Harbinger Of Glory

Still, Leo stepped onto the pitch and showed why he had that many minutes under his belt.

His first touch was simple, but his second was anything but that.

He received possession under pressure, took it across his body, and played a pass into a space that had not existed when the ball reached his feet.

A Palace midfielder tried to follow him, but Leo was already gone.

The next few minutes began to reveal exactly why Dawson had eventually decided to use him.

Palace’s midfield had been moving quickly throughout the first half, but against Leo, it suddenly looked slow.

He wasn’t simply running past people.

He was making decisions before they had finished making theirs.

One touch to escape pressure here.

Two touches to draw another player toward him there, and then a pass sent somewhere else entirely before minds could even guess.

He could speed the game up when Wigan needed an attack and slow it down when Palace began threatening to regain control.

The Premier League had built its reputation around speed, but Leo made the speed around him look ordinary.

A Palace midfielder stepped toward him, and Leo stopped.

The Palace midfielders were chasing shadows without ever completely losing their shape.

Then, just after the hour mark, Leo found the pass that finally broke the game open.

He received the ball centrally, deep enough that there appeared to be little immediate danger.

Instead of turning toward goal, he looked left where James McClean had subtly begun creeping further and further away from his position, and the moment their eyes met, it was almost telepathic.

Without waiting for a single second, Leo whipped the underside of the ball, sending it travelling low and pace-driven before settling perfectly weighted into the space ahead of James McClean.

McClean accelerated onto it from the wing-back position and immediately had the freedom of the flank.

The Palace defence began retreating toward the penalty area, and McClean kept going.

He could have continued toward the byline, but instead he curved his run away from it, cutting back toward the angle of the box.

The change of direction caught Palace completely wrong-footed, and with another touch to set himself up, James McClean struck it low and hard, way across the goalkeeper.

The ball travelled toward the far corner and disappeared inside the bottom right, and then the scoreboard changed in a flash.

2–0.

The stadium exploded again as James McClean wheeled away toward the corner while Leo remained several yards behind, already smiling as teammates began racing toward the goalscorer.

Dawson punched the air once before immediately returning his attention to the pitch.

They could allow themselves a breather, but there was still work to do with the remaining half hour.

Palace also decided to cash in on anything they had remaining.

Two goals down, they abandoned much of the caution that had kept them competitive.

They pushed forward.

Their full-backs advanced.

Their midfielders moved higher, and Wigan were forced deeper than they had been for most of the second half, but that created something else.

Space.

Palace tried to exploit it through quick counterattacks of their own whenever Wigan lost possession.

One such attack produced a shot from distance which took a deflection off of one of their players, causing the ball to change direction sharply so much so that Ben Amos didn’t have a chance.

But the Crystal Palace players had just begun to celebrate when the flag rose, showing that the player the ball had deflected off had been offside.

But that wasn’t the only issue.

He had moved across the goalkeeper’s line of sight while the shot was taken, obstructing his ability to react to the original effort.

And so the referee spoke briefly with the officials before pointing upwards, showing that the goal wouldn’t stand.

The Palace players protested, but the Wigan supporters roared their approval.

And with that decision, the final realistic route back into the game disappeared.

Palace continued trying, and Wigan continued defending.

Leo remained involved until the final whistle, repeatedly dropping into spaces where Palace could not decide whether to follow him or protect their defensive shape.

Eventually, the whistle came, and Wigan had done it again.

Thirteen matchdays, thirteen wins and another three points.

The players applauded the supporters as the stadium rose around them, and for several seconds, the noise was almost impossible to separate from the celebrations of the previous weeks.

The unbeaten run had survived again.

And the post-match discussion began almost immediately.

”Thirteen wins from thirteen,” the first pundit said, still looking at the statistics on the screen. ”At some point, we have to stop being so comfortable with this because there is nothing realistic about what this team is doing.”

His colleague nodded.

”We’ve passed that point. This is a phenomenon.”

”Exactly. The other major leagues have already seen their strongest sides stumble, but Wigan, who on paper shouldn’t even be surviving this league, are proving otherwise.”

”And they’re not scraping through these games either. Thirty-three goals now after thirteen matches?”

”Thirty-three, yes.”

”Second-best attack, second-best defence. That’s the extraordinary part for me. Usually, when you see a side rise this quickly, there’s an obvious weakness somewhere, but there isn’t one that I can pinpoint.”

”Not at the moment.”

The first presenter leaned forward.

”And then there’s Leo Calderon, who didn’t even start today but came on and proved his worth once more. This kid just never has a bad game, and I am beginning to think about when or where his ceiling is.”

”Another interesting decision, and I actually liked it.”

”He’s eighteen. We talk constantly about protecting young players, but then the moment one becomes exceptional, we expect them to play every minute of every match.”

”He still came on and completely changed the midfield.”

”He did. Palace had actually done a decent job in the first half. Then Leo arrived and suddenly their midfield couldn’t get near him.”

”And that pass for McClean’s goal.”

”Vision, decision-making, awareness. He knew where McClean was before most of the Palace defence even realised the space existed, and he’s still supposed to be developing.”

The studio fell quiet for a moment as the presenter glanced toward the table.

”And now everyone is waiting for the first loss. That’s what happens when you get this far.”

”Someone has to beat them eventually.”

”Eventually.”

And that word hung there because nobody could say when.

For now, Wigan simply kept winning.

And the next challenge was already waiting in Brentford, and they did not look like the team most people expected to stop Wigan.

Or so it was?