Become A Football Legend

"..Of course, the talk on social media today is the inclusion of 16-year-old Lukas Brandt on the bench."

"What!?" João screamed as he jumped up from his seat when the camera panned to the bench and he saw Lukas sitting quietly, knees to elbow, and hands clasped together as he watched the match with undeterred focus.

"Joanna! Come see this."

"What is the matter? Why are you yelling my name while I'm about to have my afternoon beauty sleep?" Joanna asked as she dragged herself out of her room to the living room.

"Look at the TV!"

"Lukas's team is playing, that's good."

The camera had switched to the match itself, so the bench players weren't being shown anymore.

João pulled out his phone and opened his live score app, "See who's on the bench."

Joanna groggily took the phone and looked through the list; her eyes widened when she saw '#49 - Lukas Brandt.'

She handed the phone back to João, ran inside her room, grabbed her phone, came back out, and immediately sat down.

The sluggishness, gone.

* * *

From the start of the game, Eintracht Frankfurt came banging at the door.

A cross from Ekitike, found Marmoush on the far side of the penalty box. He feinted left, then cut right and hit the ball towards goal.

But the goalkeeper was equal to it.

In the 20th minute, a one-two between Marmoush and Larsson threw the defenders off position and opened up space for Larsson to put Ekitike through on goal. He curved around the goalkeeper, but the flag went up just as he ran to celebrate.

About 3 minutes later, another chance was squandered. Ekitike dribbled around the goal keeper, but twisted his body and hit the ball while off balance. It was an open goal, but the ball struck the goal post and rebounded to Marmoush who fired it above goal.

Some players on the pitch put their hands on their heads. It was a kind of goal opportunity neither of those strikers usually missed.

Over at the touchline, coach Topmöller looked back at Lukas who was now unintentionally tapping his feet as he watched the game — his eyes glued to the ball.

Occasionally, Lukas would think of a actions he would have tried if the ball was at his foot at with all other things being the same. A pass, a cross, a dribble, a shot. But he could not influence the game.

Not yet.

With Eintracht knocking, it wasn't long before the goal came.

Robin Koch, the center back, delivered a precise lofted pass to Collins who had advanced to the right wing. Collins received the ball, beat the defender with pace, and sent a powerful ground pass into the box.

A clearance was attempted by the St. Pauli defense, but the ball only fell to Marmoush.

He trapped the ball, adjusted his balance and blasted it with his right foot.

The ball flew just under the cross bar, the goalkeeper threw up his hands, but got nowhere near it.

"GOALLL... Frankfurt breaks the deadlock. And it's Omar Marmoush again. He makes it 14 goals for the season. What a season the former St. Pauli player is having."

Marmoush raised both hands in the air to show respect to his former team as his teammates hugged him.

Lukas on the bench jumped on his feet and started clapping. It was a beautiful goal.

The scoreline stayed the same until the half-time whistle went off.

The camera panned to Lukas walking behind coach Topmöller as they headed for the dugout, and João had his camera out recording the TV screen.

"You sure you don't wanna go to bed?" He asked as he turned towards Joanna whose eyes hadn't left the screen since she sat down. "He might not even play," he added.

"Well that's not your problem is it? I'll go to bed when I feel like it."

"Suit yourself."

* * *

In the locker room, coach Topmöller wasn't animated, he clapped lightly for about five seconds before directly giving instructions.

"Hugo, don't be in a hurry, check your run, adjust your balance; the chances will come, you just need to be ready to finish.

Omar, nice game. Keep causing them problems. Robin, their attackers are getting past you too easily, stop them. Even if you have to get a yellow card, we can't afford to lose this lead. A draw here, is a win for them."

The fifteen-minute break was over and the second half began promptly.

At the beginning of the second half, Eintracht Frankfurt had to endure waves of attack from a defiant home team. The home crowd played their part to the fullest — cheering any pass by the home players and booing any touch by the away team.

Eintracht Frankfurt, however, remained strong. The defense was compact and impenetrable, and the midfield shielded the defense well, and also launched counter attacks when the ball was recovered.

As the clock ticked into the 65th minute, the coaches on both benches were thinking about substitutions.

St. Pauli had already made one earlier, but Dino hadn't. He kept watching the match, arms crossed as he occasionally glanced towards the bench.

At the 70th minute, he signaled Stefan Buck — his assistant coach — to come closer.

"Tell Tuta and Ansgar to start warming up."

As the assistant coach turned around to go deliver his message, he added, "Brandt, too."

When Lukas heard his name as one of the players asked to warm up, he stood up immediately, and walked out the bench.

Even when he was included on the travelling team squad and the substitute list, he still wasn't entirely sure he would see game time. After all, there are several players who just warm the bench all season and barely play any for meaningful length of time.

But to think he was being asked to warm up with the first group of substitutes at his first game — he had a huge smile on his face the whole time.

About five minutes later, the ball went out of play for a Frankfurt corner kick, and the linesman raised his flag above his heaf with both hands to signal an ongoing substitution at the touchline.

"It seems Topmöller is finally gonna make a few substitutions. Tuta for Brown, Ansgar for Götze, and would you imagine who the last substitute is? It is the 16-year-old prodigy, Lukas Brandt, to come on for Hugo Larsson. He started the season with the Eintracht Frankfurt reserve team and had 50 goal contributions in 20 games."

"That is impressive Derek," Stewart added, "He has earned his promotion to the first team after signing a professional contract on the day after his birthday. Frankfurt has done great to lock him in."

"We will see how he performs in the Bundesliga."

"Go get em, Luke," Larsson said as he hugged Lukas.

Immediately Lukas was subbed in, he jogged to the corner flag where the ball was laying. During training, Lukas had won the left corner taking responsibility from Chaibi. He also placed second in taking free kicks only behind Marmoush.

The left corner of the pitch was the away fans' end, and he was given a warm round of applause to mark his debut for the team.

A few die-hard fans of the club who follow the reserve team's already knew of his abilities.

"He is gonna have a goal contribution in this match," one of them — a bald-headed man — said to the group he was with.

"Come on. He's 16. This is his debut match. This is real life, not a story. There is no way he will do that."

"You say that cause you haven't seen him play. He's magical with the ball. His vision is insane. His shots are deadly."

"But that's all in comparison to the reserve team players. The reserve team plays in the 4th tier. There's two whole leagues between the people he was playing against, and the people he'll be facing now."

"It doesn't matter, he's just that good. I promise you his age was all that limited him to the reserve team."

"We'll see about that."

Lukas picked up the spare ball closest to the corner flag and placed the ball at the arc.

"It seems the debutant's first contribution would be taking the corner kick. Stewart how good do you think he is for him to be given the corner kick responsibility on his first game with players like Chaibi, Uzun, and Marmoush all available?"

"I guess we're about to find out."

"The referee blows his whistle to signal the resumption of the game. Young Lukas raises both hands up — it seems he's going to whip this one in.

Oh! Wonderful cross, but who's gonna get on the end of it.

It skips past everyone, it seems like it was overhit.

Oh wait, hold on a minute, is that Koch flying in completely unmarked at the back post?!"

A/N: So I cut out the paragraph from the previous chapter as suggested.. Of course, there are a few sentences but that 'cause it's a continuation from the previous chapter. So enjoy. I'll look into releasing twice daily with less words per chapter but that's not really feasible with my current "life schedule." (Although that would be great for my Win-Win and MGS bonuses...)

But we'll see. Either way, you will get new content EVERY DAY! Have a wonderful day.

Love y'all

-Writ.