Harbinger Of Glory

The following day came as quickly as it had passed, with the players arriving ahead of schedule for some breakfast.

An hour later, they found the bus already idling outside the complex with the liaison standing beside it.

In her hand was a clipboard, and as the players approached, she started to account for them.

”Passports out when you get on,” she said to each player as they came through.

”I need to see them before you sit down, not at the gate.”

Most of the squad complied without comment, producing passports from jacket pockets and bag fronts with varying degrees of organisation.

Seriki had his in a small leather holder.

McClean’s looked like it had been through a washing machine at some point in its life, but was technically valid, while Reyes, as always, produced his with the particular flourish of a man presenting credentials.

”We are flying first class, right?” he asked the liaison right as he took a single step onto the stairs of the bus.

The liaison just glanced at him before knocking on the side of the bus once, and a moment after that, a hand shot out from inside and grabbed Reyes in.

Jake was the last one on the bus.

He came through the door, looked around at the seated squad, and then began patting his pockets with the slow escalating energy of someone who was either genuinely worried.

The liaison looked up from his clipboard, raising a brow at Jake’s progressively sharp movements.

”Passport,” she said.

”Yeah,” Jake said, still patting. ”One second.”

The bus went quiet as Leo turned around in his seat and Fletcher looked up from his phone.

Even Reyes, who had been examining his own reflection in the window, turned around.

”Jake,” the liaison said.

”I’m looking, I’m—” Jake checked his jacket pocket again, then his bag, then his jacket pocket once more, and the silence on the bus had reached the particular quality of thirty people collectively holding something.

Then he pulled it out of his back pocket.

”There it is,” he said, holding it up.

The bus exhaled as one as he handed over the passport to the liaison, who now wanted to check if the passport even belonged to Jake, but it checked out.

”You are not funny,” Leo said, turning back around.

”I wasn’t doing anything,” Jake said as he made his way down the aisle.

”It was genuinely in my back pocket.”

”Sit down, Jake,” three people said at roughly the same time as he sat down beside Ezra, who had not reacted at any point during the episode because he had already seen Jake pack it when they were coming.

”You knew it was there the whole time,” Ezra said without looking up.

Jake, hearing that, said nothing and just smiled as the bus pulled out of the complex.

They got to the Manchester/Ringway Airport just over 27 minutes later after meeting little to no traffic, which was something that didn’t happen every day, but they were glad it did on their day.

The liaison had done enough groundwork that the group moved through check-in and security with the efficiency of a process that had been thought about in advance.

Boarding passes handled, bags tagged, the particular choreography of moving a squad of professional footballers through a public airport without it becoming an event.

It almost worked entirely.

Somewhere between security and the gate, a group of travelling Wigan supporters spotted them, and for about four minutes, the departures terminal became something else entirely before the liaison navigated the group forward once more after talking for a few minutes with the fans.

Reyes, to nobody’s surprise, was the last to leave the supporters.

As his mates began leaving, he was just finishing a conversation and signing something which was rare for him.

And just as it seemed like he would be left behind, he caught up to the group as they reached the gate with the timing of someone who knew exactly how much he could get away with.

Dawson looked at him as the latter also looked back.

”I’m here,” he said after Dawson’s stare began to feel slightly uncomfortable for him.

The flight was two hours, which was enough time for the squad to settle.

Some slept while some idled.

And others, or just Jake, spent forty minutes idolising the Champions League medal Carlo had said he would bring.

”You have a Champions League medal,” Jake said, ”and you haven’t set up a shrine for it yet?”

”I already have someone I worship,” Carlo said with a wry expression, mainly at Jake’s overreaction, before leaving the medal to the latter for the entirety of the flight.

Dortmund received them with the particular grey courtesy of a German afternoon that hadn’t decided yet whether it was going to be overcast or something worse.

When they got down, a coach was ready to take them to their accommodation, and throughout the drive, most of the players had their eyes at the window, watching the scenery change every 2 minutes.

The hotel they got was a very good one.

The staff had clearly been briefed because the check-in process moved without friction as key cards were produced while bags were taken up before most of the squad had finished looking around.

Dawson waited until the last of the key cards had been handed out and then gathered the group in the lobby without raising his voice.

”Listen,” he said simply.

”I won’t tell you what to do with your time, but whatever you do, we’re meeting down here at half seven for dinner, and I want everyone there.”

”If you have any questions, ask Miss Lisa.”

”That’s it.”

After his speech, the group began to disperse toward the lifts as the lobby broke into the low murmur of people finding their bearings in a new place.

”What is the name of the Dortmund stadium, by the way?” Jake asked as he slung the side bag over his shoulder.

”Signal Iduna,” Leo muttered as they stood in the lift.

”No, not that one,” Jake shook his head, seemingly in thought.

The lift went silent for a while before Ezra sighed.

”The Westfalenstadion,” he said, to which Jake shook his head again.

”Then which one do you mean, because those are the only two names as far as I know,” Carlo muttered with his eyebrow raised, before Jake suddenly interrupted.

”Aha,” he said, drawing the attention of the other three in the lift with him.

”YELLOW WALL!”

At that, Leo, Ezra and Carlo all stared silently at Jake, wondering how he’d made it so far in life without dying with his kind of intelligence.