Become A Football Legend-Chapter 248: Familiar

By the time she stepped back out into the corridor, the second half was already stirring. The sound of boots on turf filtered in, distant but unmistakable. Jane straightened her shoulders and started back toward her section, moving with the flow of returning fans.

She was almost there when someone bumped into her from behind.

"Oh my God, I’m so sorry," a young woman said immediately, dropping to one knee as Jane’s purse slipped from her hand and spilled onto the concrete. "I wasn’t looking—here, let me—"

"It’s okay," Jane said automatically, bending down as well. Their hands brushed briefly as the girl gathered the purse and passed it back to her.

Jane looked up.

Green eyes met hers—and Joanna froze for half a heartbeat.

It wasn’t just that the woman was beautiful, or composed, or clearly out of place among the rushing crowd. It was the eyes. The color. The intensity. So familiar it made Joanna’s chest tighten before she even understood why. For a split second she felt as if she were looking at a reflection shifted by time, older, calmer, steadier.

"I’m so sorry," Joanna said again, this time more softly, straightening up with the purse in her hands. She passed it back, her gaze lingering despite herself.

"Thank you," Jane replied, and this time she smiled. Not the polite curve she’d worn all evening, but something warmer, gentler. A smile that reached her eyes, as if she, too, had felt the odd pull of the moment.

Joanna returned the smile automatically, still a little dazed. "It’s really no problem. I should’ve been watching where I was going."

Jane nodded, fingers closing around the purse strap. "It happens."

For a second longer they stood there, the noise of the stadium swelling around them, the air vibrating with anticipation. Then the current of fans pressed forward again, nudging them gently apart.

Behind them, the referee glanced at his watch. Players shifted into position. The second half was about to begin.

And neither of them yet understood why that brief, accidental meeting felt anything but ordinary.

Joanna slid back into her seat beside João, still half turned in the direction she’d come from, her expression distant, unsettled.

"João," she said quietly, leaning closer so her voice didn’t get lost in the noise swelling around them, "something strange just happened."

He glanced at her, one eyebrow lifting. "Strange how?"

"I bumped into someone," Joanna replied. "A woman. I’ve never seen her before, I’m sure of it. But it felt like... like I had."

João frowned now, attention fully on her. "You felt like you knew her?"

"Yes," she said, frustration creeping into her voice. "Not from anywhere specific. Just—instinctively. Like when you recognize a place you’ve never been to."

João followed her line of sight as she subtly nodded toward the rows below them. Jane was settling back into her seat, smoothing her jacket, her posture composed but distant, eyes fixed on the pitch.

João stood up to get a better look.

"Oi, sit down!" someone snapped from behind him.

"Stop blocking the view!" another voice followed.

Joanna immediately grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him down. "Are you insane?" she hissed. "Do you want half the stand yelling at us?"

He chuckled, unbothered. "Alright, alright. So who is she?"

"That’s the thing," Joanna said, lowering her voice again. "She’s not anyone I know. I just... felt something. And she looked so familiar without actually being familiar."

João studied her face for a moment. "You’re overthinking it."

"Maybe," Joanna admitted. "But it was weird."

He shrugged and reached for his phone as the teams began to reposition on the pitch. "Let me know when you figure it out. Kickoff’s about to happen."

He slid one AirPod back in, Mark Goldbridge’s voice bleeding faintly into the air.

Joanna smacked the back of his head. "Focus," she said, even as her own eyes drifted back toward the field.

The referee raised his whistle.

Whatever that moment had been, it would have to wait.

The second half opened with a very different energy. Frankfurt came out as if someone had flipped a switch, the new shape immediately obvious in how high and wide they played. The belief was there now, tangible, humming through every touch. Brown hugged the left touchline, Knauff did the same on the right, and suddenly Mazraoui and Dorgu were no longer stepping forward with confidence. They were pinned back, forced to defend inside their own third, the crowd’s early second-half roar turning restless as Frankfurt kept coming again and again.

Lukas became the quiet metronome of it all. He was not trying to force the game through himself, not darting into traffic or demanding impossible passes. Instead, he kept appearing at the perfect angle for a give-and-go, always one touch ahead of the pressure. When Frankfurt recycled possession, it almost always came through him for a heartbeat before being pushed wide again, the ball moving faster than United’s midfield could shuffle.

In the 50th minute, the sequence summed it up perfectly. Larsson slid a pass into Lukas just over the halfway line, slightly right of center. Lukas received on the half turn, felt Ugarte at his back, and spun away with a smooth pivot that drew a murmur from the away end. He laid the ball off to Knauff and immediately shaped his body as if he were about to burst forward through the middle.

Ugarte bought it completely.

He took off after Lukas, shoulders pumping, only to realize half a second too late that Lukas had not moved at all. Knauff, meanwhile, had accelerated down the right flank, and the return pass came back into Lukas’s feet with space suddenly opening in front of him. One touch to settle. A quick glance. Then a delicate dink over the top of United’s back line, weighted just enough to drop into the channel.

"This kid is starting to toy with Ugarte! Don’t change from the first half, put 2 players on him right now Amorim!"

Knauff took it down beautifully on the run, the ball sticking to his stride as he pushed toward the byline. Dorgu was chasing hard from behind now, all aggression and desperation, while Yoro hovered at the edge of the box, positioning himself to cut out anything low and dangerous toward Ekitike. Knauff glanced up, saw no obvious target, and still swung his foot through the ball, sending a hopeful cross curling into the six-yard area.

From João’s phone, Goldbridge’s voice was relaxed at that moment, almost bored.

"Ah, that’s fine, nobody in the box to cross to."

But then immediately, it became chaos.

Goldbridge had already turned away.

"Right, let’s read a couple of superchats," he said, voice drifting as the sound of typing filled the background. "Here’s one from Jamie. ’Should United be looking at that Brandt kid in the summer?’ Good question, mate, good question, but—"

Suddenly his tone shifted.

"What’s everyone shouting for?"

A pause.

"...Why are you all spamming ’ONANA’?"

Another beat.

Then:

"WHAT?! WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!"

João nearly choked laughing.

Goldbridge spun back to his screen.

"You’re joking. You are actually joking. I look away for TWO SECONDS. TWO SECONDS!"

The replay rolled.