Reincarnated As A Wonderkid

"This is not a football match, folks, this is a beautiful, glorious argument between twenty-two men, and the ball is the subject of their disagreement! You cannot take your eyes off it!"

In the 22nd minute, Paulo Dybala decided to write a whole new chapter in the argument.

He received the ball in the center of the park, seemingly surrounded by the blue and black shirts of Barella and Çalhanoğlu.

For any normal player, it was a dead end.

For Dybala, it was an invitation.

He feinted left, dropped his shoulder, and with a touch so delicate it was like a whisper, he nutmegged Barella.

Çalhanoğlu lunged in to cover, but Dybala was already gone, gliding across the grass.

He pirouetted away from a sliding challenge from Bastoni, his balance almost supernatural. He was a ghost in a football match.

"DYBALA IS DANCING THROUGH THE INTER DEFENSE! HE'S LEFT THREE MEN IN HIS WAKE!"

He finally laid the ball off to Lukaku, whose powerful shot was bravely blocked by a last-ditch lunge from de Vrij.

The danger was gone, but the message was terrifyingly clear: magic was real, and it was wearing a Roma jersey.

The dazzling dribble rattled Inter.

Their composure, which had been so strong in the opening minutes, began to fray.

Frustration started to creep in. Tackles became a little later, passes a little sloppier.

And in the 31st minute, the frustration boiled over into catastrophe.

Roma's captain, Lorenzo Pellegrini, won a strong, clean tackle in the midfield, dispossessing Nicolò Barella.

The ball ran free, and Pellegrini surged forward, launching a Roma counter-attack. Barella, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated rage at losing the ball, turned and sprinted after him.

He wasn't thinking about tactics; he was thinking only of redemption, of winning the ball back at any cost.

He launched himself into a desperate, flying slide tackle from behind. It was reckless. It was dangerous. He didn't get the ball; he just scythed Pellegrini down in a heap.

The referee's whistle was instantaneous and furious. He sprinted to the scene, a red card already in his hand before he even reached the fallen Roma captain.

He brandished it in Barella's face without a moment's hesitation.

The Stadio Olimpico exploded. The Roma players were furious, surrounding Barella.

The Inter players were in a state of shock, pleading with the referee.

But Barella knew. He didn't even protest. He just put his head in his hands, the full weight of his mistake crashing down on him. He had let his team down in the biggest moment.

"A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD! A MOMENT OF UTTER MADNESS FROM NICOLÒ BARELLA!" the commentator yelled over the din. "He is Inter's heart, but his passion has betrayed him! A straight red card in a cup final! Inter are down to ten men! This is a disaster of epic proportions for the league leaders!"

Chivu just turned his back, a look of cold, silent fury on his face.

He had lost one of his most important soldiers to a moment of madness.

With a man advantage, Roma sensed their moment. They began to turn the screw, their passing now confident and incisive.

The ten men of Inter were scrambling, their formation in disarray, trying to plug the gaps as Roma poured forward.

They held out for nine minutes, a desperate, backs-to-the-wall defensive effort.

But in the 40th minute, the wall finally broke, and it was broken by a piece of art.

The ball was worked out to the left wing to Leonardo Spinazzola.

He whipped in a high, looping cross towards the back post.

It seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, drifting over the head of the leaping Lukaku. It looked like it was going to be too long, a wasted opportunity.

But then, appearing from nowhere, was Paulo Dybala.

He had ghosted in from the right wing, completely untracked.

The ball was dropping at a difficult height, around his waist.

A normal player would try to control it, to bring it down. Dybala was not a normal player.

He launched himself sideways into the air, twisting his body, and met the dropping ball with a full, acrobatic scissor-kick volley.

Time seemed to slow down. The connection was perfect. The ball flew like a tracer bullet, a venomous, swerving projectile that was past Yann Sommer before he could even move.

The net bulged. 1-0 to Roma.

The Stadio Olimpico didn't just cheer; it detonated.

The sound was a physical thing, a shockwave of pure, unadulterated joy.

Dybala was mobbed by his teammates, a writhing, screaming pile of yellow and red.

The commentator had simply run out of superlatives. He was just making noises. "OH! WOAH! A GOAL FROM THE HEAVENS! A SCISSOR-KICK OF SUBLIME, RIDICULOUS, IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTY! PAULO DYBALA! YOU ARE NOT HUMAN! THAT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST CUP FINAL GOALS YOU WILL EVER, EVER SEE!"

The camera panned to the Inter players.

They were down a goal, down a man, and had just been slain by a moment of divine intervention.

Leon stood in the center circle, watching the celebration, the roar of the crowd washing over him.

The clock showed 40:12.

His dream of a trophy, which had felt so close just half an hour ago, was now a nightmare.

.....

The halftime whistle was a mercy, a brief reprieve from the public execution taking place at the Stadio Olimpico.

The Inter players trudged off the pitch, their shoulders slumped, the deafening roar of the Roma fans a physical weight crushing their spirits.

The dressing room was a morgue. The silence was absolute, broken only by the quiet, heartbroken sobs of Nicolò Barella, who sat in a corner with a towel over his head, the red card a scarlet letter branded on his soul.

The door opened and Coach Cristian Chivu walked in.

He didn't look at Barella. He didn't look at the tactics board.

He walked to the center of the room, his face an unreadable mask of calm.

The players braced for a tirade, a storm of fury. It never came.

----

A/N: Huge thanks to everyone who made it this far... Every read, every comment, every bit of support is like fuel for me to keep going. Let's keep chasing the ball together!

Stay tuned for the next chapter... it's going to be even more thrilling!