Sunday night’s final scene at the Santiago Bernabéu was the way a final scene should be. Like something from a war film or a western, a heist movie or the truest romance, Williot Swedberg just walked calmly through the chaos and the noise, nothing the defeated could do now. Some had fallen, others just froze: all of them left behind with only the realisation, watching in slow motion as he went, their fate sealed and his victory secured, the story finished even before he had. Suitably cinematic and so cool.
When did you last see someone literally walk the ball in? Here, of all places, it happened, and it was the perfect picture. An hour had gone when Swedberg, unseen, appeared like a shadow, providing a flick so subtle it wasn’t seen at first either and so soft it was like he was wearing slippers. That had deservedly delivered the opening goal, Celta leading 1-0. Now, into added time 19 years since they last won a league game here and having resisted the bugle call, the Bernabéu doing its Bernabéu thing, it was time to add the coup de grace.
