"And that is half time, folks."
"And what a half it has been."
"It has been an extraordinary forty-eight minutes of football, and I say that as somebody who has watched a great many of these. Barcelona have done everything. They have had seventy-odd percent of the ball. Twenty shots. Eight corners. Lionel Messi has hit the crossbar. Mateo King has been through that defence more times than I can count."
"And they trail."
"And they trail. Because Chelsea have defended like men possessed. Because Édouard Mendy has produced a goalkeeping performance that people will still be talking about in twenty years. Because Thiago Silva, at thirty-six years of age, has thrown himself in front of everything that has come near him. And because one man, in the forty-third minute, would not stop running."
"Timo Werner."
"Timo Werner. Six yards. One toe. And the entire complexion of a Champions League final."
A pause.
"And so they go in."
"Barcelona walk into that dressing room having played the better football, having created more, having deserved more. And it does not matter one bit, because there is only one thing written on that scoreboard, and it does not say who deserved anything."
"One nil."
"Chelsea."
"Forty-five minutes to go in the Champions League final. Stay with us."
The dressing room door opened.
Mateo went in with the rest of them and nobody said anything at all.
They came through that door in a line, boots on the floor, shirts stuck to their backs, and every single one of them went straight to his own stall and sat down.
And that was it.
Nobody threw anything. Nobody kicked a wall. There was no shouting, no arguing, no anger, nothing at all like the version of this that people imagine.
It was just quiet.
Twenty men in one room, in the middle of the biggest night of most of their lives, and the only sound was breathing.
"Huff."
Mateo dropped onto the bench at his own stall and let his head go back against the wood, and let his eyes close, and put one forearm over his face.
The physio arrived almost immediately, crouching down in front of him.
"Mateo. Hey. The hip. That tackle in the first twenty. How is it now?"
Mateo did not move his arm.
"Yeah," he said softly.
"Yeah, it hurts, or yeah, it is fine?"
"It is fine."
"Are you sure? Because I can."
"It is fine. Honestly."
"Okay."
The physio took him at his word, and got both hands onto his calves, and started working.
Mateo let his arm slide off his face and looked down at the top of the man's head.
His legs were a mess. He had not really noticed until somebody put hands on them. There was a tightness running up the back of both of his thighs that had been building since about the thirtieth minute and had now decided to introduce itself properly.
He looked to his right.
Pedri was slumped in the next stall along with his head back and his eyes shut, breathing through his mouth.
Mateo lifted a hand and clicked his fingers at one of the other staff.
The man came straight over with a bottle, saw the state of Pedri, and crouched in front of him instead.
Pedri opened one eye.
"Thank you."
Somebody handed Mateo a bottle too. He drank half of it in one go without stopping.
And he sat there, with a man's hands working the knots out of his calves, and looked around a completely silent room.
Okay.
Okay. Come on.
Forty-five minutes.
"Okay, guys."
Koeman came through the door clapping his hands.
"Okay. Okay, everyone."
Mateo's head came up.
And the first thing he noticed was the voice.
It had gone. Actually gone, most of the way. Koeman had spent forty-eight minutes screaming at a football pitch and what was left of him sounded like a man who had been at a concert.
"That was a good first half."
"We could not even get through them."
Dembélé said it from the far side of the room, and he scoffed as he said it, still staring at the floor.
"We could not get through them ONCE. After all of that."
And it came out of the whole room at once.
"They are playing so dirty. It is not even football. They are not coming out at all."
"They are HAPPY with that goal. That is what it is. They are happy with one goal and they want to walk this thing out."
"Cowards."
"And we gave one away. We gave one away."
"A goal like THAT? A poke? How does that even happen?"
"We have been unlucky. We have been so unlucky."
"There is no such thing as luck. We just have to be better."
"Easy for you to say when you are not the one who."
"OKAY."
Koeman clapped, hard, twice, and it cracked across the room.
"THAT IS ENOUGH. Okay. Okay."
The voices died.
He stood in the middle of the floor and looked around at all of them.
"This is not the time."
He shook his head, slowly, looking up and down the room.
"For faults. For mistakes. For blame. For any of that."
His voice dropped, and got harder.
"Not now."
Nobody moved.
"We have far bigger things in front of us right now."
He pointed at the wall, in the direction of the pitch.
"There is a Champions League final happening out there. Right now. It is happening RIGHT NOW. Or has everybody in this room forgotten that?"
Silence.
Mateo was staring at him. He had not realised his own hand had closed into a fist on his thigh until he felt it.
"We are still in it." Koeman's ruined voice came up as far as it could go. "One goal. ONE goal. Forty-five minutes."
He stopped.
"We. We."
He stammered. He actually stammered, and he stopped and pressed his lips together, and everybody in that room watched a man trying to get something out of himself.
And then it came.
"We cannot let it end like this."
He looked around at all of them.
"We have worked too hard. Every one of us. For nine months. We have worked too hard for THIS to be how it ends."
The room did not make a sound.
And then, over on the far side, somebody stood up.
Every head turned.
Messi.
"The gaffer is right," he said.
Koeman looked at him.
And he nodded, hard, twice.
"Yes. Yes."
Then he threw a hand at the room and his face went furious.
"You had BETTER tell them. Explain it to these guys. Go on."
"Hmm."
Messi nodded.
"You all listen to your captain," Koeman said.
And he stepped aside.
Messi walked into the middle of the floor.
And for a moment he did not say anything at all.
He just looked at them. One at a time. All the way round that room, every single face in it, taking his time about it exactly the way he had taken his time about it two hours ago.
I am not going to be quiet any more.
Because this season had been an eye-opener for Lionel Messi.
It had made him look at a very large piece of himself and ask a question he had been avoiding for years. Whether it was the age, or the experience, or the two things arriving together, he did not know. He had spent his whole career letting the football speak, standing at the back of rooms, letting other men hold the floor because that was what he was comfortable with.
And he had reached a point where he did not want any regrets.
Not one.
If taking charge, and standing in the middle of a room, and saying the thing out loud, was what it took.
Then he would do it.
He started.
"I am not going to explain."
He shook his head.
"I am not going to explain to you how important this match is."
He shrugged.
"No. We are not children in this room. We all know. Every one of us knows exactly what is out there."
The words landed on every man in that dressing room.
Mateo felt his own heart start going.
"You have all sold me dreams this season."
Messi looked around.
"Not just me. The supporters. Our families, who are sitting up there right now watching this. Everybody. And yourselves. You sold them to yourselves."
He spread his hands.
"So who in this room does not believe we can do this? Who does not believe we can win this football match?"
Nobody said anything.
Messi's head tilted.
"You do not believe it?"
"We do."
It came from a few of them at once, and Mateo heard his own voice in there, cracking in the middle of it.
"We do."
"We do, Leo."
"Well then." Messi nodded. "Then we are lying to ourselves right now."
He let that sit.
"Because that is what is happening out there. Every one of those dreams we have been selling all year is being taken apart, in front of our families, in front of the whole world, and we are sitting in here talking about who is at fault."
He shook his head.
"No."
And then his voice changed, and it came up, and there was fire in it that most of the men in that room had never once heard.
"And I know we can do this. I know it. And I am not saying it to make anybody feel better, I am saying it because I have watched it happen with my own eyes."
He started counting it off.
"Paris. We went to Paris and everybody in Europe had already written the report. And we won."
"Bayern. After what they did to us. In their own stadium, in front of their own people, and we did not flinch."
"Manchester City. The best team on this continent. And you BEAT them."
"And nine days ago you went to the Wanda Metropolitano with ten men and took a league title out of Diego Simeone's hands in the ninety-fourth minute."
He looked at them.
"You have done harder things than this. All season. You have done harder things than this in worse situations."
He pointed at the door.
"And now you are going to tell me you cannot get ONE GOAL?"
"NO!"
Ter Stegen was on his feet, fist pumping, roaring it.
"YEAHHHH! LET'S GO!"
And it went round the room like fire in a dry field.
Piqué smacked the wall. Alba was up. Araújo was shouting something in Uruguayan Spanish that nobody could translate and everybody understood.
Pedri turned and hit Mateo on the shoulder with the back of his hand, grinning, eyes lit up.
And Mateo's heart was going so fast now that he could feel it under his ribs, and he was smiling, and he was looking straight ahead.
Messi lifted a hand and the noise came down.
"So."
He looked around one final time.
"What are we going out there to do?"
"TO WIN!"
The room came back at him as one voice.
Messi opened his mouth to keep going.
And somebody else beat him to it.
"YES!"
Mateo was on his feet.
He did not remember standing up. He was just up, both fists pumping down at his sides, shouting.
"YES! Messi is right! We can do this!"
Heads started turning.
He did not notice.
"We just need ONE. That is all it is. ONE. If we get one, just one, I am telling you right now, we are winning this football match. I know it. I KNOW it."
He was pointing at the door.
"They have been defending for forty-eight minutes! FORTY-EIGHT! You think they can do that for another forty-five? They cannot! Nobody can! We just have to keep going at them until they cra—"
And then he stopped.
Because he had finally noticed that the entire room was looking at him.
Twenty men. Piqué. Busquets. Alba. Ter Stegen. Koeman. All of them. Every single face in that dressing room, turned toward a seventeen-year-old standing in the middle of the floor with both fists in the air.
Mateo's arms came down slowly.
"Well." His voice completely changed. "I was just. I mean. I was only."
He rubbed the back of his own neck.
"I was just saying."
He had never done that before. Not once in his life. He had never stood up and addressed an entire dressing room, and he had absolutely not planned to start in a Champions League final.
And across the room, Lionel Messi was looking at him with a smile on his face.
He was not the only one.
Koeman, standing off to the side with his arms folded, was smiling too.
"He is right," Messi said.
Mateo's head snapped round.
Messi looked back at him. And he gave him a small nod, and a smile, the reassuring kind, the kind that says you are fine, keep going, that was good.
Then Messi turned back to the room, and he was grinning now.
"If even the littlest one among us is that sure."
He spread his hands.
"Then what about the rest of you?"
The room went up.
"LET'S GO WIN THIS THING!"
"WE CAN DO THIS!"
"VAMOS! VAMOS!"
Men were coming up off benches everywhere. Piqué crossed the whole floor and threw an arm around Mateo's shoulders and shook him.
"If even the KID is this hyped, then come on. COME ON."
And then the laughing started.
"Hey. HEY." Piqué was already going. "Why did he go shy at the end? Eh? Why did he go shy?"
"HAHAHA."
"Where was that? Where was all of that?"
"Where is your big mouth now?" Alba was pointing at him from across the room. "EH? Where is it? Where has it gone?"
"He talks for ninety minutes on the pitch and then he stands up in here and goes red."
"So even THIS one can get shy. Look at him. LOOK at him."
"HAHAHAHA."
"I think he wants to be the one to get us that goal." Busquets said it completely deadpan, without moving from where he was sitting. "That is what that was. He was making an announcement."
The room absolutely lost it.
"OHHHHH!"
"He is telling us! He is telling us!"
Mateo had both hands up.
"That is not what I said. That is NOT what I said."
"That is what it sounded like."
"That is exactly what it sounded like."
"HAHAHAHA."
He was in the middle of them now, six or seven of them around him, somebody shoving his shoulder, somebody else rubbing the top of his head, all of them laughing at him, and he was laughing too, and he could not get a word in edgeways.
And the whole room had changed.
The thing that had walked in through that door ten minutes ago, that silent, sunken, dead-eyed thing, was completely gone. There were men on their feet. There was noise. There was somebody shouting at somebody else across the room and both of them laughing.
And over by the wall, Ronald Koeman stood with his arms folded and watched all of it.
He was smiling with every tooth in his head.
He let it run for a few more seconds. He was not in any hurry to stop it.
Then he pushed off the wall and clapped his hands.
"Okay. Okay, okay. Calm down. Calm down, all of you. Sit."
They started coming back to the benches, still elbowing each other, still going.
Koeman waited until every single one of them was down and looking at him.
And then the smile got bigger.
"Right."
He pointed at the door.
"This is what we are going to do in the second half."
...
"You cannot really put that on him alone."
"Watch me."
"Ter Stegen is to blame for this."
While the Barcelona players were in that dressing room putting everything into the next forty-five minutes, the rest of the world had not stopped talking about the first forty-five for a single second.
And inside the CBS studio, two of the four had gone to war.
"Why would I not blame him?"
Jamie Carragher's voice had already gone up two levels and his hands were going.
"No. NO. A goalkeeper. In a Champions League final. Of all the places on earth to do it, in a Champions League FINAL, does not give away a cheap goal like that."
"That is not fair," Micah said, shaking his head.
"I call it how I see it."
"Thierry."
Kate turned to Henry, who had been quietly watching the two of them the way a man watches weather.
"Hmm?"
"Anything you would like to add to their." She paused. "Discussion."
"Well."
"What is there to say?" Jamie was already going again. "Barcelona dominated. Ter Stegen sold them. They are walking down that tunnel losing. Simple."
"No, it is not that simple."
Kate and Thierry looked at each other, both of them smiling, and both of them shook their heads at exactly the same time.
"It is unfair to say it is his fault," Micah went on, "and more than that, it is diminishing what Chelsea have done."
"Oh, come ON."
"Yes. Yes it is." Micah leaned forward. "You have to give credit where it is due. Tuchel and that Chelsea team knew exactly what they wanted from this half, and they have executed it to absolute perfection."
"They were lucky."
Micah scoffed.
"Lucky?"
"Yes. Lucky." Jamie put his hand flat on the desk. "Barcelona could easily be two or three goals up right now, and you know it. And the only reason Chelsea are in front, the ONLY reason, is a silly mistake by a man who is supposed to be a world-class goalkeeper."
Micah sighed and sat back.
"This again."
"Yes. This again."
"Do you know what?" Micah's voice thickened. "Without him. That goalkeeper you keep going after. Without him, they are not even in this final."
He spread his hands.
"Or do I need to remind you what happened in the last few minutes of the second leg against Bayern Munich?"
He tilted his head, entirely smug.
"The penalty save? Eh? Ehn? EHN?"
"But it is all pointless."
Micah's head came back.
"What?"
Jamie had a small smile on his face now, and he said it evenly, which made it worse.
"It is pointless. What is the point of it? What is the point of doing all of that, of doing everything right for nine months."
He let it hang.
"When you get to the final and sell the entire game, and make every single good thing you have done irrelevant? When you choke at the last hurdle, on the one night your team needs you the most?"
"I."
"And this is not the first time."
Jamie cut straight across him.
"Their last game. Atlético Madrid. The second goal, the Suárez one, the poke."
He shook his head slowly.
"Shambolic."
He looked at the monitor.
"He was fortunate that night. The others bailed him out. Because if they had not, he would be the man who cost his football club two trophies in one season."
Nobody said anything.
"Which is too bad." Jamie sat back. "Because I do not think they are going to be able to bail him out this time."
He nodded at the screen.
"Look at the way Chelsea have approached this. Honestly, look at it. I think that is the final scoreline. I think Tuchel and his players are going to sit fully back now and fight this thing out to the whistle."
Micah looked at him.
"Would that not make you happy, though?"
Thierry, who had not said a word for two minutes, spoke.
"Yes. Because if I remember correctly, you made that exact prediction."
"Yes," Kate said, smiling. "And from what I know of you, I would have thought you would be delighted right now. Your analysis is coming to pass in front of you."
Jamie opened his mouth.
Then he stopped.
"Yeah. Well." He shifted. "Ehm. I did. I did say it, and."
He looked back at the monitor, at a stadium waiting for a second half.
And when he spoke again, all of the fight had gone out of his voice.
"It is just truly sad that this is the way it has come to be."
And it was everywhere.
Every show. Every channel. Every YouTube panel and podcast and radio phone-in in every language there was. Influencers who had never watched a full ninety minutes of football in their lives were posting about a goalkeeping error.
Plenty of them thought exactly what Jamie Carragher thought.
But for every single one of those, there was somebody else insisting that Chelsea's approach was going to cost them, that no team on earth can absorb that for ninety minutes, that Barcelona had already hit the bar and beaten the goalkeeper twice and that it was only a matter of time.
And for every one of those, there was another one calling it the greatest tactical performance of Thomas Tuchel's career.
Thousands upon thousands of opinions, floating around a planet, all of them absolutely certain.
Live viewership had already passed three hundred million.
But not one of those people was in either of those two dressing rooms.
And contrary to what every single one of them thought was happening behind the Chelsea door, something rather different was going on in there.
The Chelsea dressing room was loud.
They came through that door still buzzing, still talking over each other, and Tuchel was among them the whole way, going from man to man, slapping backs and gripping shoulders.
"Perfect. Perfect first half. PERFECT."
He caught Chilwell by the neck as he went past.
"I told you. Eh? I told you what you could do."
"Just like you said, gaffer."
Mount was grinning, pulling his shirt away from his chest.
"Exactly like you said."
"I still cannot believe that actually happened," somebody laughed from the corner.
But not all of it was laughter.
"They are relentless, though." Azpilicueta said it as he sat down, blowing out his cheeks. "Honestly. They do not stop."
"Tell me about it. And that is only the first half."
"Hey." Reece James pointed across the room. "None of that in here. We did it for forty-five. We can do it again."
"Yes." Tuchel clapped his hands together. "Yes. Exactly that."
The room settled.
Bottles were going round. Somebody was handing out energy drinks, and Tuchel took one and passed it along himself before he stood in the middle of the floor.
"Let me start by saying this."
He looked around at all of them.
"Good job, boys. Good job. That is exactly what I asked you for and you gave me every single bit of it."
He gestured back at the door.
"You heard those screams out there. You heard those cheers. You earned every single one of them."
A few of them looked at each other, smiling.
"Now."
Tuchel's tone shifted.
"Now we need to talk about keeping it."
The room went quieter.
"What you felt out there in that first half. Those attacks. All of that pressure."
He shook his head.
"I am not going to sugar-coat it for you. It is going to increase."
Faces changed all round the room.
"Faster. Sharper. Stronger." He counted them off. "They are coming out for that second half and they are going to throw everything they own at you, and then they are going to throw more, and it will not stop, and it will not slow down, and it will not get easier at any point in the next forty-five minutes."
He let that sit.
"They will keep coming. And coming. And coming."
He paused.
"But."
Every head in that room came up.
"If there is one team on this entire planet that can come through that."
He looked around at all of them, slowly.
"It is you."
Silence.
And then, from over on the left:
"Well." Reece James shrugged. "I guess we have got our work cut out for us."
"HAHAHA."
The whole room went.
Tuchel laughed with them, properly, head back.
"Yes." He was still smiling. "Yes, you have got your work cut out for you."
He spread his hands.
"Time to earn your pay."
More laughter, somebody smacking somebody else on the arm, Kanté shaking his head and grinning at the floor.
"But seriously, guys."
Tuchel's voice came down and the room came down with it.
He waited.
And then he looked at them, and the smile had gone.
"You have wounded them."
Nobody moved.
"That is what happened in that first half. You did not survive them. You did not get lucky. You wounded them."
He nodded slowly.
"You have made the beast bleed."
Every man in that dressing room was completely still now.
"But I am sure you all know."
He looked around.
"There is nothing in this world more dangerous than a wounded animal fighting for its life."
He let it sit.
"So this second half is everything. This is the half that decides this football match. Not the first one. This one."
He pointed at the floor.
"I need every single one of you focused. Completely focused. You know exactly what you want out of this. You know what is sitting at the end of it. Go out there and fight for it."
He paused.
"And."
He started going round the room with his eyes. One man at a time, all the way along. Mendy. Rüdiger. Silva. Azpilicueta. Chilwell. James. Kanté. Jorginho.
"When it comes."
He stopped.
"And I am telling you now. It will come."
And then he turned, and he looked at the front three.
At Mount. At Havertz.
At Timo Werner.
"When that chance comes."
His voice dropped, and got very quiet, and every man in that room leaned toward it.
"I need you to be ruthless."
He held their eyes.
"Do not let it go. Not one of them. You do not think about it, you do not take an extra touch, you do not look for somebody else. You take it."
He pointed at the door.
"The first one bled them."
A beat.
"This one will kill them."
...
As half time went on, the videos kept playing.
The analysis. The graphics. The panels arguing. The replays, over and over and over, from eight different angles.
And at some point, all of it became a burden.
Because nobody wanted any of it any more. Not one person in that stadium and not one person in front of a television anywhere on earth cared what anybody had to say about the first half. It was gone. It was already history. There was nothing left in the world that anybody wanted except the second half of a Champions League final, and every single one of them had started looking at the clock.
15
The desperation to see them back out there. To see who was going to win this.
14
Would Barcelona finally crack that defence?
13
Would Chelsea survive what was about to come at them?
12
Everybody's heart was going.
11
The videos on the screen.
10
The analysis.
9
The adverts.
8
Useless. All of it. Completely useless.
7
Everything kept flashing in front of everybody's eyes and none of it went in.
6
And the minutes kept falling.
5
Bom. Bom.
4
Hearts started properly pounding now.
3
Some people had their eyes shut. They could not wait any longer.
2
And after all of it. After every second of the desperation and the frustration and the panic and the waiting.
1
It all came down to four words, spoken in the family area of the Estádio do Dragão, out of the mouth of Olivia Rodrigo.
She had one hand pressed flat over her own mouth and her eyes locked on the mouth of the tunnel, and she said it into her palm without taking her eyes off it.
"They are coming out."
"Ladies and gentlemen. It is finally time."
"The second half of the Champions League final."
"The half in which you will get your Champions League winner."
"Oh, Jim. I cannot control myself. I genuinely cannot."
"HAHAHA. Me neither, Peter. Me neither."
"So let us set it up one more time. Barcelona have battered this Chelsea defence for forty-eight minutes. Twenty shots. Eight corners. The crossbar. Four extraordinary saves from Édouard Mendy."
"And Timo Werner, in the forty-third minute, with the toe of his boot."
"One nil, Chelsea. Forty-five minutes to go, and we find out who lifts it."
"And it looks like no substitutions at all, Peter."
"None at all. Both managers are going again with the same eleven that finished that first half. Tuchel and Koeman have both decided that what they have out there is what they want out there."
"And you can understand it from both of them. Chelsea have got the result they wanted with this shape. And Barcelona have created enough chances in one half to win three football matches."
"And of course, Jim, at the front of it all, that boy."
"Mateo King. Ten goals in this competition, which as it stands has him level at the top of the scoring charts with Erling Haaland."
"Level at the top. And you have to ask the question. Can he get one tonight? Can he get one when his football club needs it more than it has needed anything all season, and take that record for himself?"
In an apartment in Germany, Jude Bellingham threw an arm around Erling Haaland's shoulders and shook him.
Haaland was laughing, trying to get out from under it.
"Dude. DUDE. Free me."
"HAHAHA."
"Get off me, man."
"And what a story it would be. Ronald Koeman, a man half of Catalonia wanted gone in November. Lionel Messi, who nearly left this club in the summer, chasing a promise he made to those supporters three years ago."
"And Thomas Tuchel, Peter. Out of work in January. Standing on a touchline in Porto in May with a one goal lead in a Champions League final."
"Football."
"Football."
"Well. There is no point in waiting any longer, is there?"
A beat.
"Let the second half of the 2020/21 Champions League final begin."
"COME ON! LET'S DO THIS!"
"ONE MORE HALF, BOYS! ONE MORE HALF!"
"BAR-ÇA! BAR-ÇA! BAAAAAR-ÇA!"
"COME ONNNN, BLUESSSSS!"
"FORTY-FIVE MINUTES! FORTY-FIVE!"
"WHO IS HE?" / "MA-TE-O!"
"CAREFREE, WHEREVER WE MAY BE—"
"CHELSEA! CHELSEA! CHELSEA!"
The whole bowl was singing at once, both ends going, neither of them giving an inch, fifty thousand people who had spent fifteen minutes waiting and could not wait any longer.
The players came out of the tunnel.
They came in two streams and every single one of them had his eyes forward and his face set. Nobody was talking now. The energy was different from the first walkout. Sharper. Colder.
On the touchlines, both managers were up at the edge of their areas, clapping their players through.
"Remember what we said! REMEMBER WHAT WE SAID!"
"You can do this. You can do this. All of you."
"FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, BOYS! FORTY-FIVE!"
"Focus. Focus, focus, focus."
They clapped every man past.
And as the last of the players went by, Ronald Koeman and Thomas Tuchel looked up and their eyes met across the twenty yards between them.
For about a second.
Then both of them turned their faces away at exactly the same time and went back to their own pitch.
"Okay, boys. Okay."
The referee was in the centre circle with both arms out, moving people back.
"Same as the first half. Clean game. You talk to me, you do not talk to each other. Out of the circle, please. Out."
Werner stood over the ball with Havertz beside him.
And around them, the whole thing had gone tight.
Mateo was in position with his hands on his hips and his eyes locked forward. Dembélé was crouched slightly, weight on his toes, absolutely still. Pedri had gone completely blank-faced. Piqué was talking to Araújo without looking at him.
Nobody was bouncing. Nobody was shouting.
They were just ready.
The referee looked around the circle one final time, checking, nodding.
"Okay. Okay."
He raised his hand to his mouth, and the whistle went with it.
FWEEEP.
The second half began.
"Oh God. Oh God, please. Please let this have a happy ending."
Isabella King had her hands pressed together in front of her mouth and she was muttering into them, fast, without stopping.
David put a hand flat on her back.
He did not say anything, because he did not have anything to say, and because his own heart was banging so hard against his ribs that he was not entirely sure his voice would work.
He looked away, down the row, further along the family area.
And a little way off, in a different section, Jorge Messi was standing with both hands on the rail, looking down at the pitch.
As if he felt it, the old man turned his head.
And he found David King.
And he smiled, and he lifted one hand off the rail, and he gave him a thumbs up.
David let out a breath he had been holding for about ten minutes.
And he gave one back.
Back on the pitch.
Barcelona came off the whistle like something released.
Werner rolled it back and every single man in a red and blue shirt started running, all of them at once, the whole team pushing thirty yards up the pitch in about four seconds.
Chelsea went backwards immediately. Havertz to Jorginho, Jorginho back to Silva, Silva across to Rüdiger.
And Mateo was already there.
He was on Silva, then on Rüdiger, closing, angling, forcing the ball wide, and he did not stop.
Dembélé was doing the same thing on the other side, cutting off the return pass.
Rüdiger played it left. Chilwell took it.
Mateo turned and went straight at him.
"CHILLY! MAN ON! MAN ON, CHILLY!"
Rüdiger's voice tore across the pitch.
Chilwell had already turned toward his own goal, and now the boy was arriving at his shoulder at full speed, and Rüdiger was screaming at him, and he tried to wriggle out of it. He dropped his shoulder to come inside, then changed his mind halfway through and tried to go back the other way, and his own touch got caught underneath him.
The ball squirted off his shin.
And went out over the touchline.
The whistle went and the linesman's flag came across.
Barcelona throw.
"WHAT A START! WHAT A START TO THE HALF FROM THE YOUNG SUPERSTAR!"
"Look at that, Peter. Look at that. He has chased that ball from the halfway line, all the way across the back of that Chelsea defence, he has not given a single one of them a second to think, and he has forced an England international into a mistake inside fifteen seconds of a second half."
"And Barcelona have the ball back."
Mateo was the one who reached it first.
He picked the ball up off the advertising boards and turned, and Alba was already sprinting over with his hand up.
"HERE. HERE, GIVE IT. BRING IT HERE."
Mateo passed it into his hands and immediately took off inside the pitch, running into space.
Alba took the throw.
And Alba is Alba, so he cheated.
He turned his shoulders toward Mateo, ball above his head, everything about his body saying he was going to throw it down the line, and Chilwell went with him and got tight to Mateo's back.
And Alba spun and threw it the other way.
A long one, flat and fast, over the top of the nearest Chelsea shirt and into Frenkie de Jong.
"And Barcelona are on the move."
De Jong took it on the half-turn, spun out of the pressure in one motion, and swept it across the pitch to the left.
Straight into Ousmane Dembélé.
Dembélé took it and drove.
He came at Rüdiger down the left channel at pace and Rüdiger came out to meet him, and then, at the last possible second, Dembélé slowed the whole thing down.
He rolled the ball under his sole. Once. Twice.
Waiting.
Because he could see them coming. Kanté was arriving. Jorginho was tracking across. And Dembélé did not want to beat Rüdiger. He wanted them all to commit.
And out in the middle, Mateo made his run.
He went hard, straight across the front of the six-yard box, right through the middle of it, dragging everything with him.
And Rüdiger bit.
His head turned. His weight shifted. He went half a yard toward the boy, because after forty-eight minutes of that boy he was never going to do anything else.
And Dembélé went.
He knocked it past Rüdiger's outside shoulder and he was gone, driving toward the edge of the box, and he looked up once and saw the bodies packed in front of him and did not waste a single second on any of it.
"Dembélé takes it—"
He hit it.
Left foot, no backlift, rising off the turf.
Mendy went.
He got both feet off the ground and got up and stretched, and then he stopped himself in mid-air, one glove finding the top of his own crossbar, and he just watched it go.
The ball flew over.
"JUST wide. Just over the bar."
"And Mendy knew. He knew all the way. He was already up and he pulled himself out of it."
"Two minutes. TWO MINUTES into this second half."
"And we are seeing glimpses of the first half all over again."
...