Chapter 509: The Early Kick-Off III
Half-time. 2-0. In the dressing room, I kept it short. "The corridor is still there. Iborra hasn’t adjusted. Nya, keep exploiting it. James, Wilf, what you’re doing together is outstanding. Keep it going. Nick, you’ve had nothing to do, which means the defence is perfect. Stay focused. The third goal kills the match."
Bray added: "If we get a corner on the right in the next fifteen minutes, KB-26. Near post. Dann decoy. Christian, back post."
Benteke, who had been listening with the attentive stillness of a man whose next meal was being described, nodded once. He knew the routine.
He had drilled it on Thursday. The near-post run was Dann’s job, dragging the nearest marker. The back post was Benteke’s territory. The delivery would come from Rodríguez, flat and hard, the same trajectory that had produced Konaté’s goal at Wembley.
The second half opened, and the third goal came within twelve minutes. Not from the set-piece. From something better.
Kirby won the ball on the halfway line. His fifth interception of the match. He played it forward to Neves, who played it wide to Navas. The Spaniard drove to the byline, looked up, and cut the ball back. Zaha, arriving late, met it twenty yards from goal.
He could have passed. He could have laid it off to Rodríguez, who was free on the edge of the box. Instead, he hit it. First time.
A shot of such ferocious power and accuracy that Schmeichel, who was one of the best goalkeepers in the league, didn’t even move. He just watched it fly past his right hand and into the top corner. The net billowed. The sound it made was the sound of a ball hitting the back of a goal at a speed that the goal was not designed to withstand.
Crystal Palace 3-0 Leicester. Zaha. 57 minutes.
The King Power fell silent. Thirty-two thousand Leicester fans watching a thirty-yard screamer hit their net.
And in the corner, three thousand Palace supporters producing a noise that belonged in a stadium five times the size. The instant, volcanic, joyful eruption of an away end watching a player they had known since he was a teenager do something that would be replayed on every highlights show for a week.
Zaha ran to the away end. The ear-cup. The Walsh gesture. The family gesture. Three thousand people roared it back.
The final thirty-three minutes were a masterclass in control. I brought Kirby off at seventy minutes, standing ovation from the away end, three thousand people chanting his name in a stadium two hundred miles from home. I met him at the touchline, put my arm around his shoulders, and walked with him to the bench.
"That was the best midfield performance I’ve seen from anyone in a Palace shirt this season," I said. "Not the best from a young player. The best from anyone."
His face was flushed, his breathing heavy, but his eyes were calm. "Neves made it easy, gaffer. He sees the game three passes ahead. I just had to keep up."
"You didn’t keep up, Nya. You kept pace. There’s a difference."
Milivojević replaced him, the Serbian adding steel and experience. Pato came on for Navas. Townsend for Zaha. The rotation, the management, the careful, scientific, data-driven protection of bodies that Rebecca demanded and I enforced. No player destroyed. No body was sacrificed. The machine was grinding on.
Pope made one save. In the seventy-eighth minute, Vardy, who had been anonymous all afternoon, found a yard of space on the counter and hit a low shot that Pope turned around the post with a strong right hand.
The save was technically excellent, the kind of stop that goalkeeping coaches showed their students, the footwork and the angle and the hand position all textbook. But what made it special was what came after.
Pope stood up, collected the corner, and distributed it with a quick throw to Wan-Bissaka that started a counter-attack. No fuss. No theatrics. Competence delivered with the quiet confidence of a man who was beginning to believe that this level was his level.
The whistle blew. 3-0. The first match of 2018 won. The early kick-off conquered. Seven consecutive Premier League wins. Second in the Premier League with fifty-four points.
In the dressing room, I didn’t give a speech. I walked around the room and spoke to each player individually.
To Pope: "That save from Vardy was the moment. You’re ready for everything that’s coming."
To Kirby: "You owned the middle of a Premier League football match at eighteen years old. Remember this day."
To Neves: "The pass for the first goal. I’ll be watching that on repeat for a week."
To Rodríguez: "The one-two with Wilf. That’s why you’re here. That’s why this club brought you to South London."
To Zaha: "Thirty yards. Top corner. I don’t have words."
To Benteke: "Clinical. Professional. Everything I ask of you, every time."
To Sakho, the last player I spoke to, sitting in his corner, his shirt already off, his body steaming: "Clean sheet. You and Ibou. Again."
Sakho looked at me. "The boy Kirby. He is special, gaffer."
"I know."
"No. You don’t know yet. You will. He is more than special. He is the future."
I thought about that as I walked to the press conference. Kirby. Eighteen years old. Five interceptions, eighty-seven passes, ninety-one percent accuracy, seven progressive carries. The numbers were outstanding.
But the numbers didn’t capture what Sakho meant. They didn’t capture the composure, the authority, the way a teenager had walked onto a Premier League pitch at twelve-thirty on a Friday and played as though the occasion was beneath him. Not with arrogance. With belonging.
The press conference was professional. Twelve minutes. Composed answers. Controlled deflections. The mask. They asked about the title race. I talked about the next match. They asked about the transfer window. I said we were always looking to improve. They asked about Kirby. I said he was a talented young player with a bright future. I gave them nothing.
The truth stayed in the dressing room. The truth stayed in the arm I put around Kirby’s shoulders and the words I said into his ear and the look on Sakho’s face when he said "the future." The truth was not for the cameras.
I drove home. Emma was waiting. The podcast pilot was next week. The Netflix crew was arriving in six days. The Europa League draw was in nine. JJ Johnson’s transfer was being negotiated. The FA Cup third round was on Saturday. The second half of the season, already in motion, already demanding, already extraordinary.
But today, on a Friday afternoon in January, Crystal Palace had beaten Leicester City 3-0 with a midfield of an eighteen-year-old and a twenty-year-old, and a partnership between a Colombian genius and a South London winger that was becoming one of the most exciting in European football, and a goalkeeper who was quietly, methodically, inevitably becoming an England international.
The second half had begun. And it had begun exactly the way the first half had.
With football that made people sing.
[FULL TIME: Crystal Palace 3-0 Leicester City. Goals: Benteke 22’, Rodríguez 38’, Zaha 57’.]
[Overall: P40 W34 D3 L3. GF: 98. GA: 33.]
[Premier League: P22 W17 D3 L2. Points: 54. Position: 2nd.]
[Nya Kirby: 5 interceptions, 87 passes (91% accuracy), 7 progressive carries. MOTM.]
[Nick Pope: 1 save, clean sheet. England scouts in attendance.]
[Rodríguez-Zaha partnership: the one-two for the second goal will be replayed on every highlights show this weekend.]
[The corridor: identified by Sarah 72 hours before kick-off. Exploited by Neves and Kirby at the 22nd minute. 10 analysts, 3 days of work, 1 perfect pass.]
[7 consecutive PL wins. The second half has begun.]
***
Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the Massage Chair.