Become A Football Legend-Chapter 181: Comeback

Chapter 181: Comeback
He struck the dropping ball before it even kissed the grass.
A half-volley.
A whip of pure, violent technique.
His entire body twisted with the motion—hips snapping, shoulders rotating, boot slicing upward through the ball with frightening precision. The sound echoed like someone had slammed a hammer on a metal plate.
The ball exploded off his foot, rising and bending simultaneously, a blur of white slicing through the air.
Zetterer didn’t dive.
He didn’t even move.
He only turned his head as the ball flashed past him, ripping into the top-right corner with unstoppable force.
THUNDER. PURE THUNDER.
For one full heartbeat, the entire stadium froze.
Then the commentator’s voice shattered the silence:
"UNBELIEVABLE! LUKAS BRANDT—FROM OUT OF NOWHERE! A SENSATIONAL HALF-VOLLEY INTO THE TOP CORNER! THE SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD HAS JUST SILENCED THE WESERSTADION!"
The net bulged violently. The ball rattled against the stanchion. Zetterer landed on his heels, stunned.
And the boos?
Gone.
Swallowed up by a stadium-wide gasp.
Lukas stood there for a moment, chest expanding, eyes calm — like a man who had simply done what he expected of himself.
Then he turned toward the corner flag and jogged, not celebrating wildly...but with a calm, almost stern expression, as if telling the entire stadium:
try booing me again.
Larsson and Bahoya jumped on his back ruffling his hair before Lukas broke into a smile and turned around to face them as they celebrated the goal.
The match restarted with a renewed edge, both sets of players carrying the tension of a game that had suddenly been blown wide open by a single moment of brilliance. Even the Bremen fans—still recovering from having their jeers turned into awe—remained quieter than before. Frankfurt pushed higher. Bremen tried to settle. The tempo bounced between them like a live wire.
And then came the 67th minute.
A sequence that began with chaos... and ended with surgical beauty.
Bremen were trying to restore control. Lynen slipped a disguised pass into the feet of Burke on the left side of the Frankfurt box. Burke tried to spin and shoot in one motion, but the ball got stuck under his boot. His attempt came out as an awkward, dragging scuff—rolling harmlessly toward Kaua.
The young Brazilian scooped it into his arms, scanned the pitch, and immediately shifted his body to the left.
Then—
WHIP!
He hurled a long, flat throw toward Skhiri like a quarterback leading his receiver.
"Great distribution from Kaua; Frankfurt on the break here!"
Skhiri cushioned the ball under pressure, pivoting away from Stage, who lunged in trying to force a turnover. Skhiri didn’t risk keeping it. He poked the ball back toward Larsson, who stood just ahead of the center circle in Frankfurt’s half.
Larsson didn’t even need a touch to settle. His head snapped up the instant the ball reached him. And it was like he and Lukas shared a wavelength invisible to everyone else.
Because there, far up the pitch on the left flank, Lukas was already accelerating.
Bahoya was still jogging back from the defensive phase, leaving the entire wing open. Lukas sprinted directly into it, reading the game three steps quicker than anyone around him.
Larsson saw him.
Larsson trusted him.
Larsson struck the ball.
A long, searching, arching pass launched from nearly his own penalty arc. It climbed into the air like a soaring arrow before beginning its downward curve toward the sprinting teenager.
"WHAT a ball from Hugo Larsson! Brandt is through on the left — he’s kept himself onside — this could be dangerous!"
Lukas checked his run perfectly, just half a second before the ball descended, then extended his left foot outward. With impossible delicacy, he plucked the dropping ball out of the sky, killing its momentum instantly.
As soon as it kissed his boot, he was off.
Acceleration like a dragster.
Agu tried to recover, sprinting frantically to match Lukas’s pace. He failed. Lukas tore past him, eating up grass in enormous strides. Within seconds he was beside the box, the ball glued to his boot as if magnetized.
Friedl rushed over from central defense to double up with Agu.
Two defenders. One teenager.
Lukas slowed for a heartbeat.
Then—
A flash of brilliance.
He rolled the ball inward with the inside of his left foot, inviting both defenders to step toward the center.
And in the same movement, with the same foot, he flicked the ball back outward in a razor-tight motion.
A reverse elastico.
Both defenders froze — legs twisted, weight shifted the wrong way.
Lukas slipped straight between them.
"Brandt! Oh, that is outrageous skill! A reverse elastico to split two defenders — he’s inside the box!"
The angle narrowed. Zetterer crouched low, expecting a blast across goal. Götze, clever and ghostlike, drifted toward the far post unmarked.
Lukas lifted his chin.
Saw him.
And without hesitation, threaded a ruthless, low pass across the six-yard box—perfect pace, perfect angle, past Zetterer’s outstretched fingers.
The ball rolled into Mario Götze’s stride as if drawn to him.
Tap.
Into the net.
1–2.
"GOOOOAL! MARIO GÖTZE! MADE BY LUKAS BRANDT! WHAT A RUN! WHAT A PASS! THE SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD HAS PRODUCED MAGIC AGAIN — AND FRANKFURT SNATCH THE LEAD!"
Götze didn’t just celebrate — he pointed at Lukas immediately, shouting something lost in the roar of the stadium.
Lukas jogged over, expression fierce, adrenaline burning through him as teammates piled onto him from all sides.
And the Weserstadion, once confident and noisy, was stunned into a trembling silence broken only by the thunderous traveling Frankfurt fans singing his name.
The match had officially shifted.
Frankfurt had come into the second half, not just with possession, but also the clinical edge to pick Bremen apart in the final third. And in both goals, there was one constant: Lukas Brandt.
The match resumed at a blistering tempo, the energy inside the Weserstadion shifting with every pass, every duel, every half-chance. Frankfurt’s second goal had stunned the home support into a momentary hush, but Bremen were too proud — far too proud — to let the game slip quietly away.
The next fifteen minutes became a tug-of-war for momentum.
Frankfurt, energized by Lukas’s assist to Götze, pushed for a third goal whenever space opened up. Larsson intercepted everything in midfield, Skhiri dictated the rhythm with calm, anchored passes, and Bahoya threatened the right flank with darting runs. Ekitike’s hold-up play improved, the Frenchman shrugging off defenders and trying to give Lukas the angles he needed to create more danger.
But Bremen fought back with equal ferocity.
Schmid, Stage, and Lynen pressed higher, swarming around Larsson and Tuta’s replacement, cutting off neat passing patterns. The crowd sensed their team’s renewed aggression, and the volume rose—chants swelling like a wave pushing the players forward. Every slide tackle won, every turnover forced drew a roar that made the stadium throb.
It became a true back-and-forth:
Frankfurt attack, would turn to Bremen counter; a Bremen push would lead to a Frankfurt break.
Neither side could fully take control.
As the match crept toward the final minutes, the home fans found their voice again—louder now, more desperate.
"SV WERDER! SV WERDER!"
The chanting grew into a deafening rhythm that vibrated through the stands. The players felt it, each touch of the ball heavier now, each decision made under the pressure of thirty thousand urging them on.
In the 87th minute, Bremen finally found their opening.
The play began inconspicuously — Frankfurt circulating possession near the halfway line to slow the pace. Collins drifted wide, offering the easy pass, but Brown saw a different option. He looked up and spotted Lukas drifting into space between the lines, slightly higher up the pitch.
Brown tried to fire a crisp pass into his feet... but the ball came out far too heavy.
"Sloppy from Brown... that’s risky!" the commentator muttered as Lukas immediately burst forward to try to rescue it.
He sprinted, long strides cutting across the grass... but he was half a second late.
Stage read the pass earlier, stepped in front, and picked it up effortlessly.
Lukas lunged to win it back, but Stage released it instantly, slipping the ball forward to Schmid, who had drifted centrally, thirty yards from goal.
Schmid didn’t think.
He didn’t need a touch.
He just hit it.