Glory Of The Football Manager System

By the time the coach got us into MetLife Stadium the sheet had already gone in, and I gave it to them at 25 past 7 in a dressing room built for men who wear helmets, under a strip light that buzzes.

Bzzz.

”Right. Listen.”

30 men. 11 names.

Nick Pope.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka. James Tarkowski. Ibrahima Konaté. Ben Chilwell.

Rúben Neves. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg. James McArthur.

Michael Olise. Christian Benteke. James Rodríguez.

I read it out and I got to the 9th name and the room did a thing.

Not a noise. A movement. 30 men turning about 4 inches to look at 1 chair.

Michael Olise is 16 years old.

He was 15 when he played 40 minutes of a Youth Cup quarter-final at Stamford Bridge and got kicked from one end of it to the other and never asked to come off.

He is 4 stone heavier now and 5 inches taller, and he did 18 sessions in 21 days on a Spanish island in June because nobody had told him not to.

He was sat with his boots already on and both hands flat on his knees, and he did not look up.

”Michael.”

He looked up.

”Who have you got?”

”Alaba.”

”And?”

”He comes out early.” He had clearly been thinking about it since the walkthrough. ”He does not wait. If I take the first touch backwards he is on me before I have turned.”

”So do not take it backwards.”

”I was not going to,” Michael Olise said.

The room made a noise.

”Wide right, and stay there for 20 minutes, and when you do come inside, go past somebody.”

”Yes, gaffer.”

”And Michael. He has got 60 caps and 8 league titles.”

”I know what he has got, gaffer.”

Hahahaha.

”Right,” Bray said, from the back. ”That is enough out of the 16-year-old.”

”Right. Bench.”

Tim Krul. Wayne Hennessey. Joel Ward. Scott Dann. Mamadou Sakho. James Tomkins. Tyrick Mitchell. Nya Kirby. Eberechi Eze. Jack Grealish. Andros Townsend. Jesús Navas. Alexandre Pato. Jarrod Bowen. Connor Blake. Antoine Semenyo. Ellis Cartwright.

17 on a bench, because the competition lets you name 30 and use 11 subs in 3 windows, and I am using all of it.

And in row 4 of the West stand, in a navy suit, with a tie he had asked Deano about at 5 o’clock and a phone he had been told to leave in the room, Achraf Hakimi.

Bayern named theirs at 25 past.

Sven Ulreich.

Rafinha. Javi Martínez. Lars Lukas Mai. David Alaba.

Arturo Vidal. Thiago Alcântara. Renato Sanches.

Arjen Robben. Sandro Wagner. Serge Gnabry.

Bray read it off a phone and did not get past the 11th name.

”He is starting him.”

”He is.”

”Against us. In a friendly. With Coman and Ribéry sat on a bench.” He put the phone down. ”Danny, Kovač has been at that club 6 weeks and he has picked a lad who was ours 8 weeks ago to start against us in New Jersey in July, and that is not a coincidence and you know it is not.”

”I know.”

”Thiago and Vidal in the same midfield in July is not a coincidence either.”

”No.”

”Right.” He picked the phone back up. ”Well, at least they are taking us seriously. That is new.”

Serge Gnabry. 22 years old. Number 22.

We got him off Arsenal for coppers in the January of 2017 when nobody in England wanted him, and he played 41 matches for this football club last season and scored 14, and in the first week of June Bayern Munich paid us 75 million pounds for him.

He chose it. Nobody pushed him and nobody sold him behind his back.

He came into my office on a Tuesday morning, sat in the low chair, and said he wanted to go home. I told him I would not stand in his way.

Steve Parish went and stood in a car park for 10 minutes and came back in with his eyes red.

He knows every set piece we take. He knows what Højbjerg does when Neves goes because he watched us drill it for 8 months. He knows that James Rodríguez comes short on the 3rd pass and he knows Christian Benteke goes near post from the left and far post from the right.

He has had 6 weeks and a coach who asked for the Benfica tape 6 hours after the final whistle.

”Do you talk to him?” Bray said.

”He sent me a message on the 16th of July. The morning after the final.”

”What did it say?”

”Sorry about the final, gaffer.”

”And you said?”

”I said thank you, and I said watch your hamstrings in a Kovač pre-season, because he has had 3 in 4 years and nobody at that club has coached him yet.”

Bray looked at me.

”You told him that.”

”He is 22 and he was mine for 18 months,” I said. ”He is not mine tonight. He is mine again the second that whistle goes at the end.”

MetLife Stadium holds 82,500 and they had shut the top 2 tiers, and the announcer said 30,412 about 4 minutes before kick off.

30,412 is nothing in a bowl that size. 30,412 in a bowl that size is a strange, ringing, half-empty noise that comes back at you off 50,000 empty seats about a second late.

RRRAAAA. Aaaa.

Everything you shout arrives twice.

The Bayern end was the whole of the North corner, red and white and about 6,000 of them, and they were singing something in German 40 minutes before anybody came out.

”FCB! FCB! FCB!”

And down at the other end, in a corner of an American stadium at half 7 on a Sunday night, there were maybe 3,000 in red and blue.

There was a flag with CROYDON on it and a flag with HOLMESDALE ROAD on it and one enormous one with an eagle that took 9 people to hold up.

There were Morocco shirts in that corner. Dozens of them. Green and red among the red and blue and about 40 of them with HAKIMI on the back of a Palace shirt that has not had a match played in it yet.

The bloke who drove 11 hours from Toronto on Wednesday had driven 8 more to get here.

Somebody had a drum.

Boom. Boom. Boom-boom-boom.

”WE ARE PALACE! WE ARE PALACE!”

In New Jersey. In July. 3,000 of them, in a bowl built for 82,500, making the noise of 12,000 because there is nothing to absorb it.

40 minutes before kick off they walked him out.

I did not go out for it. It was not mine.

Nathan went, and a woman from the tournament went, and Achraf Hakimi walked from the tunnel to the centre circle in a navy suit and a pair of shoes he could not run in, and a man handed him a microphone.

”Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Crystal Palace’s newest signing, from Real Madrid and the Morocco national team. ACHRAF HAKIMI!”

The Palace corner went up like a firework.

RRRRAAAAAAA.

And then the Morocco shirts started, and it was not a chant, it was a sound, and it came from about 40 people and it filled a stadium that had 52,000 empty seats in it.

”LILILILILIIIII.”

He stopped walking.

I was 60 yards away on a touchline and I watched a 19-year-old stop dead in the middle of an NFL pitch, and turn his whole body towards a corner of a stand in New Jersey, and stand there.

Then he put both hands up.

He said 6 words into that microphone in English and 4 in Arabic and I only understood the English ones.

”Thank you. I cannot wait to start.”

RRRRRAAAAAA.

Bray, next to me, said nothing at all for about 10 seconds.

Then he said, ”His mother is watching that somewhere.”

”She is.”

”Aye.” He put his hands in his pockets. ”Good.”

There is a trophy for this. There is an actual trophy for the International Champions Cup and it is on a table somewhere in that stadium under a cloth, and Tottenham are going to win it in about a fortnight and nobody in England will remember by October.

I do not care about the trophy. Nobody in that tunnel cared about the trophy.

What I care about is that in 7 days I walk out at Wembley Stadium against Manchester City, and in 17 days I walk out in Tallinn against Real Madrid, and tonight I have got 90 minutes against Thiago Alcântara and Arturo Vidal and Arjen Robben, and it costs me nothing but legs.

That is what a friendly is for. It is the only time all year you get to find out what you have got against somebody good with nothing riding on it.

So I am not resting anybody. I am not managing the occasion. I have named my best available team, with a 16-year-old in it, and I am going to ask them to play exactly the way I have been asking them to play since May, and I am going to find out.

A man in a headset put his head round that door at 4 minutes to 8 and held up 1 finger, and 30 men stood up at once.

Clk. Clk. Clk. Clk.

Clk. Clk. Clk. Clk.

30 pairs of studs on concrete in a corridor under an NFL stadium. A Bayern kit man flattened himself against the wall to let us past, and somebody in front of me started bouncing a ball off the ceiling.

Tk. Tk. Tk.

”Oi,” Bray said, without turning round. ”Ceiling.”

”It is a good ceiling, Alan.”

”It is 4 million dollars of ceiling and there is a man in a blazer watching you.”

Christian Benteke caught it and put it under his arm, and about 9 of them laughed, and that is the only reason he had been doing it.

Serge Gnabry was 6 feet away on the other side of that tunnel in a red shirt with 22 on the back of it, and he looked at me, and he did not know what his face was supposed to do.

I put my hand out.

He shook it and said, ”Gaffer,” and then heard himself say it and stopped.

”Sorry. I do not know what I am supposed to call you.”

”You called me it for 18 months, Serge, I am not going to fine you for it now.”

He laughed, and it went about half way, and then he looked down the tunnel at the light at the end of it.

”They asked me about the corner. On Thursday.”

”I know they did.”

”I did not tell them anything about the corner.”

”Serge.”

”I am telling you I did not.”

”I know you did not,” I said, ”and I would not have minded if you had, and you are going to spend the next 90 minutes trying to beat me and I would be insulted if you did not.”

He nodded about 4 times, too fast.

”Have a good one,” I said, and meant about half of it.

Out into the light.

RRRRAAAAAA.

That noise off 30,412 people in an 82,500 seat bowl, arriving twice, once straight at you and once a second later off the empty tiers.

James Rodríguez put the ball down on the centre spot and Christian Benteke stood next to it with his hands on his hips.

Michael Olise, 16 years old, stood on the right touchline about 3 feet from David Alaba.

And David Alaba, who has 60 caps and 8 league titles and did not have to, leaned over and said something to him, and Michael Olise said something back.

I asked him about it at 10 past 10 that night.

”He asked me how old I was.”

”What did you tell him?”

”I told him 16,” Olise said, ”and he said, ah, then I will not kick you until the second half.”

Nick Pope banged his gloves together twice at the far end.

Clap. Clap.

Nya Kirby was on his feet on that bench before anybody told him to be.

I put my hands in my pockets.

PRRRRRRP.