The Coaching System-Chapter 176: Bradford City Vs Rapid Wien UECL Play-off Round 2nd Leg Part 5

Obi for Costa. Costa's miss before the whistle still hung in the air. His head was down, shoulders sagging. Obi bounced on his toes like a prizefighter, eyes wide, waiting to be unleashed. He wasn't just fast—he was fearless.

Richards for Rojas. Rojas, battered from 90 minutes of physical warfare, then he walked off the picth while clapping to the fans. Richards jogged on, offering lungs, legs, and lightning decisions—an injection of tempo into a midfield already teetering toward dominance.

These weren't reactive changes. They were aggressive. Jake wasn't protecting the score. He was hunting for more.

As the whistle for extra time blew, the energy changed. Valley Parade roared louder, sensing something was happening. Rapid Wien looked spent—bodies moving, but eyes unsure. Bradford, on the other hand, carried momentum like a weapon.

Ibáñez raised his hand as the ball rolled back into play. Silva hovered near the touchline. Barnes adjusted his armband. Obi cracked his neck, already prowling.

From the moment the ball was touched again, Bradford surged—not recklessly, but with synchronized urgency. Triangles formed quicker. Touches became cleaner. The press snapped shut faster.

They weren't surviving anymore.

They were dictating.

91st Minute –

The restart was less a whistle and more a starting gun.

Bradford burst into extra time as if something sacred had been stolen. There was no lull, no sense of pacing themselves for thirty minutes. They accelerated straight into chaos with ruthless conviction, dictating every movement, every challenge.

Rapid Wien, still dazed from the late equalizer, scrambled to reset. Their midfield was slow to recover shape, their back line wobbling under the weight of urgency. Jake Wilson saw it immediately—eyes flaring, fingers pointing, shouting one word over and over: "Forward!"

Ibáñez answered first.

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The Argentine pressed higher, positioning himself just behind the strikers like a free radical. When Rapid attempted a switch under pressure, it was Ibáñez who read it—cutting across his mark, intercepting with a tidy touch that kept the ball glued to his boots.

In a blink, he was off.

He surged through the middle, leaving trailing limbs in his wake, head swiveling like a hawk. Richards sprinted in parallel, offering cover behind. Ibáñez didn't need it.

To his right, Rasmussen darted wide, hugging the touchline like it was his to command. Ibáñez found him with a precise slide-rule pass, threaded between two defenders too slow to react.

Rasmussen, barely minutes into his shift, was electric. He shifted his weight left, then right—shaking off a sluggish fullback with the grace of a dancer. A snap of the ankle. The ball whipped low across the six-yard box.

It tore past Obi's outstretched studs by inches. It skipped past Richter, who threw out a leg too late. It evaded three desperate lunges from Rapid shirts and rolled untouched to the far side of the box.

Silva was already moving.

He caught it on the run, dragging it under control just before it could cross the line. Then he stopped. Pivoted. Assessed.

Time stretched.

He looked up, scanning—calculating. Most would've recycled, reset, taken the heat out of the moment.

Not Silva.

He dropped a shoulder, teasing the fullback who dared to close him down, then zipped the ball back to Ibáñez, who had repositioned himself on the edge of the area.

Ibáñez struck it first time—low, driven, no backlift.

Richter, back on his feet, reacted faster than the rest. He stuck out a toe and caught it—redirecting it toward goal. The keeper froze. The deflection fooled him.

But a defender's thigh caught it on the line. A wild clearance. A breathless escape.

The ball deflected behind.

The referee pointed to the corner.

Valley Parade roared, not with joy, but with demand.

Barnes was already jogging forward, waving others up. Jake clapped twice—short, sharp—his face a storm of purpose.

Ibáñez trotted to the flag, his chest heaving, sweat streaking his temple. He raised both arms slowly—not for his teammates, but for the crowd.

The stands answered.

A wall of sound rose, volcanic and relentless.

This wasn't pressure.

This was siege.

94th Minute –

Ibáñez stood alone at the corner flag, the ball nestled in the arc, the moment stretched thin as wire. His chest rose and fell with steady rhythm, but his eyes—those eyes were locked. Not on the crowd, not on the goal, but on movement. Space. Signals. Barnes was drifting toward the far post, just on the edge of vision. A subtle wave. A tiny dip of the head. No call. Just a whisper of intention.

Ibáñez nodded once, just to himself.

The run-up was short. Two steps, then a strike—not floated, not looped, but driven. The ball curled outward with venom, bending away from the six-yard crowd, drawing a perfect arc into open air.

Barnes was already in motion.

He ghosted past his marker with surgical precision, navigating through the thicket of defenders with the coolness of a veteran who knew exactly where the ball would fall. He didn't look back. He didn't break stride. His boots hammered the turf as he accelerated toward the point of contact.

Then—elevation.

He rose like a hammer thrown upward, body twisted, arms out wide for balance. Time stuttered in the moment before impact.

His forehead met the ball with brutal certainty.

A thud. A sonic crack of leather against skull.

The keeper didn't move.

He couldn't.

The ball screamed into the top corner, past outstretched gloves that never had a chance. It didn't curl. It didn't dip. It slammed the net and stayed there, lodged in the nylon like it belonged.

For a breath, everything paused.

Then Valley Parade erupted.

The stadium didn't cheer—it erupted. A boom from the stands that punched the sky, a howl of joy, disbelief, and sheer, unfiltered release. It rolled down the terraces like a wave breaking loose after a storm.

Barnes didn't celebrate. Not at first. He landed, fists clenched, staring at the net like it might vanish. Then he turned, and the dam burst. Arms flung wide, mouth open in a scream that couldn't be heard over the crowd.

Players swarmed him. Shirts pulled. Voices tangled. Jake Wilson leapt into the air on the sideline, fists pounding the air with wild rhythm, his face a mask of vindication and fire.

Behind them, fans wept and shouted and clutched one another like survivors of something impossible.

The scoreboard flashed.

3–1 on the night.

4–3 on aggregate.

From drowning to daylight in just four minutes.

Bradford City were no longer hanging on—they were ahead.

For the first time, they were ahead.