Harbinger Of Glory

The Wigan dressing room wasn’t lively but it wasn’t dull either.

It was just the quiet of a group of players who had just spent forty-five minutes running themselves into the ground against the best team in the country and were still level, still breathing, still in it.

Dawson let them have a minute.

Water bottles, towels, the physio moving between the ones who needed attention.

He stood at the front and watched his players and when he felt the room settle he started.

”First half,” he said. ”What did you see?”

Nobody answered immediately.

”I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw a team that gave everything and got something from it.” He paused.

”I also saw a team that switched off for one second and paid for it. One second. That’s Haaland. That’s the level we’re at today.” He looked around. ”So we don’t switch off again okay.”

He moved to the board briefly, pointing out the shape City had moved to, explaining what Stones dropping into the back four meant for the spaces Wigan could exploit in the second half.

”They’ve adjusted to us,” he said. ”So we adjust back. Leo, I want you dropping slightly deeper when we’re out of possession. Don’t chase it. Just let it come.”

Afterwards he looked at Fletcher who now had his boots off.

”And Fletch, you stay high. I want you to use your form to keep Dias honest. We can’t let him get too comfortable because if he does, those long balls are coming.”

Fletcher nodded as Dawson looked around one more time.

”We’ve earned the right to be on this pitch,” he said. ”Now let’s go and show them why.”

Two doors down the corridor, Pep was also locked in with his players.

He spoke like every word had been chosen before it left his mouth.

”The goal we conceded,” he said.

”Look at it.”

His assistant pulled it up on the screen as the sequence unfollowed with Leo receiving, moving, drawing players and McClean cutting back to Leo passing it into the corner of goal.

”This,” Pep said, pointing at the screen, ”is not luck. This is a player who sees the game before it happens. A very rare breed but he’s still not very good. For now that is.”

He let that sit for a second with the players before continuing .

”We have been giving him too much space to think and when he begins to think, he begins to hurt you. So we stop letting him think.”

He then turned to Gundogan.

”I want you on him the moment he touches the ball.”

Gundogan nodded at those words as Pep moved on.

”De Bruyne,” Pep continued.

”Second half is yours. I want you taking more. You’ve been too conservative.” He tapped the screen. ”We are Manchester City. We don’t wait for games to come to us.”

He looked around the room at the assembled talent, at players who between them had won League and cup titles and almost everything the game had to offer.

”We are the better team,” he said simply. ”Go and be the better team.”

Up in the stands during the break, the City supporters were having a conversation that none of them had expected to be having at halftime of an FA Cup final.

”I’ll be honest,” one of them said, leaning toward the man beside him. ”I didn’t think they’d be this good.”

”That kid is something else,” his mate replied, shaking his head. ”The one with the curly hair.”

”Now I understand how United lost,” a third one said from the row behind, and that got a few laughs but also a few nods because it wasn’t entirely a joke.

”He’s too good for Wigan,” someone said.

”You can just see it. He’s too good for this level.”

”Tell Wigan that.”

Down the pitch, Carlo came out of the tunnel and immediately looked back.

Leo was behind him surrounded by teammates, laughing at something Ezra had said, and Carlo watched him for a second longer than he needed to.

Something had been sitting with him for a while now.

A thought that had started small and had spent some months getting louder, and by the time he’d sat down in the dressing room it had become something he couldn’t really argue with anymore.

He faced forward like he’d come to a decision but in the next second, a hand landed on his shoulder.

De Bruyne’s.

”Bernardo tells me you know that kid,” he said, nodding back toward Leo.

”Yeah” Carlo said. ”He’s my friend.”

De Bruyne looked across at Leo once, then back at Carlo.

”He’s good,” he said simply.

Then he dropped his hand and walked ahead, and Carlo stood there for a second wondering what the point of that interaction had been, before deciding De Bruyne probably didn’t need a point, he just said things when he thought them.

The teams walked back out and Wembley gave them everything it had left, which was still considerable.

Both sets of supporters found their voice again, as the players spread across the pitch and found their positions.

”Welcome back to Wembley,” the commentator said on the broadcast.

”One all after a first half that gave us considerably more than most people expected. Wigan level with Manchester City, and the question now is whether they can hold their shape in a second half where City, you’d expect, will come with significantly more purpose.”

Fletcher stood over the ball in the centre circle as the referee raised his whistle and a moment later, Fletcher played it.

Wigan came forward immediately, pressing into City’s half before they could settle, and for the opening minutes of the second half it looked like the same Wigan that had scored in the first.

They began moving quickly, winning second balls, making City play rather than think.

But City adjusted.

Gundogan was everywhere Leo tried to be.

The moment Leo received the ball a sea blue shirt was on him, and the moment he tried to move into space the space was already occupied.

It was suffocating and deliberate and Leo felt it getting tighter with every passing minute with the commentary noting it even from the gantry.

”City have clearly set up to nullify Calderon in this second half,” the co-commentator observed.

”And it’s working. We haven’t seen him influence the game the way he did in the first forty-five.”

But those who had watched Leo all season knew what this meant.

They’d seen it against Luton, against Stoke, against United at Wembley.

When the obvious routes closed he found others, smaller ones, less visible ones, and he kept finding them now.

A pass into a pocket of space that opened for exactly one second before closing again.

A touch that bought Bennet two extra yards on the overlap.

It was nothing spectacular but it was constant, quiet, and became a persistent pressure on a defence that was working very hard to keep him out.

”He’s not doing the flashy things,” the co-commentator said.

”But he’s still there. Still probing. Still making City’s midfield shape work overtime.”

City also threatened and one such situation was when Carlo received it on the left and Darikwa was with him immediately, tight, giving him nothing.

Carlo feinted left and got nothing, feinted right and Darikwa didn’t bite, and eventually Carlo slipped it back to De Bruyne who stepped back to receive it instead of meeting it.

To him, his most recent scan had found him free of any obstruction but Leo read stepped across and intercepted, taking the ball cleanly off De Bruyne’s foot, and Wembley reacted before he’d even started moving.

He went.

The run had everything in it.

Control and pace and the kind of body movement that makes defenders feel like they’re always half a step behind.

The commentary followed him urgently as he carved through the City midfield and into the final third with a touch, then two as Rodri slid and missed while Stones chased across.

But Leo went past him too, and now it was Dias.

One on one.

The best centre back in England waiting for him.

Leo nudged it right, and with it came a reaction from Ruben who stepped across but that was it.

Leo slid it through Dias’s legs and in the next moment, the ball curled into Fletcher’s path and the whole stadium rose as one, ninety thousand people on their feet, the commentary almost incoherent with the excitement of it.

” WIGAN FOR THE FA CUP. FLETCHER. IT’S THERE FOR HIM??”

Fletcher despite little pressure, chipped it.

Over Ortega.

Over the line.

But then into the post.

The sound that came from the Wigan end was something between agony and disbelief, hands sliding over heads, faces buried in scarves, the specific misery of a chance that should have been a goal and wasn’t.

”How,” the commentator said. ”How has Fletcher not scored there. That’s a poor miss.”

But before the question could be properly answered City were moving.

Fast.

It was a single touch from Walker that began it, then another as the crowd saw the ball moving through midfield with the crisp efficiency of a team that had decided enough was enough.

Rodri to Gundogan.

Gundogan to Bernardo.

Back inside to De Bruyne arriving at the edge of the arc.

Leo saw the moment De Bruyne touched the ball.

He didn’t know how he knew but he knew.

The ball was as good as a goal.

De Bruyne hit it and the ball left his foot like it had somewhere urgent to be, dipping late, curling away from Amos’s dive and kissing the inside of the post before going in.

The net moved gently behind it like the goal itself was surprised by how good the strike had been.

De Bruyne on the other hand, turned away before it had even crossed the line.

”GOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL”

”DE BRUYNE. TWO ONE. AND THAT IS WORLD CLASS. THAT IS SIMPLY WORLD CLASS.”

The City end detonated.

”From the miss to this,” the co-commentator said, still processing it.

”From Fletcher hitting the post to De Bruyne hitting the net from twenty-five yards. Wigan are behind now and the clock is not their friend. They have a mountain to climb and fifteen minutes to climb it.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​