Harbinger Of Glory

After the final proceedings, the San Nicola dressing room buzzed with the easy energy of a team that had done its job.

Boots thudded onto the floor, and through it, slightly joyous conversations overlapped from every corner, growing louder each time someone replayed a moment from the match.

Near the far wall, Moise Kean had music playing softly from his phone and was dancing just enough to amuse the players around him.

Someone joined him for a few seconds before giving up, triggering a wave of laughter across the room.

While the players were stuck in the slight celebrations of their win, Spalletti walked in, and as he did, the room settled naturally as he looked around at his players.

"That was some professional football from you guys," he said. "Exactly what tonight needed."

He spoke for another minute, praising the discipline more than the scoreline itself before Marco appeared at the doorway and quietly caught his attention.

Spalletti listened, nodded once and excused himself, leaving the dressing room to return to its own rhythm almost immediately.

...

An hour later, the team bus was rolling north through the Italian night.

The celebrations had faded somewhere between the stadium and the motorway.

Now the only sounds came from the steady hum of the engine, the occasional laugh from the back and the rustle of someone shifting in their seat.

Most of the squad had disappeared into headphones or sleep.

Others scrolled absent-mindedly through their phones, reading messages that had been waiting since full-time.

And by others, Leo sat by the window, his screen illuminating the side of his face as he worked his way through translated articles covering the match.

He read through as much as he could without straining, but the consensus was that the verdict hardly changed.

Italy had won comfortably, and the performance had been efficient, professional and convincing, but again, it was exactly what was expected from the side.

A moment later, he locked the screen with a sigh and rested his head lightly against the glass.

Outside, the lights of southern Italy drifted by before giving way to long stretches of darkness.

He couldn’t quite decide what disappointed him.

The result had never really been in doubt, and neither had the performance, but maybe that was the problem.

Expectation had a way of stealing satisfaction, and at the moment, it was the current predicament with football.

When everyone expected you to win, winning simply became another obligation fulfilled.

Nobody celebrated it for long because they had already imagined it happening before the first whistle.

Lose, though...

Lose, and suddenly expectation became a weapon.

The criticism arrived faster, and the disappointment cut deeper.

History carried more weight than the present ever seemed to.

Leo had only been part of the national team for a short time, but even he could feel it.

Italy still measured itself against the teams that had conquered the world decades earlier.

Every generation was compared to another.

Every performance judged against a standard that had been built long before most of the current squad had kicked a football.

He understood why, and he just wasn’t sure it left much room to enjoy nights like this.

If things were to go in the right direction, something needed to change.

With a quiet sigh, he slipped the phone into his pocket and closed his eyes, throwing the feeling to the back of his mind as the team bus carried on through the night, the lights outside drifting past until even they disappeared.

The following morning arrived without ceremony and the Italian squad, despite having played the previous evening, found themselves on the pitch at Coverciano by mid-morning.

Spalletti had made one thing perfectly clear before the camp even began.

Recovery days were still working days.

England waited three days away, and there was no version of preparation that involved spending twenty-four hours stretched across a treatment table pretending the next match would prepare itself.

The workload changed, and the standards certainly did not.

By the time the squad walked out onto the training pitches the following morning, the effects of Malta were written plainly across tired legs and stiff movements.

Nobody complained and simply got on with it.

Warm-ups took a little longer than usual while the stretching sessions were interrupted every few minutes by physiotherapists checking on knocks collected nights earlier, while the fitness staff adjusted workloads for players who had logged heavier minutes.

Once the bodies had loosened, the football returned.

Everything Spalletti had spent the time since his appointment doing resurfaced.

Playing through compact blocks, breaking lines with one pass instead of three, recognising pressing triggers as well as winning the ball together instead of individually.

The exercises weren’t new anymore.

The hesitation that had marked the first camp had almost disappeared, replaced by a more compact side that was sure of whatever passes they made.

When one player stepped out to press, another filled the space automatically.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was becoming instinct.

Several times Spalletti stopped play, not because something had gone wrong, but because something had gone right.

He wanted them to see it.

"Again," he said after one particularly sharp sequence.

"Exactly the same."

Marco watched quietly from the side, arms folded, making occasional notes while Spalletti rarely took his eyes off the players.

A while later, the session finally eased into recovery work as the players broke into smaller groups, stretching on the grass while others cycled through light jogging around the perimeter of the pitch.

Off to one side, Spalletti and Marco stood together watching it all unfold.

"The competition has changed," Marco said after a while.

Spalletti kept his eyes on the squad.

"I know."

"They’re pushing each other now, just like they were supposed to before that whole seniority nonsense!"

Marco smiled faintly.

"I don’t remember the last camp feeling like this."

"Well, I am glad that it is like that now!"

"Every one of them wants to start," he nodded to himself.

"And that’s exactly how it should be."

By the following afternoon, the media had settled on its favourite storyline.

It was England against Italy, again.

Almost every newspaper reached the same destination through different headlines.

Some revisited Wembley where Italy had once snatched the European trophy from the hands of the Three Lions.

Several focused on how quickly football had moved since then, reminding readers that this was no final, only a qualifier, before immediately filling the next paragraphs with reasons it still mattered.

It wasn’t just another international fixture, at least not for either country, especially with the tournament that was looking at the end of the season.

Former world champions rarely played each other without history walking onto the pitch beside them.

The final training session eventually happened with Spalletti’s side closing it out on a strong note.

When the whistle finally sounded, Spalletti gathered the squad in a semicircle where he waited until everyone was looking at him.

"I’m pleased," he said simply.

"You’ve worked properly. I’ve seen seriousness. I’ve seen competition."

"And most of all, I’ve seen improvement."

"I’ll decide the team this evening," he said as several players exchanged brief glances, though nobody reacted beyond that.

"Get some rest because tomorrow surely belongs to us!"

With that, he walked away.

The players naturally drifted into small groups as they headed back toward the dressing room.

Leo found himself alongside Carlo as they trudged back to the locker rooms, but there wasn’t much to say.

With that, Coverciano disappeared behind them early the following afternoon.

Rather than spending five hours on the motorway, Spalletti had chosen to fly the squad north as the fresh legs would matter.

Every small advantage counted, and the slightly over an hour flight passed uneventfully.

Leo spent most of it looking out of the window, the countryside gradually giving way to the outskirts of Milan before the aircraft finally descended.

Across Italy, the day slowly shifted toward evening.

Cafés emptied earlier than usual and all around, televisions flickered to life behind restaurant windows.

Shops that might normally have stayed open another hour quietly pulled down their shutters, all in anticipation of the game that was to happen.

By the time the team coach rolled beneath the Giuseppe Meazza, the stadium was already alive.

Supporters lined the approach roads with flags hanging from the railings.

In the confines of the stadium, the sound followed the players long before they stepped onto the pitch.

Inside the tunnel, the opening gave way to floodlights and grass as the Italian side stepped out together.

The roar waiting for them crashed down from every tier of the stadium, swelling even further as more Italy shirts emerged behind them.

And through it all, Carlo looked across without slowing his stride.

"Remember the Under-21s?"

Leo, walking beside him, smiled "I do."

Carlo looked toward the stands and then nodded.

"I feel like much won’t change here," he muttered as Leo returned his words with a nod.

"That would be for the best," he muttered before pushing ahead, joining the trail of players that had started warming up!