Glory Of The Football Manager System

She looked at me.

”Your summer at Palace does not slip. Not by a day. You do not get to go off and play World Cup manager and come back to a club that stood still for six weeks. Whatever you were going to get done this window, you get it done, or signed off to be done, before you fly. They will not let you leave a job half finished and they are right not to.”

”Which means today,” I said.

”Which means today. Before you tell that federation anything.”

”And it goes both ways, Jess.” I had been turning two things over since the crest went face up, and they were not up for negotiation.

”Two things from my side, and you hold the line on them tonight the way they’re holding theirs. One. My staff come with me. Bray, Steele, Marcus and his lads, Rebecca. I’m not walking into a World Cup three weeks out and standing in a dressing room full of strangers with nobody beside me who knows how I see a game. They’ll have their own backroom, that’s fine, mine run it. I don’t do this on my own.”

”They’ll fight you on it. A federation guards its own dressing room.”

”Then fight them back. That’s why I’ve got you.” I looked at her.

”Two. Elena and the crew. The Walsh Way comes with us. She’s followed me a whole six months, every cold Tuesday nobody else filmed, and there’s no point in any of it if the camera stops at the airport on the one thing that’s bigger than the rest of it put together. The film follows me or there’s no film.”

Jessica looked at me for a second, and the nearest thing she has to approval went across her face.

”You’ve been sat there picking a back four and drafting your own terms at the same time,” she said.

”Good. Those are the right two to want and they are the two they’ll hate giving, which means they’re mine to win, not yours, so you say nothing about either of them to anybody and you let me go to war on them overnight. A federation that’s desperate gives you the manager’s chair without blinking. It’s the people you bring into the room with you they go to the wall over. Leave it to me.”

She had her conditions. I had mine. And before either set of them was worth the paper, I had a club to leave tidy.

Two signings I had been circling all spring, both of them sat half-done, both of them mine to close. If I was getting on a plane I was not leaving them hanging, and I was not signing them off myself from a hotel in Russia at one in the morning either. There was one man who could get them over the line without me, and I had his number before Jessica had finished talking.

She sat back and let me, because this was the bit she did not need to manage. This was the bit I have been doing in my sleep since February.

Dougie picked up on the second ring.

”Daniel. How’s your mam.”

”Grand, Dougie. Listen. Are you sat down with a pen.”

”I’m always sat down with a pen, son, I’m a sporting director, it’s the whole job.” I heard him move, a chair, a door. Dougie Freedman, who scored goals on northern nights years before I was anybody, who knows the inside of a deal the way I know the inside of a back four. ”Go on.”

”Kovacic and James. Both. I want them done. Permanent. This week.”

A pause, a good one, the pause of a man who has been waiting for exactly this call.

”You’re sure.”

”I’m sure. Mateo first. Madrid’ll take twenty-five for him and we pay it. Half a season we had him and he was the best midfielder in the league for four months of it, I’m not haggling over a number we both know is a bargain, get it signed.”

”Twenty-five. Aye. They’ll bite his hand off for the cash, they’ve got their eyes on bigger.” I could hear him writing. ”And James.”

”Ten. They know it’s ten, it’s been ten since the loan went in. He takes a cut on the wage, he knows that an’ all, we’ve spoke, the lad’s been happy here in a way he hasn’t been happy in years and he’s not daft, he’ll do the number as long as the bonuses are right. So make the bonuses right, Dougie. Load them. Appearances, goals, assists, the lot. Pay him when he plays, the way he wants it, and he’ll run through a wall for you.”

”That’s a good bit of business, that,” Dougie said, and he does not say that lightly. ”Half a season on Kovacic to see if he’d settle, a full one on James to be sure. We looked clever loaning them and we look cleverer buying them. Whoever thought of doing it that way wants a raise.”

”It was you, Dougie.”

”Aye, it was, I’m only checking you remembered.” A dry one. Then, the football man hearing the manager’s voice for what it was. ”Why the rush, son. Why’s it got to be this week?”

I looked at Jessica. Jessica looked at the cold coffee.

”Something might be coming up,” I said.

”For the summer. I can’t say what yet. But if it lands, I’ll be away for a few weeks, and I’ll not leave you holding half a squad while I’m gone. So I want the spine signed and the contracts in your hands and nothing waiting on me. You and the legal lot finish it. I trust you with it. Don’t wait on a signature off me that might be on a plane.”

The line was quiet a second.

”It’s a good thing, this summer thing,” Dougie said. Not a question.

”It’s a good thing, Dougie.”

”Then go and do it, whatever it is, and don’t worry about your spine, your spine’ll be signed and sealed before you’re through security.” A breath. ”And congratulations on the lassie. The whole building’s made up. That Sarah’s been greetin’ since Sunday.”

He was gone before goodbye, the way they all go, every one of the good ones.

I put the phone down on the little table. Jessica was watching me with the nearest thing she has to a smile.

”You spent your one phone call today on them and not on yourself,” she said.

”Parish will hear about that inside the hour, and that is worth more than anything I’ll say in the room tonight.” She stood, finally, gathered the folder, dropped a tenner on the table for two coffees neither of us had drunk.

”Go back to your women. Let them fuss you. I’ll sit on two federations and a board till morning and I’ll have you an answer, and you already know what you want it to be. You’ve just picked their back four in a coffee shop.”

”Jess.”

”What.”

”It is the right one.”

”I know it is,” she said. ”I told you it was. I’m always right, it’s exhausting.” And she walked out into the Manchester evening with the folder under her arm, off to catch the last flight south, no goodbye, and left me with a cold coffee and a back four going round my head and a whole night to get through before anybody knew anything.

I sat a minute in the empty seat of the coffee shop, in my own city, the trams going by at the end of the side street and the June light going amber on the brick, and let myself want it, properly, for the first time since the phone rang yesterday morning.

Then I got up, and left a tip the girl with the book did not look up for, and went back across town to my fiancée and the rest of the people who loved me, to wait out the longest night of the summer.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.