Leeds bring the chaos: The four big first-half moments that propelled them to Wembley — The Athletic 17/5/24
By Phil Hay
Elland Road before kick-off should come with a trigger
warning.
Leeds United have laid scarves on every seat, just as they
did for their last Championship play-off appearance five years earlier. It
looks the same, and memories of that shambolic night flood back: Kiko Casilla
and Liam Cooper on different planets, Derby County resuscitated from six feet
under, the play-offs doing what they always do to Leeds, scarves left to rot as
the stadium evacuated.
The minutes before kick-off are reminiscent of it, too: the
massive twirly of scarves swinging above heads and then held aloft as Leeds and
Norwich City emerge from the tunnel. It’s 0-0 after the first leg of their
semi-final. This is where chaos traditionally finds Leeds. But not here. Or not
in the way they fear.
Four big moments in the first half and Norwich are burned.
Four big moments in the first half, and fear and loathing turns into the
sensation Leeds thought they would never have: that these are the play-offs,
and the club are loving them. Four big moments in the first half, and the final
is calling.
Seven minutes: Gruev’s ingenuity
Marcelino Nunez has no need to foul Joe Rodon. Rodon’s
through ball is overhit and rolling out for a Norwich goal kick. But Nunez
arrives on the defender’s flank and plants a foot on him, hacking him down.
Norwich’s players look like they are setting up a three-man
wall but their goalkeeper, Angus Gunn, waves Ashley Barnes away from it. Nunez
and Jonathan Rowe stand together as Gunn takes the gamble of shuffling back
towards his far post in search of a catch. Crysencio Summerville runs over the
ball, leaving Ilia Gruev to strike it.
Farke’s central midfielders have not scored all season; not
a single goal between them. Gruev has only scored one senior goal in his entire
career, in Germany’s Bundesliga 2 with Werder Bremen, 25 months earlier. Leeds
did not sign him for that. He is a holding mid who likes to patrol the grass in
front of the centre-backs.
Gruev sets himself and Rowe steps to his left where
Summerville is on the move. There is no wall to speak of any more and everyone
is looking for a cross. Gruev sees the gap. Gruev attacks the near post. It has
got curl and precision and Gunn, a nightmare of an evening beginning, ends up
wrapped around the woodwork, the ball lodged in the net behind him.
Elland Road ignites. Shane Duffy’s giving Norwich the
universal ‘calm the f*** down’ signal, pushing his palms towards the pitch. But
it’s the first cut. The killer cut.
20 minutes: No Piroe, No Party
What is Joel Piroe? Is he a No 9 or is he a 10? Does Daniel
Farke know for sure? Does he?
Piroe has been making hard work of making himself fit
recently, so much so that Farke left him out of Sunday’s first leg at Norwich
in spite of an injury to Patrick Bamford. But Leeds could afford to be
conservative at Carrow Road. This is Elland Road, where the crowd are bouncing
off the walls like Minions on amphetamine. Piroe is the positive choice. And he
will pay Farke back by playing a blinder.
Norwich are rattled, in spite of Duffy’s pretence of
reassurance. They have got no good possession and no rigid shape. If David
Wagner has set them up to be resolute and survive with caution, it’s not
exactly the blueprint from Rorke’s Drift.
Wilfried Gnonto comes up with the ball on the right wing.
Ben Gibson does not close him down or properly retreat. Gnonto’s cross is sexy,
caressed through the corridor of uncertainty towards a lurking Piroe. Gunn
comes for it. And then he stops. He is in no man’s land as Piroe cushions a
header in.
Semi-final done. Almost.
30 minutes: Spiderman’s Hand
Any amount of time spent watching Derby’s win five years ago
would have told Norwich that Elland Road is prone to crippling self-doubt;
inherently paranoid about the bullet in the post, and never more so than in the
play-offs.
Recently, Illan Meslier, a goalkeeper with one of the
biggest wingspans in football, has been grasping for form. Some of his kicking
has made it look like he is wearing wellies. It’s been a struggle to kick on
from the last time Leeds were promoted, when he was 20 and people were talking
about France’s future No 1.
The thing with Meslier, though, is that he pulls big saves
out of nowhere. And he is there when Barnes sends a pass forward from halfway,
beyond Ethan Ampadu who stretches for it but does not get there. Josh Sargent
is away, clean through with only Meslier to beat.
Meslier comes out to meet him, spreading himself low but
covering an extra base by lifting his right hand high into the air. You see
years of goalkeeping drills right there, a reaction practised so many times,
and he calls it perfectly. Sargent goes for the chip. Meslier’s raised hand
meets it strongly. That was the opportunity to make Elland Road twitch.
40 minutes: Rutter’s coup de grace
The tie looks over at 2-0. Norwich are mentally stuck on the
A47. As half-time draws near, Duffy and Ben Gibson are chirping at each other.
A group of their players mass together near their box during a break in play,
without knowing what to say to each other.
They are irredeemably vulnerable and, when they lose track
of Piroe down the left, he feeds on the disarray in front of Gunn.
Summerville can’t get a low delivery under control but Duffy
sticks a foot out and prods it to Georginio Rutter, who smashes a shot in off
the bar. Rutter, who has been mediocre since hernia surgery. Rutter, who has
kept his place on the basis of what he might do, rather than what he has been
doing for the past month. Rutter, the cheat code when he hits his peak.
Forty minutes played and it is game over. Farke senses it.
He has never seen Leeds play better. Wagner knows it too. They have got the
second half to go, in which Summerville will score a fourth, but from Rutter’s
finish onwards, the rest is white noise.
With eight minutes left and Norwich bled dry, Cooper comes
off the bench. This is it for him, the end of 10 years of excellent service for
Leeds. He will leave at the end of his contract this summer. The appearance is
a sweet touch.
The final whistle goes, with one last twirly of scarves
beckoning it. The crowd let it out but Farke and his players keep it in the
can, only because they have to. They huddle near the centre circle with Cooper
barking at them, doubtless telling them that promotion is not won in
semi-finals.
On the far side of the pitch, an LED board is advertising
one of Leeds’ sponsors, a theme park in North Yorkshire. “Escape to a land with
white knuckle rides,” it says.
Let’s call it Wembley.