Wednesday, January 24th. The Emirates Stadium. Sixty thousand seats. Arsenal.
The noise hit us in the tunnel.
Not the Selhurst noise, which was compressed and personal and hostile in the way that a small room full of angry people is hostile.
The Emirates noise was architectural. It was designed into the building, the bowl shape of the stadium amplifying the sound and directing it downward onto the pitch like a weapon.
Sixty thousand Arsenal fans, who had read the headlines, who had seen the first-leg defeat, who understood that their club was ninety minutes from elimination at the hands of Crystal Palace, were producing a noise that vibrated in the ribcage and made conversation impossible.
Beside me in the tunnel, Eze was standing very still.
I had told him in the dressing room after the first leg: "The second leg is at the Emirates. You are starting."
