"This team will frighten the life out of Europe. It will frighten the life out of the cowards of Europe. It will take them and shake them and frighten them. Those cowards of Europe will not know what has hit them"
Mr Allison’s words. These
were Mr Allison’s words. They were Mr Allison’s words of war and they were
words of war made for the European Cup. For the players and staff of
Fenerbahçe, the unknown Fenerbahçe, who must now surely be trembling in their
hastily fabricated and cheaply constructed football boots, made out of goat’s
hide and sticky back plastic.
The words of Mr Allison
were in every newspaper. They were in English and in Turkish. Mr Allison’s
words were translated into Turkish. Mr Allison’s words were in English. The
words of Mr Allison made good reading in the newspapers for the readers. The words
made good reading in Turkish, with their sedillas
and their circumflexes and their
noisy guttural palatalisation.
Mr Allison’s words looked
just fine in Turkish and were read by the supporters and staff of Fenerbahçe,
the unkown Fernebahce, with their makeshift boots and their cowardly aroma of
sticky back plastic.
These were his words of
war. These were his words of European Cup war.
***
No spine. One man team.
This is what they said.
No spine. One man team,
they all said. And they repeated it. No spine. One man team. All the newspapers
repeated the phrase: one man team. It was a one man team and it was a team that
was going to be beaten, because it relied on
only one man. All the readers of newspapers digested the words and
remembered them. It was a one man team waiting to be beaten, a one man team
waiting to be dispatched, waiting to be parcelled off by the men from Rome.
The words were not those
of Mr Pellegrini. They were in English and in Italian, but they were not the
words of Mr Pellegrini. These were words of war, but they were not Mr
Pellegrini’s words of war. They were newspaper editors' words of war. They were
the words of war for a different war, a war of newspaper editors waging war on
reader numbers and website clicks.
And the reader numbers
clicked by as the words flowed. And the war was waged on all of us.
***
Mr Allison looked at the
team sheet and bit his nails. He looked at the team sheet and puffed on his
cigar. He puffed long and hard on a big, fat cigar. He looked again and asked
his captain what he thought. His captain said he thought it would be fine. His
captain Anthony Book looked through his manager's hastily constructed cigar
smoke and nodded.
It would all be fine, he
said.
Mr Allison also thought
it would be fine. All fine. Mr Allison looked at that team sheet and stared at
the names upon it. It would be fine, he thought. His captain thought the same
thing. Anthony Book, captain of Manchester
City, thought exactly the
same thing. Mr Allison's cigar tasted just fine too and the smoke smelled just
right.
He
looked through the list one more time, admiring it, staring at it: Kenneth
Mulhearn, David Connor, George Heslop, Alan Oakes, Glyn Pardoe, Colin Bell,
Anthony Coleman, Michael Doyle, Michael Summerbee, Francis Lee and Neil Young.
That would do, he thought. That would do nicely.
And captain Anthony Book
thought so too. It would do. Even though Anthony Book, captain and right back,
captain and inspiration, would not be there to play the makeshift men from Turkey. Not
only would it do, it would be fine.
***
Mr
Pellegrini asked Mr Cousillas what he thought of the team’s chances in the
circumstances. The circumstances were grim. No spine left, one man team. This
is what the press had been saying. This is what the press had been saying all
week. This is what they always said. And no spirit. No team spirit. And these
were the words of war that the newspaper readers read.
Mercenaries
with no team spirit. Mercenaries playing for the petro dollars. Petro dollars
and nothing else. Oil money. No team spirit and no spine left. Just dollars
from the micro petro state in the sun.
Mr
Pellegrini rubbed his chin and looked at the team sheet. Joseph Hart, Pablo
Zabaleta, Gael Clichy, Martin Demichelis, Eliaquim Mangala, James Milner, Samir
Nasri, Fernando Reges, Fernandinho Rosa, Jesus Navas, Edin Dzeko.
But
no spine and no spirit was the message from the men in the press.
It
might not do, he thought. And Mr Cousillas thought that too. It might not do,
they both thought without uttering the words one to the other. It might not do.
It might not do at all. And the press might be right.
***
The day of the match. No
sleep. A terrible clatter, banging outside the hotel, drums and shouting,
wailing and sirens. A terrible clamour. A terrible clatter. People running
around in the dark, car horns sounding, people wailing in the streets.
Kenneth Mulhearn rubbed
his eyes and looked at the clock, the digital clock, the new fangled digital
hotel clock. The new fangled digital hotel clock read 05:05. It was five
o’clock in the morning. It was five minutes past five in the morning. Five past
five a.m. Istanbul
time. Local time. Time for the locals.
Kenneth Mulhearn rolled
over in bed and looked at the curtains. Dark green curtains with a little
yellow stencil pattern. The dark green curtains with a little yellow pattern
looked back at Kenneth Mulhearn and he did not sleep anymore.
Next door David Connor
also looked at his curtains, as did Michael Summerbee in Room 106 and Alan Oakes alongside in 108. Nobody slept
anymore, owing to the clatter and the din in the street. The clatter and the
din just kept getting louder and louder.
***
Joseph
Hart awoke at eight-forty five precisely. The liquid crystal digital read-out
on his mobile phone read 08:45 Roma. The mobile phone was vibrating and
pulsing. It made little noise and the streets outside made little noise. Owing
to the triple glazing and the specially chosen location and the police cordon
of little yellow and orange bollards, the street outside made little noise.
It
was a quarter to nine in Rome.
Rome time. Joseph
Hart thought of the day ahead, stretching, exercising, preparing, talking to microphones.
Stretching, exercising, preparing, talking to microphones.
Joseph
Hart looked into his mobile phone to find music and to find the newspaper
headlines that would talk of mercenaries and last chance saloons and failure
and gladiators and Roman ruins.
The
mercenaries. The pound stretchers. The bunch of cowardly individuals that were
not a team. The cowards of Europe.
Joseph
Hart yawned and put on his headphones. Joseph Hart yawned and scratched his
head and put on his headphones to listen to music.
***
The BJK İnönü Stadyumu
was already packed. The new digital time display in the stadium read 09:23.
Breakfast time in Istanbul.
The BJK İnönü Stadyumu was rolling and rocking. The BJK İnönü Stadyumu was full
to the rafters at breakfast time.
Kenneth Mulhearn joined
his team mates. David Connor, Michael Summerbee, Francis Lee. They all looked
tired. Michael Summerbee did not look as if he had slept at all. Kenneth
Mulhearn felt a little like Michael Summerbee looked. The players gathered in a
meeting room. One by one they gathered in the small hot meeting room. One by
one the players, looking tired and flustered, sat down in the hot and small
meeting room to listen to the words of Mr Allison, who also looked tired and
hot and restless.
Mr Allison did not smoke
a big cigar.
Mr Allison looked at the
players and sighed. Mr Allison’s confidence was shot through. Mr Allison, for
the first time, wondered if they might not lose. Mr Allison told them that he
felt confident and he repeated it, but his face told them another story, his
eyes told them another story and everyone understood what his face and his eyes
were telling them.
***
The
Estadio Olimpico was empty. Thousands upon thousands of empty blue seats. A
silence lay around the place.
Jospeh
Hart arrived in the lobby with his headphones and his bag. Fernando Reges did
the same, as did Fernandinho Rosa. They all looked bright and well presented.
Mr Pellegrini noted that they all looked well presented and bright. Mr
Pellegrini and Mr Cousillas both noted that all looked well and shiny eyed,
that all looked like they had slept the sleep of the unworried, the sleep of
the uninterrupted.
Mr
Pellegrini told Mr Kidd that he thought everything would be fine. Mr Kidd
nodded. He also thought everything would be fine. Mr Kidd looked at the faces
and the eyes of Joseph Hart and Fernandinho Rosa and decided that all would be
alright, that all would be alright.
***
The
roads were choked. Choked roads with thousands of people. The players of Manchester City
looked out of the windows and watched
the choked roads with their thousands of people.
Kenneth
Mulhearn looked at the roads and the people. Kenneth Mulhearn shifted in his
seat and returned to his newspaper, with his bloodshot eyes and his heavy head,
which kept sliding down the window. Kenneth Mulhearn did not feel at all like
playing football.
Mr
Allison looked at the roads and sighed. Anthony Book and Michael Summerbee
looked at the roads and sighed.
The
people bounced and jumped, bounced and jumped. The people in the choked roads
lit flares and banged drums. They shouted and sang and made a frightful din.
The din entered the coach and the players of Manchester City
sank behind their newspapers, with the din ringing in their ears.
***
Joseph
Hart and his team mates sat silently in their modern bus. It slid down empty
streets towards the stadium in a swish of near silence. The roads were dark and
still.
Joseph
Hart listened to music on his headphones. Mr Pellegrini watched and sighed. Mr
Cousillas and Mr Kidd watched and sighed. Mr Pellegrini looked at Mr Kidd and
he looked at Mr Cousillas and Mr Pellegrini nodded.
The
three men lent back in the chairs in the silent bus and felt comfortable. The
players behind them looked rested and alert, rested and alert. Joseph Hart felt
like playing football. Joseph Hart really felt like playing football. And so
too did Pablo Zabaleta and James Milner.
***
The
BJK İnönü Stadyumu was surrounded by people. They looked wide eyed and excited.
The people jumped up and down and thumped their fists on the side of the bus as
it edged forward, inch by inch, inch by inch.
Kenneth
Mulhearn had a headache. He closed his eyes and he closed the curtains. The
little curtains only went halfway across the window and the people thumped even
more. Kenneth Mulhearn had serious doubts and serious pains in his head. He did
not at all like the look of the scene outside his unfamiliar smelling bus.
Anthony
Book revised his thoughts. He did not any longer feel that all would be well.
He felt something knotting in his stomach and he turned to Mr Allison and told
him so.
Mr
Allison smiled a weak smile and said none of the things he usually said on the
bus to the stadium.
Francis
Lee gripped his knees and looked out of the window. Tonight was going to be a
difficult night. Tonight was not going to be his night.
***
The
Stadio Olimpico was already reverberating to the distant noise of firecrackers
and song. Red favours fluttered past the graded windows of the luxury bus as
Joseph Hart looked out at the excited throng. Joseph Hart adjusted his
earphones and settled a little lower in his luxury padded seat. He did not hear
the faint bangs or the distant cries. Joseph Hart heard only music.
Out
in the dank streets, people moved in the shadows. No noise came through the graded
windows. The graded windows shielded them from any noise. The bus glided and
the people mouthed wordless things.
Behind
him Samir Nasri looked out too and gripped his knees with his hands. Tonight was
going to be an interesting night. Tonight was going to be his night.