Glory Of The Football Manager System

JJ Johnson was a Brighton player who played for Tottenham. In the summer Brighton had wanted more for him than we could pay, and more than Tottenham would pay, so Tottenham took him on loan until May. He was the only player they brought in all summer. On Saturday he would be on their left wing at Wembley, with my right back in front of him.

I sat in the car park with the engine off and his message still open on the phone on the steering wheel.

I typed Who told you, and deleted it. I typed Good luck Saturday, and deleted that too. Behind me the analysis room was the only lit window in the building. Marcus was in it, and Aaron’s shadow next to him, leaning into a screen.

I put the phone in my pocket and drove home without answering.

Bray had the 5 plastic mannequins out on pitch 1 after training on the Friday, stood up 22 yards out, dead centre, and Eberechi Eze on the ball behind them.

”Lloris cheats,” Bray said. He had the Tottenham free kicks from the last 2 seasons on an iPad under his arm, 31 of them. ”Every one. He leans to the side the wall doesn’t cover, before you hit it. Go over the end of the wall. Over the tallest man.”

Eze curled 1 over the end mannequin into the top corner, thump, and went and fetched it, and hit it again.

”Ebere!” Deano, from the kit room door, at 5 o’clock. ”I’m locking up!”

”10 more.”

Deano turned the floodlights off. Bray stayed behind the goal with his iPad lit up in the dark and called out every one. Over. Over. Post. Over. I sat in the car with the window down, and when I drove out Eze was still walking round the goalmouth picking balls out of the corners.

The Tottenham kit man came down the Wembley corridor at 2 o’clock on the Saturday and borrowed a roll of tape off Deano.

”Last season you were in there,” he said, and nodded at the away dressing room. ”And we were in here.”

”Last season we won,” Deano said, and the kit man took the tape and went.

Somebody had stuck CRYSTAL PALACE in black vinyl over TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR on the home dressing room door, and 1 corner was lifting. Deano pressed it flat with his thumb and held it there until it stayed.

In the warm-up the Spurs end whistled every ball Eze touched. He hit 1 of them 60 yards, flat, into Højbjerg’s chest, and did not turn round. At the other end Michael Steele was firing balls at Nick Pope from 12 yards, low, 1 after another, and shouting the same 2 words after every one.

”Stay up! Stay UP!”

Pope stayed up. Steele hit the next one harder.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Wan-Bissaka, Dann, Tarkowski, Chilwell. Neves, Kovačić, Eze. Rodríguez, Benteke, Zaha.

Bench: Krul, Sakho, Hakimi, Højbjerg, Townsend, Perišić, Cartwright.

TOTTENHAM: Lloris. Trippier, Alderweireld, Sánchez, Rose. Dier, Eriksen. Son, Alli, JJ Johnson. Kane.

Every fit man they owned, and 1 they had borrowed from Brighton.

Rebecca came and stood next to me in the corridor with her card. Rodríguez 70. Kovačić 75, and I want him off before he asks.

”And Aaron?”

”Aaron’s the fittest man in the building,” she said. ”He’ll do 13 kilometres and ask for more.”

JJ was bouncing on his toes in the tunnel with a mascot hanging off his left hand. He threw an arm round my neck, quick and hard.

”Gaffer.”

”Glenn Murray says it wasn’t a foul.”

JJ laughed out loud. ”It’s always both hands with him. Every session, both hands.” Then he looked over my shoulder at Aaron, and Aaron found something to study on the wall.

Eric Dier was 2 behind him in the Spurs line. He leaned out and found Eze.

”Not again tonight, mate.”

Eze kept his eyes on the tunnel mouth.

The buzzer went, and we walked out into it.

”GLAD ALL OVER! GLAD ALL OVER!”

It came off 3 sides of Wembley at once with the drum in the Holmesdale end hammering underneath. At the far end, under the arch, the lower tier was a white wall with its scarves up.

”GLORY, GLORY, TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR!”

PRRRRP.

JJ Johnson needed 7 minutes.

Eriksen fed him on the left touchline, 40 yards out, with Aaron in front of him. He did not go at Aaron. He gave it inside to Kane and ran. Kane waited, and waited, with Neves on his back, then rolled it with the outside of his boot into the space behind Aaron. JJ was already there. He took it in his stride with the outside of his left, 2 yards clear, and he looked up.

Kane had kept running, and Dann and Tarkowski had both gone with him. Nobody had gone with Son.

JJ put it across the 6-yard box along the grass, and Son came in at the back post and swept it in with his left before Chilwell had turned round.

Swsh.

0-1.

”NICE ONE SONNY! NICE ONE SON! NICE ONE SONNY, LET’S HAVE ANOTHER ONE!”

The far end came down its steps in a white wave. Kane ran past Son to JJ and picked him up off the ground.

”Heads up! HEADS UP, PALACE!” Tarkowski, clapping at his back 4.

I had my hand over my mouth. I took it away.

[JJ JOHNSON. CA 141. PA 192.]

Sarah was next to me in the box with her notebook shut.

”He’s not taking Aaron on,” she said.

”He knows me. He knows I’d have Aaron ready for the 1 against 1.” I watched JJ jog back past Aaron without a glance. ”So he’s not going to give him one.”

”He never played like that at Brighton.”

”He never had Kane at Brighton.”

”WHERE’S YOUR STADIUM GONE? WHERE’S YOUR STADIUM GONE?”

They had saved that one for us. They sang it pointing at our 3 sides of red and blue.

Our end waited for them to finish. Then somebody in the lower tier behind the goal held up a sheet of cardboard with N17: OPENING SEPTEMBER on it in marker pen, and a thick line through SEPTEMBER, and the whole of our end sang it straight back.

”WHERE’S YOUR STADIUM GONE?”

The Spurs end stopped singing.

Eric Dier kicked Eberechi Eze on 12 minutes.

Eze had turned him on halfway, the first time he had touched the ball, and Dier came through the back of both ankles. Eze went down on his face. He was up before the whistle had finished. He walked back to Dier and put his chest against Dier’s chest and said something I could not hear.

Dier laughed at him.

”EZE, YOU’RE SHIT! EZE, YOU’RE SHIT!”

The referee pushed in between them. Neves arrived and took Eze by the waist and pulled him back 3 yards, and Eze let himself be pulled, and kept his eyes on Dier over Neves’s shoulder the whole way.

1 more step and he would be booked. 1 more after that and I would be down to 10, and after Chelsea I had promised them we would finish every game this season with 11.

”EBERE!” I had both hands round my mouth. ”EBERE! LOOK AT ME!”

He turned his head, and I pointed at the ball. Then at Dier. Then at the goal.

He nodded once, put the ball down, and took the free kick himself.

”EZE! EZE! EZE!” The Holmesdale end had found him.

”WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA?” Under the arch, they answered.

10 minutes later Kovačić found him 35 yards out with his back to goal and Dier on him again.

Eze let the ball come across his body. Dier came tight, into his back, both hands on him. Eze leaned into him and spun out the other way, and rolled the ball through Dier’s legs as he turned, and picked it up on the far side of him.

”OLÉ!”

Eriksen came across. Eze dropped his shoulder, and Eriksen bought it. Sánchez stepped out of the line. Eze shaped to go outside and went inside, and he was at the top of the D with the goal in front of him, and he did not look up.

He hit it with the outside of his right foot.

It started a yard outside the far post. Lloris moved and then stopped moving. It bent, and kept bending, and went in off the inside of the post.

Tonk.

1-1.

”GLAD ALL OVER! GLAD ALL OVER!”

Eze did not run to our end. He turned and walked back to where Dier had finished up on 1 knee on the grass, and stood over him, and said the same thing he had said on 12 minutes.

The referee was already jogging over with his hand going to his pocket. Zaha got there first. He had Eze round the neck and Neves had him round the waist, and between them they carried him away backwards before the referee could reach him.

Dum. Dum. Dum. The drum in the Holmesdale end, and every flag in the lower tier coming down over the rail.

Mauricio Pochettino was out in front of his dugout in a long black coat with his hands in the pockets. He had not moved when it went in.

He took 1 hand out and called Dier over to the touchline, and put the hand on the back of Dier’s neck, and talked into his ear for 20 seconds, calmly, with his other hand still in his pocket. Dier nodded.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.