Glory Of The Football Manager System

In Nairobi, at two-thirty in the morning, James Ochieng’s sports bar in Westlands was shaking. Not metaphorically.

The walls were vibrating. Sixty-three people, the largest gathering the supporters’ club had ever produced for a midweek match, were standing on chairs and tables and the bar itself, Palace scarves raised, the screen showing 6-1, the sound of their celebration audible from the street, where a security guard named Peter, who supported Arsenal, was leaning against the wall and wondering whether the people inside had lost their minds.

They had not lost their minds. They had found something. The same thing that George Elphick had found in the Holmesdale and that Lorraine had found in the third row and that Sharon had found through tears and that the old Milan grandfather had found through silence. The thing that football gave to people who stayed long enough to receive it. Not victory. Not trophies. Belonging.

The whistle blew. Crystal Palace 6-1 AC Milan. The biggest European victory in the club’s history. The biggest European victory by any English club against Italian opposition since Liverpool beat Roma 4-0 in a Champions League semi-final. A result that would be discussed on every football programme in Europe for the rest of the week.

The Holmesdale sang. Not the Champions League song this time. Something older. Something that belonged to Selhurst Park, to the concrete and the corrugated iron and the twenty-five thousand seats that had held twenty-five thousand people who had just watched their club dismantle AC Milan.

”Glad All Over.”

The original. The anthem. The song that had been sung at Selhurst Park since 1960 and that was now being sung after a 6-1 victory over seven-time European champions.

The drums in the Holmesdale beating the rhythm that Dave Clark had written fifty-eight years ago, the rhythm that had soundtracked every era of Crystal Palace’s existence, from the Fourth Division to the Premier League to this, the night that the club played against the ghosts of European football and won.

In the dressing room, nobody spoke for a long time. The players sat on the benches, their shirts soaked, their faces carrying the stunned, slightly disbelieving expression of men who had just done something that they could not fully process. Six-one. Against Milan. At home. Pato with a hat-trick. Konaté with a header. Zaha with a counter-attack goal. Rodríguez with a free kick.

Zaha had his phone out already. Not Instagram this time. He was calling someone. His mum. He stepped into the shower area, the phone against his ear, and the squad could hear fragments: ”Mum. Six-one. I scored. Against Milan. AC Milan. Yes, the AC Milan. The one with Maldini.” A pause.

”No, Maldini doesn’t play anymore. He retired in 2009. But it’s still Milan.” The conversation continued for four minutes. When Zaha came back, his eyes were bright and his grin was enormous and he said to nobody in particular: ”My mum said she’s proud and that I should eat more vegetables.”

Neves was sitting with Kovačić, the two of them leaning against the wall, their legs stretched out, their feet touching. The physical exhaustion of two midfielders who had controlled a European match for seventy minutes was visible in their posture: shoulders slumped, heads back, the particular, drained stillness of men who had given everything and were now waiting for their bodies to acknowledge it.

Neves’s phone buzzed. He looked at it. His fiancée. A photograph of Lurdes, asleep in her cot, wearing a Palace bib, the television behind her showing the match, the score visible on the screen. Lurdes had fallen asleep during a 6-1 victory over AC Milan. Neves showed the photograph to Kovačić. The Croatian looked at it and said: ”She has the right idea. I could sleep for a week.”

Wan-Bissaka was in the corner, unwrapping tape from his ankles with the methodical precision of a twenty-year-old who treated post-match routine with the same focused attention he treated defensive positioning.

He had played ninety minutes against the right side of AC Milan’s attack and had won every duel, made every tackle, closed every space. Nobody would talk about his performance tomorrow. Nobody would put his name in the headlines.

The headlines would belong to Pato and his hat-trick and the tears and the chip. But Wan-Bissaka’s performance was the foundation that the house had been built on, and the players knew it, and Dann, who had come on at half-time, walked past him and tapped him twice on the head without saying a word. The tap said everything.

Pope was sitting with Steele, the two of them reviewing the Çalhanoğlu free kick on Steele’s phone, the goalkeeper’s coach pointing at the screen, indicating where Pope’s positioning could have been better, the conversation so focused and so technical that it seemed absurd in the context of a 6-1 victory, but this was how Pope and Steele operated, this was why Pope had become an England-level goalkeeper, because the details were discussed even when the result made the details seem irrelevant.

Tomás filmed it. The silence. The faces. The armband on Dann’s bicep. The tears on Pato’s face. Zaha’s phone call to his mum. Neves showing Kovačić the photograph of Lurdes asleep. Wan-Bissaka unwrapping tape. Pope and Steele analysing the goal they conceded.

The stillness of Sakho, who had played against the team of his childhood and who was sitting in the corner with his eyes closed, not celebrating, not speaking, just being present in a moment that the boy from the 19th arrondissement had been imagining since he was seven years old.

I did not give a speech. I walked around the room. I touched Pato’s shoulder. I shook Konaté’s hand. I looked at Neves, who looked back at me, and the look said everything. I sat beside Sakho. His eyes were still closed.

”Mamadou.”

He opened them. They were wet.

”The boy from Paris is proud,” I said.

He said nothing. He put his hand on my arm and squeezed. Once. Hard. The communication of a man who did not need words because the gesture was the truth.

Elena found me in the tunnel afterwards. ”Danny. That’s the centrepiece of the film.”

”Which part?”

”All of it. The flares. The twenty-six-second goal. The hat-trick. The chip. The hug on the touchline. Sakho’s eyes. The ultras leaving.” She looked at me with the expression of a director who had found the scene that justified the entire project.

”I have made documentaries about the All Blacks and Barcelona’s academy and the US women’s national team. I have never filmed anything like what I just filmed. That was not a football match. That was a story.”

”It’s always been a story, Elena.”

”Yes. But tonight, the story told itself.”

[Europa League Round of 32, First Leg.]

[Crystal Palace 6-1 AC Milan.]

[Goals: Pato 1’ (slot, Barcelona recreation), Pato 23’ (dummy, Bernabéu recreation), Konaté 37’ (KB-29 header), Zaha 52’ (counter), Rodríguez 61’ (free kick), Pato 73’ (chip, Singapore recreation). Milan: Çalhanoğlu 31’ (free kick).]

[Pato: hat-trick vs former club. Three goals recreating three eras of his career. ”I’m home, gaffer. I was always supposed to be here.”]

[Aggregate: Crystal Palace 6-1 AC Milan. Second leg at the San Siro: February 22nd. Formality.]

[Sakho: played against the team of his childhood. Cried. Said nothing. Put his hand on Danny’s arm.]

[Milan ultras: arrived with flares and drums. Left in silence. The legacy is fading.]

[Netflix: Elena: ”I have never filmed anything like what I just filmed. That was not a football match. That was a story.”]

[Glad All Over. Selhurst Park. SE25. The night the drumbeat was louder than the San Siro.]

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.