"We are the champions!"
The supporters unfurled the banners they had prepared in advance, dragged out the enormous drums that had been abandoned in the excitement, and began pounding them with everything they had. The rhythm rolled through every corner of Old Trafford, so loud that it seemed capable of shaking the stadium itself and startling people passing outside.
At Highbury, Arsenal had been running down the clock by circulating possession in the closing moments when Krzynówek, a former Red Rebel, still refused to stop pressing. His spell at New Manchester United had been brief, but he had carried one thing away from it: never stop until the whistle. In the final moments, Ashley Cole misplaced a pass towards Campbell, and Krzynówek reacted first. He intercepted, drove into Arsenal's half, spotted Lehmann off his line, and struck from distance.
Lehmann, one of the most highly rated goalkeepers in England that season, misjudged it. He scrambled backwards and stretched desperately, but the shot kept sailing over him. His fingertips reached the ball, yet only managed to divert it against the underside of the crossbar and into the net.
0-1.
It was the simplest scoreline imaginable, but the consequences were almost impossible to believe.
New Manchester United were Premier League champions.
Even the Arsenal supporters inside Highbury struggled to process what had happened. At Old Trafford, the Red Rebels fans were no different. For several seconds, joy was mixed with disbelief, as though nobody quite trusted the news.
Ethan ran towards the touchline and grabbed the first reporter he recognised by the shoulders.
"Is it true? Arsenal actually lost?"
He sounded as though he were asking whether he had dreamed the whole thing.
The reporter nodded emphatically.
That was enough.
Ethan turned and sprinted towards the players, throwing his arms around Mourinho first before moving from one player to another. New Manchester United had celebrated promotion after promotion over the years, but Ethan had never lost himself quite like this.
This was a trophy he had already accepted was gone.
Now it had somehow come back.
"Am I dreaming, David?" Ethan asked as he embraced Beckham.
Beckham was nearly as overwhelmed. He had won the Premier League several times with Manchester United, yet none of those titles had ended in a way quite like this.
"No, Ethan. You're not dreaming. We're champions."
His voice caught near the end, and Beckham stopped speaking before the emotion could take over.
The season had been brutally difficult. Terry's suspension, the demands of competing on several fronts, the African Cup of Nations taking away key players, injuries, fatigue, suspensions, and the grinding pressure of the final months had all taken their toll. New Manchester United had kept going anyway.
Only minutes earlier, some of the players had been wondering whether all of that effort had been enough. They had believed they had played better than Arsenal over the season yet were still going to finish second.
Now the title belonged to them.
Ethan's first burst of wild celebration lasted several minutes before the initial shock began to fade. He was still smiling, but beneath the joy was a strange sense of unease, almost as though he still expected someone to tell him there had been a mistake.
...
The team coach eventually left Old Trafford with a long convoy of supporters following behind in cars. The procession wound through Manchester before heading towards New Manchester United's new stadium.
Staff had already received Ethan's instructions and opened the temporary parking areas surrounding the ground. Supporters spontaneously began helping direct traffic, turning what could easily have become chaos into something surprisingly orderly.
The stadium bars were not yet open, but nobody cared. Ethan arranged for beer, soft drinks, peanuts, and other food to be brought into the plaza outside the ground. A temporary stage was quickly assembled while staff ran cables and tested the sound system.
Only after everything was ready did Ethan walk onto the stage.
Tens of thousands of supporters had gathered beneath the lights around the new stadium. Ethan stood behind the microphone and looked across the crowd. For perhaps the first time that night, he felt nervous.
He had prepared no speech.
Eventually, he began.
"I'm happy. I think all of you know how happy I am. But while we're celebrating, I want us to remember something important. We're still not good enough."
A murmur passed through the crowd before fading again.
"We worked unbelievably hard to win this title, and in the end, we needed Arsenal to make a mistake in the final minutes. If they hadn't, the trophy wouldn't be ours. I'm delighted that this club has won its first Premier League title, but the thing I'm proudest of isn't the trophy itself. It's this team."
Applause thundered across the plaza.
"We've just completed an unbeaten Premier League season. That wasn't easy. I'm proud of the coaching staff who made it possible. I'm proud of every player who fought through match after match for this club. And I'm proud of every supporter who followed us everywhere, stood behind us through the difficult moments, and stayed with us even when it looked as though the title had gone."
The supporters began chanting Ethan's name.
"Six years," he continued when the noise finally eased. "We've waited six years. We've fought for six years. And now we can look anyone in the eye and say that everything we believed in was worth fighting for. Without supporters, football is nothing."
That line set the entire plaza off again. Supporters shouted, applauded, raised scarves and glasses, while even the players and coaching staff behind Ethan joined in.
"But winning this title doesn't mean we've arrived," Ethan said once the noise settled. "If anything, it should remind us how much further we still have to go. Why was this championship so difficult? Because we're not strong enough yet. Not consistently enough. One Premier League title cannot be the end of our ambition. We want more of them. We want to compete for Europe. We want to fight for every trophy a football club can win."
The response from the crowd came immediately.
"We have extraordinary supporters. We have extraordinary players. We have an extraordinary manager. And behind us now, we have a stadium worthy of everything we're trying to become. So tell me this: with these supporters in these stands, with this manager leading this team, and these players on the pitch, shouldn't we be aiming to play the best football we possibly can?"
"YES!"
The answer came from tens of thousands of voices at once.
"Tonight belongs to you," Ethan said. "We've won our first Premier League title, and nobody can take that away from us. But this is not the night for us to lose our heads completely. In four days, we have another final. Another trophy. Another opponent standing in our way. Do you believe we can beat them?"
"YES!"
Ethan smiled.
"So do I. And I promise you this: four days from now, when we come back here, then we can drink until none of us can stand."
The plaza erupted once more, glasses raised everywhere.
Despite the celebration lasting deep into the evening, the players remained disciplined. Nobody drank. Training resumed the next day, and Barcelona were waiting in the UEFA Cup final.
If the previous season's UEFA Cup had been mocked as one of the weakest editions in years, this year's competition had become the opposite. Once the knockout rounds began, the presence of clubs such as AC Milan, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Inter, Roma, Valencia, Liverpool, and Barcelona had transformed the tournament's profile. UEFA responded by increasing its promotion and commercial support, and interest in the competition rose sharply.
Now the final would feature Barcelona against the newly crowned Premier League champions.
One was one of Europe's traditional giants. The other was the most extraordinary rising club in English football.
The pairing attracted enormous attention.
Barcelona's season had developed slowly. Their first half of the campaign had been inconsistent, but their form improved dramatically after the turn of the year. Many observers credited the arrival of Edgar Davids, although the change was also connected to the squad gradually adapting to Rijkaard's ideas, particularly Ronaldinho.
The Brazilian had become one of La Liga's outstanding players that season. Alongside fellow Brazilians Juninho Paulista and Júlio Baptista, he had been one of the defining figures of the Spanish campaign.
This Barcelona side was not yet playing the possession-heavy football Ethan remembered from later years. Rijkaard's current system relied more heavily on midfield security, often using Davids, Cocu, and Xavi together behind a front three of Ronaldinho on the left, Hleb on the right, and either Saviola or Kluivert through the middle.
The back four usually consisted of Van Bronckhorst, Márquez, Puyol, and Reiziger, with Víctor Valdés, one of Barcelona's biggest breakthroughs that season, in goal.
The system was becoming increasingly cohesive. Barcelona played with far more directness than the side Ethan remembered from the future, using three hard-working midfielders to absorb pressure before breaking quickly through Ronaldinho and the wide players.
Bayern Munich had discovered how effective that could be, drawing at home before losing 1-0 at Camp Nou.
Olić and Abidal both called New Manchester United before the final, offering their observations on Barcelona and passing along useful details from their own experience. Neither hid the fact that they hoped their former club would avenge Bayern's elimination.
Xavi had not yet developed into the controlling midfielder Ethan remembered from later years, while Iniesta was still a youngster on the fringes of the senior side. Barcelona's pressing structure and possession game were also far from the finished version that would later define the club.
By contrast, New Manchester United's system had been developing for years.
Ethan knew Barcelona would be extremely difficult to beat.
He also knew the Red Rebels had every reason to believe they could do it.
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)