‘Wild - I wanted to get in there’: Two-goal Portsmouth hero on sparking Leeds United limbs
Callum Lang savoured the feeling of sparking scenes of chaotic Pompey jubilation on their Championship return.
And the two-goal hero believes John Mousinho’s men have shown they can stand toe-to-toe with the second tier’s big boys, after their memorable opening-day clash at Leeds United.
The Blues came from behind to lead in the first half and then got their noses in front in stoppage time against the title favourites, before being pegged back in a breathless 3-3 draw.
Lang was at the centre of proceedings with his spectacular first-half thump from 20-odd yards putting his side 2-1 up.
The January arrival from Wigan then dispatched a stoppage-time penalty with aplomb to spark delirious scenes among the 2,852 travelling fans.
Pompey were pegged back by Brenden Aaronson at the death, but Lang admitted the emotions created by seeing delirium in the away end after his goal was unsurpassed.
He said: ‘Going over to that away crowd, you can’t really beat that feeling. It was going a bit wild and all my family and friends are in there going mental.
‘To be fair sometimes it makes me a bit jealous - I want to get in there myself. I think I would have done that actually, but I was on a yellow card already!
‘It’s an amazing feeling but we now have to keep that work we put in going.’
After a stop-start pre-season, the outcome at Leeds has provided a shot in the arm for both players and supporters at what lies ahead in the Championship this season.
Following nine signings, Lang thinks this team are building understandings going into the campaign - but showed what they are capable of achieving if the required levels of graft are reached.
He added: ‘As an XI that group has not played together. There’s new faces coming in and it’s been different teams and 45 minutes here and there. It’s been a bit mixed up.
‘So you don’t really want to read too much into it, you just want to get as much work out of it as you can.
‘We’ve had a tough pre-season and in Croatia we put a lot of miles in.
‘We have to carry that on and we showed that we can do that. There’s a lot of sides with quality and we just have to match the intensity of them.
‘We definitely did that against Leeds. Maybe we rode our luck a little bit at times, but we deserved to come away with something.
‘I think that gives us some confidence and is something we should take away from this game.’