[Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow. Sunday 15 July 2018.]
"Danny. Daniel. Look at me."
Nobody has called me Daniel since a parents' evening in 1999.
My ears had been gone since the 92nd minute. Everything came through water, my own voice included. But that got through, because that voice has been getting through since I was 4.
It was gone 25 past 11 at night. The whistle had gone at 20 to 11, and everything in between had happened to me on a podium in front of 78,000 people, and I could not have told you one reliable thing about any of it.
I was 4 steps inside the mouth of that tunnel with my back to the pitch, and the back was on purpose.
Out there, France were on their lap. They had the trophy off the plinth and Lloris had given it away 3 players ago and somebody had carried a speaker out onto the grass, and every 40 seconds the whole thing went up again.
RRRAAAA.Allez! Allez! Allez!
And coming the other way, into the dark of that tunnel, my players.
Clk. Clk. Clk-clk.
