Harbinger Of Glory

Amos rolled the ball in his hands, scanning.

The Manchester City players, after the latest scare, weren’t really pressing.

That might have opened a few gaps if one watched keenly but they refrained from that, making it hard for Amos to find a free Wigan shirt in an advanced position.

After a while, he settled on Joe Bennet who was free on the left and he threw it to him, but Gundogan had already read it, dropping back instead of pressing, cutting off the forward option before Bennet had even controlled it.

Then Bernardo came from the other side, and suddenly Bennet had nowhere to go.

He passed it back, looking for the safer option but safer wasn’t always the best.

As Amos received it, he looked up and the picture had gotten worse.

The longer Wigan kept passing it back, the higher City pushed, and now their defensive line was sitting comfortably in Wigan’s half like they owned it.

Amos looked left hoping for the long option but Walker was with McClean and even though McClean was fast, there was no way he was outpacing Kyle Walker.

He looked right and then saw Dias had Lang.

”Where’s Ezra when you need him?” he thought, but it was rhetoric.

Dawson had chosen experience over youth and inventiveness, and now they were being made to bear the brunt of it.

Finally, he looked towards a player who always kept being an option even if there was no way to be one.

His eyes followed Leo, who was drifting into a pocket on the right, close to where Darikwa had been before the captain stepped up and dragged Carlo with him.

The space wasn’t much but it was something.

Amos shaped to kick it long, and Haaland stepped up, thinking he knew where it was going.

For a moment, it genuinely looked like Amos might accidentally play it straight to him, and the commentary held its breath.

”Oh, he’s nearly given it straight to—”

As they said so, Amos adjusted at the last moment and pushed it toward Leo instead, low and quick, and Leo had to come to meet it rather than letting it arrive.

He took it and immediately went sideways instead of moving forward.

Haaland was at the edge of the area and came across to close him down.

As he did, Leo sped up just enough to get in range and just as Haaland stuck his leg out, Leo nudged it past him on the right and went around the other side.

Haaland reacted and spun quickly, trying to grab Leo, but all he met was his shirt.

Leo, who felt the tug, kept his legs going until the grip loosened, and then he was free.

But that little tug had slowed him down, keeping the ball he could have reached now loose in front of him, and the crowd had started to realise something was happening.

Gundogan was next.

Leo didn’t even slow down.

He stretched, kept the ball close, nudged it past him the same way he’d done with Haaland and went around him too, and suddenly he had the ball in open space, and the Wigan fans were up.

He looked up.

Then he passed it to Joe Bennet and jogged towards the left side of the left back.

The Wigan fans sat back down, confused at Leo’s choice, but that was why they were in the stands in he was on the pitch.

All they could do was watch.

Leo settled on the left side of the pitch, close to the left midfield area, and Bennet, looking at him, didn’t wait any longer to return it.

And now Leo, standing where a left midfielder would stand, had the entire City shape shifting toward him, towards their right and following him, because after what he’d just done to Haaland and Gundogan, nobody wanted to give him space.

A while later, Bernardo Silva came to challenge for the ball.

It was the only thing he could do.

Leo, in turn, passed the ball back to Bennet, but Gundogan was right back on him, causing Bennet to pass the ball back to Leo in a hurry.

At this, Leo stepped forward towards the ball with everything seeming like he was going to control the ball and then go inside.

Bernardo, who was jogging, bought it immediately and moved sharply to cover.

At the last second, Leo staggered, like that little motion one did when they took control of a difficult ball and that made Bernardo even more sure, but when he reacted, Leo stopped, and let the ball run across his body and across Bernardo’s leg without touching it.

Bernardo was already past him before he realised what had happened.

”Brilliantly done,” the commentator said, the excitement showing in his voice.

Once away, Leo took the ball and moved along the left touchline, and now Walker had a problem.

He had a walking and now running problem called Leo.

He could step up to the latter, or he could stay with McClean, who was making a run behind him.

He couldn’t do both, but Leo, knowing the thoughts Walker had, didn’t let the right back think too long.

That would go against him.

He had to force the latter to make a decision quickly.

And so, Leo looked inside the box, eyes settling on Fletcher, who looked greedy for the ball and stepped like he was about to slip it through.

John Stones wasn’t the only one caught in a dilemma.

Lang had somehow escaped from Ruben and was now cutting inward, and kept John Stones occupied.

Walker, finally coming to a decision, backed up inside, aiming to relieve the pressure on Akanji.

And the moment he did, Leo slid it outside to McClean, who was coming in behind him, entering the box from the left, and from the back of the play, Kevin De Bruyne watched all of it happen.

He’d seen the pass before Leo played it.

He’d seen it the way he saw things, early, before most people in the stadium, because it was things he’d done before.

It was passes he knew he’d have played if he were in Leo’s position at the moment.

But what stopped him wasn’t the pass itself.

It was the realisation that Leo had anticipated and prepared for what he was seeing from the moment he’d received the ball from Bennet.

The whole thing, Haaland, Gundogan, the drift left, the feint on Bernardo, Walker’s indecision, all of it had been leading here.

It wasn’t a decision made in the moment.

It was a plan, and at this moment, all De Bruyne could do was watch.

McClean took the ball sideways at the edge of the box, and Walker watching this, couldn’t thank his stars.

Immediatley he saw this, he stepped up to McClean looking to cut the route on the inside but that was what McClean wanted.

He wanted the route and Walker had just given it to him.

Half a step later, and with the pressure of Walker on his neck, he cut it back toward the edge where Leo had arrived with all the time in the world and all the space he needed.

”OHH-.” That was all the commentary could manage as Leo looked at goal and all he could see was bodies.

Lots of them in sky blue shirts throwing themselves in front of the goal in anticipation of what they thought was to come.

A shot.

But that was never Leo’s thoughts.

He knew he was probably going to sky it if he went for power since the ball was on his left and so watching them scramble to block the shot that was never going to come, was funny but only for a second, because in the next moment, he finally passed it.

Into the bottom right corner, low and precise, the kind of finish that makes you wonder why they call it shooting at all, and Ortega watched it the whole way, his eyes following it as it rolled past him and into the net, and there was nothing else he could do.

But the Wigan fans, watching this knew what they could do.

”GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL”

They released a guttural roar into the air as the ball homed into the back of the net as the commentary came through on the broadcast.

”GOAAAAAL. IT’S HIM. IT IS LEO CALDERON.”

”SILENT! THAT’S WHAT HE’S BEEN DOING SINCE THE START OF THE GAME, BUT THIS WASN’T WHAT WE EXPECTED. MANCHESTER CITY ARE BEHIND IN THIS CUP FINAL!”

The co-commentator couldn’t get a word in for a few seconds.

”He took every City player out of it,” the main voice continued, slightly breathless. ”One by one. And then when the space finally appeared, he put it in like it was the simplest thing he’d done all day.”

On the pitch, it was a fever.

Leo ran straight toward the corner where the Wigan fans were packed in, arms out, and he looked like a man who might genuinely jump into the crowd any moment, except his teammates, somehow, despite having started from further away, got to him first, piling on from every direction before he reached the boards.