Glory Of The Football Manager System

”Danny. You’ve never lost one before, have you?”

I did not answer him.

I have thought about that since. Bray was owed an answer and I did not have one, and what I had instead was about 60 seconds while every man I owned was still in one place, and after that they would be gone into the arms of families and cameras and the rest of their lives.

So I used the 60 seconds.

”In. In. Everybody in. Come here.”

Shhk. Shhk.

Studs dragging across wet grass, because not one of them could lift his feet properly. Bray got an arm round Ziyech and steered him in like a man moving furniture. Benatia came in off the bad leg with a hand on Steeley’s shoulder. Somebody’s head went into my back and stayed there.

”Boss, he can’t stand.”

”Then hold him up. Hold him up and get him in.”

We stood in the middle of a World Cup final pitch in a ring with our heads down while France celebrated round us, and 78,000 people watched us do it, and behind me the green was still going.

”DIMA MAGHRIB! DIMA MAGHRIB!”

Clap clap. Clap clap clap.

”Heads up,” I said. ”Heads up. Look at me.”

Nobody looked at me.

”I said look at me.”

They looked at me.

23 faces with the rain running off them, and the sound of that ring was 23 men breathing like they had just come up out of water.

Hhh. Hhh. Hhh.

I have tried to write down what I said in that circle 3 times since.

I know I said their names. I know I said 3-0, and then I said 3-3, and the ring made a noise when I said it. I know somewhere in it I told them that nobody in this ring apologises to anybody, because Steeley told me on the bus that I said it twice.

The rest is gone. I stood in the middle of the most important 40 seconds of my working life and I have no idea what came out of my mouth.

”Ameen,” somebody said.

Then the rest of them said it, low and ragged and together.

Ameen.

Then the circle came apart, and I turned round, and there were my own 3.

Bray and Marcus and Rebecca, stood in a row about 10 yards back in the rain, waiting for me the way they have waited for me at the end of every final I have ever taken.

We have done this a lot in a short time, the 4 of us. A Youth Cup with the under 18s. 5 matches in 5 weeks that kept a football club in the division. Wembley twice in one season, and then a European final.

And every one of those nights ends the same way. Marcus gets to me first and takes my head in both hands. Bray says something filthy in my ear. Rebecca stands back with her arms folded and lets us get on with it, then hugs the pair of them.

4 people who had never once had to work out what to do with their hands at the end of a final, because until tonight we had never lost one.

They stood there in the rain not doing any of it. 3 people and no routine left between them.

Tk. Tk. Tk. Water off the peak of Marcus’s cap.

Marcus had his mouth half open like a man who had started the line and got as far as remembering it did not apply tonight.

”Right,” he said, in the end.

”Yeah.”

”Right.”

That was the whole conversation.

Rrrrrrrrr.

A motor.

There was a stage on the halfway line.

Not being built. Built. Bolted down, carpeted, with a rail and a set of steps and 2 men in FIFA polos running a cloth along the top of it, standing on the exact patch of grass where Hakimi had been sitting.

I do not know how it got there. I was 20 yards away the whole time and I did not see it arrive.

”Danny.” Rebecca, at my elbow. ”Danny. You’ve gone grey. Sit down.”

”I’m fine.”

”You’re not fine, you’re grey.”

”Rebecca.”

”Fine. Stand there and be grey, then.”

Then the sky properly opened.

Hssssssssssss.

Not rain any more. Something else. It came down the floodlight beams in solid white rods and it hit the new carpet and went straight through it, and the carpet went from red to nearly black in about 9 seconds.

The crowd made a noise I have only ever heard once before, at a cricket ground. 78,000 people all going oh at the weather at exactly the same moment.

OOOOOHHH.

And then, from high up in the green, one lad, at the top of his lungs, in English, for the benefit of the entire planet.

”IT’S RAINING ON THEM AS WELL!”

And I swear to you, 3 rows of Moroccans in a stadium in Moscow, 11 minutes after losing a World Cup final 4-3, laughed.

Not a big laugh. Not a happy one. But it went along the row and it was real, and one of them had his hands on his knees with his eyes shut, laughing and not laughing at the same time, the way you do at a funeral when somebody finally says the thing.

They started rolling more carpet out anyway. 2 lads walking backwards, bent double, laying red carpet into standing water.

I watched them do it for a long time.

I could not tell you why. Of everything in that stadium, that is what my eyes went to and stayed on.

2 lads in soaked polo shirts laying carpet into a puddle, and the edge of it lifting off the grass and curling as the water got underneath, and one of them going back on his knees to press it flat with both hands.

Rrrr. Krkk. Rrrr.

A man’s voice came over the PA in Russian, and then in English, and I did not take in one word of either.

There is a version of my life where I remember the next 25 minutes.

Clap clap clap clap clap clap.

The awards came first. I know that because I know how it goes.

The screens went up and a name came out of the speakers and the ground made a noise, and then again, and then again, and I stood about 15 feet from the steps with my arms folded like a man at a bus stop.

I could not tell you who won the golden glove. It was announced. I was standing there. I have no idea.

I heard one name all night.

”Achraf Hakimi.”

The green went. Properly went. It came across the pitch like weather.

RRRRAAAAAAAA.

”Boss.” Steeley had hold of my sleeve. ”Boss, are you hearing this?”

”Yeah.”

”He’s 19. Danny. He’s 19.”

He walked up in the rain. He did not go up 2 at a time. He went up like a man climbing into a loft.

They put the golden ball into his hands. A gold football on a base, near enough the size of the one we had all been chasing round Russia for a month, and heavier than it looks.

He stood at the top of the steps with 78,000 people making that noise at him, and he held it out at arm’s length in both hands and looked at it.

Just looked at it. Like it was somebody else’s post that had come to his house.

Best player at the World Cup. A right-back out of a squad the bookmakers laughed at. Let them argue about it for 40 years.

I was there. It was him.

Somewhere in the green a woman was screaming his name over and over with no gaps in it, and I have thought since that it might have been his mother, and I have never asked.

Ziyech was 2 yards to my left, clapping over his head with his arms straight, harder than anybody on that pitch.

”He’s better than me,” he said, to nobody.

”Hakim.”

”No, I mean it. I’ve watched him for 6 weeks. He’s better than me.”

”Not tonight he wasn’t.”

”Tonight I made 2 and he won us 3 matches.”