Aston Villa was pissed off.
Falling behind ten minutes into the match lit a fire under the away side.
Jack Grealish, wearing the captain's armband, took the deficit personally.
He started demanding the ball, desperate to rip Reading's defense apart.
Receiving a sharp pass from John McGinn out wide, Grealish sized up his defender.
Reading had assigned Tyler Blackett to mark him.
Blackett was the undisputed enforcer of the squad—fast, aggressive, and completely ruthless.
Grealish dropped his shoulder, trying to quickly chop the ball onto his right foot and cut inside for a shot.
Blackett didn't care about the fancy footwork.
He just stepped forward and violently slammed his entire body into Grealish.
Before the Villa captain could even recover his balance, Lewis Baker sprinted over, trapping Grealish in a suffocating double-team.
They bullied him off the ball, executing a flawless, bone-crunching tackle.
Reading didn't pause to admire the defensive work.
Baker looked up and instantly pinged a long, driving pass straight up the pitch to John Swift.
The counter-attack was on.
The Madejski Stadium erupted into a deafening roar as Swift brought the ball down perfectly in stride.
He charge like a freight train straight at the Aston Villa half.
Mile Jedinak scrambled to close the gap. As the defensive midfielder, it was his job to kill this exact type of run.
But there was a massive problem: Jedinak was already sitting on a yellow card.
Terrified of picking up a second yellow and getting sent off, the veteran Australian hesitated.
He didn't dare commit to a tackle.
Swift saw the fear in his eyes.
He didn't even bother with a trick this time, he just accelerating with pure raw pace and blew right past the paralyzed defender.
Swift reached the edge of the Aston Villa penalty area, winding up for a shot.
But...
Smack!
Theodore Bjorn hit him like a concrete wall.
Closing the distance with terrifying speed, Theodore didn't reach for the ball.
He just threw his shoulder directly into Swift's ribs. With his Physicality attribute cranked up to a massive 86, the 17-year-old possessed the core strength of a prime Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Swift was violently launched off his feet, crashing hard into the turf.
The referee didn't even bring the whistle to his lips.
It was a perfectly legal, brutal shoulder-to-shoulder challenge. Theodore calmly stepped over the groaning playmaker and collected the loose ball.
Up in the Sky Sports commentary gantry, Gary Weaver practically jumped out of his seat.
"What a monumental challenge from Theodore Bjorn!" Weaver shouted. "He tracked all the way back and absolutely leveled John Swift to kill a lethal counter-attack!"
"You cannot teach that kind of raw strength, Gary," Don Goodman added, shaking his head. "He's only 17 years old, but he's built like a brick outhouse. Swift completely bounced off him."
Down on the pitch, Theodore didn't waste a single second.
He looked up, spotted Grealish hugging the left touchline, and launched a pinpoint, sweeping long ball right to his feet.
The counter-counter-attack was alive.
Grealish brought the ball down and stared Blackett dead in the eyes.
He glanced into the penalty area, winding his right leg back to whip a heavy cross into the mixer.
Blackett took the bait.
The Reading full-back launched himself into the air, fully extending his body to block the delivery.
The second Blackett left his feet, Grealish chopped the ball violently inside.
He left the defender flying through the empty air, hitting the gas and driving hard all the way to the byline.
With the angle completely opened up, Grealish clipped a beautiful, floating cross over the box.
Villa had loaded the penalty area.
Abraham, McGinn, and Conor Hourihane were all hunting the ball, severely outnumbering Reading's two center-backs, Matt Miazga and Liam Moore.
The cross sailed cleanly over the heads of the center-backs, dropping perfectly toward the far post.
Hourihane read the flight path, throwing his entire body parallel to the grass for a spectacular diving header.
He struck it pure.
The ball rocketed toward the bottom corner.
Suddenly, a gloved hand flashed across the goalmouth.
Emiliano Martínez launched himself into a full-stretch dive, his fingertips miraculously slapping the ball away from the netting at the absolute last microsecond.
"Oh, my word! Emiliano Martínez does it again!" Weaver screamed into the broadcast mic. "A genuinely world-class, physics-defying save to deny Hourihane!"
"The man is playing like he's possessed tonight!" Goodman laughed in disbelief. "He just joined Reading on loan from Arsenal this January. He's been an absolute journeyman since 2010—shipped out to Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham, Wolves, Getafe... but tonight, he is an absolute brick wall!"
On social media, the live match threads were melting down in pure frustration.
@VillaTillIDie: "What the actual fuck is wrong with our luck?! Is their keeper using cheat codes?!"
@BrummieUltra: "Martinez is prime Buffon tonight. Unbelievable."
@TacticsNerd: "Stop crossing it in the air! Give the ball back to the Bjorn kid and let him thread it on the ground!"
@HolteEnder: "Come on Villa, don't ruin my Friday night pint! Put the ball in the damn net!"
...
28th Minute.
Down on the touchline, Dean Smith was sweating through his suit jacket.
They were dominating possession, relentlessly assaulting the Reading goal, but they still had absolutely nothing to show for it.
He needed to change the angle of attack.
He started aggressively waving his hands, signaling a tactical swap.
Grealish abandoned the wing, dropping deep into the central midfield to demand the ball.
Theodore seamlessly rotated out, taking up Grealish's vacant spot on the left flank.
The second Grealish received the ball in the center circle, Reading panicked.
Lewis Baker and Andy Rinomhota swarmed him instantly, executing a suffocating double-team.
Reading's central block was aggressively proactive, giving the Villa captain absolutely zero room to breathe or turn.
With his passing lanes choked out, Grealish blindly poked the ball out to the left wing.
Theodore controlled it cleanly. He took one touch, picking his head up to scan the Reading penalty box.
It was a nightmare scenario.
Tammy Abraham was the only Aston Villa shirt in the area, and he was currently trapped in a physical wrestling match between both Reading center-backs.
Theodore didn't care.
His Long Pass attribute wasn't just world-class anymore. Sitting at a limit-broken 100, it was absolute, god-tier perfection!
BOOM!
Theodore whipped his right boot through the bottom of the ball.
It launched into the air like a heat-seeking cruise missile, tracing a terrifyingly flat rapid trajectory straight through the freezing Berkshire night.
It completely bypassed the jumping defenders, dropping with sickening millimeter-perfect precision directly onto the forehead of Tammy Abraham.
Abraham didn't even have to jump.
He just snapped his neck forward, sending the ball rocketing toward the goal with blinding speed.