Glory Of The Football Manager System

78,000 people in that stadium and at least 4 billion watching and not one of them saw a thing.

Rebecca stood up on the touchline behind me.

She did not shout. She did not signal. She stood up out of her seat with her arms folded and stayed standing, and that was the whole message.

I did not look at her. There were 3 cameras on our technical area and a man in a Netflix bib on the far touchline who would put anything I did on a screen in 4 weeks.

So I looked at the pitch and let my top scorer run around on a leg with an hour in it.

I had lost my voice somewhere around the half hour and had not noticed. I found out when I tried to shout at Mendyl and what came out was air. My jacket had gone through to the shirt and through the shirt to the skin and I did not know that either until I stopped moving.

”DIMA MAGHRIB!” They were singing again by then. They had decided to sing whatever happened.

44 minutes.

Boussoufa gave it away in a place he had not given anything away all night. Mbappé cut in from the left, went past Dirar, got into the box, and Dirar came back at him.

Boot, ball, shin, all in the same half-second, in the rain, at speed.

Thd. Boot and shin at once.

Pitana let it go.

Play carried on for 9 seconds and Bounou gathered it and I had my hands on my knees looking at the grass.

Then he stopped it. He touched his ear and made the shape of a rectangle in the air with 2 fingers.

BOOOOOOOO.

40,000 people booing a rectangle, and 38,000 roaring at the same time, and underneath the pair of them a mass of neutrals making a noise I had never heard before, which was the sound of an argument.

Pitana walked to the screen at the side of the pitch.

He stood at it for 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

Wheeeeee! Wheeee! Wheeeeeee! 40,000 whistles. Thin and hard and it gets into your skull, and it did not stop once in 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

The rain came down and a whole stadium stood still while one man in a black shirt with his hood up looked at a television.

You could hear the rain on the roof over the whistles. That is how a stadium sounds when 78,000 people are all doing the same thing and it is not a chant.

Benatia stood 10 yards from him with his hands on his head. Dirar was on his knees on the edge of the box with his shirt pulled up over his face.

Trrrrrr. The rain on the dugout roof, going harder, filling in every gap the whistling left.

And the thunder came. It had been building behind the stands all night and it chose that minute, a low roll of it right over the roof, rrrrrummmmble, loud enough that people looked up.

I did not look at the screen and I did not look at the referee.

I looked at the old man on the rail. He had both hands over his mouth.

We have been here. In Kaliningrad against Portugal a man in a black shirt took a goal off us that was good, and the number sat in the corner of my eye and told me it was good, and I stood on a line and could do nothing about it.

The fire again.

Pitana stepped back and blew and pointed at the spot.

I did not argue. I did not move off my line and I did not say one word to the fourth official.

Dirar got something on the ball. He also got something on Mbappé. In a group game in March nobody gives it. In a World Cup final they gave it in 2 minutes and 40 seconds and, on the letter of the law, they were probably right.

Griezmann put the ball down.

He did not look at Bounou and he did not blow his cheeks out and he did not do anything at all.

He took 4 steps back. He waited.

FWEET.

And he passed it into the bottom left corner with the side of his foot while Bounou went right.

Tk. The net barely moved. That is how softly he hit it.

RRAAAAH.

Half a stadium celebrating and half booing a referee, the same volume, on top of each other, the 2 of them fighting in the air over the middle of the pitch.

0-3. 44 minutes.

FWEEEET. FWEET-FWEEEEET.

And that was half-time, 40 seconds later.

The green half did not boo us.

They stood up and clapped.

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Slow and even, all the way round and up into the top tier.

They clapped a team 3-0 down in a World Cup final because they had worked out it was over and had decided, kindly, out of love, to say thank you now while there was still time.

I would rather they had booed. Every man on that pitch would rather they had booed.

The away end sang. Not a chant, a song with a proper tune, 38,000 Frenchmen 45 minutes from a World Cup singing about a thing they could already see, and it floated over the top of everything.

Boom. Boom. Boom-boom-boom. One drum in the green end, still going, on its own.

Slap. Slap. Studs coming off wet grass onto the concrete lip of the tunnel, 11 men at 4 second intervals.

My players came off in ones and twos.

Hakimi was crying and trying not to, chin up, blinking hard, 19 years old, walking on his own 8 yards behind everybody.

Sofyan had not lifted his head since the 34th minute.

20 rows up behind the tunnel his mother was standing with her hands over her mouth, a woman who cleans 3 houses a day in Huizen and has not missed a game in this tournament, and he did not look up and he did not know she was there.

Ziyech came off with his hands on his hips chewing the inside of his cheek so hard I could see it from 20 yards, and Ziyech never shows you anything.

Youssef walked carefully, like a man carrying a full cup, in the middle of a group of 4 so nobody could get a clean angle on it.

Benatia was still shouting. At nobody. At all of them. 2 of them nodded at him and the rest did not hear a word.

20 yards to my left France jogged off in a loose group, unhurried, a couple of them laughing at something Pogba had said.

That is not arrogance. That is what winning feels like in your legs. There is no version of this where those men are the villains. They were 45 minutes from being world champions and had earned every inch of it and were talking about it the way you talk on the way to the pub.

Up on the rail the old man had still not sat down.

He had one hand on the barrier and the other on his cap, and as I came underneath him he lifted the cap about 6 inches and put it back against his chest.

I could not look at him for more than a second.

And then, at the back of the green end, up near the top where the concrete goes dark, a man stood up and went up the steps and out.

One man. Green shirt. Hood up on the way, and he did not look back.

I do not blame him and I never will.

But I saw him go.

Bray was holding the tunnel door with his face doing something I had not seen it do before. Marcus had his folder under his arm and was looking at the floor. Down the corridor, studs on tile, a tap running, and not one voice.

23 men in a room behind that door, and every one of them had just watched the biggest thing that will ever happen to them get taken off them in 21 minutes.

And they were about to look up and wait for me to say something.

Drip. Drip. My own jacket onto the concrete.

I stood in that tunnel mouth with a stadium behind me and a running tap in front of me.

And I had nothing.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.