Football: Arsenal - Chapter 16: The Daily Mail Comes Under Fire from All Sides (Patreon)

Still, the reporters doubted anyone with any sense would underestimate Kieran or this Arsenal side after what they had just witnessed.

The articles they were preparing for release after the press conference were already filled with praise for his extraordinary talent and ability.

One reporter wrote:

“Kieran has a kind of magic. At his feet, the ball seems to come alive, dancing gracefully with him across the pitch.

“Every touch makes me marvel at how beautiful football can be. He has nerves of steel, a born performer on the biggest stages.

“His technique matches his remarkable talent, but what sets him apart is that unmistakable style of his own. Those are the qualities of a superstar.”

So the journalists assumed Kieran was simply being modest.

In Europe, humility from the weak could be mistaken for an invitation to bully them, while humility from someone powerful earned admiration.

And Kieran was more than humble. He had confidence and a stubborn streak of pride, too.

Together, those qualities painted the perfect picture of a gifted, well-mannered, distinctive sixteen-year-old.

Pens flew across notebooks. Questions came one after another.

Everyone sensed that tonight's stories were going to make headlines.

Once the friendly questioning in the main press room ended, Wenger, Kieran and Arteta moved to the post-match broadcaster interviews. There they encountered Juventus's Buffon and Conte, whom the reporters still hadn't released.

The two groups greeted one another with handshakes and hugs. Their meeting in the interview area was itself a scene worth watching, and the interviews proceeded without trouble.

Just when nearly everyone had finished, a reporter from Britain's Daily Mail appeared.

“Hello, Lee. We understand you were supposed to appear in the Premier League at the beginning of this season.”

Kieran kept smiling. He couldn't tell where the man was going with this.

Beside him, Wenger frowned slightly and studied the reporter with a wary expression.

The man continued. “But then an accident caused you to strike your head against a goalpost. You suffered a concussion, missed half the season and apparently experienced memory problems.”

“So I have to ask: will you become injury-prone? Could that memory damage cause your football ability to decline? I have serious doubts, and I'd appreciate an honest answer.”

It was a vicious question, aimed straight at someone else's sore spot. And if there wasn't a sore spot, this reporter seemed determined to invent one.

That was the sort of thing the Daily Mail was known for: enormous circulation, questionable credibility and a talent for sensational headlines.

Kieran, however, was genuinely bewildered.

From his point of view, what concussion? He didn't know a thing about it.

So that was why so much of his body's memory was missing? Had he failed to pick up his football skills, or had a blow to the head knocked them right out of him? He was still trying to figure it out.

To everyone else, the answer was obvious: this cruel interrogation had stunned a child. Look at that innocent, utterly confused expression! It made the Daily Mail reporter seem even more despicable.

Most of the assembled journalists responded with cold, contemptuous stares; some were openly furious.

It's people like you who give our profession a bad name!

Even a reporter from the notoriously unscrupulous Sun looked at him strangely. The Sun's own people generally made a living digging up players' gossip like paparazzi, or inventing a little when they couldn't find any. In their minds, that still made them a fairly friendly newspaper.

Sure, they'd asked a few provocative questions earlier, but they hadn't tried to cast doubt on a player's entire career.

What was the difference between this and looking at a newborn baby and declaring it wouldn't live long?

Compared with the malicious Daily Mail, the Sun suddenly looked positively upstanding!

There were plenty of genuinely decent journalists in the room, too, people who remembered that the player before them was only sixteen. To them, the question sounded especially cruel.

A few with stronger tempers even walked toward the offending reporter and glared at him, making their support for Kieran unmistakable.

If journalists who barely knew Kieran were reacting that way, imagine how Wenger and Arteta felt.

Wenger immediately stepped forward, uncharacteristic anger written plainly across his face.

He remembered this man. Neil. Several months earlier, Neil had bluntly asked him, “Do you still think you're the right man to manage this team?”

Wenger had answered politely. The next morning, the paper ran insulting descriptions of him: “specialist in failure,” “fourth-place obsessive,” “stubborn” and “stuck in the past.”

It had also laid Arsenal's financial problems following construction of Emirates Stadium entirely at the manager's feet, calling him miserly and unwilling to spend.

Previously, Wenger had never responded with much emotion. He even felt some of the criticisms weren't entirely wrong.

But when those cutting questions were directed at his beloved young player, everything changed.

The refined, scholarly man whom Arsenal players and supporters called the Professor suddenly wanted nothing more than to go down there and fight Neil himself.

Yet before Wenger could say a word, Buffon spoke up from the other side of the interview area.

“Hey! Yes, you, the reporter!” Buffon pointed straight at Neil. “What's so extraordinary about hitting a goalpost? Show me a professional player who's never suffered a concussion. How does that automatically mean someone is fragile or losing his ability?”

“If Kieran's performance today is what declining ability looks like, then what does that make me? He scored past me five times!”

“Your questions don't just insult Kieran. They insult me, too!”

No professional wanted a stranger casually writing off his future. It took real talent to make even the usually dignified Buffon lose his temper, and Neil apparently had plenty of it.

The other reporters hadn't expected this. They'd assumed Buffon and Kieran were only exchanging pleasantries for the cameras.

Who could have imagined that a single match had actually turned the two into friends, close enough for Buffon to leap to Kieran's defense?

Buffon's generosity and Kieran's ability to turn an opponent into an ally were both irresistible story angles. Journalistic instincts went into overdrive, and camera flashes erupted everywhere.

Wenger finally spoke as well. “First of all, I don't know where you obtained that information. Casually violating someone's privacy is unacceptable. It's deeply unprofessional.”

“Kieran's injury was a minor accident. I cannot imagine what kind of darkness a person must have in his heart to place such a terrible burden on a young boy over one injury.”

“The facts are there for everyone to see. Kieran's talent and ability are incomparable. He's a gift to this club. You cannot erase that with a few careless words.”

Wenger went on at unusual length, employing every sharp word of criticism he could summon.

He needed to put a stop to this treatment of his player. Otherwise, the press would keep mistaking their good manners for weakness.

Arteta was angry, too. He followed Wenger with a few choice remarks of his own, none of them remotely polite. He called Neil “a brute who left his brain at home, a cold-blooded news machine and a rat lurking in a gutter.”

Other journalists joined in the criticism.

Neil was baffled. He'd asked far nastier questions in the past. Why were so many people suddenly attacking him?

All he'd done was ask whether Kieran thought he might be injury-prone and whether his performance had suffered. Since when was concern like that considered offensive?

“Please, everyone, don't get upset,” he declared self-righteously. “I'm simply expressing sincere concern for Lee. Yes, he's sixteen. But once he stands in front of the press as a professional footballer, he's capable of answering my questions himself.”

In other words, stop hiding behind the boy's age. He wanted Kieran to answer him directly.

Kieran hadn't paid much attention to Neil's remarks in the first place. He was too moved by the way everyone had stood up for him.

Concussion? Fragility? Declining football ability? He had no idea what the reporter was talking about. Did Kieran himself even have any footballing ability to lose?

He looked at Neil and answered plainly. “If you're so concerned about how I play, why don't you watch my next few matches instead of rushing to put a label on me the moment one match ends?”

“And as for the concussion and missing memories you mentioned, let me ask you something. Looking at today's result, do you really think either of those things affected me?”

Everyone present knew the answer.

Not in the slightest.

If scoring five goals in thirteen minutes was what happened after someone's skills declined, half the world's footballers would probably be lining up to smash their heads against the very same goalpost. It must have been blessed!

Having answered, Kieran gave Neil no more attention.

There were plenty of other reporters here, and he couldn't show favoritism. One or two answers for this man were more than enough.

The interviews resumed in an orderly fashion.

Most journalists were friendly and their questions straightforward, so Kieran enjoyed himself immensely.

At last, an official representative gave the closing remarks, bringing the press conference to an end.

Kieran had become so caught up in chatting with everyone that, if anything, he wished it could have gone on a little longer.