Harbinger Of Glory

Two minutes into the second half, Dawson’s words from the team talk were already proving their worth.

The first challenge came when Leo collected the ball just ahead of his own box and began moving forward.

He had already gone past the first Luton player, and now the second.

His feet worked through the press with the unhurried certainty that had become his signature, when the third player came in from the side and took him off the ball and off his feet simultaneously.

The stadium reacted instantly, with the angered roar of the away fans overpowering that of the home fans.

”That is a poor challenge,” the commentator said, the earlier neutrality gone from his voice.

”Leo Calderon has been targeted there, and the referee needs to deal with this.”

The referee arrived, pointed at the Luton player, and spoke to him up close.

The warning was clear, and the yellow card was still in his pocket, but the implication was that it wouldn’t stay there if he asked for it again.

The Luton player backed away with his arms raised, the universal language of the innocent, which fooled nobody in the stadium and certainly not Dawson on the touchline.

It wasn’t only Leo.

On the right flank, Ezra went past Doughty with a clean piece of skill, and the Luton midfielder’s response was to clip him as he went, catching his ankle just enough to break the momentum without being obvious enough to demand a card.

Ezra got up instantly before turning to say a few things towards the culprit, but Doughty shrugged and jogged back into position.

”Luton are making a calculation here,” the analyst said.

”They know they can’t match Wigan technically in certain areas, so they’re disrupting the rhythm instead with small fouls, late contacts, but nothing dramatic enough for the referee to take action on.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Whatever Wigan tried to build kept collapsing at the first or second pass, not because Luton were winning the ball cleanly but because the contact kept coming.

A shirt tugged expertly here, and a forearm held in the back there.

The referee turned a full circle on the pitch, trying to manage it and barely kept up.

Dawson was furious.

He was at the fourth official within two minutes, arms gesturing, making his case, and the official listened with the expression of someone doing their job without much enthusiasm for it.

It had almost been 7 fouls now, but still, not a single card to show for the home side.

On the opposite touchline, Rob Edwards stood with his hands in his coat pockets and watched the scenes with a small smile that he didn’t try to hide, but he still knew they needed to score.

It went on.

And then it boiled over.

The challenge on Fletcher was the one that broke it.

A sliding tackle from behind connected with his shin rather than the ball, right as he turned to face the Luton goal, and it left the striker on the ground holding his leg while the sound from both sets of supporters changed into something rawer and more immediate.

Whatmough was first.

He covered the ground between himself and the Luton player in seconds and got there before anyone could stop him, and then Darikwa arrived, and Max Power.

The Luton players came forward to meet them, and for thirty seconds Kenilworth Road had the specific chaos of twenty outfield players all trying to be somewhere at once.

The referee blew his whistle repeatedly and moved through the bodies, pulling people apart.

When the dust settled, there were cards everywhere.

Darikwa got one for his involvement, while two Luton players, aside from the offender who had already gotten his card, collected theirs.

The referee stood in the middle of the pitch and said several things in a raised voice that left no room for misunderstanding.

On the other hand, Fletcher got to his feet with help from the physio, tested his weight, and walked.

But not freely.

He was feeling it in his bones, and Dawson was already on it a moment later.

He also looked at McClean, who looked like he had gone through a hailstorm.

The Irishman had been everywhere in the first half, but the second had taken something from his legs that wasn’t coming back.

The pressing, the tracking, the accumulation of a long season caught him in the sixty-fifth minute of a game he needed to last ninety.

Dawson looked down the bench, and his eyes couldn’t help but settle on Jake, not because he wanted to but because Jake had leaned forward, his whole form screaming, ”Pick me!”

Will Keane, beside him, was the other and most viable option.

Not a striker through and through like Fletcher, but he had experience and a lot more going for him.

The temptation was to push Lang wide right and move Ezra left, but Ezra’s effectiveness on that right flank had been too important to disrupt, and Lang on the left was a square peg situation that Dawson had learned from earlier in the season.

After a few minutes of thinking while keeping his eyes on the flow of the game, he made his decision.

”Jake. Will. Warm up.”

The moment he heard his name, Jake rose, almost lunged to his feet, causing a few of the players to stare at him with exasperated expressions.

It had only been close to 10 days since they met the kid, but his energy was tiring.

They watched him warm up with the barely contained energy of someone who had been waiting for this specific moment since he was called up, and when the fourth official raised the board, he was already standing beside him with his shin pads adjusted, his laces double knotted and a grin that suggested the occasion hadn’t quite found its way into his nervous system yet.

The board showed his number alongside Fletcher’s, which was in red, while Will Keane’s was alongside McClean’s.

”Two changes from Dawson,” the commentator said.

”Fletcher and McClean making way, and academy youngster Jake coming on for what will be his senior debut as Dawson puts Will Keane on the left. The Wigan manager hasn’t shut up shop here; he has gone with an attacking option which tells you everything about his intentions.”

The co-commentator picked it up.

”I thought he might look to manage the game from here. Protect the lead, keep shape, make Luton come and break them down. But he hasn’t done that. He’s brought on a striker making his debut and pushed one of his most creative players into a front tree. That is a statement of intent.”

”Twenty-one goals in nineteen games for the U21S,” the main commentator added, finding Jake on the camera.

”That is the record this young man arrives with. And what a stage to walk onto for the first time.”

Jake crossed the white line and immediately looked left, where Ezra had once more settled on the right flank.

HE was already shaking his head at Jake from the flank, but he couldn’t help but flash a smile when Jake kept waving.

The latter, though, wasn’t done.

He looked back at his half, where he spotted Leo, who gave him a thumbs-up.

His break was short-lived, though, as in the next second, Ben Amos sent the goal kick straight down the middle, and Jake went for it immediately, rising above the Luton centre back with the full commitment of someone with nothing to lose.

His first touch of the ball, the header went forward and away while the commentary noted his instant involvement before the ball found Onyedinma on the Luton right, who drove forward at Bennet.

The two of them went at it, Onyedinma with the ball and the momentum, Bennet with the positioning and the stubbornness, and it had the look of something that could go either way until Leo stepped across and helped Bennet win it, taking the ball cleanly and shipping it wide to Darikwa in one motion.

But like always, he kept on moving.

He moved immediately into the centre where there was space that his own pass had created by pulling Darikwa’s marker with it, and when Darikwa’s diagonal came back, he let it run past him without touching it.

Clark, who had been glued to Leo’s side for the last ten minutes, hesitated for the fraction of a second, and it cost him, allowing Max Power to read it perfectly from behind.

The veteran midfielder collected the ball and played it straight back into the space Leo had already moved into, and it was now on.

”Lovely,” the commentator said simply. ”That is just lovely football from Wigan. The combination, the movement, the understanding between Calderon and Power.”

Clark came again, tired and frustrated, and went to the grass with his slide and caught Leo’s ankle as he did.

The contact was enough to make Leo stumble, but not enough to bring him down, and the referee’s arm went out immediately.

Advantage waved on.

The ball bobbled forward, as Leo recovered his stride and went with it, and Kenilworth Road roared in two different registers at once.

He was into the final third now with options forming.

But he settled immediately.

Will Keane had found the left channel and was moving, and Leo poked it toward him with the outside of his left boot.

The pass was so casual it looked like Leo had been trying to lose the ball.

”Calderon. Outside of the boot. Into Keane. And the clock is ticking down.”’

Keane controlled it, looked up once, and saw what he needed to see.

Jake.

189 centimetres of him arriving at the back post, back arched, ready to be the kind of target that made a winger’s life simple, and Keane didn’t waste any time taking advantage of that simplicity.

He lifted it as the ball curved over the bodies that could only watch it go, and the commentary came alive as Jake leaned back with it tracking toward him, and directed it near post where the keeper stood rooted.

The ball was headed for the goal.