The Jerusalem stadium was plunged into suffocating silence. Every eye burned with the same image, the Number 9 in the red shirt, suspended in the air above a forest of German defenders.
Ter Stegen had stretched his left hand to its absolute limit, managed a fingertip deflection but the velocity was too high to absorb. The ball's trajectory veered only slightly, ricocheted off the inner side-netting, and hit the back of the net.
SWISH!
2-1.
Ter Stegen hit the grass hard, his eyes wide. The scoreboard above the Jerusalem night updated with cold finality.
Lopetegui was leaning so far forward on the touchline he was almost on the pitch. He had seen Lorenzo score from impossible angles, outrun world-class sprinters, bully veterans with his frame. But he had never seen the Beast use his head as a primary weapon in an official match.
[System Note: Jumping - 88. Breakthrough Potion ceiling lifted. Core strength fully manifest.]
The header wasn't the most technically refined contact, his heading mechanics were still developing, the precise contact point still being calibrated. But the jumping power, unlocked by the Breakthrough Potion and sharpened through weeks of Pintus sessions, had more than compensated. He had launched rather than leaped, a quality of vertical that made the German defenders around him appear to have jumped from a standing start.
"A HEADER!! LORENZO HAS SCORED WITH HIS HEAD!!" Santiago's voice was a ragged roar. "The score is overturned! Before the halftime whistle, the Sovereign has completed another brace! Is there anything this boy cannot do?!"
Inés Valdes reviewed the footage. "This is a milestone. By every record I have in front of me, this is Lorenzo's first professional goal with his head. He has now scored with his right foot, his left foot, and his head in a single month. Right, left, aerial, the complete attacking profile of a centre-forward. Spain's lineup on paper might not match Germany's depth, but with the Beast in the central position they are playing in an entirely different dimension."
On the Spanish bench, Álvaro Morata stood at the touchline staring at the pitch. Beside him, Cristian Tello was already laughing.
"Look at that jump, Álvaro," Tello said. "Your whole identity."
Morata rolled his eyes, though there was no venom in it. "We aren't playing the same sport. I can accept that."
The German stands were a tomb. After their dream start, conceding two goals in ten minutes to a single player, the halftime whistle came as a mercy for them. In the centre circle, Emre Can and Holtby were in a fierce, brief argument, gestures toward the big screen, shrugs, two men in total disagreement about how to solve the unsolvable.
Hrubesch watched it and said nothing. He already knew the halftime talk he needed to give.
Fifteen minutes later, the war resumed.
Fweet-!
The second half opened with Spain playing with a different quality, not cautious, not conservative, but pressing forward with the youthful aggression of a team that believed the match was within reach of being settled early. Lorenzo dropped to receive from Jesé and immediately drove toward the German defensive third.
In the 65th minute, the third goal arrived.
Isco performed a sharp shoulder drop that left Leitner off-balance and played the ball to Jesé, who had dropped into the space Lorenzo had vacated by pulling both Can and Arnold with him. Jesé was completely unmarked. He saw the lane clearly.
"JESÉ - FIND THE GAP!" Lopetegui screamed.
Jesé swung his leg and delivered a vertical ground-level through-ball. Arnold lunged to intercept and arrived a fraction too late. The ball whistled past him into Lorenzo's stride.
Lorenzo wedged Can out of the lane with his shoulder, took a velvet first touch that set the ball perfectly ahead of him, and sprinted toward the penalty area. Ginter charged out of the backline to intercept. Thirty-five yards from goal.
Lorenzo didn't look for the pass. He didn't look for the dribble. He planted his right foot and felt the Batistuta mechanics loading and underneath them, the Šuker precision in his left foot, recalibrated and ready.
He swung.
BOOM.
The sound of the impact carried to the back rows. Can turned pale. Hrubesch froze. Ginter, mid-slide, twisted desperately, but he was trying to stop a comet with his ribs.
The ball screamed toward the top-right corner from thirty-five yards.
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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