Chapter 625: Wembley Again I: Southhampton

[The Grove Hotel. Watford. Saturday April 28. 08:14 BST.]

I was up before the alarm.

The team hotel had been the Grove for every Wembley match this season because the Grove was Wembley’s twenty-minute coach run and because the kitchen at the Grove served the pre-match meal at the temperature Rebecca had specified and because Steve Parish had a deal with the manager from a wedding eight years ago that nobody had revisited.

Three Wembleys this season. The Carabao Cup Final in February. Tottenham away in the league in November because Spurs were at Wembley while their new ground went up. Now the FA Cup semi-final.

I had not lost at Wembley as a manager.

I had been at the window of room four-oh-three for ten minutes watching the grounds before Sarah knocked.

She came in with two coffees and the iPad under her arm.

"You’re early."

"You’re earlier."

She set one of the coffees down on the dressing table and sat in the chair by the window. Opened the iPad. Did not look up from it.

"Pellegrino is going four-five-one. He has been four-five-one against us since October. He went four-five-one in the league at Selhurst when we won three-nil, and he went four-five-one at St Mary’s when we won two-one.

He will go four-five-one today. He thinks he can take the press out of our game by congesting the middle of the pitch. He will be wrong because Mateo and Rúben in the middle of the pitch can play around congestion the way two seven-year-olds play around traffic cones."

"Lineup."

"Wayne. Aaron, Mama, Konaté, Ben. Mateo, Rúben. Michael, Eze, Wilf. Christopher."

"Mili on the bench."

"Mili on the bench. We need him fresh for Lisbon on Thursday and for Burnley on Sunday and for Stoke on Wednesday. Mateo and Rúben do today. Pato comes on for Christopher at sixty-five if we are clear. Aviero for Eze at seventy-five. McArthur for Mateo at eighty if we are still in control."

"All right."

She did not get up.

"Daniel."

"Yeah."

"We are going to win this match by three goals at least. Pellegrino does not have a midfielder who can stay with Mateo for ninety minutes. Pellegrino does not have a back four that can stay with Eze and Michael when Mateo is on the ball in the centre circle. Pellegrino does not have the player Pellegrino needs to have."

"All right."

"And then we are going to win Lisbon. And then we are going to win Lyon. And then we are going to beat City."

"Sarah."

"Yeah."

"Eight in the morning."

"Eight in the morning."

She drank half her coffee and went out.

[The Grove. 11:47 BST.]

Pre-match meal at twelve. Bus at one. Wembley by half one.

I came down to the function room early because I had eaten my pre-match meal alone at every Wembley match this season and because the lads knew I did it and left me to it.

Mateo was already in the room.

He had a plate of pasta in front of him and a glass of orange juice. He was reading something on his phone in Croatian. Looked up when I came in.

"Daniel."

"Mateo."

"Sit."

I sat. He pushed the salt across the table to me. I did not need the salt. He pushed it because he was Mateo.

"Bruno Fernandes."

"What about him?"

"He texted me last night. I have his number from the national team. He played against me three years ago in a friendly. He texted to say his manager would offer him eight million pounds a year to stay at Sporting until 2022 if he turned down the move he is going to take in the summer. He texted to tell me the move he is going to take in the summer is the move he is going to take."

"Which club?"

"He did not say. He told me to watch the next twelve months. He also told me he watched me carry the ball forty yards in the seventy-second minute of the first leg and that if I do that again at the José Alvalade he will kick me."

"He will not kick you."

"He will not kick me. But he wanted me to know."

He ate his pasta. I ate my pasta. The lads started coming in at quarter to twelve.

Wilf came past my chair on the way to the buffet and put his hand on my shoulder for half a second. Did not say anything. Mama did the same on the way back. Konaté did not because Konaté did not.

The pasta tasted of pasta.

[Wembley. 13:42 BST.]

The team bus turned off the A4089 onto Wembley Park Drive at twenty to two.

The Palace fans were already lined down both sides of the road. Half-and-half scarves. The lad with the megaphone outside the Green Man pub already going. The flag with WALSH on it that I had seen first at the Carabao Cup Final in February now had a second flag next to it with EZE on it and a third with KOVAČIĆ on it and a fourth with OLISE that had been made the week before.

The bus crawled through the crowd at five miles an hour for the last quarter-mile.

Konaté at the window. Wilf at the window. Olise at the window with his hood up.

We pulled into the players’ entrance at quarter to.

[Wembley. The Dressing Room. 16:34 BST.]

I did not say much.

The room was the Wembley dressing room and the Wembley dressing room was the dressing room three quarters of these lads had won the Carabao Cup in nine weeks ago. The walls had not changed. The kit had been laid out in the same order. Even the steward at the door was the same steward.

I did not need to make a speech.

"Same shape. Same plan. Pellegrino is going four-five-one. Mateo and Rúben own the middle of the pitch. Michael and Wilf find the channels. Eze in the half-spaces. Christopher off the line. The bench is one of the best benches in Europe. We have the ninety minutes."

Mama from the wall: "Gaffer."

"Yeah, Mama."

"Three."

"Three."

"Four."

"All right. Four."

The room laughed.

Wayne at the door first. The bell went. We went out.

[Wembley. Kick-off. 17:15 BST.]

Wembley filled differently to Selhurst.

The noise at Selhurst came out of the Holmesdale and the Arthur Wait in two thick walls that met in the middle of the pitch and held you between them.

The noise at Wembley went up into the dome and came back down a half-second late, so the chant you had heard half a second ago was still hitting your ears when the next chant was already going.

The Palace end was the half of the stadium that fed into the tunnel we had walked out of. Forty-three thousand of them. Glad all over on the way out. The Southampton end was Southampton. Twenty-six thousand. They had the megaphone too. They were not quiet.

The drum on the Palace side started.

Boom.

Boom.

The Holmesdale lads had brought the drum to Wembley because the Holmesdale lads brought the drum to every match this season including the away ones, and the steward at the gate had let them through with it because the steward had been at Wembley for the Carabao Cup Final and had seen what the drum had done to the place.

The referee blew his whistle.

BLEEP.

[14’.]

Rúben took it off Pellè in midfield.

He did not pass.

He carried it five yards. Looked up. Saw what he saw. Outside-of-the-right-foot through-ball forty yards down the left channel.

Wilf was running.

Wilf had been running since the moment Rúben had taken it off Pellè.

He took it past Bednarek. One touch. Took it past Hoedt. Two touches.

The keeper came out.

Wilf went round him.

Whump.

The ball went into the empty net from the corner of the six-yard box.

The Palace end did the thing it did. Forty-three thousand voices for the half-second it took the sound to go up into the dome and the half-second it took for the sound to come back down. Boom. Boom. Boom. The drum.

Wilf ran to the corner of the Palace end. Mama got there first. Wayne came from the other end of the pitch. The bench was up.

[Crystal Palace 1 - Southampton 0.]

[27’.]

Corner. Eze on the right.

Bray had drawn this one on the bus from the Grove that morning. Mama running across the keeper. Mateo at the edge of the box. Konaté at the back post. Christopher dragging the centre-back.

Eze put it where Eze put it.

Konaté.

THUD.

Off Konaté’s forehead. Bottom corner. The keeper got two fingers to it and did not get any more.

The Palace end stood. Did not sit down again.

[Crystal Palace 2 - Southampton 0.]

[41’.]

Mateo had been on the ball for forty per cent of the half by the forty-first minute.

He had it in midfield. He took it past Højbjerg. Took it past Tadic who had come back to help.

He looked up.

Eze peeled into the half-spaces because Eze peeled into the half-spaces.

Mateo played him in.

Eze took one touch. Dragged Hoedt across his body. Slipped it inside to where Olise should have been if Olise had been keeping his run with Eze’s touch.

Olise had been keeping his run.

He took it on his left.

The keeper came out.

Olise dinked it over him.

Whump.

The ball came down behind the keeper. Crossed the line. Went out the other side of the net into the metal frame at the back and clanged twice.

The Palace end lost it.

Olise turned and walked back to the centre circle. Did not change expression. The Holmesdale lads with the drum did a song they had been working on at the Beehive for him on Tuesday night, and the rest of the Palace end picked it up.

[Crystal Palace 3 - Southampton 0.]