Glory Of The Football Manager System

”...Crystal Palace.”

Tok. Ron put the pencil down on the shelf.

Nothing came down the drive. The canteen window was open 80 yards away with my whole squad sat behind it, and for 4 seconds there was a heater ticking and a man in Switzerland clearing his throat.

”They have not had it yet,” I said.

”Television.” Ron kept his eyes on the sheet. ”It has to go up to a satellite and come down again. The wireless only has to come over the hill.”

Then it got there.

Skrrt.

Chairs first, a lot of them going over at once, and under the chairs a roar that came out of that window and down the drive and in through the gap at the bottom of Ron’s door.

[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. ROUND OF 16.]

[ATLÉTICO DE MADRID v CRYSTAL PALACE.]

There was tea on the back of my hand and down my wrist. I had not felt it go. Ron passed me the cloth he keeps for the window without looking round.

I had wanted them. I had sat in that chair 10 seconds earlier and wanted them for Simeone, who has not forgiven us for the spring, and for a final in their own ground. I had kept 1 name out of my own head the whole time I was doing it.

It was in there now. A man in a blue shirt putting a ball down on a penalty spot in the rain, with nothing on his face at all.

Ron picked the pencil up again and drew a ring round the top name on Marcus’s sheet. He took his time over it.

”You told me you did not mind.”

”I did not mind.”

”You have not blinked since he said Madrid.” He took his glasses off and rubbed them on his jumper. ”You beat that lot in the spring. What is the matter with them?”

”That is the first thing the matter with them. We put them out 1 round short of a final, and they have had a summer and an autumn to think about it.” I looked at the ring he had drawn. ”And Griezmann plays for them. And Lucas Hernández.”

Ron put the glasses back on.

”July,” he said.

”Do not, Ron.”

”I turned that off at 3-0.” He said it to the radio, as if I had not spoken. ”I should never have. I put it back on to see how bad it had got, and it was 3-2, and I stood up for the rest of it on this hip.”

”You never told me.”

”You never asked me what I did in July.”

The man in Switzerland had moved on to the third ball. Ron turned him down. He opened the drawer under the kettle and took out an empty plastic wallet, slid Marcus’s sheet into it, and looked along the wall above the shelf for a spare pin.

”That is Marcus’s.”

”Marcus has a computer,” Ron said.

Achraf Hakimi was halfway down the drive when I came out, in a training top with no coat. He stopped 10 yards short of me with his hands under his arms.

”Coach.”

”Go inside, you will freeze.”

”Griezmann,” he said. ”Lucas.”

”I know who they have, Achraf.”

”I am counting.” He held 2 fingers up and looked at them. ”Lucas put me on the floor, and Hakim scored from it. So I do not mind Lucas. He did his knee last week. I hope he is back for us.” He folded 1 finger down and left the other 1 up. ”Him, I mind. My mother has the Golden Ball on top of her television. She told me in August it is a very nice ball and she would swap it tomorrow.”

”She is right.”

”She is my mother.” He put the hand back under his arm. ”So we play them. 2 times.”

”We play them twice.”

”Good,” Achraf Hakimi said, and walked back up the drive in front of me.

I let him get ahead.

In July that boy ran 70 yards after the quickest footballer alive with 12 kilometres already in his legs. He made up a whole yard, and he needed 6. Nobody has ever blamed him. The grass he was running across was grass I had given away myself, with my own arm, 8 seconds before.

How had I sat in a gatehouse and wanted this?

The canteen had not sat back down. The television had gone on to the next ball and nobody was watching it. Half that room had put Atlético out of a semi-final in the spring, and somebody by the window had started the song from that night.

Mamadou Sakho had me round the waist before I was through the door. He lifted me a foot off the lino and turned me to face the room, and the room cheered.

”Put me down, Mamadou.”

”No,” Sakho said, and carried me as far as the hatch before he did.

Wilfried Zaha had his feet up on a chair and a bread roll in his hand.

”That is 2 more games, gaffer,” he said, with his mouth full. ”I can count, that is all. I wanted you to know I can count.”

”I know you can count, Wilf.”

”Good. Then we both know.”

Sarah had not got up for any of it. She was at the end table with the folder open and both hands round a mug, and she had James Rodríguez and Mateo Kovačić sat across from her. Neither of them was here in the spring.

”Listen to them,” she said. ”They think it is May again. Mateo, tell him what you told me.”

”You beat them when they did not know you,” Kovačić said. ”I played them in the derby, when they hated us before the bus was parked. That is the Atlético you get in February.”

”And what is that Atlético like?”

He thought about it.

”You will have the ball. All night. They like you to have it. And then...” He turned his fork over. ”Nothing. For an hour. You get angry, and that is what they are waiting for.”

”He is being polite,” Rodríguez said. ”Is horrible. You cannot breathe. I played them 3 years, I never enjoyed 1 minute, and we were Real Madrid.”

Sarah nearly smiled at that.

”First leg in Madrid, the week of the 12th of February or the week after. Wembley 3 weeks later, and UEFA split the nights this afternoon.” She turned the folder round to face me. ”They are second in Spain with half their defence in the treatment room, and Costa has just had his foot done. We get all of them back. They will not be surprised by us twice, either.” She drank some of the tea and pulled a face at it.

”So we do not get angry. 0-0 over there and Simeone has to come to Wembley and attack us, and he has not built that side to attack anybody. I would take 0-0 now. I would shake his hand on it today.”

She said it the way she says a kick-off time.

A draw is no good to me.

I thought those words on a touchline in Moscow in the 91st minute, with my arm going round like a man starting an engine. Last Wednesday a draw against Dortmund would have won us the group, and a draw never once came into my head. We went and won it 2-1.

”Danny.” Sarah had her head on 1 side. ”Where have you gone? If this is about Saturday, I have Saturday. It is in the other folder.”

”It is not about Saturday.”

She waited. I did not give her anything. She has known me since 2015, and she let it go.

”0-0 would do,” I said.

”I know it would do. I am the 1 who said it.” She shut the folder. ”It is the Etihad in 5 days and I have a canteen singing about February.”

”Give them until 3. Pitch 1 at 3, and it is City.”

Bzzt.

My mother rang at 20 past 2. She never rings in the day.

”Madrid,” she said.

”Atlético, Mum.”

”Is that the 1 in the white?”

”That is the other 1.”

”There are 2 of them? In the same town?” I heard her put the kettle on. ”Are those French lads there?”

”3. 2 of them played.”

She did not say anything. The kettle got louder behind her and clicked off.

”I had a good seat for that,” my mother said. ”I could see your face at the end.”

”Mum.”

”I am only saying I could see it. I have never said it before and I will not say it again.” A spoon went round a cup. ”Go and beat them, Daniel.”

Click. She always hangs up first.

I stood in the corridor outside the boot room with the phone in my hand. She sat in that ground for 2 hours in July. In the 5 months since, she has asked me about the flat and whether I am eating. What else did she see from that seat?

Prrrp.

Pitch 1 at 3, with the under 23s in sky blue bibs and Michael Cooke telling them they were Manchester City.

I stopped it 4 times in the first 20 minutes. Neves was a yard late getting across every time the ball was switched, and City score off a yard. By 4 o’clock he had it, and nobody on that grass had said the word Madrid for an hour.

47 points against 48. I had 5 days to get a team ready for the best side in England, and all I had heard since 11 o’clock that morning was Sarah saying 0-0.

Bray does not have an office. He has the set piece board, an iPad, and a chair at the end of the kit room that Deano lets him keep between the dryers and the boot racks. I went and found him there at 5.