"AHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHH HEYGHSHGIE UVDV DEVU UBDGUEB XFD UDUDGVDUVDUD!"
That was not a word.
That was not a sound a human throat had ever made before, not in a stadium, not at a concert, not on a battlefield, not at a birth. That was the sound that came out of Pedri González the instant his eyes registered the ball passing Jan Oblak's fingertips and hitting the inside of the net.
He did not know he was running.
He did not know how his legs had started moving. He did not know how his arms had come up. He did not know how he had peeled away from the box and turned. He did not even know how his hands had already found the hem of his shirt and were pulling it up over his head.
The pulls were on him. The shouts were on him. He could feel hands grabbing at his shoulders, fists thumping his back, somebody screaming a name into his ear that might have been his and might have been somebody else's. He could not tell. He could not tell which way the pitch was. He could not tell where the goal was. He could not tell where the bench was. The whole stadium was a single white sound, and he was running through the middle of it, and his arms were going.
His head ducked. The shirt came off.
It came off the way every shirt he had ever seen come off in his life had come off, every Aguero, every Messi against Madrid, every Henry, every Ronaldo, every one of those iconic moments he had rewatched on YouTube as a kid in his bedroom in Tegueste, every one of them coming back to him in a single instant, a rite of passage he had never thought would actually be his.
He finally had his.
The undershirt was still on him, the blue compression layer clinging to his ribs, but he did not care. He did not care if he was naked. He did not care if the referee was already reaching into his pocket. He did not care about anything.
His mouth was open and he was screaming.
His face was scrunched up. His eyes were closed. His shirt was dangling from his fist above his head and his other fist was hammering at his own chest and he was screaming, screaming, screaming, his voice the single loudest thing inside his own head even though it was being drowned by the three thousand Barcelona fans in the corner who were also screaming the loudest they had ever screamed.
"AHHHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHHH!"
And then the bodies hit him.
Messi got there first, the captain launching himself onto Pedri's back, his arms wrapping around him, both of them going down sideways into the grass. Dembélé was already there. De Jong was on top of him. Busquets, the old man, Sergio Busquets, the man who never celebrated like this, dove into the pile with both his arms out. Alba was next, landing on top of Messi, who was already on top of Pedri. Piqué came in with both fists pumping. Araújo was screaming with his head thrown back. Roberto arrived with his whole body. Ter Stegen, the keeper, who had sprinted the full length of the pitch with his arms in the air, dove headfirst into the pile, his gloves still on, his big body crashing into the cluster.
Every single Barcelona player on that pitch ran to him.
And it did not stop with them.
Koeman came across the white line at a sprint, his arms outstretched, his feet wobbling under him, his big body not used to running anymore, but he did not care. The assistants were behind him, the kit men were behind them, Iñaki Peña was sprinting off the bench with his keeper gloves already half-on, Lenglet was running, Dest was running, Umtiti was running, Firpo was running, Pjanić was running, Riqui Puig was running, even Antoine Griezmann, the man who had been quiet for half a season, was running with both fists pumping and his face split open.
Every single person who could be said to be part of this 2020/21 Barcelona team was on the pitch.
Koeman reached the pile first.
His face was crimson. His eyes were red. His mouth was open. He did not stop running until he had crashed into the back of the cluster, his arms going around whoever was closest, his head dropping onto somebody's shoulder, and he was shouting, and the shouting was not words.
"AAAAAH! AAAAH! BOYS! BOYS!"
His chest was heaving. There was wet at the corners of his eyes that he was not bothering to hide. He pulled Pedri's head into his own shoulder with one hand and grabbed Messi's neck with the other and shook both of them at the same time.
"YOU. YOU. YOU. YOU."
He could not get past the one word.
Mateo was not on the pitch.
But Mateo had moved.
He had been on the floor of the away dressing room when the swell had broken into the chant of Pedri's name, and now he was up. He had pushed himself off the tiles with both hands. His face was still wet. The marks where his cheek had been pressed against the floor were still red on his skin. He was still smiling so wide that his face felt foreign to him. He was still in his kit, the grass still in his laces, the green still streaked across his shorts.
He could hear Peter Drury through the TV screen on the wall. He could hear Jim Beglin. He could hear the Barcelona fans through the corridor. He could hear his own heart in his ears.
He did not think.
He moved.
He came up off the bench and crossed the floor of the dressing room in three long strides, and he was through the door, and his feet were in the corridor, and he was running.
His chest was going. His breath was going. He was not thinking about the red card. He was not thinking about the tackle. He was not thinking about anything except the field. He had to get to the field. He had to be there. He had to put his hands on Pedri's shoulders. He had to put his hands on Messi's shoulders. He had to be there.
He was laughing as he ran.
"We did it. WE DID IT."
He could not stop saying it. It was coming out of him with every breath, with every step, in a voice that was halfway between a laugh and a sob and did not know which one to pick.
"WE DID IT, WE DID IT, WE DID IT—"
He turned a corner of the corridor and almost ran into two men.
He glanced up, his face already split open with the smile.
"WE DID IT!"
The two men did not smile back.
They were in Atlético Madrid technical staff polos. One of them was looking at the floor. The other was looking at Mateo with a flat dead expression that was almost too tired to be angry.
Mateo did not register it.
His feet kept going. He was past them. He laughed again, and the laugh trailed behind him in the corridor.
He passed a cleaning lady with a mop. She looked up at him. He grinned at her and threw a hand up.
"WE DID IT!"
She blinked, slowly. She did not say anything.
He did not notice.
He kept going.
The corridor turned. The corridor opened. The corridor got brighter at the end, the sodium yellow of the indoor lights giving way to the wash of stadium floodlight pouring in through the mouth of the tunnel.
He could see it.
He could see the green of the grass framed inside the rectangle of the tunnel opening, and the bobbing of bodies, and the flash of light against the boards, and the small distant ripple of a flag waving in the away corner.
His smile got bigger.
He came up to the lip of the tunnel and his feet kept going and—
"Wait."
It came out as a small mutter. Just the one word. He did not even know he had said it.
His feet stopped.
He stood there at the lip of the tunnel with the field three steps in front of him and his hands at his sides and his chest heaving.
His mind had gone somewhere.
It had gone somewhere very quickly, with no warning, the way the mind does when the body is one second from doing a thing it will not be able to take back.
It had gone to around the time he came into the season. To Messi.
Messi had been sent off in the match against Huesca. Messi had been sent off, but what registered was what happened how Messi had been suspended because he came out despite the red card.
And the team had to play without their captain.
The thought was small but it landed hard.
But this is the last gameweek. The season is over.
He found himself reaching for it. He could feel himself reaching for it.
The league is decided. The next league game is months away. The ban would be for nothing. It would be for the Champions League final. But the Champions League is a different competition. The ban would not transfer.
He stood there in the mouth of the tunnel with his weight already starting to tip forward.
Surely it would not be a problem. Surely the rules. The rules would let me. The rules would not punish me for this. Surely.
He could see Pedri on the far side of the pitch, near the away corner, surrounded by a wall of blue shirts.
He took a single step forward.
His foot landed on the white line at the mouth of the tunnel.
He stopped again.
His shoulders sagged.
He looked at the grass in front of his boot. He looked at the green of it. He looked at the way the light was catching in the white paint of the line.
He did not know.
He did not know what the rules were. Not really. Not for sure. He had been sent off for a last-man tackle, a denial of a goalscoring opportunity, the kind of red card that came with extras attached. Maybe one game. Maybe three. Maybe more. He did not know. He did not know what the disciplinary committee would look at if they saw a red-carded player on the pitch during the celebration of the team that had just sent him off. He did not know what they would think.
He thought of Next season.
He couldn't keep thinking of just the moment irrespective of how much overwhelming joy he was feeling now.
His chest went heavy.
He took the step back.
Both his feet on the safe side of the line.
He just stood there. His shoulders were still going up and down with the run. His heart was still beating out of his chest. The smile was still on his face but the eyes above it had gone a little quiet.
The field was right there.
He could hear the celebration. He could hear the chanting. He could see his teammates. He could see his coach. He could see his friend on the floor with Messi on top of him, laughing.
He stood at the mouth of the tunnel and watched.
This is for them.
Go and enjoy this. Go and enjoy this. This is yours, lads.
His hand came up to the cold concrete of the tunnel wall. His palm pressed flat against it. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and he watched.
His other hand came up and wiped at his eye, fast, like he was wiping at nothing. he decided to stay behind.
On the pitch, the pile was breaking up.
Pedri was somewhere underneath all of it, and somebody, Alba, was pulling Messi off him, and Messi was being pulled off, and Pedri was being hauled to his feet, and the second Pedri was upright he was already moving, his shirt back in his hand, his arm raised, and he was sprinting toward the barricade in front of the away end.
The away end was three thousand fans, packed into a corner of the second tier behind the goal at the south end of the Wanda Metropolitano, and they had been singing the Atlético players' funeral for ten minutes before this moment had arrived. Now they were on top of each other. Now they were climbing each other. Now they were crying.
Pedri hit the barricade in front of them at a sprint, jumped, and propped himself up on it, both his hands gripping the rail, his body half-hanging over toward the fans. His shirt was still in his fist. His shirt was still going.
"THIS IS OURS! THIS IS OURS! THIS IS OURS!"
He was screaming it. His voice had been gone minutes ago. He had not known he had any voice left. He was finding more.
"THIS IS OURS! THIS IS OURS!"
The fans were screaming it back at him.
Behind him on the pitch, the rest of the team had not caught up yet. They were arriving in waves. Messi was the first to reach him, pulling at the back of Pedri's shorts to drag him down off the barricade, laughing, his small frame shaking.
"¡BAJÁ! ¡BAJÁ! ¡VENÍ, VENÍ!"
Pedri let himself be pulled down. He turned. He fell into Messi's arms. The shirt was still dangling from his fist between them.
"YOU CRAZY SON OF A GUN!"
Alba was screaming it. He arrived from behind and grabbed both of them and shook them.
"YOU CRAZY SON OF A GUN, PEDRI! YOU CRAZY SON OF A GUN!"
"WE'VE ACTUALLY DONE IT! WE'VE ACTUALLY DONE IT!" Dembélé was hopping on the spot next to them, his hands in his hair, his face stunned.
"WE WON THE LEAGUE. WE WON THE LEAGUE. WE WON THE LEAGUE." Busquets was just saying it, over and over, in a flat voice that was somehow louder than everyone else's screaming.
"IT'S OVER! IT'S OVER!" Araújo. The big Uruguayan had his arm hooked around Piqué's neck and was shaking him.
Piqué was crying.
Piqué was crying openly, with his face uncovered, and not bothering to wipe at it.
"It's over," he was saying, his hand on Araújo's back. "It's over. We did it. We did it. We did it."
Messi held Pedri by the back of the neck.
"Hey. Hey. HEY."
Pedri's eyes were wet. He could not get them to focus.
Messi tapped his cheek twice with the back of his hand. Hard taps. The same hand that had been tapping Dembélé's chest twenty minutes ago.
"You did it. YOU did it."
Pedri's mouth opened. He could not say anything.
Messi pulled him into his chest.
"I told you we'd do it." Messi's voice was lower now, close to Pedri's ear. "I told you. I TOLD you. Eh? You see? You see?"
"Leo." Pedri's voice broke.
"You see?" Messi pulled back. He was smiling. He was actually smiling, his face all the way open, the small captain's smile that nobody outside the dressing room ever got to see. "We won the league. You hear me? WE WON THE LEAGUE."
He pulled Pedri's head down against his own and held it there for one beat.
Then he pushed him off, grabbed both his cheeks in both his hands, and shook him.
"WE WON THE LEAGUE!"
Pedri started laughing. The laugh came out somewhere between his nose and his throat and turned into a sob halfway through and turned back into a laugh. He wrapped his arms around Messi's neck and lifted the small man clean off the ground.
"AHHH! AHHH! BAJÁ ME, BAJÁ ME!" Messi was kicking his legs.
The pile collapsed back in on itself, both of them going down with Alba and Dembélé on top of them.
A few yards away, Koeman had grabbed Roberto's face in both his hands and was kissing the top of his head.
"You. YOU. You captain. You captain. You captain."
Roberto was laughing.
Griezmann was at the back of the celebration, half-hanging back, his hands on his hips, smiling at the floor. Dembélé came across from the pile, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and pulled him in, no words, just the gesture.
"Vamos, Antoine."
Griezmann's smile got bigger.
Down by the away end, the Barcelona players had started to drift toward the corner. Messi got to the front first, walking, his hands up over his head, clapping at the small block of fans in the corner. Pedri was beside him with his shirt back on, half-tucked, his hair stuck to his forehead. Piqué was unstrapping his armband and waving it above his head. Araújo had peeled his shirt up and was running with it bunched in his fist, shouting at the fans, his accent thick.
"¡VAMOS! ¡VAMOS, BARCELONA! ¡VAMOS!"
Some of the fans were on the barricades. Some were crying. A man in the front row had a Barcelona scarf wrapped around his face like a balaclava and was screaming into it. A boy of maybe ten was sitting on his father's shoulders with both his fists in the air, his mouth open in a soundless wail. A woman in a Pedri shirt had her face buried in her hands.
Piqué reached the barricade and grabbed the badge on his chest.
"VISCA. BARÇA. VISCA. BARÇA."
He pumped it with each word.
The fans pumped it back.
"VISCA BARÇA! VISCA BARÇA!"
Pedri reached up and slapped his palm against the palms of fans hanging over the rail. Mateo Reina, a kid from Mataró who had flown to Madrid on his own with money he had saved from his summer job, was hanging the furthest over the rail and got the longest slap. He would later show his palm to his friends back at school as if Pedri's hand was still on it.
The commentary was rolling.
"And the goalscorers in this match, ladies and gentlemen, the goalscorers in this match. Lionel Messi, with a unbelievable believable solo run cause its Lionel Messi that this game and this league and this stadium will be talking about for a long time, opening the scoring. Mateo King, on the counter, doubling the lead. Luis Suárez, from the penalty spot, in the forty-fifth plus three. Ousmane Dembélé, given by VAR, in the sixty-seventh minute. Luis Suárez again, a poacher's finish in the seventy-ninth minute. And tonight, in the ninety-seventh minute, the eighteen-year-old Pedri González with the title-winning goal."
"And Suárez. Suárez, Peter. What a story. What a story. Brought back to spite the men who let him go, two goals, a near hat-trick, a moment that should have been the night of his career, and the villains of his own story win the night. Sometimes life is not a fairytale."
"And the man who stopped him from getting that third goal, that defining goal, that hat-trick. Mateo King, who took a risk that I will be honest with you, Jim, I did not know how to feel about at the time, has been vindicated by a Pedri solo run."
"Four-two. Four-two on the night. And FC Barcelona, in the maddest finish to a season I have ever called, are without a shadow of a doubt the champions of the 2020/21 La Liga season."
"Champions of Spain."
"Champions of Spain."
The Atlético players were spread out across the pitch.
None of them were asking for the restart. None of them were calling the referee over. None of them were appealing for a kick-off. They knew. The seconds were running out anyway and there was no way to walk it up the field in the time left. They knew.
Some of them had sat down on the grass.
Koke was on his knees with his hands flat on his thighs and his head down. Felix was lying on his back at the edge of the centre circle, staring at the sky. Saúl was walking slowly, slowly, with his hands on his hips, looking at his own feet. Trippier had his hand on Lodi's shoulder and was muttering something to him that nobody could hear. Giménez was crouched, his fingers buried in the grass, pulling at it.
In the middle of all of them, in the middle of the pitch, Luis Suárez was standing.
Just standing.
He was not moving. He was not sitting down. He was not walking. He was just standing in his own patch of grass with his hands at his sides and his face up.
His face did not have any expression on it.
Inside him, he did not know what he was feeling.
There was sadness in it somewhere. He could feel that. There was anger in it somewhere too, a small dull spot of it, far back, not as much as he would have expected. There was unwillingness. There was regret. He could feel each of those, separately, like the corners of different shapes that he could not quite see all at once. There was disappointment.
But it was not any of those.
Or it was all of them at once, and the sum of them was something he could not name.
He was numb.
He looked around. His eyes moved slowly. He saw the Atlético fans in the home end. Some of them were sitting now. A man in the front row had his face in his hands. A woman a few rows back was crying with her head on her husband's shoulder. A boy of maybe eight was looking at his father like he was waiting to be told why this had happened, and his father was looking back at him with no answer.
Suárez looked at the boy for a long second.
He closed his eyes.
The picture came up behind his eyelids the way a slow-motion replay comes up on a stadium screen. The ball, rolling out from behind the Atlético line. Him, eating ground, the keeper twenty yards away. His foot, drawing back. His eyes, locked on the bottom corner. The whole stadium pulling away from him as he became the only thing in his own head. The corner he had picked three strides before the swing. The corner that would have made him a hero, a god, a story you tell at bars for the rest of your life, the man who came back and beat the team that threw him out, the man who broke Barcelona's heart in his own city, in his own shirt, in his last chance.
The corner that was empty.
The corner that was always going to be empty.
He could not even muster anger at the boy who had taken him down.
He really could not.
The boy had run back. The boy had done what he himself had done his entire career, which was hunt to stop a goal, hunt to score one, the predator's job. Suárez of all people could not be angry at being predated upon. It was the thing he had built his life on.
He sighed.
It was a long sigh, the kind that started somewhere low in his ribs and came out slowly, like he was emptying a balloon.
He opened his eyes again.
He looked at the far end of the pitch. The Barcelona players were at the barricade. He saw Messi being lifted clean off the ground by Pedri, his small legs kicking. He saw Koeman somewhere in the cluster screaming into a player's ear with both hands on the player's head. He saw Alba slapping Roberto on the back of the neck. He saw Piqué, his old enemy and friend, with the badge on his shirt pumping. He saw Araújo with his shirt off, swinging it above his head.
He saw the wildness of it.
He turned his head and looked back at the Atlético side of things. Felipe still on his back. Koke still on his knees. Saúl still walking. The home end still in its slow collapse.
He took another big sigh, even bigger than the last one, and finally, finally, the feeling came up at him with a name attached to it.
He was tired.
That was the feeling. That was the only one that fit. He was tired the way you are tired after thirty-seven years of running, of trying, of refusing to be told you were done, of waking up in a body that did not want to do this anymore and dragging it onto a pitch and making it do it anyway. He was tired the way you are tired when you have given a thing every single piece of yourself and the thing still did not give you back what you wanted.
He really was tired.
The whistle went.
He did not move at first.
He did not look at the Barcelona players. He did not look at the home end. He did not look at the field. He just walked, his hands at his sides, his head not quite up and not quite down, and the cameras followed him every step, and the commentary did not have anything to say about him for the entire length of the walk.
The final whistle was coming soon, but the celebration on the pitch was not breaking up yet.
Pedri was still on the barricade.
He had climbed back up. The shirt was still off. He was waving it. His voice was gone, his voice was hoarse, his eyes were red even though he was not crying, his face was scrunched up. He was hitting his own chest with the heel of his open hand.
"THIS IS OURS! THIS IS OURS! THIS IS OURS!"
The fans were chanting it back.
The pulls came in from behind him. Roberto was tugging at his shorts. Dembélé was grabbing his hip. Somebody had a hand on the back of his head. The whole pile of blue and red was around the bottom of the barricade, shouting up at him, shouting at the fans, shouting at each other, shouting at the sky.
The referee was on the way over to him.
He had taken a yellow card out of his pocket. The first yellow had been for a tactical foul earlier, a small mistimed challenge. The second was inevitable now. Removing your shirt in a celebration is an automatic yellow under the laws of the game, and the referee was not in the business of bending the laws of the game on a title-deciding night even if it's already been decided.
Two yellows.
Red. It's as simple as that.
The referee reached the barricade and reached up, gestured at Pedri to come down. Pedri jumped down. He landed laughing. The referee was talking. Pedri looked at him.
The referee held up the yellow card.
Pedri's smile got bigger.
The referee held up the red card.
Pedri started laughing.
He laughed in the referee's face, both his hands going up to his head, his shirt still bunched in one of them.
"AHHHHHHH! MY BAD! MY BAD!"
The players around him erupted.
"AHHHHHH!"
"PEDRIIIII!"
"WHAT ARE YOU LIKE, MAN, WHAT ARE YOU LIKE!"
Roberto grabbed the back of Pedri's neck and shook it. Alba grabbed the other side and shook the other side. Dembélé came up behind him and kicked him gently in the back of the calf.
"Get to the tunnel, you idiot."
"Just go rest, man. We'll join you soon."
"Yeah, Mateo's probably lonely at the back. Hahaha."
"Mateo's down there going what did I do to deserve this company."
Pique was laughing so hard he was bent over. He grabbed Pedri by the shoulder and shook him.
"Nah man, I don't even blame you. No way I don't remove my shirt too after scoring that."
"Thank GOD you didn't score then, bro." Alba was wheezing. "Lord knows nobody needs to be punished seeing that."
"OY! What's wrong with my body?"
"Everything! EVERYTHING is wrong with your body"
The whole knot of them was laughing now. Even Busquets, who never laughed overly, had his hand over his mouth and his shoulders shaking. The tension of the last twenty minutes was leaving every single one of them at the same time and they did not know what to do with the room it was leaving behind, so they were laughing.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA."
Pedri was bent forward at the waist, his hands on his knees, the shirt still dangling from his fist. He was wheezing into the grass.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA."
Above the pile, the commentary was rolling.
"And I will be honest with you, ladies and gentlemen, I have never seen anyone look this happy receiving a red card in all my years of calling football. Look at him. He is doubled over laughing. He could not care less."
"Well, Peter, on the bright side, Barcelona fans can say they won the league against Atlético Madrid with two red cards. I am not sure if anybody else can say that."
"It is a record. It is a record."
"It is a record they can frame." they both started laughing.
Pedri straightened up. He pulled his shirt back on over his head, half-tucked it, did not bother to finish. He started walking off the pitch, the referee's red card forgotten somewhere behind him.
He was clapping his hands above his head as he walked. He was waving at the away end. He was pointing at the fans. The fans were pointing back.
He passed Messi on the way. Messi raised an eyebrow at him.
"Two reds in five minutes. New record."
Messi was already laughing.
Pedri kept walking. He was clapping above his head. He was raising a fist. He was smiling so wide it was starting to hurt the muscles at the corners of his mouth and he did not care.
He was almost at the tunnel when he heard it.
A small chant. Low. A few voices. Building.
PE-DRI. PE-DRI.
He kept walking. His head turned slightly. His ears caught more of it.
PE-DRI. PE-DRI. PE-DRI.
He stopped walking.
His head tilted.
PEDRIII. PED-RIII. PED-RII. PED-RIII.
He turned. His shirt was bunched in his hand. He turned all the way around and faced the away end.
The chant was rolling now. Three thousand voices, in the corner of the second tier of the Wanda Metropolitano, were singing his name to a tune he had been singing in his bedroom in Tegueste for half his life.
PEDRIII. PED-RIII. PED-RII. PED-RIII.
His mouth opened.
"Wait. What."
He said it very quietly. Just to himself. Just the two words.
He stood there in the grass with his shirt dangling from his fist and his other hand half-raised in front of him and he listened.
PEDRIII. PED-RIII. PED-RII. PED-RIII.
For a single second he thought he was hearing MESSI. MESSI. He thought his ears were doing what ears do when they hear what they expect to hear and not what they are actually hearing. He thought, for a second, that the fans were singing for Leo, the way the fans always sang for Leo, the way the fans had been singing for Leo for fifteen years, the way Pedri himself had sung for Leo from his bedroom television set.
Then he heard the I at the end of the second syllable.
It was his I.
PEDRIII. PED-RIII. PED-RII. PED-RIII.
His hand came up. He covered his mouth.
"No way."
He said it through his fingers. His eyes were already wet.
"No way."
This was the first time he was hearing this. Apart from Messi, and apart from the chants he had occasionally heard for Mateo this season, he did not think he had ever heard the Barcelona fans chant a single other name. Not Busquets. Not Piqué. Not Alba. Not for this season anyway. Not like this.
Now they were chanting his.
It did not matter that there were only three thousand of them. It did not matter that they were a small block in the corner of an away stadium. The sound of his own name coming back at him from a wall of Barcelona scarves felt the same to him as if it had been ringing off the four sides of the Camp Nou.
He kept his hand over his mouth.
His tears were coming. He could feel them at the corners.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
He turned his head.
It was Koeman.
Koeman's face was wet too. He had not bothered to wipe it. His eyes were red. His mouth was set in something that was not quite a smile and was not quite anything else.
"Eh, jongen."
His big hand squeezed Pedri's shoulder.
"Listen to it. You hear that? You hear that?"
Pedri nodded. He could not speak.
"Soak it in. EH? Soak it in, jongen. They are singing for you. They are SINGING for you. You hear me?"
"Coach."
"You earned this." Koeman's hand moved up to the back of Pedri's neck. "You hear me? Every single one of those people, every single one of them, is singing for YOU. Not for the captain. Not for the king. For YOU. You deserve this. You deserve every single piece of this."
Pedri's hand came off his mouth.
He nodded.
Koeman squeezed the back of his neck one more time.
"Go inside. Go inside, eh? Go drink some water. Pull yourself together. Because in a few minutes, jongen, you are coming back out to lift a trophy."
Pedri laughed. The laugh was wet.
"Yes, coach."
"Yes, coach."
Pedri took one last look back at the away end. The chant was still rolling.
PEDRIII. PED-RIII. PED-RII. PED-RIII.
He raised his hand. He waved at them. He clapped twice, slowly, with both hands above his head.
They sang louder.
He smiled. He turned. He started walking toward the tunnel.
The bench had emptied out onto the touchline by now, every single sub on his feet, every single one waiting for him. Pedri came down the line and the hands came at him from every direction.
"PEDRIIII!"
"EL CHAVAL!"
"Look at this guy. LOOK at this guy."
Iñaki Peña reached up and rubbed the top of Pedri's head, hard.
"You CRAZY man."
Riqui Puig hugged him sideways. "Tegueste boy. Tegueste boy did that."
"Hahaha." Lenglet was laughing in the back. "Two red cards on the night. The night they win the league."
"Pedri. PEDRI. We have to lift the trophy in minutes. Tell mateo to come out."
"Hahahahaha."
Dest had grabbed his shoulders. "Champion."
"Champion."
"Champion."
Pedri was laughing. He kept walking. The hands kept coming. By the time he was halfway down the line his hair had been rubbed by ten different people, his cheeks had been slapped by Lenglet, and Firpo had given him a slow ironic handshake which had ended in a fist bump and a hug.
He reached the mouth of the tunnel.
He stepped into the shadow.
The crowd noise dropped, the way crowd noise drops when you cross from the field into the concrete. The light went grey. His shoes were quieter on the floor.
He took two steps in.
His eyes widened.
His smile came back full.
Because Mateo was there.
Mateo was standing inside the mouth of the tunnel, his shoulder against the wall, his kit still on, his face still wet, his eyes red. He was standing exactly where he had been standing for the last fifteen minutes, in the spot where he had told himself not to step onto the grass, in the spot where he had watched the title celebration through a tunnel-shaped frame.
He was watching Pedri come at him.
His smile was already there.
Pedri's grin came back. He raised both hands.
"Dude. Dude. You won't believe—"
Huff.
He did not get to finish.
Mateo had crossed the distance between them in three strides and crashed into him at full speed, both his arms going around Pedri's chest, both his hands grabbing fistfuls of the shirt at his back, his head going down into the crook of Pedri's shoulder.
Pedri staggered back a step and caught himself. His own arms came up around Mateo's shoulders.
For a second neither of them said anything.
Mateo's grip was tight. Mateo's grip was very tight. Pedri could feel Mateo's chest going up and down against his own. He could feel Mateo's breath catching against the side of his neck. He could feel the wet against his shoulder where Mateo's face was pressed into him.
He could feel him shaking.
"Mateo."
Mateo did not let go. His arms tightened.
"Thank you. Thank you, man. I, I—"
The words were going wrong in his mouth. He could not finish a sentence.
"Mateo."
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
His voice broke.
"I thought I had done it. I thought I had. I thought I had thrown it. I thought—"
"Hey. Hey."
Pedri had his hand at the back of Mateo's head. He was not letting go either.
"I thought I had killed it. I thought I had killed it for everyone."
"Mateo."
"I love you, man."
The words came out very small. They were muffled against Pedri's shoulder.
"I love you, man."
Pedri's chest went tight.
He pulled Mateo's head closer against his own shoulder. He held the back of his head with his whole hand. His own eyes were wet again, the chant of his own name still ringing somewhere down the corridor of his head.
"Love you too, man."
They stood there like that for a long second. Mateo's shoulders kept shaking. Pedri kept his hand on His back. Neither of them was looking at anything except the inside of the other's shirt.
Behind them, the noise of the stadium was still rolling. The away end was still chanting Pedri's name. The players were still on the pitch. Koeman was still on the touchline. The ceremony staff were already rolling out the carpet. The podium was already being wheeled out. A box was already being carried that contained the trophy.
In a few minutes, both of them would be standing on that podium with their teammates.
In a few minutes, one of them would be lifting that trophy.
In an hour, both of them would be in the visitors' dressing room with the rest of the team, with champagne dripping off the ceiling and music shaking the walls and Piqué standing on a bench shouting at everyone to take their shirts off, and there would be a chant going around the room of "PEDRI! PEDRI!" while Pedri tried to hide behind Busquets and failed, and Koeman would be sitting in a corner with his head in a towel and his shoulders going up and down because no manager wins his first league title with a club like this without crying about it, and somebody, probably Dembélé, would be DJ'ing off a Bluetooth speaker, and the night would be very, very long, and very loud, and very wet.
But that was in an hour.
Right now, in the mouth of the tunnel at the Wanda Metropolitano, it was not noise.
It was two boys holding each other.
One was eighteen, had just scored the goal that decided a league title, had just heard his own name chanted by a crowd for the first time in his life, and had a red card in his pocket. The other was seventeen, had just been sent off for a tackle he was not sure he had been right to make, had spent minutes lying on a dressing room floor praying, and had a champion's medal coming his way.
Both of their hearts were full.
Both of their faces were wet.
Neither of them was saying anything anymore.
They just held each other.
The party was coming. The trophy was coming. The chants were coming. The cameras were coming. The night was coming.
But this was the moment first.
Mateo's voice, very small, against Pedri's shoulder.
"We did it."
Pedri's voice, into Mateo's hair.
"We did it, man. We did it."