Glory Of The Football Manager System

The City end erupted. Guardiola pumped his fist, the rare celebration, allowing himself one moment before his hands went back into his pockets and his mind went back to the shape.

The Palace end went quiet. Not silent. Quiet. The tense, sick quiet of people who have been leading and are now losing and who know this feeling because they have been Palace fans long enough to know every version of this feeling.

George looked at David. David looked back. Neither spoke.

But on the pitch, the hunger was still there. That was the thing City hadn’t killed. Sakho won a header from the goal kick. Kovačić collected and drove twenty yards into City’s half. Zaha demanded the ball and received it and ran at Walker and was fouled and stood up before the referee had even blown the whistle. The Palace players were not accepting 1-2. The Palace players were treating 1-2 as an insult.

Tyler, three minutes before half-time: ”Crystal Palace are still going forward. They’re behind in a cup final and they’re still pressing, still running, still attacking. Danny Walsh’s team does not know how to sit back.”

Neville: ”That’s the two sides right there. City control. Palace hunger. City want to manage the game. Palace want to fight the game. And the question for the second half is which one breaks first.”

Half-time. 1-2. In the dressing room, the mood was fragile. Not broken. Fragile. The players knew they had been good. They knew the gap between the two teams was not quality but moments, Agüero’s finish and De Bruyne’s free kick, the individual brilliance that six hundred million pounds could buy.

I was calm. The real calm this time. Not performed. Real.

”Listen. We are losing a cup final at half-time. And I am not worried.” I looked around the room. ”I am not worried because the system is working. We are creating chances. We are controlling transitions. We are defending with intelligence. The two goals we conceded were individual moments of brilliance from two of the best players in the world. We did not make mistakes. They made magic.”

I looked at Kovačić. ”Mateo. Second half. We keep the ball.”

He looked at me. ”Keep the ball?”

”Keep the ball. We played tiki-taka against Liverpool at Anfield and it confused them. We are going to play tiki-taka against Manchester City at Wembley and it is going to confuse Pep Guardiola. Because Pep’s system is designed to defend against teams that attack. It is not designed to defend against teams that possess. We are going to take his philosophy and use it against him.”

Neves smiled. Kovačić nodded. Rodríguez looked at me with the expression of a man who had been waiting for someone to ask him to do the thing he was born to do.

”James,” I said. ”You’re the conductor. Rúben and Mateo are the orchestra. Play.”

The second half began and Crystal Palace played football that made Pep Guardiola stand up from his seat.

Fifty-three passes. That was the sequence. Fifty-three consecutive passes, starting with Pope, moving through Dann and Sakho, into Neves, across to Kovačić, forward to Rodríguez, back to Neves, across to Chilwell, inside to Kovačić, forward to Zaha, back to Rodríguez, inside to Neves.

Fifty-three passes without a City player touching the ball. The crowd counting. Both ends. The Palace end counting with joy, each pass producing a roar that built and built. The City end counting with something approaching horror, because the team on the pitch keeping the ball was not their team. Their team was chasing. Their team, the team that had been built to possess, was being possessed.

On the touchline, Guardiola was standing. His hands were not in his pockets. His hands were on his head. The universal gesture of a manager watching something he had not prepared for. He turned to his bench.

He shouted at Fernandinho. He gestured at De Bruyne. He was adjusting, adapting, the great tactical mind recalibrating in real time. But the recalibration was not fast enough because the fifty-three passes had already achieved their objective: the City press had been pulled apart, the shape had been disrupted, and the space was open.

On the fifty-fourth pass, Rodríguez played the ball to Neves, who played it to Kovačić, who played it forward to Benteke, who laid it off to Zaha, who was standing on the edge of the City box with the ball at his feet and four City defenders between him and the goal.

Zaha didn’t shoot. He played it back to Neves. Neves played it to Kovačić. Kovačić, without looking, played a pass into the space behind Walker that arrived at Navas’s feet at the exact moment the Spaniard arrived at the exact position.

Navas crossed. First time. Low. Hard. Across the face of the goal. Benteke met it at the near post. The connection was clean, the header firm, the ball flying past Ederson and into the net.

Crystal Palace 2-2 Manchester City. Benteke. 58 minutes.

The Palace end lost its mind. George grabbed David. David grabbed George. Lorraine was standing on Malcolm’s seat. Malcolm was standing on Lorraine’s seat. They had swapped at some point during the fifty-three passes and neither could explain how.

In the directors’ box, Danny’s mum was crying. Emma was holding her hand. Parish was on his feet, his composure gone, the chairman who had bought the club from administration screaming at the pitch.

Tyler’s voice, through the stadium speakers and a hundred million television sets: ”Fifty-three passes! Crystal Palace have just played fifty-three consecutive passes against Manchester City! And Benteke has headed them level! This is extraordinary football. This is Palace playing Guardiola’s game against Guardiola’s team!”

Neville on co-commentary: ”I have never seen anything like that. Kovačić, Neves, and Rodríguez just played tiki-taka. At Wembley. Against City. Pep is standing on his touchline with his hands on his head and I don’t blame him. His own philosophy has just been used to score against his own team.”

On the touchline, Guardiola sat down. Slowly. The way a man sits down when he needs to think and standing is preventing it.

I made the change in the sixty-third minute.

Rodríguez off. Eze on.

The Colombian walked off to an ovation. He shook my hand. He nodded. I’ve done my part. Now it’s his turn.

Eze jogged onto the Wembley pitch. He was ready.

In the seventieth minute, Eze received the ball on the halfway line. What happened next would be replayed on every television screen in the world for the rest of the year.

He turned. Fernandinho was in front of him. Eze dropped his shoulder, shifted the ball from right foot to left, and went past the Brazilian midfielder as though Fernandinho were standing still. Fernandinho was not standing still. Fernandinho was one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. Eze went past him anyway.

He carried the ball ten yards. Kompany came to meet him. The City captain planted his feet. Set his body. Prepared to make the tackle that would stop the run.

Eze didn’t go past him. He played a one-two with Benteke, a quick, sharp exchange, the ball going to Benteke’s feet and returning to Eze’s feet in the space behind Kompany before the captain could turn. The one-two. The simplest move in football. Executed at Wembley, in a cup final, against the best centre-back in the country, at a speed and with a precision that made simplicity look like genius.

Eze was through the midfield. Two defenders left. Stones on the right. Laporte on the left. The two centre-backs who had replaced Kompany’s cover position, shifting across, narrowing the angle, doing everything that coaching and instinct demanded.

Eze went between them.

Not around. Between. The ball played through the gap between Stones and Laporte, a gap that was approximately eighteen inches wide, and Eze’s body following the ball through the same gap, his hips turning, his shoulders narrowing, the ball and the body occupying the same impossible space at the same impossible moment. Stones reached out. Laporte reached out. Neither touched him. Neither touched the ball.

Eze was through. One-on-one with Ederson. The goalkeeper came out. Made himself big. Set his feet.

Eze looked at Ederson. Ederson looked at Eze. The goalkeeper waited. The striker decided.

He faked the shot. His body shaped to shoot low and left. Ederson dived. And Eze, who had learned this finish on the Beckenham training pitches when he was fifteen years old and Danny Walsh was his under-eighteens coach, lifted the ball over the diving goalkeeper with the outside of his left foot and watched it float, slowly, gently, inevitably, into the empty net.

Crystal Palace 3-2 Manchester City. Eze. 70 minutes

I lost it.

I turned and punched the air and screamed. No word. Just sound. Eight months of control blown apart in one second. The mask gone. The villain gone. Just a man at Wembley watching his twenty-year-old score the goal of a lifetime and losing his mind.

Sarah grabbed me. Rebecca grabbed me. Bray was jumping! Marcus Webb in the gantry was on his feet. On the bench, Konaté was standing on his seat in his tracksuit, hamstring forgotten, screaming in French. Pato was hugging Blake. Milivojević, the man who didn’t believe in ice or celebrations, had his jaw tight and his eyes wet. Three seconds. That’s all he allowed himself. Three seconds of believing.

Tyler, his voice breaking: ”EZE! EBERECHI EZE! I have commentated on football for forty years and I am not sure I have ever seen a goal like that at Wembley! Five players! He has beaten five players and chipped the goalkeeper!”

Neville, laughing: ”I give up. I genuinely give up. Fernandinho, Kompany, Stones, Laporte, Ederson. Five of the best players in England. And a twenty-year-old has gone through all of them like they weren’t there.”

Wembley was standing. Both ends. City fans were shaking their heads. Some clapping. The involuntary applause of people beaten by something they couldn’t argue with.

Eze ran to the Palace end. Slid on his knees. Screamed. Sakho reached him first, lifted him off the ground, and held him. The photograph that would be on every front page tomorrow.

The stewards along the perimeter had shifted. I noticed it because I notice everything on a football pitch, even when I’m losing my mind.

The yellow jackets had moved closer to the Palace end, their bodies angled towards the front rows, their hands on the barriers. They were bracing. The head steward was speaking into his radio.

The Palace fans in the front row were leaning over the advertising boards, arms outstretched, faces contorted, the body language of people who were three seconds from climbing over and two seconds from being stopped.

A boy, maybe fourteen, had one leg over the board before his father pulled him back. The father was crying. The boy was crying. The steward nearest them was pretending not to have seen it.