Chapter 604: Salzburg I: The Europa League Quater-Finals

[Beckenham. Wednesday April 4. 09:00 BST.]

Bus pulled out at nine on the dot. Eighteen players, eleven staff, two lads from Palace TV with cameras, me at the front next to Sarah. Konaté was asleep against the window by the time we hit the A20. Wilf was complaining about the lunch box already. Ben Chilwell was on his phone showing Aaron something that made them both laugh and then both laugh harder.

It was a Wednesday. We were flying to Austria to play a quarter-final.

We flew from Heathrow at half eleven. On the ground at Salzburg airport just after two local time. The bus from the airport got us to the hotel for half past three.

Training was at the Red Bull Arena from half five to half seven on the pitch.

The pitch was perfect. Of course it was. Bull had paid for it.

Marco Rose came out of the tunnel while we were finishing up and stood at the touchline with his hands in his pockets and watched the last fifteen minutes of our session. He did not speak to me.

He nodded once when I walked past him on the way back in. I nodded back. He is the manager who played under Klopp at Mainz and won the UEFA Youth League last season beating Manchester City, PSG, Atlético and Barcelona. He is the manager whose senior side has not lost at the Red Bull Arena in two years. He is forty-one and you will know his name in three more.

[Hotel. Salzburg. 23:10 CET.]

Sarah came to my room with the iPad. We sat at the small table by the window. The city was a string of yellow lights along the river below the hotel.

"On paper."

"On paper."

"Unbeaten at home in two years. Knocked out Dortmund last month. Their under-nineteens won the Youth League beating Pep and the rest. Marco Rose is the most spoken-of young manager in Europe other than you. Press in waves. Diamond. Klopp gegenpress."

"On paper."

"On paper this is the hardest tie left in the competition. Harder than Marseille. Harder than Arsenal. Harder than anyone."

"And in the morning."

"In the morning we beat them."

I drank some of the tea she had brought up.

"Walk me through the front five."

I walked her through the front five.

"Press resistance."

"Mateo deep next to Mili. Mama drops onto the back foot to take the press. Konaté splits wide right to give the angle. Aaron pushes a yard higher than usual to give Townsend a passing option in behind their left-back. Eze drifts left into the channel where their diamond does not have a body. We do not play long unless we have nothing on. If we have nothing on, we play long to Christopher and we win the second ball with Mateo."

"You bought Mateo for this."

"We bought Mateo for this."

"Then we are fine."

"We are fine."

She nodded once. Did not write anything down. She had heard it five times this week.

"Rotation."

"Christopher off at sixty. Pato on. Andros off at sixty-five. Olise on. Mama off at seventy-five, Tomkins on. Eze off at eighty, James on. Mili starts."

"Mili stays."

"Mili plays ninety because Mili plays ninety. We give the rest of them legs for Sunday and the cup semi and the second leg. I am not running anybody into the floor in the first leg of a tie that should already be won."

"Aaron and Ben."

"Aaron and Ben were rested at the Hawthorns and they start tomorrow and they finish tomorrow. Joel and Lucas had the workout last weekend."

"You have already thought about this."

"I have been thinking about this since the draw on the seventeenth."

She closed the iPad. Stood up. Did not leave straight away.

"Daniel."

"Yeah."

"You okay."

"Yeah."

"You sure."

"Yeah."

"All right."

She went out and closed the door quietly behind her.

I phoned Emma after. She picked up on the second ring and talked about her day. The editor had butchered the women’s FA Cup piece exactly as she had said. She had bought another book by the same writer of the green-cover one. Caitlin’s brother was the same kind of bad. She had eaten a chicken sandwich at her desk at four because she had forgotten to make lunch.

She did not ask about the match.

I told her I missed her.

She told me to win it and come home.

I slept.

[Red Bull Arena. Thursday April 5. 20:55 CET.]

The tunnel was narrower than I had expected from the photographs. The Salzburg side came out first and stood in line by the wall. We came out and lined up across from them.

Their captain shook my hand. He had played at Sunderland on loan in twenty-fifteen and his English was excellent. He wished us a good match. I wished him the same.

The mascots came in. Two children each side. The Champions League anthem they use for the Europa is not the Champions League anthem and there is something about that which is right and something which is wrong, and I have never decided which is which.

We walked out.

The Red Bull Arena was a wall of red and white in three sides and a corner of Palace blue and red where eight hundred of ours had paid for hotels in February. The Palace corner was singing already. South London is wonderful, South London is wonderful, full of tits and Wilfried Zaha. Wilf turned to the corner and lifted both arms once.

Whistle went at nine-oh-five.

The first six minutes were theirs and that was the most they had all night.

They came at us the way Sarah said they would come at us. The diamond compressed. The wingers tucked in. Their front two pressed our centre-backs and the eights pressed our pivot. Twice in those six minutes Wayne played short to Mama and Mama played short to Mateo and Mateo carried it.

That was the match.

It was not one moment. It was the whole match. Mateo carrying it. Every time we got it in our own half, Mateo came short. Every time he came short, somebody from Salzburg came at him. Every time somebody came at him, the ball came out of the pressure with one touch and Mateo’s body on the inside shoulder of the man who had tried to take it off him.

By the fifteenth minute the Salzburg crowd were quiet because they had seen it happen four times.

By the eighteenth minute we were one up.

Mateo broke a press in front of our own box. Spread it wide to Aaron, who was a yard higher than usual on the right. Aaron carried it forty yards. Slipped it inside to Eze in the half-space. Eze switched it across to Wilf on the left touchline. Wilf cut inside on his right and put a cross in.

The cross was for Benteke at the near post. Christopher knocked it down with the side of his head. The knock-down was for Eze, who had come from the edge of the box like he was the one who had decided where it was going.

Eze hit it first time. Low. Across the keeper. Bottom-right corner.

The Palace eight hundred lost their minds.

Eze ran the length of the touchline towards us and pointed at Mateo and Mateo pointed back at him. Aaron got there. Wilf got there. The bench was up.

I was already looking at Sarah.

"That’s the press broken."

"That is the press broken."

"They will throw the kitchen sink for ten minutes."

"They will."

They did. They came at us the way you come at a side that has just gone one-nil up against you at home. They threw bodies forward. They got crosses in. Aaron took Hwang Hee-chan into a corner and won the ball with a tackle that should have been on a poster. Mama got his head to a Dabbur cross on the six-yard line. Wayne caught a ball at the second time of asking from a Lainer free kick that had been put in on his far post.

Then they ran out of ideas.

Their crowd was still going at thirty-three minutes. Their crowd had stopped going by thirty-six.

Thirty-six minutes, we got it back from a Salzburg corner.

Mama headed it out. Mateo got it in our own half. Mateo carried it again. He drew Berisha in and slid it round Berisha and into the channel for Wilf. Wilf was already running because Wilf had read the carry from twenty yards away.

He went past their right-back the way Wilf goes past right-backs.

The shot was Wilf’s first instinct, low across the keeper, and the keeper saved it with his left hand and pushed it out across his own box, and Christopher Benteke was there because the goal had been Wilf and Eze for the first one and Christopher had remembered.

He stuck it in with his left foot from four yards.

Two-nil.

The Palace corner sang for Benteke for a full minute. Christopher ran to the corner. He pointed both index fingers at the away end and stood there. Mama got to him first. Konaté got to him. The whole bench was up again.

I had my arms folded.

Sarah said, "Don’t smile, Daniel. There’s still nearly an hour."

"I’m not smiling."

"You’re nearly smiling."

"Nearly is allowed."