I passed En-Nesyri instead, 2 doctors already on him and the leg strapped, and he did not need me, and I put a hand on the top of his head and kept walking.
I went to Hakimi last, on purpose, because I did not have the words for him and I wanted the walk to find them.
He was where the counter had left him. Sitting, knees up, both arms hanging off them, staring at the strip of grass down the left where it had all died.
The best 45 minutes any full-back has played in my lifetime, and the same 45 minutes had opened the door that killed us, and he knew it, and there is no medal on earth that mends that.
I sat down next to him in the wet.
Boom.
Thunder somewhere over the roof, a long way off, late to a thing it had missed.
"It went down my side," he said.
"It went down the side I ordered you to leave. That was me. Not you. Are you hearing me. That one was mine."
"Boss, don't."
"Say it back to me."
