Become A Football Legend-Chapter 223: Dressing Room

In the Frankfurt technical area, Toppmöller stood with hands on his hips for a second, staring at the pitch like he wanted to freeze time and rewind it, then barked angrily at his defenders, clapping too, not praising but demanding response.

In the stands, Lukas’s hands went to his head. Not in despair, but in pure frustration, the kind that looks like pain because you cannot fix it with your feet. He exhaled slowly, leaned forward, and watched his teammates gather themselves, watched them try to swallow the sting of conceding right before the break.

The stadium, which had been a weapon all night, turned into something heavier now. The noise did not vanish, but it changed tone. Less celebration. More urging. More pleading. Like the crowd was trying to push the team back into belief with their throats.

United saw out the final seconds with maturity. They kept the ball, slowed it, drew a foul, took their time. Frankfurt tried one last long ball toward Ekitike, but Maguire won the header and nodded it safely away.

Then the whistle went for halftime, sharp and final, and the scoreboard reflected the story of the half: Frankfurt had struck first with their first shot, but United had answered, then punished them with set-piece steel.

As the players walked off, the commentators framed it the only way you could frame it.

Andres Cordero: "Frankfurt have a mountain now. They have forty-five minutes to find a way up it without their star on the pitch."

Chris Wittyngham: "And if they cannot, they will be walking into Old Trafford needing a miracle. This second half is not just about a comeback. It is about survival."

Up in the hospitality box, Lukas stayed seated for a beat, elbows on his knees, eyes pinned to the pitch even as the pitch was emptying. Joanna leaned closer so the cameras couldn’t catch her mouth.

"Are you going down?" she asked, voice small against the roar that still rolled around the stadium. "To the dressing room, to... talk to them?"

Lukas let out a short breath and shook his head. "I can’t. I’m suspended. I’m not allowed in there."

Joanna blinked, genuinely surprised. "Wait, what? You can’t even go in to motivate them? That’s crazy."

João turned in his seat with the kind of grin that came with too much confidence and too little mercy. "See?" he said, pointing at her like he’d found evidence. "This is why I keep telling you. You know nothing about football regulations."

Joanna’s mouth fell open in offence. "I know plenty!"

Lukas finally looked away from the pitch and at João, and his expression did that thing where it was stern for half a second before it broke. He leaned across and gave João a playful punch on the shoulder, not hard, just enough to say shut up. João laughed, rubbing the spot dramatically like he’d been injured, and even Javi cracked a smile behind them, the tension loosening for a breath. Then the big screens cut to the tunnel again, and Lukas’s face settled back into that fixed focus, like the match was still in his hands even from a seat.

Down below, inside Frankfurt’s dressing room, the air was thick with sweat and adrenaline and the metallic tang of disappointment. The door shut, and for a second there was only breathing, boots squeaking on the floor, the thud of someone slumping onto a bench. Toppmöller walked in with a pace that wasn’t hurried, but heavy, like each step was a sentence.

He didn’t start with tactics. He started with the stare. He looked at them one by one, letting the silence stretch until it hurt.

Then he spoke, and it came out like a blade.

"Why?" he demanded, loud enough that even the assistants flinched. "Why do we switch off after we score? Why do we give them the chance to breathe? We had them. We gave them air. We gave them belief."

He turned sharply toward the back line, palms open in that helpless fury only coaches have when they’ve warned about something a hundred times and it still happens once, and once is enough. "Crosses," he snapped. "You know it’s coming. You can see the shape. You can hear them calling it. You cannot allow free headers in our box. You cannot allow second balls to drop for them. And cheap fouls," he added, pointing toward the area outside the penalty box as if the grass itself had committed the crime. "Cheap fouls in dangerous positions. That’s not bravery. That’s charity."

Koch tried to speak, started with a quiet "Coach—" and Toppmöller cut him off with a raised hand.

"I’m not blaming one person," he said, voice still fierce but now controlled, like he’d pulled the fire into a tighter flame. "I’m blaming a moment. I’m blaming the gap. One moment where you forget who you are, where you look at the scoreboard and think you’ve done enough."

He inhaled, slow, then exhaled and changed the temperature in the room with the same breath.

"Listen," he said, softer now, but somehow that made it more serious. "You scored. You can score again. They are not invincible. They are not better than you. But you have to choose to play. Every minute. Every duel. Every second ball."

He pointed toward the door as if the fans were standing right outside it. "That stadium is full. They came for a night. They came to see you fight. Give them something. When we go back out, we go back out to take the game. Press them. Win the second balls. Make them defend facing their own goal. And when you get a chance, you take it. No hesitation. No apology."

The players rose one by one, shoulders squaring again, hands clapping each other on the back, a few quiet words exchanged. A team reassembling itself in real time.

Back outside, the second half began with the kind of noise that felt personal. The fans didn’t sit back and wait. They pushed sound into the pitch like it was another player. Drums hammered. Flags swung. Smoke hung in thin remnants near the corners. And Frankfurt, for the first ten minutes after the restart, looked like a team that had listened. They stepped higher. They fought harder. They played quicker. They made United backpedal, then hold, then finally retreat into that shape they trust when they want to suffocate a match.

On commentary, the voices rose with the tempo. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"This is a different Frankfurt," one of them said, practically shouting over the crowd. "This is what the Waldstadion demands. It’s not just football, it’s pressure, it’s emotion, it’s a wave, and right now United are feeling it."

United tried to slow it. Casemiro stood over the ball on dead situations like time belonged to him. Onana took extra steps before restarting. Bruno gestured to calm everyone, to make the game smaller. Frankfurt refused. They kept coming.

And then the moment arrived in the 52nd minute like a door finally giving way after being kicked all night.

It started in midfield, not with a miracle, but with a sequence. One pass into Skhiri, one touch to Larsson, then out again, quick triangles that pulled United’s press apart by inches. The ball rolled to Bahoya on the flank, and the first thing he did wasn’t dribble or pause.

He hit it first time.

A low, skidding cross that sliced through the front of the six-yard box.

Ekitike arrived on it with the hunger of a striker who’d been living off scraps. He opened his body, tried to side-foot it into the corner.

"EKITIKEEEE— Saved by Onana. What a stop!"

Onana was there, big, set, hands ready, and he palmed it away on instinct.

The problem was where it landed.

A/N: Midnight87 has just blessed me with a Dragon of a gift. Thank you so much. Another Chapter coming before midnight just because of Midnight.

yeah... there’s a reason I’m a writer.

Love y’all

-Writ