Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

6.

Tuesday, August 4

Champions League Qualifying Third Round First Leg - Lech Poznan versus Saltney Town

Twenty Minutes After the Final Whistle

”Hello and welcome to my latest video. My name is Przemek and with me is Max Best from Saltney Town in Wales, College and other clubs in Gibraltar, and he’s the player-manager of Chester FC.”

”Czesc.”

We were in a little office that Lech Poznan’s media manager had found for us away from the other journalists. We wouldn’t be disturbed in here but I wondered what the point of it was. I hadn’t planned to talk to anyone from the media while I was in Poland, so why was I talking to the world’s most boring man? ”Usually on this channel we discuss about UEFA coefficients and make projections about Poland’s position in the order. This time is a little different. Max Best has agreed to talk to me and I am very thankful. Max, I am sorry about my bad English.”

”I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. Just let me clarify a couple of things if that’s all right. This channel is, like, 100% in Polish normally?”

”Yes.”

”And you’ve got seven thousand subscribers?”

”Yes.”

I scrunched my little face up. Przemek’s phone was on a stand a couple of yards ahead of us, and we were facing it. The guy looked to be in his late thirties with the slim build of a cyclist, decent biceps, great glasses, and a chunky watch. His hairline was receding but he was a very solid guy, very professional and serious, and if he hadn’t gone into sports journalism he could have had a tremendous career in private banking or as an optician. ”I’m confused, to be honest. On the one hand, seven thousand isn’t a lot compared to most YouTubers who want to talk to me. But considering your specialist subject is, ah, the UEFA coefficients and how they affect Polish clubs, I mean... it’s about seven thousand more than I would have expected.”

Przemek nodded his agreement. ”It is not a topic of general interest.”

”That’s one way to put it. I can’t tell if I love the idea of this channel or hate it. You’re not doing this for the money, I reckon.”

”No. It is what you might call a passion. Through these numbers I investigate Poland’s place in the European order and assess the health of our clubs, our top division, and ultimately the prospects of our national team. Of course for most people the direction of the analysis is too dry but the numbers tell stories and as football fans we are too prone to emotion. The discussions we have on this channel are heated but respectful and as far as possible are based on objective truth.”

”Przemek, you’re starting to intrigue me.”

”It is shortly after the first leg of the tie between Lech Poznan and Saltney Town has finished. Max, I do not even know where to start.”

”We should start in 2024, right? The UEFA rankings are on a rolling five-year thingy.”

”If you don’t mind, I would like to ask some questions about the match I just witnessed. I almost don’t want to but my fellow professionals here in Poland won’t take me seriously if I don’t at least try.”

”Mate,” I said, leaning closer to him. ”I can’t tell if you’re depressed or if that’s just your face.”

”I am depressed.”

”Why? Are you a Poznan?”

He sighed. ”I am not. As I said, my interest is primarily in the health of the Polish national team and the Ekstraklasa, our top division. On this channel I follow the UEFA rankings as a proxy for the overall health of the sport in this country. Based on what I have just seen, the rankings are not reliable and our players are hopeless.”

”They’re not hopeless, Przemek. Come on, cheer up! Ask me anything. I’ll do my best to answer.”

”I like to be organised and to have a plan. That might not be compatible with having a guest.”

”I like plans.”

”My suggestion is that we talk about this single match, followed by a wider discussion of club football in general, followed by a discussion of the national teams.”

I looked around, pretending to be alarmed. ”I don’t remember agreeing to an 8-hour interview! I have to leave quite soon, mate. We’ve got a flight home.”

”Yes, of course. If it gets too slow for you please let me know because you have become a major point for discussion on this channel.”

”Me?”

”Yes. We create theories and you blow them up. We create models and you blow them up. I have no doubt that this video will receive an extraordinary number of comments by the standards of our community.”

”The most upvoted comment: Great video, who’s still watching in 2027?”

My interviewer’s face transformed and he laughed incredibly hard. ”We do not attract such comments, fortunately. I get ones on old videos that say, what’s the phrase in English? This prediction aged like milk. All the ones where I gave College 1975 a nought comma one percent chance of making it into the league phase of the Conference League, for example. I have you to thank for that.”

I winked at the camera. ”Always bet on Best.”

”May I speak plainly, since we are short on time?”

I leaned back. I still wasn’t sure quite why I had agreed to do this, but I was starting to like the guy. ”Yeah, hit me hard, bro. I can take it.”

”As you might guess, on this channel we deal mostly in facts, in numbers, but we are football fans and we try to balance the result with the process with the financial expenditure involved with the quality of the play and by any metric the result tonight was preposterous. But what struck me most was how angry you appeared to be at the start.”

”Um, no, I wasn’t angry. I was pissed off.”

”What’s the difference?”

I smiled. ”The difference is I promised my therapist I would try to be less angry.”

Przemek’s forehead creased up. ”I do not follow.”

”I was making a joke about self-delusion but there are different kinds of anger, right? One is just a blind rage. Tonight wasn’t anywhere close to that. It was maybe partly fuelled by just existential angst. Stuff happens, builds up, things don’t go your way, and what’s great about football is that you have a safety valve to let all that steam out. Lech Poznan are the Railwaymen, right? So the first five minutes was me letting out a couple of days of steam. Choo choo! Goodbye to that built-up annoyance. It’s all very healthy, I assure you. Heh.”

***

Monday, August 3 - The Day Before

The sound of a thousand Hell’s Angels flying down a quiet country road in Chester was disconcerting, to say the least. I stood up, annoyed, and shaded my eyes from the morning sun while I looked at our bedroom window. If the pricks woke Emma up I would install fucking speed bumps on the road. What would it cost me? Five thousand quid? The local council was so skint it would take years for them to get round to removing the bumps and by then, Emma and I would be in our dream house far away from roads you could drive fast on.

The motorbikes seemed to be getting noisier and closer, and I realised with a sudden waterfall of furious clarity that it wasn’t an entire motorbike gang but one car, and it was going up Ruth’s driveway. Another dozen explosions of engine noise revved my anger into the red zone. I dropped my trowel and strode fast towards Ruth’s house. Fast and furious.

What I saw when I emerged from our secluded little plot was one of those obnoxious supercars that costs as much as a hospital. A short dude was getting out one side, and a gorgeous, much younger brunette was getting out the other.

As I strode towards them at high speed, I introduced myself. ”What the fuck are you doing, you stupid prick?”

”What?” said the guy, pole-axed. I realised that I was yelling at Elliot Speed, the former England striker who was, without a shadow of a doubt, the best football player who had ever been born in Chester. Dixie Dean’s parents were both from Chester, but the great man himself had been born in Birkenhead. I was finding lots of good players around the city but no-one in Speed’s class. I reckoned he had been PA 190. Maybe even 195. He certainly had elite Pace and Finishing. He had played for four of the biggest clubs in the world - plus Newcastle United - and if I remembered right, Speed was sixth on England’s all-time goalscorers list.

Fortunately for my rage, he was also an all-time prick so it was easy to stay mad at him. ”Shut the fuck up with that engine, you knob. This isn’t the fucking Nürburgring, it’s a quiet stable in the countryside. You’ve woke my girlfriend and you’ve scared the horses. If I ever hear this fucking engine again I’ll be back out here with a sledgehammer.”

I turned and strode back to our cottage.

Emma was by our gate, bleary-eyed after a night on the town celebrating with Brooke and the girls. ”What’s going on? Who are you yelling at?”

”Some prick and his inappropriately-aged girlfriend. It’s cool, babes, you can go back to bed.”

She put her hand to her forehead before slowly opening her eyes and looking at me. ”Am I still drunk or are you wearing nothing except boxer shorts and gardening gloves?”

”You’re still drunk. But yeah, maybe that’s why he didn’t say anything when I told him off.” She didn’t speak and didn’t move. ”What? Do you want me to carry you back upstairs?”

Emma stared towards Ruth’s driveway. She spoke quietly as though every syllable was making her skull vibrate with pain. ”Ruth told me she was expecting someone today. Famous player turned racehorse owner wants to buy his daughter a dressage horse. So they turn up, excited to see this lovely thing that someone has recommended to them... and Max Best appears out of nowhere and shouts at them while wearing boxers and gloves. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be an anecdote in someone’s next after-dinner speech?” She rubbed her head some more. ”Is this going to bite you on the arse?”

”Don’t give a fuck. No-one wakes you up except me when I’ve got an amazing new joke I urgently have to tell you.”

She groaned. ”No, babes, no jokes. Not right now. I can’t. I just can’t.”

I smiled and bent to look at a little beetle thing that was scampering around. It was fast but aimless, rather like how Elliot Speed had spent most of his career. ”That guy can’t hurt me; everyone in football thinks he’s a prick.”

”So as the king of the opposite, you like him.”

”For once, the wisdom of the crowd actually works. He’s awful. Imagine being in the top 10 goalscorers for your country and no-one likes you. That’s him. When he’s doing match commentary I wish I had a separate, enormous remote control that was just a mute button, you know, so that you could really enjoy the moment you shut him up. Hey, giant mute button is not a bad idea. I might ask Pradeep if he can make one. He loves making things with Raspberries.”

”What?”

”Pi.”

”Babes.”

”I’m not doing a joke! Raspberry Pi! The little computer things. I told you about them at least five times. Okay, go back to bed.”

”Will you carry me?”

”Yep.”

I started to tug my gloves off but she said, ”Leave them on.”

I snorted. ”You’re so weird.”

***

Former Premier League Goalkeeper: Hi, Max. Thanks again for the offer and your interest in signing me, but I’m going to have to decline. That match against Wrexham was just a bit too out there. I’ve been third-choice at a top-half Premier League club for the last two years and I’ll say one thing for it - it was stability. I don’t want to jump into a madhouse.

Me: Okay.

***

MD: I’ve been trying to call you. I suppose you’re on the treadmill. UEFA finished the draw for the playoff round. If we beat Poznan, we’ll play against Celtic. Glasgow Celtic! Tell me what you think.

Me: That’s the hardest draw we could have got.

MD: Oh.

Me: And it’ll cost us extra, too.

MD: Why?

Me: We’ll need a translator.

***

Przemek was making notes as he went, trying to make sure we covered all the key points. ”So tonight was, what, a steam train against a horse and carriage?”

”No. We were doing a Formula One theme.”

”Theme? What do you mean by that?”

”I try to give my players a story to understand what I want from the match.”

”We saw you out on the pitch giving instructions. You wanted a fast start. Was that the Formula One angle?”

”Kind of.”

***

One Hour to Go

”All right, shut the fuck up,” I said. I had been thinking about skipping this part, but if there’s one thing football players like - apart from winning and getting paid millions of pounds - it’s routine. I rested my hand on top of our flipchart and spoke to the floor. ”My favourite movie is Formula One: The Movie. It stars Brad Pitt as John Formula.”

Carl Carlile cracked into a dubious smile. ”That’s not his name.”

”It is,” I said, with my mouth talking shit on cruise control. ”John Formula. That’s why when he’s not sure if he should take a job in F1, his mate says, bro, give me your driver’s licence. Look! You’re Formula, John. You were born to drive that car. And John goes oh, yeah, I never thought of that. I’ll do it.”

Danny Prince, the left back we had on loan from Blackburn, tilted his head. ”I saw you watching it on the plane. Is it good? I checked out the trailer and thought, no thanks.”

”You’re big on story, Danny. You love a character arc and, if you don’t mind me revealing this to the group, you love a bit of texture.”

”I do,” he said, ”that’s true.”

Vincent Addo clicked his teeth. ”No way. You’re into three-act structure and the more tropes the better.”

I pointed at the Ghanaian defensive midfielder. ”Tropes, yes. Formula One: The Movie, my favourite movie, is full of tropes, most of which are botched. But the loud, fast bits rekindled the love of very loud, very fast cars that I suddenly developed yesterday morning when a rich prick came to my house driving a very loud, very fast car. Some of you are thinking, but Max, don’t you own an eco-friendly, quiet Mini that doesn’t scare nearby animals? That’s right, I do, because I’m an enlightened member of society and I don’t need to compensate for anything.”

Sam Topps said, ”How is your dick, by the way?”

”Henri? He’s fine. Okay, as I was saying, I know loads about cars and Formula One. Look what I came up with. You won’t believe this took me under twenty minutes.” I turned the page on the flipchart to reveal five words.

TORQUE

LOTUS

CONSTRUCTOR

TYRE

YELLOW FLAG

While the lads were digesting the vocab, I popped the lid off a marker pen. ”For my team torque today,” I said, underlining the first word, ”Lotus talk about the importance of team work. If we can constructor good move, we will make the oppo tyre, but look out for the yellow flag because that means you’re offside.”

Aff said, ”Boss, this is your worst team talk ever.”

”I know,” I said, chucking the marker towards the base of the flipchart. ”This isn’t the real talk.” I looked up. “The movie had some good bits. They did a good job of conveying the scale of each race. Each one’s its own cup final. Guy says to John Formula, if you win this race, for one day at least, you can say you’re the best driver in the world. That was cool. If we win here tonight against a team that cost five times more than us, I’ll feel like the best manager in the world.

“Another good element was that Brad Pitt’s character jogs around the track before he races on it and the drivers are always rehearsing in the simulator. The younger guy is even seen visualising the race. We’re gonna go and do all that now. Come on.”

I sped out and everyone scrambled to follow me. Briggy hadn’t been expecting this and she overtook me. ”To the pitch?”

”Yes,” I said. ”But first we’re waiting in the tunnel.”

I made the first eleven line up, exactly as we would be doing in under an hour, and when I was satisfied they had their game faces on, led them out onto the pitch. I made them line up again, this time facing the main stand, and told them to imagine they were hearing Yellow Submarine being sung by 20,000 Polish people.

They thought that part was a joke.

Then I took them on a lap of half the pitch, yelling at anyone - Vincent Addo - who cut corners. ”That’s the stadium,” I said. ”42,000 capacity, noisy, good atmosphere. There will be about half that today. They do that fucking Poznan thing where they turn away from the pitch and bounce around.”

”Oh!” said Omari Naysmith. ”That’s the Man City thing! They call it the Poznan. Did they steal it from these guys?”

”Yeah. I fucking despise it and every time they do it today I’m going to fuck their team up. This way.”

I brought them to the edge of the penalty area.

”Both teams are doing 4-2-3-1. We’re the same starters as last week but Magnus is going back to CB and I’m doing DM. I’m going to be marauding, though. Sticky, back four, line up here for me.” The guys shuffled into position, standing in their basic shape like magnets on an enormous tactics board. ”I’ll be starting deep but playing as another attacker. I want a fast start but I don’t want to go crazy so only one full back attacks at a time. Danny, Cheb, you get me?”

”Yes, boss.”

”You’re on opposite sides of the pitch but I need you to communicate. You go, I stay. Work it out.”

I moved Vincent into a central DM slot.

”Vinni, you’re in the rest defence. Stay disciplined. I don’t really want you crossing the halfway line unless Poznan are all the way back.”

A cameraman was wondering what we were up to and was jogging closer. I pointed at him. Sam Topps grabbed Carl Carlile and together they intercepted the guy and suggested he might want to leave us alone.

Magnus Evergreen said, ”We’re on the pitch and the stands are filling up. Why stop the cameraman from coming?”

”Because it’s rude. He didn’t get an invite to this meeting.”

Aff said, ”You wouldn’t usually show your hand like this. Telling the other team what you’re up to.”

”Yeah but it was in the movie and I want to try it. Also, they do short passes from the goalie because they want us to press to create space behind our forwards. So if they’re watching this, they’re rubbing their hands. If I had a surprise for them I wouldn’t be out here, that’s true, but both teams are gonna do what’s expected. It’s all about who executes their plan.”

Aff nodded. ”All right, so.”

I flicked my head towards the other half of the pitch. ”Poznan are fine. They’re better than College, more well-rounded, much better bench.” Average CA 115. After a slower week of improvements, ours would be 112.3. ”They have some attacking firepower, but they’ve conceded 15 goals in their last 6 games. They’re brittle and we’re going to attack and we’re gonna win this fixture tonight. Tonight!” I took the temperature down a few notches and pointed to the six-yard box. ”Kobi, give us a short pass, please.”

Kobi Ellis was happy to be involved. He was only CA 54 but he was a million times better than our third-choice keeper for the simple reason that our third-choice keeper, Cody Williams, wasn’t allowed to fly to Poland on a school night.

”Lucas, Well In, will you be his passing options, please?”

Well In knew what I wanted to do and he stood in a spot to the right of the goalie (from my perspective). It took Lucas Hussein a second to understand, but then he dropped to be level with Well In on the other side of Kobi.

Lucas was my favourite ever CA 13 player because he had given me a priceless piece of knowledge. I had found him when the Feedback Loop token was active, which meant I got bonus experience points when he hit certain milestones. My theory was that playing in continental competition would be one of those - and I was right. When he took to the pitch against College I got an instant 700 experience points. That was amazing. The bonus appeared to be linked to the amount of XP per minute I got for watching matches, which almost certainly meant Lucas would get 700 for playing in the Premier League, 600 for appearing in the Championship, and so on. A very hackable perk! The Feedback Loop token was staying put.

”Great. You’ve seen this a million times. This is how most teams take goal kicks.” I got Gabby, Wibbers, Tom, and Davey, our four most forward players, lined up on the edge of the box and stood behind Tom with my hands on his waist. ”Right, lads, listen up. Formula One race. Red lights go on.” I started revving Tom up by means of pulling him and pushing him. ”Red one, red two, red three, red four, red five, wait for it, Kobi! Lights out!”

Kobi passed the ball to Well In and I shoved Tom towards the ball.

Tom was the only one that sprinted towards Well In, who quickly moved the ball back to Kobi.

”Hey!” I yelled. ”The fuck?” I got in Gabby’s face. ”Run!” I got in Wibbers’ face. ”Fucking run!” I got in Davey’s face and turned sarcastic. ”Not you, Davey. You’re a special snowflake. Do it again!”

We reset.

”Red three, red four, red five, wait for it, lights out!”

Kobi passed to Well In, who had three guys sprinting at him. ”Shit,” he laughed. He gave the ball back to Kobi, who hacked the ball away. It clattered off Gabby’s outstretched foot and went behind for a goal kick. It could have gone straight into our goal. It could have gone anywhere.

”That’s our first half tactic, lads. That’s the plan. Press like fucking maniacs at goal kicks. I’ll be close behind you four and so will one of the full backs. We’re pressing high and hard with six. If we get them into a corner they’re going to spin off. Attack the corners, lads, just like the world’s best driver, actual pensioner Brad Pitt. We do this again and again, relentlessly, until they start kicking long. At that point, they’re just giving the ball to us and we attack conventionally with six, four in the rest defence. Guys, listen to me very closely. We have a week until the next match. You can spend a week in the hydrotherapy room nibbling on blueberries. Fuck, I’ll hand-feed you grapes if you want. But you fucking put the effort in today. That’s it. Get yourselves ready for pain and suffering.”

***

”What I wanted,” I told Przemek, ”was to press harder than we normally do, and the best way to show that is to show it.”

”Why did you want to press harder?”

”I just sensed a weakness in the oppo that I hadn’t seen on video. You can prepare for teams as much as you want but when you get to the stadium you need to be able to pivot. We didn’t pivot, exactly, since we kept the same lineup and formation, but we dialled up the intensity.”

”What was it you saw?”

”Erm... that’s hard to say.”

***

Twenty Minutes to Go

I walked from the pitch towards the dressing room. Some TV clowns wanted to talk to me, but I veered around them and past Lech Poznan’s cute media manager. She had made an effort to get me to talk to the waiting journalists, but as I had explained to her, that was Well In’s job.

Briggy fell into step beside me and escorted me to the dressing room. Once inside, she relaxed and hopped up onto a treatment table with her legs dangling. ”You’re doing your team talks on the pitch. Is that part of your engagement strategy?”

I shook my head. ”Visualisation. Rehearsal. Also, you think a week’s a long time to plan for a match but it’s not, especially if you lose days to flights and hotels. But there’s also the fact that I’ve only just seen Poznan in the flesh.”

”And you’re not impressed.”

”They’re the champions of Poland. I expected more.”

”What’s wrong with them?”

”Nothing. But, like, they’re only as good as us. They won the league last season and sold a couple of players but I know for a fact they didn’t get much money and the new kids are fine but they’re raw. They have weak spots and I’m going to put pressure on them until they crack.”

”They’re only as good as us, you said. So it should be an even match.”

”Their eleven is as good as our ten. But then there’s me.” I eyed Briggy to check her reaction. She didn’t seem to find it overly cocky. ”I need that money.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it’s taken without the author’s consent. Report it.

She kicked her legs. ”There’s something making me doubt you. You’re not sure about your strategy.”

”I am sure, but I know there will be a cost. What I’d love to do today is win 1-0, scoring from our only chance, draw 0-0 in the second leg, concede 20 shots and appear to have scrambled through by sheer dumb luck.”

”Because you’re thinking ahead to the Keltic game.”

”Sell-tic.”

”Right. Why can’t I remember that?”

”Because - ” I started, but then I broke into a smile. ”I might call them Keltic in the media the week before we play them. Wind them up. Get them kicking us instead of playing. Could be fun.”

”Yeah, what you need is more people kicking you in your dick.”

”Keltic are a massive club and you have to presume they’ve got analysts for days. If we play our absolute best today, that’ll give them loads of footage to analyse.” I pulled at my lip. I had two Bench Boosts left, didn’t I? If I made three or four early subs, my starting line up against Celtic would probably be pretty crazy. ”There are so many advantages to winning big tonight. First up, it might be our only chance. Poznan could have a great week in training where everything clicks. I can’t assume they’ll be rubbish next week. Okay and if we win big we can put out a weird team next week. As a manager you look to a team’s most recent match, right? That carries the most weight. And if we do enough today, it gives us an extra week to analyse Celtic.”

”Keltic.”

”Right.”

”How come they’re not playing tonight? It’s like they’re already through to the playoff round.”

”That’s exactly what they are. They have enough coefficient points to skip some rounds. It’s like they’re seeded.”

”To use a saying from your favourite sport, they start at the front of the grid.”

”It’s more like they start on the final lap, but yeah. Saltney Town had zero coefficient points going into this season and it’s calculated over five years so as we pick up wins in Europe we will be able to skip some of the early rounds. That’s not necessarily ideal because if we start in the playoffs, like Keltic do, we won’t have time for our team to gel and I want be able to say to lads, come and play for us, you could get eight games in Europe. On the other hand, skipping rounds skips you to the bigger prize pots.”

”It sounds like you should talk to an expert in all this coefficient stuff.”

”No it doesn’t. The numbers are important but in the end, the task is the same. You get the best players you can and win as many matches as you can. I’m just focusing on that and the rest of the crap will take care of itself.”

Briggy’s legs kicked a few more times, stopped, started again, and stopped. ”Okay,” she said, finally. ”Here’s what it is. I would like to ask for a favour.”

”Hmm,” I said, eyeing her.

”It’s just a tiny one. Painless.”

”Hmm.”

She smiled. ”I have been talking to Kasia, the media manager here.”

”Oh, my God,” I said, putting my hands on my head in disbelief. ”When? We just got here!”

”We arrived last night, Max. Kasia understands - ”

”Hang on,” I said, hand raised. I pinched my nose. ”When you said I had to go to bed early for my safety, did you then rush off to the fucking stadium to flirt with a Polish woman you just met?”

”No,” she said.

”Briggy,” I said.

”It wasn’t the stadium, it was a bar. Listen, please. Kasia understands why you don’t want to make her life easy and you only want to drive engagement when it suits you and not when it suits Kasia’s carefully-chosen media partners.”

”What the shit is happening? Why are you talking like a corporate shill?”

Briggy’s smile grew bigger. ”There is a man who used to work with Kasia at her former job. He was incredibly kind to her and helped her get through tough times and now she has a nice position and he is struggling and she would like to repay his kindness by giving him the only interview Max actual Best does in Poland. What a scoop! As you love to say. He runs a tiny YouTube channel - no, don’t pull that face - a tiny channel that focuses entirely on Poland’s standings within the UEFA coefficients.”

That stopped the gears in my head from grinding. ”What? No way. That’s a niche within a niche within a niche. It’s... Who would watch that?”

”Max, I can’t explain it because I don’t understand any of it and I don’t want to understand any of it. I would like to tell Kasia that you have agreed to give this guy five minutes. I would like that very much and I will owe you a favour.”

I shook my head. I had to do an interview with Poland’s biggest nerd because Kasia was Briggy’s type? ”What are you going to do? Bring her to Norway?”

I probably shouldn’t have mentioned Norway; Briggy’s private life was none of my business. If she wanted a girl in every port, who could blame her? Her eyes widened but she chose to be amused. ”Polish media managers are to me what joggers are to you.”

”Don’t bring joggers into this! Joggers and I go way back!”

”Can I tell Kasia that I’ll ask you again after the match?”

”Yeah, whisper all kinds of promises in her ear. But try to stay alert during the match; I’m going to piss off a lot of ultras today.”

***

Ten Minutes to Go

I had forgotten Briggy’s request almost as soon as the rest of the lads came back into the dressing room to make their final preparations. There was a ton of money riding on this fixture. Winning would keep us on the path towards 18 million quid. Defeat would send us spinning down towards the 4 million quid consolation prize.

It was a rare match where I couldn’t hold back. Wibbers would take the pens and as far as poss I would let someone else take the corners and direct free kicks, but if there was a juicy chance to score I had to take it.

I was allowing myself 8 goals and 19 assists for the season and if a whole chunk of those came in Poland, so be it.

”Hey, Tom,” I said, crouching in front of him as he re-taped his shinpads, as was his superstition. ”How you feeling?”

”Great,” he said, smiling back. ”It’s an amazing stadium, starting to fill up. You promised me nights like these. Do they really sing Yellow Submarine?”

”Yeah. They use the tune, anyway. Maybe they changed the words, I don’t know. What I do know is that this match was made for you. You’re the king of the high press, mate. Tonight we’re all Tom Westwood. I’m gonna do my best Tom Westwood impression but there ain’t nothing like the real thing, yeah?”

He bit his lip and nodded. ”Yeah. I won’t let you down.”

I went to Wibbers. We had been letting him do more defensive training so that he would be able to fit into systems that required forwards to do what we were planning to do tonight. ”You know what I want, Will?”

”Think so. Run fast but don’t dive in. Be on my feet for the turnovers. Be ready to score.”

”Yeah, you’re part of the press but you’re not the whole press and the whole point of the press is to get the ball to you fast and in a dangerous position against an unstructured defence. You can’t score if you’re exhausted but we can’t get the ball if you don’t chip in.”

”Find the balance,” he said.

”Yeah. If they play through us, your instinct will be to bomb back to help out, but what the team needs more is your attacking threat, okay? Davey’s the guy who should storm back. Davey, you heard that?”

”Yes, boss.”

”Wibbers, if we’re getting battered, you and Gabby can take turns to drop and support. That way, one of you can be catching your breath while the other’s working. Talk to him about it because he’s like you - too keen to help out.”

”Right.”

I turned to my right. ”Davey, when I go forward I’m gonna be going down your side a lot. The right back they’ve got playing has really poor positioning so if you can get one of their DMs to track you, I’m gonna have more space to attack.”

”Got it.”

”Take a couple of long shots early if you see an opportunity. They’ll have to close you down if you look dangerous.”

”Right.”

A buzzer went off. Time to get out there. ”All right, gentlemen.” I took a deep breath. ”Start your engines.”

***

Two Minutes to Go

Twenty thousand Poles sang a bizarre version of an old Beatles song. Why? I didn’t much care.

***

One Minute to Go

I paced up and down the halfway line, itching to get started. In the first half, we would be shooting towards the main body of Poznan’s ultras, who had covered every inch of that stand in flags and banners, and were holding up dark blue-and-white scarves.

***

Przemek crossed something out on his notes. He looked up and said, dryly, ”You got the fast start you wanted.”

***

Ten Seconds to Go

Poznan had the kickoff, so I placed myself on the halfway line, leaning, bouncing. The ref didn’t blow his whistle on time. ”Hurry the fuck up!” I yelled.

Peep!

I went straight into my first sprint, noting that Gabby, Tom, Wibbers, and Davey were doing the same. Poznan, in their dark blue kits, passed the ball back to the goalie. I checked my run and allowed a gap to develop between me and the frontline. I waved Danny Prince to join me, and when the goalie passed to my left, to the weak right back (who wore number 22), I attacked him directly while Danny pushed up to cut off the out ball.

Poznan’s 22 didn’t like his options so he turned back inside, only to see four Saltney players storming towards him. He should have chipped the ball across the pitch to the massive space over there, but he was horribly right-footed and the ball wasn’t in the right place.

I was already on him when he decided to hoof the ball clear, left-footed, right in front of me. I sensed that if I blocked it, the ball would simply go out for a goal kick, so I allowed the kick to happen.

As I hoped, it went straight to Danny Prince, who came forward with it while I ran towards him. He passed to me and kept running. Davey Barnes ran across to the left, too, leaving me with a juicy gap to run at. I had the chance to shoot but didn’t like the angles. So I continued moving towards the edge of the area and flicked the ball diagonally to the left.

Danny chased it, cushioned it into the penalty area, and instead of thrashing the ball first time, he cleverly took an extra touch, slowing down while moving the ball away from the right back, who was desperately trying to get back into position.

The 22 crashed into the back of Danny, who tumbled.

Penalty kick. Absolutely nailed on penalty with 20 seconds on the clock.

I walked back to the halfway line so that I wouldn’t be tempted to take it. Yeah, I needed this goal to go in, but I also needed Wibbers to stay on Team Max for as long as possible. At the moment, the bids for him were in the 15 million pound range. Another season would double that. Another would double it again. Wibbers was worth as much to me as an amazing Champions League run.

Anyway, it was an 85% chance of a goal.

I smashed the Free Hit button to turn it into a 95% chance.

The home fans couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The tiny nobodies from Wales were about to go one-nil up in the first minute. I scowled at the ultras. Where’s your famous atmosphere?

Wibbers was ready. He stepped forward, and clipped the ball to his right. The goalie guessed the right way and saved the pen, but the ball bounced to the left of Wibbers. He had defenders surging towards him but most of the goal to aim for. He side-footed it without much power, aimed it slightly too far to the right, and the goalie made another save.

A defender slapped the ball out for a throw-in and the stadium erupted. Deafening, bone-juddering noise.

I stayed there, knowing what came next.

When you’re the underdog and you miss a first minute penalty, the big dog comes along and bites you on the arse.

Poznan’s fans turned their backs on the action and joyously bounced.

It was like playing Man City.

Now came their first attack, and I knew how this would end.

They passed the ball through our press, into the midfield, and suddenly they had runners everywhere. Vincent Addo didn’t know whether to push or keep dropping with the defensive line and in truth there was no good answer. He chose the slightly rasher version, which was to attack. He rushed towards the guy on the ball, number 8, a tricky central attacking midfielder, who did a neat trick to get past Vinni. The 8 looked up and floated a pass to the far side of the penalty area, where Danny Prince jumped and did enough to stop his oppo from getting a clean header.

The oppo dude thought he was in control of the sitch but when he glanced to his right to see what support he had, he saw me fly past, taking the ball from his toes. Instinctively, he flicked out a foot and sent me flying.

Free kick, danger over.

I shot to my feet and demanded that Danny give me the ball. He seemed confused about why I would want him to do that with both sets of players scattered to the winds. ”Give me the fucking ball!” I screamed.

He touched it and I set off down the left. The guy who had fouled me was closest to the scene and ran at me hard. I dropped my shoulder right, ran left, and that was the last I ever saw of him. I stretched my legs, eating up the yards, picking up speed on the straight. A DM came to slow me up but I flicked the ball infield to Davey, who gave me the ball back. The 22 was next, and I took him out with a stepover. I was about level with the penalty spot, running at great pace to the left of the area.

Choice. Chip up a cross for Gabby to attack. Slap it low and hard across the six-yard line. Or cut back on my right to have a shot myself.

I went with the last option - sort of.

I chopped the ball sideways, lined up a thunderbastard of a shot, and as the goalie stepped to close the angle and as a brave centre back threw himself in the way, I pushed the ball five yards further to the right, where Davey Barnes clipped a shot left-footed, curling, spinning, too close to the goalie - he dived - but the ball evaded his fingertips, hit the post... and went into the back of the net.

The noise from the ultras dimmed but wasn’t extinguished, which pissed me off. I ran to the side of the goal and made eye contact with one guy. ”Shut the fuck up, you stupid prick!”

He didn’t like that, and neither did his mates.

Gabby pulled me away, yelling that I was loco.

Wibbers said, ”Sorry for the pen!”

I grabbed him by the collar. ”Are you ready to play?”

He tried to wrestle my hands off. ”Fucking yeah, I’m ready!”

”Then why are you apologising in the middle of a Champions League match? Shut the fuck up and get the fuck on with it!”

He turned away, seething, but I knew if I kept needling him he would play better and better. That long sprint had taken a lot out of me, so I checked the match ratings and everyone’s Condition. I would normally have taken a momentary break from pressing but today I wanted to keep my pedal to the metal for at least the first ten minutes.

I hit Seal It Up to give us a quarter of an hour of extra defensive solidity, walked to the halfway line, turned to face the ultras, and bounced on my toes, ready to go again.

As the Poznan players got themselves organised, ready to take the kickoff, I imagined I was at Silverstone looking up at five big sets of red lights.

One, two, three, four, five, lights out.

***

Przemek licked his lips. ”The start of the match was extreme. You shouted at your player, you ran the length of the pitch, made a goal, shouted at another player. Shortly after, Poznan equalised and you shouted at another player. Is that the secret to success?”

I tutted, but remembered that this guy had been super kind to a woman in his industry and was speaking in a foreign language. I could give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I pushed my hands together as though I was praying, and them pointing my fingers straight ahead. ”When you’re scouting players you can see if they have the technical skills and physical qualities to make it to the top. You can even see if they have the ability to make good decisions and such mental things. But you can never tell how they are as a person. You can have all the ability in the world but if you don’t have the right whatever it is - brain chemistry maybe, or upbringing - you’re not going to make it. When I’m on the pitch, actually in the trenches next to a guy, I see a lot more than I see from the stands. That’s obvious, right?”

”I should think so. If you know where to look.”

”Danny Prince is brilliant but I spent an hour telling him I wanted to play fast and to create chaos but when I needed him to give me the ball so I could launch a quick break when the oppo least expected it, I found that he had decided to turn his brain off for a few seconds. Sorry to be pushy but this is the Champions League, mate. The levels are higher.”

”Not that much higher, as you have discovered.”

”Ha. But you know what I mean? Yeah, I gave him an earful and I think he responded well. Like, that’s enough for me. I’m not a complete monster. React well, do better, and we’re cool. But I have to let him know I’m not happy in that moment. Then with Wibbers, he said something that showed he wasn’t in the moment. No big deal but it’s not the time for me to be diplomatic.”

”That was another case of you losing your temper with a young player. Isn’t it very harsh to blame him for not scoring?”

”That’s not what happened. I was blaming him for talking about it. He shouldn’t even be thinking about it! Once he’s kicked that ball I don’t want him thinking about it again. He should be thinking of the next move, the next phase, the next part of the process. I want him relentless. I wouldn’t mind if he came off the pitch not knowing the final score. That’s taking it to an extreme, of course, but I want him in the moment not in the past. I wanted a co-ordinated press right from the next whistle, so why wasn’t he ready when everyone else is? Yeah, okay, it’s not attractive that I’m shouting at young men but this is elite sport. Step up to the next level or clear your locker and I’ll find someone who can.”

Przemek raised his eyebrows. ”So strict. Don’t young players need patience?”

”They get years of patient training from us but in the heat of battle they’re gonna get told when their standards are slipping. I’ve got players who never get shouted at because they cap out at their max level. That’s great, but if you’re a super talent like Danny, Wibbers, and Vinni, I’m not gonna let you plateau. You’re probably gonna ask me about Vinni.”

”If that is Vincent Addo, yes I am. When Poznan equalised, you blamed him for the goal, very aggressively.”

”No-one in England watches this, right?”

”In England, yes. In English, no.”

”Well, it’s not exactly throwing him under the bus. Basically, early in the game he got dribbled by that number 8. Neat player. So next time the 8 was moving into a dangerous position, Vinni went to track a runner instead of going to the ball, and the 8 had time and space to play the pass that led to the goal. I was like, what the shit did I just see? And it clicked because it was something of a theme in a film I watched on the flight out here.

”There’s this clash between the old, analogue driver, and the young, digital native. They could have done a better job with that, but that could be said about everything in the whole fucking movie. Anyway, I got this suspicion that Vinni was worried that the first time he got dribbled would end up as a gif. You know, with some moronic title. Polish Star KILLS Opponent With AMAZING Move. Some garbage like that.

”So what does he do? Next time, he chooses the route that doesn’t lead to him being clipped up, but does lead to a goal against us. Yeah, I lost my fucking temper because a lot of people have put a lot of time, money, and effort into this project and for one kid’s pride to be the thing that wrecks the car, I mean, no. No fucking way. Vinni will earn two hundred thousand pounds a week playing this sport but only if he puts the team first, always. Al-fucking-ways. It’s literally his job to slow down the oppo’s attacking players. Yeah, sometimes they’ll get the better of him in terms of the duel but if he slows them down, if he buys us time to regain our shape, he’s done his job. He didn’t do his job in that moment and I told him.”

”It seems to me like a lot of supposition. Perhaps he made the wrong choice in the moment.”

”You’re allowed to make the wrong choice if you’re doing your best for the team. You’re not allowed to think about what’s coming for you on TikTok. This is an analogue sport. We can try to rationalise it, to turn it into numbers, but in the end it’s always going to dump us in the mud and laugh at us.”

”Don’t you worry about losing a talented player?”

”Of course but if he’s going to do that every week, it doesn’t matter how talented he is. When I see that kind of thing I’m going to stamp on it immediately and if it comes back, I’ll know that I haven’t actually lost anything. I’ve lost a dream. And, yeah, maybe he goes to a new club and that’s where it clicks for him. But he’s not going to learn faster there than where he is so that could cost him 2, 3, 4 years of his career. That could be a lot of money, you know? And new experiences. Nights like tonight. But, hey, I kept him on until half time, told him what I had seen and why I didn’t like it, and asked if he wanted to stay on the pitch. He said he did and he played well. That’s encouraging. We’ll let the, ah, engine cool down before we... Nah, that doesn’t work. We’re going to cool off, is what I’m saying, and we’ll talk it out. There are many, many ways that conversation can go well. Erm, I’m aware of the time and so far all I’ve done is slag off my players, who were brilliant.”

”Okay, perhaps we can go onto a more broad perspective... Actually, you know what? People will complain. We have discussed the match until 1-1. Can you talk us through the rest of the goals?”

”Sure. Our second comes from a counter after Poznan over-commit in attack. Wibbers drives forward, shoots, hits the post, goalie sort of slaps the ball away, Tom Westwood has an open goal. Third is a free kick that’s just begging to be swept over the wall left-footed, so I let Davey Barnes have it. Except, oops! The home fans have been pissing me off so I pop that one into the top-right. Soz not soz.”

”What is your history against the Poznan fans? I was surprised to see you so animated against them.”

”Oh, nothing really except they do that fucking moronic Man City dance. They did it when Wibbers missed his pen, did it again when they got the equaliser. So I scored and went over there and showed them how stupid they look. They didn’t like looking in the mirror, did they? Absolute morons.”

”But Max, that isn’t a Manchester City dance. It is from here, from Poznan.”

”I know, Przemek, mate. But once Man City touch something it becomes tainted. That move is toxic and has been for years. You need to bin it off. Find something else to do, do you know what I mean? Or yeah, keep doing it, wind me up, and feel the full force of my righteous fury. Heh. Our fourth goal was another counter-attack that was pretty devastating with Cheb getting a much-deserved goal, but my fave was the fifth because it was nearly an hour gone and we were still sprinting and closing the goalie down and all that jazz. We put pressure on, get the turnover just outside the box, and we’ve got half the team steaming into the box ready to score. Cheb picks Wibbers, goal, now you’re allowed to enjoy yourself. Give more minutes to the squad players. Special hug for Wibbers, special high five for Danny Prince, special ’I’m watching you’ eye point for Vinni, who thinks I’m being serious but bursts into a big grin when I lift him up. Five-one away, everyone has played well, a few players have learned something, I’m happy, everyone’s happy.”

”Not me.”

”Aw, mate.”

”I don’t understand how you’re doing it. On this channel after European match days I update the rankings and discuss the possibilities. My conclusion has been that a slow and steady rise up the rankings is desirable and achievable. For example, if a nation makes it into UEFA’s top 12 it is granted a Europa League spot, no playoffs, so the club that makes it to that competition is guaranteed a certain amount in prize money and thus it has certainty of future income and thus it can invest appropriately to raise its level, which generates more coefficient points, which brings more prize money, and so on.”

”That sounds right to me. What’s the problem?”

”The problem is you’re disrupting the model! Your teams in Wales and Gibraltar are taking points that were expected to go elsewhere. Last season, for example, we gave College 1975 a nought comma one percent chance of making it to the league stage. This time, Saltney Town had the same likelihood. Nought comma one. Yet you have destroyed the champions of Poland tonight and while the football was at times incredible, you appear to be doing it by gambling. Spending future prize money to win that prize money. It’s very risky and very dangerous. There are people commenting on my channel who say Polish clubs should follow your method and tonight’s result will make it worse. We could have clubs who chase the dream, overspend, and crash.”

”Oh!” I said, suddenly understanding the guy’s perspective. I also realised that I had an opportunity to talk about my achievements on a channel that wouldn’t be watched by football fans in England but might be disseminated around directors of football. I could advertise my services! ”I get it. Okay, cool, this is great. This is what I want to talk about. Yes, mate! This is exciting. Let me think for a second.” I paused and stared straight ahead. ”You’re right to be worried about clubs overspending to get to the next level.

”We had it so many times in England with Championship teams spending hundreds of millions trying to get into the Premier League. It almost always bombs and that bomb always comes close to demolishing the whole football club. It’s just not worth it. And there’s an easy way to convince other clubs not to try to do what I’m doing, which is that the only way it works is to have me behind it.

”It’s still a gamble but take tonight. I’m on the pitch, right, and I’m setting the tempo, changing the balance between attack and defence, focus left, right, middle, press or hold back, monitoring player performance and fitness, and yeah, delivering the odd bollocking, all in real time. If you don’t have someone who can do that on the pitch you shouldn’t be overspending. But in my case, we’re not risking the club’s money, are we? We’ve got private backers and while they wouldn’t be happy to lose millions, investment comes with risk and they know that. If it’s a club with fans you have to be a lot more careful.

”By the way, I put together a starting eleven as good as Poznan’s at one-fifth of the cost. We can use the word overspend to mean spending more than the club can generate but if we define overspending to mean getting value for money in the market, I’m not the one overspending. There’s a reason football clubs pay me lots of money to give them squad building advice. You know that book Moneyball? People think it was about baseball but it was about me. Ha.

”Yeah, I can’t offer my services to Polish teams right now because you’re in the same Euro 28 qualifying group as Wales and I’m helping them out. But in theory if a European club wanted to maximise their talent to wages ratio, they would pay me large amounts of money to sort it out for them.”

”How do you do it? What is your method?”

”There’s a little bit of everything. Talent ID, data, oppo analysis. Running a football club is like building a Formula One car. There’s no point having an amazing engine if the steering wheel falls off. I look at some football clubs and the different branches pull in different directions, like marketing departments that book pre- and post-season tours to the highest bidder even if the pitches there are shit and your best midfielder’s gonna be out for the season. You know what I’m talking about. When you get everyone aligned, you have wild success, but that’s so hard to do. You take Tranmere Rovers right now. No direction, just hype and bullshit. You can’t get alignment because it’s going to take the owners two years to work out what they have just bought.”

”It is certainly curious that Diggy Doggy has invested in an English football club.”

”Curious is one word for it. Yeah, alignment is the key but after that, the next important thing is probably talent ID. I’m working on creating an algorithm that can automate some of what I do, and that’s something I would be interested in selling after the European Championships. I know I said I used an AI before and then I said I was lying, but now I’m actually doing it. Yeah. Hey, Przemek, I have a question for you, since you spend so much time looking at these rankings and coefficients.”

He blinked. ”You want to ask my advice?”

”Absolutely. What are the chances I could get Wales or Gibraltar a bye into the actual Champions League?”

”I would say impossible, even for you. You could turn Saltney Town into a points machine but that would only allow more Welsh clubs to play in Europe, each less equipped to succeed than the last, and they would drag down the averages.”

”Right, right, it’s averaged. Yeah, these are the nuances I forget because I only think about this once a year. The ranking table’s hard to climb on a national level, isn’t it? One team lifts you up but if the other teams are crap, they drag you right back down. You need progress to be more co-ordinated. It’s that car-building analogy again, isn’t it? Improve the tyres and the engine at the same rate.

”Okay, new question. I’m giving advice to three teams in Gibraltar. Right now the owners of those clubs are really happy with me and they listen to what I say, so let’s handwave and say I could set up the three teams any way I want. College 1975 got some coefficient points last season and they’re getting more this season. If they keep doing well, they could get to the points level of, say, Glasgow Celtic, right, and they would skip right to the playoff rounds. So I could set things up so that College were always the best team, with the aim of getting to that point. Or I could do it on a three-year rolling basis so that next season, Bruno’s Magpies were the best team and had a go in the Champions League. And so on. My question is, what’s the best outcome for the clubs in the aggregate?”

”To have one very strong club that skips qualifying rounds.”

”Are you sure?”

”No.” Przemek’s face lit up. ”I will make a spreadsheet!”

I laughed. ”You don’t have to do that.”

”I want to. It’s very interesting! On this channel, we discuss the math and the probabilities but we can’t actually influence the results or the rankings. You can! Kasia will not be keen on me starting another spreadsheet.”

”Kasia?”

”My wife. You met her.”

I’m pretty sure I kept a straight face. ”Yes, of course.” Ha! Briggy got played. Wow. ”Well, don’t start that spreadsheet, Przemek, but if you do, let me know the results! What’s the time? I don’t have my phone on me.” He showed me. ”Okay, I’ve got to go soon. You wanted to end with a discussion on national teams?”

”Yes, thank you. My theory is that the UEFA rankings are important because they relate to prize money and continuity of financing and when a country has a strong, well-financed league, its national team must improve also. Young Polish players play in the Conference League, then the Europa, then the Champions League, and when they play for the national team they are more prepared.”

”Yeah, absolutely.”

”So you agree with me? We have frequent disagreements in the comments section because you win by bringing in lots of English players and now many from Germany. How does it benefit the Welsh or Gibraltarian teams? I say the effects will be seen long-term.”

”I’m more on your side, though the doubters have a point. It’s in my nature to want to develop young players but it’s also in my interest for these projects. It’s relatively easy to assemble a team of randos who can win a few matches, but the squad has very little depth and when the starters move back to their parent clubs there isn’t much left to actually compete in the main stage. The next level is to do well in those matches, too, right? And then to start thinking about getting to the knockout rounds. There are financial incentives to win at every level beyond just getting to the league stage so if it’s possible to raise the floor of the local players, I’ll do that because that would open up more opportunities.

”I’m keen to see the talent in Gibraltar concentrated into my teams because if we can get to the point where they can seriously compete without outside help, we’re laughing. The population of Gib isn’t big enough to make that realistic - we’re always going to need to bring guys in - but we can move pretty far in that direction, I think, and when you get those lads together wearing the national team shirt, they’ll be pretty handy. The national team will get stronger in the next five years for sure.”

”And Wales?”

”Wales has a population of three million so there’s more talent. There are good clubs in the south, clubs with scouting networks. My concept was to make Saltney the home of developing talent in the north of the country and to use European competitions as a, what would you call it, finishing school before the lads move on to the English leagues. We’ve had the first two lads in the squad already, and one’s made two appearances.”

”Charlie Cullen.”

”Right. He’s so young he wasn’t allowed to fly here on a school night, which I find delightful. Anyway, the project is well and truly up and running and if you look at the UEFA development tournaments, Wales is showing up as a top 8 nation. Watch out for the under 16s and 17s in the coming years. It’s exciting stuff. Very, very exciting.”

”Do I understand you correctly? You are training up a generation of Welsh national team players in order to progress further in European club competitions?”

”Yep.”

”But that’s our dream. Reversed, so that the national team is the focus, but the same dream. Why can’t we find someone to do the same here?”

I shrugged. ”Poland’s huge. Split the country in half and you can have a North Pole and a South Pole. Heh. Don’t like that joke?”

”Joke?”

”The other thing is that your clubs aren’t incentivised to do what I’m doing and they’re too big to collaborate in any meaningful fashion. I don’t have a solution for you, sorry. I think you’re broadly on the right track, like you say. You’re nudging up the UEFA rankings. Slow and steady wins the race and all that. Okay, I see my assistant at the door. I think my time’s up.”

”Max Best, thank you very much for your time. I have found it very interesting and I know my viewers will have plenty to say.”

”I can use Czesc to mean goodbye, right?”

”You can.”

”Czesc, Poles. Soz for messing up your position.”

***

Briggy rushed me out to our team bus. The doors closed behind and we set off for the airport. When I was settled, she handed me my phone and said, ”Was it very awful?”

Was there a danger she would watch the interview and realise that Kasia had led her on? ”Nah, turned out to be cool. We had a conversation about UEFA rankings and all that stuff. You should watch it!”

”Er, pass.”

I smiled. Reverse psychology for the win! ”The guy’s gonna help me optimise my strategy for the Gibraltar teams, so that’s fun. I didn’t wake up today thinking I would add the leader of a gang of Polish data nerds to my contact list. I don’t know, though. I kind of got the sense that while that channel isn’t mainstream, there’s one guy watching who I would want to meet. Do you know what I mean?”

”No. No-one that you would want to meet is watching that channel.”

”We’ll see.”

My phone had blown up during and after the match.

League One goalkeeper: Thanks for the offer but I think I’m going to stay where I am for another season.

”Jesus,” I said.

”What?”

”Both my goalie targets backed out since the Wrexham game.”

”Fuck ’em,” said Briggy, wisely.

Ruth: Well, I sold the horse so you’re out of my bad books. Katie Speed (Elliot’s daughter) came back today and asked just as many questions about you as about Drizzle. She’s going to invite you to a race to, in her words, smooth things out between you and Elliot. You are going to say yes because Emma will want to wear a big hat and get plastered, and you are going to be very charming to all the rich people who have more money than sense and often daydream about owning football clubs. And you’re going to make sure I get an invite, too.

Me: I thought you didn’t like racing because it’s not very sympathetic to the horses.

Ruth: That’s true but I want to wear a big hat.

”Briggy, read this and tell me I’m not allowed to go because there will be too many people and it won’t be safe.”

She read the text. ”You’re allowed to go. I’ll need a big hat to blend in. Expense that, bosh.”

”Fuck my life,” I said. I brought up the results from the AOK Cup. ”Chester lost two-nil,” I said.

”Is that bad?”

”Meh. West Brom are way better than us. It looks like they didn’t use their best team, though, so... Yeah, people are gonna say that if we had our full team we could have beaten them. It’s not a good look that we are out here beating the Polish champions 5-1 while Chester are getting dumped out of the cup in the first round again.”

”A new signing would cheer them up.”

”It would, yeah,” I said, with a heavy sigh. I had been going through all the goalkeepers in my database again and again, looking for someone who fit the bill and I was getting sick of seeing the same old names. But it was my job, so I brought up the list and applied my usual filter - goalkeeper with Handling of at least 10, interested in playing for Chester. ”Huh?” I said, sitting up with a start.

”What?” said Briggy, checking the sitch for danger.

How could I explain what I had just seen? Instead of there being 2 pages of names, there were 4. The hell? How had that happened? ”I just won a Champions League match 5-1,” I mused.

Briggy relaxed back into her seat. ”Fuck my life,” she mumbled.

I had used a team with no UEFA ranking to beat a team that was relatively high. I had scored coefficient points. I must have gained a fair chunk of reputation as a manager. More players wanted to play for me! More players would accept the paltry wages on offer if it meant being managed by Max Best! I wondered what the other managers in the Championship would see if they had such databases. The ones working at the richer clubs would have the most options, obviously, but all things being equal I would be miles ahead because I had a growing European reputation.

The more I won, the easier it would get to win. With access to a huge pool of players, how boring would our second season in the Championship be? As boring as the Monaco Grand Prix! Chester in pole position with no prospect of overtaking. ”One of the countless problems with Formula One,” I said, ”is that the fastest drivers get the best cars.”

Briggy unclipped her seatbelt and moved across the aisle, next to Well In.

I laughed and settled back, trying to look cool while my head was pounding. I loaded my preset filters for defenders, midfielders, wingers, and forwards. Every list was noticeably bigger than it had been earlier in the day. The bus picked up speed as it brought us towards the airport. Acceleration. That was the word. Getting there faster and faster.

Saltney were definitely going to be in the Champions League playoff. Poznan had a nought comma one percent chance of overturning the deficit in the second leg, and such unlikely events never actually occurred. We would play Glasgow Keltic, whose playing budget was five times greater than Lech Poznan’s. We had a five percent chance of winning. Ah, but we would have Bench Boost available home and away. Call it ten percent. God, if we could beat them...

Nought to 18 million in eight weeks? Beating the champions of N’ireland, Gibraltar, Poland, and then Scotland? For one day, at least, I’d be able to think of myself as the best manager in the world.