Harbinger Of Glory

[Forte Dei Marmi]

The door to Vittoria’s room clicked shut behind her mother, and for a few seconds she stayed where she was.

She had her back against the door and listened to the footsteps move down the corridor until they faded completely.

Then she crossed the room in three steps and threw herself onto the bed.

She grabbed the iPad from where she had set it face down on the duvet before her mother had knocked, turned it over and pulled up the stream.

Once more, the chants and roar of the Signal Iduna Park filled her speakers again with the noise of a stadium coming back from its interval.

She looked at the screen and then looked at the ceiling.

”I only turned this on because of you,” she said while groaning.

”And you sat on the bench the entire half,” she added a while later.

After that, she lay on her back with the iPad held above her face and watched the broadcast camera pan slowly across the Dortmund stand.

As the yellow and black stands filled her vision, she thought about how large it looked and how strange it was to be lying on her bed in Forte dei Marmi watching something that was happening many miles away in Dortmund, just one of her many random thoughts before she came back to herself.

”When are they coming back?” she muttered, and as she did, the crowd noise in the speakers swelled suddenly.

At that, Vittoria turned over onto her stomach and propped the iPad in front of her, where the broadcast camera soon found the tunnel.

The players were coming back out.

She raised a brow at the screen and was about to settle back down when she stopped.

She turned slowly and looked at her door, confirming it was shut, and then turned back to the screen where the broadcast camera was moving along the line of Wigan players emerging from the tunnel, and among them was a face she knew very well, and beside him, another face she also knew.

It was Leo and Carlo, walking out, side by side and with the rest of the lineup into the second half noise of the Signal Iduna Park.

The smile came before she could do anything about it.

She pressed her hand over her mouth and made the sound of someone trying very hard not to cheer out loud in a house where her mother was somewhere down the corridor, and then she settled onto her stomach with the iPad directly in front of her and pulled her knees up behind her like a child watching something she had been told she couldn’t watch.

Inside the Signal Iduna, the home support had used the interval to find a second gear.

From the south stand behind the goal, the chant had started before the players had fully emerged, the rhythm building from a low collective pulse into something that filled the whole ground.

”Echter Liebe, BVB, immer treu, immer da.”

[True love, BVB, always faithful, always there.]

It moved around the stadium in a wave with stand after stand picking it up from the next.

As this went on, Leo emerged from the tunnel and walked into it.

He reached up and adjusted the compression sleeve on his left arm, pulling the fabric flat where it had bunched at the elbow, and he looked up at the stands as he did it without breaking stride, taking the measure of the place with the same composure he brought to everything else.

At the edge of the technical area, the fourth official raised the electronic board.

”Auswechslung, Wigan Athletic,” the stadium announcer said, his voice cutting through the noise with the practised authority of someone who owned a microphone in a loud building.

”Ausgewechselt, Nummer 27, Christian Tiehi.”

[Number 27, Christian Tiehi, coming off.]

”Eingewechselt, Nummer 8, Leo Calderon.”

[Number 8, Leo Calderon, coming on.]

After that, the board came down and the fourth officlal fiddled with it for a few seconds before it went up again with another change.

”Ausgewechselt, Nummer 11, James McClean. Eingewechselt, Nummer 22, Carlo Regutti.”

The crowd received the names with mild interest as the changes happening weren’t really their business.

After the changes were announced, they continued their chants, raising it higher and higher in anticipation of the game while the broadcast gantry returned.

”Welcome back to the second half of this pre-season fixture, and we come to meet something that could be interesting as Wigan make two changes,” the commentator said.

”Tiehi and McClean come off, and on come two players who will be very familiar to a lot of people watching this evening. Carlo Regutti, twenty years of age and currently on loan from Manchester City.”

”And let’s not gloss over that,” the co-commentator said.

”This is a player who appeared in the Champions League final last season for City. Came on and contributed directly to the goal that put the game beyond Inter. Not many players his age can say that.”

”No,” the commentator said, and there was a smile somewhere in his voice.

”Not many players of any age can say that, if we’re being honest. And alongside him, Leo Calderon, the number eight.

A player who, before turning 17 years old, helped take Wigan from mid-table Championship to the Premier League in just over half a season while registering seven goals and seven assists in his first professional campaign.

The numbers are one thing, but anyone who watched Wigan last season will tell you the numbers don’t cover it.”

”They really don’t,” the co-commentator agreed as silence filled the pause after that.

”And I think the players are already set, actually, so we’ll leave it there,” the main commentator said again.

The two sides had dispersed to their positions while the commentary had been talking, and after seeing that all was set, the referee looked around at the pitch once, bounced the ball once, and put the whistle to his mouth.

The Signal Iduna met the second half whistle with a full voice, and the game resumed.

”Second half underway here in Dortmund,” the commentator said.

”Wigan still with a goal to find. Let’s see what the changes bring.”