Chapter 880 - 880: UCL Draw

"Crystal Palace F.C. ENGLAND."

RRRRRRAAAAAA.

Every man in that room off a plastic chair at once, 4 of Deano's 49 over backwards, and the lad from the kitchen with a tea towel on his shoulder stood in the middle of it shouting at a television nobody could hear.

[MILESTONE UNLOCKED: THE ELITE TABLE.]

[Crystal Palace Football Club has entered the UEFA Champions League group stage.]

I have had that thing in my head since April 2017 and it has never once congratulated me on anything, and it picked a canteen with 51 people in it to start.

I put my back against the wall and looked at the floor for 4 seconds, which is what I do, and Sarah asked me if I was alright, and I said the noise had got me, and she wrote something in that folder and did not ask again.

Crystal Palace had 50 seconds of being in that competition on its own.

Then pot 2.

"Nothing English," Marcus was saying, "nothing English, so it is 1 of 6, and Napoli and Roma cannot both..."

The ball came apart in Marchetti's hands.

"Borussia Dortmund."

I did not look at the screen. I looked at James Rodríguez, and so did about 15 other people, because 40 minutes earlier Michael Olise had asked him what the worst one was and Rodríguez had told the whole table that Dortmund beat you 3-1 and you enjoy it.

He put both hands up, palms out, and did not say anything.

"You said 3-1!"

"I said you would enjoy it," Rodríguez said. "I did not say you would win."

Pot 3.

"PSV Eindhoven."

"That is fine. That is fine, that one is fine."

"Do not say that out loud," Perišić said.

Pot 4.

The last bowl is the one nobody watches properly, because by then a room has already decided how it feels. Marchetti turned the ball, and it came apart, and he unrolled the paper.

"Internazionale Milano."

Ivan Perišić did not move.

He signed for this football club on the 9th of August for 18 million pounds, 21 days ago, after 3 years and 100-odd matches at Inter, and he scored the winner against Liverpool on his debut, and about 20 men turned round in that canteen to look at him and he sat there with his hands on his knees.

Then he laughed. Once, not for long.

"San Siro," he said. "November."

"You alright, Ivan?"

"I am very alright." He was not laughing any more. "I know that dressing room. I know what they say about English teams in that dressing room, and I know exactly what Icardi does when a man he knows is stood in front of him." He looked at me down the length of the table. "Boss. Put me on that pitch."

GROUP B.

CRYSTAL PALACE F.C.

BORUSSIA DORTMUND.

PSV EINDHOVEN.

INTERNAZIONALE MILANO.

[QUEST ISSUED: SURVIVE THE ELITE TABLE.]

[Objective: qualify from Group B for the knockout phase.]

[Reward: ???]

I have never seen 3 question marks off that thing in 15 months. I have seen numbers I did not want and numbers nobody would believe, and I have never once seen it decline to tell me what was in the box.

Sarah was looking at me again. I told her I needed 5 minutes and went and stood by the hot counter with my back to the room until it stopped.

They did the other 6 groups and every man stayed for all of them, because what a room wants after a draw like that is to find out somebody else got worse.

Barcelona took Tottenham, Ajax and Young Boys, and 6 of ours made a noise, because Tottenham are 8 miles up the road.

Liverpool got Paris, Napoli and Red Star. Then Juventus went in with Manchester United, and Cristiano Ronaldo goes back to Old Trafford on the 23rd of October, and this room made more noise about that than it had made about PSV.

Rúben Neves looked at Real Madrid, Roma, CSKA and Plzeň for a long time.

"3 winnable games there. All 3."

"We have got 3 winnable games," Joel Ward said.

Neves did not look away from the screen.

"You have got 1."

Connor Blake, who is 19 and has played 17 minutes of football this season, said "Icardi" into the quiet in the voice of a man reading a hospital letter.

Then Mamadou Sakho stood up.

Sakho wore the armband in Tallinn. He has played in this competition for Paris and for Liverpool and he has been in a semi-final, and he turned and looked at his own dressing room for about 3 seconds before he said anything.

"What is this? What are we doing?" He had his arms out. "3 weeks ago we beat Real Madrid 5-0 and every 1 of you was in that tunnel telling me nobody wants us. Nobody wants to play Palace. And now 3 balls come out and you are all sat down like it is finished."

"Mamadou..."

"No. It is a good draw for them as well." He pointed at the television. "Somebody in Dortmund has just sat down as well. Somebody in Milan is looking at 5-0 on a piece of paper right now. Have some respect for yourselves."

About half of that room got back up.

James Rodríguez waited until Sakho had finished, which is the only reason what he said next did not start a fight.

"He is right, and he is wrong."

"Go on then, James."

"Real Madrid let you play." Rodríguez had not taken his arms off the back of the chair. "That is why 5-0. They give you the ball, they take it, they give it again. Is a game of football, and if you are better that day, 5-0. Dortmund is the same. Dortmund will play you."

He turned his hand over. "Inter will not. Inter at San Siro in November, you will have 34 per cent of the ball and 2 shots, and Icardi will have 3, and you will lose 1-0 and come home and nobody will be able to tell you what went wrong."

"Then we do not lose 1-0."

"Then somebody in this room has to be able to keep the ball with 2 men on him," Rodríguez said, and he did not look at anybody when he said it, which is worse than looking at somebody.

Tk.

Wilfried Zaha had not said a word for 25 minutes. He was against the wall by the hot counter with a plate he had not touched, and when the group tables came up he started doing it out loud, to the wall.

"6 games."

"Minimum."

"6, then a last 16 is 8, then a quarter is..." He stopped and looked at me for the first time all afternoon. "You said 34."

"I did."

"Nah, boss. You sat me down in July and you would not move on it. I asked you 3 times. And now there is 6 more games in this season than there was on Tuesday morning."

"34 is still 34."

"Then tell me which 6."

"Not today."

"When, then?" He put the plate down on the counter behind him without looking at it. "Because I am 25. I have played in this league since I was 17 and I have never played a game in that competition. Not 1. And my..." He stopped. Started again. "I am not finding out which 6 off a team sheet on a Monday with everyone stood round me. I am not doing that."

"You will hear it from me. Before the 18th, in a room with the door shut, and you can argue with me in it."

He looked at me for a second longer than he needed to.

"Alright."

Bzz. Bzz.

Marcus had 3 screens going by 25 past 5 and he read the world out to me off the middle one, because that is what he is for.

"Trending number 1 in the United Kingdom. Trending 4th worldwide, and that is above the draw itself. There is 40,000 tweets a minute with our name in them."

"Saying what?"

"About half of it is people saying Palace will not get a point, and the other half is our own lot saying San Siro away, and there is a bloke in Indonesia who has already made a group graphic."

He scrolled. "Bookmakers have got Dortmund 6 to 4 for the group, us at 15 to 8, Inter 3s, PSV 16s. Nobody has priced us as favourites and nobody has priced us as fourth. We are the argument."

"And on the television?"