We held it like that to 74 minutes. And then the inch arrived.
It came off the outside of Bernardo's boot, a disguised little thing, threaded into the half-yard between Saiss and Mendyl. And Ronaldo was already moving onto it.
He'd peeled off Saiss's blind shoulder a breath before the pass, that Off the Ball 20 doing the one thing on this earth no defender can be coached against, and the deep block I'd built to smother him had quietly opened up the one gap he wanted.
I was up off the bench with the shout already dead in my throat. "SAISS!" Forty yards off, and "DIMA MAGHRIB!" rolling over the top of it, and it was gone before it cleared my teeth.
The ball rolled into his path and he didn't break stride and he didn't blast it. He just opened his body and stroked it, low and dead certain, across Bounou and inside the far post.
Thwump.
2-2.
