The restart at 2-0 carried a different weight than the one at 1-0 had. A single goal behind, a team can still believe. Two goals down before halftime, against a side playing the way Barcelona were playing, was a different conversation entirely and every professional in the Cornellà-El Prat understood it.
Aguirre's reorganised shape held its discipline. Víctor Sánchez, now wearing the captain's armband in place of the departed Javi López, circulated the ball from deep with a quiet, deliberate authority. He had been La Masia's product once. He knew this Barcelona side from the inside the pressing triggers, the passing rhythms, the way the midfield tried to compress you before you could breathe.
He wasn't going to give them the chaotic transitions they wanted.
For several minutes it worked. Espanyol kept the ball moving laterally, refusing to be baited. The crowd steadied. The Cornellà found something like composure.
In the front row of the stands, Cecilia had stopped trembling. She was watching now rather than flinching, her Barcelona scarf pulled tight.
"He seems settled," she said quietly.
"He's been settled since the first whistle," Blanca replied. "That's what makes him difficult to defend against."
Across the VIP section, Lucia stood with her arms folded, eyes on the pitch. When Lorenzo was playing, she watched football.
The match shifted in the 41st minute. Busquets intercepted a slightly hesitant horizontal pass from Sánchez not a mistake, just a fraction less weight on the ball than Espanyol needed and nudged it forward immediately. The transition was instant.
Messi received, spun, and drove. Capdevila tracked across and slid, winning the ball cleanly but carrying enough momentum to catch Messi's trailing leg as both men went to ground.
Fweet-!
The referee stopped play. Free-kick, edge of the area, central position.
The Espanyol wall assembled quickly Sánchez directing the line, Colotto and Moreno at the core. Kiko Casilla set his feet behind it, eyes on the ball.
Messi placed the ball. The stadium tightened.
Then Messi stepped back and looked at Lorenzo.
It wasn't a grand gesture. He simply tossed the ball forward a few inches toward the number nine and stepped aside, one hand raised to the referee to indicate who was taking it. The kind of thing that happens in training a thousand times, unremarkable in the doing, significant only in what it meant.
Lorenzo looked at him for a moment. "The free-kicks too now, Leo?"
Messi shrugged, half-smiling. "You're the one in form. Take it."
Lorenzo walked to the ball. Around him the noise of the Cornellà rose, the home fans generating what pressure they could. He looked at the wall, at the gap on Casilla's left side, at the angle. The Beckham Golden Curve had been at 100% since the Super Cup. He had used it in training every day since. This was its natural territory central position, clear sightline, ball on the grass.
He measured his run-up. Three steps.
Fweet-!
Lorenzo's inside foot came through the ball with the familiar, precise friction of a surgeon rather than a hammer. The ball lifted immediately, arcing away from the center too wide, it looked like, the Espanyol wall already relaxing and then the curve bit.
It snapped inward, the trajectory pulling sharply around the right edge of the wall. Casilla had moved to cover the near post. The ball was heading for the far side of the goal instead, dropping with the late dip that Beckham had made his calling card.
Casilla got a hand to it a genuine, athletic save, both feet off the ground, full extension. The ball deflected off his palm and struck the inside of the post.
It came back into the six-yard box at a low, awkward angle. Casilla was still on the ground, scrambling to recover. Messi, arriving late on the play, collected the rebound and swung immediately no settling touch, just a first-time shot aimed at the open goal.
Moreno had tracked back to cover. He had his body in position, his weight forward, his intention clearly to block with his chest or thigh. But Messi's shot came in low and fast, and in the last fraction of a second, the gap between what the body intends and what it does, his arm dropped instinctively across the line of the ball rather than away from it.
The contact was slight. The handball was real.
Moreno looked at his own arm the way a man looks at something he didn't know he'd done.
Fweet-! Fweet-!
The referee's whistle came twice, sharp and decisive. He had been close, he had seen it clearly, and he had no choice. His hand went to his back pocket.
Red card. Straight. No discussion.
The penalty spot was indicated with a single pointed arm.
Cornellà erupted, not in celebration but in the furious, wounded noise of a crowd that knows it has just watched its match end. Moreno's teammates surrounded the referee for thirty seconds, the professional protest ritual, knowing it would change nothing. Moreno himself stood with both hands on his head, the realisation of what he had done arriving in the same instant as the card.
"RED CARD! PENALTY! Messi fires, Moreno covers, the arm comes across, instinct, not intention, but the laws of the game do not ask about intention!" Santiago called. "Casilla made a magnificent save and it still wasn't enough, the rebound, the follow-up, the handball on the line. Three moments in two seconds, and it ends with ten men and a penalty spot."
Inés kept her composure. "Casilla made a genuinely good save, full extension, got a real hand on it. In another scenario that is the moment of the match. But the deflection ran along the line and Moreno could not get his feet into position in time. The handball was the only option he could reach. The referee had a clear view. The decision was straightforward."
On the pitch, Messi picked the ball up from inside the net and walked it to the spot. He set it down, straightened up and then paused. He looked toward Lorenzo, a brief, unhurried look.
He held out the ball.
"Your penalty," Messi said simply. "I've taken plenty. Take this one."
Lorenzo received it without ceremony, setting it precisely on the spot and stepping back. Around him the noise of the stadium pressed inward, but the Cantona temperament held everything at a steady, cold remove. He looked at Casilla. The goalkeeper was bouncing on his line, shaking his hands loose, trying to reset after the chaos of the previous sixty seconds. A professional doing the right things.
Lorenzo chose his corner and composed himself.
The referee's whistle went.
In the stands, Cecilia was gripping the seat in front of her.
Lucia was still.
Aguirre stood with his arms folded, watching.
[Ding! Side Mission: 'Who is the Sole King of Catalonia?' - Additional Opportunity Detected.]
[Penalty awarded. King of the Penalty Area - PRIMED. This is the first shot within the penalty area in this match.]
[Causality engaged.]
Lorenzo ran. Short, measured approach. He saw Casilla commit half a step to the right. He put the ball to the left - low, firm, unhurried. Not a blast. The kind of finish that said: I knew where I was putting it before I started my run.
Casilla dived the wrong way.
The ball rolled into the bottom-left corner and sat there.
3-0.
The away section detonated. Thirty-eight minutes played. Three-nil up. Ten men left in the Espanyol defence for the second half.
"THREE-NIL! LORENZO COMPLETES THE HAT-TRICK! AND THIS TIME IT IS THE PENALTY SPOT THAT SEALS IT - CALM, PRECISE, THE GOALKEEPER WENT THE WRONG WAY ENTIRELY!" Santiago called.
"Forty minutes played, and the Catalan Derby is well and truly over. The Beast has taken everything the Cornellà had to offer and returned it threefold."
Inés followed. "Three goals, three different methods. The Pendulum finish in the thirty-first minute, the free-kick that forced the handball, and now the penalty. A complete hat-trick and the second half hasn't started yet."
On the pitch, Messi and Neymar converged, but Lorenzo waved them off gently. He walked to the corner flag and stood there for a moment not a performance, not a taunt toward the crowd. Just a man acknowledging where he was and what he had done. The Cornellà gave him a low, resigned sound that was almost like respect.
Sánchez retrieved the ball for the restart. He said nothing. He had his own job to do for the next fifty minutes hold the shape with ten men, concede no more, protect what dignity remained in the result.
Aguirre turned back to his assistant and resumed the conversation he had started before the red card.
[Status: Leading (3-0). 39th Minute. La Liga Matchday 3 - Catalan Derby.]
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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