Afterwards, the blue team kept it for the next few exchanges, unhurried and controlled, until Reyes intercepted a pass from Seriki to Tiehi, and the ball was red again.
Reyes dragged it back, looked up, and saw Leo pointing at Carlo.
On any other day, Reyes might have ignored him, but he wanted to really know why Leo had been the name mentioned the most when he was coming to this club.
Yes, he’d seen and watched tapes, particularly his performance in the FA cup final and the playoff series, but he wanted more; he wanted to admire it from up close.
Carlo received it and immediately shaped like he was going to drive inside.
His body leaned that way, and his first touch looked set up for that.
So Seriki bought it and moved to cut the lane, only for Carlo to pull the ball back sharply and shift it outside.
Seriki knew he’d been sent the wrong way, but he recovered fast, legs driving, getting back to Carlo’s shoulder just as the latter raised his left leg like he was about to cut in.
At that motion, Seriki stuck his left leg in the grass and jumped off it slightly, lunging forward with his right leg poised to block the effort, only for him to spot Carlo carressing the ball instead.
The winger had just stopped with the ball sitting at his feet, and Seriki was already through his slide before he realised nothing had happened, and the fans in the stands made the noise of people who have just watched something they feel personally.
"That was disgusting," a fan muttered with his face scrunched up a bit as Carlo lifted the ball over the backline to the far flank, and what followed next could only be described as beautiful, synchronised football.
Ezra, even under pressure from O’Shea, still chested the ball and played it back into the box first time, and there, Jake took it on the turn.
Tiehi pressed against his back, but he stood firm, his physical prowess showing as he held on and then, in the same movement, slipped right onto a plate in front of Reyes, who had just entered the box.
The crowd was now fully locked in.
They awaited the effort from Reyes since he had a shot at goal, but it never came.
The Portuguese player set his shooting leg aside the ball before letting it right through his legs.
Not a mishit, not a mistake.
He jumped over it deliberately and let it run through.
"Wha-" most eyes in the stadium felt their minds say and halt at the last second because what Reyes had just done had forced the keeper to commit, and for Seriki to lunged in front of his invisible effort.
And now set on the clearest of plates from Reyes, Leo appeared from behind and struck the ball.
The ball lifted, zooming past bodies before it hit the inside of the far post, sending a ringing sound screeching across the pitch before the ball homed into the back of the net.
For a half second, nobody in the stands made a sound.
And then they were on their feet, applause and cheers raining down like they would in a real match.
"Smooth," a man in the east stand said to nobody next to him. "That was smooth as anything."
"Did you see the first one?" the woman beside him said.
"The new one, the ten. He was going to do it no look. He was going to finish it no look."
"Seriki stopped him."
"I know Seriki stopped him, but he was going to do it. Is this really Wigan?"
Further along the row, two younger fans were still standing.
"The attitude might be a problem," one of them said, meaning Reyes. "But if he’s playing like that, I actually couldn’t care less."
"He left it for the Leo", the other one said.
"I don’t even know how he saw him. It might have been intuition, but even watching from where I am, I couldn’t really see him doing that until he did it. That dude is class!"
"That’s what good players do, though, isn’t it?"
Somewhere in the north end, an older supporter had his arms folded and was watching the pitch with the expression of a man trying not to get carried away and failing.
"Ezra too looked good," he said to the man beside him.
"And the tall one..."
"You mean the one who scored against Swansea in the last game of the season?"
"Yeah!"
"What about him?"
He shook his head slightly.
"Fresh," he said. "They look fresh. I don’t know. I’m just saying."
"The Manchester City kid did too. They actually looked the part. I was a bit doubtful of Dawson for the moves, but the man has really come through again. If they can play like this against other teams, I do not see why we can’t stay in the league."
His friend looked at him.
"You’re excited."
"I didn’t say that."
"You’re excited," his friend continued, but the older man decided to ignore him and stay silent, which, in this case, confirmed it for his friend.
On the pitch, Dawson was smiling no less than the fans in the stands.
It might look like he was okay, but there was pressure on him.
There had been talks of the club previously trying to replace him with a more ’Premier League-ready’ coach, but after the new owner took over, he had called him and talked with him personally, assuring him of his job.
And he was glad he could stay because his thoughts were already running amok at the fun he could have with this set of players, and the transfer window wasn’t even over yet!
"Seems like I am not needed," Cousins suddenly said, causing the attention on the pitch to come to him.
He laughed after seeing the stares, and so did the rest of the team.
They had genuinely forgotten that he was even part of the team because of how uninvolved the other players had kept him.
"Maybe this is it," he thought as he glanced around at the team and for a second, when Dawson met his eye, he could tell that the letter knew what he was thinking.