I didn't sleep on Saturday night. Not because I was anxious for the first time in weeks, there was nothing to be anxious about. I didn't sleep because the internet wouldn't let me.
I was lying in bed at midnight, Emma asleep beside me, her body warm against mine, her breathing the slow, steady rhythm of a woman who had screamed herself hoarse during the match and had earned her rest.
She had watched the game at a pub in Crystal Palace with her friends, not at home, not on a screen in the penthouse, but in a proper South London boozer with sawdust on the floor and Palace scarves on the walls and a hundred people crammed into a space designed for fifty.
She had texted me a photo at half-time: her face flushed, a pint in her hand, the pub behind her a blur of red and blue, her green eyes bright with the particular joy of a journalist who had temporarily abandoned all pretence of objectivity. She had captioned it: "Professional neutrality has left the building."
