Then came the final league match at Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dreams that had spent generations watching Manchester United teams rise, collapse, rebuild, and eventually climb again.
When the final whistle confirmed the title, red confetti poured down across the stadium and the celebrations seemed to consume everything around the pitch.
Young players who had never won anything remotely comparable screamed themselves hoarse, the older members of the squad embraced with considerably more relief than restraint, and Mourinho disappeared beneath a crowd of staff members and substitutes.
Ashley Young remained closer to the edge of the celebrations, smiling as he watched another generation inherit a responsibility he understood better than most.
Manchester United were champions of England again!
Yet the player who had contributed more than anyone to returning them to the summit left Old Trafford unusually early, and Manchester City's manager disappeared not long afterward.
Neither departure had anything to do with football.
...
By the time Ling and Guardiola reached the hospital, they were already too late.
Through the glass, Ling could see Maria resting in bed with something impossibly small beside her.
Neither man spoke for several seconds as they stared into the room, until Ling eventually looked down at the Premier League winner's medal still hanging around his neck and sighed.
"Still got here too late."
Guardiola kept his eyes fixed on his granddaughter. "The little one has good timing."
Ling glanced toward him, and Pep nodded at the medal hanging from his neck.
"No matter what happened today, she was getting one."
Ling laughed quietly.
For once, Guardiola showed no interest in reminding his son-in-law who had spent the previous season winning both England and Europe.
Football had briefly become irrelevant, although Pep eventually remembered that Ling still had another important match approaching.
"Confident about the Champions League final?"
Ling looked toward him.
"Real Madrid are very strong."
That was undeniably true.
Madrid had assembled another formidable squad and would arrive at the Stade de France carrying all the experience expected from a club that treated European finals almost as part of its institutional identity.
Ling nevertheless put on his most innocent expression.
"Stronger than me?"
Guardiola opened his mouth, paused for several seconds, and eventually closed it again.
Annoying as the question was, Pep had no immediate answer.
...
June 1, 2022.
Stade de France.
Manchester United against Real Madrid.
Four years earlier, the same opponent had represented something almost mythical to Ling and the younger United players around him.
Madrid had been filled with established stars, while United entered as challengers who needed almost everything to go correctly if they wanted to survive.
They had somehow found a way.
This time, the circumstances were completely different.
There was no miracle involved, no enormous upset, and no sense that Manchester United had somehow stolen victory from a superior opponent.
United simply played the better match, controlling enough of possession to dictate the important phases, defending when Madrid threatened, and punishing the openings that appeared.
When the final whistle came, Manchester United were champions of Europe again.
Another Champions League medal settled around Ling's neck, another European Cup would return to Old Trafford, yet this victory felt different from the three that had come before it.
Those earlier triumphs had formed part of the dynasty United were building, whereas this one arrived after that dynasty had apparently begun to collapse.
Reaching the summit once had been difficult.
Returning after being knocked from it carried a satisfaction of its own.
...
Ling's media obligations continued long after the trophy presentation ended.
He thanked Mourinho, his teammates, the staff, the supporters, and his family before pausing for a moment and deciding there was one more person worth acknowledging.
"Myself."
The reporter laughed.
Ling did not.
"I'm serious. There were plenty of times over the last year when I was angry, tired, or frustrated. There were moments when the easier thing would've been to lower the standard and tell myself we'd already won enough."
He glanced down at the medal around his neck.
"I didn't."
There was no false modesty behind the answer.
Ling had learned how to appreciate everyone who had helped him without pretending that his own work, discipline, and stubbornness had somehow been irrelevant.
Eventually, someone asked the inevitable question about his future and whether he still intended to spend the rest of his career at Manchester United.
This time, Ling did not joke.
"Yes."
He paused before continuing.
"When I think about players like Maldini at Milan, Bergomi at Inter, Tony Adams at Arsenal, or Oliver Kahn at Bayern, those players became part of how people understood the club itself. I'd like that."
His expression softened slightly as he looked toward the United supporters who were still celebrating inside the stadium.
"I don't know exactly what football will look like ten years from now. Nobody does. But if I get to choose, I want the last shirt I wear professionally to be Manchester United's."
For once, nobody attempted to turn the answer into transfer speculation.
There was not much ambiguity left to work with.
...
Returning home afterward created an entirely different problem.
His daughter had already begun losing the tightly scrunched appearance of a newborn, and Ling discovered with alarming speed that leaving the house had become more difficult than any Champions League defender had ever made it.
He could stand beside the crib for ridiculous amounts of time doing absolutely nothing except watching her sleep, which Maria found amusing and Pep found increasingly irritating.
Unfortunately, Ling could not remain there indefinitely.
England would soon begin another training camp as preparations intensified for the World Cup in Qatar that November.
Euro 2020 had ended one match short of the trophy, and neither Ling nor most of Southgate's squad had forgotten what it felt like to watch Italy celebrate at Wembley.
The World Cup offered them another opportunity.
That meant Ling eventually had to leave home.
He continued standing beside his daughter anyway.
Guardiola was sitting nearby, completely absorbed in entertaining his granddaughter and apparently unaware that another adult existed in the room until he finally noticed Ling had still not moved.
"Go already. Stop standing around getting in the way!"
Ling stared at him.
"I'm her father."
"And?"
Maria covered a laugh.
Pep still seemed to regard periodically insulting the bastard who had married his daughter as a moral obligation, and Ling merely shrugged toward his wife.
He understood.
Manchester United had reclaimed the Premier League and beaten Real Madrid to win the Champions League, which meant Guardiola had already suffered enough recently.
As the winner, Ling could afford to show the loser a little generosity.
At least until the next Manchester derby.
...
France waited in the World Cup quarterfinal.
Varane found Ling shortly before the teams entered the tunnel, and neither player bothered revisiting the jokes they had exchanged back in Manchester.
They knew each other too well for that.
Once the match began, the fact that they trained together every week would become irrelevant because one of them would continue chasing the World Cup while the other would be flying home.
France struck first through Tchouaméni, whose low effort from distance travelled through a crowd of players and found the corner before Pickford could reach it.
England did not panic.
Their experience at Euro 2020 showed in the response.
Rather than throwing bodies forward immediately, Southgate's side continued moving France from one side to the other until Kane finally dropped away from the center-backs and created the space Ling had been waiting for.
Bellingham found him between midfield and defense, and Ling turned away from the first challenge before driving toward the penalty area.
He opened his body as though preparing to shoot across Hugo Lloris, forcing Varane to shift toward that angle, but Ling delayed for one additional step before driving the finish inside the near post.
1–1.
France remained dangerous, especially whenever Mbappé attacked the space behind England's right side, but Southgate resisted the temptation to retreat.
The final twenty minutes became increasingly open as both teams understood that one moment of quality could decide the quarterfinal before extra time became necessary.
That moment eventually belonged to England.
Saka received wide on the right and immediately attacked Theo Hernández, while Kane moved toward the near post and dragged Upamecano with him.
Ling began his run from several yards outside the penalty area as Saka cut the ball backward instead of forcing the cross, allowing Bellingham to meet it first time and slip possession into Ling's path.
Varane stepped forward as Ling shaped to shoot, and the defender hesitated for exactly the fraction of a second Ling wanted.
Instead of striking, Ling touched the ball around him and drove into the penalty area.
Lloris rushed from his line.
Ling had already seen Kane arriving beyond the goalkeeper.
Rather than attempt the more difficult finish himself, he squared the ball across goal and allowed England's captain to sweep it into the empty net.
2–1.
England survived France's final assault, and when the whistle eventually came, Ling embraced Varane before joining the celebration.
There was no gloating between them. France had possessed more than enough quality to win another World Cup, but England had beaten them on the night that mattered.
...
The semifinal brought Morocco, whose extraordinary tournament had already seen them eliminate Belgium, Spain, and Portugal.
Anyone expecting England to treat them as fortunate outsiders had clearly not been listening to Southgate.
Morocco's defensive organization had carried them this far for a reason, while Hakimi, Ziyech, and Boufal possessed enough quality in transition to punish any team that attacked carelessly.
England therefore remained patient.
Morocco frustrated them for almost an hour, but the pressure gradually accumulated until Ling drew two defenders toward the left and released Shaw on the overlap.
The full-back's resulting cross found Kane between the center-backs, and England's captain powered a header beyond Bono.
Once Morocco fell behind, they had little choice but to attack, and the change finally created the spaces England had spent most of the match searching for.
Ling added the second late on after carrying the ball through midfield during a counterattack, sealing a 2–0 victory.
For the second major tournament in succession, England had reached the final.
This time, Argentina were waiting.
...
December 18, 2022.
Lusail Stadium.
England against Argentina.
Lionel Messi against Jeremy Ling.
For several days, almost every discussion surrounding the World Cup final had been reduced to those two names, despite both managers repeatedly pointing out that twenty other players would also begin the match.
Ling found the comparison more amusing than intimidating.
Messi had already spent nearly two decades proving what kind of player he was, and one final could neither create nor erase a career of that magnitude.
Ling therefore had no interest in pretending the World Cup was simply a private duel between the two of them.
Even so, he could feel the scale of the occasion when the teams emerged from the tunnel.
More than eighty thousand spectators filled Lusail Stadium, while hundreds of millions watched around the world.
England had not lifted the World Cup since 1966, Argentina had waited since 1986, and Messi was pursuing the one great trophy still missing from his career.
Ling was chasing something different but no less personal.
Only a few England friendlies had separated him from Euro 2020 when he entered his first major international tournament, and two years later, the memory of watching Italy lift the European Championship trophy at Wembley remained painfully clear.
He had no intention of standing beneath another shower of confetti while somebody else celebrated.
...
Argentina began better.
Their midfield pressed aggressively without becoming reckless, while Messi repeatedly drifted away from England's defensive midfielders and appeared in spaces where nobody was entirely certain whose responsibility he had become.
In the twenty-third minute, Mac Allister escaped down the left and cut the ball backward toward Messi, who allowed the pass to travel across his body before placing a controlled low finish beyond Pickford.
1–0.
England's response was considerably more composed than it might have been several years earlier. Southgate's players had lived through too many knockout matches together to confuse conceding first with catastrophe, so they simply continued playing and waited for another opening.
That opportunity arrived shortly before halftime when Bellingham regained possession in midfield and released Saka down the right.
Argentina recovered quickly enough to prevent the winger from driving directly into the penalty area, but their defensive movement opened a small pocket centrally.
Kane moved into it while Ling immediately attacked the space beyond him.
The England captain received with his back to goal and, without turning, flicked the ball around the corner into Ling's run.
Romero moved across to cover, but Ling touched the ball outside him and struck before Emiliano Martínez had enough time to set himself properly.
The shot stayed low across goal, kissed the inside of the far post, and went in.
1–1.
"LING!" Peter Drury roared as the England supporters erupted. "ON THE BIGGEST NIGHT OF HIS INTERNATIONAL CAREER, HE HAS BROUGHT ENGLAND BACK INTO THE WORLD CUP FINAL!"
Jim Beglin immediately focused on the movement that had created the goal.
"That partnership with Kane has come such a long way since Ling first entered this England side. Kane knows exactly where the run is coming now, Ling understands precisely when he's going to release it, and Argentina are caught between stepping toward Kane and protecting the space behind him."
The score remained level into halftime, and the second half became even tighter.
Argentina regained the lead through Julián Álvarez after a rapid transition, but England responded again when Saka was brought down inside the penalty area and Kane converted from the spot to make it 2–2.
Neither team could find another breakthrough during regulation, and the World Cup final moved into extra time.
By then, the tactical structures that had defined most of the match were beginning to bend beneath exhaustion.
Players who had spent weeks surviving one knockout round after another were now being asked to run for another thirty minutes while the World Cup sat only a few yards away from the pitch.
Messi almost decided it first when he found space inside the penalty area and beat Pickford, but Stones recovered toward the line and cleared the ball before it had completely crossed.
England responded several minutes later.
Rice intercepted a pass intended for Fernández and immediately found Bellingham, who carried possession directly through a midfield that had finally become stretched.
Kane moved toward the right while Saka stayed wide, forcing Argentina's defense to respect both threats, and Ling drifted into the space opening on the left.
Bellingham chose him.
The pass arrived just outside the penalty area, where Ling controlled with his right foot and immediately saw Romero closing from the front while Molina recovered from the side.
There was no clean route between them, so rather than forcing the move, Ling allowed his next touch to travel slightly backward and drew both defenders another step toward him.
Only then did he accelerate between them.
Romero reacted late and tried to recover, but Ling had already entered the penalty area by the time Martínez rushed from his line.
For the briefest instant, the noise around him seemed to disappear.
Ling remembered Wembley, the sight of Italy celebrating, the silver medal hanging around his neck, and the promise he had made to himself that another opportunity would eventually come.
Now it had.
He did not attempt anything spectacular.
He simply waited until Martínez committed and rolled the ball calmly into the opposite corner.
3–2!
Lusail Stadium erupted.
Ling sprinted toward the England supporters and disappeared beneath his teammates as Drury's voice rose above the chaos.
"JEREMY LING! JEREMY LING FOR ENGLAND! WITH EIGHT MINUTES OF EXTRA TIME REMAINING, THE MAN WHO ARRIVED AT HIS FIRST MAJOR TOURNAMENT ONLY TWO YEARS AGO HAS PUT ENGLAND WITHIN TOUCHING DISTANCE OF THE WORLD CUP!"
Beglin laughed in disbelief as the replay appeared.
"Look at the patience. That's what separates the player he is now from the teenager we first saw at United. He could force the move immediately, but instead he waits until both defenders commit toward the same space and only then attacks the gap they've created. After that, the finish is almost insultingly calm."
Argentina threw everything forward during the remaining minutes.
Messi found one last shooting opportunity, but Pickford made the save.
Another cross followed shortly afterward, with Maguire rising to head it clear before the second ball dropped toward Di María.
Rice blocked the attempt.
The ball escaped.
The referee looked at his watch.
England's entire bench was already standing, while Ling remained near midfield struggling to drag enough air into his lungs to prepare for one final defensive run if it became necessary.
Then three whistles cut through the noise.
For half a second, nobody moved.
After that, England exploded.
Southgate disappeared beneath his staff, Kane dropped to his knees before Henderson dragged him upright, and Bellingham sprinted toward the bench while Maguire screamed toward the sky.
Ling remained still slightly longer than everyone else.
He looked toward the scoreboard.
ARGENTINA 2–3 ENGLAND!
Only then did the meaning fully settle in.
England were world champions once again!