Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

Thursday the 22nd was a little more upbeat, although it started with the Brig telling me that my attackers seemed to know almost nothing. They had been hired to get my laptop, the end. They didn’t know by whom, they said, and he believed them. He assured me he would keep at it, but he was pessimistic about finding out much more.

He encouraged me to put out a statement of some sort to quell the rumours and to help prevent more attacks. I didn’t want to think about it. ”Later,” I said.

Training seemed good but my free kick shooting was once again erratic. So strange, but I took Emma to a nice place for lunch.

Then came the perfect antidote to seeing a manager operate at a level I could only dream of - watching a match in Wales.

The current Welsh champions, TNS, were playing in the UEFA Conference League against Astana, a club from Kazakhstan. I had invited about thirty people, including a bunch of my Welsh army friends and my mates from the Welsh Football Association. We had a big old Welsh party in one part of the stadium while I pocketed 450 experience points.

TNS were my club Saltney’s biggest rivals in Wales. They had first-mover advantage plus decent financial resources. Saltney were getting closer in terms of quality and we were miles ahead in the league, although we had played more matches than TNS. If TNS stumbled, we would take their crown. If they didn’t stumble, we would have to rip it from their heads.

There was no fancy near-supernatural coaching going on over here, that was for sure.

The match was absolute dogshit and it cheered me up immensely. At the top of the worldwide pyramid of football managers was some number of elite managers like Evaristo. Maybe as few as twenty, as many as fifty. At the bottom of the pyramid was a vast sea of garbage. I was somewhere in the middle group with the potential to get to the top in the next three and a half years. Best of the rest.

At that level I might not be able to affect social change or fix football, but I could get filthy rich.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

***

On Friday, before I went to Yorkshire to watch Leeds United’s Premier League match, I asked Youngster to come to Bumpers.

Most of the women’s squad trained three times a week, though some were full-time and we put on extra sessions for them. Youngster’s girlfriend, Meghan, was one of the full-time ones and it was no stress for her to come to the training ground a little early.

I took them into my office cabin, which was basically a very nice garden shed.

”Got to do this quickly,” I said, checking the time. ”Traffic to Yorkshire at this time can be pretty dicey. The Pennines, you know? Oh-kay, how can I say this? Youngster, you are my best player.”

He beamed. The cabin had lots of glass but when the skies were overcast, like today, it could get gloomy. His smile lit the place up. ”Thank you very much, Mr. Best. I try.”

Meghan reached out and took his hand. ”Now’s the part where you say I’m the best player on the women’s team, Max.”

I pointed to Youngster, a god-fearing Christian. ”He told me not to tell lies!”

”Mate,” said Meghan. ”You know I’m mint.”

”You are mint but Kit’s the best. You’re catching up. You and Sarah are chasing her down. I love it.”

The two most important numbers on a player’s profile were listed as CA and PA. CA stood for Current Ability. Meghan’s Current Ability was 73 (out of 200). PA stood for Potential Ability. Meghan’s was 169. If she reached her potential, she would be one of the best defenders in England.

Youngster was even more outstanding. He was 107 out of 181.

Players with a ’high ceiling’ tended to improve faster than others, and Youngster had been a great example of that ever since the day my personal demon had led me to him. Youngster had started as CA 1, reflecting his inexperience, but he had devoured the gap to the older, wiser players and now he was top dog. That in itself was slowing his progress, I reckoned. It was always hard to be the front-runner, wasn’t it?

In recent weeks, his progress had slowed to a crawl. He had gained a couple of points when he’d gone to train with the Ghanaian under 23s, but he was struggling to get better while at Bumpers Bank. A bunch of players had caught up to him and were showing the same signs of hitting a soft cap.

”Youngster, I feel like your improvement is slowing down. Whoa, there! Let’s not all bite my head off at once! It’s not a criticism, Megs. It’s Bumpers, isn’t it?”

Youngster spoke from the heart. ”I love it here, Mr. Best. I would never complain.”

I smiled. ”I know! You’re a model professional. Your attitude is top. But it all hit us pretty quickly, didn’t it? We went from training in a credit card company’s back garden to the top of League One. We’re going to the Championship and you’re virtually a Championship player already.”

League One players tended to range in CA from 91 to 110. There were outliers in either direction, of course, but 95% of players fell into those boundaries.

”We don’t have Championship facilities - yet. It’s my mission to get this place finished this season, okay? I’m working on it pretty hard but quite a few players are going to improve a little less than is ideal. I can work around it to some extent. Dazza, for example.”

”Mmm,” said Meghan, as though she’d taken a bite out of a cold plum on a hot day. ”Dazza.”

Youngster smiled, which wasn’t the effect she was going for. ”A wonderful team mate, though incomprehensible at times.”

”Great body, too. Great hair.”

”Yes, his hair is most magnificent. Like a lion.”

I tutted. ”Meghan, can you save your weird role plays for later, please? I’m on the clock. Youngster doesn’t get jealous of Dazza, okay? It’s the other way round. Fuck me. Okay, what I was saying is that when Dazza hits his peak he can dial training down and I’ll give him more minutes on the pitch. If I’ve got one striker who plays basically every minute of every game, we can give Gabby more individual attention or even give him a winter break.”

”Can I get a winter break?” said Meghan.

”You get one! The women get one!”

”In Brazil, I meant.”

”I’ve got somewhere even better in mind. What this is all about is, ah... basically... Hey, do you remember I had the idea that a big club would pay us to loan one of our players? And everyone said it was stupid and upside down and unrealistic and it would never happen in real life?”

”Yes,” said Meghan. ”That was one of your most hare-brained schemes. Absolute gibberish.”

”Bayern Munich are going to loan Youngster.”

”What.”

”And they’re going to pay for the privilege. Bosh. Promise made, promise kept. Max Best strikes again. Yee-haw. Pack yourself a winter bag for Bavaria, Meghan. You can pop over for a long weekend. Oktoberfest is in January, isn’t it?”

”I think it is in October, Mr. Best.”

”You sure? Well, I’ll get them to do it again for Megs.”

Meghan was looking around the cabin, hunting hidden cameras. ”Is this a prank?”

I exploded. ”It’s not a prank! The fuck? I have to go to Leeds, mate! Listen, your boy James ’Youngster’ Yalley here is stuck and he can’t be stuck for most of this season, can he? That would be criminal and I can’t let that happen so he’s going to Bayern Munich for a couple of months. January and February. He’ll train alongside the best players in Europe in the best facilities in Europe and his levels will shoot up. He’ll come back here for the title run-in and whatever cups we’re going for. It’ll be like signing a new player, as the fans love to say when a guy returns from injury, except it won’t be this Youngster, it’ll be one who’s ready to boss matches in the Championship.”

Meghan was frowning hard. ”Max, I love the little weirdo but you can’t throw him into the Bayern Munich team.” The frown melted away and she got a little smile. Youngster had always risen to every challenge. ”Or can you?”

”First of all, I don’t pick the Bayern team, do I?” I smiled for absolutely no reason. ”Erm... but no. That would be unfair but just training with players like that would be fucking immense, wouldn’t it? And maybe there could be five minutes in a cup match or whatever. I don’t know what they have over there in Germany. Do they have cups? They probably call cups ’water shoes’ or something mad. Okay, so that’s settled. Oh, one thing. It’s possible the Bayern players won’t be super pleased to see you... ” I tried not to smile because I was about to use the greatest single management trick in my arsenal. It only worked with one player, but boy did it work. ”I might be sending you into the lion’s den, sort of thing, so you’ll have to be brave, and if they’re rude and unfriendly you’ll just have to forgive them.”

Youngster nodded furiously, eyes shining. These were the quests he longed to be given. Meghan shot daggers at me, but she was only jealous that she had too much backbone to use her boyfriend’s faith to manipulate him. ”What about money? What about a place to stay?”

”They’re covering his wages and he’ll have a home. I could ask them to find a good, clean, Christian family to stay with...?” Youngster nodded again. Meghan very slowly shook her head. I suppressed a smile. ”Let’s see what they suggest, yeah?”

Youngster’s head was swimming. I’m going to sign for Bayern Munich! I was pleased for him but at the same time I wanted players to be that excited to sign for Chester. Meghan was still down on planet Earth. ”Max, be straight with us. Is this a good thing for you, the club, or who?”

”Bayern owe me a favour. I had one wish, let’s say, and I wished for this. It might be that I’m overreacting to a natural plateau in progress but I can’t take that risk. Nothing can get in the way of Youngster’s rise to the top, okay? Nothing. I’ve basically built my entire personality around it. Why don’t you think about it over the weekend and then we’ll get it all tied up on Monday? It will be a relief to know that one of my stars is staying on his upward curve.”

”What about Dazza?” said Meghan, making one last, valiant effort to provoke her boyfriend.

”I said stars.”

Youngster covered his mouth and squirted out some laughter.

***

Saturday, October 24

Match 14 of 46: Chester versus Barnsley

The football calendar is so packed and so unforgiving that good managers (i.e. me) didn’t merely look at the current match when picking the team. I always looked at what was coming up so that I could spread my resources in a way that would generate the most wins in the aggregate.

After Barnsley we had two easy fixtures so there was no need to keep my best players fresh. We could go all-in on today and lean on squad players for the next ones.

I got up early and took some free kicks. I still didn’t feel right but I named myself on the bench, just in case I was needed. That felt more than ever like a cop-out. Evaristo didn’t go onto the pitch when his team was playing poorly, did he? I wouldn’t be able to do that in Munich, would I? Plus, the more I played, the greater the opportunity cost in lost experience points. Yeah, there were plenty of reasons not to play.

Barnsley, then, would face my very strongest starting eleven. I used a bog-standard 4-4-2 formation that was deeply uninspiring but which allowed us to have a gorgeous average CA of 103.4 - we had come so far since the days we couldn’t even break CA 40.

Barnsley’s average was 106 but we had home advantage - it would be a tough, close match.

The stakes were high. Lose and our scintillating early-season form would look like a blip. Who knew what would happen to our Morale? Who knew how many fans were in the stadium for the first time? Would they come back if they saw us limp to defeat? Win and they would come back. Win and we would send a message that would be heard loud and clear: Chester are the real deal. Teams would come to the Deva half-beaten already.

Yes, the stakes were high but I was having an energy crisis. Maybe it was the psychic pain of seeing what a real manager could do, maybe it was the fact that we had put so much into a recent cup match against Barnsley and it was hard to summon the vim to do it all again against the same opponents. Maybe I was coming down with Sandra Lane’s cold.

I was accompanied by two Welsh soldiers to the dugout and there I stayed, like a snail in a transparent shell.

The first forty-five minutes were by far the worst of our season so far, the worst in a long, long time. We conceded a goal from an open-play cross with our captain, Christian Fierce, being beaten to the header. It messed him up much more than it should have, but he wasn’t the problem. Three players were stinking the place out.

Matt Rush, the right back we were loaning from Manchester United, had a match rating of 4 out of 10. He was the closest thing we had to an elite player, to the type of personality I would encounter in Munich. An entitled brat, halfway up a hill, acting like he had reached the pinnacle. He was lazy in defence and sloppy on the ball. Worst of all, he was in a great mood. If he had been suffering I would have been sympathetic - everyone has an off day. I had torn strips off him earlier in the season and didn’t want to shout at him at half time. I would, though. I fucking would.

Lee Contreras was on 8 out of 10 but it was one of the worst 8s you could imagine. Just in case I hadn’t spotted what he was doing with my naked eye, his icon on the tactics screen had a thick white outline which indicated that his instructions had changed from the default. I normally only saw that on the opposition’s side of the screen. For the opposition, the thick white outline meant the manager had tweaked something - it was a signal that I should pay attention to what had changed. When it happened on my own players - which it fucking didn’t - it meant they had taken the bold step of overwriting their instructions. I was all for players having ownership of their performances, but not to the point of actual disobedience.

The stupid fucker was juicing his stats, playing short, safe passes that were making him look good but were killing the team. Obviously this was partly my fault for putting the idea into his head. Because it was my fault, Lee would avoid the half-time screamfest. Hold up... yeah, nah. I would put my mouth about half an inch from his face and I would vent for a solid sixty seconds or until his nose fell off, whichever came sooner.

Colin Beckton? The least said about his so-called efforts the better. He barely even broke into a jog. It was mad because the guy was so experienced, so good, so motivated, and this had come out of absolutely nowhere. He had been fine the whole week, completely normal right until kick-off.

Colin was a player-coach and I’d brought him into our management circle. There was every chance he would actually manage the first team in a few games this season. I couldn’t rage at him, then. This was a risk when hiring a player-coach. I got a far more talented player than I would normally be able to attract, but his dual roles led to confusion about when I could reprimand him and how. And I mean, if a coach couldn’t motivate himself for a big match at home in front of a large crowd, what hope did we have?

I told myself it was very important that I didn’t shout at him in the break. I had a premonition of the future in which I was shouting at him. I told myself it was very important that I didn’t shout at him. I daydreamed shouting at him; it made me feel good.

The half-time whistle went and there was a confused silence from the home fans. If we hadn’t been on what was basically a three-year winning streak, they would have booed and they would have been right to. Had we played hard but nothing had worked, they would have given us warm applause. This silence was proof that what we had served up was unacceptable.

Before I went to the armoury to find the right flog and whip combo, Peter Bauer stopped me. He was filling in as my assistant manager for the day, but he didn’t really have anything to do. The tactics were fine. ”What are you thinking, Max?”

”I’m thinking of which horror movie scenarios would be suitable punishment. What do you think about Jaws for Rushy? He’s swimming around, life’s great, nothing to worry about. He bobs beneath the water and is never seen again. Misery for Lee Contreras. He’s strapped down and can’t escape until he does his job.”

’Why don’t you sub them off? You would normally have taken Rushy off within the first ten minutes.”

”Elite managers don’t treat players like that, do they? If I do that to one of the Bayern lot, that’s basically a resignation letter. Don’t you think?”

His cogs were turning but he didn’t answer. ”And what about Colin? What movie for him?”

My head dropped; I hadn’t told Peter I was fuming about his fellow player-coach. If it was that obvious, I would have to address it. ”The Others,” I said. ”Movie about an enormous list of strikers I could easily afford.”

”You’re not much keen on horror movies, are you?”

”What do you mean?” I said, trying to summon a smile. ”I just sat through one.”

***

Our half-time routine varied depending on whether Sandra was in charge, or me. When it was me, we had a couple of quiet minutes to decompress, we would look into potential injuries, and I’d have one-on-one discussions with players or coaches. Much of that was a front for seeing what tactical changes my opposite number was making - I could see them on my mental tactics screen and thus get a head start on solving whatever new problems came up.

With five or six minutes of the break remaining, I would tell the lads that my favourite film was Die Hard or Predator and make the theme of the movie fit what I needed the lads to do in the second half.

That was a normal day. Twice a season I gave them the hairdryer treatment, which involved shouting at them from close-range. I wasn’t quite feeling it today, though. Wasn’t sure I had it in me.

NovelFire is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

When I looked at Matt Rush I found that the anger was in me, all right. Rush was super talented, CA 104, PA 180, and he had been putting up good numbers in our season so far. He had created four goals, scored one himself, and his average rating in matches was 7.2 and rising. Any other manager in the league would have been delighted to have him and would have tolerated one bad performance every now and then. Unfortunately for Rushy’s ear drums, I wasn’t any other manager.

The voice of Briggy echoed around my head. Why don’t you imagine your Chester players are German millionaires?

Yes. No shouting. Evaristo didn’t shout, did he? I wouldn’t be allowed to shout at the Bayern guys.

I spoke softly as I said, ”Shut the fuck up.” That was part of the tradition but normally I said it in an upbeat, positive way. I walked to the tactics board, where eleven magnets showed the positions our players were supposed to take up. I plucked off the ones representing Rush, Lee, and Colin, took a few steps, and hurled them, one at a time, into the nearest bin.

The room got very chilly all of a sudden.

”On my first day at this football club I had four players playing for themselves. I sent them off the pitch. I had one sub. I put him on and we played with eight. If I was completely free, I’d do the same now. I can’t, though. I promised Emma I would try to be less combustible and less strident. You see, the thing is Matt - ” He jerked his head up. Ever since his magnet had gone in the bin he had been getting paler and paler. ”The thing is, if I sub you off now, that’s the end of your chances of playing for Man United. There’s no way anyone in that club is going to look at a player who gave the worst single performance in the whole of League One and think yeah, that’s the guy we want playing against Liverpool. You think you’ve made it, you’re hot shit, your career is sorted now that you’ve played enough games to get a league winner’s medal. Bad news,” I said, pointing to the tactics board. ”Can’t win a league playing with eight men. You’re not getting a medal.”

I took a few steps closer to him.

”I watched Barnsley near the end of last season. Seven games to go, they sacked the manager, got a new guy in. Loads of the Barnsley lads were out of contract and they were desperate to impress the new gaffer. First game one guy slides in, his knee slides out. He’s carried off in tears not from the pain but because that was him done. No new contract. How’s he gonna pay the mortgage? How’s he gonna feed his kids? That’s who you’re playing today. Not that guy, he’s on the scrapheap, not him, but men like him. They’re hungry. They’re so hungry they’re eating your career. It’s crazy you don’t realise that. Which manager is going to want a player who will cost him matches, get him sacked, while his killer strolls around with a big smile on his face? Nah, you’re killing your own career today. You’ve got 45 minutes to save it. This is not hyperbole.”

I wasn’t sure how this was landing but I couldn’t get to the halfway point and just switch to a whole new narrative. What kind of idiot would do that?

”Lee? Shocking. Disgraceful. You’ve got 45 minutes to pad your passing stats because this will be the last time you pull on a Chester shirt. A hundred sideways passes in a one-nil defeat? Get fucked.”

Lee had been red in the face; he purpled.

I stopped and rubbed my face with both hands.

”What about me?” said Colin.

”Oh, what, you want to get roasted? Is this fun? Is this legendary banter and everyone wants to be in on it?”

He dipped his head briefly but jutted his chin at me. ”You threw me out, too. You can’t give it to them but not me.”

”They’re too fucking stupid to realise I can see what they’re doing. You know I can see it and you don’t care. No, mate. No shouting.”

”Sub me off, then.”

”No. No-one’s getting out of this. I won’t be making any subs today. The team that started is the team that will finish. Everyone in this room will have to go home to their loved ones, their daughters, and when they say daddy, why did we lose, you’ll say because winning’s hard and I couldn’t be fucking arsed. Everybody out. I’m serious. Get out. Zach and Christian stay behind.”

They left in varying states of fear and anger, leaving only my centre backs and Peter Bauer. He didn’t seem super impressed with my motivational techniques.

”Christian,” I said. ”You lost one header and lost your head. You gotta put it behind you, man. I don’t know what’s going on today.”

”It’s the full moon,” said Peter.

”Er... okay. Zach, remember we talked about controlling your aggression, channeling it, making sure you’re laser-focused on your individual tasks?”

He looked down at the floor. ”Yeah.”

”Yeah, well, fuck that. Today I need the old Zach.” His eyes snapped up, locked onto mine. I jabbed him in the chest. ”Fuck control, logic, or the scientific method. Right now, I need a Texan.”

His eyes were shining and he gave me a lopsided, devilish grin. ”We invented breast implants and stadium nachos; Texans do science, boss.”

”Not today. I want you in fuckface’s face. I want you in his ears. I want you in his nightmares.” I was getting myself worked up and the fire in my chest was finally starting to catch, but I thought about Evaristo. How feeble my efforts were in comparison to him! ”Yeah, good,” I said, punching Zach very softly on the arm. ”Go get ’em.”

The centre backs departed. Peter blew air from his mouth and said, ”Well.”

”I wanted to try something different,” I said. ”You’re an elite player. Would that work on you?”

He shrugged. ”It’s hard to say if you’re not in the firing line. If your intention was to be even more devastating than when you lose your temper, wow. Very well done. I tell you what, though.” He licked his lip. ”Would you please film your team talks in Munich? There are big names I am excited to see get the Max Best treatment. Bayern are deeply unpopular; many around Germany would enjoy the show.”

”Would you pay ten dollars for a live stream?”

He put his hand on my shoulder. ”Max, if you do this to those players live on pay-per-view, you would make millions.”

***

I instructed Peter and the subs to stay seated for the second half. Would the players on the pitch step up? They were shooting towards the new stand so if they did score, there would be a wave of noise. Maybe it would wake the dozy twats up.

Two minutes passed just as they had in the first half.

Football is often called a ’weak link game’, meaning you’re only as good as your weakest player. If that was true, we were currently playing to the level of Matt Rush.

”God have mercy on us all,” I mumbled, as he went to collect a pass but let the ball run under his feet. My advanced management techniques had knocked his Morale all the way down to ’very poor’.

Zach Green glared at him.

Two minutes later, Rush went on a dribble, ran straight into an opponent, and Barnsley got an amazing chance in transition. Zach blocked the first cross but the second went over his head. Christian competed and stopped the game’s only goalscorer from getting a second. Young Cole Adams, our left back, took the ball on his thigh and hacked it clear.

While Christian and Cole chest bumped each other, Zach rushed over and tried to melt Matt’s face off with a stream of invective.

The next defensive action saw Cole, who was rocking a slick new haircut that befitted a player hurtling towards a triple-digit CA, once again make a key intervention. The ball was worked around, the moves we practised endlessly in training clicked into gear, and suddenly we were away. The crowd oohed with anticipation but when the ball came to Lee Contreras, he turned away from goal and played it short to Youngster, who wasn’t expecting it. Youngster was tackled and was forced to make a foul to stop another transition. He got a yellow card and that was the moment that snapped Christian out of his funk. He raced forward to let Lee know what was on his mind.

Something was stirring. I reached out to haul myself up out of the dugout, because who was better at stirring up trouble than me? Leaving it made me feel dizzy suddenly, so I flopped back down and grabbed Peter by the wrist. ”It’s happening!” I said.

”What is?”

”I don’t know!”

”Something you planned?”

”I didn’t plan anything! I have no clue what’s happening. I’m starting to like it, though.”

My pulse was up and it was a struggle to sit there and look unhappy, but that’s what I needed to do. Let the players do it. The players had to solve this one themselves. Why? No clue!

Time passed with three of my defenders getting higher match ratings and looking more and more like they were hewn from stone. In midfield, an inspired Youngster was doing the work of two men. Colin was still terrible, still not running, still offering nothing, but collectively, we were properly competing with Barnsley.

They were a good side and had good players. It helped that they were playing against eight men but I liked some of their approach. They came at us now and after some good interplay between their forward three, the ball went to the guy on the wide left, the guy who had been having his wicked way with us the entire match so far. Matt Rush let him get past, scampered to get back, and did just enough to make the guy cut the ball back onto his right foot. Before he could cross there was a flash of blonde hair and a gigantic Australian bulldozer smacked into the forward and hacked the ball out of the postcode.

Dazza crunched his abs and roared - think the T-Rex in Jurassic Park - while the natural history geek Zach Green ran up to him and saluted his teammate chest-first. They flapped their arms at the main stand, who to a man stood and roared.

Barnsley hurled a throw into our penalty box that Christian Fierce rose to head away. The crowd generated electricity as they clapped. The air was getting saturated with latent narrative potential.

Barnsley came again, but Cole Adams led his opponent closer to the byline. The guy wanted to cut inside but when he did, Cole was ready. He stabbed the ball to Youngster, who scampered away, saw that his only option was a pass to Lee. Youngster visibly groaned and he put his head down and ran. Youngster was faster than he looked and while his dribbling style was clumsy, it was effective. He ate up the ground and found himself approaching the box.

Our left midfielder, a creative player called Charlie Dugdale whose output was starting to attract attention from bigger clubs, sprinted hard to overtake Youngster on the left. The ball was perfectly weighted and Charlie clipped a cross low and hard.

Colin Beckton made a move he had been making his entire career. A sprint slightly to the left of the centre of the goal, get between the last defender and the goalie, see what happens.

He flicked his foot and deflected the cross onto the goalie’s trailing foot. The ball looped up, up, and was dropping in when a defender threw himself backwards and hooked the ball up. Dazza had made up the ground and threw himself at the ball - surely this would - but no! Another incredible goal-line block and the ball went behind for a corner. Colin ran faster than he had the entire match to get the ball. He sprinted to the corner flag and took a short corner to Pascal. Pascal held onto the ball for a second and rolled it onwards to Colin, who whipped in a pretty amazing cross. Dazza twisted his neck and powered the ball down - perfect - but the goalie somehow got part of his hand on it and flicked the ball up and over.

Colin waved his arms and the Harry McNally terrace responded.

”That’s nine,” said Peter, which sent tingles up and down my spine.

”Fuck it,” I said. ”Take Cole and the two pricks off. Get Wibbers, Ryan, and Andrew on. We’re going for it.”

Peter rose to obey me, but paused. ”What... What’s the formation?”

”Two-six-two,” I said.

His eyes darted around as he tried to work it out. ”Zach and Christian as the defenders. Youngster as a defensive midfielder?”

”Yes. Get Wibbers over here.”

William B. Roberts, stripped and ready, peered down at me. ”Gaffer?”

I held up fingers one by one until there were three. ”Press. Attack. Win.”

”Yes, boss.”

My head was starting to pound because the noise and excitement from all around the ground was ramping up. This match had finally come to life. The core of the team had found strength by fighting their teammates. Not healthy on a long-term basis but there was something to that, wasn’t there? From internal strive to external excellence.

I switched the formation from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2 and moved one of the three defenders one space forward. That was where Youngster would play. The formation looked crazy but was only one step removed from one of the most basic ways of setting up a team.

Next, I set the team’s mentality to ’attacking’. I gave everyone except the centre backs permission to ’make forward runs’. I told everyone to press (i.e. to chase the player with the ball). I also made a number of very minor tweaks to the team’s positions.

Peter came back and rubbed the back of his neck. I said, ”Have you got a rash?”

He laughed, nervously. ”I might have. This is incredibly risky.”

”It’s three points for a win and the stadium’s rocking. Let’s have a go.”

”We are very likely to concede another. Charlie and Pascal are not natural defenders and you’re asking a lot of them.”

”Ah, I wanted Andrew on the right.”

”Oh,” he said, and ran to fix it, not knowing that I had already done it telepathically. Andrew Harrison was an athlete and was taller and stronger than Pascal. I sometimes used Andrew as a right back; I had no worries about his defensive nous.

We were going for it, there were twenty minutes left, and where we had once been playing with heavy packs on our back, now we were flying. I felt a kind of revulsion at that image and something clicked. ”Hmm,” I said. I realised I’d been hiding in the dugout, using it as a shield.

”What? You want me to change it to something more rational?”

I smiled. ”This is rational, Peter. This is a good balance of risk and reward.” A chant of Ches-ter! Ches-ter! went up; I got more shivers. ”I think the attack messed me up a bit more than I realised.”

”Yes. You have been strange.”

I nodded. I had been putting off my response. The guy David said we needed to put out a statement. He was right for the wrong reasons. We needed to do it so I would be able to get some closure. What was that idea I started to have during the meeting? It was a solution to the problem combined with a way of delighting a sponsor. An actual Max Best classic. What was it?

I sat forward, heart not beating. Zach was thundering towards a striker and in his hyper-aggressive state, seemed likely to hurl himself recklessly at the guy. The force of the impact would be immense; things would break. The striker hesitated and in that split second Zach changed from rampaging caveman to top Texan scientist. He triangulated himself between the player and the ball, waited for the guy to run into him, and drew the foul.

That got me up off my seat. I couldn’t help it. It might have been the single best thing I’d ever seen Zach do. It was a trick one of our old players had passed on - make the oppo think you’re going to ruin them but actually be in complete control of yourself and your body. I screamed with pride and delight, turned to the fans, flung my arms up and up and up, making three-quarters of the stadium go bonkers.

In the cacophony, even before Zach got up, Christian rushed over and tapped the ball back to Swanny. He rolled it left to Charlie, who had dropped deep to offer an option. Charlie found Pascal, who bounced it to Youngster. He trickled it to Wibbers, who pointed to Andrew - he was going to lend him the ball. A defender rushed forward to intercept but Wibbers simply let the ball run through his own legs.

He was away.

Barnsley’s defence was split and Wibbers rushed into the gap. A centre back took a risk - he went forward and slid into a tackle. If he got it wrong he would be miles out of position. He was right to back himself. He won the duel and suddenly it was Barnsley running at not many Chester players.

Pascal recovered position first, putting pressure on the ball carrier from the right. The guy turned away - straight into Youngster. The ball bobbled away and Wibbers was there. He flicked it to the experienced but slow Ryan Jack, who smoothly turned away from the three young hotshots. They had been occupying a tiny space but now they exploded away from each other with the ball being moved left like in a rugby team. Left, left, surely out to Duggers again. But Pascal checked, sorted his feet out, and slipped it to Wibbers.

He cracked a shot from thirty yards, low, hard, bottom corner, and took the first few steps of a sprint to celebrate in the crowd, but the goalie’s arm was just long enough to block the shot.

The keeper had no control over the rebound, though, and angled the ball to the last place he would have wanted - the dead centre of the goal.

Colin slapped the ball into the net and moments later, vanished into the crowd, along with half of my team.

Peter Bauer, normally elegance personified, jumped up onto me, forcing me to hold onto him while he punched the air.

One-all with ten minutes to play. I reckoned it could be an epic conclusion to the match and I hopped around, excited, ready to test myself against a decent manager. Okay, he was no Evaristo but he was good. This would be a lot of fun!

It looks like Barnsley are taking a more defensive approach.

What the ffffff? The tactics screen confirmed what the match commentary told me. He was doing 5-4-1, very defensive.

I threw my hands up. Why would you do that?

I looked up at the darkening skies and checked the Live Tables. Chester were top of the league having scored the most goals and we had all the momentum in this game. My opposite number had weighed up the risks and decided the best return he was likely to get was a point.

”Fuck that,” I said, startling Peter. ”They’re shutting up shop,” I explained. ”How can we get more attacking?”

”You could go in goal,” he joked.

I pointed at him. A warning. ”Be careful, mate. That’s a good idea.” I narrowed my eyes. If I was the goalie I probably wouldn’t have any shots to save and I’d be able to take the free kicks.

”Max, please,” said Peter, almost rugby tackling me. ”You won’t get the Bayern job if you’re clowning around.”

”It’s a done deal,” I said. ”Contracts are signed.”

He shook his head vigorously. ”If you go in goal you will find they get unsigned very quickly. Just go and... I don’t know...” He scanned the pitch. ”Of course it would be better with you on, but I like this eleven. I have a good feeling about this eleven.”

”Me too,” I said. Zach had stepped up in a big way. Christian was fierce again. Colin was fast as a whippet. Pascal and Wibbers were a blur of movement with Youngster doing all the running that Ryan Jack couldn’t.

We watched as our guys piled the pressure on.

We watched as the minutes ticked down.

Long shot from Wibbers. Cross from Duggers. Header from Dazza.

When Barnsley got the ball, we swarmed all over them. Every ball recovery was met with a roar from the Chester fans. We moved the ball quickly to the edge of their penalty box and then it was just a matter of getting that one little moment of quality. That one combination that would make all the difference.

Four minutes of added time to play.

Two minutes of added time gone.

Barnsley booted the ball long. We got it back into the danger area. They cleared and booted it long. We got it back.

With the four minutes of injury time played, there was a tussle between Andrew Harrison and a defender on the right. The referee blew his whistle long and loud. Some Barnsley players dropped to their knees, some raised their fists. A good point, hard-fought, well-earned.

I blinked and in a state of utter bewilderment, watched as Pascal Bochum rushed to the ball, placed it down, and passed it into the box. Colin Beckton raced onto the pass and side-footed the ball into the net. The goalkeeper said, the fuck is wrong with you?

The referee pointed to the centre circle. The curse updated. Goal! He’d given the goal! After full-time.

What the shit?

But I read the commentary and he hadn’t blown for full-time. He had awarded a handball for us and a free kick, and Pascal was the only player smart enough to realise that.

Why had the ref blown his whistle so hard, in a way that made it sound like the game was over? I had no clue. Nothing made sense! I ran onto the pitch a few yards and shook my hands over my head, pumping my fists, not feeling like any part of my body was connected to any other.

The fans were celebrating so wildly that some spilled out of the McNally and onto the pitch in a kind of fever dream. The massive advertising boards were glowing with the words GLENDALE LOGISTICS, which brought me somewhat back down to earth. I retreated to the technical area in case I was setting a bad example, but I checked and the match was over. The ref had given the goal and blown for full time immediately afterwards - no-one had heard over the din.

A chaotic, baffling, and joyous end to a strange old game. I ran to Zach, first, but he wanted to give flowers to Pascal, who wanted to laud Colin. Our mini circle of joy turned into an impromptu huddle.

While the away team surrounded the ref, complaining that he had blown a flat D instead of an F sharp or whatever the fuck, Christian stood in the middle of us, shouting, geeing the lads up. He yelled that standards had fallen and he expected an epic week of training. Zach chimed in by saying: that was fucking bullshit, guys. BULLshit. Youngster asked to speak. He started with the words, ’when I first came to this country’, which was a long-running joke in the squad and was met by a huge laugh. The huddle broke up and I was astonished to see that Lee Contreras had had the nerve to join in. At least Matt Rush had the brains to realise he was in trouble and to get out of my face.

I walked towards Lee but paused, thinking about all the managers who were better than me and how they would handle this, thinking that every time I binned off a player without due process, MD got another ulcer. Peter came jogging over and eased me away from the area, back towards the dugouts. I shook my head. ”So weird. Strange day. Glad it’s over.”

”Ah... no. You’ve got to talk to the media.”

”What?” I said, realising I was being pushed towards people whose lives revolved around asking mind-numbingly stupid questions. ”No way. You do it. Tell them I’ve got rabies.”

”No. I’m rushing off. I’ve got a date.”

”Oh. Okay. Anyone I know?”

He looked smug and strode back to the dressing room. Too late, I realised he was probably lying about the date because he didn’t want to talk to the media either. That’s the problem with hiring clever bastards.

As I trudged towards the mini-throng wearing press credentials, I realised I would have to talk about either the final whistle confusion or my attack. The former was asinine, the latter personal. I decided I’d keep their attention on the whistle thing and sort out the laptop incident in my own way.

***

Sunday, October 25

We released a video on our socials. It went a little something like this...

CLOSE-UP: MAX BEST

Hey, world. I’m Max Best, the soccer supremo of Chester FC, and as some of you know, a few days ago I was mugged outside the stadium.

INSERT: CCTV SHOT OF TWO BLACK-CLAD HOODLUMS MENACING MAX

CHANGE TO: THE TWO BADDIES LAID OUT WHILE MAX LOOKS DOWN ON THEM, WITH NO-ONE ELSE IN SHOT

Yeah, so, I believe the hit was ordered by a rival director of football. They wanted the top-secret contents of my computer.

THE CLOSE-UP GETS LESS CLOSE; WE SEE THE SHINY SILVER LAPTOP

This laptop does, indeed, contain a great treasure. Super advanced data about virtually every professional player in the world. Yeah, someone could use this to really have a good go at being a top football manager. It’s really incredible stuff. Let’s take a look.

CUT TO: HAND-HELD FOOTAGE OF THE LAPTOP’S SCREEN

Here we’ve got one of my famous spreadsheets. This is William B. Roberts, wonderkid. See the numbers there? You’ve got your pace, your acceleration, all the stuff you’d expect. Now let’s switch tab.

IT’S THE SOCCER SUPREMO PROFILE FOR WIBBERS ALONG WITH AN UNFLATTERING PHOTO THAT MAKES HIM LOOK LIKE AN OGRE

Pace, acceleration... it’s all the same. Let’s check Youngster for Long Shots. Ah, yes, they’ve got him as 1. This game is accurate, unlike Youngster.

CUT TO: MAX’S FACE

Guys, please don’t murder me. [He smiles.] It’s just Soccer Supremo. [He laughs more.] Instead of sending highly-trained men to get me...

INSERT: THE TWO BADDIES LAID OUT WHILE MAX LOOKS DOWN ON THEM

Just buy Soccer Supremo. I don’t know how much it costs, to be honest.

HE HOLDS UP A PHYSICAL COPY OF THE GAME AND MAKES THE SAME FACE AS HE HAS ON THE COVER

I get a free copy. Heh. But if you can afford paramilitaries, you can afford this. Okay but look, I can’t have nice things, it seems. I don’t want to die over a misunderstanding so I’m making sure no-one can mug me for my laptop.

HE STANDS. THE CAMERA PULLS BACK. HE’S NEXT TO ONE OF THOSE HUGE WASTE COMPACTOR THINGS.

Goodbye, old friend. You served me well, but now your watch is ended.

HE TOSSES THE LAPTOP INTO THE THING

I’m making a donation to a charity that provides computers for schools, though really it should be the bad guy who pays for that.

CUT TO: MAX’S FACE LIGHTING UP BECAUSE HE GETS TO PRESS THE BIG RED BUTTON

THE SIDES OF THE MACHINE SLIDE TOGETHER AND FUCK UP WHAT’S CONTAINED WITHIN

Haha! Listen to that! Wow! Crunch that hard drive, yo! Hahaha. Whoo! I have the POWER.

CLOSE-UP ON A HAPPY, CONTENTED MAX BEST

Job done.

HIS SMILE FADES

Hang on. Didn’t I have 8,000 Bitcoin on that laptop? Hey! What the - Hey! Where’s that guy gone?

BEST RUNS INTO THE DISTANCE

Mate! Stop the thing. Open the thing! Maaaaate!