Chapter 801: What Was That.
German newspapers and television segments had picked it up almost instantly.
Morning commuters in Munich had paused on pavements to take pictures of Arsenal’s players pounding the streets in formation, and within hours the images were everywhere.
"Laufen sie ins Finale oder in einen Marathon?" one article teased, running a wide-angle shot of the team bunched together in training tops, the coach bus idling in the background.
Another commentator on German radio laughed, saying, "Arteta trains his men not for ninety minutes but for forty-two kilometres. This is no football preparation, it is marathon school."
Others were less playful, hinting that the Spaniard’s methods were risky, fatigue, even psychological wear, might creep in before Saturday.
Still, the consensus carried a tone of curiosity: Arsenal had come to Munich with intensity in their legs and something unusual in their manager’s approach.
The talk buzzed around Germany, but for the players themselves, it all blurred into noise, tuned out as the day moved on.
By midday, the squad were back at the sports science centre, slides and trainers swapped for training gear, cones already laid out under the pale Bavarian sky.
They gathered in twos and threes on the grass, stretching out hamstrings, jogging on the spot, passing in small grids.
Izan was still sat near the touchline, crouched over, sliding his feet out of his hotel slides and into a brand-new pair of boots.
The leather still held that stiff, fresh feel, the studs untouched by soil.
A faint metallic sheen caught the light as he laced them tight: Adidas’ latest creation, the HIM10 Predators, delivered straight to his room the night before.
He double-knotted, tapped his toes against the turf, and stood.
But he didn’t get too far before the antics began.
Saliba, leaning on the crossbar nearby, let out a low whistle.
"Adidas’ favourite son strikes again," he called, half-grinning.
"We get to see the boots before the world does. Man, you live a different life."
Izan only shook his head, brushing the back of his hand against his shorts, the corners of his mouth twitching.
Across the pitch, Arteta turned mid-conversation with one of the assistants, his eyes landing on Izan.
"How long will it take you to join us?" he called.
"Coming now," Izan answered, jogging toward the group.
The warm-up drills had already started, triangles of quick one-touch passes bouncing from boot to boot.
Odegaard checked back into space, arms pointing where he wanted the ball.
Nwaneri, eager to impress, zipped a pass forward, except the weight was all wrong.
The ball skidded, gathering pace, stretching far beyond the captain’s stride.
A few players laughed at the overhit attempt, Odegaard lifting a hand like, What was that?
But then the laughter thinned.
From the edge of the group, Izan was already moving.
The ball was gone; everyone knew it.
It had been struck too far, rolling toward the emptiness where touches die and drills reset.
No one runs for that, not in reality.
But Izan ran.
The grass didn’t just hiss under his boots; it tore, ripped in quick succession like cloth being shredded.
His first strides were human, believable.
But the next weren’t.
His body seemed to fold and extend at once, strides lengthening to a measure that felt wrong, unnatural, as though the pitch itself were shrinking beneath him.
And then came the wind.
Not the ordinary brush of a player sprinting past, but a pulse of air that pressed against their faces, flapped loose bibs against ribs, tugged at hair.
A gust that shouldn’t exist, conjured not from Munich’s calm sky but from him, from Izan’s acceleration.
The ball had no business being caught.
It was already tumbling toward the line, destined for nothing.
But Izan’s figure blurred at the edge of vision, lean frame carving through space like it wasn’t bound to the same rules, and somehow, impossibly, absurdly, he was there.
A boot slid in, clean, sure, hooking the ball back under his spell, and in the same motion, he flicked it up over his own head, spinning onto his heel.
The move was seamless, almost casual for him, but not for the onlookers.
In another two strides, he snapped his ankle through it again, pinging the ball cleanly back across the grid, straight into Nwaneri’s path.
But Nwaneri didn’t even try to control it.
His boots froze on the grass, his mouth half-open.
So did everyone else.
The only sound left was the faint bounce of the ball rolling back toward Nwaneri’s feet, and the quiet, unsettled silence that followed Izan’s run.
Odegaard was the first to break the hush, his voice low, almost like he wasn’t sure if he wanted anyone else to hear.
"...what was that?" he muttered, eyes still fixed on Izan as if the answer might reveal itself if he looked long enough.
Izan, meanwhile, had already slowed his jog, letting his stride fall back into something ordinary as he made his way toward the group.
His gaze stayed fixed on the grass, hands brushing against the sides of his shorts like nothing unusual had happened.
The silence pressed in, everyone still watching, though nobody dared say much more.
Until Saka stepped in, nudging Izan lightly with his elbow.
"Hey," he whispered, trying to peel his eyes away from Odegaard, "what was that?"
Izan glanced at him, face unreadable.
"What do you mean?" he asked, feigning confusion.
Saka narrowed his eyes.
"What do you mean ’What do I mean’. What was that? That ball was impossible to reach. "
His voice carried enough that the others half-turned again, curious if Izan would admit to anything.
Izan let out a small breath through his nose, lips pulling into the faintest of smiles as he shook his head.
"Impossible? You lot are exaggerating. Ball was there, I got to it. Maybe you just haven’t touched a football in days, you’re starting to imagine things."
The chuckles came uneven, hesitant at first, as though everyone was waiting for someone else to break the spell.
But the way Izan brushed it off, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, gave them something to grab hold of.
A few heads shook, Saka still staring at him sideways, clearly not convinced.
Yet Izan just lowered himself into the circle, rolling his ankles as though he’dmerely warmed up a little too quickly.
He wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze, his attention fixed on the grass and the rhythm of the passing drill resuming around them, leaving the question of what that was hanging quietly in the air, unanswered.
A few meters away, Carlos Cuesta stood with his arms crossed at the edge of the training pitch, eyes narrowed as he leaned slightly toward Mikel Arteta.
His voice was quiet, more of a murmur than anything else, but sharp enough that Arteta caught it.
"If he and Saka are both seeing the same thing," Cuesta muttered, "then it isn’t weird."
Arteta glanced at him, brows knitting.
The thought lingered, threatening to burrow deep, but he quickly shook his head as though trying to brush the weight of it off.
"Maybe," he admitted, voice low.
"But let’s not linger. If it’s real, if it’s not their eyes playing tricks on them, then we’ll see it again. Eventually."
He let out a breath and stepped forward, clapping his hands together sharply to draw everyone’s attention.
"Alright, enough," Arteta called, voice carrying across the pitch.
"We’re splitting into two sides after the drills. Before that, sharp touches, sharper movement. We need intensity, we need clarity, this final will not forgive us otherwise."
The players scattered into shape, boots squeaking lightly against the grass as the next set of exercises began.
Izan moved among them, shoulders set, jaw tight, like he was intent on blending into the rhythm rather than drawing attention.
His speed had always been something the squad respected. He was quick off the mark, explosive in transition, and to them, it wasn’t weird for him to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest player, they had seen in football, even counting the turtle from France.
But when he chased down a stray ball during the drill, something about it felt different.
His pace looked fast, but it wasn’t up to what they had just seen some moments ago.
Still, what they felt, the gust of wind and the blur they saw when he chased after Nwaneri’s overhit ball, wasn’t something they could forget.
Instead, the disbelief bled into how they played.
During the small-sided game that followed, passes meant for Izan grew heavier, lofted a few yards longer than needed, and struck a touch firmer.
At first, it was subtle, Odegaard overhitting a ball into space, Rice curling one just a fraction too far ahead.
But then it became deliberate.
The ball was being sent in ways that demanded something abnormal, as though they were testing him, trying to coax the same strange burst out again.
Izan felt it, knew exactly what they were doing.
But he wasn’t interested in chasing after every exaggerated pass.
Instead, he let most roll harmlessly away, his expression unreadable.
If they wanted to play games, he wasn’t going to indulge them.
Then came another moment.