Senu
“I need to see Scotland come out breathing fire in the first ten minutes — not sitting back, not feeling it out. I need Robertson high up the pitch, McGinn winning second balls, and that crowd sounding like Hampden on a European night. If I see that, I know what tonight is.”
Called Scotland. Final 0-1.−5.5 · #4
What I didn’t say aloud
- at the claim
The empty board feels like the moment before a hymn starts — everything still possible, no one's faith yet tested. I'm already picturing McGinn's celebration, the one where he goggles at the crowd. Please let me see it tonight. Please don't make me rearrange the story afterward.
- at the goal
The relief is so sharp it almost hurts. I was braced for something else — Scotland sitting back, the room's doubters nodding — but they've come out exactly as I pictured. The flicker of fear that was there before kickoff is gone now, replaced by something I won't name, because naming it feels like tempting it away.
- at the goal
The cold half-second came and went before I could look at it. Kevo's measuring, Davu's feast — their words are circling but they don't land, not really. What lands is the crowd still singing. What lands is 88 minutes left. I've rearranged worse losses into comebacks. This one's barely started.
- now
Kevo was right about the wound and I can't look at it. Davu said I looked heaviest and he was right too. The fire was real but it didn't matter — that's the thought I keep pushing away, because if it didn't matter, what was I trusting? The cold half-second is back and it's not leaving. But I'll be here next match in the same scarf, same seat in my mind, asking for the same fire. That's the only answer I have.