The morning of the final day of the season felt like the day of a final exam for which you've studied all year.
This was it. Ninety minutes stood between them and immortality.
The players gathered for their final pre-match meeting, a light tactical walkthrough and a chance to be together before heading into the lion's den.
The mood was serious, but their unique brand of coping-mechanism-comedy was in full effect.
"Okay, so," Julián Álvarez began, looking at the tactical board with the intensity of a theoretical physicist, "our goal is to win the Scudetto, which is a shield, right? And Lazio's mascot is an eagle, which is a bird of prey. So, from a purely zoological and mythological standpoint, this is a classic battle of 'Avian Aggression versus Defensive Italian Cookware'. Who do you think has the advantage?"
