Glory Of The Football Manager System

Chapter 556: Italian Football

RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, led their late-night sports programme with ten minutes of analysis. The presenter, visibly shaken, described the result as "una umiliazione storica," a historic humiliation.

The studio showed the Pato hat-trick, the ultras leaving, the Holmesdale singing "Glad All Over," and the press conference where Walsh had dismissed the result as "the first leg" and pivoted to the trophy drought.

The Italian pundit said: "This young English manager has done something extraordinary. But the most extraordinary thing is what he said afterwards. He said it was not enough. He said they wanted a trophy. He said the match was finished and the next one was beginning. In Italy, we would have celebrated for a week. In South London, they are already preparing for Sunday."

Canal+ in France ran a segment that focused on Sakho and Konaté, the two French players in Palace’s defence, and on the broader narrative of French talent thriving in the Premier League while Italian football declined. beIN Sports in the Middle East, where Palace’s Nairobi supporters’ club had been featured in a previous segment, replayed the twenty-six-second goal seventeen times.

ESPN’s European football show opened with the side-by-side comparison of Pato’s 2011 Barcelona goal and last night’s opener.

The analyst said: "The finish is identical. The composure is identical. The only difference is the shirt. Seven years ago, he scored that goal wearing the red and black of Milan. Tonight, he scored it wearing the red and blue of Crystal Palace. The question for Milan is: how did they let him go? The question for Palace is: how did they find him?"

Elena had been filming all of it.

Not just the match. Not just the dressing room. Not just the press conference. She had been filming the reaction. The world’s reaction. Because Elena understood, with the instinct of a director who had won BAFTAs and who saw stories the way Konaté saw space, that the 6-1 was not just a football result. It was a cultural event.

A moment where the narrative of European football shifted, where the assumption that the great clubs would always be great and the small clubs would always be small was challenged, publicly, irrevocably, by six goals and twenty-five thousand people in South London.

She had Tomás at Sky Sports’ studio, filming the pundits’ reactions through the glass. She had Film Marcus at the Holmesdale, filming the fans as they left the ground, their faces carrying the expression of people who had witnessed something that they would tell their grandchildren about.

She had Ruth at the press conference, the lapel mic on Danny capturing every word of the twelve minutes, every pause, every deflection, every moment where the mask held and the man behind it chose the next match over the last one.

"This is the centrepiece of the series," Elena said to Clara that night, reviewing the footage in her temporary office at Beckenham.

"Not the match. The reaction to the match. The world is discovering that Crystal Palace exist. The pundits are calling it a shift in power. The Italian press is calling it a humiliation. The manager calling it the first leg and pivoting to the trophy. That tension, between what the world thinks happened and what Danny Walsh thinks happened, is the story of the entire documentary."

She pulled up the footage from the dressing room. Zaha calling his mum. Neves showing Kovačić the photograph of Lurdes asleep. Wan-Bissaka unwrapping tape. Pope reviewing the goal they conceded. Pato’s tears. Sakho’s silence.

"The players are celebrating a moment," Elena said. "Danny is already in the future. That gap, that distance between the squad’s emotion and the manager’s focus, is what makes him extraordinary. And what makes him lonely."

She was right. She was always right about the things that the cameras saw and that the people in front of them didn’t.

The Italian press was savage. I scrolled through the headlines on my phone while Emma read over my shoulder. La Gazzetta dello Sport: "Vergogna." Shame. The front page was Bonucci on his knees, the scoreboard showing 6-1. Corriere dello Sport: "Il tramonto del Milan." The sunset of Milan. Tuttosport: "Il Papero Torna a Casa." The Duck comes home to destroy the nest.

The decline was not just Milan’s. It was Italy’s. The Azzurri, four-time World Cup winners, had failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Beaten by Sweden in the playoffs in November.

The second leg at the San Siro, the same stadium where Palace would play in six days, had ended 0-0. Italy eliminated. Buffon in tears. Bonucci, the same Bonucci who had conceded six at Selhurst Park last night, embracing Buffon on the pitch. Same man. Same decline. Different pitch.

Serie A, which had been the best league in the world in the 1990s, had fallen behind the Premier League, behind La Liga, behind the Bundesliga. The stadiums ageing. The investment shrinking. The tactical innovation that had defined Italian football for a century stagnating. The rest of the world had learned Italy’s lessons and moved beyond them.

The English press was kinder but no less emphatic. The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, all leading with the result. The Athletic ran Michael Cox’s tactical analysis describing Palace’s pressing as "the most sophisticated system in English football outside of Manchester City."

Social media had not slowed. Pato’s twenty-six-second goal: fourteen million views. The chip: eleven million. The Champions League account’s side-by-side comparison: shared by every major football account on the planet. The Nairobi video from Ochieng’s bar: two hundred and forty thousand views. A comment from Lagos: "I have never heard of Crystal Palace. After tonight, I will never forget them."

George Elphick, interviewed by the Croydon Advertiser: "My father, who died in 2011, was there. I felt him. In the noise. In the floodlights. In the twenty-six seconds."

Lorraine, one photograph on the supporters’ forum: the Sprinter in the car park, the floodlights above. Caption: "Both sides heated. Drove twelve to a 6-1 against AC Milan. Still can’t believe I’m writing that sentence."

Malcolm beneath: "Cup holders work. Bus works. Team works. Everything works. What is happening."

Sharon beneath Malcolm: "I’m still crying."

But the conversation that dominated every studio, every phone-in, every podcast, every football discussion in every pub and every taxi and every office in England, was the one that Danny Walsh had started in the press conference and that Neville had amplified and that Ferdinand had named: the shift.

A hundred and twelve years. No trophy. The cup final in ten days. Could Crystal Palace, the club that had beaten AC Milan six-one, the club that was second in the Premier League, the club whose manager had walked into a press conference after the greatest European night in the club’s history and said "we will not be satisfied," could they finally win something?

Could the hundred and twelve years end at Wembley?

The question was everywhere. On Sky Sports. On BT Sport. On the BBC. On TalkSport, where the phone-in had run for three hours with callers arguing about whether Palace could beat City and whether Walsh was the real thing and whether the six-one meant anything or whether it was just Milan being terrible.

On Twitter, where the hashtag #112Years was trending. On the Palace Reddit, where sixty thousand members were posting at a rate that crashed the server twice.

The question was in the air. In the ground. In the city. In the country.

And in the evening, in the penthouse in Dulwich, the boy from Moss Side and the girl from Altrincham sat on the sofa and ate Thai food from containers and watched a film that neither of them paid attention to because Emma was leaning against his shoulder and his hand was on her thigh and the film was not the point.

The point was being there. The two of them, together, on a Friday night in February, while the world asked whether the hundred and twelve years could end at Wembley.

Danny Walsh was eating Pad Thai with a woman who had told him that Valentine’s Day was a manufactured obligation and that coming home was enough. And he was thinking about a ring. And a question. And a future that had nothing to do with football and everything to do with the person beside him who had made the football possible.

Three matches. Ten days. The FA Cup for the depth. The San Siro for the romance. Wembley for the history.

He would marry her. The when was a detail. The who was a certainty.

[February 15-16th, 2018.]

[Press conference: Danny humble, focused. "This match is done. The next one is beginning." Credits players’ hunger. Pivots to 112-year trophy drought. "The fans deserve a trophy. That is what we are working towards."]

[Media reaction: GLOBAL. Sky Sports, BT Sport, BBC, RAI, Canal+, beIN, ESPN. Ferdinand: "This is a shift in power." Italian RAI: "Una umiliazione storica." Neville: "He can win a trophy."]

[Pundits on Walsh’s press conference: Carragher: "Any other manager would celebrate for a week. He’s already focused on the next thing." McManaman: "He said 112 years like it was a debt he intended to repay."]

[Italian football decline: Azzurri failed to qualify for 2018 WC. Lost to Sweden in playoffs. Bonucci on knees at Selhurst = Bonucci embracing Buffon at San Siro. Same man, same decline.]

[Netflix: Elena filming the world’s reaction. "The centrepiece is not the match. It’s the reaction to the match. The world discovering Crystal Palace exist."]

[#112Years trending. Can Palace win their first ever trophy at Wembley against City?]

[Valentine’s Day: Danny forgot. Emma doesn’t care. Thai takeaway. That was enough.]

[Danny Walsh promises himself: he will marry Emma Hartley.]

[Three matches in ten days: FA Cup R5 (Feb 18), Milan away San Siro (Feb 22), Carabao Cup Final vs Man City at Wembley (Feb 25).]

[The FA Cup for the depth. The San Siro for the romance. Wembley for the history.]

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Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the constant support and the ideas you provide.