Become A Football Legend-Chapter 209: Dying Minutes

De Galaretta lunged immediately from Lukas’ right, trying to stick a leg in. Lukas just shifted the ball half a meter to the left and hopped over the challenge—barely clearing it. Ekitike had already begun his run into the box, pulling both Vivian and Alvarez toward the penalty spot. That tiny movement from Ekitike created an avenue—a thin slice of daylight—for Lukas to step into.

Then everything collapsed onto him at once.

Jarraguezar grabbed a handful of his shirt from behind. Vivian stepped forward at the last possible second to block whatever angle remained. Lukas was almost stumbling forward—but he managed to plant his right foot, lean away from the tug on his shirt, and with the inside of his left foot, he wrapped it.

A perfect strike.

The curl was outrageous. The ball bent around Vivian’s failed block, arcing up and outward, then snapping inward. The goalkeeper extended fully—glove stretched—but too late. The ball smacked the underside of the bar and dropped into the net.

The stadium detonated.

People stood, hands over heads, screaming. Flags waved across the Nordwestkurve. A thousand arms punched the air in rhythm with the roar rising beneath the steel roof.

Andres Cordero:

"WHAT A STRIKE! WHAT A MOMENT! BRANDT DRAGS FRANKFURT LEVEL. AGAIN!!"

Chris Wittyngham:

"He’s eighteen in two years — how is that possible? How is anyone doing this at sixteen?!"

Lukas got up from the pitch smiling.

Wide, unapologetic, proud.

He sprinted toward the corner flag, arms wide like wings, chest lifted into the deafening wall of noise. Bahoya leapt onto his back. Larsson grabbed his head. Koch tried lifting him from behind.

The bench exploded — Toppmöller punching the air, Zembrod clapping furiously, substitute players sprinting down the touchline.

Frankfurt led on the night.

The tie was level.

And the cathedral of noise was shaking under the pressure of belief.

Just one more goal needed to seal the tie.

The game resumed with an electricity that hummed in every heartbeat of the Waldstadion. Bilbao restarted, but Valverde’s face was tight, almost unreadable; his jaw clenched as he pointed to his temples with both index fingers—an unmistakable command to his players: use your heads. Two goals wiped in twenty minutes, momentum completely inverted, and the home crowd roaring like thunder behind Frankfurt’s rebirth. Bilbao’s low murmurs of panic were now audible even through the commentary mics.

Andres Cordero’s voice cracked through the soundscape:

"Bilbao led this tie three goals to one at halftime in the first leg—and they were flying! But tonight, that cushion has vanished! Eintracht Frankfurt, led by their teenage talisman Lukas Brandt, have clawed it all back—this stadium believes, Chris, they believe!"

Chris Wittyngham replied, his tone rising with awe.

"They’ve found a rhythm, they’ve found conviction—and Bilbao look rattled! You can see Valverde pleading for composure, but once momentum swings this hard, it’s like trying to stop a flood with bare hands."

From the restart, Bilbao tried to assert control immediately. Quick passes, one-touch movement through midfield—anything to disrupt Frankfurt’s press and silence the feverish crowd. They worked the ball from the back: Alvarez to de Galaretta, de Galaretta to Gomez, Gomez wide to Iñaki Williams hugging the touchline.

The veteran winger squared up against Theate and threw in a step-over, two, then knocked it past him down the line. Theate gave chase, shadowing him shoulder-to-shoulder, refusing to let him turn the corner. Williams did manage to squeeze a cross in, low and fast toward the middle.

Koch slid to intercept, but the ball ricocheted off his shin and spun back to Gómez at the edge of the area. Gómez didn’t hesitate. He took it first time, half-volley, laces through leather.

"And there’s danger again... Gómez! Struck sweetly!" cried Cordero.

But Kaua was equal to it — cat-like reflexes as he sprang to his right, parrying the shot with both palms. The rebound fell inside the six-yard box, chaos erupting. Sannadi lunged forward, ready to smash it home, but Tuta got there a split-second earlier and hoofed it clear into touch.

Wittyngham’s voice carried the moment:

"Kaua keeps them alive again! That’s a massive, massive save! The reflexes of a goalkeeper beyond his years— and the awareness from Tuta to clear before Sannadi could pounce!"

As the ball rolled out for a throw-in, Frankfurt’s defense exchanged high fives and shouts of encouragement. Koch barked orders, Theate punched the air, and even Kaua thumped his chest once in defiance.

They knew: if they were to reach the semifinals, it couldn’t just be about Lukas’s brilliance. It had to be all of them — every save, every tackle, every run — for the next 20 relentless minutes that would no doubt feel like an hour.

The match tilted into its most volatile stage after Frankfurt’s equaliser. Bilbao, shaken by how quickly their advantage had evaporated, attempted to steady themselves by holding their shape compactly. Frankfurt’s pressure remained constant; wave after wave, they tried to unlock deep lines of white-and-red shirts. The tempo shifted repeatedly—moments of measured circulation followed by frantic acceleration when space appeared. Frankfurt flowed left, then right, recycling through Larsson or Skhiri, moving Bilbao inch by inch deeper toward their own penalty arc.

By the 85th minute, the game resembled stalemate, but the dangerous kind.

Bilbao had almost abandoned ambition in open play. Instead, they formed a low block so tight that one could trace every lane and marker. Whenever the ball reached Lukas, three shirts converged instantly, first on contact, second to deny his turn, third to poke at any loose touch.

He was suffocated, orbiting the ball, receiving, laying off, receiving again, without ever facing forward long enough to launch a decisive moment. He tried a la croqueta to slip past his initial marker in one sequence; the crowd gasped as the move succeeded, but the second wave swept in and stabbed the ball away. Frankfurt retained possession through Larsson, but Bilbao made clear — no breathing room, no space, not even a yard.

Six additional minutes flickered into existence.

The stadium erupted into one long roar of pleading, urging their team to find one more spark. The game dissolved into pure urgency. Every throw-in was accelerated, every jog turned into a sprint, every pass was delivered with intent.

Down the wing, Skhiri tried feeding Götze — recently introduced — but Larsson’s pass was undercooked. Jarraguezar stepped across, intercepted, and suddenly everything reversed. Bilbao countered like a side that had drilled the sequence into muscle memory.

The ball travelled with surgical clarity: right flank, middle, left, one-touch exchanges across a broken defensive line. Guruzeta, on fresh legs, arrived at the edge of the box, shaped his body, and lashed a shot that was arrowing toward the far post. Kaua saved Frankfurt, stretching full length, parrying wide for a corner.

It felt like an execution. One strike, and Frankfurt would fall.

For the corner, everyone marched back. All ten outfield Frankfurt players dropped inside their box; even Lukas was standing inside the penalty area marking space. Agirrezabala begged Valverde for permission to join the attack, but Valverde waved furiously.

No.

He allowed the keeper only as far as the defensive third, a safety net against the counter.

All twenty players stood in the same breath of grass. Nico Williams placed the ball, spun backward, and raised his arm. The whistle arrived, the stadium held still, and the ball swung in — fast, dipping, accelerating toward the six-yard crowd.

Vivian rose above the pack.

Ekitike rose with him.

Vivian’s header met Ekitike’s skull like impact into steel — wrong direction, clearing backward. It bounced toward the top of the box, landing at the feet of Berenguer. The Bilbao winger cushioned the ball off his chest, the ball waiting like an offering. He shaped for a left-footed volley, hips opening, eyes wide—

And then the noise split.

A flash of red. A red boot with a black panther insignia.

Lukas.

He stabbed the ball out of the air before the volley even materialised, flicking it into open grass.

Yards and yards of runway.

The stadium imploded.