Reincarnated As A Wonderkid

The commentator, his voice buzzing with the thrill of the tactical masterclass, was having the time of his life.

"THE GOAL MAY NOT STAND, BUT THE MESSAGE HAS BEEN DELIVERED!" he roared. "Inter Milan have the key! Leon, the master locksmith, has picked the lock of the Torino fortress, and now his teammates are pouring through the breach! The Triangle is in tatters!"

The next twenty minutes were a beautiful, brutal demonstration of Inter's new plan.

It was the same move, over and over, but executed with such speed and precision that Torino was powerless to stop it. Leon would drift deep, a phantom in the midfield.

A Torino defender, usually the captain Buongiorno, would follow him, his face a mask of grim determination. And the moment he did, the trap was sprung.

Lautaro and Palmer would make searing, diagonal runs into the vacated space.

The passes from Inter's midfield, primarily from the visionary Hakan Çalhanoğlu, were sublime.

In the 18th minute, a perfect pass sent Palmer through, but his shot was bravely blocked.

In the 25th, Lautaro was in, but the Torino keeper made a brilliant, sprawling save with his leg.

"They're toying with them!" the commentator shrieked. "This is a tactical masterclass! Torino are chasing shadows! They are being passed around, pulled apart, and utterly bamboozled! It is a miracle the score is still nil-nil!"

The Torino players were getting frustrated. Their elegant defensive system had devolved into a frantic, chaotic scramble. In the 32nd minute, their frustration boiled over.

Leon, having once again dropped deep, received the ball and was about to turn.

A Torino midfielder, seeing the start of the dreaded move, launched himself into a reckless, cynical tackle, scything Leon down from behind.

The whistle blew.

A clear yellow card, and a free-kick to Inter, 30 yards out, slightly to the left of center.

Hakan Çalhanoğlu placed the ball with the meticulous care of a bomb disposal expert.

This was his territory. He took a few steps back, his eyes locked on the goal, a picture of calm focus.

"This is the moment for the specialist," the commentator whispered, his voice hushed with anticipation. "Can he break the deadlock with a single, perfect strike?"

Çalhanoğlu began his run-up. He didn't blast it. He caressed it. He whipped his right foot around the ball, imparting a vicious, beautiful curl.

The ball flew up and over the wall, a perfect, arcing trajectory, before dipping violently at the last second.

The goalkeeper, who had taken a small step to his right, was completely wrong-footed. He dove desperately, but it was too late. The ball nestled into the top corner of the net, a thing of pure, undeniable beauty.

1-0 to Inter! The San Siro erupted, a joyous release of a tension that had been building with every missed chance.

Çalhanoğlu roared, pointing to his head, a clear message: We won this with our brains.

Inter went into the halftime break with a deserved lead, their dressing room a calm, confident space.

"They don't know what to do," Lautaro said, a satisfied grin on his face.

"Every time Leo moves, they look at their coach like lost children."

"We should do a tactical hug next," Julián Álvarez suggested from the subs' bench, where he was doing some light stretching. "It would completely confuse them. They'd be expecting a cross, and boom! A surprise group hug on the edge of the box. Unstoppable."

The team chuckled. Coach Chivu, who had been listening, just shook his head, a small smile on his face. "They're chasing shadows," he said.

"Second half, we make them tired. Keep the ball moving. The chances will come."

The second half began, and for the first few minutes, Inter continued their patient, dominant passing game.

Then, in the 50th minute, Chivu decided to unleash his agent of chaos.

He called Julián Álvarez to the sideline.

"Julián," the coach said, his expression deadly serious.

"I want you to go on for Dimarco. I don't want you to be a winger. I don't want you to be a striker." He leaned in close. "I want you to be a mosquito."

Julián's eyes lit up with a manic, joyous glee. "A mosquito," he repeated, savoring the word.

"The most annoying of all the tactical insects. I understand the mission, Coach."

Julián entered the pitch and immediately began his reign of terror, buzzing around the Torino defenders with a relentless, irritating energy.

The defenders, already mentally exhausted, were now being physically harassed by a smiling, indefatigable pest.

In the 55th minute, the beautiful, tactical game plan was briefly replaced by a moment of pure, unadulterated, glorious stupidity.

The ball was cleared from an Inter corner and fell to Federico Dimarco, who had been pushed up into a more advanced role. The left-back took a touch and saw a huge, green expanse of grass in front of him. And he just started to run. It wasn't an elegant, gliding run like Palmer's.

It was a frantic, head-down, runaway-truck of a run. He stumbled past the first challenge, the ball bouncing off his own knee and luckily back into his path.

He bulldozed his way past a second player, who just bounced off him. He was a fullback on a mission, a runaway freight train of pure, unadulterated chaos.

"WHERE IS HE GOING?!" the commentator screamed, dissolving into laughter. "DIMARCO IS ON THE RAMPAGE! HE'S RUNNING LIKE HE'S LATE FOR A BUS! HE HAS LEFT A TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION IN HIS WAKE!"

He reached the byline and, with his last ounce of energy, he hooked a wild, desperate cross into the box.

It was a terrible cross, flying behind the attack and towards the back post. There was no danger.

But then, the mosquito struck. Julián had buzzed his way to the back post, and his mere presence caused a full-blown panic.

A Torino defender, Ricardo Rodriguez, saw the ball coming and saw Julián buzzing around him. He had to clear it. He stuck out a panicked leg.

The ball hit his shin, looped up into the air, and spun backwards, over his own goalkeeper's head, and into the net.

An own goal of such spectacular, comical ineptitude that the entire stadium was silent for a second, before the Inter fans erupted in delirious, disbelieving laughter.

2-0. The Torino defender just lay on the ground, his face a picture of utter despair. Julián just turned around with a look of complete innocence, as if to say, "What? It wasn't me!" The Inter players ran to celebrate, not with Dimarco for his crazy run, but with Julián, the chaotic mastermind.

They had broken the Triangle with a moment of tactical genius, and then shattered it with a moment of pure, unadulterated slapstick comedy.