Glory Of The Football Manager System

aThe song came down the tunnel after us through the concrete, di-ma magh-rib, di-ma magh-rib, not letting up for a breath even with the pitch gone empty behind us.

I got them in, shut the door, gave them 3 seconds of it, then took it back off them.

”Sit. Water. Listen.”

Bounou dropped onto the bench, his boy’s initials biroed on his wrist tape. Benatia had a cut over his eye he had not noticed. Sofyan was grey already, chest going like a bellows on a forge, but when I looked at him he sat up and jutted his chin. Don’t you dare, that chin said.

Rebecca crouched at him without waiting for me and looked up. Small shake of the head. Not yet. Getting there.

”We’re the fitter team,” I said. ”Keep running at them. Do not sit on this, or we die on it.” I dropped to a crouch in front of the lot of them. ”One more thing. Modrić.”

Heads came up.

”He’s warm now. He’ll want it every time this half, and he’ll make it look easy, and their end will ooh at it. Do not go chasing him. Let him have it in front of you. Never in behind. You make him come through the middle of you.”

”And if he does?” That was Mendyl, quiet.

”Then he does,” I said. ”Then we go up the other end and score a third. Clear?”

”Clear,” said Benatia, and that shut it.

We came out and Croatia came out with the ball tied to Modrić’s boot.

47, he had them knocking it round our box in a ring, 20 passes, us chasing shadows, the white end going ole at every one of them.

Then Sofyan flung out a leg and hacked it clear and turned to his own bench with his arms spread wide. More? his arms said. His mum was on her feet before anyone, both hands up.

He took it off everyone. Centre halves, keeper, throw-ins, a rebound off the referee’s shin. Every time he got it he had that half yard, and for the life of me I could not get a man near him.

49, he slipped Rebić in behind Mendyl. Bounou came flying off his line and smothered it at the lad’s feet. thud.

Steeley was down by the post, hands in his hair. ”STAY BIG, YASSINE, STAY UP.” Bounou got off the deck with grass down his front, bawling his back four awake, pointing at Mendyl. Mendyl held both hands up. My fault. Sorry.

roar. The green end came up for him like he had scored, 40,000 throats going up for a save, and Bounou turned and pointed both gloves at them and slapped his own chest twice. More. Give me more.

51, El Ahmadi went into the book for hauling Modrić down 30 yards out, because there was nothing left to do about him. He held both hands up at the referee, at me, at the sky. What else, gaffer? What else do you want me to do with him?

Modrić got up, brushed himself off, and patted El Ahmadi on the cheek like a nephew. The green end did not care for that at all. wheeeeeee, 40,000 whistles down on him like sleet, and he lifted a hand to them, almost sorry, and got on with taking us apart.

I got Boutaïb up off the bench and told him to strip. If their legs were going I wanted fresh ones to run at the hole. Marcus had the board in his hand, waiting on my nod.

53, a corner, that flat whip once more. whip. Mandžukić climbed out of a ruck of bodies at the back stick and got everything on it. It cleared the bar by a coat of paint and the whole white end groaned like one wounded thing.

Dalić was up out of his box now. Behind him a fourth official waved Kovačić up, and my own lad peeled off his top and ran the touchline past me, close enough to touch, eyes to the front.

I kept mine to the front too. I had bought that engine twice and I knew what it did to tired legs, because I had watched it do it to my own in training all spring. I would have paid a month of his wages to keep him sat down.

Then we nearly had the third, out of nowhere. 54, Ziyech robbed Brozović and fed En-Nesyri and the whole green end came up off its seat as one.

Youssef took a touch and leathered it. Subašić got a strong wrist to it and turned it over, and Vida booted the corner into the 3rd tier and stood there with his hands out at Modrić, asking him to please, for the love of God, keep the ball for a minute.

Modrić held a palm up at him. Give me it, then.

The old man had gone quiet on the rail. Sofyan’s mum had her scarf knotted round both fists. Emma was on her feet with her hands laced behind her neck, elbows wide, the way you stand when you cannot bear it and cannot look away either.

55 minutes. Modrić got it 30 yards out, back to goal, El Ahmadi tight to his spine.

Good, I thought. In front of us. Where I want you.

He rolled him. One touch, a dip of the shoulder, and El Ahmadi threw a leg at a man who was not there any more. Modrić came round facing goal and the pitch opened up in front of him like a door.

Saïss stepped. He shifted the other way. Sofyan lunged and got nothing but air.

thump.

It went past Bounou’s hand by the width of a thought, kissed the inside of the post, and settled in the side netting.

net.

For one beat, nothing. Then the white world came down on our heads.

Modrić did not run. He walked, arms wide, that lined old face tipped back at the roof of the sky, and his lads buried him against the boards.

Kovačić got off the bench and to the edge of the pile, and then he found me across the grass, and the grin died on his face. He looked away first. Good lad.

Bounou knelt in his 6-yard box with both palms flat on the turf. Benatia hauled him up by the collar, said something short and hard in his ear, turned him by the shoulders and pointed him at the halfway line.

Up on the rail the old man folded in half. Hands over his face, head down between his arms, a stranger’s arm coming across his back.

Row 9, Emma’s hands came off her neck and pressed against her mouth.

Down in the green end the drummer boy had stopped drumming. He sat up on his dad’s shoulders with the sticks in his lap, watching the white lads pull each other into a heap, not understanding yet how you were meant to feel about it. His dad reached up and squeezed his ankle.

And then they did the thing they had done all night. They refused to die.

The drum by the far goal came back, boom... boom... boom, slow and stubborn, and the song climbed out of 40,000 hurt chests louder than before, and it rolled down onto my blowing 11 like a hand flat between the shoulder blades. Go again. Go again. Go again.

The dad tapped his boy’s knee, and the boy lifted the sticks, and started to drum. boom. boom.

2-2. 55 minutes gone.

I turned to Bray. He was already looking at me, waiting.

”Right,” I said. ”Now it’s a proper game. Get Boutaïb stripped. I want legs on that pitch theirs haven’t got.” He went down the line before I finished it.

Then I looked back at the grass, and my stomach went, because they had not waited on me.

Modrić had the ball on the halfway line before the net had stopped moving. Waving them up. Hunting the third while we were still bleeding from the second.

My 11 backpedalled on legs with nothing left in them, and Sofyan turned and found me across 40 yards of grass with a question on his face that I did not have the answer to.

35 minutes remaining on the clock. A World Cup semi-final on the far side of them.

And Luka Modrić had only just started.

***

Thank you for 200 Power Stones.