Harbinger Of Glory

Tilt watched Leão collect the ball from the net and turn back toward the centre circle at his own pace, calm as you like, while around him the Wigan players stood in that brief, hollow silence teams fall into after conceding.

They were still a goal up, but with the current Milan stars on the pitch, that thought couldn’t help but creep in.

That was what went on until a voice suddenly interrupted their thoughts.

”They’ve scored,” he said. ”So what?”

”Don’t slump,” Leo continued as he walked past them.

It was just two words delivered with composure beyond his ears, and maybe that was why he had the armband.

Following that and little by little, the Wigan players reset themselves, shoulders straightening as they moved back into position.

”The game’s very much alive here,” the commentator said as the players gathered around the centre spot. ”And Wigan need to show us what they’re made of now.”

At the centre circle, Jake played it back to restart, and for the next ten minutes, the San Siro got something it hadn’t been expecting when the afternoon began, which was a proper game of football.

Milan came, and Wigan held, and Wigan came, and Milan held.

The energy between the two sides became relentless, with each team answering the other almost before the other had finished asking.

The ball was moving end to end with the breathless back and forth of two sides that had stopped being careful with each other.

In the middle of it, Leo was doing something that was difficult to describe precisely but impossible to miss.

The AC Milan players kept going to him and kept coming back without the ball, not because he was muscling them off it but because by the time they arrived, he was somewhere else, the ball already gone, or his body was already turned toward the next thing, with the geometry of his movement making him almost impossible to pin down in any sustained way.

Pulisic chased him for a stretch, and after still not getting to the ball, he went down on Leo with frustration, even though the ball was already away from the player.

The Inter fans, whose numbers had grown considerably since the second half began, responded with the particular fury of supporters who had adopted a cause and were now invested in it properly.

”And the crowd,” the commentator noted, ”which is a sentence I did not expect to be saying tonight, is very much in Wigan’s corner.

There are a significant number of Inter Milan supporters in this stadium this evening, and they have made their presence and their allegiances in this specific fixture absolutely clear.”

Leo fixed his sock on the ground and looked up at the touchline where Fletcher was standing, with Dawson looking to take advantage of the break to make a change.

Jake saw it, looked at the board and then looked back at the pitch before he started walking towards the sidelines.

As he did so, the Inter Milan supporters applauded him off and, in return, Jake applauded with the smug expression of a man receiving a standing ovation he felt was overdue, and as he walked past the section of genuine Milan supporters, their reaction was considerably less warm, which Jake absorbed with the same expression.

Fletcher came on and found his position, and the game continued.

As the game restarted, Leo continued spraying it with near-perfect precision.

Sometimes, on the right to Ezra, who drew the press and gave it back.

A few times on the left to Carlo on the overlap, and sometimes short to Reyes, who took on the AC Milan players.

Everything landed where it needed to land, and somewhere in the middle of it, he became aware of a feeling he recognised from the best moments of the previous season.

The sensation of the game slowing down slightly, of the options becoming clearer before they were available, of knowing what was going to happen one pass before it happened.

He filed it away and kept playing.

As the game went on, Carlo attempted Ricci and Pulisic simultaneously on the left and lost, causing him to turn and give chase as Pulisic began a run of his own, but before he could get there, Pulisic sent the ball into the middle, where the ball found another AC Milan player who, in turn, sent it wide.

Leao collected it wide and went after Seriki.

But he wasn’t ready for what came because, unlike most players he faced, Seriki was almost like a second skin, refusing to be done in by Leao.

Leao tried to go past him three times and found the same answer each time before he stopped, and right as he did, Serirki stopped in front of him, almost mirroring his movements.

Leao looked past him into the box, measured something, and crossed it.

Femi got a foot to it but not enough of one, and the ball reached Giroud at the back post, who rose with the authority of a man who had been arriving at these moments for fifteen years, and headed it downward.

The keeper threw himself across and couldn’t reach it, but the post did.

The sound of it rang through the stadium, and the Milan fans behind the goal reached toward each other in the collective anguish of the missed chance.

”The post,” the commentator said. ”Giroud’s header has come back off the post, and Wigan survive.”

Robinson was first to the rebound and cleared it with urgency as the ball broke to Ezra, who took it forward before the press arrived and sent it back to Reyes.

Reyes laid it to Leo without breaking stride, and the Inter fans felt what was coming before it came, the chant building behind him as he pushed the ball forward and the space opened.

Because ever since they sat down, the player with the ball in hand had been running the show for the better part.

”And Leo Calderon is moving,” the commentator said, his voice finding its edge.

Before the AC Milan players could swarm him, Leo slid it ahead for Carlo, a long diagonal that split the defensive shape, and Carlo’s pace did the rest, getting to it before Thiaw could get close before driving toward the byline with the directness of someone who had been given a clear instruction and intended to follow it precisely.

He reached it and cut back before it could go out of play.

The AC Milan fans behind the goal sat nervously as the ball came across the face of the goal.

The AC Milan defence tried clearing the ball but to no avail.

And then at last, Leo arrived at it and hit it toward the right corner.