The referee stood with one arm flat out to hold the goal and the other at his earpiece, head cocked, listening to a room of men none of us could see. The purple square hit the big screen.
VAR, they keep spamming this on us which is frustrating if you ask me.
30,000 in red went to stone. They knew that square. They had watched it reach onto this grass and gut them once already. The lines came up. Boutaïb. Level by a bootlace. My heart was up in my throat and I could not have got a word past it.
The referee dropped his arm and jabbed a finger at the centre circle. Goal.
"YESSSSS!" It ripped out of me, and then I lost it altogether. The manager, the grown man, the one who is meant to keep his head, gone.
I was 10 yards down the touchline with both fists over my head before my legs told me they had moved, roaring into a wall of sound, because the machine that robbed us on this grass had just handed it straight back on the same square of Moscow.
