c36: 3 Red Cards
Vardy really wanted to strike a handsome pose, but just as he stepped onto the pitch, his stride faltered. A strange chill ran down his spine, and unease gripped him from head to toe.
"System Task: Receive three red cards during the season (league matches only)."
"Mission Reward: Random Technical Trait, +5 Trait Points."
"Failure Penalty: Random erasure of one acquired trait; spent trait points will not be refunded."
The moment his boots touched Goodison Park's turf, that cold, mechanical voice echoed in Vardy's mind.
He wanted to swear to the heavens, the Earth, and the system itself.
What kind of absurd mission is this?
Being humiliated was one thing, but asking him to deliberately get sent off three times? That's insanity.
Even someone as raw as Vardy, relatively new to top-flight football, understood what three red cards meant. In the Premier League, a straight red card leads to a one-match ban. The second? Two matches. The third red card earns a three-match suspension. That's six games out nearly a fifth of the season. Not to mention the media backlash and the club fines.
At that moment, Vardy sincerely wished the system would go offline forever.
But then he saw the mission reward again.
He couldn't help but gulp.
His existing trait, Super Sub, had already changed his career. Coming off the bench with blistering pace and unmatched intensity made him Everton's secret weapon. The idea of a random technical trait perhaps Off the Ball Movement, Finishing, or even First Touch combined with five extra trait points, was mouthwatering.
He could unlock and maximize a new trait instantly. That was a golden opportunity.
A reward too good to pass up.
Vardy stood rooted to the spot, expression stormy, mind tangled in turmoil.
His teammates glanced over in confusion. Why was he just... standing there? Had Moyes told him to freeze out wide as some kind of decoy tactic?
Moyes, arms crossed on the touchline, frowned deeply. He knew the instructions he'd given: press high, exploit City's weak left flank, and look for the through ball. This wasn't a tactical pause. No, this smacked of stage fright.
Did I misjudge him again? Moyes bit his lip. He looked confident after the United goal. Was that just a fluke?
"Oi, idiot, what are you playing at?" barked Gravesen during a dead ball. He jogged over and slapped Vardy hard across the face.
The sting jolted Vardy back to reality. Eyes wide, he realized the match had begun.
Shaking it off, he jogged forward. Everton had pinned City back, maintaining possession around the box. He couldn't just spectate.
As he entered the attacking third, Vardy tried to focus, but his brain kept circling the same dilemma.
The reward tempted him like nothing else. That kind of boost could make him unstoppable. He'd seen what traits did how one trait made him a last-minute hero. What would two do?
But was it worth missing six matches? What would the press say? What would Moyes say? What if he let the team down?
He clenched his jaw. I'll think about it later. I've got a game to win.
With a deep breath, he buried the intrusive thoughts and sharpened his focus.
On the pitch, Everton continued to suffocate City. Vardy's arrival stirred unease in their back line. Just last weekend, he'd scored a thunderbolt against Manchester United. No one could dismiss him now.
But superstardom didn't arrive overnight. City assigned only one man to mark him more out of caution than respect.
Kevin Keegan, watching from the dugout, wasn't impressed. Sure, he scored against United, he thought, but he's just a pace merchant. A counter-attacker with no space is a fish on land.
With City dropping deep, there was little room behind the defense. Vardy had no runway to take off.
Let's see what this "hero" does now, Keegan mused. Moyes is clutching at straws. But even a straw can't keep a man from drowning.
Vardy's performance after coming on seemed to confirm the worst fears. At just 178cm, he was dwarfed in the box practically swallowed up by the tall, physical centre-backs. In the aerial battlefield of the penalty area, he might as well have been invisible. Everton stuck rigidly to their approach of lofting balls in toward Duncan Ferguson, their traditional target man, and Vardy might as well have been a ghost.
He felt a pang of anxiety, mixed with creeping frustration. If this keeps up, I'll never get a touch, let alone prove myself.
So far, he hadn't even registered a touch on the ball. Apart from sprints into open space, every other stat was still a blank slate. And if things stayed that way until full time, he'd be a laughingstock an overrated youth lost in the pace and power of the Premier League.
Fans who once cheered his name when he warmed up were now shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Time was ticking, and Vardy looked entirely disconnected from Everton's direct, physical attack. Some in the stands even muttered that Kevin Campbell older and slower was more useful in aerial duels than the new number 24. It was starting to feel like blind hope to expect anything from this kid.
On the pitch, Manchester City's players started to smirk. The wiry forward was doing more to disrupt Everton than help. He even obstructed one of their own shots earlier by getting in the way. One defender joked to another that Vardy might actually be a sleeper agent in blue.
As a result, City's defenders eased their focus on him, tightening instead around Ferguson and Cahill Everton's true aerial threats.
Still, nothing came Vardy's way. If he stayed rooted in the penalty area, the clock would bleed out, and his night would end in silence.
But Vardy didn't step into the match just to run around like a decoy. He scanned the field and tried to make sense of the chaos.
Ferguson was camped inside the six-yard box, a totem pole in the middle of the melee. Lee Carsley and Leon Osman repeatedly drove the ball down the flanks, crossing from deep. Tim Cahill charged in from midfield like a wrecking ball to crash the far post. Gravesen hovered alone on the edge of the centre circle, cleaning up loose balls.
It was all so linear. No variation. No third-man runs, no overlapping full-backs, and certainly no play through the middle.
That was when it clicked.
Vardy peeled away from the crowd and retreated to the arc just outside the area. Technically still within Manchester City's defensive umbrella, but with far more space to operate. This wasn't a random drift it was a calculated false nine move, meant to receive the ball between the lines.
This is my zone. I'll pick up the scraps, and then I strike.
He positioned himself perfectly for the second ball, where he could attack a clearance or a knockdown.
It was a hiding spot, but not among the trees it was in the clearing. In Everton's tunnel-vision assault, the edge of the area was a dead zone, ignored by defenders hyper-focused on the aerial duel inside.
The defenders didn't notice. But Ferguson did.
The seasoned Scot, eyes always scanning, recognized what Vardy saw. He knew that sometimes the real danger wasn't in the first ball it was in the second.
Carsley swung in another cross, this one curling with pace. The penalty area erupted again Ferguson, Cahill, and a host of City defenders all rose into the air, arms out, knees up, muscles tensed.
Manchester City's centre-back braced to block Ferguson's inevitable header.
But Ferguson pulled back his neck not to power the ball at goal, but to cushion it... backward.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.
The ball dropped just outside the D, and there, like a predator pouncing from the shadows, Vardy met it with his laces.
The strike was pure.
The ball cut through the air like a tracer round, smashing into the top corner at blistering speed so fast it seemed to bend physics, leaving the keeper frozen on his line.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then Goodison erupted.
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