Monday.
Beckenham at seven in the morning. Training pitch at eight. Milan preparation at nine. Sarah's tactical session, the final walkthrough, the shape drilled one last time before the squad would stand on the San Siro pitch on Wednesday night and rehearse it under floodlights that eighty thousand people had watched illuminate European football's greatest matches.
Then, at one o'clock, the circus arrived.
The EFL's broadcast team pulled into the Beckenham car park in three white vans, trailing cables and lighting rigs and aluminium flight cases that Barry eyed with the territorial suspicion of a man whose kit room was adjacent to the loading bay and who did not appreciate uninvited equipment on his patch.
