[Morocco Team Base, Kaliningrad Stadium, Russia. Monday 25 June 2018.]
Three days back they took a goal off us that crossed the line clean. I'd watched it forty times since, and I stood in the away dressing room in Kaliningrad, the air thick with Deep Heat and nerves, and told the lads I was done watching it.
"Onside," I said. "Every one of you knows it was onside. So do they. So does the whole planet, and it did us no good at all."
Benatia lifted his head off his hands. "It did us one thing, boss." His voice was low, and the room went to him, because that is what a room does when the captain talks. "It made the whole world hate them and love us. Forty thousand out there tonight, and half of them not even ours."
"Then let's give them a reason," I said.
Sofyan was already up, bouncing on his toes, that engine of his running before the whistle. "We don't wait for it," he said, to the lads, not to me. "We take it off them. First minute. Every minute."
