Harbinger Of Glory

While the City players celebrated, Dawson’s eyes drifted toward the City technical area after noticing some movement.

Pep was on his feet.

He’d left his seat and moved back to the coaching box, and now he was calling out to his players on the pitch.

His hands were moving in short, deliberate gestures.

It was the kind that meant something specific only to the people they were aimed at.

Dawson watched the City players for their reaction, trying to read what had changed, but he couldn’t find anything obvious as the game restarted.

They moved the same way, pressed the same way, kept the ball the same way.

Whatever Pep had said, it hadn’t caused any visible disruption in them, and that was what made him difficult.

His players absorbed instructions as they’d already been thinking the same thing.

Two minutes passed. Then five.

But Dawson still couldn’t see it.

And that bothered him, because not seeing things wasn’t something that happened to him often.

He prided himself on reading things.

It was the thing he’d built his coaching identity around.

And now, looking at the man who had shaped the way he thought about football, he couldn’t help but nod at whatever instructions he’d given for it to not even be visible even after five minutes of watching.

Most coaches who came up in the last fifteen years carried some of Pep’s ideas, whether they knew it or not.

The pressing triggers, the positional play and the way space was used rather than just covered.

Dawson had read everything he could find about him early in his coaching career.

And now here he was trying to figure out what the man had just done to his team from fifty yards away.

But then he saw it.

It was so glaring that he couldn’t help but facepalm himself.

”Of course,” Dawson muttered with a chuckle as he watched the proceedings on the pitch.

In the Manchester City setup, Stones had dropped back not into midfield, where he’d been before the goal, but into the defensive line, tucking in alongside Dias, who had shifted to cover the left centreback role while Akanji moved across.

That left Rodri sitting as the single anchor in front of the back four now. A role he thrived in, especially when under pressure.

Now it was a Four one four one formation. (4-1-4-1)

Dawson exhaled quietly as he laughed again.

He’d overthought so much that he’d missed a change so simple.

On the broadcast, the commentary returned, pointing out the change.

”City have shifted shape here, and it looks like a back four now, Stones dropping in alongside Dias, Rodri sitting deep. Pep has made his adjustment.”

On the pitch, Leo noticed it the moment the switch happened because he was in the thick of it.

He’d felt the way the spaces around him had changed, with some opening up while others he’d used earlier squeezed shut.

He was working harder for less, and the ball wasn’t coming to him the way it had been.

He watched Stones play it to Rodri, and the moment that happened, his legs moved before his brain had finished the instruction.

A single glance made him realise that it was the same scenario that had led to them conceding only this time, the initiator was Rodri instead of Ortega, and he knew, as the opposition, he would choose a pass coming at him from Ortega than Rodri.

As Leo’s thoughts spun, Rodri caught the ball on the half turn, and his foot went underneath it, lofting it up and over the Wigan midfield, and Haaland was running before it had even reached its peak.

”Haaland again. Is this going to be a repeat?” the commentary couldn’t even finish.

Because the moment the ball got to knee level, Haaland wrapped the ball around his laces.

The commentary couldn’t help but pause as the volley zoomed past Ben Amost, but in the next instant, the ball found the post.

”OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The sound rang around Wembley as groans and screams mixed together.

But Wigan weren’t out of the woods yet.

The ball bounced loose toward the left side of the box, where Carlo was arriving fast, ready to make it his.

But he faced opposition from Leo, who hadn’t stopped running from the moment Rodri’s foot connected.

And when it looked like Carlo would get to the ball, Leo slid at the last moment, sweeping the ball away toward the touchline.

Carlo had to jump over the outstretched leg to avoid being sent over.

And when he landed, he turned to find Leo on the ground looking up at him.

He smiled and shook his head slowly.

”Nuh uh,” his expression seemed to say as Carlo stared at him for a second, then turned away without giving him the satisfaction of a reaction.

The match continued with Gundogan collecting the ball and tossing it to Rodri near the halfway line.

City reset, and what followed was the kind of passing sequence that reminded everyone watching why this team had won everything they’d won.

Rodri sent the ball back to Gundogan before immediately shipping himself into the space between Lang and Darikwa, who had decided to double-team Gundogan.

Rodri met the return pass from Gundogan there despite the pressure, but he didn’t even touch the ball.

With a slight dummy, Rodri let the ball go past him, fooling Max Power and at last, De Bruyne got it.

The Belgian had been relatively quiet despite playing well, but he wasn’t one of the best midfielders to grace the game because he was present.

It was always what he did with just one pass that most couldn’t do with 20.

And when he took one touch, the danger was present.

Without looking, he slid a pass through the smallest gap in the Wigan defensive line, threading it into the right channel where Bernardo had timed his run perfectly.

At that, the Wigan players’ hands couldn’t help but go up immediately.

Because how?

And yet, as they waited for the flag, it never went up.

Bernardo took it on the right foot and, in the same motion, slid it across the face of the goal with the same foot.

Haaland, arriving at the back post, knew it was a goal before it reached him, but it was never going to be easy.

He felt a body coming into him lower than expected.

Shoulders went into his higher ribs, and when he looked down, he saw Leo beside him, left leg stretching across to push the ball that had just arrived away.

Haaland tried to adjust, but as his foot came down, it found not the ground but Leo’s thigh instead and his full weight behind it.

The scream cut across the entire stadium as Leo, on the ground, held his left thigh, moving around the ground the way people do when the pain is immediate and total, and the body hasn’t decided what to do with it yet.

The referee’s whistle went repeatedly, and the Wigan players were around him in seconds.

”That looked like a clear-cut chance for City to take the lead, but Leo didn’t allow that, and now he’s paying for that!”

Dawson, on the sidelines, couldn’t help it as his mind raced with thoughts about injuries.

And it wasn’t even his fault that he was thinking all those thoughts.

Leo was just recently healed.

The medical staff, as they got closer to Leo, cleared the players back, and the doctor got to Leo first, crouching down, hands moving quickly.

He looked at the leg Leo was holding, and something in his expression settled slightly.

It was the left thigh Leo had clutched, not the right, where the hamstring had just recovered.

He pressed and assessed while Leo hissed, but he didn’t scream again, and a minute later the doctor looked up and gave the smallest of nods toward the touchline.

”He looks okay,” the commentator said.

In the Wigan end, the relief was audible as they saw the thumbs up from the doctor.

”It looks like Haaland’s studs caught him on the left thigh, but it looks like Leo Calderon is going to be okay.”

The Wigan fans started clapping as the medics helped Leo toward the touchline.

The city fans also joined in, at least some of them, because although they wanted to win the game, it wasn’t worth the career of a player.

Leo reached the touchline and the referee signalled him back on just as Amos came to claim the corner City had earned before the incident, gathering it cleanly with both hands and just as it looked like a quick counter was on, the whistle went.

It was now halftime.

The players looked around like they were surprised the clock had got there so quickly, which was the clearest sign of how locked in they’d been.

Leo was near the touchline and hadn’t gone far when he turned.

Bernardo Silva was a few yards away, heading toward the tunnel.

He glanced over at Leo and nodded once before walking away, before Leo could do the same.

Leo did the same, even though the latter couldn’t see it before, also following suit.

---

Up in the stands, Jonas sat back in his seat with his arms folded.

He had no business being there, but this was how he had chosen to spend his evening.

The FA cup final.

The one his team had missed on to a weaker side like Wigan.

He shook his head slowly, looking at the pitch one more time before the last of the players disappeared down the tunnel.

”We’ve truly let a diamond slip past us,” he said quietly.