn't find the breakthrough, and City's counters kept looking more and more dangerous.
An equalizer felt like it was only a matter of time.
Slowly, the clock ticked toward the 85th minute, and the air over Wembley felt tense enough to snap.
The score still read 2-1.
Fans on both sides were on edge.
Liverpool launched another wave of attack.
Gerrard had the ball in midfield. Facing Yaya Touré's challenge, he didn't force a pass instead, he gently laid it off behind him to Kanté.
Kanté took it and immediately threaded a pass through to Julien who had dropped deep to collect.
Fernandinho was still shadowing him step for step, pressed tight to his back, his hands were giving little shoves to Julien, trying to keep him from turning.
Marking Julien was the last thread of hope City had left.
Everyone expected Julien to do what he'd done before—lay it off, or find De Bruyne making a run.
But this time, the instant the ball reached him, Julien didn't pause at all. His feet flickered through a string of changes of direction, a fake left, a cut right—the rhythm shifted so fast that Fernandinho's balance broke in an instant.
The harder he tried to defend, the more he focused, the easier it was to sell him the dummy.
Fernandinho stumbled.
Julien spun and burst past him in the same motion. Fernandinho lunged with everything he had, but his fingers never even brushed the shirt.
Free of him at last, Julien surged forward through the middle!
He sliced straight into City's dense defensive shape.
Seeing it unfolds, Kompany abandoned his mark on Sturridge and rushed forward to cut him off.
But Julien's speed and explosiveness were simply too much.
Before Kompany could even set his feet, Julien dropped his shoulder, shifted direction, and was past him with ease.
He charged straight on toward the edge of City's box.
The whole sequence flowed as one motion with not even a wasted touch in it, and the Liverpool end erupted in roars of approval.
Once inside the box, Julien didn't go for goal himself.
Hart had already come off his line and was closing down the angle, while Demichelis was racing back to cut off any shot.
In a split second, Julien caught Sturridge in the corner of his eye breaking in from the right.
Sturridge had already lost Demichelis and stood completely unmarked.
Without a flicker of hesitation, Julien lifted his right foot, flicked his ankle, and curled the outside of his boot through City's last line!
The ball skimmed along the turf, curving on a perfect arc toward Sturridge.
The weight on the pass was precise—too far for Hart to reach, but right into Sturridge's stride.
Sturridge saw it coming, didn't break the run and simply guided it in with the lightest touch.
It was almost too easy.
Dead centre, the ball ripped into the back of the net!
Goal!
"Beautiful! Daniel Sturridge! He's scored! Three-one! Liverpool back to a two-goal lead!" Martin Tyler's voice exploded. "The 85th minute! Julien, with sheer individual brilliance, beats two men and sets up Sturridge for the goal! That's the quality of Julien—that's Liverpool!
Two goals clear with only around five minutes left—Liverpool have all but sealed the League Cup!"
The instant the ball hit the net, Sturridge spun, threw his arms in the air, and sprinted toward Julien.
His face was lit up with raw emotion, his throat was tearing with shouts.
Julien ran to meet him, and the two were locked in a tight embrace.
This goal extended their lead and shattered whatever hope City had of a comeback while sealing the match for Liverpool.
Gerrard, De Bruyne, Sterling, and the rest of the squad piled in around them.
On the touchline, Klopp punched the air three times in a row, roaring with laughter. "That's it! That's exactly it!"
Pellegrini, by contrast, looked worse than he had all match.
He knew the goal had killed any hope of a comeback. Down 3-1 in the 85th minute, with only a handful of minutes left, winning—let alone equalizing was nothing short of fantasy.
He lowered his head slowly and let out a long sigh.
Wembley dissolved, in an instant, into a roaring sea of red.
Liverpool fans threw their arms around one another, screaming, some with tears already in their eyes, they could feel the trophy within reach.
Up in the stands, the Queen wore a gentle smile, clapping softly as she turned to Hollande. "I told you we'd be congratulating Julien. The young man hasn't disappointed, that assist was magnificent. Liverpool have earned this win."
Hollande beamed with pride, nodding firmly. "Yes—Julien's individual quality is simply extraordinary."
Down on the pitch, City's players had lost the fight in them, they had their heads down while some lay on the turf covering their faces.
The celebration around Julien gradually settled.
He made his way slowly back toward the centre circle.
Crossing into City's half, he came face to face with Nasri, standing rooted to the spot, his face was dark with fury.
Nasri's whole expression showed frustration, the rage in his eyes seemed to boil over.
His team was down 3-1 with no way back, and Julien's flawless performance felt like one humiliation for his words after another.
Julien saw the state he was in. As he passed, he slowed his steps, dropped his voice, and spoke to him word by word: "Don't take it so hard—get used to it. As long as you're in the Premier League, as long as our paths keep crossing, I'll make sure you get used to what losing tastes like."
The words struck like a lit match, setting off everything Nasri had been holding in.
Pellegrini had told him at halftime to stay calm, and he'd forced the anger down.
With his team behind, he'd swallowed the bitterness.
But now, Julien's taunt shattered whatever restraint he had left.
"You want to die!" Nasri snarled and lunged forward while shoving both hands hard into Julien's chest.
Julien had half expected him to swing first.
The man's temper was a stick of dynamite, ready to go off at any second.
He braced himself instantly and shoved back, hard, into Nasri's shoulder with enough force to send him stumbling back two steps.
Before Nasri could come at him again, Julien had already closed the distance.
Forehead to forehead, the two batted off.
Their eyes burned with hostility glaring at each other while their mouths running with trash talk.
"You? You think you've got the right to mouth off at me?" Julien's tone dripped with contempt. "Every time you've come up against me, all you've ever done is panic and screw up. Act like the loser you are and get out of my sight."
Nasri was now shaking with rage. "You've just gotten lucky! If you've got the guts, take me on one against one—stop hiding behind your teammates!"
The shouting match only escalated, the two of them were grabbing fistfuls of each other's shirts.
Tweet tweet tweet!
Atkinson blew his whistle in sharp, urgent bursts the moment he saw it.
He rushed in, hands out, forcing his way between them. "Stop! Both of you, calm down—now!"
By then, players from both sides were already joining.
On the Liverpool side, Gerrard and De Bruyne stepped in front of Julien simultaneously, their eyes were warily on the City players ready to stop things from boiling over further.
On City's side, Yaya Touré and Kompany grabbed hold of the still-furious Nasri and tried to drag him back toward their own half.
All the while glaring at the Liverpool players.
Voices kept rising on both sides as players clustered together, trading accusations and curses, the standoff was flaring up all over again.
The atmosphere on the pitch turned sharp in an instant.
The stands erupted too, Liverpool fans were roaring abuse at Nasri, "Rubbish! Rubbish!!"
Atkinson pushed the crowd of players back. He turned to Julien first, said a few words of warning in a flat, cold voice, then reached into his pocket and held a yellow card high.
His gaze swung next to Nasri, without a trace of hesitation.
Atkinson reached into his pocket again and raised a second yellow.
Nasri already had one yellow to his name.
Atkinson pulled out a red card and lifted it slowly over his head.
Under the floodlights, the red blazed.
"Two yellows, a red! Nasri is off!" Martin Tyler sounded s bit regretful. "My word! Nasri's let his temper get the better of him! With his side 3-1 down and staring elimination in the face, he's gone and got himself sent off! City are finished—well and truly finished!
They were already down 3-1 with only minutes on the clock, the comeback was already a long shot. Now, with Nasri sent off and the team down to ten men, both attack and defence will suffer badly. Winning, they can forget about it even equalizing is off the table.
Pellegrini's side haven't just lost the run of play—they've lost their heads. This final is over for them…"
Nasri stared at the referee's raised red card.
His face still burned with anger. He knew exactly what punishment was coming but he couldn't choke back what was boiling inside him.
Kompany gave him a helpless pat on the shoulder, urging him not to make things worse.
Nasri lowered his head slowly, turned, and walked toward the tunnel.
Every step looked heavier than the last.
His retreating back made one picture of despair.
Behind him trailed the endless jeers of the Liverpool fans, and the sighs of City's own supporters.
________________________________________________________
Check out my p@treon where you can read more chapters:
[email protected]/LorianFiction
Thanks for your support!