Jamie gave his mum a massive hug. He didn’t do it enough, he knew.

He was around the age of twelve when his mum had asked one day why he’d stopped hugging her as much he used to. He’d shrugged his shoulders and felt bad – he knew how much she liked to get a hug from him.

It was great to see her and Jeremy. They brought that feeling of home with them and they made Jamie laugh too. Even though he had offered for them to stay with him and Stonefish or to put them up in one of the nicest hotels in the city, they had insisted on renting a cheap little apartment by the railway station. They’d also already planned out their whole itinerary for the four days that they were in Barcelona. As far as Jamie could tell, it looked like they were going for the world record for the number of museums visited in one holiday.

“Jack says hi, by the way.” His mum smiled. Jamie wondered whether she knew that he and Jack were together properly now. But he didn’t ask. He just handed over the match tickets to Jeremy.

“This is a big old soccer game, isn’t it?” said Jamie’s stepfather as he opened the envelope to look at the tickets.

“What? Barcelona v Madrid?” said Jamie ironically. “Only about the biggest match in the world!”

With the match now only twenty-four hours away, the build-up was beginning to reach astronomic levels. Only today, the two coaches had held a joint press conference in which the sparks had begun to fly.

“The Barcelona team are used to having everything their own way. But tomorrow night, they will not have it easy,” Fernando Nemisar, the Madrid coach, had warned, indulging in his usual pre-match psychological warfare. He had even turned to look Godal directly in the face, saying: “We are not scared of your ability to pass, because we can pass better … and not only that. We are stronger, faster and hungrier than your players.”

The press, lapping up every word of this drama, had quickly asked Godal for a response. They wanted the two men to confront each other but the Barça manager refused to play ball.

“For him, attention is his oxygen,” explained Godal, staring straight ahead, purposely ignoring Nemisar’s presence. “For us – for my players – we live by another means. We live from keeping the football.”

“So, just remind me,” said Jamie’s mum. “Because I keep on getting it mixed up. Which colour is Barcelona and which is Real Madrid?”

Jamie laughed and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He was about to play in a football match that would be watched in every continent around the globe. But he would never get too big for his boots while his mum was around.