Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

11.

”Stress is the time before you make a decision.” Max Best quoting Jackie Reaper who was quoting Max Best who had forgotten he had said it.

***

Sunday, September 5

I tapped the pen against my teeth in a way that was both annoying and satisfying. I wrote ’Annoying and Satisfying: The Max Best Story’. I was riding Sealbiscuit as he galloped to the far north. Emma was driving up, too, in my car. I had told her that I needed to talk to Jay Cope about our tactics, which was true in the sense that I had said, ”3-4-3?” when boarding the bus.

But really, I needed some time alone, because I had to make a decision about the stadium at West Didsbury. As far as I could tell, that was the final big decision I would need to make this entire season, and I had been putting it off because it was making me unhappy.

I scribbled some numbers on the page.

5.18 million was the share of the Saltney Town’s UEFA prize money that would be mine.

1.6 million would arrive in Gibraltar.

6.78 million total, but once I moved it there would be tax-related consequences.

The stadium in Manchester would cost between 4 and 6 million.

4 would give me a cheap and cheerful 5,000-seater that would be compliant with the rules for entering the EFL. Once the club was in the fourth tier, it would start to get big money from the broadcasters, plus ’solidarity payments’ from the Premier League.

1 million would let us dig down and install all the fancy undersoil heating, drainage, and clever water-retention systems that we had put into the Deva Stadium. It was the closest thing to having a year-round perfect pitch you could get.

1 million would kit the whole thing out in spectacular style. A bubble-style wrap around the stadium would be filled with plants and trees and would look incredible. Inside would be gyms and medical rooms fit for an EFL team. Long-term, that extra initial investment would pay off in faster player improvement, quicker recovery from injury, and the stadium wrap would be unique, a wow factor that would make the fans proud and make it easier to persuade players to sign.

I circled the words ’6 million’. The extra revenue the club would get just for being in the EFL would pay off the cost of the premium version of the project in 4 years. It was a safe investment from that point of view.

I wrote the word TIME.

That was the issue. Temps Perdu were down in Bedfordshire, in the land between Oxford and Cambridge, striving to make breakthroughs in the treatment of incurable diseases. For now, they were burning cash and profit was far on the horizon, but I had learned that even a rumour could send share prices spiking. The company could be ’worth’ 80 million today, 400 million tomorrow.

I tapped the pen against my teeth and wrote ’Briggy’.

She had been gathering information for me, starting with the names of all the current shareholders of Temps Perdu, and how big their stake was. She told me it was good news that there were so many people with small stakes. In theory, I would be able to buy little packets of shares until I had a decent holding, and if I bought them through various shell companies, the company’s founder wouldn’t suspect that a hostile takeover was on the cards.

Not that I wanted to do a hostile takeover, apart from it being a cool thing to have on my Wikipedia page, and that’s why I had two schemes running at the same time. One was Old Nick’s idea - buy the company. The other scam was all mine, a very Max Best approach, and if it worked, amazing. I couldn’t count on it, though, so I couldn’t completely discount the ’evil’ way. Even if I followed Old Nick’s plan to completion, I wanted the founder and his current staff to keep going, to find a cure, and only in the most extreme circumstance would I slap my massive, throbbing stake onto the boardroom table and announce that I was the new CEO and I had one little tiny request: treat my mum next.

I drummed the pen left and right onto the notebook. I wanted to buy some shares this year, just to get my foot in the door. My proxy for those shares would be put on the VIP mailing lists, might hear about shareholders who were looking to sell their stake, would be able to attend the AGM.

I wrote ’foot in the door’.

If Briggy was right, 6 million would buy me about a 13 percent stake. That would be a pretty big foot. And West Didsbury didn’t technically need a new stadium. They would be able to move into the EFL... playing at someone else’s ground.

I needed to make a final decision soon, and I needed to communicate that decision. I pictured a room full of happy, smiling Mancunians, guys who had followed their local club for years even while they were down in tier 9. ’Lads,’ I would say. ’I don’t have the money to build the stadium. You’re going to have to keep travelling to north Manchester to see your team. For how long? Three years, maybe. Could be four. But the next time we play a competitive fixture at Brookburn Road, we will be a League Two club. Isn’t that amazing?’

Er, nah. That wouldn’t be amazing and I knew it.

The alternative image was one of me giving the order to buy 13% in Temps Perdu only to find that I had waited one day too long and now my cash was only going to give me 4%.

In just over a week there was the first international break of the season. That seemed like a good place to have a self-imposed deadline. I would decide what to do and communicate the news to the West Didsbury fans.

Bosh. Sorted.

***

Final Pre-season Friendly: Durham Women versus Chester Women

”Line! Line! Kisi, here. Here! One more. Yes!”

While Jay Cope yelled things in typical staccato football-manager style, I scanned the pitch. Meghan had come across to take the throw-in. Victoria Rose stayed in the centre back slot but adjusted the distance from her to Femi, while on the far side, our left-mid Dani Smith-Smithe had dropped into the left back position. Meredith Ann, the central of our three narrow forwards, slid into the CAM slot, giving us angles and diagonals everywhere you looked. The transitions from spot to spot happened automatically, without any instructions from Jay and without me getting the curse involved. It was very nice. Very smooth.

Meghan threw the ball, giving Sarah Greene a tough job. Sarah controlled with one deft touch, and rolled it left-footed to Victoria Rose. With possession assured, Dani eased ahead into the midfield line, Meghan scooted back into position, and Victoria Rose brought the ball forward before settling into the DM slot. She passed to Meredith Ann, who first-timed the ball back to Charlotte before getting in line with her strike partners.

”Yep,” I said.

Jill, the team’s general manager, was next to me in the dugout. Her hair was greying but she was looking even more fit and energetic than the day she had buttonholed me in a pub asking for a job. She nodded her approval. ”Good, that.”

”Jay,” I called out. I had to raise my voice because he was still pacing up and down the touchline, still babbling away.

The new women’s team manager turned away from the action and stepped closer to us. ”Yes?”

”You’re doing it again.”

He looked puzzled, then shook his head. ”Right, right.” He got back to work.

Jill said, ”It’s only natural, Max.”

”I don’t do it,” I said.

”Well,” she said.

”Look, why’s he telling Kisi to go one step to the left or the right? That’s an absurd waste of his precious mental energy. I want him thinking on a high level. Who’s playing well? Who’s playing shit, and why? Sort out the big issues. Think ahead to the oppo’s next move, like a chess player. If Jay cares about the exact position Kisi stands at a throw-in to the extent he micromanages her in a match, he can dedicate an entire training session to it. Guess what? He wouldn’t do that, which means he doesn’t care that much, which means he can leave Kisi to work it out. It’s better for Jay, it’s better for Kisi, and it’s better for me because watching coaches fuss over unimportant crap winds me up.”

”Isn’t this fine margins stuff? Small details? Incremental gains?”

”It’s mental, yes, I agree. But like I said, it’s not something he would take even half an hour to coach. It feels urgent and important in the match but it’s not. Example. The same exact sitch on the other side doesn’t provoke him into saying anything at all. But when the throw’s close, the other manager starts yelling crap and Jay responds. But he should shut his gob and do his job.”

Jill side-eyed me. ”You want him to be himself, though. You want him to be comfortable. To do things his way. You told me you were only here so you could give tips every now and then, that the co-manager label was just a label.”

”Jay’s the manager,” I said. ”My dream is to sit here and enjoy the show.” And to soak up double XP and to trigger my once-per-match perks sometimes. ”I want Jay to be himself. I want him to do things his way. But I want Kisi to do things her way, too, right? And so does Jay, but he gets wrapped up in the moment. I’m nudging him away from low-level behaviour. There’s no wrong way to manage a football team but if you’re telling people to move three inches to the side, yeah, you’re doing it wrong.”

”Okay, Max,” she said, amused, and we went back to watching the match. We had played Durham here at Maiden Castle last season and I knew they would be a decent test. They had actually improved slightly over the summer, rising to CA 71. We were crushing them, though. The new 3-4-3 system was perfect and our average CA was 87.8. Jill said, ”Ah, I get it. You’re starting your UEFA Pro badge tomorrow and you’re thinking about coaching. You have to write a thesis, don’t you?”

”No,” I said.

”Oh,” she said, surprised. ”Have you got an exemption because Mari’s mum thinks you’re cute?” She was talking about Gwen, one of the top people at the FAW. Her daughter was a few yards away, on the far end of the subs bench, along with four other talented Welsh girls.

”Gwen thinks I’m cute?” I said, pretending to be excited.

”Is it because you’re secretly running Welsh football? Or is it because you’re the Soccer Supremo?”

”None of the above. It wouldn’t be an elite course if they let people skip steps. No, I don’t have to write a thesis because I’ve already written it.”

”Wow. I normally wait until the deadline’s approaching.”

”Me too, but this time I had loads to say. I was vaguely unhappy for some reason and found myself watching loads of Premier League matches. Holy Christ, what a load of crap! It got me wound up, and one of the guys who’s going to be on my course was there in the dugout. He’s the assistant to the assistant manager at Burnley.”

”They’ve had a shocking start to the season.”

”I know. They get to the Prem, get relegated easily, get promoted again, and try a different approach. One time they’re free-flowing, next they’re super defensive. This time they’ve gone with ultra possession football. It’s very Spanish and it causes me actual physical pain to watch it and I have to sit in a room for the next year and half with this Bakero guy and he’s going to be giving presentations about his philosophy and if I vomit all over my notes, I’ll be the one asked to leave!”

”So unfair,” said Jill.

”I know, right? But yeah, my thesis. That was all going on, my head’s in a constant tumult these days anyway, and maybe I had too much late-night cheese but I sat down and let it all come out of me. It’s a little bit stream-of-consciousness, a little bit of a rant, but I’ve got over a year to refine it, if I can be bothered.”

”You’re not motivated?”

”When you hear the organisers talk about these courses, they always say ’it’s not a box-ticking exercise’. I think it’s quite expensive for small FAs to run those courses and they take them super seriously. But for me it is a box-ticking exercise. I mean, soz, but it is. I need that certificate so I’m allowed to manage in the Prem.”

”Does Sandra have UEFA Pro?”

”Yes and she loved doing the course. Like, this is the thing. The course is great, the course is mint, it’s great preparation for people like Sandra and David Bakero. But that kind of intensive course is all about going deeper into a topic than you’ve gone before, yeah? Well, soz, but no-one’s as deep in footy as me. Tactics, player ID, squad building, the business of football. What are they gonna teach me that I haven’t learned on the job?

”Don’t get me wrong, I’m open to anything that might come out of it. It might be that I only pick up two or three cool concepts but those could be worth millions to me and my clubs. And I always love seeing new drills and hearing how coaches communicate with players in training. Sometimes there’s a way that a natural coach like Jackie Reaper uses a certain turn of phrase that makes me go, ah, yes, that’s how it should be. So do you get what I mean? The course itself isn’t going to be all that much use to me.

”Like, say they have a module about the finances of stadiums. How many people who have ever taken that course have actually built a new stand? I’ve done two at Chester, a whole stadium at Saltney, and, er, I went through the whole process at West Didsbury. Um... it’s a phrase I use sometimes as a joke but no-one’s qualified to assess me.”

”Please don’t say that when you’re in the classroom.”

I laughed. ”The other thing is that the main benefit of these kinds of courses is that you meet 19 people who are on a similar journey to you, make ten friends, two superfriends. If you’re a guy who does community coaching or you’re at a small academy, you might get to meet a superstar. Yeah, well, on this course that’s me, isn’t it?”

Jill’s face lit up and she put her hand on my arm. ”You’re famous, are you? Can I get a selfie?”

I made a scoffing noise. ”I know it sounds...”

”Obnoxious?”

”I was going for self-absorbed, but sure.” Meredith Ann went on a dribble, was fouled, and the Free Hit button appeared. I swiped it away. The score in friendlies didn’t matter, not to me. I continued. ”I’m not going to go there and be a dick, but I’m not sure if I’m a good role model for most coaches. They’ll want my advice but should I give it to them? I have almost total job security but those coaches won’t. Example. The fans are starting to get restless because your players are back from their weird loan spells and results haven’t improved. What do I do, Max? My answer? Tell the fans to go fuck themselves, the ungrateful bastards.”

Jill smiled and shook her head. ”You wouldn’t do that. And they’re not restless. A little bit surprised, maybe, that the players coming back didn’t make a massive difference.”

”But that’s what I told them would happen!” I said.

Jay heard the heat in my voice and turned around. ”You calling me, Max?”

”No, Jay. Just whining about society.”

”Society?” he said, shaking his head. ”Those ungrateful bastards.”

”Jay,” said Jill. She held her palm up until Jay slapped it. The pair laughed. Rinsing me! My mood lifted a notch.

A couple of days after the transfer window had closed, we had hosted Swansea. They lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with an average CA of 126.

I gave Sandra a 4-4-2 featuring Swanny in goal; a back four of Cole, Zach, Christian, and Helge; a midfield of Joel Reid, Youngster, Bark playing centrally, and Cheb Alloula on the right; an unchanged strike pairing of Dazza and Colin. Average CA, 118.5. I was pretty sure that was the strongest non-Max-Best starting eleven in the history of the football club.

”Max,” said Jill. ”Why didn’t you throw all the new signings into the team against Swans? Why didn’t you use Wibbers?”

”The Saltney guys had just played 120 minutes, hadn’t they? And I don’t like using new signings in the first game after they arrive,” I said. ”Being cautious like that is how I used to play Soccer Supremo, I think. Might be a slight element of superstition but I’m pretty sure there was a reason. I like to give new guys time to bed in, get familiar with the team, the club, the stadium, etcetera. Gives them a better chance to get off to a good start. Players can recover from a bad first impression but if you stink the place out on debut, it creates doubt in the minds of fans, doesn’t it? I put Cheb straight in because he was fit and raring to go, we don’t have him for long, and he’s not my player so I don’t need to think long-term.”

”My husband told me some of his mates were complaining they didn’t get to see the new signings. It’s like on Christmas morning you gave us some shiny new toys but then said we weren’t allowed to play with them.”

Jill was married to Smasho, a beloved former player, holder of many goalscoring records. He had been very supportive when I had arrived at Chester, but he was a pretty old-school character. Play your best eleven, don’t change a winning team. ”Tell him I don’t give a crap. They’re not his toys, they’re my toys, and I’ll play with them when I choose.”

She nodded, seriously. ”Okay, I’ll do that.”

I broke into a smile, and so did she. I watched as Jay lifted his hands to tell our forwards where to stand at an oppo goal kick, but he stopped himself. I said, ”I don’t know what the fuss is all about. They’re gonna be at the club for ages. What’s the rush? It’s such a short-term industry. Everyone’s so infantile about every aspect. It’s maddening. That’s why I tune out as much noise as I can and that’s one of the things I’m not going to enjoy about this UEFA Pro course. I know the other candidates will be super orthodox.”

”Jewish or Christian?”

I scoffed. ”That’s worse than one of my jokes. Look, we outplayed Swansea for long periods. I was happy with it, and we took the lead. Cheb was scaring the crap out of them so they shifted across to cover him, we did a few tasty big diags, moved the ball to the left quickly, Joel waited for Cole to power past on the overlap, good cross, Dazza header. The fact that we can do that at Championship level should have the fans in ecstasy. Wow! Did you see that?” I tutted. ”But it’s the same thing with Jay and the throw-ins; they get caught up in trivial details.”

”You mean like the score?”

I shook my head. ”You’re better than that, Jill.”

”Swansea were better in the second half, they pushed, we didn’t have many answers, they scored, and your big tactical idea was to take Helge off and put Roddy Jones on.”

”He needs minutes. He’s 17 now. Time to play, boyo.”

”You invited pressure onto us. We lost height.”

”We gained a fuckton of counter-attacking threat. The first time Roddy sped past his man, Swans kept one more body in the rest defence. Their manager was like, hey, we’ve got an away point in the bag, here. If we go for the win, we could get done on the counter. That was a good sub by me. It worked. One-all, good scrap, everyone’s a winner.”

”Then Blackburn. We really thought you would play in that one to get revenge against Danny Prince.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. Maiden Castle was a great sports complex but there was only one stand by the main pitch. Sound flowed out and away, and whistles and shouts came to us from nearby pitches. It had a good vibe. Not the place to be bitter and twisted. ”I thought about it. Him at left back, me at right wing. How much fun would it be to destroy him?” I pushed my lips together before opening them with a little clicking noise. ”Nah. Even in my daydreams, the thought gave me no pleasure. That’s what guys like him want, isn’t it? They want to be considered a threat, want to be talked about. The worst thing you can do is ignore them. So...” I mimed letting go of something that would float away.

”We lost, though. We could have done with you on the pitch.”

”Yeah.”

Blackburn were CA 128 and had home advantage. They were yet another team that played 4-2-3-1 and I knew Prince would be switched-on and concentrated for the whole match. For that reason, I selected Cheb as the right midfielder to give Prince something to worry about, and I picked Nasa as the right back since he was the best one-on-one defender we had. We started in a 4-1-4-1 shape and it worked pretty well for an hour. We had even scored from a set piece, with Helge Hagen bagging his first goal for the club. First of many, and his big, happy grin really suited him. Blackburn kept at us, though, and eventually won 2-1.

”Thing is,” I said, but paused to watch as Femi competed for a header. Victoria Rose smoothly gathered the loose ball and rolled it to Sarah, who sprinted and touched the ball to Meredith Ann. She faked to play the return pass, but instead hit a no-look through ball to Angel. The striker collected the ball and in the same movement, with the goalie streaking out to make a block, Angel dabbed the ball past her.

Jill ran off to celebrate.

The thing is, I thought to myself, there are loads of reasons why I don’t want to play for Chester right now.

One was a general lack of spark.

Two was that I was still registered to Saltney Town. It would be simplicity itself to transfer my registration to Chester - when it came to being a player I was essentially a free agent. Why was I delaying a return to the mothership? Because I wanted to see which teams Saltney would draw in the Europa League and when. Pestis? Newcastle? College? I expected there would be two winnable matches and if they happened to be the first two, I could play in those before returning to Chester. Sure, the fans would be pissed off, but two wins would be worth nearly a million Euros. At the very least, I wanted to wait and see what my options were.

Three was that I had been thinking more about coaching and had dug up the notes I had made during my UEFA B and A courses. Don’t always tell everyone the answer. Give players and staff time and space to grow. I didn’t want Jay telling Kisi exactly where to stand - she could work it out. By the same token, if I stepped back from the front lines at Chester for a while, my players and staff might flourish.

Four was the sense that when I was playing, some personality types went hiding. Prince, for example, had done his childish, petulant head-push thing partly because I was playing so well. Oh, Max is on fire today. I can let him do all the work. Nah, dog. You do your job. Step up. Earn your corn.

Five was the squad size. We had plenty of players who needed minutes, and those players were far more motivated to get on the pitch than I was.

Six was the Sentinel. Why risk his wrath? The entire season was for consolidation, a year-long warm-up for our sensational march to glory in 28/29. I would keep in shape, keep my levels high, but I would be sensible. Probably I would still aim to score 8 goals, just to establish a baseline. 8 goals this season, 10 next. That seemed utterly reasonable.

Seven was the way my experience point stash shot up when I wasn’t on the pitch. In a typical Championship match I made 90 XP as a player or 1140 as a manager (depending on how much injury time was awarded).

All in all, there was tremendous upside to staying in the dugout, letting Jay and Sandra do most of the actual work, and concentrating on my own needs for a little while.

I was in something of a funk, which always happened after I’d hit a sort of peak. The Champions League playoff followed by the transfer deadline was a double whammy that signalled plateau time. A few weeks, maybe a few months, of reflection and introspection while my squads adjusted to life in the fast lane. Then I would retake the wheels, and zoom! It would be fun again.

”That was mint,” said Jill, returning to my side. ”How good are we?”

I wasn’t sure if she was saying it as a question or a statement, but I answered anyway. ”I think we’re on a par with Sunderland and Bristol City, but a fraction behind Birmingham City. Those three will be our rivals.”

She looked appalled. ”The first two games of the season are against Sunderland and Bristol!”

”I know. So that’s tough, but we don’t play Brum until November and by then we’ll be the better team. Probably.” We were probably only a few CA points behind Birmingham and I was 100% sure we had way more upside than our rivals. As long as we didn’t lose the first two matches, we would get one of the two promotion slots.

Jill had almost the exact same thought as me, which proved how smart she was. ”If we lose the first two matches, it could be a long, frustrating season.”

”I know,” I smiled. I pointed to our left. ”Which is why we have Haley.”

Haley Goodhew, our big-money summer signing, was patrolling her penalty area, keeping focussed. She barely had anything to do in the match, but the centre backs sometimes passed the ball back to keep her involved. Jill said, ”She’s even better than I thought. Good with her feet, takes crosses with ease, big presence, but she’s agile, too. Gets down to low shots quickly, gets back up again. Double saves, everything.”

”She’s incredible,” I agreed. ”And she’s settling in well, from what I hear.”

”I would say so. She’s not the most vocal and I’ve told her to let me know if there’s anything she needs or anything that isn’t right but it’s hard to tell what’s her being content with conditions at the club and what’s her being northern. I was saying to my husband, if Haley’s this good and she’s England’s third-choice goalie, what must the other two be like?”

”They’re exceptional,” I said. ”But Haley can catch them. We need to help her get there.” The Match Overview screen showed that we had entered the 45th minute. ”I’m gonna wait here.” I took a notebook from my backpack and scribbled some random numbers.

That was a signal that the conversation was over. Jill got up, ready to lead the players inside to the dressing room.

In amongst the random numbers, I wrote a real one.

XP balance: 10,521

The XP had been flowing freely in recent weeks. I wasn’t saving up, exactly, but I did want to wait until the transfer window was closed so I would have a clearer idea on what types of perks would most benefit me and my squads. The general plan for the coming months was to stock up on Attributes and while it was always better to unlock them sooner rather than later, I doubted one extra field in a player profile would have changed my transfer dealings.

I was also waiting to see what September’s monthly offering would be, but the imps had gone back to being lazy and that very morning, an old perk had reappeared.

New perk available this month: Wet Wet Wet

Cost: 6,000 XP

Effects: You feel it in your fingers, you feel it in your toes. This perk tells you which way the weather blows. Purchasing this adds an accurate five-day weather forecast widget to your SYSTEM screens. Can be upgraded to show longer-term forecasts.

I mean, knowing the weather ahead of time could be sort of useful as a football manager, but if I bought this perk it would actually be in my role as an amateur gardener. Five days of solid rain coming? Erect the slug defences! Five baking hot days? Prepare the watering cans! Keeping my plants alive was noble in its own way, but not really a good use of my precious XP.

I skimmed the perk shop and my attention rested on the final ’default’ formation, 4-2-2-2. More formations and tactical flexibility were always welcome, but Chester’s men’s team weren’t struggling because of our tactics. We were struggling because in Championship terms, we were essentially newborn babes. We had been birthed into non-league football, we needed a minute for our eyes to adjust to the light, and unlike Jamie Lane-Beeks, we didn’t have a godlike babysitter softening our play areas, carrying us across cracks in the pavement, and remembering to give us our feeds.

The only perks that could help me make money in the medium term were the Attributes. Unless there was a very tasty offer in the next few months, I would invest all my resources in unlocking Attributes, and that would help me to make Pradeep’s DOVE programme even sexier.

Now I had enough XP to buy two Attributes in one go. That would cheer me up, surely?

I scribbled the word ’yes’ on my notepad, added more numbers and letters and squiggles around ’XP Balance’ so that no-one would ever be able to work out what I had written there, then sat back and felt my pulse quicken just a little in the seconds before I made myself more powerful.

***

Aggression

Okay! That one wasn’t bad.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

You needed some aggressive players, that was for sure, otherwise you would get bullied. When I had started life as a footballer in Darlington, I’d had notions of playing beautiful, free-flowing football and had been incensed when players had, like, tried to stop me from doing that. They pulled my shirt, kicked me, tripped me, gave me digs in the ribs when the ref wasn’t looking. Hard tackles flew in, elbows were sharpened.

I hated it, but if you want to play the sport you need to be able to take it - and to dish it out.

There were days when I had actually enjoyed the rough stuff. Chester had gone to some grounds that were meant to be intimidating, home to teams chock-a-block with so-called hard men. Backed by Glenn Ryder or Christian Fierce, and tough nuts like Zach, Magnus, Sam Topps, James Wise, we had smashed the bullies back to the stone age then brought them into the information age. The information? You lose, sucka.

Good times.

I wouldn’t want too much Aggression in my teams, though. Danny Prince’s red card had cost me in more ways than one. There was a sweet spot.

I sorted the women’s squad by the new Attribute. There were no real surprises amongst the key players. Generally, the defenders had higher Aggression than the midfielders, who were again higher than the strikers. Femi and Meghan had 14 each, while Victoria Rose, who I wanted to play as a DM, had 16. That was maybe a fraction higher than I would have liked. I would see about getting Sam Topps to give her some coaching. Maybe he could knock a couple of points off while keeping her intimidation factor.

Kisi’s was very low, Dani’s was low, Sarah Greene and Charlotte medium. Angel and Meredith Ann were low, but Kit Hodges had Aggression 10. That felt good - you didn’t want to let your strikers get knocked about with no retaliation. You wanted someone in that group who would avenge a late tackle, for example.

The biggest surprise was with two of the newcomers to the squad.

We had gifted three players to Liverpool Feds (Scottie Love, Diane, Maddy Hines), Ridley T had gone to Blackburn, Luxury Bell was taking at least a year off to have a baby, and Pippa had ’retired’ to Saltney Town Women.

To flesh out the squad, I had promoted a few young players. Babs (26/72) was now our third-choice goalie. Amy Shone (45/105) got a pro contract because while her ceiling wasn’t high, I felt her skills were going to be useful.

Then there was Jenni Fairbrother, a 17-year-old central midfielder I had scouted at a schools match ages ago. She was currently CA 16, PA 123. Years away from being useful, then, but why not get started? Since she had got her pro contract (400 a week) she had been improving rapidly. Her Aggression score was 16 - she hadn’t shown that on the training pitch!

Nor had Taz Murphy, who was a recent find. She was also 17, also a midfielder, but she could play in the middle or on the right. CA 18, PA 133. Again, why not promote her early and get her career going? Especially because she was giving me Feedback Loop experience points. I had earned 100 XP for giving her a debut in our first pre-season friendly (which was against Puddington Pirates, as was tradition). Taz had Aggression 15.

I liked the idea that these two talented, locally-born midfielders enjoyed a bit of a scrap. That would help a lot in certain matches, and the fans would love them. Yeah, they would pick up the odd red card but as long as it didn’t cost me 18 million quid I could write it off as ’one of those things’.

I checked the men’s team and skimmed the other squads that were in my head. The numbers were broadly in line with what I would have predicted, with one exception. My highly-paid new goalie, Owen Elmham, had Aggression 20.

Jesus Christ.

I looked up and saw someone was waiting for me. Dani had seen me writing in the notebook and thought I was going to give her a message.

Presumptuous or what?

I turned to a blank page, wrote, tore it out, and handed it to her. She read:

KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING BUT A LITTLE BIT BETTER

She gestured a few times.

I grinned and wrote a new message.

YOU ARE MOVING FROM ZONE TO ZONE WITH SUCH PRECISION AND CLARITY THAT I FEEL LIKE A CELESTIAL WATCHMAKER. I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE A CELESTIAL WATCHMAKER, BUT NEVER MORE SO THAN RIGHT NOW. KEEP GOING!

She read it, beamed, folded the paper up and took it with her to the dressing room.

Morale boost for Dani!

I went back to the perk shop to buy the next Attribute.

***

Reflexes

Unlocking this one was disappointing at first, because almost every outfield player had a score between 1 and 5. It was very clearly an Attribute for goalkeepers, a measure of how well they were able to react to quick shots, and I could have guessed every goalie’s score to within a couple of points.

As I mulled it over, though, I decided that it was a good get.

The key Attributes for a goalie seemed to be Handling and Reflexes. Throw in some Positioning and you probably had most of the old-school understanding of what a goalie should be. If you wanted your guy to be involved in playing out from the back, you would consider his Technique and Passing scores.

Personally, I wanted my defenders to defend and my goalie to save shots, and everything else was a bonus, so for me, a goalie who had high CA but low Reflexes was probably not worth buying. Now that it was unlocked I would be able to track - across many squads - whether Reflexes was something that could be trained. It probably could be, right? That’s why we had machines that fired table tennis balls at the goalies and why so many drills were about saving two or three shots in a row. If it couldn’t improve, that was really a vital piece of information, one that would potentially save me from expensive mistakes.

And anyway, it wasn’t really possible for me to know what DOVE would be good at. Maybe it would suck at modelling outfielders but would turn into the world’s top-tier goalkeeping analysis tool. That would be acceptable. That would be a niche we could completely and utterly own.

XP balance: 2,521

Chester had two games coming in the next week, very winnable ones, and next Sunday the women would play their first league game. I would be able to unlock another Attribute before the first international break of the season. With a little focus, I would have the remaining six Attributes in my head in no time. Even if I got sidetracked by a couple of juicy perks, if I stuck to managing I would have full profiles by the New Year.

Then I could spend the rest of the season completing the ’tactics’ branch, and experimenting with those new powers, ready to launch a serious attack on the Championship right from the start of next season.

Nice.

I sent Spectrum a text.

Me: Got a couple of new ATTs for the player profiles. I’ve been deciding on everyone’s Aggression and Reflexes scores; I’ll add them to the database next time I’m at Saltney.

Spectrum: Great!

Me: With the Aggression stuff, I’d like to be able to use that data to track a player’s yellow and red cards across a season, see if there’s any correlation, see if we can work out if high AGG players cost the team points in the league. Maybe we can work out an ideal ’total’ AGG for an eleven.

Spectrum: Interesting. By the way, we’re working on something a little bit different. You’re away until Wednesday, right? We should have preliminary data ready.

Me: Something to look forward to!

***

After the match, Emma and I split off from the main group and drove to Newcastle to have a late lunch with her parents. She would stay in the north-east for a couple of days, enjoying some family time, while I would go to my UEFA Pro course.

Sebastian and Rachel were still flushed from the excitement of following Bruno’s Magpies around Europe and wanted to get even deeper into the competition next time round.

They talked about buying some of the flats inside the new national stadium. ”There are 92 units,” said Seb. ”You’ve got one. We spoke to the movers and shakers there about snapping up a few of the others. If we got them in their current state - far from finished - bought in bulk, and leveraged our relationship with the FA, we could get a good deal. Three for a million, kind of thing. We would need to finish them ourselves but that wouldn’t be an issue. Instead of putting footballers in overpriced short-stay lets, or miles away in Spain, we could house a few right where they work and play. Perfect for our loan players and when they’re not in use, bam! Holiday lets.”

”Housing the players is an annoyance and an expense,” I agreed. I wanted to add that buying flats seemed like a less than optimal use of the Weavers’s windfall, but it wasn’t really any of my business what they did with their money. I pushed some chunks of meat into a line, stabbed some onto a fork, and stared at my plate. There was a brown sauce that was fun to play with. I always liked making food moats.

”Unless you need the money to build the stadium at West,” said Emma. I looked up because it was such a weird thing to say. We had talked about it and she knew which way my decision was likely to go. Did she want to repeat our conversation but in front of her parents? Why?

I went back to pushing my food around while sometimes eating bits of it, like a natural disaster hitting the little city I was shaping and re-shaping. ”Why not buy flats in Gibraltar? Might not be the outright best return on investment but it makes it easy to do what we do, right? The Magpies need, like, ten bedrooms every July, peak tourist season. Even if you had two or three flats, it would ease the pressure, make the logistics go smoother. And it’s probably easier to keep the money in Gib than send it cross-border. And when the football thing ends, you’ve got properties a short walk from the airport. They’ll keep their value, at a minimum. They’re not making any new land, are they? Except in Holland, maybe. Yeah, not bad.”

I felt that looks were being shared around the table. Rachel said, ”Emma told me about the time she went to West and how much fun she had. How they made her feel welcome.”

”Yeah,” I agreed. It had been after the debacle at Tranmere Rovers, when a couple of sleazebags had been pawing at her. After that day, she had found excuses not to go to another match but I knew West’s good vibes, catchy songs, and ironic chants would be the cure.

More significant looks were exchanged.

Sebastian said, ”Have you thought more about the mini-bonds idea?”

”A bit,” I said. ”I’m off it; I don’t want to do anything shady. Anything that ends up with me in prison is a bad scheme, right? Because then no-one gets anything in the future. And even just one story about me running tax scams could cost me all my sponsors.”

Rachel said, ”Why not do it without Aurélie Fragonard’s twists? Offer the bonds, raise money, pay the interest, do it clean.”

The conversation was grating. I had thought about it endlessly from all angles! ”Because if it doesn’t reach the target I’d have to put in the difference and I can’t commit to that right now.”

Emma said, ”I would buy a lot.”

I paused in the act of building a mashed potato river bank. ”What?”

”Max, I’m living off what I make from The Wall.” Her dad’s sports law offshoot, run by Gemma, based in Manchester. ”We don’t pay rent. I have travelled a lot in the past couple of years but barely had to pay for anything. I don’t even spend a lot on clothes because when I get home with a haul, you rush around going ’How many zips has it got? How many zips?’ I didn’t realise how much I was spending on zips until I stopped.”

Time seemed to drag. Why was she digging me out in front of her parents? ”Are you saying I’m controlling what you buy or what you wear or something? I don’t know what - ”

”Max, I’m joking.”

”Oh.”

”Forget the zips. It was a joke.”

”Yeah,” I said, not getting the punchline.

Emma put her cutlery down and covered her face for a few seconds. When she looked at me next, she seemed older, more like her mum. ”When you convinced the fans at West to let you take over, you promised them success on the pitch without changing their character. A new stadium would be a change but it would be their home and they would make it theirs. New songs and chants, new opponents, same old banners and beers. If you put the forest wrap around the stadium, I can just imagine them singing about living in a greenhouse. You have different priorities now but I think you should keep your promise. They can’t play in North Manchester again next season. They can’t. I love West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC and I will put my savings into its mini-bonds.”

”We’ll buy a lot, too,” said Rachel, meaning the money they had made from the Conspiracy. That was about half a million pounds. Emma was talking about 30,000 or so, I reckoned. I needed five million at least. Even if West fans chipped in, I would be on the hook for millions. What if some shares in Temps Perdu became available? What if there was a block of 5 million pounds but the seller didn’t want to split it and that’s what cost me the chance?

”Thanks,” I said, as the last vestiges of hunger left my body. I stared at my plate. Half-full or half-empty? ”I’ll think about it. Um, I’m gonna go soon, I think. Got to drive to south Wales. I can take a break in Saltney and do some data entry.”

”Data entry?” said Sebastian. ”Is that the best use of your time?”

I realised I had been shaping my mashed potato into a rectangle with a pool of gravy inside. I took some mint sauce and spread it around the outside of the mash. A waterlogged pitch (need to sort out the drainage!), a stadium around it, and an awesome, sweeping membrane allowing green life to flourish. I smiled at it; I always knew I would make a top architect. ”We want DOVE to model me, so I have to be the model. Think about it, Seb. If it can think like me, we can offer it to every manager in the MBU. Real-time advice. Real-time injury monitoring across different time zones. Massive performance boosts through tactics and player retention, real-time scouting of the opposition. Not just a case of hey, watch out for that guy, but hey! Let’s sign that guy! Think about my clubs rinsing UEFA on an industrial scale. Going deeper, deeper, hoovering up the glory and the prize money. Put a roboMax in every dugout and this amazing summer I’ve had will look like a squidgy little fish thing clambering up out of the ocean. The first, hesitant steps taken so that future generations could run, jump, and fly.”

Seb eyed me. ”I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

***

Monday, September 6

The Welsh FA ran the in-person elements of their UEFA Pro courses from the Celtic Manor (pronounced keltic), a five-star golf, spa, and wellness resort near Newport. I’d had a long, long drive to get there, but the bedroom was top notch and I had a great sleep. After the boring part of the day, I would have dinner with the League Two Legends and Banksy, who had settled in at their new home, Newport County.

That dinner felt very far away at ten-to-nine, when I trudged into the room where I would meet the other 19 people taking the course. It was a mixed group, with a couple of managers of Welsh clubs, the best-rated female coaches, quite a few former players, and a couple of ’special guest stars’, including a former Dutch international and a Spanish midfielder. For some reason, UEFA limited the Welsh FA to offering only 20 places a year, every two years. 400 people had applied for the slots. I should say 400 people had applied for the other 19 slots, because my place had been reserved as soon as I had asked.

At the front of the room was a big screen and a tactics board. A couple of yards away from the screen came tables lined up classroom-style, facing the front, with a gap in the middle. I wondered just how much this UEFA Pro course was going to drag. It would start with two very long days, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and there would be two-hour online sessions once a week for a couple of months, then we would all return to Newport for an 8-day intensive sesh, more online work, a few 4-day gatherings, and near the end, a 6-day sesh.

The Spanish guy, David Bakero, was on the left of the room. It made sense that he was called Bakero because he had big, unkempt, floppy hair. When his staff profile appeared I would edit it to nickname him Big-hair-oh. I knew how his career would go. He would stay at Burnley after his manager was sacked - perhaps he would be the caretaker manager for a Premier League match or two - and next season he would take over a Championship club, get them playing intensely boring yet infuriatingly cynical football, and no matter how good his results were, he would be given a chance at one of Europe’s top clubs. Possibly Chelsea, possibly Leverkusen. They would score most of their goals from set pieces.

I went to the right, sat at the back, leaving a space between me and the nearest person.

The course leader guy, Dave Jones, shuffled his notes, looked at the clock, and asked if we wanted to start early. He said it like it was a big treat; my heart sank.

This was going to be gruelling.

***

UEFA Pro 27/28 Day One Review

Course Coordinator: David Jones

As I started the introductory module, there was little sign of the mayhem that would engulf the day.

I went through the usual slideshow. The 7 core competencies that underpinned the course, an overview of the schedule and the workload, some of the topics that the man on the street would be surprised to find included in the course. I suggested to the candidates that there would be less actual coaching than on their A and B licences, and they should think of it almost like a management course.

”Of course,” I said, looking to my left, ”some people need that more than others.”

Max Best felt my eyes on him and, because he hadn’t been fully attentive, overcompensated in terms of energy. ”Are you talking about your website?”

”Pardon me?”

He said, ”There’s a photo of some guys doing a discussion session and they’re looking at a TV screen that says ’5-3-2, How to Break’.”

”I know the one you mean, yes. At times we will break you up into small groups where you will discuss particular scenarios like how to break a low block. Er... but what I meant was - ”

”Yeah but bro, in that shot one team’s playing 4-3-3 and the other one’s doing 4-2-4. It’s quite weird. It’s not even a 3-5-2 or something that could morph into a 5-3-2. There’s no five-at-the-back happening in that match! That kind of thing gets my eye all kinds of twitchy, do you know what I mean? If my coaches put together a graphic like that and it ended up on our website, I’d hold an inquisition. Maybe with candles and stuff. And hoods.”

Simone Ashton, who coached the under 18s at Swansea, turned from the row in front to look at him. ”With stretching racks and that sort of thing?”

”Probably a verbal warning before we get to the actual torture.”

One of the assistant managers in the Cymru Premier asked, ”How would you break down a 5-3-2, Max?”

”2-2-6,” he replied, instantly. ”Two wingers on either flank, overload one wing at a time while overloading the back post. Four in the rest defence but they’re mostly dealing with clearances. Strikers and your most energetic midfielders are quick onto the second balls so when the ball’s headed away, you recover it. Work it to the other flank, overlap, cross to the back post where you’ve got two guys running in, keep recycling the ball until one of the defenders literally bursts from the stress. Write that down: literally bursts.”

There was a buzz in the room; people were making notes and discussing his ideas with the person next to them. I said, ”Ah, we’ll have lots of sessions to discuss tactics. Oh. Yes, Max?” He had his hand up.

”Can I ask about the curriculum?”

”Of course.”

”It’s just you’ve got some topics on there that could be dealt with in, like, one sentence. I could explain what to do and we could skip those and do more tactics chat. I’m getting big tactics nerd energy from this room and I love it.”

”Well...” I was too slow. Best was already up and making his way to the front.

”May I?” he said, before tapping on my laptop, going back to one of the previous slides. He went down the bullet points. ”Dealing with club finances? Go to the nearest stable and start doing sums wrong. Someone will be so annoyed that she starts correcting your mistakes; hire her. Dealing with the media? Get a co-manager who does it for you. You focus on what you’re good at, which is growing your hair in a pleasing shape. Dealing with board members? Nah, that’s not your job. Let’s do a role play. Ah, Simone, is it? Here, you be Mike Dean, my boss. I’ll be Max Best. Okay, ask me something about football that a board member might ask.”

Simone said, ”Max, Chester have lost again. You appear to be out of your depth at Championship level. How close are you to doing the decent thing and resigning?”

Best appeared to give the question a lot of thought before replying. ”Thanks for that question, Mike. My reply to that is the same as my reply to every other question you ask me, which is to say this.” He got closer and put his hands flat on the table so that he was looming over her. ”You only enter my realm twice. Once to hire me, once to fire me. All other times, sit back and enjoy the show.” He raised his hands to the side in something like triumph.

Another assistant manager said, ”I would like to know how to comport myself with the board, with club owners, and the like. It could help keep me in a job.”

”You’re in luck,” said Best, pointing to the big screen. ”There’s a whole module about that. Attendance optional.”

”It’s not optional,” I said.

Best pulled a face and made his way back to his spot. As he went, Simone said, ”Do you do a lot of role playing, Max?”

”Oh, yeah, all the time. I don’t really understand why it’s never my turn to be the alien.”

I got a modicum of control of the room back, struggled through the rest of the introduction, and after coffee (in which the room had already split into those fascinated by Best and those annoyed by him) we came to the getting-to-know-you section, in which we did the 4 Hs.

There was the usual mix of personal anecdotes, journeys, gut-punching injuries and tragedies, and a few laughs, too.

Perhaps it was a mistake to leave Max Best until the end.

He got to his feet, ambled to the front of the room again, and made eye contact with everyone. ”My favourite TV show is called The Traitors. It’s about how, with a six-figure sum of money at stake, a large group splinters and becomes distrustful of their colleagues. They turn on each other for the amusement of the general public. It is my intention to recreate that atmosphere here and for that reason, I am offering a one hundred thousand Lira bounty to anyone who can beat me in a training match.”

A man I had considered to be one of the anti-Maxxers smiled. ”I like The Traitors, too. Have you seen the Hungarian version?”

Max’s eyes widened. ”No. Is it good?”

”It’s amazing!”

Max pointed at him. ”Let’s lunch!”

Simone said, ”Did you say Lira?”

”Turkish Lira, yeah. Don’t worry, it’s genuinely loads.”

One guy had his phone out. ”It’s two thousand pounds.”

”Is that a real offer?” said Simone. ”You’re that cocky you don’t think any of us could beat you under any circumstances?”

Max awarded her a slightly lop-sided smile. ”I wouldn’t call it cocky,” he said, cockily.

Again, the atmosphere in the room was crackling, but not in a way I felt I could control. ”Max, please. You should be talking about the Hs.”

”I am! Hungarian Traitors!”

Even I had to laugh at that. ”The 4 Hs. Please, Max.”

He checked the slide behind him, where the words were listed.

”Your history,” he said, studying the ceiling as though the chapters of his life were written there, in easily-digestible biweekly instalments. ”I can quote from my Wikipedia page.” He cleared his throat and held his phone up, but from my angle I could see the screen was off. ”On Monday, September 6, 2027, Max Best inexplicably began to refer to himself in the third person. Max Best attended a meeting of fellow elite coaches where he pointed out that the three football clubs he worked for had earned 14.2 million pounds in UEFA prize money already that season. Max Best informed them that the budget for the Welsh FA was 14 million pounds a year. Max Best is bigger than Wales, he crowed. Max Best is the dragon.”

Simone said, ”Max Best decided to stop talking like that very quickly.”

Best stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth. ”Kay.”

”Is that true?” said someone.

”The money? Yeah. I’m a pro at leeching money from UEFA. I wanted to monetise my skills by launching an online course called UEFA Pro but the name was already taken so I lost confidence in the idea.

”Okay, the second H is heartache.” He got introspective and spoke candidly, but not emotionally. ”Yeah, got some of that. I was 20 minutes away from dumping Celtic out of the Champions League. The prize money was going to go towards an experimental treatment for my mum, who’s sick. She’s being kept stable partly by the presence of an elderly Polish nutjob who is fading fast. When she dies, what happens to my mum? Nothing good.

”I’m going as fast as anyone has ever gone in this sport and it’s not fast enough. That’s fucking up my tiny little mind because what has brought me this far is doing the right thing, building a foundation, putting one foot in front of another. Doing anything different seems stupid but I need to be ready to act at a moment’s notice so how can I justify building more foundations?

”I’m conflicted in pretty much every aspect of my life. Example. I want to believe in my players, to let them make decisions, to empower them, but one stupid prick cost me millions of quid, or to put it another way, billions of Lira. It’s hard enough to trust people without shit like that going down. I’ve fallen out of love with the game and it’s crazy that the next item on my calendar is to start this course. All I can do is suffer through it and try my best not to ruin it for the rest of you.

”Okay, soz.”

He made as though to return to his seat. I said, ”What about the other two?”

”Other two what?” Some of the candidates called out and he looked behind him. ”Oh. I’ve spoken enough, no? No? Fine. Heroes? Who are my heroes? I can’t think of anyone.”

”What about a footballing hero?” I suggested.

”Um, no-one really.”

”There has to be someone.”

He puffed out his cheeks. ”I suppose... There’s a coach we just hired called Alex. I met him when he was managing a pan-disability team and he embodies everything good that I’ve written in my anti-thesis. Okay and the last H is hopes. What are my hopes? Short-term I need to get filthy rich to help my mum out before it’s too late, but then I’d quite like to go back to enjoying things, if that’s all right with the universe.”

One of the candidates said, ”What’s your anti-thesis?”

”Oh, I don’t want to be dismissive of this process but I’m really busy running Chester’s men’s and women’s teams, the youth system, doing all our scouting, consulting for other teams. I will do my best to make it to all these days, really I will, but basically I need the piece of paper, stamped, to work in top leagues. Er, yeah. Anyway, I wrote my final thesis already and I’m going to blitz through the rest of the paperwork as fast as I can.”

Simone said, ”What’s it about?”

Best said, ”It’s, erm... I could read you the introduction if you want.”

Five or six people encouraged him to proceed. I wasn’t quick on the draw enough to stop it from happening.

Best tapped on his phone a couple of times and started to read aloud.

”UEFA Pro Licence Thesis. Candidate: Max Best. Title, Two Left Feet.”

***

Introduction

I have read more than 20 UEFA Pro theses (theseii?) in the past 2 weeks, which, as you know, is more than one a day. They have been written by famous coaches who will soon occupy top jobs at megaclubs. These legends of the sport speak of the ball. As players they were, as coaches they are: hungry for the ball. The ball, the ball, where’s the ball? They speak of space. Control it, own it, slice it, extend it, compress it. They speak of player profiles. What are a player’s talents and how can a smart coach use them? They speak of optimal hierarchies, how the sporting director and head coach must manage down to the players and manage up to the ownership group.

With all due respect to these fantastic coaches, these respected former players, these future managers who I am sure will punch my teams in the dick again and again by following their principles, I threw 19 of the theseses into the bin. The 20th? Ah, that was special. It was written in a European language I can’t read and for fun, I printed it out raw - no translation - got drunk, and tried to guess what it was saying.

That was a great night.

Regrettably, a few paracetamol, a few gallons of water, and a few hours in a hydrotherapy pool later, I read a translated version.

Ball. Space. Player profiles. Efficiency. Don’t shoot from distance because it’s a low xG chance. Don’t cross because it’s bad percentages. Play slow and steady even while your fans are streaming out of the stadium.

Into the bin with that one.

This is a sport where the greatest minds in the game will discuss, in all earnestness, how a club’s squad-building has failed because the starting eleven has two left-footed centre backs. Two right-footed centre backs? Oh, that’s fine. Two left-footers? Something is rotten in the state of Arsenal!

What?

The same megabrains say nothing of a side’s lack of forward passing, dribblers, or flair players. Their attention is locked on which foot the centre back likes to kick the ball with, as though that is the decisive factor in a team’s success. Meanwhile, every trend in the sport, be it rule changes, the role of data, the ’meta’, how the sport is ’consumed’ on social media, everything makes it less fun, less exciting, less emotional, less impactful, less aesthetic.

We live in a world where the England manager puts out a call for a long-throw merchant like he’s calling for someone to pluck a sword from the stone and inherit the crown. A world where the tactical trend of the moment is to ’knock it to a big man’. Where elite managers on eight-figure salaries conclude that the way to win the league is to surround an oppo goalkeeper with big, burly, cynical players, hit an inswinging corner, and hope the video assistant referee concludes that your specific brand of cheating does not meet the ’threshold’ needed to overturn the goal.

The Premier League is eating itself. The Champions League is diluted beyond recognition. The World Cup is sick and dying, a playground for autocrats, dictators, and the bloodthirsty, while the biggest matches are played in the quietest stadiums, filled with tourists and the bored super-rich.

The thesis of football is to win even at the cost of the death of the sport.

Here is my antithesis:

A football manager must put the needs of the fan in the stadium above all other considerations.

Failure to live by this rule is cowardice.

Fans like to see their team win, but they didn’t fall in love with the sport because centre backs passed to each other a hundred times per half. Play in the opponent’s side of the pitch and the spectators will feel their pulses rise.

Do not waste time except in that one match per season where your supporters are screaming for players to take the ball to the corner. Fans work hard for their money. You must not steal time from the game; you’re stealing time from the fans.

Fans create the atmosphere and the spectacle. Draw fans to your stadium and you have won. Repel them and you have lost. A TV close-up of a yawning child is worse than a pre-match protest. The league table DOES lie. Winners build. Losers destroy.

You may play ugly football if that is all your resources allow.

As soon as you have more resources, you must strive to thrill the fans.

Bring back skill. Bring back dribbling. Bring back whipped crosses and diving headers.

Coach your players to pass and move. One-twos are beautiful. Triangles are impressive. Thunderbastards are the highest art form in the sport.

You and your theories are nothing. Your cleverness is nothing if you can’t use it to do your job. Your job is to entertain the fans in the stadium.

If you have written a UEFA Pro thesis that doesn’t include the word ’fans’, fuck you.

My name is Max Best. Judge me on wins, draws, and defeats if that’s as far as your imagination can take you.

I judge myself on smiles per 90, applause per defensive action, tears per cup run, howls of rage and derision, pride, dismay, fear, joy, and the number of kids in my community who pester their parents for the shirts of the teams I have built.

Give me a centre back partnership with two left feet as long as they remember why they are on that pitch. They are there to honour the history of the club, the shirt, the badge, to be avatars not for the manager and his coaching team, but for the only people who truly matter.

***

Best put his phone away, waited - for applause, maybe? - and once more made as though he would return to his base.

David Bakero, who appeared to have been getting angrier and angrier the more Best spoke, stopped him with a question. ”Fans are not a unified mass. They want different things. For that simple reason, you cannot give them what they want.”

”Fans want what I tell them to want.”

Bakero’s fingers flew up in frustration. ”Nonsense. You speak of many things that cannot be measured. Results are the final duty of a manager.”

”You can measure the attendance. Number goes up, you’re the boss. Number goes down, you’re shit.”

One of the coaches who was more interested in grassroots football spoke next. ”I’m involved in community football, Max. Grassroots. We don’t have attendance numbers. You wouldn’t measure us on that, would you?”

”Sort of. Think of a Sunday League match. Who’s the best manager?”

”The one who wins,” said Bakero, sourly.

Best said, ”The one with the most subs.”

”Que? They have the same number. The rules are the same for both teams, yes? Even in Chester?”

”We’ll go out one Sunday morning, mate. One guy’s got one sub shivering a few yards away next to a random bucket. On the other side of the pitch, that manager’s got seven, eight. Subs, not buckets. There are more guys who want to play than there are slots. The call sheet’s full but guys pop along anyway, just in case. Maybe someone will turn an ankle in the warm up and they’ll get on the bench. That’s how good it is to play for that team. That’s how good it is to play for that manager.”

”I love that framing,” said the grassroots candidate, nodding and taking furious notes.

”That’s what I was saying about my boy Alex,” said Best. ”I spotted Dani Smith-Smithe in his team. Incredibly talented. I whisked her away like a knight in shining armour. Come and play for Chester. I’ll pay you money and train you so you can play for England. Whisked her away to a better life. Except naw, she weren’t having it. I like it here, she said. This is top. This is my family. Nothing can ever be better than this, specially not a normal club with all the snideness and bullying. I mean, holy fuck! I went back to Chester in a righteous fury, cleansed the place, drenched it in holy water, started from scratch, insisted on a better culture. It took time but I finally won Dani over thanks to slick dance moves and some snappy video editing. Alex is the benchmark in building a team culture because Alex had to turn away players because there was never any space in his squad.”

”Football is not a popularity contest,” said Bakero.

”Sixty minutes,” said Best.

”Pardon me?”

”Fans streaming out of their home stadium sixty minutes into a match with their team two-nil down. I don’t remember seeing that when I was young, ever. I see it at least once a week these days. You don’t leave if your team are winning. Unpopular managers who win get popular fast. So what’s with tens of thousands of people going home with ages left on the clock? Because ticket prices are at historic highs - not at my club! - and those fans have been beaten down by weeks and months of tedious football. They’ve been worn out by watching the goalie pass to the centre back who passes to the other centre back who passes it to the goalie. Winning managers who bore the fans, when they start to lose... oy. Managers who never even have a phase where they win? Oy!”

Someone said, ”Premier League attendances are higher than ever.”

Best said, ”It’s an illusion. Every year, hard core fans are giving up their season tickets because it’s too much money for too little action. Watch a Premier League match. How many good old-fashioned goalmouth scrambles do you see? One across ten games in a weekend, maybe. I’ve seen old footy. There used to be loads. Goal-mouth pinball. Who has seen that amazing cup final double save? Sunderland, wasn’t it? Guys pinging shots everywhere, hearts in mouths all across the land, sensational drama.

”Why would you pay a hundred quid to watch horseshoe passing and patient build-up? At some point you stop. Premier League stadiums have fewer and fewer local fans, more and more curious tourists. United and Liverpool could fill their stadiums with weekenders, and so could the London clubs. The clubs wouldn’t mind that, either, because tourists buy loads of merch.

”But look around, carefully. The foundations are crumbling. The base is rotting and the whole edifice will come tumbling down because the thing about being a tourist fan is that you don’t want to sit next to a tourist fan. You want to sit next to a guy who looks like he was baptised with beer and lived on mushy peas until he was 6.”

I tried to get a grip. ”Perhaps we could - ”

”Of course you don’t like tourist fans,” said Bakero. ”You work for a club that doesn’t have any. If they paid half your salary, you would quickly reconsider. If you are as good as you think you are, you will manage Madrid or Barcelona. You will change your tune. Everybody does.”

”Nope, because I would never work for one of those clubs. You can play your La Liga games in Florida, take your Spanish cup finals to Saudi Arabia, slap your local fans in the face, do what you’re gonna do. But I’ll be playing Chester’s games in Chester, and West’s games...” He stopped abruptly, grabbed his head with his arms at strange angles, and groaned.

I glanced around - we had plenty in the room with medical knowledge. ”Are you okay?”

Best sagged, looking like all the life had drained from him. ”I just heard myself.” He closed his eyes and mumbled some quiet swear words before looking down the aisle towards the far windows. ”I think my progress bar just reset to zero.”

With that, he left the room.

***

I was dialling Gemma before I even passed through the doors. She picked up pretty fast. ”Max, what’s up?”

”Um, West Didsbury’s stadium.”

”Oh, yes?”

”We’re gonna do it. All systems go. Can you do whatever you need to do WRT the mini bonds, please? I’m hoping half at least will be snapped up by the Gibraltar group but Emma’s parents were talking about buying some flats out there so if, ah, any of the bonds are unsold I’ll buy the rest. Basically, assume it’s all funded, get things moving.”

”Yep, yep, on it. Consider it done. Hey, this is great! It’s gonna be fantastic for the community. A real boost to a lot of people who need it, Max. When are you in Manchester next? We should celebrate.”

”Big time,” I said, skipping past the invitation part. ”Got to go. I’m in school.”

”Oh, God, I bet you’re being such a pest! A pest and a show-off!”

”It’s not my fault,” I whined. ”They keep asking me questions! What am I supposed to do? Lie? Oh, my name’s Max and I’m not on the cover of the best-selling game about our profession? Come on, Gemma. Anyway, I’m gonna go back in and keep my head down. All right, bye.”

I hung up and took in a breath. Funding the stadium could wipe me out financially, but I had to do it. If you don’t put the fans first, fuck you. I would keep my promise to West’s fans, my promise to keep their culture intact. The money I needed would come. It had to.

I nodded. Yeah, I already felt better. Now to go back into the classroom and undo some of the damage I had done.

When I went back through the doors, I stopped. The big, open space I had to myself was not so big, not so open. I had a new neighbour.

David Bakero had moved so that he could sit next to me.

He offered a hand. ”David,” he murmured.

”Max,” I whispered back, accepting the handshake with gusto.

”Everything is okay, I hope.”

”Yeah. I just forgot I needed to order something for my new stadium.”

”Oh? What?”

”The stadium.”

He grinned hugely. ”I was worried this would be too serious. I think we will have fun.”

”Nah, fun’s over. I’m gonna behave. Best behaviour.” I tried to focus on what the teacher was saying, but I couldn’t help myself. My hand went up.

”Yes, Max?”

”Right, listen, this is the last time I’m gonna interrupt, okay?” I pointed to a bit of match footage that was supposed to illustrate something that we would be talking about in a future class. ”But you’ve had that slide on the screen for a while now.” I looked around into the faces of my fellow students. ”Am I the only one who sees what’s wrong?”

”Oh,” said Jones, stepping away to peer at the screen better.

I got up and went to the front. ”They want us to work in little groups to solve problems, so guys, split into groups of...” I stared at Jones.

”Er, four,” he said.

”Groups of four. You’ve got two minutes to work out what I’m seeing is wrong with this graphic. First team to get the answer wins immunity from eviction at the first nightly gathering. Oh, and hey,” I added, with a big smile. ”Since this thing on the screen is supposed to be a pressing drill, I’ve got a treat for you. Later in the course I’ll show you a totally new method of pressing I invented after combining late-night cheese with late-night Monster Munch. I’ve tested it with some of the Northern Powerhouse kids and they love it, but virtually no-one in the world knows it exists and I’m fairly confident that when I get it working, rival managers won’t even realise it’s an actual tactic we’re doing. It probably won’t even show up on data modelling.” I laughed to myself. ”Yeah, it’s rough, though. I need help to get it to work properly so anyone who’s willing to chip in, I’ll owe you a favour you can cash in on a future task. It’s potentially next-level and it’s got a cool name.”

”What’s the name?” said Simone.

I got a cheeky smile going. ”It’s called The Venus Fly Trap.”