Snap! A subtle, feather-light touch altered the ball's trajectory, sending it whispering through the defender's legs.
"What on earth is this kid?" Roman Neustädter roared internally. He had never marked a player like this—someone who had the audacity to humiliate him twice in the same sequence.
But between the sticks, Ralf Fährmann felt a surge of hope. He had already set his feet, cutting off the vast majority of the shooting angles. Neustädter's presence, intentional or not, had blocked the far post. There was no way through. There was no angle for a shot.
Yet, as he looked at David Qin's contorted body shape, a cold dread began to seep into his bones. No... surely not.
Amidst the cacophony of sixty thousand fans, a crisp sound—insignificant to the ear but chilling to the keeper's heart—echoed across the box.
David's left leg swung behind his right.
A Rabona!
David's eyes were locked onto the ball, tracking it frame by frame. Since his dominant foot was his right, the mechanical power behind his left-footed Rabona was lacking. The ball didn't scream into the net; it rolled with a deceptive, leisurely pace.
David himself wasn't sure if it would find the mark. What he hadn't seen was the microscopic gap between Fährmann's diving frame and Neustädter's trailing leg. The ball threaded that needle perfectly, trickling across the line and nestling into the side netting.
1-1!!!
"Goal! Goal! It's in!"
"David Qin! He burns down the wing, cuts into the edge of the area, leaves Neustädter for dead twice, and finishes it with a Rabona!"
"At this point, 'talented' is an understatement. It seems even after the international break, his boots are still glowing white-hot!"
Derek Rae's voice reached a fever pitch as David celebrated on the pitch.
"Woo-hoo!" Seeing the ball cross the line, David pumped his arms wildly before sprinting to the corner flag and sticking a perfect front flip.
Luck was on his side today. He knew the moment he struck it that he hadn't gotten full power, but he'd take the scrappy beauty any day. Still, he made a mental note to keep drilling his weak foot—he needed to reach that ambidextrous level Perišić operated at.
In the stands, the travelling Wolves fans were a sea of green and white, chanting his name. Rabonas, Elasticos, Step-overs... This kid, they thought. He always has a new trick up his sleeve.
Dieter Hecking shared the sentiment. The manager, usually a stoic figure, took off his black-rimmed glasses, a grin spreading across his face that carved deep, happy wrinkles into the corners of his eyes.
"What does that boy have in his head? Is it just a library of skills and step-overs?"
"Gaffer," Ton Lokhoff leaned in, "remind David at the half to stay sharp. Schalke is playing dirty. We can't afford an injury."
"Don't worry, I've got it," Hecking replied, already mapping out the second-half blueprint.
"David! Are you addicted to the Rabona now?" Perišić laughed, jogging over to slap his back. "A Rabona assist last week and now a goal? Save some for the rest of us!"
Perišić was genuinely envious. His goals were usually clinical side-foots or thumping headers—nothing compared to the sheer audacity of David's flair.
"Wait until I pull off a Rainbow Flick goal," David joked, showing no sign of modesty. He practiced these flourishes every single day; for him, the "showboating" was just a byproduct of being effective.
While the Wolves were jubilant, the atmosphere in the Schalke camp was toxic. Huntelaar turned on his teammates with a snarl. "Why didn't you pass? Your teammates were wide open in the pocket!"
"I thought I could beat him," Leroy Sané muttered, his voice losing its edge. He knew he'd messed up, but the pride of youth prevented him from a public apology.
"And did you? No! If you want to play like that, go back to the U19s. You can dribble past everyone there, can't you?" Huntelaar's tongue was a lash.
Choupo-Moting stepped in to play peacemaker, though he secretly understood why Huntelaar was often the target of locker-room friction—the man's mouth was a liability.
"Enough! Sort it out later. The game starts again at zero!" Kevin-Prince Boateng barked, shutting them down.
The match restarted, but the dynamic had shifted. Schalke's high-intensity press began to fray. Physical fatigue was setting in, and the blow to their morale was visible. Conversely, Wolfsburg was surging. With the defense hyper-focused on David, De Bruyne finally found his shackles loosened.
"Perišić and De Bruyne with a beautiful wall-pass!"
"Boateng is dragged out wide—Perišić cuts it back!"
"De Bruyne with a trademark line-splitting through-ball!"
"Ivica Olić is onto it!"
The Croatian veteran lowered his head and sprinted, somehow out-pacing the "Santana Express."
"How is a thirty-six-year-old moving that fast?" Felipe Santana wondered in agony. Luckily, Benedikt Höwedes tracked back just in time, harrying Olić enough to force a hurried shot that Fährmann tipped around the post.
"So close!" David groaned from the other side of the pitch, clutching his head. Olić was legendary, but age was a thief of pace. If that had been me, David thought, I'd be through. Then again, David knew his own positioning wasn't as telepathic as the veteran's yet.
The ensuing corner was cleared by Santana, redeeming his earlier lapse.
Tweet-tweet—!
The whistle blew for halftime. 1-1.
"I won't mince words," Hecking said in the dressing room, his voice steady but powerful. "You can see Schalke's plan is designed specifically to suffocate our creative outlets."
"But after David's goal, they flinched. They hesitated. What does that tell us?" He slammed his palm against the tactical board. "It means we take the fight to them! There is no point in sitting deep. Conceding would just be a matter of time if we play scared. Push the lines up! For every meter we take, they have to give one up!"
Hecking was done playing the underdog. He had the league's top assist provider and a human highlight reel on the wing. Why play on the back foot?
"The Gaffer's right," David shouted, jumping to his feet. "Let's push them back into their own net!"
David had never been a fan of "parking the bus." If he'd played under Mourinho, he'd probably have followed De Bruyne's path out the door. Hecking grinned; he provided the strategy, and David provided the spark.
As the team prepared to head back out, Diego Benaglio put his hand in the center of the huddle. "On three! One, two, three—"
"WOLVES! WIN!"
The roar echoed through the tunnel.
Across the hall, Di Matteo was using his own brand of psychological warfare. "Leroy, are you going to let a teenager from China outshine you? Kevin, everyone says the 'other' Kevin is the best midfielder in the league. Prove them wrong!"
It was classic motivation—finding a rival to spark a fire. Boateng, a veteran of many wars, was unfazed, but Sané was practically foaming at the mouth. He wouldn't let a kid younger than him take his spotlight. Not in his house.
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