95: The fangs of the “upstarts”

The air in Home Park Stadium completely froze at this moment.

Time seemed to stretch into a viscous spiderweb.

The Plymouth goalkeeper, Luke McCormick, who had come out to challenge, had never seen such eyes in his professional career.

Those were not a player's eyes.

Those were a wolf's eyes.

They were the eyes of a beast, starving for three days and three nights, finally spotting a lone reindeer on the snowy plains.

Burning with a cold, cruel, and pure flame.

Fear, like a vine, crept up McCormick's spine from his feet.

He instinctively spread his arms, lowered his center of gravity, and stretched his body to its limit.

He wanted to block all angles; he wanted to build an insurmountable wall with his imposing physique in front of this wicked wolf from the north.

Jamie Vardy's run showed no signs of slowing down.

His stride, his breathing, every tremor of his muscles, were perfectly synchronized with the instructions from the precise computer in his mind.

He hadn't even entered the penalty area.

That white penalty line was the boundary of life and death he had drawn for McCormick.

Just one step outside the penalty area.

No unnecessary adjustments, no deceptive feints.

His right foot, like a Spartan battle-axe charged with wind and thunder, swung from bottom to top, fiercely striking the lower-middle part of the ball.

“Bang!”

A dull, heart-stopping explosion vibrated the damp air.

The ball was instantly compressed into an irregular oval, then shot out abruptly in a manner that defied physical common sense.

It was like a black cannonball, tearing through the misty rain, leaving a visible white vapor trail as it drew a violent, almost flat, straight line through the air.

McCormick desperately stretched out his gloves.

He could even feel the sharp wind pressure as the cannonball grazed his fingertips.

The ball whistled past his ear.

The net was violently pulled backward, like a giant python struck in the abdomen by a heavy punch, letting out a fierce, painful tremor.

One-nil.

Vardy slowly turned, veins bulging on his distinctly muscled neck.

He didn't rush towards that small away stand, belonging to Hartlepool fans.

His target was Plymouth's rather humble dugout, where a garrulous man sat.

He stopped.

He faced the head coach who, in the pre-match newspapers, had described his team as “upstarts.”

He slowly raised an index finger.

And swayed it left and right in front of him.

A contemptuous, silent, yet more destructive negation than any curse.

No, you can't.

Home Park Stadium, which had just been filled with whispers about the weather and dinner, fell into an awkward, deathly silence.

Plymouth's players, like puppets with their souls sucked out, stared blankly at that defiant back, then at their own empty backline, as if struck by lightning.

They couldn't understand.

One moment, they were in the opponent's penalty area, enjoying the advantage of a corner kick attack.

The next moment, their own goal was completely breached in such a devastating, utterly unreasonable manner.

The halftime whistle, like a pardon, saved the host team players' already shattered nerves.

In the away team's locker room.

The tense atmosphere had been replaced by a chemical called “confidence,” quietly growing in the bloodstream of every young player.

Old John's phone vibrated imperceptibly in his pocket.

He glanced at the short instruction from Lin Feng on the screen, then put his phone back in his pocket and cleared his throat.

His voice seemed to have been injected with a cold, metallic quality from the North.

“The boss said they’ve gone mad.”

“Their pride is being scorched by the flames of anger; reason has completely vanished.”

“In the second half, they'll be like a herd of irrational bulls, only knowing to charge forward with their heads down, trying to knock us over with their ridiculous brute force.”

Old John's gaze swept over every young face, flushed with excitement.

“That's our chance.”

“Our tactic is like boiling a pot of frogs. In the first half, we were just slowly raising the water temperature; they were oblivious, happily swimming in the pot.”

“The second half is when the water boils.”

“We're going to score another one in the same way, and completely kill this game.”

The second half began.

Plymouth's formation, as Lin Feng expected, pressed forward as a whole, completely losing its shape.

Their attacks were full of pointless clashes and impatient long shots.

Every pass carried an air of not being able to lose.

Hartlepool United's young players, however, seemed to have undergone a baptism of fire and blood, transforming from boys into warriors.

They played with increasing composure and confidence.

Liam Bridcutt, the youngster on loan from Chelsea, was an insurmountable blue barrier in midfield.

Every interception of his was clean and crisp, every pass simple and efficient, like an emotionless tackling machine.

Chris Smalling, in the penalty area, completely frustrated the opponent's bullish tall striker, Barry Hales.

He no longer engaged in pointless physical tussles with the opponent.

With incredibly precise anticipation, he repeatedly appeared at the ball's first landing spot, like an experienced bomb disposal expert, nipping all dangers in the bud.

The match reached its seventy-first minute.

History, in an almost cruel, replicated manner, repeated itself.

A desperate, seven-man attack by Plymouth was calmly intercepted on the wing by left-back Hugh Robertson.

The ball, after two passes between Bridcutt and Tinkler, reached Shaun Maloney's feet.

The Scotland winger didn't tear through opponents with pure speed and passion like Vardy.

His dribbling rhythm was full of a unique, deathly cadence.

He was like an elegant matador with a red cape, attracting the attention of the opponent's last two center-backs.

Advance, pull back, change direction.

Every step he took teased the opponent's already collapsing nerves.

Just as the two defenders were drawn to him and about to close in.

Maloney's right instep, as if by magic, subtly poked the ball forward.

The ball, like a poisoned, silent dagger, pierced through the fleeting gap of despair between the two defenders.

Jamie Vardy's figure appeared again, as expected.

He burst out from the side of the defenders like a ghost, once again using his unreasonable speed to shake off everyone.

This time, he didn't even shoot.

He calmly used the simplest, yet most demoralizing, dribble to round the despairingly charging goalkeeper McCormick again.

Then, he faced an empty net.

With the inside of his foot, as if completing the simplest training pass, he gently pushed the ball into the net.

Two-nil.

A brace.

This goal, like a precisely removed building block, completely collapsed Plymouth's already shaky mental defense.

Their center-backs roared at the full-backs in anger.

Their midfielders, in despair, threw up their hands and blamed each other.

Old John, on the sidelines, seized the opportunity like a seasoned old hunter and walked over to the fourth official.

He handed over the substitution list.

Original academy youngster, Liam Jones, replaced Shaun Maloney, who had already secured the victory.

This was a silent declaration.

And also the ultimate humiliation.

We don't even need our main players to kill you.

The final whistle finally blew.

Hartlepool United, away from home, defeated Plymouth from the Championship two-nil, cleanly and efficiently, to advance to the second round of the League Cup.

At the post-match press conference.

Plymouth's head coach's face was ashen, like a rusty piece of iron soaked in seawater for a hundred years.

“We… underestimated the opponent.”

His voice was dry, every word seemingly squeezed from between his teeth with all his might.

“Their number nine, that Vardy…”

He paused, seemingly searching frantically in his mind for a suitable word to describe that fear.

“His speed…”

“It's simply Premier League level.”

The next day.

In Sky Sports' brightly lit studio, the League Cup second-round draw ceremony was underway.

When the guest, former England international Les Ferdinand, drew Hartlepool United's name from the glass bowl, all fans following this northern dark horse held their breath.

Then, their opponent was drawn.

Birmingham City.

A formidable team that had just been relegated from the Premier League, retaining a host of near-Premier League starters like Fabrice Muamba and Sebastian Larsson.

Media headlines were already drafted in global news push systems the moment the draw results were announced.

Hartlepool United's “dark horse journey” ends here.