Chapter 168: The Corner
Schalke earned a corner out on the right in the 68th minute, and Mateo trotted over to take it.
The Westfalenstadion had slipped into an eerie, vacant kind of hush. Trailing by four at home, with their backline pulled apart and their legs completely heavy, the Dortmund supporters had moved past furious whistling into a numb, hollow state of disbelief. They watched Mateo stroll toward the corner flag barely fifteen feet from the front row of the South Stand, yet hardly anyone had the stomach to curse him out. A few scattered insults came down from the rail, but the vast majority merely stared in silence, worn down by the afternoon.
Mateo set the ball down and looked into the box.
The Beckham curve was vivid in his mind. The sharp in-swinging arc was right there for the taking, identical to the set pieces he had whipped past Neuer in training and curled over César Sánchez at the Mestalla. The route to the far corner from the flag was wide open, and he could feel the trajectory singing in his boots.
He looked past the near post and caught the movement of blue shirts, spotting Jamie Vardy making his move.
Vardy had entered the match on the hour mark to give an exhausted Huntelaar a rest, and he had spent the last eight minutes doing what he did best: snapping at heels, chasing down every loose back-pass, and throwing his body against tired center-backs. He had barely touched the ball, yet he was darting toward the six-yard box with real intent, peeling off Neven Subotić's blind side with the sharp hunger of a poacher sniffing blood.
Mateo altered his approach right before his final stride. He passed up the direct shot on goal and opted for the assist.
He paced off three measured steps and struck the ball with the inside of his right foot, using that familiar curve technique while keeping the delivery low and viciously fast. He aimed directly for the six-yard pocket where Vardy was arriving. The cross curled sharply through the humid air, slicing away from Roman Weidenfeller. The goalkeeper started off his line, then froze awkwardly in no-man's-land, caught between challenging for the cross or guarding against an audacious direct attempt.
That tiny stutter was all Vardy needed.
Weidenfeller's feet rooted to the grass, while Vardy attacked the dropping ball with full momentum. He met the cross firmly on his forehead six yards out, driving a powerful downward header into the turf that bounced past the keeper before Weidenfeller could even attempt a dive.
Fweet—!
5-0.
Vardy completely lost his head.
He had scored on his league debut and popped up with useful finishes across the winter, but this was the Ruhr Derby at the Westfalenstadion, burying a header right in the shadow of the yellow wall. He sprinted toward the away section like a lunatic, sliding on his knees across the drenched turf until his teammates piled on top of him, smothering him in a wild tangle of blue shirts.
Mateo reached down and hauled the striker out of the heap by both arms.
"See?" Mateo shouted over the singing from the upper tier, grinning ear to ear. "Told you I'd put one on a plate for you today."
"You absolute machine!" Vardy yelled back, wiping rain, sweat, and stray grass blades from his forehead with a huge grin. "How did you pinpoint that right onto my forehead? I genuinely thought you were curling it into the far top corner!"
"I saw you sprinting like a madman," Mateo laughed, keeping an arm hooked around his shoulder as they jogged back toward their own half. "Would've been an insult not to reward the legs."
Vardy burst out laughing, breathless and shaking his head in disbelief. "A header, mate. My first proper header for Schalke, right in front of their wall. Jimmy is going to completely smash his pint against the ceiling back home."
"Well, make sure he sees it," Mateo said, pointing him toward the sideline. "Go give him a shout, the camera's right there."
Vardy turned toward the pitchside broadcast lens, pointed his finger straight into the glass, and mouthed his mate's name with a wild grin. A few thousand miles away in a crowded Yorkshire pub, Jimmy was undoubtedly losing his mind over a fresh pint of lager.
Mateo watched him celebrate, feeling a warm surge of pride that went well beyond the scoreline. Six months ago, Vardy was grinding twelve-hour factory shifts and scraping by on muddy non-league pitches. Now, he was roaring into a television camera at the Westfalenstadion after bagging a derby goal, dedicating it to the mate who had helped buy his plane ticket. It was grit turning into a real career right in front of his eyes.
Mateo had created dozens of goals across the campaign, but putting that specific ball onto Vardy's head was right at the top of the moments he truly valued.
Five-nil at the Westfalenstadion.
Over the coming seasons, fans and pundits across the country would endlessly debate which moment was the finest. The flying chest-volley off the crossbar. The vicious elastico nutmeg that dropped Hummels to the grass. The audacity of the looping backheel flick over Kagawa that ignited the second strike. Or the slick, unselfish one-two dummy with Farfán. Every single passage was worthy of a season-ending highlight reel, all delivered across sixty-eight minutes on the most hostile turf in the Bundesliga.
The number that carried the most weight, however, was much simpler than any individual goal.
Schalke 04 were going top of the table.
On the back of an absolute demolition of their bitter rivals on their own grass, the working-class club from Gelsenkirchen that everyone had written off back in August was about to claim first place in the league.
On the touchline, Magath finally let his mask slip. He stood at the edge of the technical area with both fists clenched, watching his squad celebrate with rare, fierce pride. Every doubt from the press and every club that had ever sacked him seemed to evaporate in that single instant. He let himself savor the view from the top of the league for one quiet second before his jaw tightened and his game face snapped right back on.
Top of the Bundesliga.
He would let himself celebrate the table later tonight. There were still twenty minutes left on the clock, and inside the Westfalenstadion, with the home crowd's stunned silence threatening to turn into something much nastier, twenty minutes was plenty of time for chaos to find a way onto the pitch.
He had no idea just how volatile those final twenty minutes were about to become.
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