“The referee announced there would be four minutes of injury time. We all groaned, knowing we just didn’t have the energy anymore.
“Into injury time, the crowd were frantically urging their heroes on, and it took a brilliant fingertip save from Robbo to keep Raul’s rising screamer from finding the back of the net.
“Jankulovski went out to take the corner. Ninety seconds in the match. Casillas charged up the field to get in the box for the corner – every man on the pitch save me and Jankulovski were crowded into that eighteen-yard box.
“He crossed it beautifully, and rising out of the crowd came Casillas, heading it down hard for the bottom corner. Alan Hutton, poor Alan Hutton, who’d had such a tough day on the right, met it on the line, and scuffed it away, back across the net. The fans had hardly changed their oohs to groans, though, when a white-clad leg snaked out and toe-poked it across the line. Raul.
“6-2 Real on the day. 7-7 in all. And yet…it wasn’t enough. They’d erased our advantage, but we had that crucial extra away goal.
“They raced back to centre with the ball. Fredi kicked off to me, I rolled it backwards to Pedro. Raul charged him, flying straight at him, but Pedro calmly turned it out to Si Davies. Si back to Hutton. Hutton long down the line, it came to me. Solari slammed into my back as soon as I had the ball, but when I went down from it, the referee didn’t call it. I leapt to my feet again, and sprinted alongside him. When I drew level, I dropped my shoulder and thundered him off the ball, off the pitch, and out of the game. The whistle went, and I thought, ‘oh, no, I’m going to be booked!’
“Then it went again, and blessedly a third time, and I breathed again. We’d won it.
“We couldn’t believe it. We’d taken the best the galacticos could throw at us, taken it and thrown it back some.
“We went on, that season, and beat Chelsea next, and then Inter in the final. But I’ll tell you about those another time. For now, it’s bedtime.
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
Linear Mode
