Chapter 932 - 932: There Is No Second First Time II

The Unity whistled us for a full minute. Then the bedsheet came down, and they sang their own team off the pitch. Marco Reus stood facing them, holding his captain's armband.

Lucien Favre waited by the dugout, hands deep in his coat pockets. He shook my hand.

"In October I chose your right side," he said. "Tonight I chose your left."

"And?"

"I have no more sides."

Steve Parish came down the steps from the directors' box, his tie pulled loose. Dougie Freedman followed a yard behind.

"Dougie. Tell him."

"I told you in August," Dougie said, keeping his hands in his coat. "I said, win the group, and Steve rebuilds a stand without borrowing money to do it. And I said I was keeping quiet about it until December."

"It is December," Steve said. "Say it again."

"Steve rebuilds a stand," Dougie Freedman said, "and does not borrow to do it."

Steve Parish let out 1 sharp laugh. He looked up at the emptying top tier, and the smile vanished.

"I am ringing the architect at 8 o'clock. I will skip hello. I will say..." He trailed off. "Well. I have until 8 to think of something."

20 minutes later, the stadium lights dropped to half power. The ground staff spiked the pitch with forks. Wilfried Zaha stood alone in the centre circle in his club suit, hands in his pockets, staring at the grass. I left him there.

Michael Cooke stood in the corridor outside our dressing room, gripping his cap. Dion stood next to him, drained of all colour. Between them stood Mrs Asare, buttoned to the neck in a heavy coat. She had lost her voice.

"She asked me in the car who explains the match to you, with no commentary," Cooke said. "I said nobody does. She said, then I will."

"He put them down," she croaked. "Your right back."

"He is at left back, Mum," Dion said, staring at the floor.

"I do not care where he is. He put his heels down and I told him."

"She shouted heels," Dion said. "For 90 minutes, at Achraf Hakimi. I heard her from the players' seats, gaffer. Nya asked me who the woman was, and I said I did not know."

"You said what?"

"I said I did not know, Mum. I am sorry."

The dressing room door swung open. Hakimi stepped out with a towel round his neck. He stopped and pointed at her.

"You. Behind me, the first half." He pointed at his own boots. "You are the heels."

"You put them down."

"1 time."

"Twice. After half time when the little 1 came inside, and once before it when the ball was nowhere near you." She held up 2 fingers. "I counted."

Hakimi looked at Dion.

"It was twice," Dion confirmed.

Hakimi placed a hand on his chest and gave her a short, deliberate bow. "Saturday you come again. I will put them down 0 times."

"I have work Saturday."

"You swap," Dion said.

His mother turned her whole body to stare at him. Michael Cooke found something to look at on the inside of his cap.

"What did you make of the ground?" I asked her.

"It is smaller than on the television, and nobody tells you anything." She fastened the top button of her coat. "So I told them. Row 30 and row 32 as well. A man in front asked me to stop at 20 past 8. By 9 o'clock, he was asking me which 1 was Kovačić."

"And the match?"

"The big 1 at the front never moved, and 3 of them failed to get round him. The 1 who did the fingers should do that every week." She paused. "Their man in the long coat never sat down once. I liked him. I told the linesman on my side to go home, and he looked straight at me, so he heard."

"And the man on your left? Clive?"

"He started on 1990 before I sat down." She pulled her gloves on. "I told him there was a football match on, and he could tell me at half time. He told me at half time. It took the whole 15 minutes, and he was still stuck at 2-2."

Bzzt.

EMMA. 22:58. Dad is awake. Dad is on a great deal of morphine. Dad has received 9 messages from a man called Clive and is forwarding me every single 1.

"There is a WOMAN in your seat."

"She has told the linesman to go home."

"She knows more than me. Do not tell anybody I said that."

"Where did Danny find her?"

He says to tell you the seat was loud. He says it twice. He is asleep now.

Leicester came to Wembley on Saturday. It was our 5th match in 15 days, and for 70 minutes the team played like it. Jamie Vardy ran at Scott Dann and Mamadou Sakho until both defenders stood with their hands on their knees. Ben Chilwell played the full 90 against the club that trained him from the age of 12. At the final whistle, he stayed on the touchline talking to their kit man.

Connor Blake broke the deadlock on 77 minutes. Jack Grealish dragged 2 defenders away and slipped a pass across the box. Blake smashed it home from 9 yards out, low and hard, then stood with both hands on top of his head.

Crystal Palace 1, Leicester City 0.

Manchester City had beaten Everton to reach 48 points. By 5 o'clock, we had 47.

She sat in row 31 again. Dion told me on Monday. Clive bought her a match programme. Achraf Hakimi put his heels down 0 times, and she shouted at him anyway.

The draw for the last 16 took place at 11 o'clock that Monday in Switzerland. Steve Parish and Dougie Freedman sat in the auditorium. The squad gathered in the canteen round the big television, with Deano carrying in extra chairs.

I walked down the drive to the barrier.

Ron stood in the gatehouse door holding his flask.

"You are missing it, gaffer."

"Nathan placed 2 cameras in the canteen, and both point at my chair. Do you have a radio?"

He looked at me over his glasses. Then he stepped aside.

I stepped into the gatehouse for the first time. The space measured 6 feet by 5. A shelf, a kettle, a drawer, a single chair, and an electric heater with 1 bar. 2 plastic wallets hung pinned above the shelf. The first held a photograph of an empty tunnel. The second held a cream card with gold edges, with his name on it, with a W.

"Sit down."

"It is your chair, Ron."

"I have sat in it since 1999. Sit down."

I sat. He poured tea into the lid of the flask and handed it to me. It tasted like metal and plastic.

Click. He switched on the radio. It was the size of a brick, with a wire coat hanger for an aerial.

I placed Marcus's sheet on the shelf. As group winners, we sat in the seeded pot, to play 1 of the 8 runners-up, away first and at Wembley second. We could not draw an English club, and we could not draw Dortmund. That left 5.

Atlético Madrid. Schalke. Ajax. Lyon. Roma.

Ron traced the list with his finger.

"Which do you want?"

"Marcus wants Schalke."

"I did not ask what Marcus wants."

"I do not mind. The second leg is here."

"When I carried a whistle, the cup draw played on the wireless during Monday dinner time," Ron said. "A man with a velvet bag. You stopped work for it."

"Did they ever send you anywhere good?"

"Darlington. Twice." He picked up a pencil from the shelf. "It was freezing both times."

Bzzt.

DOUGIE. 10:54. Waistcoat is on. Steve is wearing navy. Pérez sits 2 rows in front of us. He turned round once and looked at Steve, and Steve waved.

I showed the screen to Ron. He read it at arm's length.

"He waved," Ron said.

"He waved."

On the radio, a man explained the seeding pots in a hushed voice, like a snooker commentator. Behind him, a room full of people in suits kept silent.

"...and so to the first of the runners-up."

A long stretch of quiet. The rustle of paper.

"Schalke 04."

Ron pressed the point of his pencil against the second name on the sheet and held it there.

"Schalke 04 will play..."

I gripped the flask lid with both hands. Up at the main building, someone opened a window in the canteen. I could hear 30 footballers keeping silent.

"...Manchester City."

Ron drew a hard line through Schalke.

"Marcus will be upset," he said.

"4 left."

"4 left." He blew on his fingers. The heater did nothing for the temperature in the room. "Your lot are up there with a big television, and you sit in a shed with me."

"It is warmer in here."

"It is not," Ron said.

"The second of the runners-up."

More rustling paper. Someone in the Swiss auditorium coughed.

"Atlético de Madrid."

Ron moved his pencil to the top of the sheet.

Diego Simeone. Atlético had reached 2 of the last 5 finals, and the final in June would take place in their own stadium. I wanted them.

"Atlético de Madrid will play..."

Ron reached over without looking and turned the volume dial up.