Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

While the women continued their warm-up slash technique drills, I exchanged notes with Briggy about the types of calls I got and the ways she could help me while retaining her primary focus, which was to grab baddies by the head and go huuuurghhhhhhhh and snap their neck.

”I don’t do that, Max. That’s just in movies.”

”I’m going to need you to watch Inside Man and not fall asleep at the end. I need someone to talk to about it.”

”What’s that thing the girl with short hair did?”

”It’s called a nutmeg. Almost everything in this sport gets shortened, so that one’s megs. Kick the ball through someone’s legs and you shout ’megs!’ I was always good at megs even before - ”

”Before what?”

I shrugged vaguely. ”Before I got scouted.” Briggy’s eyes narrowed as she looked around. There was something in the air. I smiled. ”You can feel it?”

”Yes,” she said, confused. ”What’s happening?”

I nodded to the pitch. ”They’re gearing up to do Relationism. It’s like a magnet calling all football fans to the area.”

A few people had appeared, edging along the touchline closer to where Pascal and his assistant coaches had balls, bibs, and water bottles. Brooke emerged from the big building. More people came from the left. A bunch of dudes in shorts carrying backpacks shuffled around from the right. Briggy watched them come closer before suddenly doing a one-eighty. Chester players using the gym had stopped their routines to gather by the big windows or on the roof terrace. A gaggle of youth players emerged from the same door Brooke had, but unlike the American they rushed to the touchline near Pascal and sat cross-legged, wide-eyed.

”The fuck?” said Briggy. ”Why does this remind me of a zombie movie?”

”Because you watch shit zombie movies,” I said. ”All right, it’s the last drills before we hit the main event.” I scanned the players. ”The mood’s good. Up a couple of notches from last week.”

”How can you tell so precisely?”

Mostly I was looking at the Morale numbers in the curse. It was possible to sort the players from highest to lowest Morale, and one of the post-season updates had added an overall summary in the form of a single number. The women were at 5.5 (out of 7), which compared nicely to the men, who were ’only’ on 5.2 despite being on a near-record-breaking winning run. ”I suppose you’d call it the level of banter. Like in a second that girl Meghan is going to take a shot and then her mate Sarah Greene will take the same shot but do it miles better. Watch.”

It happened as I said and Sarah gave Meghan a bit of lip. Meghan bit back. Briggy said, ”It’s fun to watch but it’s not evidence of a good mood.”

”It is,” I said. ”And look at all the little groups. They’re blending together because yesterday we started with eleven backups and they feel they contributed and the firsts are proud of them but they’re also thinking hey, this tiny Welsh girl is coming for my job.”

Briggy clicked her tongue. ”Why is it always about Wales?”

I pointed. ”The Welsh thing sort of starts with her. That’s Mari Hughes. She was one of five Welsh girls I found in a scouting run. I call them the Ffamous five with two Fs. That’s a Welsh thing. You don’t know that? Maybe you’ll see it on a train station one day. Double Fs for days. I had to convince those girls that Chester was the right place for them to come and I got all, you know, charismatic with their parents. All sort of yooooo this is the only place to be, I’ll teach your daughters to play! They were sceptical but I put the girls on the team bus with the older players and that was it, you know? They were starstruck. All five signed up and pretty much straight away I used them in a match that we won. I was like, yeah I’m not messing about here. This is Chester. We get things done. The kids got hyped but the parents got even more hyped and it turned out that one of them was the big kahuna at the Welsh FA. She asked me what I would do to promote football in Wales. I said the best thing would be if I owned a football team in Wales. They saw the logic and helped make it happen.”

Briggy was shaking her head. ”I didn’t follow that at all. Why would it be good if you owned a team in Wales?”

”Because national teams are one area where brute force tactics go well. Scout the country, identify the talents, train the players, double the intake, profit.”

”Seems you can be quite convincing. Why did they fall for it?”

”Because it’s true. Saltney are flying and we don’t even have a stadium. Do you know what the budget for the Welsh FA is?”

”You know I don’t.”

”Eighteen million pounds a year. Do you know what Saltney Town’s budget will be if we make it into the Champions League group stage?”

”Six trillion.”

”It’s rude to do stupid numbers like that. The answer is also eighteen million. I’ll have the same budget as the whole of Wales. And do you know what I’ll do with that?”

”Buy a beach and retire?”

”No. I’m going to double down. Go even harder. Fuck things up, mate.” Just for a second, Briggy seemed properly impressed. Pascal and his assistants were moving the cones around. ”Okay but in a minute you’re going to see Relationism.”

”That’s that thing you’ve been teasing.”

”It’s a style of football I found in Brazil. It’s like the opposite of what most managers do. I mean, I’m feeling like a fucking caveman these days but hopefully I’m the caveman who sort of picked up a bird feather and looked at a blank wall and thought, I’m gonna invent memes.” Briggy giggled, which pleased me. ”Relationism is finesse in a world of brutalism.”

Briggy looked behind us to the swelling crowd and up to the roof terrace. ”This seems like something I should know about.”

”I’m hoping Relationism will be something of a secret weapon when we get to higher leagues. It’s why I gave Pascal this job. He can coach it and that puts him in a group of about two in this entire country. I’m the other one, except I’m shit at coaching, but I think it would be helpful to explain what the opposite of Relationism is. Think you can handle it?”

”Yes.”

”You heard me talk about football as chess, right? If you’re a pawn on the board, do you enjoy chess?”

”No.”

I paused. ”I realise that almost everything I ever say contradicts something I said before, which is frustrating. This weekend I got mad at one of the men’s team because he wasn’t doing what he was told. But that’s because the men’s team primarily does what we call positional play. That’s where the manager is the king. The football pitch is a load of chess squares but obviously it’s more dynamic than chess. If one guy moves up a square, the nearest pieces have to move in a certain arrangement. It must all be carried out according to the design of the floating megabrain, i.e. me.”

”Positional play,” said Briggy, trying to follow.

”Yeah. It’s... It’s all about the manager and his ego. My plan’s better than your plan. My brain’s bigger than your brain. I... I am aware of how boyish that sounds. But okay, that’s what my players understand and it’s what they aspire to be better at. A pawn in chess isn’t paid three hundred thousand pounds a week, is it? But in the abstract, ego is what modern football is all about. It’s a willy-waving contest between two dudes.”

”And you’re not into that?” said Briggy, with a lot more sass than was needed, in my opinion.

”I said it before, I need a purpose. First it was can I get some onions on my kebabs. Then it was can I build up some savings. Then it was can I get married. Then it was can I change football. Now it’s can I fuck up an entire country. I will wash the kit if that’s what it takes to make a positive difference to this shitty, failing planet. I’ve got to be honest, Briggy, I love being smarter than the next guy. I love rocking up to his house and ninety minutes later his fans are booing him because they’ve seen what this sport should look like. Yes, yes, yes. But I knew I needed something radical, revolutionary, and if the current paradigm is all about the manager then the new new thing has to put power in the hands of the players.”

”Relationism.”

I licked my bottom lip. ”Some idiots call it Bestball as though I invented it. That’s disrespectful to the people who actually did. I went to Brazil to study under a guy I assume isn’t in the top hundred practitioners but he was the only one I could find. I put myself in the middle, a real inside man, and tried to learn it through brute force because that’s all I know.”

”That sounds like me in my first days of training. One of the instructors said that I was a hammer so everything I saw looked like a nail. I don’t want to be a hammer.”

I jammed my thumbnail between my front teeth for a few seconds. ”Yeah. You can pick a lock and you can kill a man with, like, a kumquat. What I want...” I said, slowly. ”Someone comes at me with brute force and I turn into a mist. You can’t hammer a mist. Check this out. Pascal’s ready with the first scenario. He learned this from me. We start with a full-sized match then get it smaller and smaller until we’re working on the micro-level skills. What’s exciting is that we’re both new to Relationism and it’s a very emergent technology. Players spontaneously create new patterns, new paradigms. The coach’s job is to stand back and let it happen. I’m much better at being aloof than Pascal, but him being unable to contain his excitement gives instant feedback to the players and they try hard to iterate on what got his approval.”

Briggy was giving me a strange look. ”I can’t even begin to imagine - ”

Pascal blew his whistle and she fell silent. An 11 versus 11 match started, striped bibs versus spots, and at first it looked normal. ”That’s what positional play looks like,” I said. ”Overtly structured. Positioned by the hand of the creator.”

”Hmm. I’ve seen this. About three seconds later, I look away.”

”Don’t look away.”

It took a few more phases of play for the structure to dissolve. Meghan, the central defender, passed to Mari Hughes in midfield. Mari drifted close to a teammate and played a pass to a third player. The three pinged passes around in a quick triangle. Meghan moved closer and the triangle became a square. When the opposition tried to press, the stripes sent more bodies close together, moving to the side of the pitch. Within twenty seconds, almost all of the stripes were in a thin rectangle along the side.

”What?” laughed Briggy.

The spots carefully sent more and more bodies into the mess until they turned the ball over. That triggered a frantic response from the stripes, who reacted like angry wasps until they got the ball back. The spots in turn fell into a frenzy, and the cycle repeated until the ball was jabbed out for a throw-in.

The players spread out in their starting formation and there was a brief stretch of ’normal’ play. Then Sarah Greene dribbled fast and hard to the right until she ran into traffic. When level with the opposition penalty area she pinged passes to her teammates. They formed what I liked to call ’the blob’, a strange, ever-changing, unstructured group of teammates, and when the stripes tried to intercept they were left kicking fresh air. Sarah kept the ball in her team’s possession with one-touch deflections, scooped passes, tricks, flicks, and -

”Megs!” cried Briggy, as Sarah dabbed the ball between a defender’s legs.

The defence rallied and Sarah’s team were forced back, though they kept the ball under their control. Suddenly Sarah was sprinting out of the blob and into the open spaces. The youngest player on the pitch, a thin, lanky girl playing at the base of the blob, fizzed a pass through a clutch of bodies. Sarah gathered the ball, dipped her shoulder, and touched the ball at an angle that confused her direct opponent, Meghan. Sarah burst forward, shaped to shoot, dumped the goalie on her arse, and dribbled to the goal line. She rolled the ball onto the line and started to walk away, as if to say the opposition was so bad she wouldn’t defile her image by scoring against them.

”Holy shit, she’s cocky,” gasped Briggy.

Meghan was steaming back to get the ball. At the last possible second, Sarah turned and kicked the ball across the line. Meghan was not happy and there was some shoving. I heard Sarah call out, ”Don’t be shit, then.”

I snorted.

Briggy’s eyebrows were high and showed no sign of coming down. ”Isn’t this... something to worry about?”

”Nah, they’re best mates. This is, ah... How can I phrase it? It’s a kind of unconscious recognition that our actual opposition isn’t enough of a challenge so the more ambitious players are sort of pushing each other as hard as they can. To put it into context, the team that started yesterday - with eight players under 20 - they’re already better than the weakest team in our league. No, don’t worry about this sort of thing. The women invest a lot more time keeping the mood good, especially the ones who have had experience of shitty dressing rooms. From all the stories I heard, when a women’s dressing room goes bad, it’s unbearable. If I have to intervene with this group I’ll be very surprised. So far all I’ve had to do is let a couple of them know I know they’re squabbling and remind them that I’ll send them into orbit in order to preserve harmony.”

”Which you will, so it’s an effective threat.”

”Yes.”

”But do you know when they’re squabbling?”

”Yes. Case in point - Sarah and Meghan are not. So what did all that trash-talking do? It got Meghan’s gander up. It’s hard to score a goal, right? Meghan will win the next five duels, just you watch, but if Sarah does win the next one she’ll know she earned it against a fired-up, top-quality defender and she’ll be buzzing. Oh my God, how did we get so deep into that? What do you think about Relationism?”

Her neck shot back, pushed away by the eruption of a smile. ”It is beyond weird. It looks like loads of kindergarteners chasing a laser pointer. I think... I want to believe that you’re not completely full of shit but it’s like you’ve just described an amazing painting and then you’ve whipped off the cover and it’s obviously been scribbled by schoolchildren. It... I’m sorry but it doesn’t seem serious. How do you keep track of the players?” Her smile widened. ”Are you going to do this in Munich?”

”Ah, no.” I laughed. ”Hard no. Ha. That would not go down well. Anyway, I won’t be there for long enough. It can be learned relatively quickly but mastering it takes longer. I used it very, very successfully with my youth team but they had been playing together for years and years and the effect is much greater if you know and trust your teammates. Trust is a real issue for me. Two players lost my trust on the weekend. This way of playing you’re watching now, it gets quite esoteric, actually. When I’m coaching this stuff I don’t talk about overlapping full backs and double pivots and that sort of thing. I talk about sharing energy. The ball gives you energy and you have to move it around to lift your mates up.” I frowned hard and lifted my hand to my head as though I was in pain.

”Are you all right?”

”Yeah. I was just thinking... That’s what we did on Saturday. I was down, Christian was down, Colin was low on pep. Zach had loads to spare. Cole was up. We kind of spread the surplus around, took some from the crowd. I thought that was Zach’s leadership but maybe it was a little bit of Relationism training coming out, too.” I looked up and squeezed my eyes in a vain attempt to understand the world a little better. ”Fascinating. It’s like a drug, you know.” The first time I had used Relationism with the youth team, the interface wasn’t the one that had been copied screen-for-screen from an old version of Soccer Supremo. No, the idiots in charge of writing the DLC for the curse had based the new module on the addictive mobile game Candy Crush.

As you might expect, it had messed me up in a big way. It was fun but scary and I had been afraid to use it again. When I had tried Relationism with a different set of players, the interface was much more sedate. I wasn’t sure if the curse had been tweaked so it wouldn’t be so manic or if the interface depended on the group, their familiarity levels, their energy, and their excitement.

”All right, Briggy. This is Relationism. Whatever you’re thinking, I guarantee you’re underestimating its importance. One day, I’m going to change the world with this.” I glanced up at the roof terrace. ”Everything’s looking good here. I’m going to hit the gym for half an hour.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from NovelFire. Please report it.

”Do you know what you’re going to say in the meeting?”

”Yes.”

***

After training, the women piled into Sealbiscuit, our awesome all-electric team bus. I hopped in my repaired Mini and drove. Briggy hated being a passenger, so she was relieved that the trip was so short.

We were having a team meeting in a lecture hall at one of Chester University’s buildings. I would have been happy to do it in the Sin Bin but Sophie and Henri, the producers of our documentary about the women’s team, hated the lighting and since me addressing the troops set the tone for the next few weeks, they wanted good footage.

The lecture hall was unremarkable and it took me a few minutes to ignore the cameras. I made some general remarks about my expectations for the season and assured them I was happy with their progress and their output so far. Then I got to the good stuff.

Using Spectrum’s laptop, I cued up a supercut of incidents from the season so far.

”Okay, ladies, this first compilation is called Chester players crashing shots into defenders from six inches away.” Most of the women laughed. ”Scene one. Who’s this? Oh, it’s Kit.”

Kit Hodges had been our record signing until relatively recently. She was a flame-haired goalscorer who had dropped two divisions in order to get a full-time wage and to be part of a special project. Her CA had ticked very slightly down to 89, but it had remained stable at that level, which was fine by me because she was massively overpowered for the league we were in. She was miles ahead at the top of the goalscoring charts but her habit of shooting whatever the situation was getting on my tits. In the clip, Kit took a shot that crashed straight into a defender and the ball flew away from the danger area. I mean, literally nothing else could have happened. It was insanely stupid, but you could forgive a player for getting excited and making a bad decision.

”Scene two. Who’s this? Oh, it’s Kit.” It was another clip from the same match. ”Scene three. Who’s this? Oh, it’s Kit.” Another clip from the same match! The next one featured a different opponent, but everything else was the same. ”Here’s the plan, ladies. I’m going to show you twenty-three clips from six matches and say the same thing in the same tone again and again. At some point, one of you, hopefully Kit, says Max this is boring. And I make an exasperated face and say, yeah.”

Kit was blushing but was trying to maintain eye contact with me. Defiant!

”People are paying money to see us now, Kit.” I pointed to the screen behind me as I stepped to her. ”This isn’t good enough. In half of these clips there’s someone you could pass to. I’m managing you next week against Durham.” That caused a minor sensation in the room, with many glances being cast towards Pascal, but Durham were keeping pace with us at the top of the league and I wanted to blast them with Bench Boost. If we beat our closest rivals away from home, we would take a huge stride towards winning the league. ”It might not be completely fair but some of the men’s team have pissed me off and I’m feeling very sensitive about selfish play right now.” I turned and pretended to be surprised that the clips were still coming. ”Oh, there are more?”

I played the rest in silence and glanced at Angel. She was our second striker and she was the one suffering the most from Kit’s refusal to pass the ball. Angel was glowing. Kit’s defiance, meanwhile, faded a little with every blocked shot. By the time the clips finished, Kit was very, very still.

I walked back to Spectrum’s laptop. ”Hang on,” I said. ”There’s a little bit more.” I pressed play on a new file, though it seemed to be a continuation of the previous one. ”Who’s this? Oh, it’s me.”

The action was from the men’s team in a famous defeat to Kidderminster Harriers where I had single-handedly tried to claw a way back into the match but a crazy determined defender named Christian Fierce had foiled me at every turn. He had become our record signing and was now our club captain.

I kept my mouth shut as I took shot after shot that Christian or one of his mates blocked.

When it was over, I pointed to the screen. ”I’ve been there, Kit. I know how it goes. There are days you think you have to do everything yourself.” I smiled. ”Not six matches in a row, I don’t think. You’re not up against Christian Fierce, I reckon.”

Kit dipped her head but came up with teeny tiny smile. ”No, Max,” she said, softly.

I brought my palms up to face the group. ”I could have gone in ten different directions with this. Straight passes down the line that pad someone’s stats but the recipient can’t do a fucking thing about. Women sprinting to nowhere to get their running stats up. Big chest bumps after huge tackles but if we go back ten seconds we see it was your shitty, lazy pass that put the team in danger. Do you get me? This is me nudging you back towards a place of team work. You meaning all of you. Okay?”

I took a sip of water knowing that my memoirs would benefit from a break in the blocks of dialogue.

”Next topic,” I said. ”This one is a general issue. It’s called hey, my eyes are up here.” This got a lot of laughs, especially from Kit. ”Yeah, that’s a bit of a crappy title but I couldn’t quite think of the optimal one. Okay, here’s a clip from the first game of the season against West Brom. I’ll just pause that. Does everyone know Briggy? Briggy, see we’ve got a back four here? One two three four spread across the side of the pitch we’re defending, yeah? West Brom have two attackers here and here, ready to press, but they’re not pressing right now. They’re saving energy because there’s no actual threat from us at this point. We’re just gonna move the ball across the pitch, okay? Catch this.” I threw her a laser pointer. ”The ball’s here, do you see? This player is called the right back. She’s going to pass to this centre back here. Can you shine the light to where you think the ball should go?”

”The path or the end point?”

”Whichever you want.”

”Like this?” Briggy aimed the pointer at the ball and moved it about a foot to the closest player.

”Ah, interesting, but you’ve put the ball in between Meghan’s feet, right? If you put it a little bit in front of her, just a little bit, she will be moving forward when she takes control of the ball. If she’s moving forward, we’re creating danger, yes?”

”So you want it about here?” said Briggy, moving the beam.

”I’d say that’s about perfect. Class? No-one wants to speak because they all know what’s coming.” I let the clip run. The pass from the right went about a yard behind Meghan. She had to go back, control it, and push it forward. ”Oops. We’ve lost our momentum. Shame. No matter. Meghan’s going to fizz a pass to Femi, her centre back partner. Briggy, show us where the ball should go.”

”Like this?”

”Amazing. You’re a fast learner. Aaaaand... play.” As before, Meghan passed behind Femi, who had to retrieve it. ”Oh, boy,” I said, in a strained voice. ”Fortunately, Femi’s going to fizz the ball to the left and we’re going to get our momentum back!”

”You said this one wouldn’t be personal,” said Femi.

I smiled. ”It’s not. Two in three of our passes go backwards like this, from everyone.” I let the footage run, and it went from incident to incident, with promising attacks coming to a crashing halt because of sloppy, imprecise passes. ”It’s actually unbelievable. It’s amazing that we ever get as far as the oppo’s penalty box. I mean, look at it. Jesus. No pressure. No pressure on that one. See that one?” I paused. ”This one’s more forgivable, right, because of the angles and the way the pass has to be pushed through. Like, I get that we’re not going to get a hundred percent on this one but I think we can do loads, loads better than we are. Don’t you think?

”Now, one thing I really like is that when you’re on the receiving end of these loose passes you don’t show your displeasure. I think after the twentieth one I would blow a fuse, you know? Which helps no-one. So kudos on that but I think I want to see you remind each other of where these passes should be going. We can do that without it being taken as a personal attack, I think. And in the interests of fairness, I have to say that one of the players who does this the least is Kit. I think it’s because strikers know that if you put the ball behind someone, they aren’t going to be able to send in a cross or play a through ball. All right, bit of an abrupt turn in the conversation coming. We need something to transition from one thing to the other. Briggy, can you come and do some juggling?”

”I can only juggle knives.”

”That’s... upsetting. Oh, how about questions about this stuff I’ve shown you? No? No-one? Straight into the next topic, then.” I pinched my nose. ”Erm... I can’t really give you much information but I might be in a position where I have to deal with a bunch of arrogant, entitled, millionaire footballers. Ha. It might surprise you but I’m not sure I’m really the right person for the job. For example, I came in here and had a pop at our best player, who is almost certain to break our league’s goalscoring record unless I piss her off into wanting to leave the club in January.” Kit sat a little straighter, but I wasn’t sure if it was the way I called her our best player or if it was the idea of leaving. Probably the former. ”I’m also beefing with some of the men, too. It’s always the same stuff and I’d like to try something different, maybe. I was thinking about whose opinions I valued and your name came up. Who better to ask about how to handle men than a room full of women?”

Charlotte, one of our best midfielders, spoke. ”Max, half the girls here are seventeen. They don’t know anything about boys. I’m 24 and if I understood men I would write a book and go on tour and make billions.”

”Er, hang on,” I said. ”You live in a former bed and breakfast with ten men and from what I hear you’ve got the place running like a prison. Poor Tockers can barely speak English but he fucking knows when it’s his turn to hoover the hallway, doesn’t he?”

Most of the room laughed. Maddy Hines, a creative midfielder with tattoos and piercings called out, ”He’s got you there, Charl. You are good with men. Come on, spill the tea.”

Charlotte pushed her short hair away; it fell straight back to where it had been. ”What is it you’re going to do, Max?”

”I can’t give the specifics but let’s say I’ll be a project manager for something and the participants will be famous footballers. They won’t know who I am, they won’t like what they read about me, I won’t be paying their wages. I won’t have any leverage over them, do you know what I mean? Normally I’d think yeah, fine, if you’re going to be difficult it’s no big deal. If you don’t care, why should I? But I need the project to go well so that I can do this other thing that will make you proud of me. I’m just floundering a little bit and I’d love some help.”

Kisi Yalley, the younger sister of James ’Youngster’ Yalley, said, ”Are you asking for our help in making boys like you? Because if so, the documentary is going to take a sharp turn.”

I sizzled down the nearest lens and winked, which got a good reception from the group, but then I sat back and scratched my chin. ”I don’t think I need them to like me...”

Angel, breakout star of Chesterness series 1, said, ”Are you sure?”

I thought about Lee and Matt and Kit. If I wanted them to like me, I wouldn’t have done what I did. ”Yeah. The mission comes first.”

Charlotte said, ”I’d love to help, Max, but I don’t understand how.”

Angel said, in a voice dripping with meaning, ”Max Best is asking how we get what we want from rich, arrogant, famous footballers.”

There was a pause before Kisi went, ”Ohhhhhh!”

”What?” I said, but suddenly loads of women were talking at once.

”Tell him the wrong answer to provoke him into telling the right one.”

”Ask him what he would do if he were you. He loves a spot of micro-managing.”

”He loves bossing people around, you mean.”

”He loves it when you act like his personal waitress.”

”Put your phone away when he’s talking.”

”Let him do most of the talking.”

”Tell him he’s right.”

”And clever.”

”He’s proud of his hair.”

”And his girlfriend.”

”Don’t take it personally if he’s talking to you and then starts staring into space.”

I held my hands up. ”What the hell are you talking about?”

For some insane reason, all the women turned to look at the eighteen-year-old Angel. She said, ”We’re not very good at it, Max. When it comes to the kind of person you’re describing, we don’t normally get what we want. The person you’re describing is crazy stubborn. He’s not stupid, though. If you explain what you’re doing and why, he might go along with it, especially if it benefits him or he thinks it’s funny. If he’s got the wrong idea about something and you spell it out for him, he can change his mind. But if you want one thing and he wants something else, forget it.”

There was something really strange about the way they had been talking since Kisi said oh! But Angel had basically confirmed what I had been worrying about. ”Yeah, so, it’s virtually impossible to manipulate one of these guys. They’ve got enough money...”

Angel said, ”Have you got enough money, Max?”

”Me?” I said, in a dismissive tone. ”I’ve barely got any. I don’t even own my own home. No, it can’t be money with this lot. What else are they into? Maybe if I had more time to get to know them... but I don’t. What the hell am I supposed to do with twenty stubborn arseholes who each have their own motivations?”

”Oh, that one’s easy,” said Kit. ”Do what you just did to me but for each of them. Half an hour later, you’ve united them against a common enemy. You.”

I smiled, but I knew something about Kit. While she hadn’t liked being named and ’shamed’ - who would? - her Morale hadn’t dropped and in the Future part of her profile were two phrases that had been there at the start of the meeting. The first went: ’Is delighted with the team’s form.’ The second: ’Hopes the club can hang on to Sarah Greene’. But a new one had appeared when I announced I would be the manager for the next game. ’Is keen to impress her new manager.’

I checked the time. Pascal wanted to take this opportunity to discuss some tactics, which meant my time was up. ”I’ll finish with one little message. It’s three and a half hours to Durham and the same back. If we don’t win on Sunday, I’m choosing the music on the way home.”

Angel frowned, shrugged, and said, ”You tell us what we’re doing wrong and you give us incentives to win. It’s like, hello? It’s not that complicated. You’re good at this.”

***

Wednesday, October 28

Vans Trophy Final Group Stage Match: Chester (League One) versus Doncaster Rovers (League Two)

The latest blog post from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.

Hey Nonny Nonny Let’s Dunk on Donny

Donny came to the Deva and all they got was a dunk and a doughnut. Doncaster’s Rovers were dunked out of the Vans Trophy - it’s over - with no goals scored - oh, Lord! Chester served up a sweet treat for their fleet of fans, playing sugar rush football out of a neat 3-4-3 suite. Next up’s Rotherham but that won’t bother ’em. Wembley here we come!

The only goal came early, as Gabriel scored a powerful header from a Bark corner. Chester pressed for a second but were denied by a wonderful performance from Doncaster’s goalie. Despite the thin margins, manager Max Best felt confident enough in the win to give minutes to Peter Bauer, Jamie Brotherhood, and Alfie Clitheroe. Fitzroy Hall got his fifth start of the season, while Ryan Jack caught the eye in the first half.

Lee Contreras was not named in the match day squad, giving credence to the rumours that he had picked up a minor knock. Best himself didn’t play. Perhaps he is saving himself for the weekend’s FA Cup first round tie against Sutton United, who News of the Blues readers might remember tried to get Chester a transfer ban simply to improve their chances of winning a match against us. If you don’t remember that incident, don’t worry. Max Best does.

Attendance: 1,109. Full match report and photos to follow.

***

Saturday, October 31

FA Cup First Round: Sutton United versus Chester

I thought I was over Sutton but when I got to the stadium I found I wasn’t. I wanted to smash them up good, humiliate them, punish them for the time they had attempted to destabilise us just so we would be off balance for a league match. Fortunately, I had mapped out the entire plan back home in Chester and it was so specific I pretty much had to stick to it.

I had named myself on the bench in case of emergency, but I wanted the 900-odd XP I would get for managing more than I wanted a goal. There was no challenge to the match, anyway. Sutton had an average CA of 68, which was a little lower than I’d been expecting.

We were using 3-4-3 with Sticky in goal and Cole and Fitzroy looking after Peter Bauer. Andrew Harrison (87/121) started in central midfield - he was creeping ever closer to Lee’s level. On the left of midfield I picked Josh Owens and this would be a rare match where I allowed him to unleash his long throw. He could hurl the ball absolutely miles, which caused panic in the opposition box. It was unpleasant to watch but that’s what I wanted from the day, and that’s also why I’d picked Gabriel and Dazza to start - they were just as big and strong as Sutton’s cavemen defenders.

Overall, we had an average CA of 92.7, so when I replaced Ryan Jack with the youthful Alfie Clitheroe in the second half, we would still have far too much quality for Sutton.

We kicked off and it was ugly stuff. I’d told the lads to hit it high and central. Dazza and Gabby competed for headers and Colin Beckton hared after the deflections and rebounds. Ryan Jack clipped free kicks into the danger area. Josh Throw-Ins hurled.

We brute-forced two first half goals and brute-forced two second half goals. Gabby scored one in each half but he also had two goals disallowed because he was caught offside when we hit a long shot that the keeper saved. I hadn’t explained offside to Briggy yet but this scenario was simple - Gabby was being lazy. I wished I had brought Luisa down to London with us so she could shout at him in Portuguese. No matter - I would clip the incidents into a video and smack Gabby over the head with it.

Peter came through unscathed, more or less. His CA of 78 put him at the bottom of League One in terms of quality. He was adding a point or two per week, which was really exciting.

The plan was to simply walk out of the stadium having gathered a solid haul. We were through to the second round of the FA Cup and I had added 919 XP.

XP balance: 3,140

Soon I would have enough to buy a new formation. I would see what that unlocked, but the following purchase would probably be another Attribute.

”Max,” said Briggy, who had come into the dressing room. ”Someone’s here to see you. He looks like a pirate.”

I frowned because I knew exactly who she meant. Pedro Porto, the manager of Manchester United. Why was he in London watching a crappy cup match? Yeah, easy answer. Man United were playing West Ham the next day. Why not arrive early and scout Wibbers and Youngster? Pedro was probably going to complain that I hadn’t used them. ”Coming,” I said.

I went out into the corridor and sure enough, it was him. Loads of people were going up and down the corridor almost tripping over their feet as they saw him. The manager of Manchester United! Here! It didn’t bother me, even though I was objectively better looking.

”Max,” he said, offering a handshake.

”PP,” I said, clasping his hand. ”Nah, cut that, that’s all kinds of wrong. Pedro, this is Briggy, my assistant.”

They exchanged pleasantries. ”Max, that was terrible. Is this how you play now?”

”Yeah. I’ve pivoted from wanting to be everyone’s second favourite team to everyone’s second least favourite team.” I gave him a friendly punch. ”After Man United.”

He offered me a thin smile. ”Hated, adored, never ignored. That’s how our fans want it. Max, I would like to talk about Matt Rush.”

That blew my mind. Matt was barely in the top fifty players at United and Pedro Porto was under pressure. Despite everything that was going on around him, he was making time for that little shithead? ”Uh, weird. Well, he’s not inside.”

”I know. He’s outside. We watched the match together. He told me this long ball - how do you say - bombardeamento? - was your plan but I didn’t believe him. He has been telling me about life at Chester FC.”

”He has mentioned my shit man management, I bet. You can believe him about that one, too.”

Pedro looked at his watch. ”When are you leaving? An hour, perhaps? Can we sit and discuss?”

I inwardly groaned. Talking about Matt Rush for any length of time was not my idea of fun. I thought about Emma and Inside Man and George Clooney. Who better to learn some finesse from than Pedro Porto? The guy oozed class. ”Yeah, I suppose,” I said. ”Oh!” I said, brightening. ”Just had an epic idea. I need a Portuguese speaker to come and yell at my player. Come in for a second and say Gabriel, if you are caught offside like that again I will punch you in the dick.”

Pedro laughed from surprise. ”I will not say that, no.”

”Okay, say if you are caught like that again, Max will punch you in the dick.” Pedro chuckled but I was getting hyped. ”Imagine this on a Brazilian talk show twenty years from now! Think about it, mate! Gabby’s there reflecting on his career. He goes yeah I moved to England and had a mediocre season but I got a big-money transfer to Chester and I struggled again but I was starting to find my feet. One day at a random stadium in London I scored two goals and thought I had done well. Who comes in the dressing room to congratulate me? The manager of Manchester United! He jabs his finger in my face, tells me if I’m offside for being lazy again he’ll cut my balls off, and he leaves. I never spoke to him again! Think about it, Pedro. Think of the reaction to that story! And think what it’ll do for Gabriel. He thinks he can stroll around because it’s a tiny stadium and no-one’s watching but when he realises you were here, he’ll never fucking slack off again. Mate, come on. Come on, mate!”

Pedro’s smile had been widening as I got more and more into the tale, and he finally cracked. ”Okay, I do it. I do it - in my voice - and then we talk about Matt, okay?”

”That’s a deal.” Before we went in, I noticed Briggy giving me a strange look. I leaned closer to her. ”What?” I mumbled.

”You do not suck at your job.”

My morale spiked to preposterous levels. I’d earned the Briggy seal of approval! I took my shining eyes and blasted them right at Pedro. ”You ready? Let’s go inside, man.”