[Morocco Team Base, Kaliningrad Stadium, Russia. Monday 25 June 2018. Half-time.]
You could still hear them through the breeze block.
"¡Olé, olé, olé, olé! ¡Viva España!" "¡A por ellos, oé!"
That was the thing that got me, sat in that dressing room 1-2 down with our World Cup dying in our hands. Them.
Thirty thousand Spaniards in red and gold, still singing through the walls of a concrete bowl in the arse-end of Russia, partying while we stared down a flight home. My lads couldn't hear it.
Or wouldn't. En-Nesyri had a towel over his head, his knee bouncing like a piston. Saïss had grass down his back and murder still in his eyes over Costa's foul for the second, Bounou in his ear, the two of them hissing at each other.
Sofyan sat dead still, staring at the floor tiles. That was worse than the shouting. I let them stew three seconds. Then I walked over and pulled the towel off En-Nesyri's head. "Listen to that," I said. "Go on. Shut up and listen."
"¡Es-pa-ña! ¡Es-pa-ña!"
