The Road to Lisbon (26 page)

“Aye you’re right, boss. It helps me to think about it like that. I’ll need to be patient. The whole team will need to be. Anyway, all this talk of dams bursting
has left me desperate for a pee, so I’ll leave you to it! And try and keep the noise down, I need my beauty sleep.”

“Away, ya cheeky wee bastard!”

Silence descends once more. I shake my head and smile. The wee man. I may sound like the voice of calm and reason, but anxieties prey on my mind, too. Hence the reason I’m
standing on my balcony in the middle of the night. Maybe myself and the wee man have more in common than I would like to admit. But it is not only shared anxieties that bond us. It is the fact
that, in the heat of battle, they will all disappear. When it arrives, we will be ready to seize the moment. That’s what we both want just now – the moment to come, the battle to
commence.

The final bend in the road.

Day Six

Breakfast at the Palacio Hotel. The sun is shining, Jimmy Johnstone is singing and all is right with the world. The players are loving it, the waiters are
cracking up.

“Go on yersel’ wee man!” shouts Bertie Auld as holidaymakers at nearby tables look up from their plates of croissants. There is a relaxed mood in the camp. The
Press and some fans drift around the lobby, chatting to the players. A few of the boys are tucked away in the shade beside the pool, immersed in a card school. And me? I am in the thick of it,
playing the part of the ringmaster.

“I hope Celtic are getting a cut of the collections at 10 o’clock Mass,” I tell the Press men. “I hear the takings are up 50 per cent!”

Gales of laughter billow around the hotel.

“I hear there’s a game on tomorrow,” Sean whispers to me.

I smile. Sean knows how carefully I have worked to create this atmosphere.

“Keep them relaxed, keep the mood light,” I told him and Neilly every day for a week before we arrived. The plan is working perfectly.

As I sit in the lobby, watching for anyone doing anything they shouldn’t be, I catch the peals of laughter, the raised voices and the arguments.

“You’re at the cheatin’ . . . show us your hand then!”

Bluff and counter-bluff. These players hate losing. Even at cards. Their competitiveness never far from the surface.

Everyone is relaxed. Well, not everyone. Another sleepless night for me. Eyes out on stalks. Every ounce of tension that is banished from the players is absorbed by me. I laugh and
I joke and I play the part, but behind the mask there are concerns, doubts, worries, fears. If the confidence is real then so are the anxieties. There is no conflict between the two. That is life.
I am only human. The confidence that courses through my players stems from many things; from their relationship with success, from self-belief but also from their youthful ignorance. They are young
men on the brink of an achievement that will live forever in the history books. They do not realise the full significance of the occasion. And I do not want them to. I want them to play with their
usual carefree expression, unburdened by the weight of history.

But, for me, it is different. For me, the journey has been too long, the sleepless nights too many to fail to appreciate the significance of this moment. No British club has ever
won the European Cup. By God, no club from northern Europe has won it! We can become the first. An achievement that would live forever, that would be a source of pride for generations.

Tactics occupy my mind more than anything. This is my greatest challenge. How to break down an eight-man defence? I know how I will approach it. I am confident that it will work,
but I cannot guarantee anything. I have watched Inter strangle the creative juices out of great teams before.

The players know their jobs. Jimmy Johnstone and Bobby Lennox will play centrally in an effort to draw their markers with them. Wallace and Chalmers will take turns of dropping deep
and drawing the centre-backs out of position. It will be a thankless task but their endeavours will hopefully allow us to hurt them on the wings. The focus will fall on Auld and Murdoch to feed the
full-backs, Gemmell and Craig. It will be a game of tactical chess. We are capable of executing the plan to perfection, but they have the grandmaster. Helenio Herrera. The image of the Inter boa
constrictor will haunt me until the final whistle blows tomorrow.

The seabirds herald a beautiful morning yet trepidation hangs over the camp like a pall. I go for an invigorating dip in the ocean. As I walk back I can feel the blood coursing
through my veins. The boys are all busying themselves with various chores. We have lived months in five days. All of this – packing, driving, stopping for the night, unpacking, waking,
packing again, then hitting another unfamiliar open road; its very unfamiliarity is normality to us now. Five previously untravelled boys are now hardened veterans of the highway.

A figure at the edge of the woods. We all look up, apprehensively. It is Angelu.

“The police, they have arrested Xalbador,” she tells us plaintively. “On suspicion of stealing the police vehicle.”

“Fuck ’im,” I mutter, under my breath.

“They’ll be searching the woods soon,” says Rocky. “Better get to the garage and see about the Zodiac.”

“I’m going to leave you now,” says Angelu.

“Why not hang around with us for a bit,” protests Eddie. “We’ll look after you.”

She walks over to Eddie. Takes his hands in hers. Looks into his eyes.

“No. I am known to the Guardia. If they see me in your company it will make things bad for you.”

She kisses him goodbye. We make our farewells and I watch Eddie as he watches her clamber back up to the tree line and out of sight forever. His expression is sad, yet determined. I half-expect
him to grab a drink but he doesn’t.

We finish gathering our things together and then walk towards Ispaster. We approach the village like a gang of outlaws in a Western, our nerves fretted with tension, camping gear
chinking
like spurs, the sun already beating down fiercely.

At the garage an enamelled 7-Up sign flaps in the slight breeze. A puddle of hosewater smells sweet and damp as it evaporates in the sunshine. A mower chatters in the near distance. Other than
that the place is silent.

“It’s quiet. Too quiet,” says Iggy with movie gravitas.

“We’re out in the open now,” I say. “You boys head to the cantina and act natural. Rocky and me will find out what’s going on with the car.”

We go round to the back of the garage and find the proprietor in his tiny office. By pointing at the map and the clock he conveys that his brother will arrive from Bilbao at 10 o’clock
with the throttle cable. He doesn’t mention a missing police car and his brother arrives more or less on time. The part is fitted straightforwardly and at a low cost, and by half-10 we are
delighted to be back on the road, the tension finally starting to recede.

The acid has all but worn off; only a slight afterglow remains. Mark seems a bit pensive. The others seem to be hooked upon the humour of the whole experience, which I find a wee bit
disappointing. I feel as though I have crossed the Rubicon. I don’t know how or why but I know that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

The road to Lisbon. It is blocked by the Guardia Civil.

“I’ll do the talking,” I tell the boys as I depress the clutch and begin gliding the Zodiac to a halt at the side of the road. “Hold your nerve fellas.”

“Shite, Iggy,” exclaims Eddie. “Your hands are covered in paint ya tube!”

“J-J-J-Just like Xalbador’s will be,” says Mark.

“Keep them hidden, but be subtle,” Rocky commands.

Two teal-uniformed cops approach the car, fingering their gun-belts. Oh fuck.

“Buenos dias, senors,”
I say, with surprising confidence.
“¿Usted habla inglés?”

One of the policemen shouts over to his superior, a tall, stern man, salt and pepper hair. He approaches the car, removes his aviators.

“Where are you going?”

“Lisbon.”

“What for?”

“To see the football. Celtic v Inter Milan.”

He is unimpressed.

“Did you spend the night in Ispaster?”

I know that he knows we did.

“Yes. On the beach.”

“Why?”

“Our car broke down.”

“Who did you have dealings with?”

“Well, there was the man who gave us a tow, there was the man in the garage, oh, and the barman in the cantina.”

“The man who gave you a tow. Is this him?”

He produces a mugshot of a younger Xalbador, moustachioed and with a thicker head of hair.

“Erm . . . yes. I think so. Salvatore I think his name was.”

“You,” the cop says, suddenly turning his attention to Iggy, who happens to be sitting at the rear window. “We believe this man is responsible for stealing an official car. You
know anything about this?”

“No, officer. We just got a tow from him, then we bought him a beer in the little cantina. To thank him, like. Then we just kind of made our excuses and left.” I glance at Iggy in
the rear-view, his face a perfection of innocent charm. “To be perfectly honest with you sir, we didn’t particularly like him. He was a bit of a bore.”

The cop begins chatting with his colleague in Spanish. I can’t pick out a word.

“Okay,” he says, turning to us and rapidly rapping on the roof of the Zodiac. “Get moving.”

I pull away, slowly exhaling in profound relief.

“Thank God!”

“Sweet Jesus!”

“I’ll say one thing for Xalbador,” says Rocky. “At least he didn’t grass us up.”

“I’m just glad Iggy has so much experience of chatting up the polis,” I say.

Sean pops his head round the door.

“He’s coming, Jock.”

“Who?”

“Herrera. He’s coming to Ibrox on Saturday. Thought you might want to know.”

Helenio Herrera. Meticulous, thorough; it was to be expected that he would want to see us in action before the final. What better time than in the league decider against our old
rivals? We only need a point to win our second successive title. And so, amid the Old Firm chaos, he will be sitting, filling his notebook with every detail, pinpointing strengths, searching out
weaknesses. Fuckin’ Herrera.

How much insight do I want him to gain? Maybe I should try to keep my cards close to my chest, send him back to Italy with an empty jotter; or at least a false sense of what kind of
team we are. That would allow us to surprise Inter in the final. But it is risky. It would mean abandoning our usual style, asking the players to perform in a way that is alien. The disappointment
I felt after our second leg against Dukla Prague is still fresh. We might get away with it once more, but I would hate to abandon my principles again, so soon after Prague. Anyway, our best chance
is to play the way we always do, to attack them and to try to win the match. And this is no ordinary game. This is the league decider against Rangers at Ibrox. How sweet it would feel to clinch the
league there.

We have come this far playing attacking football. We know it works. We have a cabinet full of trophies to prove it. Take Herrera out of the equation and there would be no debate. We
would attack. If we play in our usual style, Herrera will undoubtedly return to Italy with a bulging file. He will take copious notes on Johnstone’s mazy runs, on Murdoch’s precision
passes, on Gemmell and Craig’s lung-bursting overlaps. But he will also board the plane with more than a few worries. Our constant attacking will be sure to plant seeds of doubt in his mind.
He will return with more than a few missing answers. So what will we do? We will attack, we will try to win the league and we will show Herrera what we are made of. I stand on the cinder track with
my hands thrust into my overcoat, raindrops trickling down my neck and soaking my shirt. Behind me, the crowd throbs with anticipation. On the pitch, my players are ready, their pristine white
socks and shorts standing out against the greyness and glaur of Ibrox Park. A scrum of photographers race up the track but as they draw level with me they keep going. Instead, they point their
lenses into the main stand.

Sean whispers in my ear. “Herrera.”

I do not turn around. I do not acknowledge his presence. Fuck him. Simply another face in the crowd. Jimmy Johnstone looks over to see what all the commotion is about. I clench my
fist then point straight at him. He winks. Rascal. The conditions make it difficult but we pour forward in search of the opening goal. Rangers attack us, too, and the match swings from end to end.
Jardine scores after 40 minutes but we reply instantly through Johnstone. 1-1.

Jimmy Johnstone. The rain gets heavier and I look at him, socks at his ankles, looking like the runt of the litter, but he refuses to get bogged down. He is on his toes constantly,
skating over the gluey surface. Then it happens. Seventy-four minutes. Chalmers takes a throw-in and finds Johnstone. He picks it up on the right and starts to make a beeline across the penalty
area. I sense something is about to happen. I clamber out the dugout. He runs splashing through the mud. I am at the edge of the park now. I watch as he taps it out of his feet.

“HIT IT WEE MAN,” I scream.

And Jimmy hits it . . . boy does Jimmy hit it. The ball leaves his boot like a missile. I am in the air before it hits the net. Sean grabs me and we embrace. Suddenly I feel it all
ebbing away, all the tension, the fear and insecurities. My shoulders slump and I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Roger Hynd equalises soon after and the game ends 2-2
but the league title is ours. The entire bench run on to greet the players but I remain on the touchline and shake every player’s hand as they come off. Then I turn, slowly, and look up. I
scan the crowd a couple of times. Suddenly, I see him; staring straight at me, his face expressionless. Herrera. I meet his gaze and hold it for a few moments. Long enough to say: ‘Fuck you
Herrera. I know you’re here. I’ve known all along. But it didn’t make any difference because this is about us, Celtic Football Club . . . and you’re next.’