Glory Of The Football Manager System

Tik. Tik. Somebody’s zip going round in a dryer.

He had the iPad on his knee. He turned it face down when I came in.

”I want the corner,” I said. ”Moscow. The 1 we took at 3-3. Can you get it?”

Bray looked at me for a while. Then he turned the iPad back over.

The picture was already up and stopped. MAR 3 FRA 3 in the top corner, and a clock beside it at 91:07.

”How long have you had that on there?”

”Since the Tuesday after.” He did not look sorry about it. ”It is a corner. Corners are what you pay me for.”

”Play it.”

”Sit down first.”

I sat on a crate of bibs.

Tk.

I knew that goal from 3 steps inside a touchline. The television had it from the roof.

The noise of the Luzhniki came out of a speaker the size of a 5p piece. The picture was wide, the whole pitch with the rain coming across it in sheets, and Hakim Ziyech was a small green shape walking to the corner flag.

Along the bottom of the screen there was a white line. There was a man stood on it with his arm going round and round above his head.

Tk. Bray stopped it.

”That is you.”

Stopped like that it looked like somebody waving across a road.

”And that is Medhi going. And Romain behind him.” He put his finger on 2 green shirts crossing the halfway line with their backs to their own goal. ”Those 2 were mine. 2 stay. It was on the board in that dressing room in my writing. The board you laid on its face at half time.” He ran it back a second. Tk. On the screen Benatia’s head turned towards the bench. ”He looks at you. Then he looks past you. That is me he is looking at, to see if I am going to tell him no.”

”And you did not.”

”I did not.” Bray kept his finger on the glass. ”I was stood 2 yards behind you with my mouth open, wanting it as much as you did. I had hold of your jacket for the last 3 minutes of that match. I have spent since July working out why I did not have hold of it 8 seconds sooner.”

”You have sat on this for 5 months.”

”I have. You would not have sat on that crate in August.”

”It was my arm, Bray.”

”It was your arm, and I am not trying to take it off you. Watch the rest.”

Tk.

The picture went in close on the French box. Ziyech hit it where he hits it. Raphaël Varane went up over the top of everybody, the same forehead as the 23rd minute going the other way, and it came out of the box flat and long.

The camera had to swing to follow it. For as long as that took there was nothing in the picture but wet grass. An empty half of a football pitch, lit up, with the rain falling on it.

Then Pogba, with the ball on his chest, and El Ahmadi throwing himself at a shirt and missing. And up at the top of the screen, already moving, a boy who had touched the ball 4 times in 20 minutes.

Hakimi came into the picture from the right at a dead sprint. I watched him make up the yard. I had seen him make it up from the touchline. From the roof it was worse. From the roof you could see how far he still had to go.

Bounou came out. The boy looked down, and up, and down.

Tk.

Bray had stopped it with the ball in the air above Bounou’s shoulder. He left it there.

I did not need the rest played. I know what the net did. I know the sound the green end made, and I have had it in my back teeth ever since.

My mouth had gone dry. In a kit room in Beckenham, 5 months on, with a dryer going.

I got up off the crate. There was nowhere in that room to go, so I stood at the boot racks with my back to him and read the numbers on the heels.

”The corner was good,” Bray said. ”Hakim put it where Hakim puts it. That match went on the second ball.”

”Varane.”

”Varane heads it to the 1 place there is nobody, and he does not have to aim. There is nobody anywhere.” He laid the iPad on top of the dryer.

”I had 10 names in red on Rebecca’s board,” I said. ”Extra time was half an hour of that boy against men who could not stand up. The corner was the last chance I was going to get.”

”It might have been.” He gave me that. ”So send 8 and keep my 2, and take your chance with 8.”

”8 does not win that header.”

”Yassine nearly won it on his own 3 minutes later.” Bray shrugged. ”You do not know. I do not know either. I know what 10 did.”

The zip went round twice. I came back and sat down.

”Boss. Who is it we play in February?”

”Do not walk me to it. Say it.”

”Simeone had this competition won until the 93rd minute. Lisbon. Ramos, off a corner. Then in the spring we put him out 1 round short of another final.” He folded his arms. ”He will have somebody in Madrid tonight with this same film on a screen. They will sit in and let us have it for 90 minutes. And when we win a corner at 0-0 in the 91st, every man in red and white is going to know what your arm does next.”

”Griezmann was on that pitch.”

”Griezmann took the corner Varane scored from. He knows what 1 is worth in a final.” He nodded at the screen. ”So here is what I want. On our corners in Madrid the 2 who stay belong to me. They look at me and at nobody else. If your arm goes round, they stand where they are.”

”And if we need a goal?”

”Then you say it to me in words before the kick, and I send them myself. Your arm does not count any more.”

”Rebecca has hers in writing.”

Bray reached round to his back pocket and took out the laminated card. He turned it over to the blank side and held it out with a pen.

”Then so will I.”

I wrote it on the card against my knee. Madrid. Our corners. Bray’s 2 stay unless I say it to him out loud. I signed it and gave it back, and he read it once and put it away where it lives.

”That is the easy half,” Bray said.

”Go on.”

”Sarah says 0-0 over there does us, and Sarah is right. So it is the 91st minute in Madrid and it is 0-0, and the ball is in the middle of the pitch. There is you, stood on that line, and the best result you can get is the 1 you already have.” He looked straight at me. He had not done that once since I walked in. ”Can you want it to stay 0-0?”

Tik. Tik. The zip went round.

I thought about saying yes. He would have known before I had finished the word.

”I do not know.”

”No,” Bray said. ”That is why I asked for the 2.”

He picked the iPad up, wiped the screen on his sleeve, and held it out to me.

”Take it home. Watch the start again, before they go in close. You were looking at your arm and I was looking at my 2. Watch the halfway line.”

Clunk.

Ron had the barrier up before I reached it. The light was on in the gatehouse, and there were 3 wallets on the wall above the shelf.

Emma was home at 7. She came through the door talking.

”Do not tell me. I know. I have known since 11 o’clock, I heard it through a studio wall with a finger in each ear.” She dropped her bag on the stairs. ”They have done 6 hours on it. I have been to the toilet 9 times.”

”8 days.”

”8 days. And on the 20th of February I am going to talk about Antoine Griezmann for 3 hours. I have a great deal to say about Antoine Griezmann. I have had it ready since the 15th of July.”

She came into the kitchen and saw the iPad on the table.

”That is Bray’s.”

”He lent it to me.”

”What is on it?”

”A corner.”

She stood with the kettle under the tap and did not turn the tap on.

”I was in row 9, Danny. I do not need the iPad.” She turned the tap on too hard and it went up her sleeve. ”I had both fists against my mouth for 15 minutes. Then your arm went round and I took them away, and I do not know what I said.”

I reached past her and turned the tap off. She let me.

”I signed his card.”

”You signed what?”

”Bray’s card. The laminated 1. On our corners in Madrid his 2 stay back, and I am not allowed to wave anybody forward unless I say it to him out loud first.”

She laughed. It came out of her before she could stop it, with the kettle still in her hand.

”He has put your arm on a lead.”

”He has.”

”Good. I like Bray.” She put the kettle on its base and pressed the switch down. ”What else did he want?”

”He asked me if I could stand on that line at 0-0 in the 91st minute in Madrid and want it to stay 0-0.”

”Can you?”

”On Saturday it is 47 against 48 at the Etihad. A draw up there leaves us second.”

”That is a fixture. I asked you a question.”

”It is where I find out.”

She looked at me until the kettle boiled. Then she made 2 teas, put 1 down next to the iPad, and took the other up to the bath.

I sat at the kitchen table and ran it back to 91:07.

The wide shot lasts 4 seconds. In it there are 8 green shirts in the French half and 2 more crossing into it. In the other half there is a goalkeeper on his line, and a boy in blue stood in the centre circle with his hands on his hips.

He has his back to the corner. He is looking at the grass behind them.

Upstairs the taps were running.

I ran it back and watched the 4 seconds again.