The players, both in blue and in red-and-white, just stopped, looking around as if waking from a strange, chaotic dream.
The scoreboard at the far end of the stadium glowed with a result that made absolutely no sense:
Fleetwood Town 2 - 4 Apex United.
Then, the noise hit.
The tiny away section, a pocket of die-hard Apex fans, erupted into a sound far bigger than their numbers, a roar of pure, unadulterated, joyful disbelief.
On the pitch, the Apex players staggered towards their fans, a collection of exhausted, mud-stained, and deliriously happy young men.
"Emre! You absolute freak!" Jonathan Rowe yelled, throwing an arm around the young Turkish midfielder who was trying, and failing, to look humble. "Did you use a cheat code? You have to tell me if you used a cheat code!"
"My controller just... slipped," Emre said with a small, secretive smile, which made the players around him laugh even harder.
Ethan walked onto the pitch, a wide, proud grin on his face.
