The walk to the dressing room was the longest of the players' lives.
They didn't look at each other. They just stared at the ground, the roar of the jubilant away fans a cruel, mocking soundtrack to their shame.
The dressing room was a morgue.
Byon's shadow had completely eclipsed him. He felt powerless, invisible, a ghost at his own funeral.
Arne Slot walked into the center of the room.
He didn't look angry. He looked... furious. But it was a cold, controlled, and deeply intelligent fury.
He didn't yell. He didn't scream. He just spoke, his voice a blade of ice that cut through the silence.
"They have been brilliant," he began, the words a shocking, unexpected admission.
"Guardiola has been brilliant. He has identified our brain," he said, nodding towards a devastated-looking Leon, "and he has surgically removed it from the game. It is a tactical masterpiece."
He let the harsh truth hang in the air.
