The Saint Maddox Odyssey

With the friendlies done, the countdown to the league had begun. Villa’s opening fixture of the Premier League season fell on the last weekend of August.

The schedule had been public for a long time, and the English press could hardly wait, because Villa’s first opponent was one of the division’s established giants: Manchester United.

Saint wasn’t thrilled with the draw. In the original history, United won the league this season, which meant Villa would be meeting the strongest side in the country straight away.

Still, now that it was here, he found himself looking forward to it. Not to being beaten, of course. He was looking forward to seeing United hand his young players a harsh lesson with a bit of arrogance in their stride.

There was supposedly some unspoken bad blood between the two clubs that summer, and it involved two players.

On Villa’s side, it was Pryce. United had wanted to bring the veteran to Old Trafford, but in the end Pryce had chosen the club he loved.

As for United, Saint had been daydreaming. He’d tried to get to Kaka’s equivalent before they did, a young Brazilian playmaker everyone knew was about to explode, but the player’s agent simply ignored him.

The agent was one of those Brazilian fixers through whom a long list of South American stars had reached Europe.

Saint had gone in with a try-it-and-see attitude and didn’t take the rejection to heart. His system had no slot for such a player anyway, and if one had actually arrived, he’d have had to rework his tactics.

The reason he’d reached for those names at all was the classic affliction of a veteran Football Manager player. It wasn’t just the Brazilian; the two biggest superstars in the world had crossed his mind too. Unfortunately, fantasies stay fantasies.

Barcelona were never going to let one of them go, and the Portuguese star would never lower himself to a newly promoted side. With a price tag that high, Saint wasn’t about to sacrifice a whole squad’s worth of money for one player either.

As the league approached, the mood inside Villa’s camp began to change. On the training ground, the loose, happy laughter gradually faded and was replaced by focus and nerves.

Most of the squad had never played in the Premier League before, and the lads who had were hardly regarded as top-flight quality.

”Gaffer, should we do something?” Cadman asked. Saint and his staff naturally noticed the change in the players.

”No. The winning streak made them too relaxed. A bit of tension now is a good thing,” Saint said, shaking his head.

”Really?” Cadman still looked a little worried.

It wasn’t just the players who were young. Saint and most of his coaching staff were too, and like the squad, few of them had ever worked in a Premier League dugout.

”Don’t worry. Danny, Marcus and Marco are all watching, and if anything goes wrong, they’ll step in.” That was the advantage of having veterans.

Those three had the makings of excellent managers, Reyes especially. In the future he’d be a top name in world football, and over these weeks they’d all been drawn into the coaching staff’s work.

Saint had also resolved the veterans’ problems in the meantime. Reyes had taken a fresh drug test with the help of Jasper, and thanks to Saint’s system trickery, nothing would come back wrong. ℴ

To help Reyes, Saint had spent nearly all of his points. With the test sorted, he’d bought him a bottle of Steel Frame solution on top of that.

Had the points not run out, he’d have bought one for Jurek as well. For now the idea would have to wait; going by the original history, Jurek didn’t seem to need it, and Saint’s thinking was mostly about being safe.

As for Teale, the former Chelsea captain’s biggest problem was turning. At his age, slow turning would be exposed and attacked without mercy.

The system store did have a potion for that, and its name was blunt: Turn Accelerator.

Ten points bought a 20 percent improvement, twenty points bought 30, thirty bought 40, and so on, up to a maximum of 60 percent.

Unfortunately, after helping Reyes, Saint had only four points left, which wasn’t enough even for the cheapest tier.

He’d also discovered that potential upgrades came in two sizes, large and small. The small kind covered a single step, such as C- to C.

He’d spent a lot of time studying the store lately, and the more he looked, the poorer he felt. There was nothing in there he could afford.

Part of the problem was that he kept aiming too high. The store’s focus was on the expensive black-tech items, but the disposable goods at the bottom were cheap.

A turnover card, for example, let him pick a player to make a random mistake in a match. Another let him make a chosen player score an own goal.

There were also status cards and disposable equipment, costing from one to three points each.

For now, Saint couldn’t really appreciate what these items could do. As the season went on and he gathered experience, he would slowly come to understand them.

”Darling, I’ve missed you so much.” At Birmingham Airport, Grace ran straight into Saint’s arms, ignoring everyone around them, and kissed him.

It was the first time Saint had been kissed by a woman in front of a crowd, even if the woman was his girlfriend.

In Europe, of course, a kiss at the arrivals gate was nothing out of the ordinary.

It had been almost a month and a half since they’d last seen each other. In that time, Grace had flown from Europe to North America and then on to Australia.

She was no longer an unknown model. Since becoming Saint’s girlfriend her career had climbed at an incredible speed.

Even the North American trip might push her into the ranks of the world’s supermodels, because rumour had it that Victoria’s Secret had taken a liking to her and wanted to make her an Angel.

In the modelling industry, becoming a Victoria’s Secret Angel was the highest honour, meaning you’d walk the biggest runway of all.

Saint didn’t know yet that his girlfriend was being courted by the brand. For the past few weeks, all his energy had gone into the team.