Chapter 891 - 891: Breakthrough

Rafael Benítez put 9 men in a box at Wembley and for 63 minutes it worked.

A line of 5 across the edge of that area, a line of 4 another 4 yards in front of it, and Joselu on his own 40 yards up the pitch with one job, which was to stand near Mamadou Sakho and make him take a touch he did not want. Newcastle had 10 men inside their own half at 12 seconds and they did not come out again.

You cannot go through 9 men in a rectangle 30 yards wide. Round it is a byline with 2 men stood on it. Over it is Jamaal Lascelles and Fabian Schär, who are both 6 foot 2 and who had the whole afternoon to attack air.

Zaha beat Kenedy on 14 and DeAndre Yedlin was already stood on the grass he was running at. Same again on 22, other foot, same outcome.

Bray called routine 4 on 31. Benteke near post, Tarkowski behind him, Eze arriving at the 3 yards nobody covers. It has worked 3 times this season and it won us a match at Southampton.

Newcastle had 2 men on that post before Neves had finished his run up, and Jonjo Shelvey was stood on the exact yard Eberechi Eze arrives at.

Thud.

Lascelles, 40 yards, gone.

Bray stood with his hands flat on the dugout roof.

"He has got that one."

"He has got all of them. Try 6."

He tried 6 on 47. Two men on the post, Shelvey on the spot. He tried the 10th one on 58, the one he has kept in a drawer since June, and there were 2 men on the post and Shelvey was stood on the same yard of grass.

"A fortnight and a lad with a laptop," Bray said.

"12 managers in this league could do that."

"11 of them have not bothered."

63 minutes. I put Michael Olise on for Jarrod Bowen and Ivan Perišić on for Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, and went 4-2-4, because when a man has 9 in the box the only thing left is to put more bodies in front of him than he has behind him and make somebody pick.

Olise is 16 years old. He took his first touch at Wembley Stadium 40 seconds after the board went up and Matt Ritchie went straight through the back of him.

Prrp.

He got up before the whistle finished.

71 minutes. Neves took it off Diamé on halfway and slid it 6 yards into Rodríguez. Rodríguez waited. He has 2 World Cups and he has stood in front of a block like that in 3 countries, and he held that ball long enough for Kenedy to have to decide whether to come, and Kenedy came.

shhk.

Olise took it outside him. Into the corner, with a man on his shoulder and 60,000 people watching, and he went all the way to the byline and never once looked up for the cross.

He hit it back across the face of that goal, flat, no height on it at all.

Christian Benteke got in front of Lascelles and put his head through it from 8 yards.

Boom.

1-0.

RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA.

60,000 people had been holding that for 71 minutes and they let go of it in one piece. Nathan says 4 of the 6 cameras shook.

"AND I'M FEELIN'..."

"PALACE!"

Benteke went straight for Olise and got there before anybody. He did not pick him up and he did not shout in his face. He took hold of him by the back of the neck with one hand and said something short, and then Zaha arrived and put both of them on the floor.

79 minutes. A block that has stood for 79 minutes does not bend, it goes over all at once. Yedlin went 15 yards further up the pitch than he had been all day because Newcastle had to now, and Wilfried Zaha ran into the space he left with nobody within 20 yards of him.

He went past Schär on the outside and hit it across Dúbravka from 14.

Fsst. 2-0.

88 minutes. Olise again, same corner, same left foot, and Ivan Perišić arrived at the back post the way he has arrived at back posts for 12 years.

Crystal Palace 3 Newcastle United 0.

Benítez was outside that tunnel with his coat on before I got there.

"Who is the boy?"

"Michael Olise."

"How old?"

"16."

Rafael Benítez has won a European Cup and he stood in a corridor at Wembley and worked something out on his fingers for about 2 seconds.

"I had 4 meetings about your team," he said. "9 hours of video. I know every set piece you have got and I stopped all of them, and then a boy who was 14 when I took the Newcastle job came on and went outside my left back twice."

"He has been at this club since he was 8."

"Then somebody here did that." He put his hand out. "Tell him it was a good ball. Both of them."

Sky put Neville and Carragher on the touchscreen on the Monday and gave them 11 minutes, and they spent 9 of it on 40 seconds of football.

Neville had the block frozen on the big screen with all 9 of them in it.

"I want people to understand what this is, because it is going to be the story of Crystal Palace's season and it started on Saturday." He drew the rectangle. "That is a perfect defensive block. That is Rafa doing what Rafa does better than anybody alive, and for 63 minutes it is unplayable."

"It is unplayable," Carragher said.

"So how does it go?" Neville pulled the clip on. "Here. Rodríguez holds it. Watch Kenedy. Kenedy has to come, because if he does not come, Rodríguez walks into the box. And the second he comes, there is grass."

"And most kids go inside there." Carragher took the pen off him, which he does about twice a year. "Every kid I ever coached goes inside. Inside is safe, inside is a foul, inside is a corner, and then you are a good boy and you get a pat on the head."

"He went outside."

"He went outside and he went to the line, and then he did the hardest thing on the pitch, which is not looking up." Carragher drew the ball in. "He knew where Benteke was. He has known where Benteke was since he was 12 at that training ground."

Neville let it run and did not talk over it.

"He is 16 years old," he said, "and Gary Neville at 16 was doing nothing like that in front of 60,000 people, and neither were you."

"I was not at 26."

Marcus came into my office on the Friday with a sheet of paper in his hand and did not sit down.

"Bristol City have had 34 requests for scouting seats for Tuesday."

"For a third round tie."

"For a third round tie at Ashton Gate against our second team." He put it down. "22 of the 34 are from outside England. Bayern have asked for 2. Juventus have asked for 3. There are 6 clubs on that sheet who did not have a person at Wembley last Tuesday when we beat Internazionale, and every one of them has got somebody on a plane for Bristol."

"For who?"

"Boss." Marcus does not often look at me like that. "For all of them."

We went to Ashton Gate as holders of a competition the EFL changed in June while the country was watching a World Cup. No extra time in any round now, so a level tie goes straight to penalties, and no seeding either, which is how the holders got sent 120 miles to a club sat 4th in the Championship and in form.

Sarah read both of those in June and put them in a document. I read one and forgot it. Michael Steele read both.

27,000 in there on a Tuesday night, which is every seat they have, and 3,000 of ours in the corner.

I made 9 changes.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Krul. Ward, Dann, Tuanzebe, Mitchell. Rodríguez, Kirby, Eze. Townsend, Blake, Olise. Cartwright among the substitutes.

Lee Johnson had them pressing from the first whistle and they did not stop for 35 minutes, which is the opposite of what Benítez did and about 10 times harder to stand in front of. Famara Diédhiou got across Axel Tuanzebe from a corner on 19 and headed it into the ground and up.

Boom. 0-1.

27,000 people in a stadium that has waited a long while for a night like that, and you could feel it through the concrete of the dugout.

Michael Steele went down the touchline at 23 minutes and said 9 words to Tim Krul through the back of the goal, and Krul got hold of Scott Dann at the next stoppage and said them again.

"There is no extra time. Level at 90 and it is penalties."

Dann went round that back 4 with it inside 2 minutes. You could watch it move. Tuanzebe to Mitchell, Mitchell to Kirby, and then Kirby stopped playing like a boy with 65 minutes and started playing like a boy with 65 minutes and no more after that.

44 minutes. He took it in his own half with Josh Brownhill 2 yards off his shoulder, and every 18-year-old alive plays that square.

shhk.

40 yards, on the half turn, over 3 men, into Andros Townsend's stride. Townsend put it across low and hard and Connor Blake got in front of a centre half 2 stone heavier than him from 6 yards.

Boom. 1-1.

Connor Blake is 19 and he has been the third of 3 number 9s at this club since the day he signed. He did not celebrate that goal. He went into that net after the ball and came out with it under his arm, and Scott Dann had to prise it off him before anybody could restart.

58 minutes. Olise beat Marlon Pack on the outside, came back inside him, beat him again, and put the cross out for a throw.

3,000 Crystal Palace supporters in the away end of Ashton Gate sang his name for 40 seconds for a cross that went out for a throw, and 22 scouts wrote something down.

66 minutes. Ellis Cartwright for Connor Blake.

There were 3 photographers behind that goal who moved when the board went up, and I watched them move.

18 years old, released by this club in June, and 6 days ago his face was on the front of a pink newspaper printed in Milan above the fold.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.