Chapter 954 - 954: The Empty Line II

On Wednesday morning Ron put the barrier up and held it up while he talked.

"I ring the 5 of them at 3," he said. "Same as every Wednesday. Then I have the wireless on in there until it finishes, however long that is." He looked at the car behind me. "Semenyo will want to know who is taking the penalties. What do I tell him?"

I told him to tell Semenyo to listen.

"That is what I told him last week," Ron said, "when it was who plays left back."

We left Beckenham on the coach at 4. By the time we came off the North Circular the roads round the stadium were full of people in red and blue walking in the cold with their hands in their sleeves.

On the corner of Olympic Way a man had half and half scarves on a pole, City on 1 side, us on the other.

Emma's show finished at 6. She had told me she would come straight from the studio. I had told her that on a match night at Wembley the North Circular stops moving at 5, and she had said she knew that, thank you, and that she was coming anyway.

Kirby was in the dressing room before us. Rebecca had brought him in the van with Deano and the kit, and he was sat in his own place with his right foot up on a plastic chair in a blue flip-flop, and his sock and trainer on the left.

Every player who came in looked at the foot. Grealish knelt down and looked at it closely and told him it was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. Kirby told him to get away from it, Grandad.

McArthur sat down next to him. Kirby took his foot off the chair, leaned over and said something into his ear for about a minute, pointing at the floor with 2 fingers as if the floor were the pitch. McArthur listened without moving. Then he nodded once and started on his laces.

Deano went round the room with the shirts the way he does every match, 1 on each peg, folded, the number facing out. He hung Mitchell's and Blake's exactly the same as everybody else's and moved on without stopping.

I said very little. City would come at us for 90 minutes. A draw on the night was ours. A 1-0 to City was penalties. I told them not to count the minutes, because Sarah would count them for them.

Mitchell and Blake asked me for nothing, and they got nothing from me but their names on the sheet.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Krul. Wan-Bissaka, Konaté, Sakho, Mitchell. McArthur, Neves, Olise. Bowen, Blake, Eze.

Bench: Hennessey, Chilwell, Dann, Højbjerg, Grealish, Cartwright, Asare.

MANCHESTER CITY: Ederson. Walker, Otamendi, Laporte, Danilo. Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Gündoğan. Sterling, Agüero, Sané.

The same 11 as Sunday.

In the warm up I looked for Row 31 in Block 103, the way you look for your own window from a train. I found Emma's father first, because he was the only person in that row standing up with a crutch.

Clive was next to him, talking. On the other side of Clive, in a red hat with a bobble on it, Mrs Asare sat with her bag on her knees and watched Dion do his stretches in front of our bench as though nobody else was out there.

Kirby was in the front row behind our bench, where Rebecca could see him without turning round, with the flip-flop up on the wall in front of him.

Prrrp.

City had the ball for the first 20 minutes, and I let them have it.

We sat in 2 lines of 4 with Blake and Olise in front. Nobody pressed Ederson. Nobody went to Laporte.

When Fernandinho had it, McArthur stood 2 yards off him and let him pass it sideways, and when Gündoğan came into the space between Neves and Olise, McArthur was already there before the ball was, every time, the way Kirby had pointed at the dressing room floor.

On 19 City had their first corner. De Bruyne took it, an inswinger with pace on it towards the penalty spot, with Otamendi and Laporte and Agüero all moving at it.

Krul came for it.

He came through Otamendi and through his own man, Sakho, and took it at the highest point with both hands. He landed with City shirts all round him and held it into his chest. Then he walked to the edge of the box and rolled it out to Mitchell as if there was nobody else in the stadium.

Thud.

On the bench Michael Steele wrote something on his pad and did not look up.

City had 4 more corners in that half. De Bruyne took every 1 of them short.

On 41 we had our chance. Eze got it off Walker on the halfway line and ran with it, Blake went down the middle, and Eze put it into his path from 30 yards. Blake hit it first time. Ederson came out and made himself big and it hit him on the chest and bounced up and over the bar.

Thock.

Blake stood with his hands on his head. Our end sang his name until the corner was taken, and kept singing it after the corner came to nothing.

Prrrp. Prrrp.

At half time Marcus did 2 minutes on the board. Sterling had swapped wings with Sané on 30 and it had not changed anything, he said, and if it stayed like this City would put a third forward on before the hour and take Fernandinho off. He was right about Fernandinho. I found that out 13 minutes later.

Kirby had his foot up and his mouth shut. When McArthur came in, Kirby held his hand up without a word, and McArthur slapped it on the way past.

I did not know Emma was in the building until afterwards. She came up the steps into Block 103 during half time with her coat open and her bag in her hand.

There was no seat for her, so she sat on the step at the end of Row 31 next to her father's crutch. The steward on that gangway let her stay there.

Prrrp.

City came out like a team that had been shouted at.

David Silva came on for Fernandinho on 58. With Silva on, City stopped passing round us and started passing through us, and for 10 minutes our 2 lines of 4 became 1 line of 8, and the ball kept coming back to the edge of our box no matter how far we kicked it.

On 67 Mahrez came on for Sané.

He went to the right, to Mitchell's side. The first time he got it he stood still with his foot on it and looked at Mitchell. Mitchell stood still and looked back at him. Mahrez went inside, and Mitchell went with him on his feet, and Mahrez gave it back to Walker.

On the bench Ben Chilwell did not lean forward. He sat where he was with his hands in his coat and watched Mitchell do it on his own.

On 70 Rebecca stood up with her card. Olise was looking at the bench before she had got it the right way round.

Grealish went on. Olise came off, dropped onto the last seat of the bench right under Kirby's flip-flop and put his tracksuit top over his head. Kirby leaned down over the wall and patted the top of it.

On 75 Dion stood up at the far end of the bench and looked at me, and then went and ran up and down the warm up strip with his knees high, without being told to.

Sarah leaned in.

"Dion?"

I said no.

She waited. I said we were winning, and I did not want a winger, I wanted the 11 we had.

She sat back. I could feel her looking at the side of my face.

Was that true? Did I want the 11 we had, or did I want the clock to go faster? I could not tell.

In Moscow, in the 91st minute, I had sent Benatia and Saïss up for a corner with both arms because a draw was no good to me. Here I was with my hands in my coat, telling a lad who had beaten Aaron Wan-Bissaka twice on Friday to sit down. Was that managing? Or was I hiding?

Dion sat down.

On 79 City scored.

It was a good goal.

Silva gave it to De Bruyne wide on the right, and De Bruyne crossed it with the outside of his foot before Mitchell's side of the pitch had a chance to get set.

Agüero went across Konaté at the near post. Konaté had him, and was touching him, and Agüero still got there first and glanced it back across Krul into the far corner.

Swsh.

The City end went up behind the goal. Agüero ran to them with his finger to his lips, and the noise came round the bowl of that stadium and pushed down on top of us.

Krul got up, picked the ball out of his own net and kicked it to the halfway line.

It was 2-2 on the tie. 11 minutes left, and 1 more goal from either side would end it. No more goals meant penalties.

Bray was up off the bench. He looked at me.

Sarah was doing the same thing.

I sat down.

I had watched Burton from the bench, at 5-1, when it proved nothing. I sat on it now with my coat zipped to my chin and my feet flat on the floor, and I kept my mouth shut, and I let 11 minutes of a semi-final happen to us.

On 84 Guardiola took Danilo off and put Jesus on, 3 at the back, everybody else forward. Rebecca came down the bench to me on 86 and told me McArthur had cramp in both calves and had been running on it for 5 minutes.

Højbjerg went on. McArthur came off limping past the front row, and Kirby stood up on his good foot, leaned over the wall and got hold of McArthur's face in both hands as he went by. Then he sat down again, because Rebecca was looking at him.

On 88 Agüero turned Sakho 20 yards out and drove it at the bottom corner, to Krul's left. Krul got down and turned it wide with his fingertips.

Thump.

I did not stand up.

The board went up for 4.

In the third of them we had a corner. Eze ran to take it.

Konaté came jogging up from the halfway line towards the box and looked across at the bench as he came. A goal from that corner and we were at Wembley in February. He knew it, everybody in the stadium knew it, and he was waiting to see my arm.

Bray was already on his feet beside me with his laminated card.

I stood up.

"Ibou," I shouted, at him, in French. "Reste. Reste là."

He stopped dead on the halfway line. Sakho stopped beside him. Steam was coming off both of them under the lights.

Bray sat down without a word.

Eze curled it in. Ederson punched it to the edge of the box. Højbjerg headed it straight back in, Laporte headed it out, and the whistle went.

Prrrp. Prrrp. Prrrrp.