Glory Of The Football Manager System

The phone had two lives inside it, and all morning, neither one would leave me alone.

The first life was still Wednesday night. Two days on, and the internet wouldn’t let go of En-Nesyri’s disallowed equaliser against Portugal. Every time I opened the thing, more of it.

THE SCRIPT (UK): ”The Daylight Robbery in Moscow: How VAR Left Morocco Bleeding and the World Cup Scarred.”

LE PRESSING (FRANCE): ”Un Scandale Absolu. The lines the officials drew do not match the laws of physics. Morocco denied a historic point.”

[Trending Worldwide] 1. #MoroccoRobbed (2.4M Tweets) 2. #VARScandal (1.1M Tweets) 3. En-Nesyri (890K Tweets)

@TheGaffersView: Watched the calibrated lines from the Morocco-Portugal game again. Level as a billiard table. Heartbreaking for the Atlas Lions. They deserved that 3-3.

@RabatFootballFan: The Federation has filed a formal complaint, but what does it change? They stole our dream in broad daylight. Now we have to beat Spain just to survive.

Buzz.

The word wouldn’t die. Good. I didn’t want it to. I wanted it festering in the squad till Monday.

But it was the phone’s other life climbing now. A red badge on a green app. Buzz. Buzz. A name at the top of the missed calls that had nothing to do with Morocco.

Dougie Freedman.

Which meant the window, and the window was the one thing I’d sworn to Parish I wouldn’t let slip. He’d sat me down in April, his hand on my shoulder in that office of his.

The window does not slip, son. Not by a single day. You do not go off and play at the World Cup and come home to a club that stood still.

I’d promised him. And now the bill was coming due, two thousand miles from South London, in a hotel that smelled of Deep Heat and other men’s football.

I stepped out of the video room, Marcus’s voice still going on Spain behind me. Click of the door, trainers tap-tapped down the tiles, and I found a quiet stretch of corridor.

I rang him back.

Brr. Brr.

He picked up on the second ring. Dougie always picks up on the second ring.

”Daniel. How’s Russia treating you?”

”Like a country that thinks we got robbed, Dougie. Which we did.”

”The whole of Scotland thinks you got robbed an’ all, son. My postie stopped me about it this morning.” A dry warmth to it. ”Right. You’ll want the good news first, because it’s the kind you like.”

”Go on. Give me some light.”

”They’re done. Both of them. Signed, sealed, and faxed.”

I stopped dead in the corridor. ”Both?”

”Mateo signed his Tuesday. James this morning. Bonuses loaded the way you wanted, appearances, goals, assists, and he took the wage cut without a murmur. Told me it’s the happiest he’s been at a club in ten years.”

I could hear him enjoying it.

”Twenty-five for the one, ten for the other. Your spine’s yours. Permanent. Sealed. I told you I’d have it done before you were through security. I was three days out. I’ll live with it.”

I leaned against the wall and let that sit a second, because it was worth a second.

A few weeks back we’d finished the maddest season this club has ever had. We didn’t just survive. We won the lot.

We’d taken Kovačić on loan from Madrid in January, half wondering whether a lad who’d sat behind Kroos and Modrić could settle in South London. He’d been the best midfielder in the league for four months of it.

And James, the marquee man nobody thought we could keep happy. We’d kept him happy. He’d dragged us to a European trophy and a cup double.

Two gambles. Two keeps. The middle of my football club nailed down tight while I stood in another country in another flag’s tracksuit.

Ronaldo had beaten me on Wednesday. A committee in a dark room had robbed me the same night. But my spine was signed. I’d take that and be glad of it.

And the club had pressed send on it while Dougie talked. My phone buzzed against my ear, the green life of it, and I pulled it down to look.

THE SCRIPT (UK): ”Done Deals: Crystal Palace turn the Kovačić and Rodríguez loans permanent. The Europa League winners keep their engine room intact.”

THE XI (UK): ”Twenty-five million for Kovačić, ten and a wage cut for Rodríguez. Palace keep the two who won them Europe.”

[Trending: London] 1. #KovacicStays (412K Tweets) 2. Rodríguez (330K Tweets) 3. #CPFC (274K Tweets)

@HolmesdaleHywel: £25M for Kovacic. Best midfielder in the country and he’s ours for keeps. Absolutely buzzing.

@SelhurstSince92: James Rodríguez took a wage cut to STAY at Palace. A Galactico chose us. I am not okay.

@NeutralFooty: Palace 2nd, holding the Europa League, and now they keep Kovacic AND James for good. This club has lost the plot in the best way.

Thirty thousand of ours losing it over good news for once. I put the phone back to my ear.

”That’s good work, Dougie.”

”It’s your work, son. I just did the typing. Now enjoy it while it lasts, because a window takes as well as gives.” A breath. ”Barcelona came in for Bojan. Proper. Sixty million.”

”Bloody hell.” I damn near dropped the phone. ”Say that again, Dougie.”

”Sixty. Six oh. For a lad who’s played us twenty games off the bench.” He wasn’t hiding the grin now.

”I had them on speaker with the legal lot, and I kept my voice flat, and my hand was shaking under the desk the whole time. Sixty million pounds. For Bojan. Maddest number this club has ever seen and I said yes before the fella finished his sentence.”

Sixty million. For a squad player.

Eighteen months back this club was a relegation shout with a squad full of deadwood, and I was the manager nobody wanted. Now Barcelona were on the phone paying sixty for a lad who didn’t even start.

I didn’t say any of that to Dougie. He knew it better than I did. We just let the number hang there a moment, mad and lovely, the pair of us.

”There’s one that’ll not sit as easy,” Dougie said, quieter. ”Steve.”

And the good feeling went out of me, because I knew it before he said it. ”Marseille?”

”Marseille came back. Third time this year. This time Steve said yes.”

Steve Mandanda. Thirty-three. Came to us the summer before last and meant every year of it. Stood behind Pope and Hennessey without a word of complaint, kept his dignity a whole season as third choice at a club he’d have walked into the first team at anywhere else.

And every time Marseille rang, his boyhood club, the place he made his name, he’d said no. Because he’d given us his word.

”Ten million,” Dougie said. ”Five up front, five in add-ons. Good deal for us, right thing for him, and I’m still not happy about it, which is daft.”

”How’s he taking it?”

”Like Steve. Quiet. Said to thank you for never once making him feel small. His words.” A pause.

”He’s going home, Daniel. Family’s out there, his club want him back where he started, and he gets to be a number one again for whatever’s left in the legs. You don’t stand in front of that. But we’re losing a good man.”

I looked at the wall. Two thousand miles away and I couldn’t even shake the man’s hand.

”Tell him the door’s his forever,” I said, once I’d worked out what I wanted said.

”Any shirt, any time. Testimonial, coaching badges, whatever he wants when he’s done. And thank him off me. Properly. Not a text.”

”I’ll tell him. Digne’s gone back to Barça an’ all, loan’s up, no drama, good lad. So there’s your window so far. Two in for keeps, one sold for a number that’ll be in the papers a week, two good men out the door.”

He wasn’t wrong about the papers. It was already breaking, the green life of the phone going off again in my hand.

THE SCRIPT (UK): ”Sixty Million: Barcelona smash it for Palace sub Bojan Krkić. A British record for a lad off the bench.”

THE XI (UK): ”Fire sale or jackpot? Bojan gone for sixty, Mandanda home to Marseille, Digne back to Barcelona. Palace’s summer is both at once.”

[Trending: London] 1. Bojan (198K Tweets) 2. #Mandanda (74K Tweets) 3. Sixty Million (61K Tweets)

@EagleEddie1905: £60m. FOR BOJAN. Off the bench. I’ve had to sit down. Walsh could sell sand to a desert.

@HolmesdaleHywel: Gutted about Mandanda though. Class keeper, class man, never moaned once behind Pope. Go well, Steve.

@SelhurstSince92: Digne to Barca, Mandanda to Marseille, Bojan for a record. Bittersweet, but that’s sixty mill for the rebuild. In Walsh we trust.

Two thousand miles from the lot of it, watching my summer happen on a phone.

Dougie cleared his throat. ”And then there’s the big one. Bayern. They want Serge.”

That one hit a different nerve.

Gnabry was mine in a way the others weren’t. I’d found him. Five million, a release clause off Werder Bremen that half of Europe walked past because they couldn’t be bothered reading the small print.

I read it. Flew out and sold a lad on a project at a club he’d never thought of. And he’d paid it back ten times over.

Now Bayern wanted to take him home.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the constant support.