With Hernanes shifting to the right, his seasoned discipline and wealth of experience acted like a set of heavy iron shackles on David Qin. Every time David received the ball and looked to drive forward, he found himself suffocated by a coordinated double-team. Sensing the congestion, Kevin De Bruyne began to drift toward the same flank, dragging Hernanes with him while signaling Luiz Gustavo to surge into the vacated central space.
"The Wolves are persistent on that left channel," Derek Rae noted, leaning into the microphone. "Inter have committed serious defensive resources there. It's becoming a crowded house—hardly any room for those intricate passing triangles we've seen all night."
"But look at this, Derek!" Stewart Robson countered. "David Qin and De Bruyne are playing one-twos in a phone booth! They've actually managed to navigate through that thicket of blue and black shirts!"
"The cross comes in from the forty-five-degree angle! It's Bas Dost!"
The towering Dutchman outmuscled his marker, snapping a header toward the far post. The stadium held its breath as the ball beat the keeper, only to shave the paint off the outside of the upright. Dost clutched his head in a silent scream of agony. His teammates had carved out a masterpiece of a chance, and he had let it go to waste. What is wrong with me today? he wondered, the frustration etched into his features.
"Stop dreaming! Get back!" Luiz Gustavo's voice boomed across the pitch, shattering Dost's momentary trance.
Carrizo launched the goal kick toward the halfway line. Mauro Icardi, playing the target man role to perfection, leaned into Knoche and flicked a header toward Rodrigo Palacio. The veteran Argentine forward was a physical marvel; even in his later years, he retained a basketball player's sense of space and shielding—a trait that would eventually lead him to play competitive basketball after his football retirement.
Palacio collided with Naldo, a bone-jarring impact that would have floored a lesser man. He stumbled, regained his equilibrium with a frantic hop, and flicked an outside-of-the-boot pass into the path of a charging Icardi.
"Inter! Inter!" The traveling fans roared, leaning over the railings in anticipation.
Suddenly, a blur of green flashed across the turf. Ricardo Rodriguez, wearing the number 34, unleashed a burst of recovery speed that seemed to defy physics. With clinical precision, he went to ground.
"A magnificent recovery from Rodriguez!" Rae shouted. "That is why he's valued at thirty million Euros. His two-way capability is truly world-class. A perfectly timed sliding tackle to snuff out the danger!"
On the touchline, Roberto Mancini watched with a grimace. Icardi had the talent, but his recent form suggested he was following the Balotelli trajectory—distracted and inconsistent. Rumors of his demanding domestic life with Wanda Nara were a staple of the tabloids, and Mancini couldn't help but feel the young striker looked a step slow, as if his energy were being siphoned off elsewhere.
But the match wasn't waiting for Mancini's diagnosis. Benaglio gathered the ball and launched a massive hoof downfield. The ball caught the glare of the floodlights, arching over sixty-five meters toward the Inter half. Inter, still committed to their offensive shape, were caught in a disorganized scramble.
De Bruyne tracked the flight of the ball, checking his shoulder twice as it descended.
"Don't let him turn!" Andrea Ranocchia screamed. He knew they couldn't allow Wolfsburg to settle on the ball; a foul was a small price to pay to stop the momentum.
Nemanja Vidić responded, charging at the Belgian with the intent to simply go through him. The former Manchester United legend was a titan of the game, though in his twilight years, the memory of being scorched by a prime Fernando Torres seemed to haunt his every step.
Thud.
The impact was caught by the pitch-side microphones. De Bruyne, the twenty-five-year-old Belgian dynamo, braced his shoulder and simply bounced the thirty-five-year-old Serbian veteran off him. With ice in his veins, De Bruyne cushioned the ball with his chest and, before it could touch the grass, hooked it toward the left touchline.
"Inter have done one thing right," Robson observed. "Even in transition, they've kept a man glued to David Qin. D'Ambrosio is retreating, refusing to dive in. He's buying time for Hernanes to get back."
David Qin watched the defenders converge. He tested D'Ambrosio with a series of feints, but the Italian was disciplined, waiting for his support. As Hernanes finally arrived and poked a tentative foot out for the ball, David's eyes flashed. He saw the gap—a sliver of space between the two defenders just wide enough for a man to pass through.
In that heartbeat, thirty thousand fans at the Volkswagen Arena gasped.
David performed a "Rainbow Flick" with such insolent ease it looked choreographed. D'Ambrosio felt the ball arch over his head, a shimmer of green and white against the night sky. He reached out to grab David's jersey, but his fingers clutched only air.
"He's done them! A rainbow flick over the Inter double-team!"
Hernanes and D'Ambrosio could only watch, rooted to the spot, as David Qin burst past them. Ranocchia scrambled over to cover, but David's head was already up.
No-look pass.
The ball was fizzed across the box, a deceptive delivery that left Ranocchia paralyzed by a sense of déjà vu—the same terror he had felt years ago against Ronaldinho. De Bruyne was there, arriving with the timing of a Swiss watch. He adjusted his stride and met the ball with a firm, side-footed strike.
Clang-thud.
The ball kissed the inside of the post and rattled into the netting.
3-1!!!
"Exquisite football!" Rae bellowed, his voice cracking with excitement. "David Qin escapes the trap with a rainbow flick, and De Bruyne provides the lethal sting! One is all flair and soul, the other is cold-blooded precision! It's footballing art!"
"They're operating on a different wavelength, Derek," Robson added. "David Qin's successful dribbles per game are at 5.7, and De Bruyne's key passes are at 6.1—the highest in the competition. These two are simply colonizing the Europa League!"
David grabbed De Bruyne and dragged him toward the corner flag. In front of the cameras, they stood back-to-back, fingers shaped like revolvers, mimicking a classic Western shootout.
"How was that for style?" David grinned. He had spent fifteen minutes after every training session coaching De Bruyne on celebrations, determined to rid the Belgian of his "Sunday League" habit of just jogging back to the circle. The "Gunslingers" was David's latest creative import.
"You guys are leaving me out again?!" Ivan Perišić yelled as he caught up, panting but smiling.
"Next one's yours, Ivan! We'll do the 'Cradle' for your new kid!" David laughed, patting him on the back.
On the sidelines, Dieter Hecking pumped his fists. His vision of building a tactical system around these two pillars was no longer a theory; it was a juggernaut. He felt a surge of confidence. If they faced Bayern Munich again tomorrow, he couldn't guarantee a win, but he knew they wouldn't go down without a fight.
On the opposite bench, Mancini turned to his long-time assistant. "It's a gap in raw quality. Our road to recovery is much longer than I thought." He had entered the match with hope, but the reality was a chasm. Inter needed to focus on the league; the Europa League was becoming a nightmare.
"Let's make the changes. Get Mateo warming up."
In the 78th minute, Kovačić replaced Shaqiri. Hecking followed suit, bringing on Träsch for Vieirinha and Caligiuri for Perišić. The Croatian winger walked off with a lingering look at the goal, clearly feeling there was more to be had. Hecking was rotating on a knife-edge, terrified of an injury to his core stars as the season reached its climax.
"D'Ambrosio takes a yellow card for a cynical foul on David Qin!" Rae noted. "The diligent Italian has finally reached his breaking point. Free kick to Wolfsburg, just outside the left edge of the area."
"Wait... David Qin is stepping up to take it?" Robson asked. "We haven't seen him on set-piece duty before. Let's see what he's got in the locker."
David stood over the ball, looking at the goal. He took two deliberate steps back. He tapped the toes of his right boot against the turf—a rhythmic ritual to ensure the fit was perfect, sharpening his tactile connection with the ball.
Curl it into the top left, he told himself.
With his "Devilish Finesse Shot" proficiency nearing 85%, he felt a strange, intuitive confidence. He had been practicing static shots using the same curling technique. Now was the time to see if the training would translate to the bright lights.
"Wall to the left! Move it!" Carrizo screamed, positioning himself near the far post. "Watch the near corner! Jump!"
Hernanes and D'Ambrosio obeyed. They didn't know David's free-kick pedigree, but after seeing his curling shots from open play, they knew better than to be complacent.
"Score! Score! Score!" The Wolfsburg fans chanted in unison, a wall of sound crashing over the pitch.
Tweet!
David took a deep breath. He began his run-up—a short, purposeful approach—and unleashed.
Whish.
The ball screamed off his boot, a viciously dipping curler that cleared D'Ambrosio's head by inches. Carrizo watched it, his heart sinking as he realized the trajectory. He scrambled across, launching into a desperate dive, but the ball was an arrow. It grazed his fingertips and tucked itself into the top left corner.
4-1!!!
The Volkswagen Arena exploded. It was a goal for the highlight reels—David Qin's first professional free-kick goal. Most masters of the dead ball reached their peak in their late twenties, the result of a decade of repetition. At seventeen, David had just bypassed the queue.
"Magnificent! A brace for David Qin!" Rae roared. "He curls it into the postage stamp! Carrizo can only fly through the air in a vain attempt to stop the inevitable! That is David's eighth goal of the campaign!"
David slid on his knees toward the corner, leaving two long grooves in the turf, before offering a sharp salute to the North Stand.
"A perfect free kick!"
"That's our boy!"
"The Pride of Wolfsburg!"
The praise washed over him, and David couldn't stop the grin from widening. He hadn't been certain it would go in; training was one thing, but the pressure of a match was a different animal altogether. But the feeling was right. The speed wasn't elite yet—if he had been facing Courtois or a keeper with an extra inch of reach, it might have been saved—but the accuracy was undeniable.
Still more work to do, he thought. He remembered Ronaldinho's free kicks—balls that defied the laws of physics with both massive curve and blistering speed. Ronaldinho sat third on the all-time list with 66 free-kick goals, tied with Legrottaglie.
"You actually did it!" De Bruyne interrupted his thoughts, jogging over to celebrate. Back in February, David had asked for a share of the set-piece duties. After a few "shootouts" in training, they had agreed: David took the left-sided kicks, Kevin took the central and right.
"I told you, Kevin," David said, pulling him into a hug. "Geniuses don't miss."
"You certainly don't," De Bruyne laughed.
Across the pitch, the Inter players looked shell-shocked. Four goals conceded away from home—another heavy defeat to match their recent collapses against Cagliari and Roma. As they looked at the scoreboard, the prospect of a miracle at the San Siro felt like a fantasy.
"If only we had a player like that," the Inter fans whispered, watching David and De Bruyne celebrate. Once, Inter had been the "Black Hole of Stars," a destination for the world's best. Now, they were merely spectators to the rise of a new dynasty.
Even Mancini found himself wandering into a daydream. Maybe we should look into the Chinese market, he thought. If they're all this cheap and this talented, it's a goldmine.
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