The away dressing room at Old Trafford was a small, cramped, concrete box painted a depressing shade of beige.
Michael stood in the corner, his suit jacket now off, his tie loosened.
He felt like he had just run a marathon himself, his body buzzing with a residual, staticky energy from the [Power Shot] and the [Honorable Defeat].
The team filed in, one by one. They were physically wrecked. Their legs were heavy, their chests heaved, and their faces were streaked with sweat and exhaustion. They had, in the end, been beaten by a team of multi-million-pound superstars. They had lost.
But they weren't broken.
There was no shouting, no finger-pointing, no slamming of lockers.
They just sank onto the hard wooden benches, their heads bowed, but not in shame. It was the profound, exhausted silence of soldiers who had left everything on the battlefield.
Jamie Weston was staring at his left boot as if it were an alien object.
