"Just settle," someone muttered in the fourth row.
A Valencia scarf twisted in his grip.
"Just get the next five minutes right."
Mestalla wasn't silent, but it wasn't erupting either.
The volume had dropped into something more dangerous: tense hope.
Because Izan had just turned them inside out, and the stadium—no matter how tribal—knew greatness when it walked past.
But football has a short memory, and the crowd now turned its eyes forward again.
Across the pitch, Nwaneri found himself drifting centrally.
Izan, without ceremony or instructions, had dropped behind him—an unspoken shuffle of roles.
Nwaneri had hesitated, and looked toward the sideline, but
Arteta's nod was instant.
Small. Calm.
That was enough.
Now it was Nwaneri in the false 9, youthful and bright, linking play in tighter spaces.
Izan played behind him with a low centre of gravity, sweeping across channels with the calm of a chess master who had already seen how this would end.
