Mateo Kovačić went back on grass on Thursday afternoon for the first time in 8 weeks.
The brace came off at the end of September and the sheet said no ball until October, and October started on Monday, and he has been waiting on that word since the 11th of August. He did 20 minutes on his own with a physio and a rebound board at the far end of pitch 3, in a woolly hat, passing at a wooden wall and taking it back on the half turn.
Dnk. Dnk. Dnk.
That is a noise you can hear across 3 pitches and everybody who walked past pretended they were not looking at him.
He is 24 and he can turn with 2 men on him, and there are exactly 2 players at this football club who can do that, and 1 of the 2 touched a football 30 times in Germany on Wednesday night.
"How long?"
"The board says 3 weeks," the physio said. "He says 2."
"What does Rebecca say?"
"Rebecca says 3 weeks and she has written it down."
