Glory Of The Football Manager System

Spain nearly dug it for us right then. 75’. Carvajal broke the line and squared it for Costa. Ten yards out, dead centre. Costa pulled his foot back to finish us.

”¡Mátalo, Diego!” a Spanish fan screamed.

[Costa. clean through. one on one with Bounou]

But Bounou refused to let us die. He came off his line like a man leaping on a grenade. No hands, just his whole body in the way. Costa battered it from point blank and it thumped Bounou in the chest, crack.

”Ohhh!” The stadium gasped.

The rebound dropped to Thiago, who hit it first time, and Bounou, still scrambling on the turf, threw a leg up and turned it over the bar.

Two saves in a second that had no business being saves. Bounou got up with his nose bleeding, eyes wild, and roared at his defenders, pounding the badge on his chest till his knuckles bruised. The red end came apart. One man keeping us alive.

”BOU-NOU! BOU-NOU! BOU-NOU!” they chanted, a rolling thunder of belief.

”Look at them!” I screamed from the edge of my box, arm flung out at the Spanish back line.

[legs gone. Alba 12, Carvajal 18, Piqué 22]

”Their legs are gone! Cooked! GO AND KILL IT!” We threw the lot into the furnace. Boutaïb battering the middle.

Hakimi and Ziyech at that broken left flank. Mendyl bombing on outside them. Bounou hammering it long the second it stuck in his gloves. Corner after corner. Ramos heading them out with his teeth bared, thud, Piqué flinging his body in the way, thump.

The clock bled into the red. 82’. And Hakimi won the game the way only the great ones do. He picked up a loose ball deep in his own half, tired legs all round him. And he went. tk tk tk. Past one man. Over Busquets’ trailing boot.

”Go! Go! Yalla!”

He didn’t look for the pass. He backed himself, straight at dead-legged Alba one final time. Alba couldn’t live with him, nobody could have.

Shoulder dropped, by him on the outside, into the box, and he battered it across De Gea into the roof of the net. Smack. The ground detonated. ”GOOOOOOOOOOL!” Thirty thousand throats, one sound, and it came up through the concrete and into my spine.

”YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

”ALLAHU AKBAR!”

The old fella by the tunnel had both arms over his head, screaming himself hoarse with lads half his age, and down the front they were climbing over the seats.

Hakimi ran the length of the touchline, shirt bunched in his fist, twenty years old and screaming his lungs out.

The whole dugout emptied after him. I don’t remember my feet hitting the floor. Coaches, subs, the medical lads, all of us sprinting like idiots, and I was buried at the bottom of the pile again, grass in my eyes, Bray shaking my shoulders, both of us sobbing in the dirt.

”He’s done it! He’s actually done it!”

And right there, crushed under my own players in the best second of my working life, the cold little thought slid in. Every scout in Europe just watched that. Dougie’s phone would be molten by breakfast. The boy I’d quietly told Sarah to buy had doubled his price in front of the planet. I stamped it out. Not now.

Morocco 3 - 3 Spain. (82’)

”Back! Get back in!” I dragged them off the heap by their collars, my voice shredded. ”It’s not a point we’re after! A draw still sends us home! There’s time! GO AND WIN IT!”

Three-all, and now it was a bloodbath. Two up top had left the middle of the pitch wide open, and Spain knew it. Every time Busquets or Thiago got on the ball they had forty yards of grass to run into, met by a wall of whistling from the stands. The fans were out of their minds now, on their feet, roaring for blood.

”¡Vamos España! ¡Ahora!” ”DIMA MAGHRIB! Hold them! Hold them!”

”Sofyan! Hold the line!” I screamed.

Amrabat was doing the work of three men, thighs strapped, breath coming in ragged gasps. On 85’ Isco turned sharp in the pocket, one pass from opening us up, and out of nowhere Sofyan flung his body across the turf and took the ball and a chunk of Isco’s ankle with it. No foul.

All ball. He didn’t have the legs to get up, stayed down on one knee five seconds, spitting onto the grass, before he forced himself back onto his feet.

”RAAAHHHH! Yes Sofyan!” the front rows roared.

The minutes dragged. On 87’ Carvajal whipped a cross in and Piqué, up as an emergency striker now, climbed over Saïss and headed it down. Bottom corner all the way, and Bounou clawed it off the line with nothing left but instinct.

”NOOOO! ... YES! BOU-NOU!”

The clock went past 89’. My chest was iron, as my heart kept pumping. I couldn’t look at Bray, who had his clipboard gripped so hard his knuckles were white. The fourth official stepped up and lifted the board. Four minutes.

Four minutes to stop a plane ride home. Pheep. A Spanish free-kick drifted wide. Bounou plucked it out of the air, dropped to his knees to burn three seconds, then bowled it out fast, always fast.

We went one last time. 90+3’. Ziyech, out on the right, on legs as dead as everyone’s, dug out one last looping cross to the back post. And it dropped out of the Kaliningrad sky to Youssef En-Nesyri.

The lad who hadn’t said a word since the hotel. The lad they robbed on Wednesday night. He didn’t take a touch. He let it drop over his shoulder, swivelled, caught it on the half volley and smashed it low past De Gea.

Thwack. En-Nesyri smashed it and wheeled away, arms wide, mouth open, four days of swallowed poison pouring out of him. The stadium started to tear itself apart, a roar climbing out of thirty thousand throats, ”GOOOOO”, bodies already up over the seats.

”GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!” ”YES! YES! I DON’T BELIEVE IT!”

And then it strangled. All of it, at once. Because the referee had a hand pressed to his ear. The screen in the corner flashed purple. VAR CHECK.

[offside check: onside. the goal is good]

I could not breathe. Not a figure of speech. My lungs stopped. Because it was the same machine, the same room of men in a bunker in Moscow, the same purple square that had reached into our lives on Wednesday night and torn our hearts clean out.

And now it hung over the biggest goal this country had scored in thirty-two years. My players stood frozen where they’d stopped. Benatia dead still, fists clenched at his chest. Ziyech dropped to his haunches, hands on his head, mouthing no, no, no.

En-Nesyri just stood, staring up at the screen, his arms coming slowly down to his sides, waiting for it to be stolen off him again. The stands would not have the silence.

The boos came down in a storm, thirty thousand pointing at the referee, whistling so hard the air shook. The old fella by the tunnel was on his feet, cap crushed white-knuckle in both hands.

”Boooooooooooooooooooo!” ”Puta VAR! Ladrones! Thieves!”

The referee took his hand off his ear. He turned. He ran back towards the halfway line. He pointed at the centre spot. Goal. It stood.

This time, it stood. And every bit of noise that had died in their throats came back at once. The roar that finally broke out of that red end shoved me back a step on the touchline, a wall of sound, thirty thousand people screaming a goal that had gone in a full minute ago.

”YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” ”VAMOS! MAGHRIB! DIMA MAGHRIB!”

Morocco 4 - 3 Spain. (90+3’)

We got the goal but there was no time for celebrations as there was still time on the clock.

Spain didn’t mourn it. Ramos ran into the net, ripped the ball out of En-Nesyri’s hands and sprinted it back to the centre circle. Hierro was frantic on his line, face grey, suit soaked through, waving every man forward.

”¡Rápido! ¡Rápido! ¡Vamos!”

There was still a minute left. ”Defend!” I roared, half onto the pitch. ”Saïss! Get up! Don’t let them through!”

Spain kicked off. Chaos. Busquets launched a high ball into our box, Ramos up, Piqué already there, a forest of shirts. Ramos rose, teeth bared, won the header, knocked it down into Aspas. Aspas pulled his foot back.

”Block it!”

But Benatia threw his life into the block. Thud. It cannoned out to the edge of the box, and Thiago arrived and hit it on the volley.

It flew through a crowd of bodies. Bounou saw it late, threw up a bleeding hand and parried it wide.

The ball rolled towards the corner. Alba tried to chase it and his legs finally went from under him, and he tripped over his own boots into the boards. Sofyan crawled over, hooked a foot round it, and with the last of what he had left, smashed it over the roof of the stand.

”Clear it! GET IT OUT!”

And as it cleared the roof, Pheep. Pheep. Pheeeep. Full-time.

”YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!”

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the Massage Chair.