After a while, feeling bored, cold and wet, Éderson decided to go for a walk. The Manchester City goalkeeper had spent 20 minutes dutifully guarding his penalty area.
He had checked all four corners for danger. He found nothing. He had stared, squinting, into the distance, scanning for some threat on the horizon. Nothing there, either.
And so, idly, he wandered forward. He was entirely alone. There was nobody else in his half of the field. Manchester City’s central defenders, the players employed as his doughty sentries,
were now stationed deep in Atlético Madrid territory, in the sorts of positions more habitually occupied by elfin attacking midfielders.
As he approached the halfway line, Éderson slowed his pace just a little. He had the air of a man who had been walking with no particular destination in mind:
He did not really know what he planned to do when he got there. He bounced on his heels. He stretched down and touched his toes. He loitered for a few seconds,
reveling in the sensation of what it must be like to be involved in a soccer match, and then, slowly made his way back, ruefully retaking his lonely post.
The Brazilian’s ennui could not — as it often can, during the course of both the domestic and the European seasons — be traced to Manchester City’s overwhelming superiority over its opposition.