When the referee finally blew the whistle, the Milan players seemed to lose whatever strength they had left.
One after another, they sank to the grass.
Some lay flat on their backs, staring into the Istanbul night. Others sat with their heads bowed. Nesta remained on his knees for several seconds. Maldini stood still, hands on hips, taking in the scene around him with the weary expression of a man who had lived through enough European nights to understand both sides of them.
A few metres away, New Manchester United's players exploded into celebration.
They hugged whoever happened to be nearest. Teammates came sprinting from the bench. Coaches ran onto the pitch. Players who had watched from the stands hurried down towards the touchline, desperate to join the celebrations.
The supporters were even louder.
Many of them had been there in 1999 when Manchester United completed the treble. They remembered the joy of Barcelona and the feeling that English football had witnessed something historic.
Yet for a large number of those same supporters, this felt different.
More personal.
New Manchester United was not simply a team they had inherited from their parents or chosen as children.
They had watched it come into existence.
They had seen the early matches on small grounds, the promotions, the arguments, the first trophies and every increasingly improbable step upwards.
They had watched a football club grow in front of them.
Now that club was champion of Europe.
The emotional connection was difficult to describe unless you had lived through it.
It felt less like supporting a distant institution and more like watching something you had helped raise finally reach the highest level.
The players understood that too.
They kept returning to the touchline, applauding the stands and answering the songs coming back towards them.
There was almost no separation between team and support in those moments.
They were celebrating the same journey.
Mourinho stood near the technical area with his hands in his pockets, trying unsuccessfully to look composed.
Behind him, the coaching staff had long since abandoned any attempt at restraint.
Some were shouting.
Some were hugging.
A few looked close to tears.
Players who had not made the final squad were making their way down from the stands to join everyone on the pitch.
Drogba had brought his son with him.
Before long, the boy was on his father's back as the Ivorian jogged around the pitch, laughing and waving towards the supporters.
Drogba had not scored in the final.
It did not matter.
His contribution had been obvious.
For most of the match, he had occupied Nesta and Kaladze almost by himself, created space for Kaká and Ronaldo, held possession when New Manchester United needed relief and forced Milan's defence to remain permanently aware of him.
Over the course of the season, he had answered almost every question asked of him.
His finishing had improved.
His link play had improved.
His consistency had improved.
Most importantly, Mourinho's system functioned differently when Drogba led the line.
Whatever New Manchester United paid him, nobody could now argue that he had not earned his place.
Villa's celebration was quieter, at least at first.
His girlfriend had come down towards the pitch, and the moment he saw her, he ran over.
They embraced beneath the stands.
Three years earlier, Villa had arrived in England determined to prove that he could succeed outside Spain.
He had done far more than that.
He had become a major part of one of Europe's best squads.
There were still people outside the club who argued that he deserved to start more often than Drogba.
They pointed to his cleaner technique, sharper finishing and greater mobility.
Villa never viewed the competition that way.
He understood Mourinho's thinking.
Some matches suited Drogba.
Others suited him.
Both mattered.
Tonight had proved it again.
Villa had come off the bench and scored the goal that ended Milan's resistance.
No one could call that a secondary role.
Across the pitch, Kaká, Ronaldo, Messi and Curtis joined several of the younger players near the supporters.
Arms linked around shoulders, they sang the club anthem with the crowd.
The sight was almost absurd when you considered their ages.
They were still young enough to be described as prospects in many clubs.
Yet they were already European champions.
Countless outstanding professionals went through entire careers without ever touching the European Cup.
These players had done it before some of them had even reached their prime.
Kaká eventually spotted Caroline making her way down from the stands.
He broke away from the group and went to meet her.
The others immediately noticed and began laughing.
Caroline reached him, wrapped both arms around his neck and wiped tears from his face.
This had been Kaká's final more than anyone else's.
Two first-half goals had broken Milan open.
His movement had punished the exact weakness Mourinho had spent days preparing to exploit.
Thirty goals across the season had already made it the finest campaign of his career.
Now he had added a Champions League final brace.
Nearby, Curtis found his own girlfriend, a well-known English model, and greeted her with significantly less restraint.
The kiss drew immediate whistles and cheers from nearby teammates and supporters.
Curtis, naturally, played to the audience.
Elsewhere, Terry, Evra, Vidić, Essien and several others were being pulled from one television interview to another.
Most of them struggled to sound coherent.
Some laughed through their answers.
Others cried.
A few began sentences, stopped halfway and simply shook their heads because they could not find the words.
The emotion made sense.
Many of these players had joined New Manchester United before the club carried any real prestige.
Some had been overlooked elsewhere.
Some were still raw.
Some were considered too inexperienced, too unconventional or simply not good enough for the elite.
New Manchester United had given them time.
The coaching staff designed individual development plans around their strengths and weaknesses.
The performance department monitored training loads, recovery and nutrition.
Players were allowed to make mistakes without immediately being discarded.
They were challenged, corrected and protected.
Nobody developed in a straight line.
Terry had made mistakes.
Evra had made mistakes.
Curtis had made mistakes.
Vidić and Essien had too.
Now they stood in Istanbul as European champions.
That journey was why so many of them spoke about the club with more than ordinary professional affection.
Beckham finished one interview and saw Mourinho standing nearby.
Their eyes met.
Both smiled.
Then Beckham walked over and embraced him.
For a moment, neither said much.
Beckham had once wondered whether leaving Manchester United would mark the beginning of the end of his career at the highest level.
Instead, the move had transformed it.
He had won the Ballon d'Or.
He had been named FIFA World Player of the Year.
He had captained New Manchester United.
Now he was European champion again.
His hands were trembling slightly.
Before he could compose himself, he heard a familiar voice.
"Dad!"
His sons came running towards him.
Beckham crouched, caught them and lifted one onto each arm.
The television director immediately found Victoria in the stands, holding their youngest child.
Her eyes were red.
She had clearly been crying.
Fàbregas, Agüero and several of the other young players soon descended on Beckham and the children, joking, laughing and making the boys part of the celebration.
For all the pressure surrounding the final, the pitch now looked less like the end of a professional football match and more like a family gathering.
Mourinho was still watching when Ethan approached from behind.
"Trying to look calm for the cameras?"
Mourinho turned.
A second later, the two men were laughing and embracing.
Their relationship had not begun smoothly.
Years earlier, when Ethan first approached him, the conversations had been difficult enough to become arguments.
Mourinho was ambitious, suspicious and fiercely protective of his authority.
Ethan was equally certain about the kind of club he wanted to build.
Somehow, that friction had become one of the most important partnerships in European football.
Now Mourinho was among the most sought-after managers in the game.
Every major success brought him pride.
It also brought a private recognition that Ethan had been part of the journey from the beginning.
Not as a man seeking credit from the touchline, but as the person who had given Mourinho the structure, resources and freedom to build.
"You should come up with us when they present the trophy," Mourinho said.
Ethan shook his head.
"No."
Mourinho raised an eyebrow.
"This is your club."
"Exactly," Ethan replied. "And tonight belongs to you and the players."
He meant it.
Ethan's investment in New Manchester United could not be measured only in money.
He had built relationships throughout football.
He had fought for the club politically.
He had shaped the academy, the training infrastructure and the commercial structure.
He had been involved in almost every major decision since the beginning.
Yet over the past year he had deliberately reduced his public role.
He still went to Newton Heath almost every day.
He still watched training.
He still attended academy matches and wandered into the indoor pitches whenever something caught his interest.
But increasingly, he operated behind the scenes.
He wanted the club to function without depending on one man for every decision.
That process had already begun.
In internal meetings, Ethan had made it clear that summer recruitment would increasingly be driven by Mourinho, the scouting department and the football staff.
His role would be to approve the broader direction, not personally decide every transfer.
Kolo Touré's situation was an example.
Mourinho's football assessment had determined whether the player could be allowed to leave.
The executives would handle the negotiation.
That was how Ethan wanted New Manchester United to evolve.
A serious institution could not remain permanently dependent on its founder's daily intervention.
There were other consequences to winning the Champions League.
The long-running discussion about G14 membership would inevitably return.
Real Madrid, Milan, Ajax and Bayern had already been sympathetic to New Manchester United's admission.
The club maintained good relationships with Juventus, Inter and Barcelona as well.
The main resistance had come from established English members who questioned whether a club only seven years old had enough history or long-term stability to belong among Europe's traditional powers.
That argument now looked weaker.
In three seasons, New Manchester United had won major domestic honours, consecutive UEFA Cups and now the Champions League.
Whatever anyone thought about the club's age, it was becoming difficult to argue that it lacked influence.
Ethan remained relaxed about the issue.
Some G14 priorities aligned with his own views, particularly the argument that major clubs deserved a stronger collective voice in football governance.
Others did not.
He disliked systems that allowed the largest clubs to weaken their own leagues financially.
Real Madrid and Barcelona taking an overwhelming share of Spanish broadcast revenue, for example, might strengthen those two clubs individually while reducing the competitiveness of La Liga as a whole.
Ethan also understood that G14 had no official governing authority and would eventually have to change if UEFA and the wider European structure chose to confront it.
So if membership came, fine.
If it did not, New Manchester United would survive.
He certainly was not going to spoil the greatest night in the club's history worrying about it.
Mourinho tried once more.
"You really won't come up?"
Ethan smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
"Go and lift your trophy, José."
Then he stepped away from the pitch.
On the way, he passed Kaká and Caroline.
The three embraced.
Ethan looked between them and smiled.
"You two should probably get married."
Kaká laughed.
Caroline did too.
They exchanged the kind of look that suggested the idea was hardly new.
Kaká had bought a home near Ethan's property, and the families had become close. Caroline's family also had business interests that occasionally crossed paths with ventures involving Eva and Victoria, so the relationship extended well beyond football.
Curtis arrived just in time to hear the conversation.
"I agree," he said. "Definitely time."
His girlfriend turned towards him.
"And what about you?"
Curtis did not hesitate.
"I'm far too young to get married."
Everyone laughed.
He quickly added, "But I'll be as loyal to you as I am to the club."
The reaction was immediate.
Ronaldo groaned.
Fàbregas covered his face.
Someone behind them shouted that Curtis had clearly been practising that line all week.
Even Ethan nearly choked laughing.
For all Curtis's reputation as an aggressive, fearless defender, he had apparently developed considerable confidence away from the pitch as well.
Ethan left them to it.
He understood something very clearly as he walked towards the tunnel.
The stage belonged to the players and coaches now.
They had trained through injuries.
They had survived the winter collapse.
They had beaten Barcelona.
They had beaten Juventus.
They had beaten Real Madrid.
They had endured Milan's second-half comeback and found the decisive third goal.
The trophy they were about to lift had been earned on the pitch.
Ethan had built the club.
But they had made it champions of Europe.
And as the noise of the supporters followed him down the tunnel, there was no feeling stronger than pride.
(To be continued.)