Harbinger Of Glory

The Emirates was already alive by the time Spalletti and Piatelli reached the viewing room.

The noise followed them through the corridors, occasionally muffled by concrete walls before returning whenever another doorway opened.

The glance expanse wrapped around the corridors became hard to ignore for Piatelli, who kept staring through it.

"I never thought a football match would be the reason I came back to England," he muttered. "Not after more than five years."

Spalletti heard him and smiled faintly.

"You say that as if you were dragged here."

Piatelli gave him a sideways look but said nothing.

After that, Spalletti looked ahead again, then briefly to his right before looking ahead again.

Soon enough, they entered the viewing room, and when they did, Spalletti slowed near the doorway before looking at the man who had been walking alongside him and Piatelli.

"How does it feel being in a stadium again?"

Spalletti watched on as the man smiled and then shook his head.

"I’m not the one playing, so I couldn’t tell you. Also, it’s only been half a year since my last stadium visit. Don’t make it sound like it’s been years."

"I know...Pirlo," Spalletti said with a smile, a smile that Pirlo also gave back before he pointed behind Spalletti.

"The game’s already started."

He nodded toward the seats.

"We should sit down."

Spalletti nodded in agreement before the three men made their way to their places.

Piatelli settled first, Pirlo beside him, while Spalletti took the seat on the other side.

And for several seconds, none of them spoke.

Their attention simply settled on the pitch where the game had begun to pick up.

Then Piatelli leaned slightly forward, his gaze alternating between the two older men he’d come with.

"What exactly are we looking for?"

Without taking his eyes off the game, Pirlo said, "Everything about Leo."

....

Down on the pitch, Leo could already feel his breath beginning to run out.

For the better part of the start of the game, he’d been running through the midfield trying to apply pressure, but that was all he was doing, trying.

Because the Arsenal players looked intent on keeping the ball away from him.

Eventually, he slowed to a stop, but the gap in midfield opened right as he did, and without waiting, he accelerated into it.

He could afford to get tired, but he couldn’t afford to concede against Arsenal.

The home side, on the other hand were quicker to react.

Odegaard received the ball between the lines and turned sharply, only to find Leo standing directly in front of him.

For a brief moment, the two players faced one another, looking like they’d go at it, but Odegaard did not force it.

Without waiting for Leo to near him or slowing down play, he shifted his body and released the ball toward Saka instead on the right flank.

Leo, seeing this, immediately changed his objective, turning and running to cover as Saka took it near the right flank and immediately getting shadowed by Joe Bennett.

The Wigan full-back stayed close without diving into the challenge, angling his body so he could turn and run if Saka tried to burst beyond him.

And so as Saka carried the ball forward, Bennet matched him.

But it was only until Saka cut inside.

Bennet reacted instantly, turning his hips and following him toward the centre.

But Saka never intended to go that far.

The moment Bennett overcommitted, he slid to a pause before slipping the ball into Havertz.

Bennett, who was trying his hardest to recover, could only watch as the ball went through.

The German had his back to goal inside the Wigan penalty area when the ball came into him, and the supporters behind the goal didn’t leave him on his own.

They rose, right as the German touched the ball and then spun.

"Can Arsenal take an early lead here?" the commentator lauded right as Havertz shifted the ball onto his left with a chance to go for it but he spotted Gabriel Jesus waiting several yards away, already shaping himself for a right-footed finish and Havertz didn’t need telling.

The pass came, or almost did, because before the ball could get to the Brazilian, a leg stuck out and it didn’t take long for them to realise who had done so.

Tiehi appeared from nowhere, stretched out a leg and intercepted it before it could reach Jesus, but he couldn’t keep it.

The ball bobbled loose, setting off a chase, but Leo reacted first.

He sprinted toward it and collected it on the left flank.

He had barely taken a touch when Ben White came across.

The Arsenal defender slid in without much thought other than some excellent timing.

His legs got to the ball first, but his challenge clipped Leo’s leg immediately afterwards, sending the ball rolling out of play, and Leo followed, going down and clutching his ankle.

The Wigan players lingered, watching the referee inch towards the scene of the challenge, but the whistle they were expecting never came.

"Calderon goes down, but the referee points to a throw-in."

The Arsenal supporters, on the other hand, applauded as White rose and jogged away while Leo remained on the turf for another second, rubbing his leg.

He grimaced before pushing himself upright and then, before anything, he stubbed the grass a couple of times to assess the state of his leg.

"Leo!"

He looked across to find Bennett calling his name with the ball in hand.

"You alright?" the left back asked as he wiped some of the rain from the ball with his shirt.

Leo nodded again before hopping lightly on his standing leg, trying to shake the discomfort away.

"Good?"

"Good."

While this interaction went on, the Arsenal players were already reorganising.

They had no intention of allowing Wigan an easy outlet from the restart.

Saka moved closer to Leo while Rice inched across toward Reyes.

Ben White too stayed, hounding James McClean, who stood looking like a fly was bothering him or something, all while the gaps Wigan could receive the ball in disappeared.

Bennet waited until eventually, James McClean wrestled himself free of White’s attention, using his strength to shrug the defender off just enough.

And without lingering, Bennet threw the ball into his path.

McClean got there and headed it away from the crowd of Arsenal shirts, and in reaction to that, Leo pulled away from Saka and found the ball.

The moment it got a bit level, he chested it down and for an instant, everything about his body suggested he would take the ball inside.

Arsenal anticipated it and moved inside, looking to box Leo in before anything could unfold, and then, the instant they all looked committed to the task at hand, Leo halted.

He hooked the ball with his left foot as his body spun toward the touchline.

The change was so sudden that Arsenal’s defensive movement continued in the direction they had anticipated for a bit longer, and for a fraction of a second, they were all looking one way while Leo was going the other way.

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