Leeds United 4-0 Norwich City: Bringing it all together
Where had all this been? There was so much more of it. Twice in a first half minute first Rutter then Gnonto went Maradona mode, slaloming upfield with the ball at their feet, evading tackles, gathering speed towards the goal(s) of the century(ies).
Sometimes football brings it all together and gives you a night like this, when everything no matter how tired or threadbare works like new, when all worries melt away — at 4-0, anyway — and you feel, for a time, mentally or physically or both, unlike you ever otherwise do in ways that are, thankfully, better.
It started in the stands at Elland Road, the old-fashioned shambles of a stadium that, for all its curmudgeonly resistance to modern football and manufactured atmospheres, feels more like its old self than ever when the scarves are handed out to everyone and the playlist is amped up. These aren't the old ways, but this is how you start a party in 2024, and sometimes that's what Elland Road needs most: an invitation to start. Sometimes that invitation to party looks like the bulging veins on Ashley Barnes' scalp. Sometimes it looks like 35,000 free scarves held aloft in unison while a club anthem from fifty years ago belts across Beeston.
And on the pitch it started with Joe Rodon, the catalyst for Leeds United's best performance since Daniel Farke started work, for the forward line's most exhilarating night. Perhaps Norwich City were ready for Wilf Gnonto running at them again, even for Georginio Rutter finding his best form. What was the plan for when Joe Rodon kept stepping forward from central defence, winning the ball and driving with it towards their penalty area? Even Big Joe never looks prepared for this while he's doing it. Compared to the cool surges of Gnonto, I imagine Rodon screaming as he bounces the ball off his feet, tearing at his hair with his hands as he gets closer and dangerously closer to goal. Lately, he's not been doing this. Tonight, he was doing it from the start. It was the sign that Leeds were going to be different. Norwich had to foul him.
From there, about thirty yards out, an opening goal exploring the double meanings of cute. Cute first meant sharp, shrewd, ingenious, cunning, before it meant endearing, charming. The first cuteness was there in the combined strategising of the Leeds bench with Ilia Gruev and Crysencio Summerville, who were told to watch for nervous-looking Norwich goalie Angus Gunn leaving his near post unguarded. The second bit of cute was from Summerville, taking Gruev's chin in hand and moving his face to face his, lest Ilia's dish-like eyes, eager for the big gap in Gunn's goal, be read by the Norwich wall. Such as it was. Summerville's run to the corner halved that wall, leaving Gruev with one player to avoid as he curled and bounced the ball into the net.
This was not a moment for belief. The goal was unbelievable, and my mind was on the Derby play-off, 15th May 2019. Too soon to believe anything yet. But it was another invitation. Rodon shook the bottle. Gruev popped the cork. Six minutes in, Leeds had the chance to shrug off their tension by drinking deep of Daniel Farke's champagne football.
Someone should give protected designation to the characteristics of United's second goal. It came fifteen minutes after the first. Rodon was involved again, in that a few minutes earlier he'd run down the right, chipped a ball too far for Gnonto or Archie Gray, then yelled at them both for not giving him better options. This time he passed firmly along the ground to Gray. Gray zipped a pass around a defender and down the line for Gnonto, who jogged onto it and looked up at Joel Piroe, running away from his markers and pointing towards the goal. The cross, stroked off the golf club instep of Gnonto's right boot, was impeccable, high and slow then dipping so suddenly onto Piroe's head that he didn't have to jump, just to stand and nod and send the South Stand crazy.
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