The next several minutes tested Liverpool's patience.
Rubin defended with almost professional stubbornness. There were no spectacular tackles, no reckless lunges, no dramatic attempts to chase the ball across the entire pitch. Instead, their remaining players kept their distances short and their bodies between Liverpool and the goal.
When Coutinho received the ball, one man confronted him while another protected the inside route.
When Lallana took possession, Nabiullin stayed close enough to discourage the cross but refused to follow him towards the centre.
When Firmino dropped deep, Georgiev tracked him for a few steps before handing him over to a teammate.
And whenever Azim tried to turn towards goal, a second defender appeared.
It was the treatment normally reserved for an attacker a team could not afford to leave alone: one man following, another covering, a third ready to close the space if the first two were beaten.
Azim felt as though he was playing against three different shadows.
A short movement inside brought a defender with him. A quick change of direction attracted another. When he checked towards the ball, Kvirkvelia stayed close enough to make the reception uncomfortable, while Kambolov watched from a deeper position.
There was no clean route to goal.
Azim tried to exploit the problem by moving farther from the penalty area.
Kvirkvelia followed for a short distance, then stopped.
Good decision.
Azim's attempted escape had taken him away from the area where he was most dangerous without actually breaking the defensive line. Rubin had decided it was better to let him have the ball in a harmless position than to abandon the penalty box.
He returned the pass to Can and started moving again.
The pattern repeated.
He dropped. Kvirkvelia held.
He drifted towards the right. Nabiullin covered.
He threatened to run behind the defence. Kambolov retreated before the pass could arrive.
Azim began to feel the frustration tightening beneath his ribs.
For all the praise he had received, he could still be contained. Three goals did not make him immune to good defenders. His movement could create opportunities, but only if he understood what his opponents were protecting and found a way to make that protection costly.
Stop trying to beat the wall, he told himself. Make the wall move.
He began looking at the defenders rather than the ball.
Kvirkvelia's attention was fixed on him whenever he entered the penalty area. Kambolov watched the space behind. Nabiullin had begun tucking inward to protect the central lane, which left more room near the touchline. The midfielders were compact enough to discourage Firmino, but each time Lallana threatened an overlap, they had to turn towards their own goal.
The shape was secure.
But it required constant attention.
And attention could be manipulated.
Azim moved towards the right channel, not with the sharp run of a striker demanding a through ball, but with the unhurried body language of a player preparing to offer a safe passing option.
Kvirkvelia took a few steps with him.
Azim looked towards Clyne.
The defender followed his gaze.
Then Azim stopped.
Clyne continued overlapping, and Lallana received the ball close to the touchline. Nabiullin had to move out to meet him, which forced Kvirkvelia to shift towards the near-post channel. Kambolov responded by adjusting across the centre.
The penalty area had moved.
Only a few steps, but enough to change the next decision.
Lallana cut inside and passed to Milner. Milner immediately switched the ball across the field, making Rubin's defenders turn and sprint towards the other side.
Coutinho collected it.
For the first time in several minutes, he had space to face the penalty area.
His shot was blocked, but the rebound fell to Firmino, whose low effort struck a defender and rolled away for another corner.
Liverpool had not scored.
Yet Rubin had been forced to defend a sequence of movements rather than a collection of isolated attacks.
Klopp applauded.
"Again! Make them travel!"
Azim turned to retrieve his position.
His legs were beginning to feel like soaked clothing. The short accelerations had become harder to repeat, and each change of direction left a dull ache in his calves.
He glanced towards the touchline.
Klopp looked back at him.
The manager raised two fingers, then pointed towards the centre of the pitch.
Not yet.
Two more minutes.
Azim swallowed and nodded.
He could do that.
Rubin found a brief opening in the fifty-eighth minute.
Kanunnikov received a long pass near the right touchline and brought it down beneath pressure from Moreno. The Liverpool full-back tried to guide him away from the centre, but the winger slipped a pass towards Carlos Eduardo, who had dropped into a pocket of space ahead of Emre Can.
Eduardo turned.
For an instant, he was facing Liverpool's defence.
Can closed the direct route to goal, while Milner moved across to cover the passing lane towards Dević. Škrtel stepped forward, prepared to challenge Eduardo if he carried the ball into the space ahead of him.
The Rubin playmaker saw the danger and attempted a quick pass towards Karadeniz instead.
It was underhit.
Azim had been jogging back towards the middle, apparently disengaged from the immediate contest. But he had watched Eduardo's body orientation and the position of Can's feet. He recognised where the midfielder wanted to move the ball before the pass was released.
He accelerated.
The ball rolled into his path.
For the briefest moment, the One Piece System's Observation ability sharpened his awareness of the movement around him. He did not see a magical diagram or a set of numbers floating above the grass. He registered the angles: Karadeniz approaching from the left, Eduardo turning to recover, Milner already moving into a supporting position.
Azim reached the ball first.
He used the inside of his foot to guide it away from the recovering midfielder, then put his body between the ball and the closest challenge.
"Man on!" Milner shouted.
Azim heard him.
He did not need the warning, but he appreciated it.
Rather than attempting to carry the ball through two opponents, he laid it off to Milner and spun away. Milner returned the pass into the space in front of him, completing a simple give-and-go that moved Liverpool out of danger.
The move had started with Rubin threatening to counterattack.
It ended with Liverpool in possession again.
Azim breathed out slowly.
That had been a clean interception. No desperate lunge, no reckless collision. He had read the pass, arrived on time, protected the ball, and allowed his teammates to complete the escape.
It was the kind of action Klopp wanted.
It was also taking more out of him than he wished to admit.
Across the pitch, his father had risen from his seat. His mother was gripping the railing in front of her.
They had cheered his goals.
But they had also seen the contact he had taken in the first half, the defenders leaning into him, the way he occasionally needed an extra moment to straighten after a collision.
His mother looked as though she wanted him to score again and come off immediately afterwards.
Azim could almost guess the conversation she would have with him if she were beside the touchline.
Enough. You have done enough.
He almost smiled.
He was beginning to understand why professional football could become an argument between what a player wanted and what the people responsible for him knew he needed.
The game did not care whether he was tired.
The game offered him another problem.
And it was up to him to decide how much he could afford to spend solving it.
The chance that produced Liverpool's fifth goal began with a mistake.
Not an extraordinary mistake. Not the sort of error that would be replayed for years.
Just a poor touch, a defender leaning in the wrong direction, and a fraction of hesitation.
But football was often decided by precisely those things.
Coutinho received the ball on the left, with his back partially turned towards the touchline. The nearest Rubin midfielder approached cautiously, hoping to prevent the Brazilian from cutting inside. Coutinho shaped to pass backwards, then shifted the ball across his body and slipped beyond the pressure.
The defender tried to recover.
Coutinho had already moved the ball into the next lane.
Firmino came short to receive it, drawing Georgiev away from the centre. Azim began a diagonal run across the face of the penalty area, but Kvirkvelia was ready. He stayed tight to the striker, matching his stride and keeping a hand close to Azim's shoulder without committing an obvious foul.
"Stay with him!" Kvirkvelia shouted.
Azim heard the command.
He also heard his own breathing.
It was becoming rougher.
His first instinct was to continue the run and try to overpower the defender. At one hundred and ninety centimetres, he had the height to contest crosses and the body to make a centre-back work for every challenge. But Kvirkvelia had been defending him intelligently. A physical duel inside a crowded box would be exactly what the Rubin defender wanted.
So Azim slowed.
He let Firmino receive the ball and moved backwards, inviting Kvirkvelia to follow him away from the goal.
The defender hesitated.
It was only a heartbeat, but Azim recognised the conflict. If Kvirkvelia followed, he risked opening space behind him. If he stayed deep, Azim might turn and become available between the lines.
Azim took another step away.
Kvirkvelia followed.
Then Azim changed direction and accelerated towards the space he had just vacated.
The centre-back reacted at once, turning to chase him.
But he had already shifted his weight.
Azim had bought half a yard.
Not enough to receive the ball cleanly. Enough to force the defence into a decision.
Firmino slipped the ball towards him, and Kambolov stepped across to block the passing lane. Azim saw the defender arriving and adjusted his run rather than trying to muscle through him.
The ball continued beyond his reach.
Kambolov stretched for it.
His touch was hurried.
The ball bobbled awkwardly across the edge of the penalty area, falling towards Coutinho, who had continued his run after releasing the pass.
The Brazilian took a touch and looked up.
Azim was still there.
Three defenders had gathered around him, their attention divided between blocking Coutinho's route to goal and stopping the forward from reaching the loose ball. Kvirkvelia was recovering from his first movement. Kambolov was trying to regain balance. Another Rubin midfielder was rushing out from the edge of the box.
The lane was closing.
Coutinho could shoot.
He could also slip the ball towards Lallana, whose run offered a safer passing option on the right.
Instead, he delayed for a fraction of a second.
Azim saw the invitation.
He moved as if preparing to challenge for the rebound, then checked his run and shifted his body towards the far side of the box. Kvirkvelia tried to follow, but the defender's earlier turn had robbed him of the balance needed to match Azim's change of direction.
Coutinho slid the ball into the space beyond him.
Azim received it at the edge of the penalty area, slightly right of centre.
The shot was not cleanly set up.
His legs were heavy. The closest defender was less than two metres away, and another was closing from the left. Ryzhikov had taken a step forward, expecting a driven effort towards the near post.
Azim could have passed.
Lallana was available, and Firmino had recovered into a central position.
For one brief moment, the sensible decision seemed obvious.
But the angle was there.
Not much of one. Barely a window between Kambolov's outstretched leg and the defender behind him. Yet Azim had already taken in the goalkeeper's position, and Ryzhikov's weight was leaning forward.
If he struck across the ball, bending it around the defender, he might reach the far corner before the goalkeeper could recover.
He would have to execute it immediately.
Azim planted his right foot.
His left foot swept through the ball.
The contact was delicate rather than powerful. He brushed the outside of the ball, imparting spin that sent it away from the nearest defender. The shot began moving towards the far side, appearing to travel just outside the post before curling back towards the goal.
For an instant, the entire penalty area seemed to watch the same impossible line.
Ryzhikov pushed off.
His fingers stretched.
The ball curved beyond them.
It struck the inside of the far post and crossed the line.
GOAL!
LIVERPOOL 5–0 RUBIN KAZAN.
Anfield exploded.
Azim barely had time to process what had happened before the noise swallowed him.
He turned towards the Kop and jumped, pumping both fists into the air. The movement sent a fresh wave of pain through his legs, but he hardly noticed it. His face broke into a grin so wide that his cheeks ached.
The crowd answered him with a roar.
His teammates came rushing towards him.
Coutinho reached him first, shouting something that disappeared beneath the noise, then wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Firmino arrived immediately afterwards, laughing and shaking his head as though he had just witnessed something he could not quite believe.
"You were going to pass!" Firmino accused.
Azim was still grinning.
"I was considering it."
"You were considering it?" Coutinho repeated. "That ball went past three men!"
"Then I considered correctly."
Firmino laughed and pushed him lightly in the chest.
The celebration continued, but Azim's legs were beginning to tremble.
He tried to hide it by walking rather than standing still. His breath came in short pulls, and the noise inside his head seemed strangely distant, as though the crowd were cheering from the other side of a thick wall.
He had wanted one more goal.
He had wanted to give Rubin something they could not solve.
He had done it.
Yet the achievement carried a cost.
His next breath felt shallow. His thighs were stiff, and when he flexed his left foot, the muscles in his calf threatened to tighten into a cramp.
The System had not given him the legs of an inexhaustible machine. His Observation Haki ability could help him read movement. His telekinetic control could influence the ball within its established limits, but it could not erase the fatigue accumulated from forty-five minutes of pressing, duelling, sprinting, and recovering.
He had relied on his reading of the play, on Coutinho's pass, and on the technique he had developed through ordinary practice.
That mattered.
The shot was his.
The exhaustion was his too.
On the touchline, Klopp was celebrating with the unrestrained delight that had already become familiar to the Liverpool supporters.
He ran several steps forward, roared, and punched both fists in the air. Then he turned towards Buvač, speaking so rapidly that his assistant could only laugh and shake his head.
"Did you see the movement?" Klopp shouted.
"I saw it!"
"He drags the first defender, makes the second one commit, then changes his angle. And look at the finish!"
Buvač pointed towards Azim, who was still being mobbed by his teammates.
"The decision was important. He could have forced the shot earlier."
"Exactly! Exactly!"
Klopp clapped his hands and turned to the substitutes' bench.
"Benteke! Get ready!"
The Belgian striker rose immediately.
Azim noticed the signal.
For a moment, disappointment flickered through him. He had just scored a wonderful goal, and every instinct urged him to stay on the pitch and enjoy the momentum.
Then his calf tightened again.
He swallowed.
Sixty-five.
He had promised.
And Klopp had promised him something more important than another few minutes in front of a cheering crowd.
His health. His future. The chance to be ready for the next match.
Azim looked towards the technical area and gave the manager a thumbs-up.
Klopp returned the gesture.
The substitution board appeared in the sixty-fifth minute.
#36 - Azim
Azim's number glowed in red.
Beside it, a new number appeared.
#9 - Christian Benteke.
The crowd rose as Azim began walking towards the touchline.
He tried to keep his stride natural, resisting the urge to show how badly he wanted to sit down. By the time he reached Klopp, however, his legs had begun to feel unsteady beneath him.
The manager gripped his shoulder.
"Good work."
Azim nodded, still breathing hard.
"Thank you, boss."
Klopp leaned closer so that his voice would carry through the noise.
"You did what I asked. You pressed, you created, you scored. And you came off when we agreed."
Klopp laughed and pulled him into a brief embrace before directing him towards the substitutes.
The applause followed Azim all the way to the bench.
He lifted a hand to acknowledge the crowd, then sank onto the seat with a sigh he had been suppressing for the last several minutes.
Only then did he realise how tired he was.
His shirt was soaked. His legs felt heavy enough to belong to somebody else, and his mouth was dry despite the water he had consumed at half-time. He bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and allowed himself several slow breaths.
A staff member handed him a drink.
Azim accepted it gratefully.