[Away dressing room]
The room was thick with the kind of silence that wasn't about nerves — but calculation.
Rúben Amorim had spent the entire fifteen minutes of the break drawing, erasing, and redrawing lines over a tactical board that was now starting to look like war plans.
But only one name had a red circle around it.
IZAN.
"If he drifts wide, two men. If he drops deep, press from behind and cut the lane to Ødegaard. Don't lunge or try to foul him. We can't afford to hand him any free kick. We all know what he can do and we've experienced firsthand what he does with deadballs so don't afford him any," Amorim rattled off, pacing.
"He doesn't get tired," someone muttered.
It wasn't a complaint — just an exhausted fact.
Amorim ignored it.
"We've got forty-five minutes. If we don't stop him, we can't stop Arsenal. And if we go out here—tonight—it won't just be a loss. It'll be a headline. It'll be a season cracked open."
The men nodded, silent, serious.
