Chapter 832: Nothing On It II
34 minutes.
James Rodríguez does not run much any more. He is 27 and he has had 2 knees and he covers about 8 kilometres in a match and he is worth 4 of anybody I have ever coached.
He got it on the left touchline with Rafinha 3 feet away and he did not beat him. He did not try to.
He looked up once.
That is all he did. He did not shape to cross and he did not take a touch to set himself, he just looked up for about a third of a second at a man 30 yards away.
And Christian Benteke started moving before the ball had left his foot.
6 years in this league and he knows what another man’s shoulders look like when he has decided to go near post, and he had made his mind up while Rodríguez was still deciding.
Javi Martínez is 6 foot 3. He has won 5 Bundesligas and a Champions League and he had both hands in the back of Benteke’s shirt and he was not letting go.
Benteke did not try to go up.
He stepped in front. 4 inches, and 12 years of knowing where to put them, and he let it hit him.
BOOM.
Off the forehead, down into that surface, and up past Sven Ulreich’s left hand before Ulreich had finished moving his feet.
RRRRAAAAAAA.
1-1.
And the 3,000 in the corner made a noise that 3,000 people should not be able to make in a bowl that size.
"WE ARE PALACE! WE ARE PALACE!"
Christian Benteke ran to the corner flag with 1 finger in the air and Michael Olise got to him first, and a 27-year-old and a 16-year-old went into the advertising boards together.
In a friendly. In New Jersey. In July.
In row 4 of the West stand, in a navy suit, Achraf Hakimi was on his feet with both arms up.
Sven Ulreich saved 3 more before half time.
He got a leg to a Benteke shot from 6 yards that was already past him. He tipped a Rúben Neves drive from 25 out over his own bar with 2 fingers.
And on 43 minutes, Michael Olise came inside off David Alaba for the first time all night, 20 minutes later than I had told him to, and hit it low and early across the goalkeeper.
I turned round to look at my own bench before it got there. That is how far in it was.
Nya Kirby was already stood up with both arms going.
PFFF.
Ulreich went down and across and got a glove behind it and put it round the post, and then he was up on his feet pointing at Rafinha about something else entirely.
Nya Kirby, on that bench, said a word I am not writing down.
"OHHHHH."
Michael Olise put both hands on his head and stood there.
And David Alaba, 26 years old, 60 caps, 8 league titles, went past him and said 4 or 5 words and patted him twice on the back of the head without breaking stride.
Olise looked over at our bench with his face doing something I could not read from 60 yards.
"WHAT DID HE SAY?" Bray, cupping his hands.
Olise shrugged both shoulders and put his hands out.
"HE SAID IT IN GERMAN!"
PRRRRP.
Half time. 1-1.
We had 61 per cent of the ball and 9 shots and we should have been 3-1 up, and the reason we were not was a 29-year-old goalkeeper who plays 5 matches a season.
I got them in that dressing room under the buzzing strip light and I did not shout, because there was nothing to shout about.
Bzzz.
"Right."
30 men. Wet shirts. Somebody’s studs going on a hard floor.
Clk. Clk.
"Anybody in here think that was bad luck?"
Nobody said anything, because when a manager asks that in a dressing room he is not asking.
"Good. Because it was not. That is the best 45 minutes we have played since April and we are drawing, and the reason we are drawing is that their goalkeeper is better than you thought he was 46 minutes ago.
"Now you know. Aaron."
He looked up.
"The goal is mine. I put you there, you told me on Saturday exactly what would happen, it happened, and I did it anyway because I wanted to see it happen."
He started to say something.
"No. Sit there and take it, because I am about to ask you to do it again for 45 more minutes." I looked at him. "And stop looking at Chilly like it was his."
"I was not."
"You were, and 3 other people saw you do it."
Hahaha.
Ben Chilwell said, "He definitely was, gaffer."
There is 1 more thing and it is the reason I had spent 41 minutes of that half not watching the ball.
"Marcus. Put the 4 up."
He had them cued because I had asked for them at 41 minutes.
Clk.
4 clips. Same 8 seconds each. Rúben Neves stepping forward, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg filling behind him.
"Watch the bottom of the screen. Not the ball."
30 men in a dressing room in New Jersey looking at the bottom of a laptop screen on a wall.
Serge Gnabry, 20 yards away from everything, stood completely still, facing Højbjerg.
Clip 2. Same. Clip 3. Same.
Clip 4 he takes a step and stops.
"He is not pressing," I said. "In 45 minutes he has pressed 3 times and 2 of those were the goalkeeper. He is 22 and he has just moved for 75 million pounds and he has spent a half of football stood in a space doing nothing.
"Somebody tell me why."
Nobody said anything for about 2 seconds, and then Pierre-Emile Højbjerg put his hand up.
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg put his hand up. Nobody in an English dressing room does that. He has done it in every meeting since the day he signed.
"He is watching me," Højbjerg said.
"Go on."
"He is not pressing. He is standing 20 yards away and he is watching when I go and when I do not go." He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Coach, he knows the movement. He was here for it. He is not trying to beat us in the first half, he is counting."
Nobody said anything.
James McArthur, 30 years old, 250 Premier League appearances, has said about 40 words all week.
"So we change it," McArthur said.
"We change what?"
"You tell Pierre to go late. Once." He shrugged. "If the lad is counting, give him a number that is wrong."
"And if he is not counting?"
"Then we have given away 4 seconds in a friendly, gaffer."
"Rúben."
Rúben Neves had not said a word all half. He is 21 and he cost nothing and he passes a ball better than anybody I have ever coached.
"I do not go," Neves said.
"Say the rest of it."
"If Pierre goes late, then I do not go at all for that 1. Otherwise there are 2 of us out of position and Gnabry does not need to count anything, he just runs into it."
He is right and it is the bit McArthur missed and neither of them needed me to find it.
"Right. Both of you. Once, in the first 15, Rúben stays and Pierre goes late." I put the marker down. "And James."
"Aye."
"When it happens, you cover the middle. Not Aaron. You."
"I know," McArthur said.
I have got a whiteboard, an analyst with 3 laptops, a coaching staff of 9, and a thing in my head that tells me numbers about footballers.
The answer came out of a 30-year-old Scot with his boots off who does not speak for a week at a time.
"Pierre."
"I heard him."
"Can you do it?"
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg looked at me like I had asked him whether he could tie a lace.
"When?"
"Once. In the first 15 minutes. And then never again all night, because the second time he will know."
Prrrrp.
A man in a headset put his head round that door.
"Right," I said. "Same shape. Same 3 things. And somebody put 1 past that goalkeeper before Kovač takes him off, because he is going to take him off, and when he does we are going to score 3."
Bray, from the door, without turning round.
"He is 18 on that bench, the other one."
"I know."
"Danny, he is 18 and he has not played a senior match."
"I know, Bray."
"Right," Bray said. "Just making sure you know."