[The Ceremony. 23:12 CEST.]
UEFA build the podium on the pitch at these finals.
A blue stage, clank, clank, clank, assembled out of nowhere by a small army in polo shirts while the lads did their laps, and the trophy came out of the tunnel on its table with an honour guard either side and ribbons in red and blue already on it, because somewhere in the last twenty minutes a man whose whole job is ribbons had cut the white ones off.
Arsenal went up first.
That is the cruelty of these nights, the losers climb the steps before the winners, and Koscielny led them up on his taped Achilles, twenty years of football limping past a trophy he could not touch, and our end, I will say this for our end forever, our end applauded every single one of them up and down those steps.
Then the announcer said Crystal Palace and the bowl went up like a fuel fire.
