Glory Of The Football Manager System

Henry: ”One hundred and twelve is the headline. The club is one hundred and twelve years old. The club has never been here. The man is twenty-eight. The achievement is the distance between the two numbers.”

The studio went quiet for a beat.

Carragher: ”Thierry just won the segment.”

Neville: ”Thierry just won the segment. I’m willing to lose to Thierry. I’m not willing to lose to Jamie.”

Carragher laughed for the first time on air. Neville did not laugh but his shoulders dropped a quarter of an inch which on Gary Neville is the same as laughing.

The presenter brought it back.

”Before we go to break I want to bring it to the volume. Jamie. The number of matches.”

Carragher: ”Sixty matches played this season across all competitions. The Carabao Cup won in February, six matches in that. Five in the FA Cup so far with the semi-final at Wembley next Saturday and a potential final on the nineteenth of May.

Thirty-one in the Premier League. Eighteen in the Europa League with two semi-final legs to come and a potential final on the sixteenth of May. Plus the under-eighteens of the same club in the UEFA Youth League quarter-final because Walsh put them in.

The potential total by the twentieth of May is sixty-eight matches. Sixty-eight. We worked it out yesterday morning. The graphics lads ran the number twice because they thought they had it wrong the first time. They did not have it wrong.”

Henry: ”Sixty-eight. That is more than Real Madrid. More than Barcelona. More than Bayern. More than Manchester City. More than any senior side in modern European football, I can think of. And the squad has not had one major injury since pre-season. He has been rotating since August. He has been rotating for this exact moment in April.”

Neville: ”And he’s done it on fifty million.”

Carragher: ”And he’s done it on fifty million.”

Henry: ”Sixty matches. Sixty-eight by May. Two semi-finals. A title race four points off Manchester City with seven matches to go. The Carabao Cup on the shelf already. Tell me where in the modern game you’ve seen this.”

Carragher: ”You haven’t. Don’t tell me Leicester. Leicester was one season. Leicester was a moment. This is sustained. This is being built.”

Henry: ”It is a dynasty.”

Neville: ”It is a dynasty.”

Carragher: ”It is a dynasty whether they win in Lyon or not. It is a dynasty whether they catch City in the last seven or not. They will be back next year. They will be back the year after that. Walsh will be at that club for ten years and he’ll be winning things at that club for ten years.”

Henry: ”The most exciting young manager in world football is on a Tuesday morning at a training ground in Beckenham this week working out how to beat Sporting Clube de Portugal at home on the twenty-sixth of April. He is twenty-eight years old.”

Neville: ”Twenty-eight.”

Carragher: ”Twenty-eight.”

The presenter, finally finding his moment: ”Steve Coppell is on the show at half twelve to talk about the semi-final draw. Are we expecting him to disagree with anything you three have just said?”

Carragher: ”Steve Coppell is going to use the word generational at least twice. Steve Coppell texts me on a Saturday night during games. Steve Coppell is going to break it in half.”

Henry: ”Steve Coppell is the right man to break it in half. He is the only manager in the country who knows what this is from the inside. He took that club to a place very close to here once. He didn’t get all the way. Daniel will get all the way.”

Neville: ”Lyon.”

Henry: ”Lyon.”

Carragher: ”Lyon.”

The presenter cut them in.

”And on that note. Stay with us. We’re back at midday with the full breakdown of the semi-final draw.”

He went to a break.

I turned the television off and stood at the kitchen window for a minute.

The boy from the flat below ours came out at quarter past eight. He was on his scooter. He was wearing the away kit because the home kit had been in the wash since Tuesday.

The name on the back was WALSH and the number was MGR, which was not a number. Some kit shop on Croydon High Street had taken the order and run with it. The dad of the boy below had told Emma in the corridor last week that they had paid extra.

I made a third coffee. Drove to Beckenham at half nine.

[Beckenham. 10:38 BST.]

Radio 5 had been on Crystal Palace for two and a half hours when I parked the car.

I did not go through the canteen. The canteen had the Sky Sports News feed on the big screen and the lads were in there having breakfast and they had been watching me on it for ninety minutes already. I came in through the back of the analyst block instead. Up the back stairs. Into the office on the first floor.

Sarah was already in. Bray was on the sofa.

Coppell was on the sofa next to Bray.

I had not been expecting Coppell on the sofa next to Bray.

”Steve.”

”Daniel.”

”You drove in. You are at Sky at half twelve.”

”I drove in. I am at Sky at half twelve. I thought I would drive across first and watch what they announce from the only sofa in South London where it would feel right to watch it from.”

He had a tea. Bray had got him a tea. Bray did not get anybody teas.

Sarah pushed a piece of paper across the desk to me.

Three rows.

Sporting. Manager Jorge Jesus. Beat Plzeň. Beat Atlético on penalties at the Wanda. Bruno Fernandes runs the team. Bas Dost up front.

Lazio. Inzaghi. Immobile has scored in eight of their last ten.

Arsenal. You know about Arsenal.

Sarah waited.

Bray waited.

Coppell watched me from the sofa.

I read the paper. Set it on the desk. Did not say anything.

Sarah spoke first.

”My instinct, for what it is worth. Sporting. Bruno Fernandes is at one of the top six in eighteen months and I want our scouts in the room before that. Lisbon is a one-flight trip. Arsenal is a news cycle we do not need. Lazio is Italy twice in nine days.”

Bray.

”Lazio. Immobile is the best striker in Europe under twenty-eight that nobody outside Italy talks about. Knock him out and the panels remember it forever.”

Coppell.

”I am Sky in two hours. I am not picking.”

I did not pick either.

I had been told something by Steve Coppell that I had not had to learn the hard way for myself.

The man who tells the room what he wants gives the room something to take off him.

The man who tells the room what he wants tells the room he can be disappointed. Tells the room there is a draw he would not be satisfied with. Managers do not have draws they would not be satisfied with. Managers have the draw they get.

I had not said the word Sporting out loud once in eleven months.

I was not going to start today.

”We play whoever we get,” I said. ”We win whoever we get. The draw does not need my permission.”

Sarah nodded once. Did not push.

Coppell on the sofa smiled without showing his teeth.

[Beckenham. 12:00 BST.]

The draw was not a draw with balls.

It was a press release.

UEFA’s communications office in Nyon emailed the four clubs at noon on the dot. Two minutes after twelve our official account on Twitter retweeted the official UEFA account. The graphic was already made.

The graphic was a thing UEFA had been preparing for two weeks and had four versions of and had simply published the version that the four results from Thursday night had made the right one.

The pairings:

Crystal Palace v Sporting CP.

Arsenal v Lazio.

First legs Thursday the twenty-sixth of April. Second legs Thursday the third of May. Final on the sixteenth of May at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon.

The television in the corner switched to the Sky Sports News studio.

The presenter read out the pairings. The graphic on screen showed all four club crests with the bracket lines drawn between them. Carragher, Henry and Neville had been replaced for the post-draw segment by another panel that had Steve Coppell on the right end of it.

I sat at the desk. I watched.

Coppell did not break the script. He talked about the format. He talked about the timing. He talked about which of the four clubs played which other.

Then the presenter asked him the only question that mattered, which was who he made a favourite.

Coppell took a moment. Then he said Crystal Palace.

The presenter laughed. Coppell laughed. The presenter asked him to expand on it.

Coppell expanded on it.

He used the word generational the way Steve Parish had told me he was going to use it. He used it twice. He used it again on the way out of the segment when the presenter asked him a closing question. He used it three times in fifteen minutes. The clip was on Twitter within forty seconds of him saying it the first time. It was on every football television show on the island for the rest of the weekend.

Sarah closed the iPad on the desk in front of her.

”Sporting.”

”Sporting.”

”First leg at home.”

”First leg at home.”

”Bruno Fernandes.”

”Bruno Fernandes.”

She did not say we got the draw I wanted. I did not say it either. Neither of us was going to put it down on the desk now that the draw had given it to us.

Bray got off the sofa.

”I’ll start on the set pieces this afternoon.”

He went out.

Coppell stood up. Put the Sky lanyard back round his neck.

”Daniel.”

”Yeah.”

”You did not tell the room what you wanted.”

”No.”

”You will probably be offered to manage Manchester United inside eight years. The reason you will manage them inside eight years is that you have learned that lesson at twenty-eight years old.”

”I do not want to manage Manchester United.”

”I know you do not. I know what you are going to be told twice a year from now until your fortieth birthday and I know what you will say to it every time. The reason you will be offered it is that you have stopped wanting things managers are not allowed to want. That is what they pay for.”

He went out.