The wait ended the way waiting always ends. All at once, with a knock on a hotel door at 7 in the morning and Nadia's voice coming through the wood. "Bags, gaffer. We fly in an hour."
Sochi came up green and gold under the plane, the Black Sea flat as a plate, and the heat met us on the airbridge like a hand laid on the face. A different Russia to the grey one up north. This one had palm trees along the road and old women selling peaches at the lights.
By Saturday evening the coach was nosing through a tide of people towards a stadium that sat right on the water, white and vast and lit against the dark. The closer we got, the quieter the bus went.
Ziyech stopped talking, which I had not seen happen the whole trip. Sofyan had his headphones on and his eyes shut and his lips moving round words I could not hear.
Emma had said go and win it, and it was still on me the whole way down, tucked under the tracksuit like a vest I would not take off.
