In front of the Juventus goal, Buffon slammed his fist hard against the near post. The sound was swallowed whole by the stadium noise, but the gesture spoke volumes. Here was a goalkeeper who had been the best in the world for over a decade, forced to process the fact that a seventeen-year-old had just beaten him from thirty yards out with a strike he got a hand to and still couldn't stop.
He stood on the goal line for a long moment, hands resting on his hips as he stared down at the turf. Slowly, he tightened the captain's armband on his sleeve and turned his gaze toward his defense. Barzagli walked over and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Chiellini and Bonucci exchanged a silent glance, carrying the heavy frustration of two world-class defenders who had done everything right, only to be rendered completely helpless.
Vidal's jaw remained clenched tight. His eyes were glued to the big screen, replaying the sequence over and over as he searched for the split second where he should have closed down the space. A few yards away, Pogba stood with his hands on his hips, his gaze drifting toward Lorenzo's celebration. It was a look heavy with the silent weight of the Golden Boy Award, the press conference banter, and now, a thirty-yard rocket that had brought forty thousand fans to a complete standstill.
On the far side, the Barcelona players mobbed Lorenzo beneath the away section.
"Do you have any idea whose net you just ripped open?" Messi shouted over the roar of the crowd, grabbing Lorenzo by the shoulders. "That's Buffon! The man has been denying me for years!"
"Yeah, but he still managed to get a hand to it," Lorenzo said, shaking his head slightly.
"That makes it even worse! He touched it and it still blew right past him!"
Busquets turned toward the roaring Juventus supporters, cupping both hands around his mouth. "Which one of you was calling the Golden Boy award controversial earlier? Look at our number nine! Undisputed!"
Iniesta gave him a flat look. "Sergio. We're in Turin."
"I know, Andrés," Busquets grinned. "A little bit of noise is fine."
The system settled in the background.
[WC Simulation No. 14 — James Rodríguez volley. Success.]
[Random attribute boost: long-range shooting precision enhanced.]
Lorenzo felt the shift. It was a marginal, barely perceptible adjustment, the kind of subtle refinement that would pay off in his next dozen strikes from distance rather than in a single moment. His long-range shooting had been elite for months, but now, it felt just a fraction sharper.
Over on the Juventus touchline, Conte ran a hand through his hair, revealing the first visible crack in his composed Italian exterior.
His assistant leaned over toward him. "Did we underestimate him? Or did Gigi make a mistake?"
Conte's reply was immediate and sharp. "Buffon doesn't make mistakes like that. When I was still playing here, he was already our number one, and his peak has lasted over a decade." He straightened his suit jacket with a resolute flick of his wrists. "It's one goal. This is still our house."
He looked across the pitch, past the celebrating Barcelona players, toward the Juventus stands where scattered chants were already rebuilding.
"Napoli got dismantled by them in the group stage," Conte said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Milan were knocked out by a Spanish team as well. If we can't stop Barcelona here, then all of Serie A becomes nothing more than a stepping stone for their victory lap." He turned sharply to his assistant. "We are Serie A's last hope tonight. Start acting like it."
His assistant nodded, though his face betrayed a deep, lingering anxiety. "The strike was from thirty yards out, Antonio..."
"I know where it was from."
"Buffon got a hand to it and it still..."
"I know that too, Angelo," Conte cut him off coldly. "Which means we don't grant him another look from thirty yards. We step up and close that space higher up the pitch. Vidal needs to be glued to their number nine the moment the ball is in the air. One long-range shot from distance doesn't break our entire system. It simply means we ramp up the pressure on the man on the ball. That is all."
He straightened his suit jacket, rolled his shoulders, and turned back toward the pitch. Behind him, the roar of the stadium was already rising again. The Curva Sud was finding its voice, the drums began to beat, and the fierce pride of Italian supporters who had lived through relegation and scandal took over, refusing to be silenced by a single setback.
Fweet—!
The match restarted, and the atmosphere inside the stadium shifted instantly. Driven by something far deeper than mere club loyalty, the sheer collective pride of an entire nation's defensive tradition, the home crowd unleashed a deafening wall of noise that completely drowned out the traveling Barcelona supporters.
Tevez kicked off, laying the ball off to Vučinić. The ball moved backward to Pogba, who didn't linger on it this time, quickly shifting it sideways to Pirlo.
The Italian maestro controlled it, scanned the field, and went straight to work. A quick pass to Vidal, Vidal back to Pirlo, and Pirlo spreading it wide to Lichtsteiner. The triangle reformed, the passing lanes adjusted, and the tempo was restored. Juventus showed no signs of panic. They were doing exactly what Conte's teams always did after taking a hit, tightening their grip on the match rather than letting it slip away.
Pirlo's deep-lying position was the key. From forty yards behind the halfway line, he could see every passing lane Barcelona were trying to use and close them before they opened. Every touch was deliberate. Every switch arrived at the right foot. Pogba pushed higher, finding pockets of space between Busquets and Iniesta that hadn't existed in the opening ten minutes. Vidal covered the gaps Pogba left behind with the tireless discipline that made him one of the most complete midfielders in world football.
For five minutes, Barcelona couldn't string together more than three consecutive passes in the Juventus half. The chain defence had reformed. The shield was back up.
"Juve are responding exactly how you'd expect a Conte team to respond," Inés noted from the booth. "They haven't changed shape. They haven't pushed more players forward. They've simply reasserted control over the midfield tempo. The equaliser, if it comes, will come through patience rather than panic."
Martino watched from the touchline with his arms folded tightly inside his trench coat. The first twenty-five minutes had yielded one moment of sheer brilliance and one long stretch of Juventus dominance. He knew exactly what was on the horizon. The chain defense would tighten its grip, Pirlo would drag the game down to a crawl, and any second goal for Barcelona would have to be forged through something the defensive unit simply wasn't built to stop.
The question was what that something would be.
You know the drill: Hand over those Power Stones to keep the momentum rolling!
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