Harbinger Of Glory

Leo came out of the dressing room and into the lane that led toward the tunnel, and Ezra fell into step beside him.

”I feel nervous,” Ezra said, shaking his head slightly like he was surprised at himself for admitting it.

”Everyone does,” Leo said.

He nodded ahead of them, where Darikwa was walking with McClean and Power, three men who, between them.

They were looking around and taking it in.

Darikwa had turned his head up toward the roof of the tunnel like a kid seeing a cathedral for the first time, and McClean was saying something to Power, who was nodding slowly with his hands in his pockets.

”Even them,” Leo said as they stepped out onto the pitch.

There, it felt even more glorious.

The scale of the place hit differently when you were standing in it rather than watching it through a screen.

The stands rose up on all sides like something that had no interest in making you feel significant, and for a second, Leo just stood there and let it do what it did.

It made him feel small.

But underneath that, something else, quieter and more certain.

Like the size of the place was confirmation rather than intimidation.

Like being here meant something had already been done right.

”This fits like 90,000 people, bruv,” Ezra read from his phone as he approached Leo from the side.

But they didn’t get to admire alone for long because moments later, a second group appeared from the other tunnel in casual coats with red devil emblems on the chest, walking with the particular ease of people who had been in places like this enough times that the place no longer needed to impress them.

Chris Sze, standing just to Leo’s left, said it for most of them.

”Damn. They really are Prem royalty.”

Bruno Fernandes was talking to Casemiro with his hands moving the way they always did, making whatever point he was making with his whole body.

Walking farther from the same group was Rashford, who had his customised hood up.

Another player who was also walking on his own was Martial, although he had Sancho mouthing something to him as he glanced around the pitch.

This was Manchester United, even at their worst.

They were fourth in the Premier League, chasing Champions League football and had just been dumped out of the Europa League three days ago by Sevilla, three-nil, which had apparently done nothing to reduce the threat they carried.

The Wigan players watched them the way you watch something you respect and are also about to try and stop.

Leo watched them too, but after a moment, his eyes moved through the group and found something more specific.

A face he recognised.

It looked younger than the rest, and that face was in a tracksuit rather than a coat, standing slightly apart from the main cluster with his hands in his pockets.

Dean Handon.

A midfielder in the Manchester United U18S who looked like he’d been called up at the last second.

One of the ones who had gotten the straight road, the kind of path through the academy that doesn’t have many detours.

Dean found him at roughly the same moment, and his expression did something interesting.

His brows furrowed in a kind of surprise he couldn’t keep to himself, and a second later, he said something to the player beside him, then started walking across.

A few of the United players glanced over, following the direction Dean was heading, and said nothing.

The latter, on the other hand, stopped a couple of feet from Leo and looked at him for a moment before he spoke.

”Jerome said it, and I googled it,” he said, ”but seeing you here still feels hard to believe.”

”It really is the Pantsy Cauldron!”

Leo, hearing the name, couldn’t help but remember some of his days at Carrington, but what Dean expected the name to do to Leo never did, as the latter simply shrugged and said, ”We can’t all take the same path.”

Dean nodded slowly, a bit irked that the reaction he wanted hadn’t fested.

He couldn’t really argue with that, and something in his expression suggested he knew it.

”How’s the leg?” he asked, and there was a small smirk that went with it, not unkind exactly, but it wasn’t kind either.

Leo glanced down at his thigh, then lifted his knee once and brought his foot back down.

”Feels like there’s cobwebs all over it,” he said. ”But aside from that, I’m alright.”

He looked back up, and his eyes drifted past Dean’s shoulder to the pitch, to the United players still making their way around before glancing over at the other side, where a hand seemed to be waving him over.

Dean, oblivious to that, opened his mouth to say something else, but Leo shut him down before he could.

”I need to prepare,” Leo said, already moving.

He walked past the former, and Ezra, who had been standing just behind and to the side the whole time, followed without a word.

They got about ten yards before Ezra glanced back over his shoulder and mouthed something in Leo’s direction after staring a few seconds at Dean.

Leo laughed, short and genuine, while behind them, Dean scoffed, shook his head, and was still wearing the remnants of it on his face when a voice from the United group called him back over.

He turned and walked toward them.

”Who was that?” someone asked as he got close.

Dean shook his head.

”Nobody to worry about,” he said as he glanced at the back of Leo once more as the latter disappeared down the tunnel.

.....

Noah had loosened his tie by the time he finally settled into his seat.

He looked like the hard part of the afternoon was done, even though the game hadn’t started yet.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet, opening it to the pocket where he kept his business cards.

The stack that remained was noticeably thinner than the one he had arrived with, and he sat there for a moment just looking at it, running his thumb across the edge of the cards the way you might count money you’d been told didn’t exist anymore.

It made him feel something warm and uncomplicated.

Like a confirmation.

Then he looked around at the box, at the catering table along the back wall and the upholstered seats and the floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the pitch, and he remembered what the ticket had cost him.

A little over thirteen hundred pounds.

He exhaled through his nose as his eyes went back to the business cards.

Worth it, he told himself.

He looked at the new names he had scribbled on the backs of a few of the ones he’d received in return.

New connections and new conversations that had started today with the easy, uncommitted warmth that executive boxes tend to produce, and that he intended to make something of before the season was out.

Worth it, he told himself again, and this time it landed a little better.

Behind him, the door to the box opened, and Noah didn’t turn around immediately, but the shift in the room told him someone had entered who the room felt it needed to acknowledge.

The volume didn’t rise exactly.

It just found a different way to channel itself, as conversations tilted towards the door the way plants tilted towards sunlight.

Jonas came in with his assistant, a half step behind him, and the greetings started almost immediately.

”Jonas, good to see you.”

”Big night for the club.”

”Congratulations in advance, I think we all know how this one goes.”

That last one came with a laugh that a few others joined, and Noah, still facing forward, felt something tighten briefly in his jaw.

He kept his eyes on the pitch where the players were going through the last of their warmup routines, moving through their patterns in the grey Wembley light and kept to himself.

Jonas, for his part, moved through the room the way people do when they are used to rooms like this, shaking the hands that presented themselves and saying the right things without appearing to think too hard about any of it.

He found his seat near the front of the box and settled into it, his assistant dropping into the one immediately to his right.

He looked out at the pitch, though he was looking at the reflection of the people behind him.

”Bootlickers,” he muttered, low enough that only his assistant caught it before he truly looked out towards the pitch.

The players down below were beginning to pull back toward the tunnels now that the warmup was winding down.

Jonas let his gaze move across them with the particular patience of someone who looked at footballers for a living, but it didn’t move around for too long before it settled on a player.

The player in question was none other than Leo, who was near the back of the Wigan group, and the shorts on his right leg were rolled up slightly, enough to show the kinesiology tape running across the back of his thigh in a thick diagonal strip.

Jonas looked at it for a moment without expression.

Then he sighed, quiet and private, and sat back.

Before he could fully lean into the chari, his assistant tapped his arm.

Jonas turned as the assistant pointed toward a man a few seats along who was now standing with his jacket slightly rumpled and looking a bit flustered.

Jonas looked at him as something about the face pulled at his memory without quite connecting.

”Who is that?” he said.

His assistant leaned in slightly.

”That’s Noah Sarin.”

Jonas looked again.

Noah Sarin.

He turned the name over for a second, placing it, and then it came.

”Wait, that Noah? Huh? I thought he was out of the business,” he said.

”Didn’t he lose his clients?”

His assistant nodded his head slowly and then leaned in just a little closer.

”He did, but now he’s Leo’s agent.”