At 10 they came into the team room, scrrk, scrrk, scrrk of chairs dragged over that horrible hotel carpet, 23 men and the smell of coffee and menthol rub.
Somebody's phone went off. Bzz-bzz. Killed inside a second. The projector fan hummed over the top of everything, hhhhh, and out through the wall, faint but there, that drum in the road.
I let them settle and shut up on their own.
Half of them still had Wednesday in their faces. That shine that does not come off for a week.
And that shine was the most dangerous thing in the room, and somebody had to take it off them, and it was going to have to be me.
"Right," I said. "France."
Click.
I showed them the truth, because I am not walking 23 men into a World Cup final wearing a blindfold I tied on them myself.
I showed them Belgium. The best group of players that country has ever produced, having the ball for an hour, getting nowhere with it. Hazard beating a man and Varane's leg arriving out of nothing. 2 banks. No gaps.
