Shane Carter lost his balance and crashed heavily onto the Munich turf.
Fortunately, Bastian Schweinsteiger's sliding challenge had come in low, with his studs scraping the grass. It was a cynical trip, not a bone-breaking tackle. Shane wasn't injured.
Antoine Griezmann jogged over and violently pulled him up.
Schweinsteiger scrambled to his feet, his brow heavily furrowed in deep anxiety.
The millisecond he saw Shane violently accelerate past Toni Kroos, absolute panic had flooded his veins. He had to make the tackle. But now, looking at where the foul had occurred... that feeling of impending doom hadn't dissipated.
It was a free-kick. Dead center on the edge of the penalty area, slightly biased to the right.
Given Shane's terrifying, world-renowned ball-striking ability, this was essentially a penalty kick with extra steps.
Schweinsteiger swallowed hard, suppressing his dread, and jogged back to organize the wall.
"A deeply cynical foul from Schweinsteiger, but an absolutely necessary one," Peter Drury noted in the global gantry. "And now, Atlético Madrid possesses a phenomenally dangerous free-kick."
The commentators didn't share Schweinsteiger's absolute terror. In fact, some pundits believed the foul was a miscalculation simply because of the geography of the pitch.
"The positioning is actually incredibly awkward," Wolff Fuss analyzed for the German audience. "It is dangerously close to the goal. That is not a benefit; it is a severe handicap."
Fuss was mathematically correct.
To score a direct free-kick, the ball must clear the heads of a jumping defensive wall and then rapidly violently dip back down to sneak under the crossbar. That trajectory naturally requires distance.
The absolute optimal zone for a direct free-kick was usually two to five yards outside the D.
But Shane had placed the ball exactly on the white chalk of the eighteen-yard line.
If he attempted to whip the ball over the wall from this range, physics dictated he simply wouldn't have enough horizontal runway to force the ball to dip under the bar.
However, given Shane's supernatural curve, Bayern Munich wasn't taking any mathematical chances.
Manuel Neuer screamed at his defenders, organizing a massive, four-man wall to entirely seal off the near post. Neuer then positioned himself slightly toward the far post, anticipating that Shane might opt for a cross instead, as Diego Godín, Miranda, and Mario Suárez were all aggressively crowding the penalty area.
Neuer furiously scanned the pitch. His expression was grim. He had absolutely zero read on what the teenager was about to execute.
The four men in the wall covered their vitals, nervously inching forward to subtly close the angle.
Peep!
The referee blew the whistle. Shane took his run-up and struck the ball!
Thud!
The ball smashed violently directly into the wall.
But simultaneously, a sharp whistle echoed across the stadium.
Shane hadn't even finished his swinging motion before the Bayern wall had aggressively charged forward. Schweinsteiger had bolted early, taking the ball directly to the chest.
The referee sprinted over, violently pointing at the foam line and issuing a stern, final warning to the German captain.
"Encroachment! The wall jumped the gun, and the referee orders a retake!"
"Shane attempted the direct strike," Drury noted, "but again, generating the required dip from this absolute minimum distance is a bio-mechanical nightmare..."
While the broadcast debated the physics, the Bayern wall resentfully retreated to the exact legal distance.
Shane placed the ball meticulously back onto the exact blade of grass. He took three deliberate steps backward, staring blankly at the highly agitated German wall.
He knew exactly why Bayern was so terrified.
He was statistically one of the most lethal set-piece takers on the planet. During the previous half-season alone, counting La Liga and the Europa League, he had scored seven direct free-kicks.
Only Lionel Messi sat above him, having scored ten direct free-kicks across the entire season for Barcelona. But Messi had required a full twelve months to hit that number; Shane had racked up seven in just six.
Historically, the absolute undisputed King of Free-Kicks was Juninho Pernambucano.
During the 2005-2006 season at Olympique Lyonnais, the Brazilian maestro set a completely absurd record of eight direct free-kicks in a single Ligue 1 campaign. More terrifyingly, Juninho maintained a streak of scoring at least five direct free-kicks a season for seven consecutive years. He was the most ruthlessly consistent sniper the sport had ever seen.
Right behind him sat David Beckham, who once netted nine in a single season and scored from a dead ball in every single season of his professional career.
Facing an eighteen-year-old who was already drawing statistical comparisons to the absolute historical elite, Bayern's extreme nervousness was entirely justified.
Even after the referee's explicit warning, the wall subtly shifted their weight onto their toes, desperate to jump.
Shane didn't complain to the referee. He didn't wave his arms.
He was entirely occupied with a different thought process.
You're all entirely focused on the airspace above your heads.
Shane's eyes drifted downward, locking onto the boots of the Bayern wall.
The referee backpedaled and blew the whistle.
Shane began his run-up. Slow to fast.
As he planted his non-kicking foot, his body mechanics shifted drastically. He didn't lean backward to generate loft. He aggressively leaned forward, dropping his chest entirely over the ball, before violently snapping his right instep through the dead center of the leather.
Simultaneously, the four-man Bayern wall instinctively launched themselves into the air.
Toni Kroos, positioned directly in the center of the wall, realized the catastrophic error the exact millisecond his boots left the turf.
He had seen Shane's body lean.
If a player wanted to go over the wall, they naturally leaned back. If their chest was violently compressed over the ball... it meant they were keeping it on the floor.
It was a daisy-cutter.
Suspended in mid-air, Kroos desperately wished he possessed the supernatural ability to instantly manipulate gravity and slam himself back onto the turf.
But physics was an absolute, unforgiving mistress.
Driven by the explosive power of their own calves, the entire wall leaped into the sky.
The ball didn't fly toward their heads.
It violently skimmed the Munich turf. By the time the wall reached the absolute apex of their jump, the ball had already zipped cleanly underneath their cleats...
"SHANE... STRIKES IT!"
As the commentary echoed, Manuel Neuer's eyes were permanently glued to the airspace above the wall.
He was frantically calculating: Is it dipping toward the near post? Or is it floating toward the back post for Godín?
When Neuer heard the heavy, distinctive thud of boot on leather, his focus peaked.
But the ball never crested the wall.
A sudden, sharp gasp erupted from the stands directly behind the goal. Neuer instantly felt a sickening drop in his stomach. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blur of white and red violently emerging from beneath the wall's boots.
Neuer's face contorted in pure, unadulterated horror.
He desperately commanded his body to collapse and dive. But the human nervous system simply couldn't process the sudden, violent shift in visual information fast enough.
He was completely paralyzed.
He stood frozen on his goal line, completely motionless, looking like a glitched-out NPC in a severely lagging video game.
It wasn't until the ball had violently smashed into the side-netting to his right that his body finally executed the delayed dive, violently slamming into the post.
"SHANE... STRIKES IT!"
The global commentary gantry collectively paused for exactly half a second as the ball vanished.
The millisecond it reappeared from under the wall and rippled the net, pure chaos erupted.
"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!"
Lead Spanish broadcaster Mario ruthlessly flexed his absolute lung capacity. He held the scream for a staggering twenty seconds straight before finally pausing for breath.
"A LETHAL EXECUTION! AN ABSOLUTE KILL SHOT! SHANE CARTER COMPLETES THE HAT-TRICK!"
A few desks over, Wolff Fuss buried his face in his hands. "My God... Shane Carter has just secured a hat-trick at the Allianz Arena. If Bayern Munich loses this match... they didn't lose to Atlético Madrid. They lost entirely to a single, eighteen-year-old anomaly!"
"A HAT-TRICK ON HIS ABSOLUTE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DEBUT!"
Up in the stands, the massive contingent of Bayern ultras stood completely frozen, staring blankly at the pitch.
In the away sector, the traveling Atlético faithful erupted into sheer delirium, their roars absolutely dominating the Munich night.
"¡VAMOS!"
"Shane steps up... he goes completely UNDER THE WALL! It's in! IT IS ABSOLUTELY IN!"
Peter Drury practically leaped out of his chair, aggressively knocking over his notes in the broadcast booth.
"Pure, unadulterated genius! He noticed the wall jumping early on the encroachment, recalibrated his entire mathematical equation, and completely humiliated them!" Jim Beglin roared in absolute awe.
On social media, the timeline completely disintegrated.
"NO FUCKING WAY!"
"HE WENT UNDER IT?!"
"ABSOLUTE CINEMA!"
"A hat-trick on his UCL debut away at Bayern?! Give him the Ballon d'Or right now!"
Toni Kroos landed heavily back onto the turf.
He slowly turned his head, staring in absolute, hollow shock at the ball resting in the back of the net.
He really is an absolute monster...
Kroos watched the back of the Number 10 as he sprinted wildly toward the touchline.
"Fucking brilliant!"
"Absolute genius!"
"AARRGHHH! WE KILLED THEM!"
The entire Atlético Madrid squad, including the substitutes, sprinted like madmen toward the corner flag. They violently tackled Shane to the turf, forming a massive, chaotic dogpile on the pristine grass of the Allianz Arena.
Down in the technical area, Jupp Heynckes slowly shook his head.
"Verdammt..."
The legendary German tactician was completely at a loss for words. His elite, treble-chasing machine hadn't been out-tacticed. They had simply been mathematically dismantled by a single teenager.
"A hat-trick on his Champions League debut..." Peter Hermann muttered blankly beside him. He felt an overwhelming sense of cosmic injustice.
Why the absolute hell did his debut have to be against us? Did we just accidentally wander into this kid's legendary superhero script?
Diego Simeone violently embraced his coaching staff, his eyes burning with absolute triumph.
Storming the Allianz Arena and securing three points was an almost impossible feat.
Out on the pitch, the Bayern players stood with their hands heavily planted on their hips. A deep sense of bitter injustice washed over them. Statistically, they had dominated the lion's share of the possession and the tactical tempo.
But statistics didn't matter.
There was exactly one minute of stoppage time remaining.
Atlético Madrid led 4-3.
"Shane Carter has executed the absolute ultimate kill shot," Mario whispered into his microphone, his voice thick with emotion. "This is only Matchday 1, yet we may have just witnessed the absolute greatest match of the entire Champions League campaign..."
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