[Saint Petersburg Stadium. Group B. 15 June 2018.]
The Iran fans found our bus before our bus found the stadium.
They came off the pavements in their thousands and closed round us at the lights, a sea of red and white with the green flash of the flag through it, scarves up, faces at the glass on both sides. A flag slapped flat across Hakimi's window and slid off.
A man in a Persia shirt got both palms on the glass by Sofyan's head and bellowed something through it, grinning, not nasty, just full to the brim.
Sofyan bellowed something Arabic back. The two of them had a whole row neither could hear through four inches of glass and forty thousand people, and both came away laughing.
"They are happy, coach."
"They've not played us yet, son."
Boom-boom. Boom-boom. A drum somewhere down the side of us, a chant I couldn't catch the words of rolling past, all of it coming through the glass thick and muffled, a party heard through a wall you're about to walk into.
