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 tonight. 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’d 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.
The scarves are back, but this time it is different (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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’re 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 haven’t 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 didn’t sign him for that. He’s 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’s no wall to speak of any more and everyone is looking for a cross. Gruev sees the gap. Gruev attacks the near post. It’s got curl, it’s got 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.
Gruev sprints away in celebration as Norwich quake in their boots (Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
20 minutes: No Piroe, No Party
What is Joel Piroe? Is he a nine 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’ll pay Farke back by playing a blinder.
Norwich are rattled, in spite of Duffy’s pretence of reassurance. They’ve 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.
Gnonto comes up with the ball on the right wing. Ben Gibson doesn’t 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’s in no-man’s land as Piroe cushions a header in.
Semi-final done. Almost.
Piroe eases his header beyond Gunn (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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 keeper with one of the biggest wingspans in football, has been grasping for form. Some of his kicking has made it look like he’s 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 number one.
The thing with Meslier, though, is that he pulls big saves out of nowhere. And he’s there when Barnes sends a pass forward from halfway, beyond Ethan Ampadu who stretches for it but doesn’t 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 but Norwich will be cooked shortly.
Meslier denies the on-rushing Sargent (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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’re 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’s game over. Farke senses it. He’s never seen Leeds play better. Wagner knows it too. They’ve got the second half to go, in which Summerville will score a fourth, but from Rutter’s finish onwards, the rest is white noise.
Rutter and game over (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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’ll 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.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
