The second half was a war of attrition. Both teams were laboured, the match stretching and sagging like a rubber band losing its elasticity. Crosses floated harmlessly over the bar. Passes went astray. Tackles arrived late, the kind of clumsy, lunging challenges that come when muscles are screaming and decision-making slows.
And then Eze did something extraordinary.
In the sixty-seventh minute, he picked up the ball twenty-five yards from goal. Two Everton midfielders closed on him, their body language aggressive, certain they had him trapped. Eze didn't panic.
He shifted the ball from his left foot to his right with a touch so delicate it barely disturbed the grass, opened his body, and curled a shot that kissed the inside of the far post and nestled in the net. Pickford got a hand to it fingertips, nothing more. The ball was already past him before his dive had fully committed.
Crystal Palace 2–1 Everton. Eze. 67 minutes.
