Comebacks

Shit! Raul Jimenez scores to make it 2-0. Rubbing salt into wounds, he goes trademark: donning a Mexican wrestling mask to acknowledge his nationhood. We’re down for the count. Laid out on the mat. 1-2-3. It's time to send us back to the locker room for a round of tea and recriminations.

Booooo! (Getty Images)

I should have expected this. We’ve been as profligate as prolific this season. Able to out pass and out manoeuvre teams without winning games. Today looks like one of those days. We haven’t played badly; we just haven’t been clinical up top. There hasn’t been that incision, that brave decision, to cut a defence in two. Three years ago, we were here. In Wembley. A semi-final. Sunnier than today. But with the same gloomy feel. Frustration permeating every pore. The pre-kick off anticipation dissipating into what-could-have-been. We lost then and we’ll lose now. Wolves aren’t Cardiff or Fulham: teams we'd score a bundle against. They are well managed and motivated. I turn to the person I’m about to marry, look at the team I have, and let out a sigh. Loving a team can be bloody painful. “I wish I knew how to quit you, Watford.”

Enter stage left, Gerard Deulofeu. A man on a mission. He wants to prove his manager wrong. Having played most matches this season, he was dropped for this one. Unhappy with his previous contributions, Javi Gracia made the call to bench him. For a man brought up in the Barcelona academy, this is an indignity. I mean people used to say my name in the same sentence as Lionel Messi. And now I’m here on the sidelines whilst a man who goes out with a Little Mix takes my place. Andre Gray! He was playing non-league football a few years ago. Long balls and cold showers. Mud and high tackles. Did I mention I used to play with Lionel Messi?

If Raul Jimenez is the masked Mexican, Gerard is V for Vendetta. Instantly, he changes the game. His positivity sets the Watford end ablaze. His diminutive nature belies his presence. He’s given everyone a lift. Then, it happens. From an acute angle, he sees something. The keeper stands to the left. Two defenders block any potential strike. Yet he sees something. Goods manufactured in Barcelona aren’t ordinary. Like superheroes, they can see through walls. Deulofeu is one such man. With a move befitting a ballerina, he scissors his leg and cuts the ball into the far corner. I can’t believe what I’ve seen. I’ve grown up with Devon White and Neil Shipperley, great lumps of centre forward. I have never seen a Watford player do that.

Goal of the season.

From there, the wind is in our sails. There’s no stopping us. Wave after wave of attack. The pressure is unrelenting. A ball comes into the box, a foot goes into a body, a penalty is awarded. It isn’t so much kicked into the back of the net, but put into a cannon and fired in. 2-2 and we’re going into extra time. Afterwards, Watford striker Andre Gray said, ‘There was no doubt we would win it in extra-time.’ I felt the same. Momentum plays a huge part in football. For all the technical excellence and tactical nous of the great and the good, throw a goal at them and see the confidence drain. We won 3-2 that day. It was Watford’s greatest comeback.

I talk about my favourite comeback because this week has seen two great ones. Normally, this blog is an arts one, where I celebrate such things as film, theatre, music, dance. I would argue these matches have encapsulated all of these forms, coalescing them into staggering, spell-binding entertainment. When football is good it has more drama than theatre, more twists than film, more passion than music, more rhythm than dance. The beautiful game isn’t a cliché; it’s an apt name for something that can be aesthetically pleasing and spiritually enriching.

Liverpool are 3-0 down from the first leg. They don’t have a hope in hell of coming back. Yes, Anfield is a fortress. But Barcelona are little hobbits, able to breach impregnable lairs. Sure, it’s possible that Liverpool will score three goals. What isn’t possible, what I - and no one else can countenance- is they will get through this game without conceding. They have Messi, Suarez and Coutinho: the magic number, a holy trinity, a 5-star trilogy. Liverpool's search for goals will go punished; I do not doubt this.

They cost more than three tenners.

The game starts the way I envisaged. Liverpool are McCartney helter-skelter, all whilst Barcelona create a fairground up front. Yes, Liverpool have an early goal but it’s only a matter of time before Messi puts one away, then they’ll need five. You ain’t scoring five against a defence that includes Pique. The man has been revitalised this season, behaving like a defender who has listened to Marcello Lippi’s audio book, read by Diego Simeone. It can’t be done; it won’t be done.

At half-time Liverpool are forced to make a change. The marauding Andy Robertson, the best left-back in the world, is taken off for Gini Wijnaldum, a consistent performer, but one who doesn’t possess a similar threat. Of course, he scores, powering in a cross from the right. He then leaps to conquer, scoring with a header off the left. It’s 3-3 on aggregate. Barcelona can’t believe what’s happening to them. Normally teams look at our team sheet and quit then. Sure, they come out and play. But their participation is merely symbolic. They know when they read Messi, Suarez and Coutinho that hope is but an illusion. What an indignity! This team pressing, harassing us, as if we’re mere mortals. We’re Ozymandias. King of Kings. Look on our records and despair!... How did this happen? What the fuck do we do? How can we be reactive when we’re proactive? Is there anyone who knows what to do? Please, anyone. Please. Lionel, say you know what to do.

The ball is on the corner spot. Trent Alexander-Arnold runs away from it. I do too. I go to the cupboard to get a pack of Doritos. I miss a moment. The replay shows all. The young scamp has only gone and out-witted grand masters. The run away was but a feint. An illusion. The talk hiding the trick. He wasn’t running away from the ball, but giving us the run around. With Barca players busy watching Arnold, they don’t notice his doppelganger running back and spraying a corner into the box. Origi, a man who wouldn’t get on Man City’s bench, rifles it home. Liverpool are beating Barcelona 4-0. And that’s how the score stays. 

At the final whistle the players conduct a choir. They are Freddie at Live Aid. The song, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ Thirty years on from Hillsborough, it’s moving beyond belief. I look at The Girl, a Liverpool fan, and hold her hand. We applaud like it’s theatre.

The next night and I’m in on my own. I decide to give the Tottenham game a go, knowing full well that it won’t be as good as the previous nights. Wednesday isn’t a good tele night, anyway. If it was Thursday I’d watch ‘The Good Fight,’ then watch the highlights after. By half-time the game is more or less over. Tottenham have played well but they’re 2-0. down They won’t comeback like Liverpool because they don’t have the momentum. In Liverpool’s game they were starting the second leg afresh. An early goal gave them confidence. Tottenham’s fresh start is worse than their old start. In the first leg they were only 1-0 down; here it’s 2. Goodnight Vienna.

I would have watched this if it was on.

Unlike Liverpool, Tottenham make a tactical change. Fernando Llorente comes on for Victor Wanyama. A big attacker replacing a holding midfielder. Spurs are going for broke. Like Liverpool, a substitute changes everything. Whereas Klopp praised his team as ‘mentality giants,’ Tottenham need to praise their actual one. By sitting on Daley Blind, Llorente squashed his opponent, making him redundant. Everything was going up to the Queen bee with teammates swarming in behind. Soon Lucas Moura had latched onto an Alli pass, spearing it into the back of the net. Then, a Llorente close-yarder was saved miraculously by the Ajax keeper, only for their hero to spill it to Moura. The subsequent ball control was like a Marvel character in full flight. The swish-swish-bang of it was quite insane. Still, Tottenham are behind on aggregate.

To give Ajax credit, they did not surrender like Barca. Being young, they did not have the hubris to expect to be in front. They had their chances, went close, all to no avail. With the clock ticking down, Tottenham kick a Hail Mary into the box. Its knockdown falls to Alli, who pirouettes the ball into Moura. Incredibly, the hat-trick is sealed. From 2-0 on the night, 3-0 down on aggregate, Tottenham win on away goals.

The subsequent celebrations were as moving. Never have I seen a post-match interview be postponed because ‘the manager is crying right now.’ Most memorable is how manager Mauricio Pochettino beckons his staff over to celebrate with the fans. Genuflecting, his arms proceed to tell them he’s not worthy. It’s the players and managers who get the headlines; however, they’re nothing without the staff behind them.

I’ve never seen better back to back football matches. The contrast from agony to ecstasy was the stuff of great narrative. But how has it happened twice? Guardian journalist Jonathan Wilson puts it down to progressive rule changes that mean teams can’t shut out attacking sides anymore. The back-pass rule and protection of skillful players restricts defensive teams from adopting hard tackling, anti-football. On top of that, the top teams aren’t used to defending. In the domestic leagues they’re not challenged, like they are in Europe. Consequently, an emphasis is put on putting the ball in the back of the net and not keeping it out. All of this creates a situation where talented teams are never dead and buried. There’s always the chance for renewal and resurrection. Which is why I’m not worried about Watford’s FA Cup Final next week. Undoubtedly, Manchester City will go 3-0 up, yet with the season being as it is there’s no doubt we’ll win 4-3. Here’s to the comeback!