Chapter 184: With His Face

The goal that put Schalke ahead came from Inter committing too many men forward, just like Magath had warned during the break.

Inter had spent the second half pushing Maicon high up the pitch. When the move broke down this time, it unraveled quickly. Rakitić stepped in deep in his own half to pick off a risky pass from Sneijder and didn’t waste a second. He rolled a crisp ball right into Mateo’s path, and Mateo turned into a wide expanse of open green grass. Inter were caught with too many bodies pushed upfield, and Maicon was stranded thirty yards behind the play.

Mateo took two long, heavy touches, eating up the turf and forcing the remaining Inter defenders to commit. Ranocchia stepped out to close down the shooting lane. Chivu slid across to mind the middle, keeping his eyes on Vardy.

Nobody was tracking the far post. The runner heading there had started his sprint from the right flank forty yards back, and nobody expected a winger to arrive that deep into the penalty area.

Mateo spotted the lane opening up. Farfán was slipping quietly behind Chivu, attacking the exact blind spot the Romanian center-back had just left behind.

Mateo wrapped his left boot around the ball.

It was his weaker foot, but he caught it cleanly. The ball lifted and bent, curling around Ranocchia’s outstretched leg and soaring over the middle of the box. It dropped perfectly beyond the jumping defenders, dipping right into the stride of the charging winger.

Farfán hit the box at full speed. Ranocchia scrambled back to close the angle, and there was only one possible way to get to the dropping ball first.

He just threw himself forward, face first, without bothering to adjust for a clean header.

Júlio César rushed off his line, spreading his arms wide to block the goal. Farfán got to the bounce a fraction of a second earlier, meeting the leather flush against his cheekbone. He completely ignored his own safety, throwing his body on the line to beat the keeper to the ball. The impact snapped his head back. The ball looped up off his face, drifted over César’s outstretched gloves, and dropped softly into the unguarded net.

Fweet—!

2-1.

Up in the television booths, the commentators jumped on the moment.

“That was an excellent run and header from Farfán, and Mateo’s vision picked it up as expected,” the lead commentator said.

“You’re completely right, Martin,” the co-commentator chimed in. “As good as that vision was, that is one hell of a pass coming from his weak foot.”

Farfán slammed into the turf and stayed down on his knees, pressing a hand to his nose. When he pulled his fingers away, blood was pouring out, running down over his lips and dripping off his chin.

The Schalke players rushed into the box, but seeing the mess on his face, they stopped short of jumping on him. Instead, they pulled him to his feet and thumped his back, yelling over the noise. Farfán grinned back with red teeth, shouting right through the blood, completely thrilled with putting his team ahead with his own face.

The team doctor ran on with a medical kit, tilted Farfán’s head back, and pressed gauze against the bridge of his nose to stem the bleeding. Farfán pushed the doctor’s hands away after a few seconds, laughing as he pointed up at the stadium screen.

He trotted over toward the small away corner where a few hundred traveling Schalke supporters were screaming their lungs out, pointing both index fingers up at the night sky for his kids watching back in Peru.

Over by the technical area, Magath held two clenched fists high in the air. Two of the most affordable signings in the squad, a physical midfield destroyer and an unheralded winger, had put Schalke ahead of the reigning European champions on Italian soil.

The stadium had gone remarkably quiet. It was different from the quick hush that followed Jones’s strike, which had faded in seconds. This was a heavy, stunned quiet from seventy thousand supporters who were finally realizing that their evening was going completely sideways.

The massive stadium screen showed Mateo’s left-footed cross curling over the backline. Across the stands, fans stared up at the board with genuine confusion, wondering how their veteran backline was getting torn apart by a teenager’s weak foot.

Mateo jogged back toward the center circle, noticing a smear of Farfán’s blood drying on the shoulder of his own jersey. He glanced up at the stadium clock and took a deep breath.

They had the lead at the San Siro, but nothing was settled. Inter were rattled, twenty brutal minutes were still left on the clock, and Sneijder was already calling his forwards up. Beside him, Farfán jogged back, grinning through a swollen, bloody nose.

“You got my blood all over your sleeve,” Farfán said, talking slightly through his nose.

“You used your face to score,” Mateo said with a laugh. “You’re lucky that’s all that got damaged.”

Farfán chuckled, winced at the pain in his cheek, and spat a mouthful of red onto the grass. The two of them took their spots on the halfway line, waiting as the Italian giants prepared to throw everything they had at the German side.