Harbinger Of Glory

Jake came back from the bathroom just as the broadcast cut away from the tunnel shot.

He wiped his hands on his shorts and dropped back onto the couch beside Leo, the cushions dipping under his weight.

”You know,” Jake said, settling in, ”I get that the FA Cup isn’t exactly top of the list this season. League comes first. But still... it would be nice to go far.”

Leo nodded, eyes fixed on the screen.

”Yeah,” he said absentmindedly.

On television, the players began to reappear from the tunnel, with the broadcast commentary following behind.

”And we’re back at Kenilworth Road,” the commentator said as the feed returned to the pitch. ”Wigan need a response here after going into the break a goal down.”

The whistle blew, and the game restarted with a much different tone compared to the first half.

The ball moved much more quickly, showing the effect of the rest that the players had gotten in at the break.

Leo leaned forward again without realising it, elbows finding his knees while he stared keenly at the screen and the little figures moving across it.

Luton were forced backwards, their shape compressing closer to their own box.

The home crowd noise rose and fell in waves, a restless sound that carried through the speakers in the apartment.

10 minutes after the restart of the second half, Wigan built a move down the right.

Darikwa received the ball on the overlap after a mistimed pass by one of the Luton players was intercepted by Max Power.

The Captain cut inside, slowing down until shirts similar to his became much more prominent in the opponent’s box.

Then, with a clean touch, he slid the ball through numbers, with Will Keane stretching to get a touch.

A shot followed, low and hard, getting the away fans onto their feet, but the Luton keeper dropped to the floor in a squat, cleaving the ball away with his toe, sending the ball spinning towards the right edge of the box, which was up for grabs until Darikwa got it back again and whipped the ball back into play but nobody was able to get onto the end of it.

”Ah, come on,” Leo hissed through his teeth while the analyst, on-screen, jumped in over the replay.

”That’s the closest they’ve been since the start of the game. Wigan are inching closer and closer to levelling the score, but Luton are proving adamant about it.”

Minutes passed like that as Wigan piled on the pressure on Luton, but without reward.

On another occasion, a corner swung in by Cousins from the left, glanced off a defender’s head and fell to the area near the far post on the right.

A touch would have made the dream materialise, but a few centimetres failed Max Power as he couldn’t get his touch in, and each near miss tightened the knot in Leo’s chest.

Jake shook his head.

”We aren’t scoring, are we?” he asked, but it was more to himself than to Leo.

”This is one of those games, isn’t it?”

Leo, knowing that, kept his gaze on the screen.

His heart was starting to beat faster now, louder in his ears as the clock crept on.

Seventy minutes. Seventy-five and then eighty.

The broadcast graphic lingered on the screen longer than it should have.

And then in the 85th minute, Dawson made a change,

Ezra’s number went up, and Leo straightened.

”There,” he said. ”Come on, Ezz!”

Ezra came on with energy, pressing hard and chasing down lost causes.

It lifted the side again, but it was futile without results.

Wigan needed a goal to stay in the competition, and they needed it quickly.

The ball kept coming back toward the Luton box, but the breakthrough refused to arrive.

”Still just the one goal in it,” the commentator said as the clock ticked past the eighty-eighth minute. ”And you get the feeling Wigan are running out of time.”

They were running out of time, but the belief was still there.

Ezra chased a loose ball down the right, shoulder to shoulder with his marker, who had tossed his arm forward, leaving it grabbing Ezra’s shirt.

The Wigan fans in the stadium cried out towards the referee, but since Ezra still had the ball, the referee let the match go on.

Ezra had no space, no real angle, but he kept going anyway, forcing himself to the byline until he couldn’t go anymore.

So he used the last adrenaline he could muster to shrug off his marker, creating space for a split second, and he took that space.

The cross that came in wasn’t pretty.

It clipped a leg, popped upward, and dropped awkwardly into a crowd of bodies.

For a split second, nobody reacted as the ball spun awkwardly inside the box.

Then out of nowhere, Callum Lang lunged, meeting the ball with just the tiniest of touches as Luton’s keeper threw himself to close out the space, but the net still rippled behind, sending a rippling roar across Kenilworth Road, as the Wigan fans got to their feet in ecstasy.

At the apartment, Jake jumped off the couch, yelling something that wasn’t quite a word.

Leo was up too, fists clenched, a shout tearing out of him before he even knew what he was saying.

”Yes! Yes!”

On screen, Lang sprinted toward the bench, arms out wide, before being swallowed by teammates.

Dawson punched the air, his face breaking into a grin as his assistant and the rest of the coaches swarmed him.

”And there it is!” the commentator roared. ”Life in Wigan suddenly.”

”A scrappy one, but Wigan won’t care. Callum Lang with the equaliser late on, and this tie is not done yet!”

Beside the commentator, the analyst laughed.

”They’ve battered the door all half. Sometimes football gives you a goal like that.”

Leo paced the small space in front of the couch, heart hammering now for a different reason, while Jake slapped him on the back as if Leo had done something himself.

”I told you,” Jake said, breathless even though Leo couldn’t recall him saying anything, but the latter was too joyous to think too much.

Back on the pitch, the game restarted, and it almost felt anticlimactic after that.

Luton pushed forward once or twice, with their coach wondering if parking the bus had been the right option, but he couldn’t have regrets now.

Wigan, too, matched Luton, while staying cautious until the last second.

When the final whistle blew, the stadium noise was loud but uncertain, a mix of relief and resignation.

”And that’s full time,” came the call. ”It finishes level here. That means a replay, and we’ll do it all again at the DW Stadium.”

Leo finally sat back down, running a hand through his hair as the adrenaline ebbed slowly, leaving behind a tired satisfaction.

”A replay,” Jake said. ”At home.”

Leo nodded, eyes still on the screen as the players applauded the travelling fans.

”Yeah,” he said quietly.

”I’ll take that,” he uttered while watching his teammates go around the pitch in relief, because even though it wasn’t priority, it never felt good to lose a game.

Jake leaned back against the couch, stretching his arms above his head before letting them fall.

”So,” he said, glancing sideways, ”you heading back to your place tonight?”

Leo checked his phone at that question, glancing at the time, which read half past eight.

He nodded once afterwards.

”Yeah. I probably should.”

He leaned forward and reached for the empty pasta containers on the table, stacking them carefully.

Jake, who was on his phone after asking the question, noticed and waved Leo off.

”Don’t worry about those,” Jake said.

”Ezra might be starving when he gets back, so there’s no need to take them while the extra food is still in. I’ll wash them and keep them here. You can grab them next time, or I’ll bring them tomorrow when I come to the complex.”

Leo paused, then let the containers go.

”Alright,” he said, easy. ”That works.”

He stood, the soreness from sitting for a while finally catching up to him.

”Damn,” he said with a groan while stretching.

He moved toward the door, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and slipping it on.

He reached for the door handle, then glanced back. ”See you tomorrow.”

”Yeah,” Jake said. ”Get home safe.”

....

”So they made contact with a kid,” a man said, the dimly lit room providing cover for him as he stood with his telephone in hand.

”Well, why did they do it so quietly. Is there something we aren’t getting?” he asked the person on the phone, but he still didn’t get any definitive answer.

”Okay, but let’s check the facts first before we get anything out there. We’ve already been tagged with credibility issues recently, so make sure this is a very good story.”

”And also, can you ask some of our guys to check out the kid and see why they want him?” the figure said after a while, before putting the telephone down.