Hope. Hope is what brings you to that stadium match after
match after match, often despite your better judgement. Hope is what makes you
think your lumbering striker, floundering goalkeeper or error-prone centre back
will confound the critics today.
Hope is what gives you the idea that this year is different,
this year might be the year your play off duck is broken.
Hope dashed. Hope dashed is what makes you question why you
come back to that stadium time and again. Hope dashed is what makes you think
why the manager keeps sticking with that lumbering striker, floundering
goalkeeper and error-prone centre back.
Hope dashed was Monday.
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What provided the hope this time around was how the team had
gone about its business this season – tactical versatility to counter different
teams (both Fulham games a case in point), a steely resolve to see out games
(note the countless single goal margin wins) and a strong sense of spirit and
purpose (see 3-2 away wins at Bristol City and Blackburn).
Time and time again this season (now last season I guess),
we saw things a lot of Reading teams couldn’t do, or very rarely did, in the
past – play with three at the back, play a proper 4-3-3, see out one goal
leads, make comebacks…and also collapse in spectacular fashion away from home.
This gave hope that we had the skillsets to compete and
overcome on Monday. We didn’t.
It felt either as if we froze somewhat or more played the
occasion rather than the opponent. Or Huddersfield just sussed us out.
Regardless, the nagging feeling is we didn’t play to our
potential. That perhaps is another factor of what made it such a galling day.
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It was fitting our best performer was Danny Williams in a
season when his value to this team and his quality was finally recognised.
All year, in either a two-man or three-man midfield, the
American offered something none of our other midfield options could – a balance
between strength, mobility and passing quality. For all of our decent
midfielders this year, none could do what Williams consistently did.
In a game where precious few Reading players excelled,
Williams was probably our stand-out. In a similar vein to Steve Sidwell in the
06/07 season, Williams has never shirked a challenge this season despite
knowing it could be his last with the club.
His devastatingly tearful reaction at the end suggested to
me this will be the end of his Reading career – if we had gone up, I think he
would have signed a new deal but he is 28 now and has the quality to player in
the top tier; it is most likely now or never for him.
If he does move on, he absolutely deserves his chance and
not one Reading fan should begrudge him that. He gave everything and more on
Monday.
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The most painful of losing a play-off final isn’t the not
getting promoted. The ambivalence toward being a part of the bottom-half
Premier League football is growing – without wishing to sound like sour grapes,
what really is the point of hoping to survive each year with nought much else
to look forward to?
If you haven’t experienced the top tier already, that
feeling is less prevalent and understandably so – I was very much looking
forward to being part of the Premier League circus back in 2006 and I do
sincerely hope Huddersfield enjoy it.
But there is an increasing ‘what’s the point to it?’ when
you’ve been there, done that, got the overpriced T-shirt.
No, the reason why losing a play-off final aches to the very
soul is your team has missed out after 48 matches and nine months of blood, spit,
sweat, tears, fears, beers, joys, disappointments, exhilarations and more.
It hurts all the more so after a penalty shoot out when you
haven’t actually lost the game.
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Nothing in your football watching life prepares you for the
intensity of penalty shoot-out in a final.
That said, watching Reading fully prepares you to expect to
lose a penalty shoot-out in a final. My celebrations for each successful
penalty were barely more than a look to the sky – for Al-Habsi’s penalty save,
it was nothing than a single fist pump. It just felt as if things could go
wrong.
After play-off final losses via being 2-0 up with a penalty,
a freak own goal and a comeback thwarted by less than the width of a post, a
penalty shoot-out loss felt likely to be added to the roll call.
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It is now three full days on from the final whistle. Only
today have I felt anything like normal.
Tuesday was a day of nothing but mental and emotional
exhaustion – a drained out hollow shell trying to make it through the day
without reading any match reports or opinion pieces, glancing at Twitter and
switching the channel over every time you heard the words “£170m match”.
Wednesday was the hangover from this – the mood slightly
lifted but the baggage still being dragged along, the disappointment etched
still on your face and the engagement with the rest of the human race still not
quite fulsome.
The disappointment will probably last a little while yet,
especially as the fallout from the result becomes clear – what happens with
Stam? How do the new owners fit in? Which players will leave and who will we
sign?
However, the talk has already begun of looking to next
year’s fixture list, what away days to do, pre-season tours…
That’s the thing with football there is always next year,
there is always hope.
