The dressing room at the Luzhniki is not special. That is the thing nobody tells you. It is a room with hooks and a bench and a floor that has been mopped, and somebody had put a small green and red flag above each peg because Mustapha had been in there for an hour and a half doing it himself.
The shirts were hung with the numbers facing out. Mustapha does that too.
The room smelled of wintergreen and wet grass and the bleach off the floor. Sssst. Somebody's aerosol. Rip. Tape coming off a roll, and then again, and then again, because Saïss does his own ankles and takes 10 minutes over it.
I did not give a team talk at 5 past 6. I had said everything I had on Friday and Saturday and there is a point where a manager talking is just a manager frightened.
I went round the room instead. One at a time, quiet, a hand on the back of a neck.
