Harbinger Of Glory

Chapter 247: First Blood Struck!

The corner that came from Leo didn’t really amount to much, as Luton headed it clear to the edge of the area, where Campbell collected it and drove forward immediately, Kenilworth Road finding its voice again as the home side transitioned.

The game had announced itself in the first minute, and neither side was going to let it settle into something comfortable.

Looking to catch Wigan off guard, Campbell quickly found Taylor wide right, and the striker took Tilt on with a low centre of gravity that troubled the defender more than it should have.

Looking to get away, Taylor cut inside, immediately forcing Tilt to backpedal, but before the former could get a shot off, Max Power came across for the double team to force it out for a throw.

"Luton responding immediately," the commentator said.

"They know what they’re doing. Let Wigan have their moment, then remind them whose ground this is."

"I don’t think that was the case with Leo’s effort," the co-commentator chuckled as he turned his attention back towards the pitch scenes.

Following that, the first fifteen minutes ran at that tempo, end to end, without being reckless.

Both sides found pockets and lost them while the crowd rose and fell with each passage of play.

In the twelfth minute, Clark went close with a driven effort from the edge of the area that Amos pushed wide.

A couple of minutes later, Ezra broke down the right, and his cutback found Fletcher arriving late, but the finish was dragged wide of the near post.

"Both sides going at it," the analyst said.

"This is what a playoff semi-final second leg looks like when neither team is willing to sit in and wait."

The goal kick slowed things for a second as Campbell jogged back into shape with Luton resetting their line.

But the moment the ball left the Luton Keeper’s foot, it ended in the stands, causing a wave of chuckles from the Wigan end, which was complemented by the commentator’s as Joe Bennet walked to grab the ball for the throw.

"I do not know who Ingram was looking for, but he must have seen something we didn’t right," the commentator chuckles slightly again as the broadcast camera found Ingram shaking his head.

Bennett held the ball a moment longer than he needed to, glancing inward instead of down the line until a new option appeared, and that was Leo.

He hadn’t moved much in the last minute, opting to play it safe with his mates while relieving pressure.

While the rest of them had been dragged into the chaos of the opening exchanges, he had stayed just outside it, drifting between bodies.

He was never quite marked but never quite free either.

Bennett spotted him and made a short throw to him, nothing ambitious.

Leo took it with his back to goal and didn’t turn.

Instead, he let it run across his body, his head tilting just slightly as his eyes flicked once, twice, over his shoulder.

Campbell stepped in, thinking he had him pinned, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Leo rolled his foot over the ball and nudged it away just before contact, slipping out of the pressure without accelerating, without forcing anything, just... gone.

"Nice escape by the teenager," the co-commentator murmured, almost under his breath.

Following that, it was looking more and more like Leo was about to go on another run or a pass was coming, and when he paused for a moment, that pause affirmed their worries as they stepped up a bit in reaction.

And that was exactly what Leo was looking forward to.

Stepping up always meant that there was going to be breaks in shape for a second, maybe not for a well-drilled team, but for Luton, all they had just handed to Leo were the keys.

Leo saw it the moment it happened and immediately pushed the pall against the ground, threading it between, weighted so it didn’t need chasing.

Fletcher, who had been anticipating the pass, immediately stopped as the ball found him instead and with just a little nudge, he immediately stepped in front of the Luton Town defender, putting himself between the latter and the ball.

"Oh, it’s a nice ball to find Fletcher. Wigan finding space here..." the commentator said, voice rising slightly as the shape began to open.

Fletcher drove forward, but instead of forcing it early, he shifted it wide to Ezra, who had already peeled off into that right channel again before dashing into the box, waiting for the service.

When the ball touched his feet, Ezra immediately turned and attacked the fullback directly.

The latter proved tougher than before, but with just a single touch to push it ahead, Ezra went past him, now dragging not just Doughty but Clark also with him.

The Wigan crowd rose in anticipation, while on the pitch, the two Luton Town players tried to double up on Ezra, but the youngster didn’t allow that.

Instead, he moved more and more towards the byline, dragging the two players still with him.

He glanced inside the box where Fletcher had settled, but sending it in was like giving the ball back to Luton as he was swarmed.

And so he cut back towards the edge of the box, where a more viable and confident option in Leo arrived.

The crowd saw it a second before the pass reached him, a ripple moving through Kenilworth Road as bodies leaned forward in anticipation.

"He’s there again..." the co-commentator anticipated, but almost immediately, Louie Watson of Luton Town dashed out towards the ball, immediately putting Leo’s possession of the ball in doubt since it was looking like the former would get to it.

Leo also stepped up, not wanting to be beaten.

He knew Louie was going to get there, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was going to get the ball.

And so he slowed at the last second and watched as Watson dropped to a slide, ready to clip the ball away, but instead of fighting for it, Leo jumped off his left leg, while leaving his right leg behind.

And so when Watson’s toe touched the ball, it bounced slightly, right onto the toe of Leo, who flicked it up the moment he felt the ball touch his boot.

That surprised everyone, particularly Watson, who was still sliding as Leo came down with the ball.

In the next moment, he shaped like he would, planting his foot and drawing out another defender out in a desperate lunge.

A shot from the right side of the box, with a right-footed shooter, wasn’t the most threatening, but with Leo on the ball, it somehow made it so.

And that was the reason for the players tensing and the defender lunging out blindly, but he never heard the twack that came with shooting the ball, but that was because Leo had chosen to slip it into the box and bodies instead.

A soft, almost disrespectful pass into the space that the defender had just abandoned.

The Luton players felt well prepared, but in that moment, all they could do was stare as the ball ran through them with neither feeling like they could get it, even if they stretched to the fullest or stuck their legs out and for a second, everything opened up.

"IT’S ASHLEYY FLETCHERRRRRRRR!" the commentator bellowed as the Wigan striker got a shot off, but by some magic or some reflexes, Ingram had anticipated the latter sending the ball to his right, and so he dashed ahead of the ball, and got his chest to do the job, even though he could feel the breath in his lungs leaving his body.

"OHHH, It’s blocked," the commentary said as the rising Wigan fans paused immediately.

The rebound spilt loose inside the area, bouncing awkwardly between legs as Luton scrambled, boots flying, bodies colliding, and the crowd roaring with every deflection as their players attempted to clear the ball.

"Still alive!" the commentator shouted as Max Power found himself looking like the likely destination for the ball, but he pushed it outward with the outside of his boot, causing all the Luton players, who were looking more and more like headless chickens, to backpedal and then turn towards the new destination of the ball in Leo.

But it was almost like a sentence when they found Leo, who had stopped the ball with his sole earlier, dashing right into the box and near the byline.

"It’s Calderon now, can he get a shot off?" the commentary said, but some seconds later, the ball still hadn’t left the feet of Leo.

For the latter, it looked like the ball might go out the byline and wasted their efforts as he struggled to control the ball under the pace he had dashed into the box with so at the last second, while the Luton players tossed themselves in front of him, Leo lifted the ball with the toe area of his boot, sending it over bodies and towards the far side as the goalkeeper stared at the ball tracking it with his eyes.

The breath of the commentator hitched as he wondered how that thought had come off as the ball began to dip, and in the next moment, the Luton Town net rustled.

"GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, IT’S THE OVERLAPPING JOE BENNET WITH A FINISH OF THE HIGHEST ORDER!"

The Wigan fans responded wildly as Joe Bennet, who had flown into a header, got to his feet and began running ecstatically towards Leo.

"It’s first blood struck for Wigan and Luton Town are looking dazed!"