Glory Of The Football Manager System

The line went dead.

I sat in a plastic chair under a football stadium holding my fiancée’s phone against my ear, listening to nothing at all, for about 4 seconds longer than a grown man should.

My own phone had been in a drawer in that dressing room since 8 o’clock, which is where it goes on a matchday. That is why Jessica had spent an hour ringing Emma. She has had Emma’s number since the engagement and she does not ask anybody’s permission for anything.

I rang her back. Voicemail on the 1st ring, which means she looked at the screen and pressed the button.

”Well,” Emma said.

”She has had 4 calls tonight.”

Emma stopped turning the watch round on her wrist, which I have seen twice in 3 years.

”Clubs.”

”She did not say clubs.”

”She did not have to say clubs.”

What happened in that dressing room afterwards belongs to another day, and I will put it down properly when I can stand to.

The short version is that Achraf Hakimi got up off a bench and came across the room and asked me why I had done it, and that he was not grateful, and that he was right not to be.

By the time any of us got out to the coach it was 20 past 3 in the morning.

There were still about 400 of them at the fence in the rain, in green, 4 and a half hours after the whistle, and Benatia went over on a knee that is finished and stayed at that fence for 20 minutes.

DIMA MAGHRIB. DIMA MAGHRIB.

Nobody had told them to go home and nobody had managed to make them.

The hotel is 40 minutes north of the ground and nobody spoke on the way to it.

We got in at about 10 past 4. There is a lounge off the lobby with 2 screens and a coffee machine, and I had every intention of walking straight past the door of it and going up in the lift.

Then I heard David Jones’s voice coming out of it.

Marcus Reid was in there with a can in his hand.

Marcus has had a can in his hand since 2016. He is my lead analyst, he is 34, and when a thing goes badly he finds a logistics problem and stands inside it, which is how I have always known when he is struggling.

He was not doing logistics. He was stood in the middle of that lounge in a wet club polo with the remote in his other hand, looking up at a screen.

Bray was on the arm of a sofa. Rebecca was in a chair with her boots off and her feet on a coffee table, which I have never once seen her do. Steele was against the back wall with his arms folded.

And about 14 of my players were in there at 4 in the morning, in flip-flops and tracksuit bottoms, watching English television that most of them cannot follow.

”Turn it off, Marcus.”

”I would,” he said. ”I honestly would, boss. Come and look at it.”

Tap.

DANNY WALSH: 29.

France had won the World Cup 5 and a half hours earlier, and the graphic on Sky at 10 past 4 in the morning was my name and my age.

David Jones in the chair. 4 of them out, 2 either side, which they do not do, and which I have now seen them do 3 times in 5 weeks.

Carragher forward on his elbows. Neville sat back with his arms folded. Roy Keane on the end in a grey suit, looking like a man who has been kept from his bed.

And on the far side, in a black polo, Thierry Henry, who won this thing in 1998 and whose country had won it again about 6 hours before.

”We were going to do France tonight,” Jones said. ”We are not doing France tonight.”

He turned to his right.

”Roy. 3 days ago on this programme, every man on this desk picked France. You did not.”

”I did not.”

”You said France had not been in a proper fight yet and Morocco had been in 5, and you would rather have the team that knows what the last 20 minutes feel like.”

”I did say that.”

”They lost.”

”They lost in the 92nd minute of a World Cup final after being 3 down at half time,” Keane said. ”If anybody on this desk wants to tell me I was wrong about that, I am here all night.”

Nobody on that desk wanted to tell him.

In the lounge behind me Bray said, ”Roy Keane,” to nobody at all, and Rebecca laughed for the first time since the whistle.

”Gary,” Jones said. ”You had France 2-0.”

”I had France 2-0, and I want to be clear that I was not being unkind when I said it. I thought France would win comfortably and I have never been happier to look stupid on television.”

”Jamie?”

”I had France 3-1.” Carragher pulled a face. ”And in fairness to me, at half time I looked like a genius.”

”You did,” Neville said.

”For 45 minutes I was the smartest man in this building.”

Then Jones came forward on his forearms and the room changed.

”Right. We have to do this, because it has been the story since about 1 o’clock this morning.”

Beep. Marcus put the volume up.

They ran the clip.

I had not seen it. I have still only seen it the once, and that was in a hotel lounge in Moscow at 10 past 4 in the morning, stood between my analyst and a coffee machine, with 14 of my own players in the room.

Me at that table, leaning into a microphone.

”It was my call. I sent them. Benatia, Saïss, Dirar. I stood on that line and I waved them up for a corner in the 91st minute of a World Cup final, and I left 70 yards of grass behind them with Kylian Mbappé stood in the middle of it.”

Somebody in that lounge said something in Arabic. Nobody answered him.

”And before anybody prints that I did not see it coming. I told that dressing room at half time it would happen. Out loud. So that no man in the room could say afterwards that he had not been warned.”

Sofyan Amrabat was by the door with a plate of chips he had stopped eating.

”A draw was worth nothing to me. I wanted to win a World Cup. So I traded that grass, and 52 seconds later it was 4-3.”

”If you are looking for the reason Morocco are not champions of the world tonight, it is stood in front of you in a wet suit. It is not one of those players. Any of them. Not one.”

The clip stopped.

Tk. Somebody put a cup down on a saucer at the back of that lounge and it went off like a gunshot.

Nobody in that studio said anything for about 3 seconds, which on live television is a fortnight.

”Thierry,” Jones said. ”You have been on this programme since the group stage laughing about the fact that this man will not give us a word of English.”

”I have.”

”He has done every press conference of this tournament in French.”

”Every one.” Henry had not moved. ”And I have enjoyed it more than I am allowed to say on English television.”

”And tonight?”

”Tonight he speaks English,” Henry said. ”For the first time in 6 weeks. And the first thing he does with it is take the blame for losing a World Cup final.”

He turned his hand over on the desk.

”You have to understand what that costs. He gave those journalists nothing for a month and a half. Nothing. And the moment he opens his mouth, it is not to defend himself. It is to stand in front of 23 players.”

”Roy.”

Keane took his time.

”It is the stupidest thing I have seen a manager do in 20 years,” he said. ”And I would have run through a wall for him for it.”

”Both?”

”Both. Yes.” He shifted, once. ”Because he did not have to. Nobody was blaming him. Not one person in that stadium, not one paper, nobody.

”The story tonight was the boy and the space down his side. Everybody in this building knows it. Half the people watching had already written it.

”And he has gone and stood in front of it. On his own. In their language, which he has not given them since May.”

”Can I come in on that,” Carragher said.

”Go on, Jamie.”

”I am going to be unpopular here, and I have thought about it for 2 hours in a car and I still think it.”

”Go on.”

”He has made himself the story.”

Neville turned his head. ”Oh, come on.”

”No, hear me out, Gary.”

”I have heard you out. You are wrong.”

”You have not heard me out, you have heard 6 words.” Carragher had come forward on the desk. ”There are 23 players in that dressing room tonight, and 23 families, and the whole of Morocco. And what is the back page tomorrow? It is not them. It is him.

”He has taken the biggest night in the history of that country and he has put his own face on the front of it.”

”That is a horrible way to put it,” Neville said.

”It might be horrible and it might still be true.”

”Jamie.” Henry had not raised his voice once all night and he did not raise it now. ”You are describing what happened. You are not describing what he did.”

”What is the difference?”

”The difference is what he was trying to do and what a newspaper decides to print.” Henry turned his glass round on the desk. ”You are angry at the back page. Be angry at the back page.”

”I am not angry at anything, Thierry, I am asking a question. Does a manager go on world television after the match and take the blame because it helps 23 players?” Carragher put his hand flat. ”Or because it makes him feel better?”

That landed on the desk and sat there.

***

Thank you for 150 Golden Tickets to close the month.