Wednesday afternoon. Gatwick. Three o'clock.
The squad flew from Gatwick to Milan Malpensa on a chartered Titan Airways 757, the same aircraft that had taken them to Lisbon for the Europa League group stage, the same aircraft that Barry had spent twenty minutes loading with kit bags and medical equipment while muttering about "airlines that don't understand the specific spatial requirements of professional football luggage."
The flight was two hours. The squad slept. Ate. Read. Neves watched footage of Milan's last three home matches on his iPad. Kovačić, who had played at the San Siro for two seasons with Inter Milan, sat beside Sakho and talked quietly about the stadium, the dressing rooms, the tunnel, the noise.
Sakho listened with the focused attention of a man who was about to walk into a building he had been dreaming about since childhood and who wanted to know every detail before he arrived.
