novelraw Chapter 349 - 23: Malta VS England II
Chapter 349 - 23: Malta VS England II
77’ |
Stones played it to Rice, Rice turned and found Demien centrally where two Malta midfielders were already closing from different angles, their legs heavy but their positioning still disciplined from forty minutes of second-half defending.
「TRAIT ACTIVE」 Press Resistant
His body adjusted before the first midfielder arrived — weight forward, arms protecting the space, and the first touch directed the ball away from both of them in one motion while his head came up immediately, and the pair collided slightly with each other rather than with him while he was already looking forward.
Kane had checked short to offer a pass and Demien rolled it to his feet, and Kane’s one-touch return came back on the give-and-go angle before the Malta midfielder who’d overrun could reset, and the combination left Demien in space fifteen yards ahead of where he’d received the first ball with the Malta defensive block compressed and two of their defenders wrong-footed by the exchange.
He drove forward.
「STAT ACTIVE」 Strength: 97 | Acceleration: 95
The Malta midfielder who recovered quickest tried to press from his right side and got a shoulder on him, but the contact didn’t move him — his weight was too low and his base too wide — and the ball stayed with him while the challenger bounced off and the space ahead stayed open all the way to the edge of the box.
Three England players were making runs. Wilson diagonal from the left, Grealish cutting through the centre, Eze peeling wide right toward the back post where Malta’s right back had been drawn inside.
「STAT ACTIVE」 Vision: 77 | Reactions: 88
Eze’s run had started half a second before the others and the defender tracking him hadn’t reacted to it yet — still watching the ball, not the run — and the space behind him would close in approximately two seconds.
「LEGENDARY SKILL ACTIVATED」 Andrea Pirlo — Deep-Lying Playmaker
His right foot struck through the pass with outside-boot curve, the ball bending around the defender who lunged at the lane and missing his boot by six inches before dropping into the corridor behind Malta’s defensive line exactly as Eze’s stride reached it.
Eze took it in stride and had the goalkeeper coming and hit it low to the near post and Bonello threw his hand down and the ball deflected off his palm and spun behind for a corner rather than in.
Eze turned with both hands raised toward Demien.
Demien was already jogging back into position.
On the touchline Southgate made a mark on his clipboard.
82’ |
The corner was cleared by Malta’s goalkeeper punching it long toward the halfway line where Phillips won the header and the ball dropped to Demien just inside Malta’s half with the entire English midfield pressing forward and Malta’s block suddenly out of shape — defenders retreating, midfielders still recovering from tracking the corner runners.
His first touch cushioned it and his head came up in the same motion.
「STAT ACTIVE」 Ball Control: 89 | Vision: 77
Wilson was running a diagonal from left to right across the penalty area, his run perfectly timed to arrive between Malta’s two remaining centre-backs as the right back continued recovering from his position outside the box, and the window for the pass was narrow and closing with each stride the right back took.
He didn’t wait.
「LEGENDARY SKILL ACTIVATED」 Andrea Pirlo — Deep-Lying Playmaker
「STAT ACTIVE」 Curve: 92 | Short Passing: 88
The ball left the outside of his right boot bending away from the right back’s desperate lunge and curved through the gap between the two centre-backs, landing two yards ahead of Wilson’s run at the height and pace that meant one touch and a finish rather than control and a finish.
Wilson took it, shifted onto his right foot, and the goalkeeper came and Wilson slid it past him into the bottom corner.
ENGLAND 4-0 MALTA (82’ — Callum Wilson)
Wilson wheeled away and pointed both hands back at Demien before his own teammates reached him, and the gesture was clear and immediate and specific.
Grealish jogged over. "Lovely ball," he said simply.
Kane gave a single thumbs up from twenty yards away.
Demien jogged back to position.
85’ |
Phillips won possession from a Malta player pressing high in their own half and played it square to Demien immediately, thirty-five yards from goal with Malta’s defensive shape broken by the attack that had just produced the fourth goal — two defenders retreating, two more still arriving from wide positions, and Bonello standing six yards off his line with the confidence of a goalkeeper who had been watching England build from the back all night.
The goalkeeper’s positioning was wrong.
「STAT ACTIVE」 Composure: 91
One touch forward with his left foot to set the angle, and the Malta midfielder behind him arriving too late to affect anything that came next.
「EPIC SKILL ACTIVATED」 Step-Over Combo (Rare)
Right foot over the ball, left foot over the ball in quick succession, the rhythm of it drawing the nearest Malta defender’s weight onto his wrong foot before Demien shifted the ball right with the outside of his boot and the defender lunged across empty space while the ball was already past him.
Thirty yards out. Space. The goalkeeper still six yards forward.
「EPIC SKILL ACTIVATED」 Dipping Power Shot (Epic)
His right foot drove through the ball from low contact, the technique generating topspin — the ball stayed low for the first fifteen yards while both Malta defenders closing from the left couldn’t get their bodies in the way, and then the topspin took over and the trajectory climbed and then dropped sharply while Bonello’s eyes tracked it and his feet moved backward and his hands went up and the ball cleared his fingertips by four inches and clipped the underside of the crossbar and came down into the net.
ENGLAND 5-0 MALTA (85’ — Demien Walter)
His arms went up before the ball had finished settling.
The England section at the far end produced a wall of noise that arrived a half-second after the goal as the image registered in sixteen hundred minds simultaneously, and the sound carried across the whole stadium.
Teammates converged from multiple directions — Wilson first, then Grealish jumping onto his back, then Phillips beside him with his hands on his shoulders laughing, and then Kane arriving from the far side of the pitch and taking Demien’s head in both hands.
"Different level, mate," Kane said, and his voice was level rather than theatrical because he meant it precisely rather than performing it. "Different level."
On the bench Rice was pointing. Henderson beside him with both hands raised.
Southgate stood at the touchline with his arms folded and watched the celebration for five seconds and then turned to his assistant and said something, and the assistant made a note on his clipboard.
The system notification appeared in the peripheral view and Demien dismissed it without reading it because there were four minutes of the match remaining and the ball needed to be kicked off.
He jogged back to position.