Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Beckenham. Monday 23 July 2018. 11:55.]

Tim Krul walked into that building at 5 to 12 with a bag over his shoulder, and shook hands with Sarah, and asked her name, and then used it twice in the next 3 minutes.

30 years old. 184 games for Newcastle. 5 appearances in a whole season at Brighton and every one of them in a cup.

He signed a 2-year deal in my office at half past 1 and the first thing he said to me after he put the pen down was not about himself.

”Who is the number 1?”

”Nick Pope is the number 1.”

”Good.” He capped my pen and handed it back. ”Then I will make him better, and I will be ready in November when he pulls something. Because he will. They all do.”

[TIM KRUL. LEADERSHIP 15. DETERMINATION 16.]

Michael Steele took him out to pitch 3 at 2 o’clock and I watched from the office window for 20 minutes.

Steele said 9 words the entire time. I counted them, because I always count them.

At the end of it he sent Krul in and stood on that pitch on his own with a bag of balls, and then he came up to my office and stood in the doorway and did not sit down.

”Well?” I said.

”He talks to the back 4 before the ball comes.” Steele looked at the carpet. ”Not after. Before.”

”Is that good?”

”Danny,” he said, ”it is the whole job.”

Achraf Hakimi landed at Heathrow at 10 past 3 and was at Beckenham at 20 to 5, and I made myself stay in the office until Rebecca came and got me, because I was not going to be stood in a car park.

6 hours of medical. I asked for 6 hours and Rebecca gave me 6 hours and 40 minutes.

She came into my office at 11 that night with a tablet and no expression at all.

”Clean.”

”Say it properly.”

”Cardiac clean. Bloods clean. Both knees, both ankles, hips, groin, lumbar. There is a 3-year-old wrist fracture that healed properly and 4 kilometres of running data that is the best I have seen out of a 19-year-old.” She put the tablet down. ”There is nothing there, Danny. I looked for something. I wanted to find something.”

”Why?”

”Because you have been walking round this building for 3 days waiting for somebody to tell you there is a catch.”

She picked the tablet back up.

”There is no catch. He is 19, he is enormous, and Real Madrid sold him to us for 15 million pounds. One day somebody will explain why, and it will not be either of us.”

Then I went down to the medical room and saw him for the first time since a hotel corridor in Rabat, where the last thing he said to me was that he was still angry.

He was sat on a bench with a compression sleeve on one calf and his phone in his hand, and he stood up when I came in. He did not have to do that.

”Coach.”

”Achraf.”

Neither of us said anything for about 3 seconds.

”I am still angry with you,” he said.

”I know.”

”Good.” He put the phone in his pocket. ”What time is training?”

”You are not training. You are on an aeroplane at 6 in the morning to Pennsylvania and you are not kicking a ball for 9 days.”

”Coach.”

”9 days, Achraf. You played 7 matches in a month and then you got on a bus for 5 hours.” I held the door. ”You will sit on a bench in America and watch, and you will learn 4 things about Pierre-Emile Højbjerg that will save you 2 years.”

He went out past me and stopped in the corridor.

”Which 4 things?”

”Go to bed.”

[Beckenham. Tuesday 24 July 2018. 02:10.]

The row happened at 10 past 2 in the morning in the canteen with 3 people in it, because this football club has never once decided anything in an office.

Marcus had a spreadsheet up on the canteen wall through a projector.

”Zaha does not travel.”

Parish’s commercial director, who is called Nathan and who I like, put both hands flat on the table.

”Danny, he is on the poster.”

”Nathan.”

”He is on 40,000 posters. He is on the banner at Heinz Field. There is a man in Pittsburgh who has sold 9,000 tickets on the back of a photograph of Wilfried Zaha in a Crystal Palace shirt.”

”And if I put him on a 7 hour flight, then 9 days of heat, then a 7 hour flight back, then Wembley 6 days after that,” I said, ”he is at 84 per cent on the 5th of August.

”And I lose a Community Shield with the best player at this football club stood in front of me at 84 per cent.”

[WILFRIED ZAHA. CONDITION 71%.]

71 on Saturday. He needs 10 clear days on a grass pitch in Beckenham with Marcus stood next to him holding a watch.

”Marcus. Tell him.”

Marcus did not even look up. ”If Wilf goes to America he is 6 to 8 per cent down on the 5th, and against Manchester City 6 per cent is a goal.”

Nathan sat back.

”And what do I tell Pittsburgh?”

”Tell them the truth,” I said. ”Tell them Zaha is not travelling because he played 44 matches last season and this club is going to need him in April.

”And then tell them that the manager who took Morocco to a World Cup final 8 days ago is bringing the boy who marked Kylian Mbappé, and put Achraf Hakimi on the poster instead.”

Nathan looked at me for a second.

”He has not kicked a ball for us.”

”He is 19, he has got a Golden Ball in a flight case, and there are 6 million people of Moroccan descent in Europe and about 90,000 in the United States.” I picked my coat up. ”Put him on the poster.”

Nathan wrote something down.

”That will work,” he said.

”I know it will work. I have been looking at him for 6 weeks.”

We went wheels up out of Gatwick at 6:05 on Tuesday morning with 30 players, 14 staff, 3 tonnes of kit and a chartered 767 that Deano had loaded twice. Deano counts it, and then counts it again.

30 meant digging. Mixed in among the internationals were 4 lads out of the 18s and the 20s, there to make the numbers up in the drills, sat at the back in tracksuits they had been given that morning and looking like they had won something.

Bray fell asleep before we left the runway. Marcus had 2 laptops out before the seatbelt sign went off. Rebecca went up and down that aisle 4 times in the first hour with a bag and a face on her.

Krul sat next to Nick Pope for 7 hours and talked, and I have no idea what about, and by the time we landed the pair of them were laughing.

Hakimi sat by a window on his own with a compression sleeve and a notebook, watching Højbjerg 3 rows in front of him.

I went past him at about hour 4 and he did not look up.

”What have you got?”

”He never takes it on the same foot twice.” He still did not look up. ”Coach, is that 1 of the 4 things?”

”That is 1 of the 4 things.”

”What are the other 3?”

”Pittsburgh,” I said, and kept walking.

Bray woke up somewhere over Ireland, looked at me for about 4 seconds, and went back to sleep. He has been asking me that question since May.

Emma put a message on my phone at 6:20 that came through when we levelled off.

I know which one it was.

Bzz.

Do not answer that. Just eat something and win a football match.

We land in Pittsburgh at 9 in the morning their time. We train at 5 on grass I have never stood on.

And on Wednesday night, under the lights at Heinz Field, in front of 38,000 people who have paid to see a poster with a 19-year-old on it, Crystal Palace play Benfica.

Benfica have 37 Portuguese titles and 2 European Cups, and nobody from Lisbon has ever cared that it is July.

11 days after that, Manchester City at Wembley.

Pre-season is 11 days long this year. 9 of them are in America. I have got 30 footballers, 1 shape and no time at all, and the first time anybody sees any of it is in 34 hours.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.