The Cape Verde right winger, Telmo Arcanjo, got the ball on the right side, controlling it deftly and at his touch, nobody in the stadium needed the commentary to tell them he was quick.

In a blitz of a second, he was past Cucurella before Cucurella had properly set himself.

There wasn’t any trick to what he did other than sheer power to bypass the Chelsea man’s defences, and suddenly he was at the byline with the ball and options.

He didn’t overthink it, sending a cross over on his first step into the box.

The Spanish players were frantic now.

They positioned themselves well, looking to intercept any dangerous ball, but others had different plans.

Cape Verde’s Ieltins Camões was six foot two, and he attacked the ball the way tall strikers attack crosses.

He had gotten everything right, but Rodri got across him at the last second.

He was suddenly under pressure and in the next moment, the ball deflected off the contact and spilt to the edge of the box.

Pedri was there.

And the moment Pedri had the ball and looked up, something shifted on the pitch.

Cape Verde had pushed up for their sharp early stun attack.

Their defensive line was high, almost at the halfway line, and the space behind them was enormous.

It was glaring, and Pedri didn’t need anyone to tell him the moment he met the eyes of Izan, who turned and faced the Cape Verde goal sixty yards away.

There was only one way this one went, and without waiting, Pedri sent his foot through the underside of the football.

It travelled in a high, curving arc over the halfway line, over the heads of the Cape Verde defence who were scrambling to get back, dropping into the space behind them, but Izan was already there.

The Cape Verde players who tried to track him would say afterwards, in various ways and with varying levels of disbelief, that they hadn’t seen him move.

One moment, he was behind them.

Next, he was past them with the gap between him and the nearest defender opening up like something had pulled them apart.

Their keeper, Bruno Varela, had come off his line anticipating the ball, but when he saw what was happening, he stopped, reassessed and started backpedalling.

To him, it was simple.

Space so the run from Izan was expected, but as the latter etched closer and closer to the ball, he slowed.

That was the thing that caught everyone, the slowing.

At full speed, coming in on goal, the expected thing was to keep running, to take it first time, to let momentum do the work.

Instead, he slowed, set himself, planted his left foot beside the ball with the deliberateness of someone who had already decided, and his right foot swung through.

Bruno Varela took two more steps back, and then there was nothing else he could do.

From just some yards past the halfway line, the ball went past him like it had somewhere more important to be, hit the back of the net, and stayed there.

"QUEEEEE GOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLAAASSOOOOOO—"

Seventy-one thousand people and every single one of them on their feet at the same moment, though for widely different reasons, but the sound was still nothing short of destructive.

"OOOOOOOOHHHHH MY WORD!!!

FROM THE HALFWAY LINE!!!

FROM THE HALFWAY LINE!!!"

"WHAT DID WE EXPECT???? THERE’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN INSANITY AND BEING THE GENIUS IZAN HERNANDEZ IS. WHAT DO WE EVEN DO WITH THIS BOY!"

"FIRST TOUCH IN THE WORLD CUP AND IZAN HAS JUST CREATED THAT. BELIEVE ME WHEN I TELL YOU THIS, BUT HE IS EXACTLY WHO HE THINKS HE IS. WHAT A BELTZER," the co-commentator couldn’t help but get in.

On the pitch, the Spanish players stood with their hands on their heads.

Ferran Torres’s mouth was open while Lamine was already sprinting toward the corner flag.

Getting to the corner flag, Izan slid on his knees, the grass of the Atlanta pitch marking up his kit, and came back up to his feet without looking around, arms out, eyes somewhere above the crowd.

Behind him, his teammates arrived like a wave, smothering him with their arms and chests while ruffling his tied hair until the bun fell, but he didn’t mind.

Up in the VIP section, the four of them had just walked in.

They’d been finding their seats when the goal went in and heard it before they saw it.

And by the time they reached the glass and looked down at the pitch, Izan was already sliding at the corner flag.

Komi walked to the glass, stood in front of it and looked down at her son with his arms out and his teammates piling into him while the whole stadium lost its mind.

Her son loved chaos in games, and the scene at the moment was just so fitting.

She leaned forward slightly, one hand resting on the glass, before nodding her head towards his direction on the pitch.

"Of course it’s him," she said quietly with a wide smile playing at her lips.

Her eyes were full as she stayed at the glass and watched him, saying nothing else after that.

"¡Viva Izan! ¡Viva Izan!

¡Viva Izan y su gol!"

"Long live Izan! Long live Izan!

Long live Izan and his goals!"

"¡Izan, Izan, olé, olé, olé!"

Even as Izan got from under the pile, fixing his hair and tugging his armband firmer, the crowd went on, refusing to let their voices die.

He fisted once more towards the Spanish crowd in the stadium before turning towards his half.

"It’s only the 4th minute here, and Spain are already leading. What a game we could be having on our hands here," the commentator said as Izan watched past the Cape Verdian players, who were now looking at him like they were questioning why any of them were even there at that point if Izan could just whip one out and bust a goal like that.

[Pause] 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Eventually, the Spanish players settled in their half while their crowd still rallied behind them.

The Cape Verdians, at this point, began wondering what they’d gotten themselves into.

They had fought too hard in the qualifiers to make the tournament, hoping they could cause some upset, but at the moment, it seemed that the only upset about to happen was the kind of score they could leave with.