Chapter 959 - 959: The Middle Of The Wall I

On Friday morning Marcus was up a stepladder in the canteen with a mouthful of drawing pins.

He had taken City down. All of it, the 2 legs, the heat maps, the photograph of Mahrez's hip that Chilwell had circled in red biro. It was in a pile on the table under the ladder with an elastic band round it.

He came down, moved the ladder 2 feet along and went back up.

Clack.

The Atlético sheets had been at the far end of the wall since the middle of January, next to the fire door. He was moving them into the middle, 1 sheet at a time, and every time he pressed a pin in he stepped back down the ladder to look at it from the floor.

Tk.

I asked him if he wanted a hand.

He took the pins out of his mouth.

"No," he said. "Thank you. They go in an order."

The order was Oblak first, top left, with every penalty he had faced since August. Then the back 4. Then the 2 in the middle.

Then Griezmann on his own sheet, in the centre, with more red pen on him than on the other 10 together. At the bottom right Marcus had put a blank sheet with 1 word on it in capitals.

MORATA?

"Chelsea loaned him to them on Monday," Marcus said. "I do not know where he plays yet. Nobody does. They might not either."

19 days.

Sarah had the travel on 1 side of A4 by 10. Fly on the Tuesday, the 19th. Train at the stadium that night, the way UEFA lets the away team. Hotel she would not tell anybody the name of until the morning we left, not even me, and she said so to my face so that I would not ask.

Kovačić read it over her shoulder in the corridor and pointed at the Tuesday.

"The training at the stadium. They will be there. Some of them. They come and watch through the fence and they shout." He tapped the paper. "I played there once. The old ground, by the river. We won 3-0 and they still shouted at me in the car park after."

Sarah told him it was the new ground. Kovačić said it was the same people.

James Rodríguez was behind him in his slippers with a coffee. He had played for the other club in that city for 3 years, and he knew exactly what Kovačić meant, and he lifted his coffee to me as if we were in a pub.

"They will whistle us both," James said. "Mateo and me. 90 minutes. Is good. When they whistle us they are not whistling the boys."

Then he went to find his boots.

On Saturday we went to Newcastle.

Rafa Benítez had beaten City on the Tuesday night, and St James' Park had not forgotten it by Saturday. You could hear it in the warm up. Every time a Newcastle player hit the target in the warm up, the Gallowgate End cheered it.

Our lot were up in the top of the stand at the Leazes End, so high up that from the bench they looked like a red and blue rail along the roof. They were singing before we came out.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Wan-Bissaka, Konaté, Sakho, Hakimi. Neves. Townsend, Kovačić, Rodríguez, Zaha. Benteke.

Bench: Krul, Dann, Chilwell, Højbjerg, Eze, Perišić, Pato.

NEWCASTLE UNITED: Dubravka. Yedlin, Schär, Lascelles, Lejeune, Ritchie. Pérez, Longstaff, Hayden, Atsu. Rondón.

Benítez had 5 at the back. Yedlin and Ritchie were wing backs on paper, and full backs in practice, because neither of them went over halfway for the first 20 minutes.

Their new signing was in the stand. Miguel Almirón had signed on the Thursday and was waiting on his work permit, and he sat up in the directors' box in a black coat with his hands in his lap and watched the club he had just joined wait for us to come to them.

Prrrp.

We had the ball. All of it.

Neves had it. He gave it to Kovačić, who gave it to Rodríguez, who gave it back.

10 passes. 20. Newcastle stood in 2 lines in front of their own box, 5 and 4, with Rondón on his own up the middle, and every time we went into the space in front of the 5 it closed like a door.

I knew what I was looking at.

It was Madrid, 18 days early.

Kovačić knew it as well. On 25 minutes he came over to the touchline to take a throw in, and he said 1 word to me without turning his head.

"Patience."

That was the warning he gave me in December, almost to the word. When they keep you outside, you get angry. That is when they score.

On 34 we got angry.

Townsend lost it on the edge of their box trying a third stepover when 2 had not worked. Hayden took it off him and gave it to Pérez, and Pérez ran. We had 7 men in their half and 3 in ours.

Pérez went 40 yards with Neves chasing him, and when Sakho came across he put it wide to Ritchie.

Ritchie crossed it first time.

Rondón was between Konaté and Wan-Bissaka, and he is a big man and he used all of it. He got his head on it 8 yards out and put it down and in off Pope's left hand.

Thud.

The Gallowgate End came down the steps at the front and the whole ground stood up.

On the bench Sarah wrote something in her book. She did not need to tell me what. 7 in their half, 3 in ours.

At half time I did not shout at anybody. I told Townsend he could have 1 stepover and then he had to pass it, and he laughed, a short hard laugh through his nose, and nodded.

I told Wan-Bissaka and Hakimi to stop waiting for the wing backs to come to them, because they were not coming, and to go and stand next to Benteke if they had to.

Neves asked for a minute with the 4 behind him, and I gave it to him. I watched him take Sakho and Konaté to the corner by the showers and talk to them with his hands, the 3 of them close together. I could not hear it. I did not need to.

Eze went on for Townsend on 60. Perišić went on for Rodríguez on 70, green on Rebecca's sheet.

On 81 Hakimi went down the left on his own, past Ritchie, past Longstaff who came to help, to the byline. He looked up and pulled it back to the penalty spot.

Benteke dummied it.

He let it run through his legs to Zaha, who was arriving behind him from the left with nobody near him. Zaha hit it first time with his right foot, low, past Dubravka's legs.

Swsh.

The rail along the roof at the Leazes End went up and stayed up. I could hear them from the halfway line, a long way below them.

"GLAD ALL OVER! GLAD ALL OVER!"

Zaha did not run to them. He picked the ball out of the net and ran it back to the centre spot himself, and put it down, and stood on it.

Newcastle brought Kenedy on for Atsu on 82 and Barreca for Ritchie on 86, and pushed us back for the last 5 minutes. Pope caught 2 corners and punched a third. We did not get another chance.

Prrrp. Prrrp. Prrrrp.

Newcastle United 1, Crystal Palace 1.

Benítez shook my hand on the line. He had a notebook in his other hand, a small black 1, and he tapped it on my arm.

"Atlético," he said. "You know what they do?"

I said I knew.

"They do this. What we do today. But better." He nodded at his notebook as if the rest was written in it. "Good luck in Madrid."

25 played, 0 lost. 65 points.

On the coach home Zaha sat across the aisle from me with his headphones round his neck. Somewhere past Durham he leaned across.

"I could have gone to them," he said. "The goal. I wanted to."

I asked him why he had not.

"Because it was 1-1, gaffer." He put his headphones back on. "You do not go up the stairs at 1-1."

Pato rang Rodrygo on the Sunday, the same as every Sunday, and came to find me on Monday morning in the gym with his phone in his hand.

Rodrygo had been sent off on the Friday night in Chile, in the last minutes against Venezuela, for a tackle with both feet off the ground. Brazil had lost. He had put an apology on his phone for everybody to see before he went to bed.

"He cries on the phone," Pato said. "He says sorry, he says sorry, he says sorry. I tell him, stop saying sorry to me. You say sorry to the boy you kick." He put the phone away. "He did. He says the boy says OK."

He was banned for the next match, against Uruguay.

Atlético lost at Betis on the Sunday night, 1-0.

Marcus watched it in the analysis room and was waiting for me at 8 on Monday with 3 lines on a sheet of paper. Filipe Luís had handled a ball in his own box trying to chest it down. Canales had scored the penalty after 65 minutes.

Atlético had 13 shots and 1 of them on target. It was their first league defeat since the 1st of September. Morata had played his first match for them.

"1 match," Marcus said. "It is not enough. I am leaving the question mark."

City had beaten Arsenal 3-1 on the Sunday afternoon, with Agüero scoring all 3.

On Monday afternoon Michael Steele had Pope in goal on pitch 3 and Hennessey on the edge of the box hitting crosses, and Steele stood on the 6-yard line with his back to both of them and talked about Diego Godín.

I stood at the fence and listened for a while. Steele had Godín for the far post and Giménez for the near, written on the back of a laminated card he did not need to read.

"He blocks you," Steele said. "Godín. He does not jump with you. He stands where you want to go and you run into him. Then the referee looks at you."

Pope said that was a foul.

"Maybe. You will not get it." Steele turned round. "So you do not run into him. You go round."

Pope went round him 20 times that afternoon. Hennessey played Godín and stood where Pope wanted to go. On the 20th time Pope went round him and caught it without touching him, and Steele said "Good" and went in.

Dion Asare's name had gone up on the notice board outside the dressing room on Friday, on the UEFA list, with the other 24, in Sarah's typing.