Chapter Two: Eight Minutes at Twenty-Seven

Planting his right foot, he leaned and backheeled the ball from behind himself into his path. The defender's balance vanished. On the third step, Gu caught the ball and drove a low left-footed shot toward the far corner. It skimmed beneath the goalkeeper's fingers and struck the net. One-one. Seaside Stadium fell silent for less than half a second, then detonated. Three thousand people made the noise of thirty thousand. Gu did not slide on his knees. He ran into the goal and collected the ball, his eyes as cold as they had been on that rainy international night eleven years earlier. “Five minutes left,” Shen said. Humiliated, Southport twice slid at Gu from behind after the restart.