Harbinger Of Glory

Leo moved into the space ahead of Wigan’s defensive line, finding his spot near the midfield circle, and Tiehi glanced across at him as he did.

”Going to need something extraordinary from you,” the midfielder said while chuckling a bit, but it felt more like a nervous breath, and Leo noticed it and understood why.

To come so close, but now facing certain elimination, could generate such feelings in the hardest-willed individuals.

Leo nodded and looked around the pitch.

Most of the eyes he felt on him belonged to his own teammates, and for a moment, he was aware of how strange that was.

He was seventeen.

There were still men out here who had been playing professional football before he had started elementary school, but their looks made it look like he was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

He almost laughed and nearly did.

Is this what it feels like?, he thought.

When you can, and so they expect you to.

He filed it away.

There was more to think about.

On the touchline, Eriksen had the ball for the throw and was scanning for options.

Leo spotted Joe Bennet drifting without purpose on the left and gestured toward him once, directing the latter towards the touchlines.

Bennet read it and shifted across, cutting off the obvious option while Leo himself moved toward the corridor where the throw was most likely going.

Eriksen looked left, then right, and looked left again, but the space had closed.

Nobody was free enough, or at least nobody was free enough for what he wanted, and after another second, he turned and tossed the ball back into his own half, where Wan-Bissaka collected it without fuss.

A few minutes passed after this, but in those minutes, all Wigan had done was chase after the ball, trying to win it back, but it was fruitless, mainly because of how dynamic Manchester United were, with their midfield never staying in the same shape and noticing this, Leo knew he had to throw bait.

And so he waved his teammates forward and followed his own instruction, pushing up as Wigan tried to hold their shape in possession.

It was a risk but it was one they had to take but their shape didn’t hold for long because when the ball came to Casemiro next, he found space, and as Casemiro tended to do, he played a simple pass that didn’t look like much until Bruno ran up to it and it was only then that the crowd realised that the brazillian had bypassed the parts of the Wigan attack and the entire midfield.

Bruno collected it on the right and spun away from Bennet, who had shifted inward with a single touch, immediately driving inward.

The next thing he met was Leo.

Bruno came at him with his weight shifting, looking for the tell, and Leo showed him nothing.

Just stayed on his feet, stayed compact, and waited.

Bruno probed left, found nothing, and went outside, where Tilt was already closing, and Bennet had recovered to double up.

For a moment, it looked contained.

Then Bruno slipped it through the two of them, towards the edge of the box where Antony was in the motion of turning, but the moment he turned fully, Leo’s foot was already coming in with a sweeping form.

Not a wild lunge, just a foot stuck in at exactly the right angle, enough to knock the ball sideways and send it skidding toward the corner flag.

And Bennet, who was a bit behind the others, was after it instantly, though Bruno followed, right behind him, and for a second, it was just two men and a ball in the corner with nothing elegant about any of it.

”Good pressure from Wigan, they’ve won it back in a dangerous area, but a clearance might be very well needed here”, the commentator noted.

Bennet got there and held it up, took the contact, and then heard something from behind him.

He didn’t look but trusted the sound enough to just roll the ball back with his heel.

And in the next second, the ball went through Antony’s legs and into open space.

”Oh, that’s clever from Bennet. He’s beaten the pressure from the Brazilian winger.”

Leo was the one who had called for it, and he was already moving onto the ball when he sensed Bruno arriving from behind, closing fast, and in the fraction of a second that he had to decide what to do, he jumped over the ball, letting it run by him, and went around the outside.

Bruno’s foot caught it slightly as he reacted to the ball passing, but it wasn’t enough.

Leo came out the other side with the ball, and the Wigan end found another gear.

He pushed forward, shifting the ball past Eriksen, who had stepped up to intercept, and now there was space.

Real space.

Ahead of him stood Casemiro, who held his ground, not stepping out, not giving an inch, just watching and waiting like an immovable thing in the middle of the pitch.

”Calderon driving forward now, Casemiro ahead of him,” the commentator said, something sharpening in his voice.

But with the former remaining static, Leo decided to abandon the inward route.

Instead, he shifted left, where McClean had found a pocket of space, and had Wan-Bissaka tracking across to cover.

Spotting the movement, Leo’s leg went back like he was passing, and Wan-Bissaka bought it, side-stepping McClean to get across and intercept as the Wigan winger moved forward, but Leo knocked it the other way.

Through the gap between them, past both and rolling into space on the right, while the noise in the stands rose again.

”Oh, he’s gone through them both. That is a brilliant piece of skill from the teenager.”

Leo was after it before the sentence was finished, and so was Lindelof, coming across from inside the box, covering the ground quickly.

It was a race neither of them was entirely winning, until the last second when Leo got a touch, and it was just enough to nudge it past the sliding Swede who came in from what felt like miles away.

Leo jumped the tackle and came down running.

He had the ball, and he had the byline, but he had almost nothing else, and so he cut back into the space just outside the six-yard box.

And as the commentary rushed to keep up, the ball rolled across the face of goal where Ezra was arriving from the right in full stride.

Without waiting or controlling the ball, the Latics academy product went through the ball, almost moulding the shape of the ball to his foot.

”Is that the finish?” the commentary bellowed, but that was way off.

Like the undying wall he was, De Gea somehow went down fast enough in full stretch and with one hand, managed to push it wide.

The sound that came from the stadium was the sound of something not happening, and Leo was already at the advertising boards with both hands on his head, same as Ezra, who was standing with his palms pressed to his face, and for a second, nobody moved.

”I was absolutely certain that was going in,” the commentator said, and he sounded like he meant it.

”What a run from Leo Calderon, what a cross, and De Gea, the monster that he is, has somehow kept it out. Wigan will have a corner, but my word that was it!”

De Gea got to his feet and pumped his fists once and hard, as his teammates came toward him, but before they got close, he was already pointing them away, back toward the corner flag where Leo was walking to collect the ball.

The United players scattered to find their men, closing every pocket of space in the box before Leo had even placed the ball down.

The latter looked in once, measured it, and swung it toward the near post, where Fletcher flicked it on, but it went out again.

Just as the Wigan players began to walk back, the referee blew his whistle, pointing towards the other end of the corner.

”Another corner for Wigan,” the commentator said. ”And we are deep into the ninety now, stoppage time approaching.”

Ezra retrieved it on the other side, and Leo was already moving, crossing the pitch at a jog to offer himself for the short routine.

Ezra rolled it short the moment Leo got there, and the United players stepped out in response, compressing the space quickly.

Leo took one look into the box and sent it in anyway, driven toward the back post, hoping for a head, a flick, anything.

Whatmough got up for it but couldn’t direct it, and before they could react, the ball was turned away and Sancho, on for Martial since the seventy-first, collected it in one motion and was gone before Wigan had time to react.

He moved fast, through the middle, and Darikwa came across to meet him, but Sancho was already past him with a simple flick, leaving the captain’s legs still turning when the ball had already left.

But Darikwa’s involvement cost Sancho half a second.

Half a second was enough.

Ezra and Leo had both turned and given chase from the corner, almost in the same moment, and now Ezra was closing, pushing his legs to their limit until he was right on Sancho’s shoulder.

Sancho felt him, shrugged him off with a simple shoulder charge, and Ezra stumbled and went down, but that was enough because Leo was already past him.

With the Wigan prayers behind him, he lunged full stretch, and his foot got to the ball just as Sancho was about to pull clear, sending the ball rolling out of play and Sancho tumbling over the touchline with it.

The Wigan end erupted.

”Masterful tackle. That was almost another goal had Sancho been let through,” the commentary judged, but the United fans weren’t in agreement.

They fully felt that the challenge was a bit overdone and that the referee should have at least given them a foul, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, the referee pointed towards the sidelines on the other side, where Erik Ten Hag, sensing the momentum shift, had chosen to use all the remaining substitutions he had to slow down the game.