Only twenty minutes remained.
Manchester United were close to something no English club had ever achieved before: the first domestic treble in history.
Every United supporter in Wembley wanted time to move faster, wanted the seconds to disappear, wanted the final whistle to arrive before City found another answer.
The stadium had grown a little quieter, not because the tension had faded, but because the fans had almost shouted themselves hoarse.
And if the supporters felt exhausted, it was easy to imagine what the players were going through.
Ling felt as if his legs had been filled with lead.
They were so heavy they barely felt like his own anymore, and every step required a deliberate effort.
"Pass the ball!"
When Scott McTominay intercepted another Manchester City attack, Ling immediately dropped into midfield and shouted for it.
He no longer had the energy to keep sprinting into the channels as a pure forward.
If his legs could not carry him beyond the defensive line, then he had to change his role and help control the transition from deeper areas.
Fernandinho closed in quickly to apply pressure.
Ling let the ball roll across his body, turned sharply, and darted around him from the side.
"So annoying!"
Fernandinho had no choice but to grab Ling's shirt with his left hand while using his right arm to press down on his shoulder.
Even that could not stop him completely.
Before he fell, Ling managed to whip a diagonal pass into the space behind Zinchenko.
Rashford was already running.
Wembley exploded in an instant.
Kyle Walker, who had spent the whole match attacking and defending like a machine, was clearly near his limit as well.
Rashford had a two-yard head start, but Walker still dug into whatever energy he had left and gradually closed the distance at terrifying speed.
In the end, Walker launched himself into a desperate challenge and took both man and ball to the ground.
Ling clicked his tongue in amazement.
"The man parties hard enough to make the tabloids blush, and he still has an engine like that?"
During his morning runs in Hale, Ling had more than once seen women leaving Walker's house.
Maybe Walker's stamina came from some secret English magic.
As Ling prepared to receive the throw-in, the stadium announcer called his name.
At the same time, the fourth official raised the substitution board on the sideline.
7 — 14.
Peter Drury: "And here is the change. Mourinho uses his final substitution, and Jeremy Ling's afternoon is over."
Jim Beglin: "Lingard comes on, and that tells you what United want now. More running, more pressing, more harassment in the middle third. Mourinho is asking him to disturb City's rhythm and help the back line breathe."
Peter Drury: "Ling leaves having bent this final to his will. He has run, fought, scored, and suffered under this Wembley sun, and now he hands the rest of the story to those still standing."
Ling removed the captain's armband and handed it to De Gea, then began walking slowly toward the touchline.
Very slowly.
At the pace of a tired snail.
Time-wasting was nothing to be ashamed of.
Plenty of football superstars had done the same thing in important matches, and Ling did not consider himself some kind of saint.
Winning with absolute purity, refusing even the smallest blemish, insisting that victory had to look noble from every angle—that was just sentimental nonsense.
The City players were obviously not pleased. Leroy Sané ran over angrily and shoved Ling toward the sideline.
Guardiola looked like he wanted to curse as well, but then he remembered that Ling was his future son-in-law and swallowed the words sitting on the tip of his tongue.
Seeing Guardiola's expression, Ling stopped dragging it out quite so shamelessly and finally made his way off the pitch.
After all, he still had to stay on decent terms with his future father-in-law!
"Jesse, give it everything."
Ling high-fived Lingard, then hugged Mourinho near the technical area.
"Boss, if it weren't for this damn sun, I could've played the full match."
"You've already done more than enough," Mourinho said, patting his shoulder. "Sit down and rest."
Ling took a water bottle and dropped onto the bench, only to look up and see Maria's face in the stands behind him.
"Hey, weren't you in the other stand?"
"I switched over at halftime."
"..."
The stands at Wembley were close enough to the benches that, as long as they raised their voices slightly, they could hear each other.
The two of them chatted casually while keeping their eyes on the match.
This, however, only made Guardiola more annoyed!
He suddenly felt he should have cursed earlier.
At least it would have made him feel better.
Both teams had now used all their substitutions.
From this point on, everything depended on the players left on the pitch, and those players were visibly running on fumes.
The match reached the eighty-fifth minute.
Manchester United's corner was headed away by Otamendi.
Pogba, waiting outside the box, tried to strike the dropping ball from range, but Fernandinho threw himself in front of it and unexpectedly blocked the shot with his head.
The ball flew away from the City box.
Peter Drury: "Fernandinho gets his head to it, and now United may be exposed!"
Jim Beglin: "This is dangerous. United committed bodies forward for the corner, and City have the chance to spring out if the first pass is right."
Peter Drury: "David Silva, still so calm in the storm, lifts it into the centre — and De Bruyne has already seen the escape route!"
Under the tense gaze of the Manchester City fans, De Bruyne struck a long pass that rose from the grass and curved toward the left flank.
Leroy Sané.
Fresh from the bench and full of energy, he shook off Matic with ease and charged toward the Manchester United penalty area.
"Fall back! Fall back!"
Maguire shouted until his voice was hoarse. If Sané reached full speed, who in United's defence could stop him?
On the bench, Ling sat up straight, his eyes fixed on Sané.
Wan-Bissaka did not rush forward. Instead, he kept retreating, creating distance and buying time for the rest of the defence to recover.
But Sané refused to let him settle. He suddenly accelerated down the touchline, forcing Wan-Bissaka to commit.
Wan-Bissaka instinctively launched into a slide tackle, but the moment he extended his leg, he knew something was wrong.
Sure enough, Sané shaped with his right foot, then touched the ball with his left.
A La Croqueta.
Wan-Bissaka was beaten cleanly.
Manchester City supporters erupted, their cheers spreading through every corner of Wembley.
One-on-one.
This was the chance.
If City equalized here, they could drag the match into extra time.
And with United's key attacking weapon already off the pitch, what would they have left to fight Manchester City with?
Under the gaze of the entire stadium, Sané did not slow down.
He pushed the ball ahead and accelerated again, darting toward United's goal like an arrow released from the string.
De Gea locked onto him, tense and ready to spring.
But Ling was not looking at De Gea.
He was looking behind Sané.
At the bald little engine sprinting like his life depended on it!
Kanté's short legs were moving like wheels of fire, and somehow, impossibly, he was closing the distance on Sané.
The gap shrank.
Then shrank again.
Jesus, arriving in the middle, could not help shouting, "Pass it to me!"
But this was Leroy Sané.
The polite version was that he believed in himself.
The blunt version was that he could be a selfish bastard.
Sané suddenly stamped on the ball and stopped dead, trying to shake off Kanté before finishing the move himself.
But being short meant having a lower centre of gravity, and a low centre of gravity meant quicker adjustments.
Kanté threw his body forward and stabbed out his left foot.
Smack!
The ball was poked back toward De Gea, who hurriedly cleared it with a heavy kick.
"Damn."
Ling's mouth fell slightly open as he stared at Kanté lying on the turf.
For one strange second, he felt as if that bald head was actually glowing.
Peter Drury: "KANTÉEEEEEEEEEEE! Of all the men, of all the moments, it is N'Golo Kanté who comes flying across to save Manchester United!"
Jim Beglin: "That is as good as a goal, Peter. Sané has the pace, he has the angle, he has the chance to level the final, but Kanté refuses to give up on the run. The recovery speed, the timing of the tackle, the discipline not to foul him — that is world-class defending."
Peter Drury: "There are tackles that stop attacks, and there are tackles that preserve dreams. That one may have kept Manchester United's treble alive."
Jim Beglin: "And you can see what it means to the players. They know. Everyone in a red shirt knows exactly how big that intervention was."
On the pitch, the Manchester City players looked deflated.
De Bruyne, in particular, seemed to remember last season, when Kanté had suffocated him so completely that even finding a pass had felt like a battle.
They had thought that once United's young monster went off, a chance to equalize would come.
Who would have expected United to have another monster waiting in midfield?
Maguire pulled Kanté up and shouted in excitement, "N'Golo, I bloody love you! From now on, I'm never complaining about you wearing underwear in the shower again!"
The United players swarmed around Kanté, slapping his back, grabbing his shoulders, shouting his name.
Kanté only scratched his head shyly, looking almost embarrassed by the praise. To him, that was simply what he was supposed to do.
Still, being praised felt pretty nice.
Manchester City's best chance had been killed, and from that moment on, the match began moving toward its end.
Under Mourinho's direction, Manchester United dropped deeper and deeper, building a red wall in front of their penalty area and defending with everything they had left. There was nothing elegant about it anymore.
No prideful insistence on open football, no unnecessary risks, no pretending they were above suffering.
They parked the bus and dared City to break it.
City tried.
They circulated the ball. They switched the play. They looked for the final pass, the lucky bounce, the one mistake that could rip the ending away from United.
But United held on.
When Sané's long-range shot flew high into the stands, the referee finally raised the whistle to his mouth.
"Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet."