"You might," I said.
His head snapped round.
"You might give one away. You might have a shocker. The best players who ever lived have had shockers in World Cups."
I tapped the photo on his screen, the green, the front room, the faces. "But you've got that the wrong way round, son. You're looking at that and seeing a hundred million people waiting on you to let them down. Look at it again."
He looked.
"They're not in that room scared of you. They're in that room because a lad off their own street took the best footballer who's ever lived to the last kick of a World Cup, and made them prouder than they've been in twenty years. They're not waiting to be let down. They cannot wait to watch you do it again."
Something moved in his face. Not fixed. You don't fix it, not really. But it shifted.
