Super Link-Up Play

Before the whistle, Team Red bickers over who has earned Bachira's passes, with both Tokimitsu and Aryu angling for goals, while Aryu becomes fixated on Chigiri's glossy hair and pulls him into a rambling talk about glam. Baro, impatient, insists they simply begin. The contest is a four versus four reckoning, pitting Isagi, Nagi, Baro, and Chigiri against the trio that had beaten them and taken Bachira away.

Rin opens by releasing Bachira, whose ultra-fast scissors no longer shake Isagi loose. Rather than chasing the ball alone, Isagi now reads the entire pitch and funnels Bachira toward traps where he and Baro can pinch possession. Off one such turnover the counter flows, and Chigiri sprints past both Rin and Aryu to bury the opening goal, a strike built on the coordinated passing his teammates had quietly developed.

Rin replies by moving every marker like a puppet, faking shots to lure them in before threading the ball beyond their reach, and levels the score with a finish Isagi finally grasps move by move. Bachira then lofts Aryu a back-spinning pass that the tall forward meets at the top of its arc for a leaping header. Nagi, desperate to shatter the reunited trio, disguises a failed volley to slip past Rin and finishes with his two-stage fake, feeling his ceiling rise now that Isagi plays beside him.

Chigiri outraces Rin and Aryu to score the first goal off the newly built link-up play. Rin equalizes by manipulating the defenders as puppets, revealing his limitless variations without any chemical reactions. Aryu answers with a soaring header from Bachira's back-spinning long pass. Nagi beats Rin with a two-stage fake volley. Across the half, Bachira begins forging genuine chemical reactions with the three top players, turning individual brilliance into teamwork.

Airing February 26, 2023, the episode belongs to the Second Selection Arc and adapts chapters 72 through 76. It uses the opening theme Judgement and the ending Numbness like a ginger. The bonus Additional Time segment, Nagi's School Life, shows Nagi dozing through class and then placing a close second on a World History exam, edged out by Reo Mikage's top mark of 99 to his 98.