The net was still violently rippling.
Goalkeeper Gorka Iraizoz was completely frozen on his goal line. He slowly turned his head to stare at the ball resting in the back of his net.
This was only their second attempt to build an attack. Less than twenty seconds had passed since their defensive shape was broken, and the ball was already in the back of the net.
Iraizoz's brain simply couldn't process the sheer violence of the transition.
Up in the gantry, the commentators were losing their minds.
"It's in! One-nil! Atlético Madrid's high press yields instant devastation! Shane Carter triggers the turnover, plays a surgical one-two with Griezmann, and lashes it home from the edge of the box!"
"Atlético takes the lead!"
"What an absolute dream start! We haven't even played three minutes!"
"Last season, Athletic Bilbao could at least rely on their own frenetic attacking tempo to suppress Atlético. But right now... they look like they can't even string three passes out of their own half!"
Every analyst in the stadium instantly recognized the architecture of the goal.
It was the terrifying efficiency of the high press.
Atlético had completely choked out Iraizoz's passing lanes, deliberately forcing Ander Herrera to drop deep. The exact millisecond the ball was played to Herrera's feet, Shane Carter had launched his ambush. This wasn't a spontaneous moment of brilliance. It was a pre-meditated, perfectly drilled tactical trap.
Wait for the pivot to show his back, then spring the cage.
From there, pure individual brilliance took over. The fusion of an elite tactical system and transcendent personal ability had drawn first blood in under three minutes.
Herrera was on his knees, staring blankly at the turf.
Since Javi Martínez departed for Bayern Munich this summer, the young Basque midfielder had been tasked with carrying Bilbao's engine room. He possessed wonderful technique and endless stamina.
But in pure, physical trench warfare, he lacked Martínez's sheer destructive power.
The rest of the Bilbao squad looked equally shell-shocked.
Several of their players hadn't even touched the ball yet. They kicked off, lost possession, got pinned in their own defensive third, and suddenly found themselves a goal down.
On the touchline, Marcelo Bielsa's face was grim.
He desperately wanted his team to establish their attacking rhythm. But Atleti's suffocating high block made passing through the lines practically suicidal.
If they resorted to launching long balls?
Bilbao's attacking line lacked the physical height to challenge Atlético's giants. Throwing aerial balls toward Diego Godín, Miranda, and Shane Carter was essentially handing possession back on a silver platter.
As for winning the second balls...
Bielsa's eyes flicked toward Shane Carter, who was currently being mobbed by his teammates.
The media constantly lauded the teenager as an attacking prodigy, a player who could dictate the final third with God-given vision. But Bielsa was far more terrified of his defensive metrics.
The kid possessed a limitless cardiovascular engine, supernatural spatial awareness, terrifying physical strength, and a tackling technique that had sharply improved since his debut.
Paired alongside captain Gabi in a double-pivot, their combined defensive coverage was a black hole for opposing midfielders.
Bielsa unconsciously dropped into his trademark crouch on the touchline, his brow furrowed in deep thought.
Executing his pure attacking philosophy against this Atleti side, in this stadium... it was beginning to look mathematically impossible.
Unless... Bielsa thought. Will Atlético drop back into a defensive shell now that they have the lead?
Down by the corner flag, Shane spun away from the net and pointed directly at Antoine Griezmann, acknowledging the perfect assist.
But before he could reach the Frenchman, Diego Costa arrived like a runaway freight train.
"Fucking brilliant!"
The aggressively scarred Brazilian practically tackled Shane to the turf.
Shane opened his arms, absorbing the impact as the two physical monsters embraced. Griezmann arrived a second later, vaulting onto their shoulders and screaming at the ultras behind the goal.
The rest of the red-and-white shirts swarmed the corner flag.
"SU!"
"SU!"
"SU!"
The deafening chant cascaded down from the terraces. The ultras in the South Stand immediately launched into the rhythmic thumping of the 'Shane Carter Song'.
Three minutes into the season. The Vicente Calderón was already at absolute boiling point.
Diego Simeone aggressively hugged Germán Burgos and the rest of his coaching staff.
Starting from this exact moment, Atlético Madrid was finally his team.
He had spent the latter half of last season making tactical compromises. That squad relied heavily on a low defensive block and pure counter-attacking football, masking their transitional flaws through Radamel Falcao's god-tier finishing efficiency.
But this summer, he finally had a full preseason.
He ruthlessly purged the squad, brought in players who fit his exact physical parameters, and drilled his true philosophy into their bones.
Press. Destroy. Win the ball. Attack the throat.
That opening goal was the absolute manifestation of his vision.
Shane Carter's evolution into a prolific goalscorer made this system infinitely more dangerous. Diego Costa didn't have Falcao's elegance, but his chaotic, bruising presence created massive space. Griezmann offered elite technical dribbling.
And Shane? He was an absolute cyborg.
His stamina allowed him to operate as a box-to-box terror for ninety minutes straight. Modern football was filled with fragile, glass-cannon playmakers. But Shane possessed the genetic durability of an ironman. Simeone knew from his own playing days that durability was the most underrated trait in a superstar. You couldn't build an empire around a core player who spent three months a year on the treatment table.
"The pressing trigger was executed flawlessly!" Mario shouted from the commentary box. "Shane's anticipation, the tackle, the rapid exchange, the finish. That has Diego Simeone's fingerprints entirely over it!"
"This is the heavy metal football Simeone has been trying to build," Kiko agreed. "With a full preseason under his belt, this squad has fully absorbed his doctrine. We can finally call this Simeone's team."
"Or perhaps we should call it Shane's team," Juan Carlos muttered bitterly from the other seat.
Kiko and Mario burst into laughter.
"His positional awareness is just unfair," the Bilbao legend sighed. "He is always standing exactly where you don't want him to be."
The television cameras remained locked onto the Number 10.
Inside the global English broadcast studio, Peter Drury was practically vibrating with excitement.
"Shane Carter opens his account for the campaign! At this tempo, it wouldn't surprise me if he registers his first assist before the half is out!"
"The sheer intensity of Atlético is vastly different from last season," Jim Beglin noted.
Down on the pitch, Bilbao restarted the match.
Desperate to establish a foothold, they tried to bypass the midfield entirely by playing directly into the feet of their veteran striker, Aritz Aduriz.
It was a fatal mistake.
Gabi and Shane instantly collapsed on him like a vice. Gabi engaged him physically from behind, while Shane ruthlessly poked the ball away from his boots. The loose ball rolled directly to Raúl García.
García shielded it with his body, mapped out Shane's forward run, and laid it perfectly into his path.
Shane took one touch to cross the halfway line.
In a fraction of a second, the Bilbao midfield panicked and pinched inward. Both defensive midfielders aggressively stepped up to close him down.
Simultaneously, Griezmann drifted centrally, dragging both Bilbao center-backs completely out of position.
A massive pocket of space ripped open on the left flank.
Shane's panoramic vision processed the shifting variables in a microsecond.
Left side. The half-space. Diego Costa.
The decision was absolute.
Ander Herrera lunged in for the tackle. Shane casually extended his left arm, using his immense core strength to completely hold off the Basque midfielder. Without breaking stride, he sliced his right boot across the ball, executing a breathtaking, outside-of-the-foot trivela pass.
"Shane holds off the challenge... an audacious clipped ball over the top! DIEGO COSTA!!"
The commentators screamed as the viciously swerving pass dropped perfectly over the defensive line.
Costa didn't even break stride. He controlled the ball on his massive chest, let it drop, and uncorked a venomous left-footed strike.
The ball tore straight through the legs of the rushing Gorka Iraizoz, nutmegging the keeper before rippling the back of the net.
Two-nil.
The stadium clock read exactly five minutes.
For a split second, the Vicente Calderón was plunged into absolute silence.
The fans had barely finished cooling down from the adrenaline spike of the first goal. This sudden, ruthless execution caught everyone completely off guard.
Then, the reality of the scoreboard set in.
The silence shattered into a roaring, biblical wave of noise.
"DIEGO COSTA!"
"Two-nil! Two-nil! Good heavens, we haven't even played two minutes since the restart!"
"Five minutes on the clock, and Atlético Madrid has completely dismantled Athletic Bilbao!"
"The sheer, brutal efficiency! Win the ball, one pass to transition, one touch to finish. Devastatingly simple!"
"Whether they can sustain a title charge or not, this Atlético side is absolute box office! They are playing a brand of football that defies the Spanish tiki-taka tradition, but perfectly embodies the absolute madness of this stadium!"
The Athletic Bilbao players stood around the penalty area, staring at each other with hollow, dead eyes.
Up in the gantry, Drury clutched his headset. "Absolutely surgical! Shane Carter delivers the assist less than two minutes after I predicted it!"
On social media, Football Twitter was in absolute meltdown.
"WTF, this Atleti side looks scarier than Barca!"
"Bro really said they are winning the league and decided to back it up minute one. 💀"
"Two goals in five minutes. Game is already dead."
"To be exact... it's two goals in two minutes of actual play if you count the celebrations."
Up in the stands, the Atlético ultras were dancing in pure delirium.
Over in the away sector, the traveling Bilbao fans stood in stony silence. They crossed their arms, their faces painted with pure, unadulterated dread. Nobody had expected this level of violence.
Conceding two goals in five minutes.
How do you even play against this?
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