Chapter 91: The Start Of Something Different.
On the pitch, Leo slowed his run, turned towards the goal, to see once again if it had really gone in before continuing his run towards the bench and then jumping on Dawson.
Then came the wave of sound, the blur of teammates rushing toward him, arms thrown wide, pulling him and Dawson into the celebration as his name echoed across the stadium.
"It’s okay, lad, it’s okay," Dawson said over the roar, gripping Leo by the shoulders as if grounding him back into reality.
His voice barely carried over the frenzy pouring down from the stands.
His expression softened briefly, pride flickering in his eyes, before he caught himself and straightened his tone.
"But it’s not over yet. Go on, get back in there. Keep your head."
Leo nodded quickly, still breathless, a wide grin cutting through the sweat on his face.
His pulse was racing so hard it almost drowned out the chants echoing through the DW.
He’d dreamt of this moment, of scoring, of mattering, but now that it had happened, it felt strangely unreal.
Dawson patted him twice on the back, firm and approving, before pushing him gently toward the pitch.
The crowd behind them roared their approval, flags waving, scarves spinning and Wigan blue flashing like a heartbeat under the floodlights.
Slowly, the players on the bench and the ones on the pitch broke apart, from their celebrations, with the ones on the pitch, jogging back to their positions, each face charged with a new kind of energy.
The commentators were still buzzing, voices climbing over each other in excitement.
"What a moment for the youngster!" one of them exclaimed.
"Leo off the bench, scoring his first ever goal for Wigan Athletic, and it’s Wigan’s first of the night! What a response this is from Dawson’s men!"
The camera panned across the pitch, catching Leo wiping his face with his sleeve as he looked up toward the crowd.
The smile lingered for a second before he turned towards the Sunderland players who had set the ball on the centre spot.
The restart followed quickly, and Sunderland took possession and tried to calm things down, knocking the ball around between their back line, looking for a way to restore control.
They pushed forward with patience and precision, probing down the wings, testing Wigan’s shape.
But Wigan, fueled by the adrenaline of that goal, refused to retreat.
Every tackle was sharp.
Every loose ball was fought for as though the score were still level.
Each successful interception brought another rise from the stands and
Leo, now properly settled, was everywhere, dropping deep to collect, pressing high to recover, turning on a dime whenever a pass came his way.
He had found that rhythm, that pulse that made football feel instinctive rather than conscious.
But soon, Sunderland began to adapt.
They noticed how often play funnelled through him, how he had subconsciously become the engine of the team just right after coming on.
They started closing in quicker, doubling up when the ball approached his feet, cutting off the easy lanes around him.
But that shift in attention came at a cost.
The extra bodies around Leo opened pockets of space for others, Darikwa overlapping down the right, Naylor stepping into advanced positions, and Mclean hugging the left touchline, daring defenders to chase him.
Still, Leo didn’t rush.
He kept the ball moving, keeping Sunderland guessing.
For several minutes, he stayed patient, drifting in the half-spaces, touching the ball only when necessary.
To the untrained eye, it might have looked like he’d gone quiet.
But in truth, he was watching, waiting, letting the opposition’s concentration thin out.
Then, the opening came.
Cousins picked up the ball just inside Wigan’s half, looked up and saw Leo, until now ghosting behind Sunderland’s midfield line, suddenly burst forward into the gap.
Without hesitation, Cousins sent the ball zipping forward until it settled right in front of Leo, whose first touch was a flick toward the byline that invited a desperate slide from Gooch, Sunderland’s wing-back.
Gooch lunged, expecting a cross, but Leo planted his boot, cutting back inside in one motion.
The defender skidded past helplessly, the blades of grass spraying up behind him as Leo steadied himself, body angled, eyes scanning the chaos ahead.
He spotted the narrowest of corridors between the retreating defenders and slid a perfectly weighted pass through it.
And there, James Mclean, who had been sprinting the whole time, anticipating exactly that, met the ball.
He timed his run to perfection, bursting in from the left and meeting the pass in full stride.
Without breaking motion, he unleashed a vicious left-footed strike across the keeper.
The ball zipped low, kissing the turf before smashing into the back of the net as the stadium exploded.
"James Mclean puts it into the back of the net!" the commentator’s voice cracked, nearly overwhelmed by the roar.
"It’s two for Wigan! And it’s that boy again, Leo, at the heart of it all! What an impact off the bench! What a turnaround at the DW!"
Mclean turned instantly, pointing toward Leo as he sprinted past him.
His mouth moved, but the words were lost in the noise, swallowed by the fans.
Then he threw himself into a slide near the corner flag, arms stretched wide, the rain-damp grass streaking beneath him.
Behind him, the Wigan supporters surged toward the barrier, a living wave of noise and limbs, security stewards barely holding them back.
The players followed, one after another, piling onto Mclean, laughing, shouting, roaring with the kind of joy football only gives on nights like this.
In the stands, Noah Sarin didn’t know exactly when it had happened, the moment he’d been pulled into the rhythm of the crowd, into their chants, into their madness.
One minute, he’d been sitting with his arms crossed, quietly watching.
The next, someone had thrown an arm around him, yelling something about belief and Wigan pride, and now he had a scarf around his neck that he hadn’t bought or brought with him.
It smelled faintly of beer and rain, but he didn’t care.
He was smiling.
The noise around him was thunderous as the stands bounced, chants rolling in waves, flags whipping under the floodlights.
Down below, Leo was still grinning, high-fiving James Mclean, both men radiant under the glow of the scoreboard.
2–0.
Wigan were flying.
Noah’s eyes stayed on Leo, a slow smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah," he murmured to himself, barely audible beneath the chaos, "anything less than Leo wouldn’t be a challenge."
The boy wasn’t playing safe football.
He was living it.
But not everyone in red and white felt that way.
Down on the pitch, the Sunderland players looked toward the Wigan group with a mix of irritation and disbelief.
Their frustration was bubbling, and when play restarted, it didn’t take long for that tension to boil over.
Sunderland came forward aggressively, pressing higher, snapping into tackles.
Leo dropped deep to collect a pass from Cousins, turning sharply past one challenge, and that was when Embleton, already on a yellow, lunged in from behind.
The crack of contact drew an instant gasp from the stands as Leo went down hard, clutching his ankle, and chaos erupted.
Players rushed in, shouting, shoving, arms waving as the referee sprinted toward the scene, whistle blaring like a siren, and the commentators could barely keep up.
"Oh, and that’s reckless from Embleton! He’s already on a booking, this is trouble!"
The referee reached for his pocket, hesitation brief but inevitable.
The second yellow came out, followed immediately by the red as Embleton’s expression twisted from shock to anger as teammates pulled him away, protesting in vain.
The Sunderland bench erupted, but it was too late; he was off.
"Embleton’s been sent off!" the commentator shouted over the roar. "A moment of frustration, and Sunderland are down to ten men! You can’t do that, not on a night like this!"
Leo was back on his feet by then, wincing slightly but waving off the medical staff.
He rolled his ankle once, twice, testing it.
The pain was sharp, but it would fade.
A small grin flickered on his face as he brushed dirt off his shorts and walked it off.
The crowd roared his name, and he lifted a hand in acknowledgement before jogging back into position.
From there, it was all Wigan.
Sunderland tried to rally, but the energy had drained out of them.
Wigan, on the other hand, moved with confidence, pinging the ball around as if the pitch had grown larger.
In the final minutes, Chris Sze, who had come on for Max Power, picked up possession on the right.
He drove forward, skipping past a tired challenge before squaring the ball low into the box and there, Fletcher arrived right on cue, side-footing it calmly past the keeper to make it a third for Wigan.
The DW Stadium erupted again, the chants rolling like thunder as Leo, hands on his hips near midfield, allowed himself a slow exhale.
It was done.