Glory Of The Football Manager System

[MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey. Sunday 29 July 2018.]

Bayern had it for the first 40 seconds and I watched David Alaba.

Not the ball. Alaba, who is a left back, and who came inside to stand next to Javi Martínez the second Sven Ulreich rolled it out, and stayed there.

So they are a back 4 when we have got it and a back 3 when they have got it, and that is 2 shapes in 1 team, and it takes 6 weeks to teach and Niko Kovač has had 6 weeks and has clearly spent all of them on it.

Franck Ribéry did not come towards the ball once in the first 4 minutes. Neither did Arjen Robben. They stood on their touchlines like 2 men waiting for a bus and made our full backs stand still with them.

”They are pressing,” I said.

”In July.”

”In July, Bray, in 29 degrees, in a competition that gives you a point for losing a shootout.”

Tk. Tk-tk.

Renato Sanches came through the back of Rúben Neves in the 3rd minute and got about 4 inches of ball and all of the ankle, and the referee gave nothing because it is a friendly and American referees have been told to let it go.

Neves got up and did not look at him.

Bray put both hands on the back of his own neck.

”Right,” he said. ”So we are doing this properly.”

Nothing that happened in the next 90 minutes was going to follow anybody into September. No table, no bonus, no consequence at all.

And there were 22 men on that grass who have spent their entire lives being physically unable to lose at anything, including cards.

Sandro Wagner is 30 years old and he has 8 Germany caps and he is not going to get a 9th, and he came for Ibrahima Konaté in the 6th minute like a man settling something.

THUMP.

Konaté got up.

Wagner said something to him in German. Konaté said something back in French. Neither of them understood a word of it and both of them understood all of it.

[SANDRO WAGNER. AGGRESSION 17. STRENGTH 16. JUMPING REACH 16. PACE 9.]

Pace 9.

I have got a 19-year-old centre-half who steps out of the line because he cannot help it, and the man he is playing against cannot run.

That changes everything about how we defend the next 84 minutes and there is not 1 person in that stadium who knows it except me.

”Bray. Tell Ibrahima he can go.”

”Go where?”

”Anywhere. Tell him to follow him. If Wagner drops, Ibrahima goes, and he goes early and he goes hard, because Wagner cannot get behind him and Wagner is not going to be able to get behind him in the 90th minute either.”

Bray looked at me for about a second. He does that instead of asking me if I am sure.

”Just tell him, Bray.”

He went off down that line with his hands cupped, and 40 seconds later Ibrahima Konaté went 15 yards out of a back 4 to put Sandro Wagner on the floor, and got the ball, and nobody behind him panicked.

Nick Pope rolled it to Konaté in the 8th minute with 5 red shirts coming at him.

Every side in England goes round that. You go round it because going round it feels safe, and Bayern have spent 6 weeks setting a trap on both touchlines for exactly the men who feel safe.

Konaté did not go round it. Konaté went into Højbjerg, who had Sandro Wagner 4 yards off his back because Sandro Wagner cannot close 4 yards, and Højbjerg took it on the half turn and gave it to Rúben Neves before Wagner had shifted his weight.

Tk. Tk. Tk-tk.

3 passes. 5 Bayern players behind the ball and behind the game, and James Rodríguez picked his head up with 40 yards of Pennsylvania in front of him.

Tk.

He put it through the eye of a needle. Benteke got across Javi Martínez and got a shin on it from 4 yards.

Pff.

Sven Ulreich took it off him with a hand I did not see him move.

I looked at Bray and Bray looked back at me.

That is Sven Ulreich, 29 years old, who played 40 matches in Manuel Neuer’s shirt last season and won a Bundesliga by 21 points with it, and who nobody in England could pick out of a queue.

19 minutes.

Arjen Robben got it 40 yards out on the right and came inside, and every single person in that stadium knew what he was going to do.

The 3,000 in our corner knew. The 6,000 in his knew. Ben Chilwell had known since he was about 9 years old.

Chilwell got tight and got his body right and pushed him further inside than he wanted to go.

That is what every coach in England would have shouted at him to do, including me, and I have shouted it at him myself about 200 times.

And it was the wrong thing.

Because Aaron Wan-Bissaka stood on a training pitch on Saturday morning with a bottle of water in his hand and told me that if Chilwell goes tight and Joel Ward is high on the other side, there is grass behind our left back and 1 centre-half cannot cover that and a striker at the same time.

Robben did not shoot.

He is 34 years old and he has been cutting inside and hitting it since 2004 and there is not a defender alive who has not watched the tape, and the reason he is still starting football matches is that he has never once done it when there was something better on.

He rolled it backwards into the grass behind Chilwell without looking at it.

Sandro Wagner was already going. He had started going before Chilwell touched him.

THWACK.

Near post, across Nick Pope, off the inside of the far one and in.

Dnk.

RRRAAAAAA.

6,000 Germans in the North corner and it came back off 52,000 empty seats a second later like a second crowd agreeing with the first one.

0-1.

I looked at Aaron Wan-Bissaka, 20 years old, 48 hours into being a centre-half.

He had his hands on his hips and he was looking at the space, not at Chilwell.

[AARON WAN-BISSAKA. POSITIONING 16. CONCENTRATION 14.]

Concentration 14. He is 4 yards from where he should be, and I put him there, and it is Saturday morning’s hole and he told me about it himself.

I did not say anything to him. Bray did.

”AARON. THAT IS YOURS.”

He put a hand up without turning round.

Niko Kovač was 60 yards away in a quarter zip with his arms folded, and he did not celebrate.

He wrote something down, said 3 words to a man with a laptop, and went back to standing exactly where he had been standing.

6 weeks into a job at the biggest club in Germany, with 8 of his best players in Munich because their country went out of a World Cup in the group stage and has not stopped talking about it since.

He is not here to be in a friendly either.

Then they came at us, and I spent 10 minutes of it stood on the edge of my technical area with my hands out of my pockets. I do not do that.

”AWAY. AWAY!”

Franck Ribéry is 35 and he took the ball into Ben Chilwell’s feet 3 times in 20 minutes, always at the same angle, always the one that makes a left back turn his hips towards his own goal.

The third time, Chilwell put it out for a throw from 40 yards and got a hand up to Nick Pope for it.

Prrrp.

Renato Sanches ran at Højbjerg 4 times and did not get past him once, and on the 4th one he got up off the floor and said something and Højbjerg laughed at him.

[BEN CHILWELL. CONDITION 88%.]

[PIERRE-EMILE HØJBJERG. CONDITION 91%.]

88 on 26 minutes is not a problem in a friendly. 88 on 26 minutes in 7 days at Wembley against a side that makes you run sideways for 90 minutes is a substitution on the hour whether I like it or not.

I wrote CHILWELL 60 on the back of my hand and Marcus saw me do it and wrote it on a laptop properly.

And Serge Gnabry did not do anything at all.

I noticed it. I did not understand it until the second half.

”HOLD. HOLD.” Højbjerg, at Konaté, and Konaté held.

Then Wagner dropped off Konaté on 28 minutes, and Konaté went with him about 3 feet and stopped.

Because Aaron Wan-Bissaka had already moved.

He did not shout and he did not point at anybody. He went across 4 yards early so a 19-year-old could feel him there without being told.

That is what James Tarkowski said on a training pitch on Friday. It is what Aaron asked me to sort out on Saturday.

Wagner dropped into a space with 2 men already in it.

I looked at Bray.

”Friday,” he said.

”Friday.”

James Tarkowski was on that bench with his arms folded and he had seen it before I had.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.