Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Morocco Team Base, Kaliningrad Stadium, Russia. Monday 25 June 2018. Half-time.]

You could still hear them through the breeze block.

”¡Olé, olé, olé, olé! ¡Viva España!” ”¡A por ellos, oé!”

That was the thing that got me, sat in that dressing room 1-2 down with our World Cup dying in our hands. Them.

Thirty thousand Spaniards in red and gold, still singing through the walls of a concrete bowl in the arse-end of Russia, partying while we stared down a flight home. My lads couldn’t hear it.

Or wouldn’t. En-Nesyri had a towel over his head, his knee bouncing like a piston. Saïss had grass down his back and murder still in his eyes over Costa’s foul for the second, Bounou in his ear, the two of them hissing at each other.

Sofyan sat dead still, staring at the floor tiles. That was worse than the shouting. I let them stew three seconds. Then I walked over and pulled the towel off En-Nesyri’s head. ”Listen to that,” I said. ”Go on. Shut up and listen.”

”¡Es-pa-ña! ¡Es-pa-ña!”

They lifted their heads. ”That’s for you. They’re singing their hearts out because they think you’re beaten. They think the African lads roll over now.” I looked round the room, at every one of them.

”You know the last time this country had a night out of a World Cup group?” Benatia said it before I could. Quiet, like a bruise. ”Eighty-six. Before I was born.”

”Thirty-two years.” I let it hang in the humid air.

”There’s a fella out by our tunnel. Flat cap, on his own. He was a boy the last time. He’s waited his whole life to sing his country into a knockout again, and right now he’s on his feet, losing, and he hasn’t stopped once.”

”Him, and every kid back home who’s ever booted a taped-up ball of rags dreaming of a night like this one.” En-Nesyri was looking at me now. A fire behind the eyes at last. ”I’m not asking you to be brave,” I said, dropping my voice.

”I’m telling you what’s sat forty-five minutes away. Now here’s how we take it.” Bray had the tablet up before I asked. I didn’t need it. I’d watched Alba dying on his feet the last ten minutes of the half.

[Alba. Stamina 41 and falling]

”Alba’s finished. Legs gone, nobody’s told him yet.” I turned on Hakimi. ”You’ve beaten him twice already. Now you break him. Every ball, that side, over and over, till he can’t stand up straight.”

Ziyech was already yanking his laces tight, the grin creeping back onto his face. ”He’s mine, boss.”

”Sofyan.” He looked up. ”Isco. You’re his shadow. He doesn’t get one touch he enjoys the rest of the night.”

”He won’t breathe,” Sofyan growled, on his feet now, the fire back in him, and it jumped one man to the next round the room. Benatia got them up. Didn’t yell. Just stood, and they rose to him.

”We are not getting on that plane,” the captain said.

His voice shook on it. ”Not tonight.” En-Nesyri went out last. Still not a word in him, but he hit the door hard enough on his way out to near take it off its hinges. The tunnel hit us. The red end saw us come up and went off like a bomb, boom boom, boom boom.

”DIMA MAGHRIB! DIMA MAGHRIB!”

”YAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

Up on the front of the top tier hung a bedsheet I’d missed all half, hand-painted, one word and one number. MÉXICO 86.

A woman leaned right over the rail as we came out, her green and red scarf wound round her fists, tears already cutting through the paint on her cheeks, screaming at Benatia in French. ”Ne rentrez pas! Don’t you dare come home!” Benatia thumped his chest at her twice without breaking stride, snarling.

Pheep. Second half. We went straight for their throats. From the whistle Sofyan wore Isco like a winter coat. No space, no air. And the crowd felt the shift. Every time a Spanish boot touched the ball the red end buried it in boos and whistles, thirty thousand of them telling Spain they were not welcome here.

”Boooooooooooooooo!”

”Sssssssssssssssssss!”

Spain passed it and passed it and got nowhere, and the red end could smell the fear, baying at Alba, jeering him every time the ball went near him. We fed him to Hakimi. Nine minutes in, Hakimi isolated him, dropped a shoulder, blew past.

”YEEEEEEAAAHHH! Allez Hakimi!”

Twelve minutes in, again. Alba stood bent double at a throw-in, hands on his shorts, gulping air.

”Again!” I was a madman on the touchline, winding both arms, spit flying.

”He’s gone! Go again!” A little lad down the front took the shout up with me in French.

”Encore! Encore!” The whole section roared it, stamping their feet till the concrete shook. It broke on 58’. Hakimi rolled Alba one last time on the line, and Alba’s dead legs gave and he chopped the boy down in a panic. Thwack.

”HEY! REF! Open your eyes!” ”Tarjeta, puta! Book him!”

Free-kick. Twenty-two yards, tight on the right edge of the box.

Every soul in the ground knew whose ball it was. Ziyech took the leather. He set it down like he had all night to spare. He didn’t look at the wall. He didn’t look at De Gea. He looked over at me, and the cheeky little sod winked.

The drum cut dead. Thirty thousand sucked in their breath at once.

He ran up and hit it with the inside of that left foot. It whipped up, curled over the wall, dipped late, and De Gea threw himself full length and got a glove on the Kaliningrad night air. Rip. Top corner. And the place went up.

Thirty thousand Moroccans came off their feet at once and let out a roar that hit me in the chest like a wave, one long tearing ”GOOOOOOOOOL” that rolled round three sides of the ground and would not stop.

”GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!”

”YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

”ALLAHU AKBAR! DIMA MAGHRIB!”

Ziyech sprinted to the corner flag, arms out like wings, head back, screaming at the black sky.

A big lad behind our dugout ripped his shirt clean off and stood up on his seat bellowing his name, ”ZIYECH! ZIYEEECH!” Two rows down a kid was crying and laughing at once, both fists in the air.

The bench came up as one and launched off the seats. Boutaïb was first, sprinting down the touchline like a lunatic, and he took me clean off my feet. Bray right behind him, screaming his head off.

”Yes! Get in! We’re back in it!”

I went down under a pile of subs and physios and the kitman, studs and elbows and somebody’s knee in my spine.

I came up with grass in my teeth, roaring into Bray’s face while the tears ran down his, neither of us making a word of sense.

Ziyech reached the boards and threw both hands out at the old fella by the tunnel. The old fella threw both hands back, sobbing. The drum and the brass and the tambourines crashed back in, and the whole end was bouncing as one now, scarves twirling over their heads.

Morocco 2 - 2 Spain. (58’)

Two-all. And for ten minutes we weren’t surviving, we were the better side, at a World Cup, against Spain, and you could watch the panic climb into their heads. Ramos snapping at his own full-backs. Busquets throwing his arms up. The red end sang like the trophy was already won, tambourines going, the chants rolling up into the Russian night.

”Allez les Lions! Allez les Lions!”

I was on the line begging them to calm it.

”Hold the shape! Hold it!” I could feel it teetering and I did not trust it. I was right not to. Hierro sent Iago Aspas down the touchline to strip off. My stomach dropped. Aspas is a killer. Give him half a yard in your box and he’ll take your heart out and show it to you.

Ninety seconds he was on the pitch. Silva popped up on the left, slipped it to Isco, who dropped a shoulder and lost Sofyan for the first time all night. One turn of the hips. A clip over the top.

Aspas ghosted off Benatia’s blind shoulder into that one yard nobody gives him, there before Bounou could set his feet. He didn’t even hit it. He opened his body and let the ball run off his boot into the far corner.

Thunk. The far end went up. The Spanish corner exploded, a block of red and gold screaming ”GOL! GOL! GOL!”, horns blaring, and their whole bench emptied onto the pitch and piled onto Aspas.

”¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!”

”¡VAMOS IAGO! ¡VAMOS ESPAÑA!”

And our end died. Thirty thousand who’d let themselves touch the dream, and it drained out of the lot of them at once. A hole in the world where the singing had been. Then our end found its voice, and it came out as venom. Boos rained down on the Spanish pile, raw and furious.

”Boooooooooooooooo!” ”¡Hijos de puta! Boooooooooooooooo!”

The MÉXICO 86 bedsheet hung up there and looked like a cruel joke. The old fella by the tunnel put both hands over his face, his shoulders shaking, and left them there.

Morocco 2 - 3 Spain. (68’)

I saw the flight home. The baggage claim in Casablanca. Four more years. Another generation of kids who’d only ever hear the stories about ’86. Spain got back on the ball, knocking it about to kill the clock, and the whistles poured down on every touch.

Fweeeeeeeeeeeeee! Booooooooooo!

It was running through my fingers like sand. No. Not tonight.

I turned to the bench. ”Boutaïb! Get your shirt on!” I hauled Boussoufa off. Two up top, everything thrown forward. If they broke on us and made it four, then let them. Three was already the grave.