Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

12.

Tuesday, September 7

Chester’s league record: Played 8, Won 1, Drawn 2, Lost 5. Goals For 6, Goals Against 17. Points, 5.

Chester’s league position: 20th (out of 24. The Premier League has 20 teams.)

***

Transcript from talkSPORT’s early-morning breakfast show.

And there was further humiliation for beleaguered Tranmere Rovers overnight. First there was a chaotic pre-season, then an inept and laughable summer recruitment which left them without a fit striker for the first four league games, than an inept, scattergun transfer deadline day trolley dash. And now their new American owner, Diggy Doggy, has posted the following message on social media. Quote, dog, why soccer play two long-ass halves? Four quarters, baby! Sell more commercials, sell more fish and chips, take the pressure off of them bladders, know whadimsayin?! End quote.

His so-called idea has been met with contempt and derision but what do you think? Should we change the laws of the game, laws that have existed for 180 years, because a rapper from America tells us to? Should we replace halves with quarters to sell more airtime to crypto exchanges and gambling companies? Is this inevitable, or is this a bridge too far? Is this where we make our stand? Have your say! The phone lines are open now...

***

UEFA Pro 27/28 Day Two Review

Course Coordinator: David Jones

After so many of yesterday’s activities overran, I was keen to crack on with the schedule. The 20 candidates were in the room by quarter to nine and were happy to start early.

I stood at the front. ”Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you slept well and were not too overstimulated by Max’s League Two Legend friends at dinner. I, for one, learned more than I ever expected to learn about modern babysitting techniques and perfume marketing in the social media age. Joining us today is Ruud Baas, who is from Breda in the Netherlands. Ruud sits on UEFA’s prestigious Jira Panel, which advises member associations on improving coach education, because good coach education leads to good coaches.”

It wasn’t even nine yet and Max Best was already interrupting. ”Ruud my dude,” he said. ”I met a cool woman from the Jira Panel, really smart and funny. I can’t remember her name, though. Help me out?”

Ruud tensed. ”There are no women on the Jira Panel.”

”That’s weird,” said Best. ”I suppose I must have dreamt that I lived in a world where UEFA would hire a woman.” He slapped himself in the face a few times. ”Wake up, Max! The year is 1975!”

Ruud said, ”Your point is valid but our group consists of the highest concentration of technical knowledge and the women’s game has not been professional for long enough for a female coach to qualify.”

Best wrote something on his notepad and showed it to his new friend David Bakero. The Spaniard sniggered and pushed the notebook away.

”Okay,” I said, as brightly as I could. ”We have a couple of individual presentations to get through - sorry, to enjoy - before we move onto the next section. It’s, erm, Max first, followed by Simone.”

”Max! Max! Max!” chanted Best, as he made his way to the front. ”All right, let’s properly welcome Ruud to the day. Ruud’s from UEFA so imagine his coffee is UEFA prize money in liquid form.” Best pranced to the far side of the room and leaned against a wall. ”This is my straw! I have a big straw and I drink Ruud’s milkshake. I drink it up!” Best returned to the middle. ”Has no-one seen There Will Be Blood?”

I cleared my throat. ”Max, please.”

Best smiled broadly. ”Only messing, Ruud. What I like to do is create a bad first impression and then win you over.”

”You are too late,” said Ruud, ”I was in the stadium when Bayern Munich played Bologna. I was there to study Evaristo’s unusual style but what I saw from you was even more revelatory. It was a sensational and extraordinary display. The rapidity and usefulness of your changes. The sensitivity to detect and react to Evaristo’s actions. I said to my peers, here is the new gold standard of calibration.”

Best’s tone changed completely. He shuffled to the side, picked up a chair, and placed it in front of the first row of tables. ”Sit here, mate. Sit where I can admire you. Who’s got a cushion? Dave, where are the cushions?”

Ruud smiled. ”I am fine where I am, thank you, Max.”

”You sure?” said Best, approaching our table. ”Wait, Ruud’s out of coffee. Can someone get Ruud a coffee for FUCK’s sake?!”

Simone Ashton had a far clearer idea of how to deal with Best than I did. ”All right, Max. Get on with it.”

”Yeah, sure,” he said, snapping into action, but one of the guys who assisted in the Cymru Premier had been waiting for this moment.

”Max,” he said, trying to seem earnest. ”My club is in a league where one team dominates. It’s a monopoly run by a foreigner who has no feeling for what it means to be Welsh in a society run by the English. Do you have any advice for me and my club?”

Best didn’t hesitate for a second. ”First of all, that guy sounds very charismatic and virile and I would like to meet him. But more specifically about the whole monopoly thing, I can totally see how that would be bad for you but my advice is to just let it happen because he’ll get bored and it’ll go back to normal. Eventually. Okay?” He smiled at the questioner, who could do nothing but smile back. Best took a pause and then returned to what he planned to say. ”I’m sure you’ve all heard Diggy Doggy’s idea for how to improve the sport. I’ve thought of a contribution to this important and worthy conversation. Let me plug in my laptop.” He took over the big screen at the front of the room. ”There we go. See, I was thinking I might put something like this out on Chester’s socials. What does the class think?”

He had written a short text.

Two halves in League Two is better than four quarters in the Championship.

”Hear, hear,” said someone.

”Well said,” said another.

”Dave?” he said, asking for my opinion.

”It’s short and it says a lot. I think it would be a good response. Of course,” I said, thinking this was a good opportunity to bring up the topic of being aware of how we are perceived on social media. How we might accidentally start a grievance with Diggy Doggy, for example, who after all is someone we might work for one day. We, as coaches, had no control over who bought the clubs we worked for. ”This is a good place to remind people of the dangers - ”

”Bosh,” said Best, as he pressed a button in extravagant fashion. ”Posted. Text approved by David Jones, esquire.”

”Oh my God,” I said.

Best slammed his laptop shut and got ready to do his presentation. One of the younger coaches was on his phone, checking to see if Best had really posted his provocative message.

He had.

Best pulled a flipchart a metre forward. ”Marker. Black for visibility or red to honour the Welshness of the sitch? Decisions, decisions. Oh, I know! Let’s choose black and we’ll talk about William Black, also known as William Blake.” On a fresh page, Best wrote:

Without contraries is no progression.

”Okay, form yourselves into small groups and discuss what this means.”

One of the candidates said, ”Are you using Blake poems to talk about football?”

”Football?” said Best, panicking as though he had walked into the wrong exam. ”Shit. When Dave said we could talk about anything that we had an interest in... Hold on.” He crossed out the poem and drew a cross-section of a football stand. ”Your basic modular football stadium. No concrete, some steel, wood. Goes up fast. I want to wrap this one in a wavy membrane to give it a more oval shape, a more organic footprint. Inside this extra bit will be ropes and wires for plants to climb. It’ll give it a sort of controlled jungle feeling. Wild, free, untamed, but shaped. Natural. Magical.” He pointed to his haircut and raised his eyebrows a few times. ”It’s gonna look absolutely bosh and give the stadium a wow factor that will generate media buzz as well as the buzz of bumblebees. Er, cut that. Wait, it was good. Put it back in.”

Simone said, ”You promised to teach us about pressing.”

Best looked offended. ”This is an elite course; you should be learning things you can’t learn elsewhere. What other football manager has to build a stadium that’s sensitive to the local bat population?”

”Max,” I said.

”Fine,” he said, picking up the red marker and drawing a big red cross through his sketch before giving us the evil eye. He tapped the black marker against his lips for a short moment, then said, ”I’ve got it! My presentation can be something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, the thorny issue of how unqualified managers and coaches smooth-talk their way into jobs because they know how to stoop to the level of LinkedIn-loving decision-makers who go weak at the knees for jargon. This is hot off the press. Heh. Press.”

He scribbled on the flipchart, hiding what he was writing with his back before suddenly darting away.

Imposter Syndrome: Burnley and the Bluffers

Everyone turned to Bakero to see how he would respond. His annoyed laughter gave the others permission to enjoy the teasing. Bakero said, ”My club Burnley is 20th and this is very, very bad. Max’s club is 20th and this is very, very good. Yes, I see how it goes in your head. Now teach us the Penis Fly Trap.”

”Venus.”

”That’s what I said.”

Best smiled and turned to a clean page. He wrote Venus Fly Trap at the top, then went to get a tactics board and cleared it of magnets. He mashed his lips while looking at the blank flipchart and tactics board for an uncomfortably long time.

”Lots of teams have really good pressing schemes,” he said, finally. ”19 out of the 20 Premier League clubs are very effective.”

”Dios mio,” mumbled Bakero.

”I can’t do better than the top defensively-minded coaches, which is why I leave most of this work to my colleagues at Chester.” He moved a few magnets onto the pitch and nudged them from the centre circle to the top right corner. ”It’s clever, isn’t it? You move ball-carriers to the sides where they can’t hurt you, force poor technicians into tight spaces, force left-footed players to play with their right, force guys to kick long or out of touch. What if you could turn the ball over in the middle, though? What would you risk to recover the ball in a central position?”

He stared at his apparatus again, then abruptly stepped forward and moved blue magnets into place, with a yellow magnet representing the ball.

”The blues represent a club chosen at random, Burnley FC. Like all copy/paste teams, they are in a 4-2-3-1. The double pivot - that’s what the kids are calling two defensive midfielders, Ruud - are passing the ball around at will. Ping ping ping. Ping ping ping, lol.” On came the opposition. ”Chester don’t have a red change kit but these are the only magnets we’ve got. Chester are doing 4-3-3 and their forwards have already given up. What’s the point pressing when we’re outnumbered and not co-ordinated?”

His hands started to move more slowly and precisely so we could follow him.

”Burnley bypass the forward line as easily as they have been doing the entire match. The DMs are up to the halfway line, the CAMs are in motion, trying to find space and a clear passing angle. Burnley’s manager is licking his lips; this is what he thinks about all night long. Making moments like these happen is why he can’t attend little Billy’s first trumpet recital, why he missed the conception of his second child.”

”Max,” said Simone, shooting a worried look towards Bakero, but like everyone else, she was fascinated.

”The red left-winger, let’s call him Lewis Lamarre, has had enough fruitless sprinting. He stays high and wide. Dazza, the striker, has been beaten down by his life of quiet desperation, but he sort of dutifully trudges backwards. Cheb, the right-winger thinks, fuck this, I’ll do it solo. He runs in a wide arc towards the ball carrier.

”The three midfielders move towards the ball but hesitate. Maybe we should hold our ground for a minute. Only fools rush in, etcetera.”

Someone said, ”Only fools rush in. Shouldn’t the reds be Sunderland?” I understood that reference: Wise Men Say is one of the songs traditionally sung on Tyneside.

”Unlikely,” smiled Best. He slapped the tactics board. ”No-one would do this at Sunderland because at this point, so many people should be sacked. If the director of football is watching this, he can pause the match, make a printout, and hand it to his head coach instead of a letter of dismissal. The striker doesn’t get a new contract. The left-winger doesn’t. Shit, even the right-winger is doing it wrong. He’s grafting but in an inefficient way. The midfielders seem inept. It’s a catastrophe.”

The air was replete with unasked questions. Best was daring us to complain. Ruud said, ”But you are your own director of football. You can do things others would consider stupid.”

”I’ve made a career out of it.”

”But you do not do this with your teams.”

”No. The higher the stakes get, the more I have to factor in the long-term impact of what I do. Doing this could cost Sandra Lane her next job. I don’t want her to go but I don’t want to stand in the way of something awesome. Ditto the players. I don’t want Dazza getting a reputation for being lazy. In the past I would have said fuck it, this is my plan and we’re doing it. Now I have to be more circumspect. I want to coach one group of Welsh kids to master this and if it’s a winner I can present it to Sandra and the others and say, what do you think?”

Someone asked. ”But what is it? What happens next?”

I turned to Ruud. ”Do you know?”

He shook his head. ”I do not.”

Best brushed his hand across the top of the tactics board, sweeping most of them away. He repeated the trick on the bottom half.

”Ohhhhh,” said Ruud, leaning forward, eyes shining.

I was caught up in the excitement, and like everyone else was scribbling notes, underlining words, sketching the formation graphics, drawing arrows. As much as the concept was appealing, it was not without flaws. Still, it is always good to start feedback in a positive tone. ”So with some smoke and mirrors you hope to surround the ball carrier.”

”Yeah,” said Best. He nudged the nearest magnets towards the ball. ”They trigger the trap and if the guy turns backwards, he’s turning right into the striker. Most pressing schemes are about rushing onto a player and closing off his options. They don’t aim to get the ball directly, right? What if that’s your aim? You need to smash the guy from the front and behind. If you can get the timing of this move right, you’re gonna get the ball. No-one can survive being swarmed by five players who are surrounding him. No-one.”

Simone said, ”What’s with the winger?”

”He’s part of it,” said Best. ”His job’s to attack the penalty area as soon as the ball is contested. If we get it, he’s the pass. If the defenders stay back to deal with him, that’s more space our guys can attack. I’m thinking this wide guy is Cheb or Roddy Jones and the guy who breaks with the ball is Wibbers. That’s terrifying if you’re a defence who, two seconds ago, was thinking your guys were about to get a good chance.”

”Max,” I said, ”it’s so hard to achieve this and it’s so unlikely to work.”

”Yeah, totes,” he said. ”But this happens sometimes in open play, just by the, like, confluence of the wotsits. I want to offer it as a tool in my team’s kit. This isn’t the default, but we train it enough that when they realise it is emerging, they activate. Some variation of this could occur two or three times a game. I think it could generate loads of threat but even if it doesn’t, it could cause second-guessing or even outright panic. English fans hate when their teams play out from the back, unless you’ve got top-level players who can actually do it. Even in the Championship I see loads of 4-2-3-1s with managers asking cloggers to do things above their skill level. If we get the DM to pop the ball up a few times, the crowd will get anxious. That will feed into the team. Mr. Best, sir, shall I activate the doom loop? Yes, please.” He blinked and eyed Ruud. ”I think it was when preparing for the Evaristo match that I started really thinking about this. His formations go in and out like a kaleidoscope. Do you have kaleidoscopes in Holland?”

”Yes.”

”Bakero,” said Best, ”do you have kaleidoscopes at the bottom of the Prem?”

”Do you have them at the bottom of the Champ?”

”Wouldn’t know,” said Best. ”Never been there. But do you know what I mean about shapes that go in and out? If your players are going from 4-2-4 to 5-3-2 to 4-2-3-1 all the time, they’re gonna appear in unexpected spots while the oppo’s moving the ball around. One weird bounce could send the ball into a pocket of players. I want my guys to recognise that opportunity. Here comes the ball - chomp.” He nodded. ”That’s the outline but I’m aware we’ve got to crack on so if anyone wants to discuss this over lunch, that would be amazing. Oh, hang on. I think I just heard something.”

He had his backpack there and he pulled out a bell. He slapped it a couple of times.

”Ding, ding! Time for Media Studies round two!”

He opened his laptop again. Someone said, ”Where did you get that bell? Did you steal it from the reception desk?”

”It’s Simone’s,” said Best, clearly lying. ”She got it from a speed dating event. Right, let’s check the text one of my underlings has prepared and we can decide if this is the sort of thing that should go out on a football club’s socials. Cool? Here it is.”

He did something with copy/paste and the following text appeared, with the PUBLISH button looming large in my imagination.

9:00: Jackie Reaper sacked.

9:01: Max Best straps experimental jet pack to his body, launches.

9:02: Max Best, bleeding a survivable amount, knocks on JR’s door.

9:03: MB begins to berate, beg, and bribe JR.

9:04: JR is employed by an organisation that puts football first. MB organises an open-top bus parade.

9:05 in the year 3034. A pub quiz tie breaker. The answer is Tranmere Rovers. The question: Which football club sacked one of the UK’s elite coaches and slid so far down the pyramid they were the first organisation to go completely sub-atomic?

”Dave?” he said.

”Don’t post that,” I said.

”The human brain can’t process negative commands,” said Best. ”All I heard was ’post that’.” I didn’t see that he had done so, but the way he closed his laptop made it perfectly clear that he had. ”I’m feeling great this morning! I actually love this course. Simone, you’re up.” He slipped most of his gear into the backpack. He held out the bell. ”Here,” he said.

Simone shook her head slowly. ”I think you might be confused.”

Bakero said, ”Not for the first time.”

Best dropped his pack on his chair and hid the bell behind his back. ”Can I just pop to reception? I left something there. I’ll be back in 20 seconds.”

***

Simone’s presentation was simple but thought-provoking. She took the flipchart and drew a horizontal line across the middle. ”The half-way line,” she said. She drew a vertical line and stepped away. ”This is how I approach my tactics for a match. I think of a pitch as having four quadrants and from what I know of the opposition, I draw shapes. Like, one of the teams we play has a fast right winger, so I draw an arrow coming down that side, in the bottom-left quadrant, like this. But the right back is dodgy, so I draw a squiggly line like this, up in the top-left.

”Then I think about my squad and what the players can do. I’ve got a great forward who can play either side. If I put him on our left, he could do a lot of damage against the full back, but will he be spending too much of his time helping out defensively against this arrow? I mean, that winger. Ha.

”So I think about the flow of the match in this kind of abstracted way and think about key positions I want to fill and I build my team from there. For example, by going through the steps I can convince myself not to waste my best player on the left because I don’t want him defending. So I put two defensive-minded players over here, and I stack the right with attacking talent.”

Best clambered on top of the table and sat cross-legged. ”Can I ask about this?”

Simone half-closed her eyes. ”Yes. Do you hate it? It’s stupid, isn’t it?”

”Er, no, it’s mint.”

”So you’re gonna use it?”

Best shot a worried look to the rest of the class. ”Yeah, big time. So my question - ”

”Be honest,” demanded Simone. ”Please.”

Best waved his hand like he was conducting an orchestra. ”So... I don’t do much of this kind of thing. I, um, skip to the end. What’s the best formation? This one. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a fun idea and I’m going to bring it to Chester and introduce the concept to my people. I know a couple of them think in this methodical, structured way. They like to lay out their case like they’re doing a trial in a courtroom. I can imagine Colin Beckton doing this sometimes to check what he came up with by other means. So, yeah, I do like it. But my question is: do you ever go through this process and think, yeah, my dude needs to be on the right. Except your gut is saying, nah, bosh him on the left. He’ll smack up the weak full back and it’ll be the oppo’s winger who’s doing all the extra defensive work.”

Simone said, ”I have doubts, if that’s what you mean.”

Best closed one eye. ”No... I mean... Yeah doubts, but I mean... You’ve done the work. You’ve planned and prepared and you know that this way is solid. It’s mathematical. You can show your workings, right? If you need to defend your decisions, that’s easy. But you’ve got this nagging thought that’s saying hey, go the other way! Take a risk! Win that one battle and you win the whole match. Go for it. Do you ever let your heart rule your head and if so, how does it turn out?”

Simone gave a wry smile. ”I don’t think I’ve got good instincts. I need to have a plan and stick to it.”

”Everyone, this is another thing I’d love to discuss in the breaks. Chester have two winnable matches coming up and I’m torn between grinding out the wins, which is what the clubs need, and being a show-off megabrain, which is what I need. I want your stories of when you listened to your heart, to your head, what you regret, what you don’t.”

Our grassroots candidate raised her hand. ”I’ve got a story.”

Best’s face lit up. ”Yes!”

I turned to Ruud, expecting to see that he was disappointed in me. I was not demonstrating excellence in the field of coach education.

Ruud was riveted.

***

In the afternoon we had our first on-pitch sessions. Good-quality teenage boys from the area, coached by one candidate at a time, watched by a hundred and fifty of the best coaches in the Welsh system. The UEFA Pro candidates were mic’d up and their instructions were being broadcast over speakers in Dragon Park, and also directly into headsets that all the coaches were wearing.

The first session was excellent and generated a good response.

Max Best went next.

To my surprise, he put on a completely conventional session. Simple drills - excessively simple - were followed by small-sided match scenarios. After ten minutes, however, the tone changed. Best’s attention switched.

One boy had chosen to dribble instead of passing twice in a row. Best called in the group and bade them to form a circle. The boy who didn’t pass was put in the middle. ”Right,” said Best. ”We’re going to do this. Kash is going to pass to someone at the edge, who’s gonna pass back. We’ll go round the circle until Kash breaks his personal record for passes in a row. Okay, let’s go.” Best blew his whistle. The boy called Kash passed to the side and when the ball arrived at its destination, five yards away, Best blew his whistle. ”By jove, he’s done it! A new record!”

Of course, the boys thought it incredibly funny. Kash didn’t seem too impressed to be singled out, and was amazed when Best ended that particular scenario. Back to the mini-match!

It went on for a while, with Kash firmly focused on passing.

The next stoppage was after Best had spent some minutes facing the action on the right. He blew up and turned behind him to a player operating in a left-sided role. ”Atherton, what are you doing? Why are you back there? You should be here.”

The boy replied, too far from the mic to be heard.

”Mate,” said Best. ”See this drill we’re doing? You think it’s all about the triangle on the right, but it’s not. It’s designed to give you some time off. You’re hidden, you’re in my cover shadow, so you get to slack. It’s a trick, mate, a trap. If you know you’re not gonna get the pass, do you still make the run? That’s what we’re testing. If you want to be a pro, you’ve got to do your job every time. The coach isn’t looking? You’re not getting the pass? You’re tired? You’re bored? Kashy One-Pass is hogging the ball? You make the run anyway. You do it for yourself, for the voice that’s inside you, because you know you need to put in the max, every single session.

”By the way, someone’s always watching. These guys,” he said, pointing towards where I was standing, ”are the coaches you’ll have in the future. They will bore you to tears, mate. No offence, lads,” said Best. ”Athers, theirs is a world of shuttle runs and grafting and getting into position and processes and repetitions. There are guys standing there who would drop you from the team if you tried a rabona or a rainbow flick - even if you scored! - but they’ll put you in the team if they can trust you’ll do your job. Every run, every time, that’s the minimum standard. Let’s go.”

The intensity rose a notch and Best trotted around as the boys rushed, passed, and tried to score.

Kash took the ball, found his balance, and tried to play a clever reverse pass. It surprised the defence but was played behind its intended target. Best stopped the game.

”Top, that. Mint. Give me that ball. Right, Kash, you wanted to take some pace off the ball so this defender’s trailing leg wouldn’t block it, right? That’s why that one didn’t land. You need to hit that angle, though, don’t you? So what you do is you lean back, chip the ball, loads of backspin, push through it, but here’s the trick - you chip it about one foot high. Carl, dude, can you reset to here and make the same run? Kash, stand behind me there. Athers, fizz this ball to my feet.”

Best took the ball and copied the move Kash had made before playing the low-chip pass exactly as he described.

”The little pop of height sorts out the trailing foot problem, right? Pass goes where it needs to at the speed it needs to. Backspin means by the time it gets there, it’s rolling level so your mate doesn’t have to worry about controlling a bouncing ball. By the way, the defenders are bricking it thinking you’re gonna chip over their heads.” Kash said something. ”Nah, not now. You can do that in your own time, right? Okay, lads, two minute mega game.”

Ruud was next to me when Best ambled away from the pitch. ”What do you think?” I said.

He turned the question around. ”I think you are not very impressed.”

”I’m not sure Best’s communication style would go in a coaching handbook and his explanations at the start of a drill were quite sloppy. The technical level of the drills was not high.”

”No, but look at the boys.”

They were walking to the far side of the pitch to take on food and water. ”They are in high spirits, for sure.”

”He demanded excellence, he made them laugh, he picked the most talented player and pushed him the hardest but gave him a new skill to learn.”

”A passing skill.”

”Exactly. That boy can show off by doing what Best wants him to do. I would say there was a lot to learn in that session.”

Across from us, the boys were very loud. ”I hope he hasn’t hyped them too much. We have one more candidate to go.”

***

Simone’s turn started well. The drills were well-explained, interesting, challenging, and it was crystal clear which skills the boys were working on. In many ways, it was the inverse of Best’s session.

The boys began to act out. Simone lost control and things were spiralling. Her voice was audibly cracking. I wanted to intervene, but Ruud would have said to let it play out so that Simone and the other coaches could learn something from the experience.

I caught some movement to my right. Max Best was handing his headphones to one of his peers. He strolled out onto the pitch. Was I annoyed... or relieved?

”Lads,” he called out, clearly audible through Simone’s mic. He looked up at the poles on which the speakers sat, and frowned. ”Lads, grab a ball and do lengths. Go on! We’re not paying you to stand around. Jesus Christ.” He peered at Simone’s headset and clicked a button. ”Did that turn it off?” he said.

”I think so,” said Simone. ”It’s not coming out of the speakers.”

”Top,” said Best, but he had only stopped the transmission to the pitch-side speakers. We could hear them in our headsets, clear as a bell. Bakero tried to signal Best, to warn him, but the pair had turned away. ”You don’t coach a lot of teenage boys, do you?”

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”Is it that obvious?” she said, sourly.

”Hey, now! Your drills are mint, they’re challenging, and the boys are loving it. The problem is, if I can save time by skipping politically correct phraseology, that you’re a smoking hot lily of the Welsh valley.”

”I’m from Swansea.”

”Hey! That’s my favourite valley. What I’m saying is, these football-mad teenage boys can’t believe their luck and they’re desperately trying to impress you, trying to get your attention, and you gave them more attention when they started dicking about so now that’s all they’re doing.”

”I know but I can’t get it back and I’m freaking out and everyone’s watching.”

”What I’d say about that is that there’s only one person here whose opinion matters.”

We heard Simone let out a big sigh. ”I know, my own.”

”Er, no. Mine. What? You’re so arrogant!”

”You didn’t seriously just - ”

”Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna totes ignore attention-seeking behaviour and you’re gonna reward the kids who are doing what they’re told. The feedback loop is too long now so we’ll shorten it; instead of making this drill continuous, you’ll stop after every shot, deliver feedback, go again.”

”That’ll ruin the drill!”

”The drill isn’t important right now. You need to regain clarity, yeah? You’re a great coach but you’ve got to think like a manager. Know when to move from low-level tasks to high level. This is high level. Re-establish authority, get back into the groove, then you can get technical again. You with me?”

”Yes.”

”It won’t take many repetitions for them to realise they get your sweet, sweet praise-kibbles by being obedient little puppy dogs. You’ll have them eating out of your hand in no time, all right?”

”Yeah.”

”You know what? I’m so confident you’re gonna smash this I think I should increase the level of difficulty.”

”Hell, no. Get lost. You can go now.”

”I’m gonna sub in for one of the boys, right? Hey, you! Come over here with that bib!”

”Max, no!”

”Are you sure? I’m way better than him.”

She made a laughing noise as she pushed him away, before blowing her whistle and summoning the boys. She spoke, realised something was wrong, and flicked the switch Best had turned off.

She restarted her drills, dishing out praise as Best had suggested, and within minutes, she was back on track.

***

Back in our meeting room near the end of a tiring, amazing, emotional day, Best put his hand up.

”Soz, guys, I know everyone’s thinking about shooting off home or whatever, but I have become aware that the Diggy Doggy four quarters story has blown up and I have, like, fanned the flames somewhat. Which, you know, entirely unintentional. I know the Tranmere fans are hurting so I’ve drafted one final tweet if you wouldn’t mind checking it for me.”

Reminder to Tranmere fans: I will help a phoenix club overtake the current husk so that you can take back your badge and stadium. One condition: you remain fan-owned forever. This nonsense must never happen again. Your hopes and dreams are not an asset to be monetised and the club YOU built should not be used as the missile that launches football armageddon. Fight back. Cancel. Refund. Unsubscribe. Join the rebellion. I will fight this fight with you - and the journey will be glorious beyond your wildest dreams.

The response in the room was definitive. Ruud hugged Best. Half a dozen pledged support for Tranmere’s phoenix club. Free coaching, advice, volunteering.

Best held his hands up. ”Thank you, all. Thank you. I’m gonna send the post. Okay... done! Right, there was one more tiny thing, if we have time.”

I tried to gauge everyone’s energy levels and saw a room of people who had been exasperated by Best, amused, charmed, annoyed. One thing was for sure, they had learned a lot in a short time. ”I think we’ve got a little more petrol in the tank.”

”Top,” he said, bringing up his phone. ”One of the things I like to do is think about what my weaknesses are as a person and as a manager and maybe not try to fix them exactly - what would be the fun in that? - but to increase my awareness of ways I could improve. For example, I’m terrible in post-match interviews, so I’m always on the lookout for real-life models. You know, people who absolutely nail this aspect of our profession, people who I can emulate.”

Unexpectedly, Bakero slumped, head on the table, arms covering his head.

”Odd behaviour,” said Best, primly. He became earnest. ”I have finally found a role model who will serve as an example to all who follow. A shining beacon! Listen, ladies and gentlemen, and learn from a real Premier League legend. Brackets, definitely not an imposter, close brackets. I’ve got the transcript of his most recent interview right here.” He held his phone up, cleared his throat, nearly dissolved into giggles, got control of himself, and read:

It’s those moments at the moment that are absolutely killing us as a group.

And I you know I’ve just said to the group in there and um... those moments at the moment are absolutely crucifying us and we’ve got to improve. We’ve got to improve in those moments. We’ve got to defend the box in that moment better. We can’t play that square pass and get countered on. Those moments, the moment at the moment that make us kind of...

Coming to these five games that we’ve lost, we lose by one, we’ve probably lost by one goal because of moments and it’s my responsibility as the head coach to make sure I nullify that and to make sure I keep coaching them and keep working with them and make sure those moments we can eradicate erm... and we’ll give ourselves a better chance of doing well on a Saturday and not sat here being frustrated with mistakes.

We looked from Best to Bakero, waiting for the denial. Surely his boss hadn’t given such an abominable post-match interview? But judging from Bakero’s reaction, Best had quoted it word for word! Bakero got himself upright, raised his hands, and showed the middle finger of each towards Best.

The latter stuck his tongue out, enjoyed the moment, then said, ”I think your boss will fit right in at Tranmere.”

”No!” cried Bakero, tipping backwards a couple of inches. ”No, that is too much. You go too, far, Max.”

”All right, fair enough. Dave?”

I sit up. ”Yes?”

”Next time we come here, can Bakero do a presentation on how to interview for manager jobs? His boss must be fucking incredible at interviews. Could be useful for the group. Not in this moment but in the next moment.”

Bakero gave Best the middle fingers again, but said, ”It’s a joke, or...?”

”It’s a joke but serious, too. It’s easier to get the skills for a job when you’re doing the job. I should know. If you can help people smash their interviews, they can get good positions.”

”Okay. I prepare something. If the group desires it?”

The group desired it very strongly.

When the candidates had driven off, I slumped against a pillar in not-completely-fake despair and turned to Ruud. ”Was that a disaster?”

My assessor nodded, eagerly. ”Oh, yes, very much so.” He looked up at the rapidly darkening skies and smiled. ”A beautiful disaster.”

***

Wednesday, September 8

I got to Bumpers early and followed our groundsmen around, smelling the cut grass, watching as their cool little robots painted the white lines. I went to the kitchen and encouraged our chefs as they chopped things. When I got kicked out, I went to the coffee machine to see who had been chosen as the worst trainer the day before.

”Tomz!” I said, super surprised. The coaches had picked Tomzilla as the worst performer so he had to get in early and make coffees on request. ”What happened?”

He was handsome, cool, and so unflustered on a football pitch it was hard to imagine him ever having the slightest personal problem. ”Sorry, gaffer. I have a bad day. I try better. You want coffee?”

”Nah, you’re all right.” I looked at him. His profile had his Morale as decently high. As a squad, we were rocking a 4.3 (out of 7) average, which was relatively low for Chester. The number was being propped up by our recent promotion, the relative success of a few key players, but was in danger of collapsing if our results didn’t improve. ”Talk to me, bro.”

He shook his head. ”Just a bad day. Nothing more. Nothing big.”

”Okay but when it’s big, you talk to someone, yes? Me, Sandra, Luisa. Someone.”

”Yes, I do.”

I wondered if his lack of first-team minutes was part of the problem. He wasn’t like a normal footballer who had come through an academy and grown up in a weekly cycle of joy or dismay, their mood fluctuating according to whether they got selected in the weekend’s match or not. Tomz was like me - an outsider who had forced his way into the inner sanctums. Now he was CA 85 with PA 178. Still so far to go; he had barely begun his journey. Still, though, the point of being a professional footballer was to play. Not playing could erode the spirit.

I grabbed the A4 notebook that had been there since Dani was on button duty, and drew a little sketch. ”Tomz,” I said. ”Here’s your improvement.” I drew a steadily rising line. ”Super. Top. Muy bien. But this is Chester.” I drew a sort of staircase. ”Every year we jump a level and you have more and more distance to go. You understand me?”

”Sim, sim, I know.”

”But you’re doing so well. So, so good. I’m very happy. You will play for Brazil.”

His smile made half a dozen people in the canteen look at him. ”Me? No.”

”One hundred percent.” I leaned low, stared at the staircase and Tomzilla’s progress line. I put my pen on the end of the latter and brought it, dramatically and suddenly, off the edge of the paper. ”Up!”

He smiled again. ”Up.” His eyes glazed over. ”Or down?”

”Down? You? No fucking way.”

”Chester.”

”Huh? Down? Down to Wembley Stadium? What?”

He went back to smiling. ”Down, gaffer. Down.”

I blew a raspberry. ”Don’t talk shit.” I slapped him on the arm and moved away because I had seen Christian, Zach, and Peter arriving at the same time. Ironically, three of the main villains when it came to keeping Tomz out of the first team. ”Lads,” I said, jerking my head towards the quiet zone, which was presently unoccupied.

”How was the course?” said Zach.

”I wasn’t into it at first,” I admitted. ”But it’s basically two full days of talking about football non-stop with loads of the most talented people in our profession. I mean, it’s intoxicating, really. Even in the boring parts my brain was just spinning.”

”Cool,” said Christian, eyes wide.

”Yeah, I’m happy to be doing it. Right, listen. We’ve got Watford and then Portsmouth. We know all about Pompey and we’re pulling away from them in terms of quality, but we’re better than Watford, too. I know it winds you up when I’m laissez-faire about results but these games, I want six points. I want you to make sure everyone is switched on in training this week and next. Okay?”

***

Before training, the available coaches met in the Sin Bin. Sandra was looking tired, which I knew couldn’t have been anything to do with Jamie because he was a constant delight.

I stood at the front and looked upwards at my talented, motivated people. ”I just realised why I love it here so much,” I said. ”Every day’s like a UEFA Pro day.”

Sandra sat back. ”Can you be about ten percent less jolly, please?”

”No! I’m full of the joy of spring.”

”It’s autumn.”

”Not in Australia. Uh, citation needed. Remind me to ask Dazza if they have seasons there. All right, here’s what’s up. We’ve got Watford, 3-5-2, weaker than us, followed by Portsmouth, 4-2-3-1, weaker than us. Everyone happy with what I just said? Cool. I want to go old-school Max on these games. Think about it as one single match spanning four halves. Pompey will be looking closely at the Watford match, right? Looking for clues about how we’ll play. I want to do something different in every half because it will confound our enemies and, er, someone finish that sentence for me in a cool way? No? So, first half against Watford,” I said, pottering over to my laptop. ”They do 3-5-2, and here’s a cool way to demonstrate what a challenge the Championship is. This is a team we’re better than, but they have a ball-playing centre back, dribbly midfielders, and a variety of wide players. League One teams didn’t have weapons like that!

”One problem they’ll have is that they send two of their midfielders forward to disrupt the oppo’s build-up, but we’ll be able to bypass that and those guys will be thinking, shit, I’ve come to the wrong game!

”I had a think about doing 3-5-2 and letting our superior quality shine through, but I’ve decided to trust my gut. My gut’s telling me to do 4-3-3. Check this out. Owen in goal. By the way, teams that only score by sending corners fast towards weak goalies? Owen plays in those matches! The guy will batter them! Okay, defence is Lewis, Christian, Zach, Cheb. Joel Reid, Youngster, Andrew Harrison. Wibbers, Dazza, Gabby.

”That’s very central, right? But what if we switch to 4-4-2 diamond? Joel slides left, Andrew slides right, and both Youngster and Wibbers move into slots where their skill sets are devastating.

”When we need to be central, we’re 4-3-3. When we need a bit of extra protection or threat on the wings, we go diamond.

”Any thoughts? Objections?”

Sandra said, ”You want to make it a game of four quarters, like your mate Diggy Doggy. First half against Watford is 4-3-3 slash 4-4-2 diamond. What’s the second half?”

”The second half is diamond slash 4-3-3,” I said, cheekily. ”But seriously, if it’s looking feasible, we’ll take Andrew off, put Peter or Fitz on, and go 3-4-3. I want it different to confuse Pompey, and Lewis, Cheb, and Wibbers give us top flexibility. We’re not using the kids in these two matches because I want six points. Six points buys us a lot of breathing room to give minutes to the Brazilians, Wallace, Roddy, Dan, and so on.”

Sandra was making notes. She underlined something and stabbed her pen into the notebook. She nodded. ”I like it. And how do we start against Pompey?”

”I’m thinking in the first half we do 3-5-2 but we drag Youngster back into DM. Then we shock them in the second half by...” I waited for someone to give me the answer.

Pradeep called out, ”4-2-4!”

Luisa said, ”5-3-2!”

Spectrum said, ”By not changing anything.”

I grinned and said, ”Stand up, mate. Take a bow.”

Spectrum did just that and retook his seat, beaming. Pradeep gave him a lot of digs in the arm.

I looked at my long-suffering co-manager. ”You happy with that?”

”Happy?” she said. She rubbed her eyes hard, then said, ”Delirious.” It didn’t seem like much of a vote of confidence until two years of sleep deprivation fell off her face and she said, ”Good to have you back, boss.”

***

Most of the coaches cleared out, leaving Pradeep and Spectrum to present an idea they had been working on. I had no clue what was coming, except that it didn’t relate specifically to the DOVE project.

”Hit me,” I said, as I settled back into a cinema-style seat a few rows back, popping the lid off a water bottle and drinking deeply.

”Okay,” said Spectrum, as he tapped on his laptop to bring up the first slide. ”While we feed matches and your input into DOVE, we thought we would try to be useful in other ways. Pradeep was joking about how much it rained here and I told him not to say that to you because Manchester is synonymous with rain.”

”It rains less in Manchester than in any other city you’d care to name,” I said, dryly.

The guys looked at each other, trying to hide laughter. ”Well,” said Spectrum, ”Pradeep said, oh, if it rains so much in Manchester, Max must be an expert in playing in rainy conditions.”

Pradeep was shimmering with excitement. ”Like the best Formula One drivers! The best ones outperform in the rain!”

”Yeah,” I said, slowly, because while I had picked up the same lesson over many years of diligently avoiding F1, I didn’t see the connection between the sports.

Spectrum wasn’t flustered by my scepticism. ”Here’s a photo of Saltney playing 4-2-3-1 across your Champions League qualifiers. The ones you took part in.”

I leaned forward and scanned the images. Had we played that formation in every match? It looked like we had, at least in parts. ”That’s unimaginative of me.”

”It’s great,” said Spectrum. ”It means we can compare. Obviously we don’t have calibrated cameras for these fixtures, but even the rough numbers are stark. Check this out. Here’s your zone of control when playing DM in dry conditions.”

”Zone of control?” I said. I thought I understood what they meant but wanted to leave no doubt.

Pradeep said, ”It’s the gaps you leave between you, the centre backs, and the other DM. Imagine the gap is a radius from which we can draw a circle. If the ball comes into that circle, you pounce. You are so intelligent you automatically alter the size of the circle around you based on all sorts of match conditions. In the qualifiers, the conditions were relatively stable! You played next to the same players very frequently! It was very useful for me.”

”You’re welcome,” I said, which made Pradeep giggle hard.

Spectrum said, ”Here’s the zone of control in the dry matches.”

I watched as one of Pradeep’s cool animations started. Black background, white blobs getting hotter as they moved around doing useful things. This one showed a blob - me - moving around the pitch with a big dotted circle surrounding it. Based on what I had heard so far, the meaning was clear. The bigger the circle, the more powerful that character was. Indeed, one of the animations showed an enemy dribbling the ball into my zone, me storming towards him like a white blood cell, me removing him as a threat to the host.

If you could make DOVE watch every match over a 12-month period and ask it to show the ten DMs with the biggest zone of control, you would very likely get a list of the ten best players in that position. What if I played as a disciplined right-winger long enough for DOVE to do something similar? Teach it what a winger should do? Repeat the process for every position? My brain was fizzing.

I nodded many, many times. ”This is cool,” I said.

The guys high-fived each other. ”But look,” said Spectrum.

He clicked and a new animation started. In this match, my zone was noticeably smaller. I put my head down, stretched my fingers out, and tried to remember in which match I had played shit. I couldn’t think of one. ”Um... What’s happening there? I don’t remember this.”

The guys high-fived each other again. ”Brilliant!” said Spectrum. ”Oh, sorry. It’s just that we’re happy to be useful. Max! This data is from when it was raining! Look.” He tapped on his laptop and showed me some overhead shots. ”On the left it’s dry. You’re spaced out from everyone else, very disciplined. On the right, it’s raining. The other players stay where they are, but you’re moving closer to the ball because it’s harder to control over long distances. Even with your technique, you move closer!”

”Right,” I said, slowly again. ”Um, I’ve been going deep on topics this week and my brain isn’t all that spongy. Tell me the conclusion, please.”

Spectrum nodded. ”In the rain it’s harder to control a pass. You naturally move closer to the ball because you do what’s optimal in a given situation. The rest of the team don’t, though, because they’re doing what you told them. In the rain, you should allow them to move closer together. I have data to back up the theory that pass accuracy diminishes when it’s raining, but I don’t need to show it to you because I can show that you change your behaviour. For some reason, you don’t ask your teammates to do the same.”

I shook my head. So simple. Why the fuck hadn’t I solved this problem on day four of the curse? I pointed to the screen. ”Do the other teams move closer together when it’s wet?”

”No!” said Spectrum, happily. ”A few players move closer but the team structures as a whole don’t change.”

I took a big drink and turned away from the guys. After a while, I turned back. ”I’m very interested to know which oppo players override their instructions to get closer to the ball. They could be weak spots, or they could just be really good decision-makers we should try to sign.” Pradeep’s grin was way too big; I couldn’t help but grin back.

Spectrum said, ”The effect on pass accuracy is not immense, but in the small sample size we’ve collected since the reset, we think there are some interesting findings. Turnovers lead to much more expected threat, for example. Simple passes that are mis-controlled surprise defences and they aren’t as ready for transitions. We might want our goalies and defenders to kick long in the rain.”

Those words made me laugh. ”Why do I feel like every football club between 1850 and 2010 came to the same conclusion?”

Spectrum smiled. ”We’re reinventing the wheel, sure. But if we have forgotten this, so has the rest of the sport. The data shows we could get a small advantage. Small but potentially decisive.”

I stretched and yawned happily; I’d had a long drive north but a great night’s sleep. ”I like the idea of being the guy who drives best in the rain. That’s the highest test of skill, isn’t it? The performance of the cars is equalised so if you’re the fastest in the rain, you’re really the fastest. Yeah. This is interesting. I love this.”

Spectrum was so happy he didn’t know where to look. He rested one finger on his laptop. ”I had a lot of thoughts about it. Like, if you reduce the spaces between your players, you don’t need such a hard-running, all-action eleven. You could fill the team with Dans and Roddys and win on pure technique. It’s just a shame we don’t know when it’s going to rain.”

I shot to my feet so hard I nearly fell over.

***

Saturday, September 11

EFL Championship Match 9 of 46: Watford versus Chester

First half: Watford (3-5-2), average CA 119. Chester (4-3-3) average CA 122.4.

Goal Alloula, 1-0 Chester.

Watford were a fascinating club. They were owned by an Italian family who also owned Udinese, a decent-sized club there, and the clubs were constantly sending players back and forth. It was like the family were running a multi-club-model but with only two clubs and, as far as I could tell, no long-term plan. Presumably their bizarre transfer dealings made sense from the inside, but considering how recently Watford had been in the Premier League, Chester really shouldn’t have been stronger than them.

I had gone with my gut, and that meant picking Owen, our new goalie, who so far hadn’t done anything mad, and Lewis Lamarre as the left back.

Cheb was our best player on CA 141, Andrew Harrison our weakest on CA 109, but the numbers were slowly ticking up across the board. Doubts were creeping in amongst the fans, the players, maybe some of the coaches.

Not in my head, though, and we put in a seriously good first-half performance. There were a couple of moments of hesitation involving the new players, nearly a mix-up that could have been a disaster. But Owen dominated his box, looked immense when taking crosses, and one time punched the ball so hard it nearly went to the halfway line. My favourite thing was that when he did something awesome, he crunched his abs and cheered and when the defenders tried to high-five him, he got mad and pushed them away, yelling at them to get into position for the next phase.

My kind of player. Why did everyone say he was mad?

After a quality first half, the players came off, but I asked Bark to come with me onto the pitch and grabbed Wibbers and brought him back to a spot where I had seen him make a cool move.

”Bark, stand there and feed me the ball.”

”You’re in trainers, boss.”

”I don’t need boots to control a football! Jesus. Wibbers, you stand there and watch. You had a centre back right up your arse and you did this move, remember?”

The goal was to my back, Bark to my left. Bark passed to me and I mimicked what Wibbers had done. I backed into the striker, allowed the ball to run across my body, trapped it with my right foot, shifted all my weight to the right, nudged the ball left... I stopped there, but in the match Wibbers had tried to use the split-second of time he had earned to take a shot.

”It was mint, William, but you overhit the nudge, didn’t you?”

”Yeah, got too much on it.”

”Right. You’ve got your adrenaline going, the guy’s kicking the shit out of you, it’s hard to nudge the ball with any delicacy, innit? But think about it. Your right foot starts over here...” I demonstrated. ”And you come all the way across, you’re moving this leg fast but you want to caress the ball. That’s a high degree of difficulty. You’ll get it to work sometimes but how about this? Bark.”

I gave him the ball, faced Wibbers again, mimed jostling with the centre back, and when the ball came across my body I did the same trap-and-roll move that Wibbers had done, but used my left foot to nudge the ball into position. When I exploded to the left, the ball was perfectly in position and I gave it a lusty crack. (It veered an inch to the right of where I was aiming, smacked against the post, and the Watford fans behind the goal jeered me.)

Wibbers was nodding hard. ”That’s better, yeah.”

”Your left foot’s not excited, is it? He’s like, oh, I have to be the straight man again? Why do I never get to tell the punchlines? Your right foot is hoping to get a shot away so he’s hyped. Too hyped. Why don’t you take one of your sessions with Cody Chambers and get him to do this with you? All right, better jog on to the dressing room.” Wibbers did just that. Bark and I followed at a more leisurely pace. ”How you doing, Calabash?”

”Am I in trouble?”

”What?”

”You only use my name when I’m in trouble.”

”That’s not true. Is it? Heh. No, you’re not in trouble. You seem a teeny tiny bit down. Talk to me.”

He paused. At first I thought it was because the sprinklers had turned on and were spraying water in long, slow rotations, but no, he was exploring the stadium. ”Days like these. I want to be on the pitch. I look around training now everyone’s back and there’s so much quality and I’m thinking, am I gonna get back in the team? It’s just - nah, I’m not complaining. It’s just better to play.”

”Yeah,” I said, walking again. ”Everyone has a big role. It’s a long old season, innit? Yeah we’ve got competition for places and for me and Sandra, that’s top. For the club, that’s top. But you can’t measure yourself by how many minutes you get compared to Cheb. He’s ahead of you, right? That’s obvious. I got him cheap and he pretty much guarantees we stay clear of relegation so that’s a deal I would do a million times over. Your goal... Think about this season as having four halves.”

”Four quarters, maybe?”

”Nah, I’m not Diggy Doggy. I can’t say four quarters ever again because people will clip it up and make fun of me.”

”Right,” said Bark, laughing.

”Half one, you’re just getting used to this level, same as everyone. Second half, you’re kicking on. Third and fourth halves, you’re establishing yourself as a Championship player.”

We had gotten to the edge of the pitch and I stopped him there. I put a hand on his chest. ”You’re 21 this season, so you’re gonna spend ten years with this as your baseline. Championship player, Jamaican national team. You’re grafting for the next two halves to make sure this is your minimum level. You will get minutes this season and in the third half you need to be showing up on other clubs’ data models, right? Next season you can get properly paid and go from there.”

He looked sort of unhappy, although his Morale had ramped up by one level. ”Yeah.”

”What?” I said, moving my head left and right so I could capture whatever signals he was giving off.

He sighed and looked away. ”I’m gonna be telling people, hey I can’t go to that party, gotta do extra in training so I can be ready for the third half. How many times am I gonna have to explain that?”

I laughed. ”You’re Calabash ’Bark’ Barkley, bro. You don’t have to explain shit.”

He shook his head, but his Morale went up another notch.

***

Second half: Watford (3-5-2), average CA 117. Chester (3-4-3) average CA 122.3.

Goal Gabriel, 2-0 Chester, final.

***

Saturday, September 18

EFL Championship Match 10 of 46: Chester versus Portsmouth

First half: Chester (3-5-2*) average CA 121.6. Portsmouth (4-2-3-1), average CA 115.

Goal Reid, 1-0 Chester.

My ’four halves’ plan had started out pretty well; we had ’won’ three halves in a row, each one-nil. That meant three points in the bag, and we were well on the way to getting another three. Unless Portsmouth pulled a tactical rabbit out of the hat at half-time, they were toast.

Picking the team was getting harder - in a good way. Take the centre backs, for example.

I could shape a formation with three centre backs in all sorts of ways. Cole Adams was great as the left-sided CB. He was tall, getting stronger, and it was helpful that he was left-footed. Peter Bauer worked great in a back three, and Thomazella’s relative weakness could be hidden somewhat in a three.

In the end, I had gone with brute force - my three best centre backs. Zach, Christian, and Fitzroy Hall. Note I put Zach’s name first; in the past couple of weeks he had nudged ahead of his mate, and was now CA 118. All the gym work, the extra sessions put on by the club, the extra sessions the top guys paid for themselves, it was all paying off.

My most controversial decision - in Sandra’s opinion, anyway - was sticking Dan Badford into the starting eleven. He was far from our best midfielder, but he was already up to CA 99 and I thought Portsmouth had the tools to stop us hurting them down one flank, maybe both, but not down the middle as well. I thought Dan would give us that extra threat.

I was half right - the centre was decisive. Joel Reid was having one of those 10 out of 10 matches that came out of nowhere. He had been playing well since we had bought him, but this was something else. He was passing crisply, tackling cleanly, getting up and down the pitch, combining with Wibbers, taking shots, getting on the end of crosses. Wow. How? Why?

Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t our best player any more. Cheb was better, Owen was better. Joel was under less pressure to hold everything together. He could focus on his job and do that to the best of his ability.

Maybe it was a byproduct of my tactics. Nominally, we were in a 3-5-2, though we almost never took up those exact positions. Most of the time I was pulling Youngster back one zone to allow him to destroy incoming attacks, and when we were in solid possession I would reset him and do something funky with Wibbers. Drop him one zone deeper, move him wide left or wide right. He loved the challenge of beating different opponents; they hated the way they couldn’t get a grip on him.

With Wibbers elusive, Gabriel a focal point, Dan Badford slippery, and Lewis and Cheb threatening down the wings, maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that a very good central midfielder would thrive when the oppo’s attention was focused on everyone but him.

Maybe I would take that first half and turn it into a case study for my UEFA Pro course. Here’s my plan. Here’s what actually happened. Let’s discuss what went right.

The ref blew for half time. Our subs and physios got up and headed for the dressing room. I checked my XP.

XP balance: 5,338

I would get another 570-ish points in the second half, so I would fall short of hitting 6,000 today, unless I went scouting in the evening. I had been poor company for Emma for long enough, I reckoned, so we would go and have a nice dinner somewhere. In the morning, the women, fresh from last week’s hard-fought 1-1 draw down in Bristol, would host Sunderland. That would send me well over the top of what I needed to buy the Wet Wet Wet perk.

The name of the perk and the name of the lad walking in front of me lined up perfectly. ”Rainman!” I said, tapping the seat next to me.

Owen Travis, our third-choice goalie, was nicknamed Rainman because a band called Travis had a huge hit song called Why Does It Always Rain On Me? He took the spot I had indicated. ”Yes, boss?”

”I’m gonna ask you this one more time,” I said, sternly. ”Did you lie when you were seventeen?”

He grinned. ”Not even once.”

I grabbed his knee and shook it a bit. ”You’re doing well. You’re improving nicely. Don’t you think?” He had progressed to CA 80 and had 19 points to go to hit his cap.

He thought about it. ”It’s hard to tell. I think so.”

”Well, I know you are. What do you think about Owen? The other Owen.”

”Everyone calls him Mad Owen!”

Uh-oh. ”What? No, they don’t.”

”He’s an amazing goalie. He’s got a big presence. When we’re doing one-on-ones it’s like you can’t believe anyone’s gonna score on him. I’m learning a lot.”

”Top. So, listen, we’ve got the international break now, then the second game back is the Cheshire Cup first round. You’re gonna play that and we’re gonna have some good players but some kids, too. You’ve got more experience than most of them and you know what it takes to win leagues and cups. They’ll see how you approach that game and it’ll be a great lesson for them, yeah?”

”Sure, boss. Yes.”

”Top, top, top. Go on, be off with you. I have to be a top international businessman.”

I got up and walked across the pitch. Briggy stepped in line next to me. ”Are we good again?”

”Chester? When were we bad?”

”Forget I asked.”

I smiled. ”Next game’s against Cardiff - that’ll be really tough. I’d take a draw, TBH. Then Luton, Wolves, Hull. I’d be happy to come out of that stretch with anything.” Wolves would almost certainly dick us the way Crystal Palace had, but they were one of the teams named in the Shocktober perk. That perk gave us performance boosts against a few named clubs. ”Actually, hang on,” I mumbled.

Shocktober didn’t only work against those clubs - we got the boost against any club with a higher reputation, which was everyone in the Championship.

”Huh. Maybe we might cause a couple of shocks, you know. I wouldn’t bet on it. But then the last two games before the next international break are Bristol and Plymouth. I like the idea of always winning the games before a break. It’s good for Morale. Keeps the fans positive. Players, too. Nah, we’re not bad, it’s just a fucking tough league. Big clubs with big beast players.”

We had arrived at our destination, which was a hot blonde from Texas. ”Great half, Max. Are we good again?”

”Holy shit,” I said.

Brooke gave me a quizzical frown, shrugged, and got on with it. She was holding a folder, though she didn’t refer to it at first. ”Quick one.” She pointed to the away end. ”This week we brought the capacity up to 9,400 and offered more tickets to Portsmouth. They snapped up a few hundred extra but it was all a bit rushed. Today’s attendance is 8,824 but we should get the full 9,400 against Cardiff. It’ll be ten-four for Hull, eleven-four for Plymouth.”

”Progression,” I said.

”Number goes up,” said Briggy.

”Which brings us to the East Stand,” said Brooke.

We looked at it. It was low and showing its age. It didn’t even have a curving membrane around the outside that could be home to swarms of bats. ”The third half of the stadium,” I said, letting my gaze go left and right. ”MD said you had ideas.”

Brooke said, ”I know you want to keep ticket prices down, and I understand that. Long-term, that’s a good play for the club. Long-term, we can sustain high attendances if we compete on the pitch and the prices are this low. Low prices are sustainable and improve the atmosphere. Our sponsors love coming to a noisy, raucous stadium. I’m fully on board, Max. Fully.”

”Oh-oh,” I said. ”Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

Brooke gave me a patient smile. ”We often prepare for the worst-case scenario. What if Sandra leaves? What if Wibbers demands a transfer? But we don’t spend enough time thinking about the best possible scenario. We have planned for scenarios where we get to the Premier League. What if we stay there? What if we replicate what Brighton and Bournemouth have done? At some point, the low prices will make it hard for us to progress. My proposal is that we tweak your ideas for the East and Main stands by adding more layers of hospitality boxes. If we’re at home against Liverpool or Manchester United, we will sell every box every week. I’ve done some math that suggests we could make as much from our hospitality sector as we could from all the normal seats.”

”Huh,” I said.

”It’s a good compromise, I think, between keeping it affordable, making sure local fans can come, young people, people on low incomes, but then rinsing the people you are happy to rinse.”

I smiled. ”I think I could live with that, yeah.”

She opened her folder and showed me some sketches someone had drawn up for her. I saw the logo of the stadium design company in the corner. Her design looked similar to the stands behind the goals, but it had three layers of VIP boxes instead of one. She saw the moment my eyes popped. ”I know what you’re thinking. The four roofs won’t be the same height, as you wanted. But the north and south ends will be the same height, and the east and west will be level. It will look good, Max. Here.”

She showed me a rendering of the finished product. ”Okay,” I admitted. ”That looks pretty acceptable. As long as it’s symmetrical, it works, doesn’t it? And you’re saying this makes a shit ton more money.”

”Yes.”

”When we play Liverpool. But what if we’re stuck in the Championship for, like, ten years?”

She shook her head. ”Not a problem. It’s just a question of imagination. Imagine one of these boxes is called The Data Room. For a hundred pounds you get to sit in and see all the data and camera feeds that the club has access to. Leave your phones in a lockbox outside! No recording! And at half-time you get to talk to Spectrum and Pradeep and discuss what they’re seeing. Another box is the Sumo Suite. Sumo’s in a booth recording his Twitch stream. Sometimes he brings someone in to chat to. At half-time, everyone gets to eat with him. If we’re completely desperate, we can move the dentists into one floor and we’ll have the retail units available for other purposes. Imagine getting your fillings done with a view of the pitch.”

”You could charge extra,” said Briggy.

”Or we could use those rooms as offices,” said Brooke. ”But if you keep picking fights with celebs, we’ll be able to stuff this place ten times over. Media interest in your Diggy beef is amazing.”

I took the folder and looked at the designs. Brooke was right - it was a good compromise between making money and keeping prices low for our real fans. ”Brooke, can you get the Fan Advisory Board together and discuss this? Tell them this is our vision for making sure ticket prices can stay low forever.”

”Sure.”

”How much extra will this cost?”

”We’re looking at something like 15 million instead of 10, but that 10 was never realistic anyway. We have to put in dressing rooms and dugouts so that we can keep hosting matches when we demolish the Main Stand.”

I nodded. We would keep the dressing rooms - they could be useful in the future - but the dugouts on this side would eventually be taken away and converted into more seating. ”Fifteen mill,” I said. ”We will get ten mill in TV money and I’ll sell some players, but...”

”We can finance it, Max. If you’re happy to go bigger, to go more awesome, I can get started.”

”Briggy, did you hear that? If I’m happy to go more awesome. Do people really think I’m that easy to manipulate?”

”Of course not, Max. You’re fierce. You’re a tiger. Hang on, you’re getting a call.” She moved to the side with her phone by her ear. I noted she was still scanning the area for threats.

Someone in the nearest stand yelled out, ”Max! What are you doing?”

I went over to the guy. Someone was filming the interaction, so if I said anything cool it would be all over the socials within minutes. ”Just deciding whether to do plan A or plan A-mazing.”

”What’s plan Amazing?” cried a fan a couple of rows back.

”The stand we already planned, but bigger,” I said, spreading my hands. ”Better.”

”Are you gonna put a forest around the side like in Manchester?”

I frowned. How did they know about that? ”Not here, no. Maybe some shrubberies, but only because everyone loves saying the word shrubbery.”

”Should I buy mini-bonds in Manchester?”

”Wait, what? How do you know about that?”

”It’s been announced! It’s all over. Starts Monday, doesn’t it? Everyone who missed it with the McNally is thinking of doing it. Is it safe? I don’t really understand it. The shrubberies cost a million pounds or something?”

”Nah, there’s a basic thing then there are stretch goals. The stands, the pitch, and then the extras to get it EFL-ready. The shrubbery thing is to make it look cool. It’s not that expensive, really.”

”Is it safe, though?”

”As an investment? I have to be careful what I say but, I mean, I’m going to buy whatever’s left at the end of the international break. I don’t think that qualifies as investment advice so I won’t get into trouble for saying that. Will I, Brooke?” She shook her head.

”Are you going to do mini-bonds for this one?” He meant the stand he was in.

”Nah, we can pay for it ourselves. The club, I mean.” Brooke nodded. I smiled. ”But hey, we’re gonna need a cool name for this stand. You know the way clubs love to sack their managers in the international break? How about if we call this the Welcome Home Jackie Reaper Stand?”

”Jack’s coming back, is he? You got your jet pack oiled up?”

Briggy showed me a text from Sandra asking me to come and discuss the subs she wanted to prepare. ”Lads, I have to go.”

”Good to have you back, Max!”

”Why does everyone keep saying that?” I complained, as Briggy led us back across the pitch.

”Max,” said Brooke. ”At full time, could you come up to the executive suite? Ideally with Bark. We’ve got the CEO from PetPride here today.”

”Do I have to?”

”No, but he’s brought his incredibly beautiful Head of Marketing.”

”Let’s go right now,” I said, picking up the pace. Briggy matched me, but Brooke had to go hard to keep up.

”Max!” she yelled, annoyed and amused.

We came to an abrupt stop at the tunnel, where Sandra Lane was just emerging. ”What are you three smiling about? You look like a bunch of kids.”

”I’ll tell you if we win,” I said.

Briggy mimed cracking a whip. ”Back to work, you!”

Sandra rubbed her chin while she pondered how she felt about that, but Briggy hid behind Brooke - and that made Sandra laugh. ”Briggy, I want my trainers back.”

”It wasn’t me!” whined my bodyguard.

”I want my trainers,” said Sandra, as she wandered off to her spot. ”Cleaned!”

***

Second half: Chester (3-5-2*) average CA 121.6. Portsmouth (4-2-3-1), average CA 113.

Goal Reid, 2-0 Chester, final.

***

Numbers as of the international break.

Chester’s league record: Played 10, Won 3, Drawn 2, Lost 5. Goals For 10, Goals Against 17. Points, 11.

Chester’s league position: 17th.

***

Up in the Directors Box, I was mingling with the PetPride people, being very charming, asking them how their fourth quarter profits were looking (’we’re still in the third quarter, Max’), telling them about our plans to build a mega-stand with loads of boxes, when Briggy interrupted in a way she normally wouldn’t unless there was danger.

Briggy had her hand on my arm and was gently pulling me. ”Max,” she said, in front of the gorgeous Head of Marketing, in front of everyone. I realised Briggy was excited and breathless. ”Diggy Doggy wants to meet you.”

”So? I want to meet Zach’s dogs but it’s never going to happen.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. ”You met them!”

”When?”

”Max!” said Briggy, shaking my arm again. ”Diggy has found out about the mini bonds at West. He says how many does he have to buy to get a meeting?”

I opened my mouth to say something annoying like ’a billion’, but shut my gob and eyed Brooke. ”Diggy Doggy investing in my mini-bond is good for me, right? That’s worth a lot in, like, attention.”

”And the fun factor,” said Brooke.

”Is that a real business concept?”

She shrugged. ”Apparently.”

I looked from Brooke to the head honchos at a multi-billion pound company before turning to Briggy. ”Five grand.”

She nodded and took a few steps away, towards the glass that led to the pitch.

Brooke said, ”If Diggy Doggy invests five K in your sixth-tier football club just to get a meeting with you, the media are going to lose their collective minds.” She closed her eyes and twisted her lips, savouring the moment. She opened them and her eyes twinkled. ”You’re gonna need a bigger stretch goal.”