When the table in the living room buzzed, Izan didn’t even look at his phone at first.
He had just co back from training, and there was a lot that went through mind after sessions like that.
The Hampstead house was quiet with the late afternoon light pouring through the glass wall, stretching across the wooden floor.
The phone buzzed again, and on the third ti, he finally reached for it lazily, thumb brushing the screen open after the face ID got the lock out of the way.
Scrolling through the stack of notifications, Izan ca across a tagged notification from an account he recognised.
"Not doing too bad for yourself," he muttered as he stared at the massive football edit account with millions of followers.
And this was the sa account of the guy who had taped him first when he was playing in that scrimmage back on one of the pitches in Alboraya, a couple of years ago.
Tuning his thoughts out, he turned towards the bottom of the post where the caption read:
"15-year-old Izan was a nace."
He tapped the link attached, and a mont later, the reel opened with grainy footage from a pitch, particularly, the Cuidad Deportiva de Paterna.
The colours were slightly washed with the cara shaking from sowhere behind the tallic netting, where fans were sotis allowed to stand and watch the team train.
And in the video, a younger version of him — leaner, almost fragile-looking at the ti- glided past a defender in one of the Valencia training kits.
In the next second, the video transitioned, this ti to Izan, who was well established in the Valencia senior team and then his performances against Atlético Madrid, which resulted in his first hat-trick.
The second cut moved towards another side of Madrid, at the Bernabeu this ti, where he got a brace too against Real Madrid.
A finish at the near post.
Then another where he dropped his shoulder, sent two white shirts sliding in opposite directions before rounding one of the very best shotstoppers in the world.
Eventually, the edit slowed into a celebration as a boyish grin broke out on his face with arms spread wide.
After a second watch, he moved into the comnts, and it was already flooded.
The official LaLiga account had comnted:
"We rember."
He let out a soft breath through his nose before moving further down, where he saw so familiar nas.
Pietro17: "Anomaly since day one."
luvSosa: "Golden boy."
Javi Guerra: "Irreplaceable. Always."
He smiled properly at that while his thoughts blurred into the mory of Valencia heat and the sll of the pitch at stalla.
The way the crowd used to chant his na with disbelief, and how they revered him.
Back then, it was smaller and nowhere near how the Arsenal fans did him, but it felt much more special back then.
He rembered the first ti he walked into the senior dressing room.
The way older players had looked at him like he was soone’s younger brother who had wandered in by mistake.
Stuck in his thoughts, he didn’t even realise he was still smiling until Olivia’s voice ca from behind him.
"Reliving your glory days?"
She was walking past the couch, brushing a hand along the back of it as she moved.
He tilted the phone toward her without turning his head fully.
"If those are my glory days," he said lightly, "what should these current tis be known as?"
She paused.
Then she ca around and sat beside him.
The video looped again, but neither of them watched it this ti.
Olivia looked ahead, not at the screen.
"It’s him against the world now," she said quietly.
Izan looked at her properly then.
Her expression wasn’t worried exactly, but it was to so extent.
"These days, it doesn’t even feel like you belong to us," she said with a wry smile while bobbing her head around.
He leaned forward slightly, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her gently toward him as he leaned back into the couch.
Her head settled against his chest while her hand found comfort in his hair.
"I’m happy," he murmured near her ear. "I’m having fun."
She let out a soft sigh.
"I just wish I could do more for you."
He shook his head against her hair.
"You already do enough."
"Plus, we’ve got a lot ahead of us," he added, almost as if reminding himself.
They then stayed like that for a mont, quiet with the late afternoon shifting slowly across the floor as light started slowly giving way to darkness.
Then Hori’s voice cut clean through the calm.
"Oh my God."
They both turned their heads towards the source of the voice, and Hori stood near the base of the staircase, arms folded, expression sowhere between disgusted and amused.
"You have a perfectly large room upstairs," she said. "But no. Let’s make everyone uncomfortable in the living room."
Olivia lifted her head, laughing softly.
"We’re not even doing anything."
"Sure," Hori replied dryly.
"That’s what they all say until one has a swelling belly," she said like an oversimulated mother before she clicked her fingers towards the white ball of fur beside their couch.
"Miko."
The mont it heard its na, the white Samoyed trotted toward her obediently.
"I can’t stand it," Hori continued, already turning toward the cantilever stairs.
"Get a room. Preferably, the one you already own."
She started up the staircase with Miko padding after her while from behind, laughter followed.
.....
With the West Ham ga and the verdict out of the way, the international break arrived, forcing a pause.
Twelve days without club football.
Twelve days of national anthems and press conferences and squad announcents flashing across screens.
And once again, Izan’s na was absent.
This ti, the reason was simple.
A sprain.
In the days building up to the break, he had sprained his ankle and had therefore been allowed to sit out the break, and so the outrage of previous omission earlier that season was nowhere to be seen.
The world had bigger curiosities to obsess over.
When the break passed, he was nad in the squad against Fulham on the weekend.
At the Emirates.
The ga ended 3–0.
Izan didn’t score, but with how he perford, he didn’t need to because all three goals ca from his feet.
In a match where Arsenal had a lot of players like Rice and Odegaard, as well as a few other midfield options out, Arteta played Izan much deeper than usual, and it seed position wasn’t a weakness for him.
By midweek, the noise returned in full.
It was the Champions League again, and Arsenal had Atlético Madrid at ho.
The kind of ga that carried a different kind of pride.
By the end of the night, it was 4–0.
And once again, Izan ca through, scoring two goals and making two assists.
He scored one by ghosting between centre-backs like he’d been there all along, and the second was much more cruel.
With a drop of his shoulder, he sent the defender leaning the wrong way before he slid the ball ho.
In between, he created space out of nothing for teammates who barely had to break stride and with that, in three Champions League gas, Izan had ten goals and nine assists.
Nineteen goal contributions in Europe alone.
The numbers stopped feeling statistical and started feeling fictional.
Like sothing lifted from a career mode save on beginner difficulty.
And yet it was Atlético Madrid, not a training ground side.
Before that midweek result had even settled, Arsenal dismantled Crystal Palace in the league, putting another four past them.
And although Izan played the full ninety, he didn’t score or assist.
It was the first ti in over a year and a half that he walked off a pitch without his na directly etched into the scoreboard.
And that wasn’t without its comntary because, despite the win, a few rival voices got louder, talking about how the league had started to catch up to him.
And the next ga didn’t help his case either.
In the Carabao Cup fixture against Brighton, he ca on in the 80th minute.
He didn’t score there or assist either, but nobody cared.
All they cared about was that he had gone two gas without scoring, not even caring that he had only played 10 minutes in the second ga.
A pundit on late-night television shook his head and said, "It’s beco world commotion when this kid doesn’t score or assist in two matches in a row. That’s where we are."
When asked about his goal drought in an interview, Izan just smiled but didn’t say anything.
In the next ga, though, Izan was the loudest because by the 70th minute, he had a hat-trick.
"Well, there are the goals they were asking for before the ga," the comntary said after Izan finished his celebration.
But it didn’t stop there because against Slavia Praha in the next match, Izan scored another hat-trick before scoring a third hat-trick in a row against Sunderland in the league.
It was almost like a response to all the noise about his "two-ga goal drought."
And as if it couldn’t get better, in the next league ga against Tottenham at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, Izan scored another hat-trick to make it 4 in a row, making it twelve goals in that stretch alone.
And to top it off, he threaded five assists in between them for good asure.
The Premier League numbers ballooned beyond comfort.
Thirty goals.
Eleven assists.
In eleven appearances out of twelve possible.
In Europe, it was worse.
Thirteen goals and eleven assists, and in four Champions League gas at that.
And Izan still wasn’t even an adult yet.
[25th November]
User Comments
0 comments from readers