10 hours ago
5
Winters in Aberdeen can be bleak.
Winterfell has nothing on a dark, bitter night on Union Street. Especially if it's 25 January and all you have to warm you is a red and white scarf around your neck.
The city's football team, magnificently unbeaten in their first 16 games across all competitions this season - including 15 wins, were in crisis.
A cataclysmic collapse in form had delivered 10 defeats in 13 winless games, the most recent a grim 3-0 chasing at home by St Mirren. Fanciful dreams of title challenges had been switched for blind panic of relegation form.
"Time to either adapt or die. Jimmy Thelin has a month at most to sort it out," said one angry fan before his side went on to lose 2-0 to Hibernian in their next game.
Publicly, there was no panic, just a relentless message from Thelin, the club's calm and cool new manager, that the tide would turn again.
It was hard to see it from outside, but inside the club, the Swede remained steadfast.
Almost four months on to the day, Thelin's calm and cool was unceremoniously abandoned as he levitated above his Hampden technical area, punching the air as his side made history to lift the Scottish Cup for the first time in 35 years.
It was a fairytale bookend to the most polarising football campaign that has possibly ever been but one that was rescued by one thing - belief.
Not many outside of Thelin's inner circle held much of it for his team in Glasgow's south side against treble-chasing Celtic.
Roundly beaten in their previous four meetings and fresh from a spluttering fifth-place finish. It was clear something needed to change for Saturday's final.
Even as the contest unfolded, it was hard to see Thelin's masterplan. Sixteen per cent possession at half-time. No shots, no encouragement.
Yet the former Elfsborg head coach's late substitutes and game plan hauled Aberdeen level and paved the way for a dramatic penalty shootout shock up there in the pantheon of historic wins in this famous old competition.
"He's the best manager I've ever worked with," Dimitar Mitov, Aberdeen's heroic shootout goalkeeper, said.
"It's his day-to-day basics of how he manages the team, how we train, the little details he puts into the team.
"But the most important part - and I've never seen this before - is when we made it to the final, he always said 'when we win the final'. There were no ifs. And that mentality went to the boys.
"Everybody starts saying when, not if. I think that was the turning point."
Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack proclaimed "with Jimmy we feel we absolutely got the right guy" as he spoke mid lap of honour around the Hampden pitch.
Thelin showed a tactical awareness coming into the final. He gave his players two days off for him to come up with a game plan to topple Celtic - and it worked.
A change in personnel, a change in system, a change of approach anchored in pragmatism. No wonder given how Brendan Rodgers' team had dismantled Thelin's men at will on occasion this season.
The Swede also demonstrated bravery in doing so. To recognise something isn't working is one thing. To do it and roll the dice as you stand on the brink of history, it's quite something.
It's a gamble that has paid off to the tune of immortality and £6m, the latter coming with the guarantee of European football until December in either the Europa or Conference League.
How much of it Thelin gets to invest remains to be seen - not least given he was backed heavily in January - but he's earned the right to go again with this Aberdeen team with a sense of optimism behind him.
Cormack was persistent in his pursuit of Thelin and his man has presided over a maiden season that began with a blistering run and closed with a trophy in the cabinet. One that's not resided there for a generation.
The frostiness of a winter of dismay will thaw out in the glow of a Union Street bus parade on Sunday.
Post mortems about being dismembered by St Mirren will be marked as an irrelevance amid the glory, all lost in a sea of red and white flags and scarves.
There will be a new set of challenges ahead for Thelin and his team - and a new set of expectations. But that's for another day.
After this season and the most draining of days, the Pittodrie manager deserves to live in the here and now. Even just for a moment.
"You see how much it means to everyone," he told BBC Scotland.
"That's why football is so amazing. To be strong in the difficult times, keep believing and keep trying everything you channel every day.
"We have a lot to look forward to."
