The pressure of the match instantly shifted onto the shoulders of the home side.
For the next twenty minutes, Aston Villa dominated possession.
Midfielders John McGinn and Conor Hourihane tirelessly cycled the ball, desperately trying to pick the lock of Sheffield's parked bus.
But it was completely useless.
Up front, Tammy Abraham was utterly isolated.
Every time the ball came anywhere near him, the striker found himself swallowed alive by Chris Wilder's three-man central defense.
He was taking a physical beating and couldn't find an inch of space to breathe, let alone shoot.
Before anyone realized it, the match dragged into the 30th minute.
The score remained 1-0.
As the clock ticked down, the freezing Aston Villa supporters grew increasingly toxic.
The anxiety in the stands was boiling over into pure frustration.
"What the fuck is this messy rubbish?!" a fan screamed from the Holte End, throwing his hands up.
"Is this really the Villa?!"
"We look completely toothless! Jack's injury has gutted the entire offense!"
"Pass it to Abraham, you selfish prick! Why are you shooting from there?!"
"The midfield is completely dead! Why the hell is the Bjorn kid sitting all the way back as a defensive mid?! Push him up the damn pitch! If we want to win, we need his passing!"
On the touchline, Dean Smith's frown deepened into a heavy scowl.
He had anticipated a gritty, low-scoring dogfight, but he hadn't expected his squad to look this completely devoid of attacking ideas.
He was pacing the technical area, at a total loss for how to break the deadlock without sacrificing his defensive structure.
Then, in the 40th minute, Sheffield United struck.
Sensing Villa's growing desperation, the away side suddenly snapped out of their defensive shell to launch a lethal counter-attack.
In the center of the pitch, John Fleck and Oliver Norwood violently collapsed on Mile Jedinak, successfully stripping the veteran Australian of the ball.
Fleck didn't hesitate.
He immediately zipped a pass out to Kieran Dowell on the right flank.
The counter was on.
Dowell run fast, surging down the wing like a bullet.
At that exact moment, Aston Villa's backline was completely exposed.
They only had two center-backs and Theodore back to defend, while Sheffield United had four players bombing forward to join the rush.
Theodore knew the math.
If Dowell got a cross off, Villa was dead.
He had to kill the play right here, right now.
Sprinting on a diagonal intercept course, Theodore closed the gap.
But Dowell didn't take the 17-year-old seriously.
The winger confidently pushed the ball heavy down the touchline, attempting to use his raw, explosive pace to simply blow past the rookie.
Just as Dowell geared up to sprint, Theodore didn't reach for the ball.
He stepped directly into the winger's path and initiated a brutal, unforgiving shoulder-to-shoulder barge.
Smack!
The collision instantly threw Dowell completely off balance.
As the winger stumbled wildly, Theodore calmly swept his right foot through, executing a flawless crunching interception.
"What a tackle!"
"Theodore Bjorn brilliantly disrupts a lethal counter-attack!"
Theodore didn't pause to admire his defensive work.
The second he won the ball, Xabi Alonso's 84-vision lit up the pitch in his mind. He spotted Abraham making a desperate run through the center.
The transition was instantaneous.
Boom!
Theodore whipped his right boot through the ball, launching a devastating, low-trajectory long pass.
Three seconds later, the ball dropped flawlessly right at the top of the penalty arc.
For the first time all night, Abraham wasn't triple-teamed.
He successfully boxed out the single Sheffield defender on his back and brought the ball down perfectly.
But he couldn't turn.
Another center-back, John Egan, was already charging out of the line to crush him.
Seeing the double-team coming, Abraham didn't force a shot.
He intelligently laid the ball off, pushing it perfectly into the path of the trailing John McGinn.
McGinn was completely unmarked. He didn't take a touch. The Scottish powerhouse just put his head down and put his absolute soul into his left boot.
BOOM!
The long-range strike was an absolute thunder!
The ball flew like a laser beam toward the Sheffield goal.
It was traveling with such terrifying velocity that Dean Henderson barely even twitched before it violently rippled the back of the net.
1-1!
"McGinn from distance!!" Zhan Jun's voice cracked with pure hype on the broadcast. "An absolute world-class screamer! Aston Villa has equalized! We are back on level terms!"
As the replay rolled, Zhang Lu immediately chimed in to break down the tactics.
"Jun, make no mistake, the absolute key to that goal was Theodore Bjorn," Zhang Lu analyzed smoothly.
"He single-handedly killed a dangerous four-on-three counter-attack with elite physicality, and within two seconds, he delivered the pre-assist straight to Abraham's feet. That goal belongs just as much to the 17-year-old as it does to McGinn."
Inside Villa Park, the suffocating tension instantly evaporated.
Over thirty thousand fans erupted, the stadium foundation shaking as the deafening roar of the team anthem washed over the pitch.
Dean Smith let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief on the touchline, aggressively pumping his fists.
But Aston Villa wasn't done.
Equalizing wasn't the objective—they needed blood.
After the restart, Villa completely flipped the script, applying a suffocating high press in the attacking third to try and deliver a fatal blow before halftime.
But Sheffield United wasn't going to roll over.
Refusing to play out of the back under pressure, Fleck bypassed the midfield entirely, launching a desperate long ball straight toward the Aston Villa penalty area.
At the top of the arc, the massive David McGoldrick and Villa's Jedinak launched themselves into the air simultaneously.
McGoldrick's sheer physical dominance won out.
He battered Jedinak out of the way and successfully brought the ball down to his feet.
But the second the Sheffield striker landed and prepared to turn toward the goal, a shadow stepped into his space.
It was Theodore.
He didn't back down from the towering striker.
Channeling every ounce of Bastian Schweinsteiger's 82-rated physicality, Theodore initiated contact.
McGoldrick tried to hold him off, fully expecting to easily bully the teenager.
He was dead wrong.
Theodore hit him like a freight train. McGoldrick couldn't withstand the challenge at all.
The massive striker was completely upended, knocked flat onto his back as Theodore ruthlessly stripped the ball away.
"It's Theodore Bjorn again!" Zhan Jun cheered, clapping his hands in the studio. "Another massive interception! He just physically completely leveled the towering McGoldrick! Unbelievable strength from the teenager!"
Just as Zhan Jun geared up to praise him further, Theodore didn't reset the play.
He looked up and instantly pinged a rapid, line-breaking pass forward.
This time, McGinn wasn't in the center.
The Scottish midfielder had drifted entirely out wide, receiving Theodore's pass in acres of space on the right flank!