Chapter 109: Crazy Stat
Wirtz’s momentum and direction into the challenge was all Lukas needed to see to flick the ball the opposite direction and jump to avoid the contact as the Leverkusen star man was left tackling the grass.
And before he got back up, Lukas was gone.
"Nice bit of trickery there by Brandt to beat Wirtz. Star man against star boy and the latter is currently on top. This is what the fans come to see."
Lukas got to the halfway line in the blink of an eye as the Leverkusen defense retreated while trying to keep their shape. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Collins calling for the ball as he darted down the right flank, and he obliged.
With the outside of his right foot, Lukas played the pass to Collins, curling the ball around Grimaldo who was also chasing him. Grimaldo stretched his foot as the ball passed in front of him, but it was just a couple of inches too far for him to get a touch.
Collins took one touch to push the ball closer to the byline, looked inside the penalty area and hit a cross into the box.
The ball sailed high and looked like it was going out of play for a goal kick as it crossed the entire penalty area, but Brown was able to stop it right on the line.
He took a look into the now-crowded penalty box and spotted Götze peeling back from the crowd in the middle and heading towards the penalty arc, and he subsequently passed the ball to him.
"Brown does well to keep it in... He has Frimpong for company, can he get a cross into the box? He cuts back for Götze! SHOOTS! GOALLLLL! MARIO GÖTZE HAS LEVELED THE SCORE FOR EINTRACHT FRANKFURT! Leverkusen has blown a three-goal lead in less than 20 minutes of playing time.
Hradecky is unsighted, and it takes a massive deflection off Garcia, but Götze’s claiming it! As he should!"
Mario Götze ran to the fans, fists in the air as he screamed at the top of his lungs while his teammates, Lukas included, rushed him.
They had fought valiantly to draw level after being 3-0 down. Lukas wouldn’t be on the score sheet for that goal as the goalscorer or assist provider, but his part in starting the attack could not be understated.
"A stat just came in. This third goal against Leverkusen is the first goal Eintracht Frankfurt has scored while their 16-year-old wonderkid is on the pitch which he neither scored nor assisted. Keep in mind that since his debut, he has played eight games, with this being his ninth. And when he was on the pitch for those nine games, until this goal, Eintracht Frankfurt had scored 19 goals. And he was involved in all 19 of them."
"That is an insane piece of statistic right there. This, so far, has been a debut campaign like we’ve never seen before. For Christ’s sake, he’s averaging more than 2 goal contributions per game!
Even for this third goal, although he didn’t score nor assist it, he won possession high up in his own half, and then threaded a pass for Collins to ignite the attack."
"Let’s not forget, he’s only 16. I repeat, he is 16 years old. We are witnessing the debut campaign of a superstar."
While the commentators talked about Lukas’s feat, he and his teammates ran back to their half to continue the match. They knew Leverkusen was going to come at them with full force once the whistle went. They knew they would have to do a lot of defending.
But at that moment, they couldn’t quite understand the magnitude of the waves of attack Leverkusen was preparing to launch on them.
Right from the kick-off, Wirtz got the ball, went through three players — including Lukas — and played a perfect through pass for Schick whose low drive was saved by Trapp at full stretch.
They had almost regained their lead as soon as they lost it.
The intensity of their attacks never waned.
Their wingbacks — Frimpong and Grimaldo — were causing an unimaginable amount of headaches down the flanks. Grimaldo in particular was unplayable. From pinpoint deliveries into the box to hitting a free kick that missed the target by the closest of margins as it struck the crossbar while Trapp was rooted to his spot — all in the first ten minutes after they lost their lead.
With six shots on goal and three on target all in that ten-minute period, Leverkusen were unfortunate not to score.
But as the clock ticked on, Eintracht Frankfurt were settling in.
They were no pushovers either.
The initial waves of attacks had caught them off guard, but after coming out relatively unscathed, they were starting to grow back into the game.
They started stringing some passes together in midfield and gradually moving the ball away from the edge of their penalty area.
Lukas, once again, was instrumental to the turnaround. Acting as one of the first lines of defense together with Götze, while Ekitike stayed higher up the pitch just to keep the center-backs on their toes.
He made sure the Leverkusen midfield were not granted the time and space they had in the first half, even receiving a yellow card for a foul on Garcia in the 54th minute.
In the 67th minute, for the first time in the game, Eintracht Frankfurt were about to take the lead.
Lukas nicked the ball off Xhaka at the halfway line as the midfielder took a second too long to pick out a pass. As he tried to run with the ball in his possession, he felt a tug on his shirt strong enough to bring him down.
The referee ran up, showed Xhaka a yellow card, and gave the free kick which Skhiri took.
The ball was floated to the left flank for Brown. The defender managed to bring down the ball even while under immense pressure from Frimpong.
Brown looked into the box and could see Götze and Ekitike making a run in there, but he couldn’t push the ball down the line to cross as he knew Frimpong was definitely faster than him.
He looked to his left and saw Lukas making a run towards their location with his arms pointed to the space behind Frimpong close to the byline, and just passed the ball into the space.
Frimpong turned to chase, while Xhaka also ran with Lukas, but he was quicker than both, getting to the ball just ahead of Frimpong.
He held the ball tight to his boots, shoulders hunched, back almost brushing the corner flag. Frimpong and Xhaka boxed him in, Frimpong stepping sideways to shut off the byline, and Xhaka edging across to close the angle inside. They left only the smallest of gaps between them, just enough to tempt him.
With a quick drop of his shoulder, Lukas feigned a run toward the byline. Frimpong bit, lunging to block him off. In the same instant, he dragged the ball back with the sole of his right foot, snapping it across his body. Xhaka shifted late, and that hesitation was all he needed. He threaded the ball through the narrow space, squeezed his body between the pair with a burst of pace, and burst free into open grass, leaving both men off balance and glancing helplessly over their shoulders.
The crowd sitting around the corner flag gasped as they stood up to witness what could come of this.