Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

11.

Saturday, August 19.

Early.

It felt like I hadn’t slept at all, but had spent hours tossing and turning, staring at the blackness in my bedroom. For some reason, I hadn’t been able to get Imagine by John Lennon out of my head. You know, the version recorded in lockdown by celebrities from their ten-million-dollar mansions. We’re all in this together!

When you have that song stuck in your head, you know it’s going to be a bad day.

Imagine there’s no xG... it’s easy if you try...

”Ugh?” I said, because I suddenly realised Emma was not in the room. But I had only just closed my eyes! I opened the curse but immediately swiped it away. Don’t want you, want Emma.

I jumped out of bed, raced downstairs, took the bottom step like a gymnast, and glided into the kitchen like a knob of butter sliding across a hot pan. (Please read that again. It says knob of butter.) I tipped my head back and said, ”Wah?” There was no reply. I went out the side door. ”Wah?”

”Wah!”

I followed the sound to the back garden. Emma was in a bathrobe, standing between two raised beds made of railway sleepers, which the Brig had put together for us a couple of years ago. Ems brushed her hand across the fluffy bits of the ornamental grass that was surrounding her. ”The pennisetum is coming along,” she said.

”Ew,” I said, before glaring at the grass. ”Could you please stop touching the fluffy penises?”

”Pennisetum, babes. It’s so strange you can remember how many goals Brighton’s left back scored last season - ”

”Three,” I said, adding, in a quieter voice, ”all comps.”

”But you can’t remember the names of the plants you spent days and weeks choosing.”

”I don’t need to remember the name, do I? A Marco Rose by any other name would use a flat back four as effectively. That’s Dickens, that. Names aren’t important. I remember the function and the reason we chose it. This spot was too sunny for all the other stuff we tried, so we needed something that does well in harsh conditions, and bosh! This nameless entity was the choice. I remember wanting it on both sides so that we get the corridor of fluff. It’s like getting married again, isn’t it? Walk down here and the grass throws confetti all over us.” I pointed to my left. ”Want to get in the wheelbarrow and I’ll drive you around?”

She sipped her coffee. ”I’m good, thanks. You were restless last night.”

”Yeah.” I pushed my hands through my hair. How honest to be? ”Empire’s turning to dust. Soon I’ll just be two giant legs and a haircut in the desert along with a note of warning for future generations. Look upon my trim, ye mighty, and despair. P.S. be careful which ornamental grasses you plant because some are invasive.”

Emma’s lips twisted. ”Did you tell Henri you’re buying another block of flats?”

”Yeah. He’s not keen.”

Ems glanced up, sharply. ”Oh. That’s not good.”

I held up a hand. ”He loves the building, the location, all that. He wants me to get leveraged.”

”Ah. You want to pay cash, no mortgage.”

”I know it makes sense to use financial tools to optimise my returns but it’s a question of peace of mind. I paid about half of the Best Chestern Hotel up front, but only about ten percent of the Big Mama House. What if I do the same with Claverton Court and all my income dries up? No, the whole point is to feel free, right? By Wednesday night I won’t ever have to worry about money again. How can I not worry about money if I owe millions and millions of pounds to banks? Nah. As ever, Henri is right but he’s wrong. I’m gonna look for another property and buy that outright, too. Another block of flats, maybe. That’s stable income, isn’t it? Predictable. Claverton Court has had the same tenants for years. They love it!

”But I was thinking maybe we could mix it up a bit for the next one. Go to the other end of the spectrum and buy a footballer’s mansion in Cheshire. I’m thinking the sort of thing you saw in that godawful Imagine video during lockdown. Next time there’s a pandemic, my tenant is walking around his six tennis courts complaining about how hard his life is. Every court is set up like one of the big tournaments. Grass for Wimbledon, clay for Paris.”

”That’s legit the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

”We’ll rent it to some knob from Liverpool or Man City. Or Wibbers when he gets his new contract. Don’t know, but I keep reading stories about how such-and-such a player lives in Gary Neville’s house or Jurgen Klopp’s house. It’s a more risky investment because there would be more downtime but in theory you could get a player who lives there for four years who isn’t price sensitive. I don’t know, what do you think?”

”If I had known we would be shopping for a footballer’s mansion together, I would have asked you to marry me on day one.”

I laughed. ”What? Is that fun?”

”Babes,” she said, giving me a despairing look. ”You want to flit from mansion to mansion, each one more tacky than the last. That alone is going to be sensational. The bling! The swimming pools that spell the player’s initials! And think about it - it’s the worst one, the most tasteless one that’s going to make you the most money. I literally can’t think of anything more fun. Let’s start right now!”

I smiled. What could be more appealing than pretending to like the gaudy decor of some neo-Georgian monstrosity? But I remembered my duties. ”I wish, babes. Have to get dicked by Brighton, first.”

”Aww,” she said, sweeping through the grass, away from me, forcing me to follow. ”Is it that bad? Are they better than Arsehole?”

”No. Arsenal were about 171, Brighton are 160. They’re still miles ahead of us, though. It would be a huge upset if we got anything out of the game in our current state.”

”Boo hoo,” said Emma, drying one eye with her fist. ”I sent all my players on side quests so I’ve got none left and suddenly there’s a main story! Who could have predicted this? Boo hoo!”

I gave her a quizzical look. ”Which chat groups are you getting that from?”

”Can’t remember,” she said, innocent as a newborn. She waved, vaguely. ”It’s out there.”

”It’s out there, is it? In the ether?”

”Mm-hmm.”

I bent next to a row of begonias that were supposed to alternate from Chester blue to white but had rather quickly decided to do whatever the fuck they wanted. One of the little shits was pink! How did that happen?

A lot of them looked a bit worse for the wear and the soil was bone dry, so I went to fill an oversized watering can and lugged it back. While I gave the cute little things a drink, I thought about how the day would go. The first ever PL game at the Deva. Anything less than a four-goal defeat and the locals would be happy, but this was very much a day when the curse would wrap its tendrils around me, around the club, around the city. People would realise we had peaked. And there would be the video assistant referee in a home league game for the first time, with its interminable delays and its utter contempt for the fans and for the in-stadium experience. People would begin to mutter that being in the Prem wasn’t all it was made out to be...

I could stomach all that, I reckoned. The slow then rapid decline in my approval ratings was priced in, but I knew that the real hurt would come from quarters unknown. ”Babes? What does your dad make of it?”

”Of the Prem and all that? He’s pleased. Proud. Not proud, no. Maybe, yes, proud. Worried, too. Mostly he’s nervous about what you’re going to do when Chester play the Toon.”

The first match between Chester and Newcastle was scheduled for December 23rd. ”That’ll be a fun Christmas dinner...” The begonias sorted, I went round watering some of the other plants. I didn’t want to overdo it because the Wet Wet Wet perk told me there was a big storm coming on Tuesday - I would be in Switzerland, which had enough money to pay storms to go around and hit Germany and Italy instead. ”Has he said anything about, like, Gibraltar? The Conspiracy? The Magpies?”

”Said anything like what?”

I put the watering can down and licked my lips. ”So... College lost to AEK and the second leg is in Athens. College might win, course, but probably they won’t, so they’ll go into the Europa League. That means we already have a decent idea of how much money everyone will be getting. It’ll be smallish profits for the club owners. For your dad.”

”How much are you getting?”

”We are getting about 3.3 million.”

She gave me a proud, tender look that banished Imagine from my head for weeks. ”From Gibraltar alone?”

I had to smile. It was impressive, wasn’t it? ”Yes.”

She looked around the garden, no doubt trying to think how it would look with a topiary T-Rex in one corner or his and hers swimming pools shaped like our initials. ”Can we get a new toaster?”

I laughed. ”Sure. Yes. But has your dad said he’s, you know, disappointed or whatever?”

Ems looked confused. ”Why? He owns a football club and follows it around Europe. He goes for curries in Manchester with his fellow club owner, Mr. Yalley, and they discuss how to give good pep talks. He’s living his best life.” Her eyebrows knitted together for a second, then she came into the hug zone. ”What’s up, babes?”

I wrapped my arms around her and sighed. ”Me getting slapped up in the Prem, it’s not just... The Chester fans will get sick of it, course they will. Who wouldn’t? What about the rest of the MBU? West Didsbury? Tempsford? My word is law. Saltney? That’s really just me and MD running the show and when it comes to Saltney he doesn’t really give a lot of weight to outside noise. Plus now he’s got Gwen on the other side and she can see what I’m doing very, very clearly. I can plan for the super long term there. But Gibraltar, the Conspiracy, that could go pear-shaped, couldn’t it? If your mum and dad, Mateo, Aurélie, lose faith, it’s gonna come crumbling down.”

She nuzzled into my chest. ”No-one’s losing faith, Max.” She stayed still for a moment, then put her hands on my ears and guided my head upwards. ”What’s the prob? I thought it was going great? It is going great!”

”Right but...” I had to grin. ”It’s about your favourite word.”

All the softness left her face. ”If you say coefficient...” The smile returned. ”Oh, Christ. Go on, tell me about it.”

”Look, it’s just a ranking, isn’t it? Out of 55 countries. When I took over Saltney, Wales were almost last. We’ve shot up seven slots, Gibraltar are up eight, and we’ve already done enough this season to climb a few more places. The higher a country goes, the more clubs it gets in Europe. That’s great for Gwen, great for our friends in the Gibby FA, but it’s not just that, it’s about player recruitment for individual clubs. I’ve found that when Gib is higher than Georgia and Northern Ireland in the rankings, it’s easier to recruit players from those countries.

”When a Georgian team is eliminated from European competitions, their players suddenly get a lot more interested in joining College. Right? Because the reputation of my club is higher than the one they currently play for. If their contract is expiring, I can swoop in and grab a good player for the next summer, without paying a transfer fee. Imagine a crazy world where Gibraltar is number one in UEFA’s club strength rankings. As long as I paid the wages players expected, I would have my pick of anyone. Make sense?

”But this isn’t a microwave meal. We’ve got to grow the ingredients, let them age in barrels in cellars, let things ferment. The rankings are based on a five-year rolling average and this is only year three. Every year we maintain or increase our current level, I’ll get access to more players in more countries and that in turn will fuel our progression up that table. It’s all incredibly beautiful and I’m very, very smug about it but when I’m being laughed at by 70 million people every week, it’s only natural that some investors would get cold feet and would pull the plug.”

Emma looked up at me and blinked rapidly. ”Soz, what? You lost me at coefficients.” She pushed me hard but playfully and retrieved her coffee. ”No-one in the Conspiracy cares what idiots on TikTok with enormous eyebrows think; they’re all too busy having fun and making money.” She drained the rest of the coffee and side-eyed me. ”You’re not... What is it you’re really worried about?”

I interlaced my fingers behind my head and looked up. It was already warm, set to be another scorcher. Somewhere in Cheshire, Brooke would be on the phone to five ice-cream suppliers at the same time. I would have to monitor my players’ fitness very carefully through the match; during the Arsenal game we had been forced to sprint about 20% more than in the Championship. ”Look, the, um... TikTok guys with big eyebrows...? That’s alarmingly specific, TBH. They don’t bother me. Guys from the Mail, DigiWorld, they’re just repeating what billionaires tell them to say. Fan media from rival clubs won’t like me because I’ll have a pop at their shitty owners. Most of that is water off a duck’s back but I think it would actually hurt if your dad, you know...” I waved towards Newcastle. ”If he thought to himself, like, maybe everyone’s right. Maybe that kid doesn’t know what he’s doing. Maybe I’ll tighten the pursestrings. Plead poverty.”

Ems sat on one of the chunky benches we’d had custom-made for the garden. This one was all the way at the rear, in a secluded nook that looked back on the rest of the garden and the house. Like a radar, she scanned our colourful, vibrant, life-filled little world and sighed happily. ”I hate to give you one less thing to worry about, babes, but my dad isn’t for turning.

”It was pretty funny. Did I tell you? When the news broke you were signing Ruud Berkenbosch, he was straight into the fixtures. Newcastle versus Chester, December 23rd. Of course this Ruud will have settled into English football by then. Probably score a hat trick. He was getting himself all worked up! Mum said, babes, he might be a flop. He might be useless. Dad blew up. Max doesn’t spend 27 million unless it’s a sure thing! He wasn’t sure he could face you strutting around St. James’ Park, acting the maggot, just before blasting the entire club in the post-match presser. No joke, babes, when Ruud was confirmed, dad was begging mum to go somewhere for Christmas. Someplace that didn’t show the Premier League, ideally.” Emma smiled, as much at the memory as at the bright yellow butterfly flittering past.

”Hmm,” I said.

She gave me a sharp look. ”What?”

”Nothing.” I narrowed my eyes. I wouldn’t be around by December, but if I was, Newcastle away seemed a prime use case for Bench Boost. Chester’s squad would be full, everyone would have 5 to 10 more CA than they did now, and I would legally change my name to something politically explosive. Heh. ”Yeah, maybe they should go on holiday.”

”Babes!” laughed Emma. ”Be nice; they’re two of your biggest fans.” She clicked her fingers. ”Hey.”

”What?”

”A guy with huge eyebrows said that Brighton will pose tactical challenges like you’ve never seen before and you’re going to get taught a lesson in the meaning of the word elite.”

I spread my arms. ”Why is everyone always trying to teach me a lesson? I’m almost literally a headmaster!”

”What’s the plan today? Oh, wait, first of all, why’s the match so early?”

”DigiWorld like to spread the matches out as much as poss. Most weekends they’ve got 10 matches to show, right, so if they show one on Friday, have a few spread out on Saturday, three spread out on Sunday, one on Monday night, it’s game after game after game so as a customer you don’t feel as ripped off. Some people work all week and watch the Prem all weekend. Apart from the fact that half the games are dogshit, it’s not the worst plan. The problem is they don’t really consider the needs of the fans when they are moving games around. One of our Slovakian fans could book a trip to be in Chester for a Saturday but then DigiWorld can just move the game to Monday night and it’s tough shit. The Brighton fans have to get up at 4 a.m. or some garbage to get to Chester in time for a lunchtime kick off. Almost everyone in this sport despises the fans and don’t let them tell you otherwise.”

I reached out to grab Emma’s wrists, pulled her to her feet, and squeezed her.

”Got an idea! Do you want to walk or do you want the wheelbarrow?”

”Where are we going?”

I nodded. ”To the penis grass.”

”Get the wheelbarrow.”

I hopped and skipped away, merrily, but when I turned around, Emma was almost behind me. ”Aww,” I complained.

She smiled. ”Get on with it.”

I pointed. ”Plant-based tactical analysis.”

”Oh, finally we arrive at the vegan stage.”

”Two raised beds of fluffy grass. Um... You stand there. Okay, now you’re a goalkeeper.”

”You said I was too short to be a keeper.”

”No, I said you had worse hand-eye coordination than creatures that don’t have hands. Right, you’re a goalie. What’s the most solid defensive shape?”

”I’m going to go with my trusty answer to all these questions: 4-4-2.”

”Bosh. So it’s you in goal. The raised bed in front of you is your back four. Nice wide rectangle of defenders, yes?”

”My defence isn’t very intimidating, babes. Christian Fierce was never this fluffy.”

I strode up and down the path between the two raised beds. ”This here, this is the key zone. This is what I’ll be talking about, but the point is that it’s empty, so I’m gonna hop over here on the other side of this penis grass. I’ll be a striker, so this grass here is our midfield, yes? So from your point of view, it’s goalie, defence, gap, midfield, strikers. 4-4-2, perfect. Are you with me so far?”

”Yes.”

”At non-league level, this is a very, very effective way to defend. It remains effective all the way up. I could show you hours of tape of elite teams doing this.”

”Maybe let’s do that after we’ve looked at some footballer’s homes, yeah?”

”Now, every strength is a weakness. This is a great structure, very effective, but it is a structure. It’s rigid. Predictable. Predictable is good sometimes, like with how much rent drops into our bank account on the first of the month. Predictable is good when you’ve been doing some Relationism and you want to quickly take up a solid shape. But predictable is bad if the oppo is creative and willing to try new things.”

I looked from left to right, and found I was broadly happy with my explanation so far.

”So, babes, if you’re Rudi Platz, what do you do?”

Emma gazed at the set up quite intently, then said, ”I think my first task would be to go to the mirror, look at myself, and say, ’Who is Rudi Platz?’”

I laughed and skipped around to give her a kiss. ”He’s my opposite number. The Brighton manager. People say he looks like me.”

”Gosh,” said Emma, her lips twisting. She got her phone out and started typing. She paused. ”What was it?”

”Rudi Platz.”

I peered over her shoulder as she typed: Rudi Platz nudes. She cackled and deleted the last word. Rudi Platz appeared. He looked like me but a more Frankenstein version. There was less twinkle in the eyes, less playfulness in the smile. In fact, the longer I stared at him, the more I thought he was ugly, borderline grotesque. ”Yeah, no,” said Emma. ”Not for me, Clive.”

”What the fuck?” I demanded. ”He’s gorgeous! He’s dreamy! Look again. Type Rudi Platz dimples. No, Rudi Platz in a suit.”

”He’s quite plain.”

”This is outrageous,” I said, returning to my place in the plant diagram. ”He’s a very, very good coach and a very creative thinker. What’s the main attacking formation these days?”

”4-3-3?” ventured Emma.

”Ah, pretty good guess. It’s 4-2-3-1, statistically. Rudi Platz uses 4-2-3-1 as his default. The lone striker is there in the grass just in front of you.”

”Here?” said Emma, rustling in the middle of the nearest raised bed.

”Yeah. Then we’ve got three attacking midfielders, who go in this gap, where our path is.”

”We need a better name than ’the gap’, babes. Isn’t that where Youngster plays?”

”Yes, that’s right. The gap is, er, the DM zone. The demilitarised zone? No, cut that. It’s the DM zone. But remember, we’re not talking about a setup with a DM, we’re talking about teams who leave this gap on purpose. Rudi Platz tells his striker to go into the DM zone, and the three attacking midfielders are already there. Or he pushes a full back all the way forward to be a winger, or he brings a full back into this zone and pushes one of the AMs high and wide.”

”Why?”

”Because that way, he has six guys in this line here. How can you defend all six? He forces you to make choices and compromises. Other managers do this, but what they really want is to hit the wide forwards. Platz is fine with that but he likes to hit this central gap. That’s why he overloads it.”

”He slides into your DMs.”

”Oh my God!” I rushed to her and gave her a spin. ”That’s genius. You are the actual best.”

She smiled as I gently placed her down. ”I know. But I don’t really get the point of all this. What’s the difference between having three players in the gap and four?”

”First thing,” I said, striding around, hopping from raised bed to raised bed, ”is that the guy playing the key pass here is a defender. He’s a Premier League player and he has been chosen for his ability to play passes, but none of these guys are Peter Bauer. Even Peter Bauer isn’t Peter Bauer yet. So take someone like Zach Green. He’s good on the ball but obviously you would want to give him four targets instead of three, or three targets instead of two. Right? And if the striker stays in his normal spot, well, you might chip the ball over the top and he might get it, but in the Prem you’ve got goalies like Marek who will cover the space behind the defenders and they’ll get to the ball first. With longer passes, you have to be very precise and quite lucky. Doing it the Brighton way, the key pass is shorter. But also, you give the defenders a decision to make. Every time the striker leaves his zone, they have to decide to follow him or not.”

I nodded to myself as I looked around the fluffy grasses. I had thought about this a lot. A lot.

”This isn’t the whole plan. They do things like this all over the pitch. Individually, they seem like gimmicks but when you add them together you get a lot of possession and a lot of ball progression. Brighton are mint. I really, really like them and have been trying to steal these ideas ever since I started.”

”Okay,” said Emma, nodding slowly. ”So I’m gonna ask the question I always ask when you tell me about someone who’s amazing. Why don’t they win 10-nil every week?”

I laughed. ”Mostly because it’s very, very hard to score a goal in the Premier League. Say their defender plays the perfect pass into this small space. If the receiving player takes a good touch, keeps the momentum of the move, great, now you’re cooking. If his first touch delays the move even a fraction of a second, it’s over. These four midfielders are going to steam back behind the ball and the chance is dead. Do you know what I mean? The manager’s plan is conceptually perfect but his players are flawed. That’s not helped by the fact that Brighton sell their best players every summer. They are doing amazingly well to keep their position but they are treading water. How can you improve if you have to sell?”

”I don’t know. How can you improve if you have to sell?”

I smiled. ”That wasn’t the start of a joke. Arsenal have 80-million-pound players as standard. Brighton have 40-million-pound players. How can you finish above Arsenal after 38 games? Yeah, anyway. Today will be a big manager-on-manager battle of wits. It will be draining for me. Lots of micro-interventions, lots of tiny nudges of players.”

”Like what?”

”So, for example, one thing we worked on in training was pretending to fall into their trap. We’ll allow this dead zone to form. It will bait Brighton into trying those passes, but Youngster will be ready to pounce.”

”Oh. Are you friends again?”

”I punished him and he accepted his punishment. We move on. Which is good because he’s already one of the best in the world at interceptions and he keeps getting better. If we get this little scam working, Brighton will basically just be handing the ball over to us. This is what they train, you see. If the two sets of players are in that shape, they have to play that pass. It’s... their programming or whatever. What you’ll see is Youngster turning his body, ready to steam in, while Wibbers and Leo are creeping into space of their own, ready for our counter-attack.”

Emma nodded, but frowned. ”This Rudi Platz is smart, you said. So then he’ll build a counter to your counter.”

”Sure,” I said, smiling. ”But that’s in the next match. And by then I’ll have new ideas.” I spread my arms, smugly, then remembered I wouldn’t be in the job by then. ”It’s a shame we’re so undercooked. With similar players, we would have a right old go at each other... Ah, well. Your dad still likes me and that’s the main thing.”

”It’s my mum’s team, too, remember.”

”I do remember, but I don’t need to worry about your mum not liking me, do I? As long as I do my homework.” I turned around and pointed at different plants. ”Pennisetum, heliotropium, scoparius. Boom! Bosh! Back of the net!”

***

Two Hours Before Kick-Off

We drove to Bumpers, going the long way so that Emma could see the newest billboard poster. It had the usual misty graphics with players in epic poses, but most prominent were the words:

Up. Brighton early.

”Slow hand clap for that one,” professed Ems. ”Was that one of yours?”

”Depends. How much do you like it?”

”Ha, it’s great. It gets better and worse the more you think about it. Actually, that proves it was you.”

The streets were dotted with fans of both teams making their way to the stadium, going past dudes selling random merch. Chester and Brighton had virtually identical home kits, so the half-and-half scarves looked even more dogshit than usual. Pointless. Why bother?

Brighton had last played at the Deva in the year 2000, a fourth-tier game that ended 7-1 to the away team. There might have been a few of those old Seagulls still knocking about, but probably over 95% of today’s away fans would be coming to Chester for the first time. A new notch on the bedpost!

When I passed a group of Chester fans, I felt the Mini pushing against an extra layer of nervousness. The Premier League comes to Chester! If there was another 7-1 pasting, it would be televised and watched by tens of millions around the world.

The car was stopped on its way into Bumpers and Emma had a needlessly long chinwag with the security dude. Finally, I parked. Sandra had already arrived and it was a mark of how serious the day was that she hadn’t gone in my spot. She had left her motor on a diagonal, such that I had to be careful when getting out. I peered into her car to see how messy it was so I could tease her, but it was all right, with the only mess being located around the baby seat in the back. There was a pile of toys and toddler-sized football kits. I spotted a Man City top, seemingly unworn and unloved.

Yes, Jamie! Good lad! Stay strong!

Emma closed the door and went around the back of the car. I moved next to her. There was something in the air. The area was vibrating on a different frequency. A higher frequency. Emma faced the Deva and said, ”Do you feel that?”

I put my arm around her and spoke in a mystical tone.”Yeah. It’s history. It’s eldritch forces at work. It’s a new entry in ten thousand cosmic calendars, ten thousand demonic databases: Chester Football Club have ascended.”

”Could be that,” agreed Emma. ”Or it could be ten thousand Cestrians with an excuse to get wasted first thing on a Saturday morning.”

”No it’s the eldritch thing,” I said. ”The angels and demons thing.”

”Oh, okay. How much cosying up to the sponsors are you going to be doing?”

”None. Brighton is a tough game, crazily hard, but I’m going at it full-pelt. We have tricks up our sleeves. We have weapons. I must not be distracted. I shall not be distracted.”

”There’s Caramel.”

”What, where?”

Emma scoffed. ”Poor men. So easy to manipulate. It’s a good thing Rudi Platz doesn’t know you have a crippling weakness.”

I scowled and pointed behind her. ”Oh, look, it’s Jacob from Twilight with his shirt off.”

Emma patted me on the arm. ”That was a long time ago, babes. I’ve got you now.” Three seconds of fidgeting later, she looked in the direction I had pointed. When she glanced back at me, we locked eyes. She laughed. ”Just checking.”

”You know that Twilight is just Fifty Shades of Grey fan fiction, right?”

”You know what I was thinking? We could look at some footballer’s homes for sale, then unwind with a Twilight marathon. Or Fifty Shades. Whatever.” She grinned. ”Both work.”

***

In the canteen, we separated. Emma went to do Emma things, while I went to sit with Sandra, Sticky, Peter, Colin, Vikki, and the senior physios, Dean and Livia.

We chatted. The others were nervous. They asked if I was nervous. I said I wasn’t all that nervous because we had prepared the best we could, but the constant repetition of the word made me slightly more anxious than I had been.

Today was a dream for a hundred thousand people. Our people.

We couldn’t let it turn into a nightmare.

Brooke Star came through the far doors. As always, heads turned as she walked past. She had a chat with Emma that ended with laughter, then the Texan came over to our table. ”Max, can I?”

”Could we?” I said. I stood and followed Brooke outside, into the big wide world. Green grass pitches and the pure white sky. That’s how you know you’re facing Wales. ”Wassup?”

”Everything is arranged, people are stepping up, the new staff are excited and competent. You don’t have to do anything but we had one request that I thought you might listen to. You’re making a face.”

”I’m not making a face.”

”I knew you’d make a face. It’s not from a sponsor or a b-boy or an agent or any of that. It’s from the mother of one of the Chester Knights. A boy you called Chesterkid.”

That got my attention. ”Shit. Is he okay?”

Brooke smiled. ”He’s okay. He’s coming to the match. His mother asked if you could quickly say hi.” That was both a common request and a very unusual one. I found it troubling. Brooke watched me fret and said, ”What’s the back story on this one?”

”Er, when I first came to Chester I had no money and the club was skint. I watched a match on a Saturday and MD agreed to let me manage the Chester Knights on Sunday morning and if I did well with them, I would get a go on the under 14s. I didn’t have a place to stay and couldn’t afford a hotel so MD asked around and I ended up staying with this player and his family. The kid is called Chester. I still can’t get over that. You wouldn’t call a girl Dallas, would you?”

Brooke’s sister was called just that. ”I think Chester’s a neat name.”

”Yeah, if you’re the youngest kid in an American sitcom. Not if you are a human child who lives in the city of Chester. It’s confusing! Anyway, they were lovely. Later, the mum defended me when I was scrapping with the club’s most gammony fans. Ollie was the main one. What was the other? Sean, I think. Not heard from them in a while, surprise surprise. Yeah, look, whatever. When it comes to the Chesterkid family, there is no call I do not answer, no faith I betray.” Brooke nodded, then bit her lip. ”What?” I said.

”Nuffink,” she said, looking down.

”Out with it.”

”Promise you won’t bite my head off?”

”Um... okay.”

She held her hands up. ”You need to focus on the match. That’s good. We can market your intensity and your scarcity. We’re not like the other Premier League clubs because we actually care about the football. We’re a football-first organisation whether we’re talking about pre-season tours or player access. Max can’t come to meet the people who are paying us millions and millions of pounds because he’s busy. What’s he doing? Incredibly high-level football things that mere mortals can’t comprehend.”

”Brooke, come on. Stop waffling. What do you want?”

”You’re going to meet Chesterkid and his mum. Can I choose where that happens?”

I shrugged. ”Why would I care?”

”Great. Let’s do it outside the Jejune suite.”

I scoffed and pinched my nose. ”With all the sponsors gawping at me? Like I’m in the zoo?”

”The zoo from the Hail Mary Project. Roll up, roll up! Come see the greatest living human!”

”This is deeply cynical, Brooke.”

”Thanks. I try.”

Unbelievable. But by focusing on the football, I was making it hard for her to grow our commercial revenues. When she got creative, I had to be receptive. ”It’ll have to be quick, though. It’s not that I’m dead busy in the time before kick-off, it’s about preserving mental calories. Not making any decisions. Being chill. That way, I’ll have juice left in the tank for the entire match, including the crucial last ten minutes.”

”Max, I get it. I’m sure it’ll be a quick chat. The b-boys will nudge each other and say, wow, did you smell him? He smells better than Sting! Then you can go back to your little hidey-hole and scowl at the wall or whatever you do.”

”No, I scowl at the wall. You’re bang on. That was a good guess.”

She smiled. ”I’ll set it up. Thanks, Max.”

***

My coaching team and I crossed Bumpers Lane, being cheered and encouraged with every step. The fan zone was bustling, our car parks were groaning under the weight of DigiWorld’s massive outside broadcast unit trucks, and there was a constant crackle of noise coming from the away end.

Once inside, Sandra went to give our team sheet to the referee, while I went out onto the pitch and walked a lap. The stadium looked totally different from the last time we had played here.

The main stand held 2100 people, as always. DigiWorld had wanted to stick loads of giant cameras everywhere, which would have reduced our capacity, but we had found ways to work around it - by placing some cameras on the roof, for example.

We had also promised DigiWorld one piece of footage per half that would be shot in the style of The Matrix. My data company, LIT, had about 120 cameras strung around the roofs, and by focusing them on one part of the pitch and cleverly stitching together the footage, we could glide around one incident, showing it from (almost) all angles, making it incredibly cinematic and cool.

The style of showing action was called ’bullet time’ because in The Matrix, the hero dodged bullets as the camera swept around him. We could do the same but with a free kick or a penalty. We had done some testing and while it wasn’t always perfect, when it hit, it hit hard.

As far as I knew, this technology was unique in world football, and wouldn’t cost anything to set up - the only cost had been Pradeep and Spectrum’s time and the opportunity cost of having them work on something that would make us any money. By switching to ’movie mode’ for a few minutes per half, we would lose chunks of valuable DOVE data, but it was worth it to ensure we didn’t lose any fans.

”Just hope it actually works,” I muttered.

I walked along, noting that all the early birds in the Main Stand were civilians. I hoped there wouldn’t be any agents or scouts in today. If they wanted to see our players, they could come next time. I had sent the word out that today was for the fans and so far, it seemed that industry insiders were respecting that.

In the gap between the Main Stand and the Harry McNally sat Brooke’s crazy corner section. It looked ramshackle and dangerous but it had a roof and had passed every safety check ’by a billion miles’, in the words of one Texan. There were 780 seats in that corner.

Next came the McNally, which would soon hold 4,000 of our noisiest fans across a mix of seating and safe standing. They would make a hell of a racket today, as they always did. Above them, the four sky boxes. The first three housed sponsors: Glendale Logistics, BoshCard, Jejune. The box on the right was a space for players and their families. It was the captain’s job to listen to requests and decide who would be allowed into which matches. Christian Fierce had done it wonderfully, and even the gobbiest WAGs didn’t want to cross him. Peter Bauer was the new club captain but since he had his coaching duties, I didn’t want him spending too much mental energy on what we might call ’admin’. So on Monday morning I had assigned him a helper for this task - Youngster.

What do you mean, it sounds like a punishment for what he did against Arsenal? Mate, come on.

I would never.

I rubbed my mouth so that no-one could see me laughing, then walked on. The next corner was empty, because the West Stand was currently a big hole. In front of the hole was a modern, very high resolution advertising hoarding that stretched alongside the pitch. So far, so normal. But on the fence that kept people out of The Hole, we had carefully positioned another row of hoardings, so that on the broadcast it would look like there was one gigantic screen all along the edge of the grass, so we could sell bigger ads. Was it impressive or tacky? Answer: yes.

Brooke told me it would make billions for the club, although she had coughed and added something like ’on a long enough timescale’.

Well, whatever. If I wanted match day tickets kept at 20 quid, I had to be open to ideas. The oversized screens wouldn’t be there for long, touch wood.

I strolled along to the away end. Because the Deva’s capacity was going to be cut for a while, we had taken the decision to limit the numbers of away fans to the minimum. Soz not soz. I noted that only a handful of Brighton fans had booed my name when it had been read out. That might have been because Brighton had an affinity with the gay community, or possibly because their owner, Tony Bloom, had offered me a job in his Scottish club. Maybe the away fans thought of me as a potential future manager. Who knew? I waved at a few who were holding rainbow-themed stuff, but didn’t venture closer.

I went back to doing Max Maths, the most fun and exciting maths variant. There would be 1,200 Brighton fans tucked into the right, a gap for security, then 2,700 home fans taking up the rest of the away end.

Then came another corner section with space for another 780 fans.

All in all, 10,360 home fans, 1,200 away. Total attendance 11,560.

Small, but not as small as Bournemouth’s Dean Court. Thanks to Brooke’s corners, we had them beat by 253.

19th in the league!

There was one Premier League metric, at least, we weren’t dead last in.

Yay.

I clicked my tongue as I ambled towards the tunnel. We had made so much progress with the stadium, but it was a year away from being truly ready for the Prem. Same as the team, same as the backroom staff, same as everyone and everything. We were flying too close to the sun before we had even strapped on our wings.

***

Premier League Match 2 of 38: Chester versus Brighton and Hove Albion

I briefly checked into the dressing room, watched the players warm up for a minute, then spent ages in my little manager’s room. Light off, scowl on.

Brighton. CA 160 in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Very clever, very well coached. Lots of automatisms, meaning pre-programmed moves. The main thrust of the match would be my attempts to shut those moves down. For me and for Rudi Platz, the match would be engrossing, fascinating, high-level entertainment. For the neutrals watching at home it would probably be quite dull.

The time was approaching twelve. Football Focus, the BBC’s long-running Saturday morning programme for low-information football fans would be just starting. I knew we would be mentioned near the start. Where was the nearest telly? Wait - I’d promised Brooke I would pop up to the boxes in the McNally to talk to Chesterkid’s mum. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

***

I snuck into the McNally and jogged up the stairs before anyone could react. I skipped the first skybox, which would be full of WAGs, glanced into the Jejune, headed into the BoshCard. I went straight to the TV, got the remote control, and turned it to BBC One. The sound was off but the subtitles were on, and I could tell from the banter that I hadn’t missed much. The female presenter sat to the right. Behind her on a big screen was a composite image of the managers of the three promoted clubs. They had put me alone, without Sandra, which sometimes bothered me, sometimes didn’t. This time it didn’t because it would have made the heads too small, and because I wanted to take all the heat for our bad start to the season.

To the left were three guests. A female former player (and lifelong Wolves fan), a male former player (who played centre back and striker for Norwich City; very cool), and a guy called Dane whose title was ’BBC Senior Football Correspondent’.

I stared at the chyron at the bottom of the screen.

Can Ipswich, Wolves, or Chester stay in the Premier League?

”Do you want to turn the sound on, Max?”

I glanced over. It was one of the guys who had been at BoshCard when we used to play in their back garden. Most of that crop were still there, which said a lot about what it was like working for BoshCard. It was expanding, too. Growing. Sponsoring us had helped them make serious inroads in the UK market. ”Nah, I’m good. You lot go about your business. Networking, sales, business development. Talk about something funny you saw on LinkedIn.”

”Haha,” said the guy. ”We’re not doing any of that while you’re here. Turn it up!”

”This is what you pay for, right? I watch telly, you watch me. Feel free to smell my hair. Maximum one sniff per person.”

I turned the sound up, and the others in the room, about a dozen, moved closer to the screen.

The presenter introduced a graphic of how the Championship had ended. She pointed out that Chester finished miles behind the top two. She asked the Wolves fan if she had hope of Wolves staying up.

”I do! I really do. The club’s being run in the right way. Under no illusion about how hard it’s going to be, and history tells you what normally happens to promoted clubs, but what we’ve been doing in this transfer window has got the whole fan base energised. We’ve got experienced players and youthfulness so it’s so interesting to see how the boys do.”

The guy next to me said, ”How can you sign experienced players who are youthful?”

I shrugged. ”You can’t. It’s word salad.”

The presenter had invited Dane, the senior correspondent, to chime in. He looked middle-eastern but had the accent of a cockney barrow boy. ”Wolves have been really busy in the market, really busy, but the one player I’m keen to see back in the Premier League is Omar Chanko. I was a big fan of Chanko when he was at Man City. He can control a game, shape a match, but he’s spent some time in Germany which, with due respect, is less intense than the Premier League. He’s got those leadership skills but I worry that spending time in Germany might stop him hitting the same heights as we saw from him last time.”

”The fuck?” I said, forgetting where I was. Fortunately, the BoshCard employees found it funny. I explained myself. ”It’s Germany, not outer space. He doesn’t have to spend a year getting used to the special gravity in England. BBC Senior Football Correspondent? Is this April Fool’s Day?”

The guy continued. ”And he’s coming to the end of his career...”

The Norwich player said, ”He’s 31.”

That got a good laugh from BoshCard, but all I could do was shake my head. This was worse analysis than you would get from a rando in a pub, but plenty of people would listen and nod sagely.

Undeterred at being caught spouting utter guff, the barrow boy said, ”I’m fascinated to see what happens with the newly-promoted sides because we’ve got a narrative that they tend to go straight back down in more cases than not.”

The presenter said, ”We have a graphic that might shed some light on the task facing newly-promoted clubs.”

Said graphic appeared, and it made grim reading.

Promoted clubs that scored zero to seven points in their first ten Premier League games had an 8% survival rate.

Clubs that scored 8 to 10 points had a 20% survival rate.

Clubs that scored 11 or more points in their first ten games had a 100% survival rate.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

One of the women to my left said, ”How many points we will have after ten games?”

”Between 3 and 5,” I said.

”Oh shit.”

The presenter finished discussing the stats, then turned to the defender-cum-striker. ”We’ve all seen the charts that show the financial disparity between Chester and the other 19 clubs. We’ve seen that they finished a long way behind Wolves and Ipswich in the Championship last season. We’ve seen that they haven’t spent big on players or greatly added to their squad. Before we get onto discussing the bigger clubs, do you give Chester any chance of survival? At all?”

The Norwich guy frowned. ”I did until I heard what Dane said about Germany being a farmer’s league.”

”I didn’t - ” started Dane, but the striker laughed and patted him on the arm.

”Just joking! I think some of Chester’s new signings make sense. They’ve got three players from Bayern Munich, and I always really liked Edgar Wilde. I thought he was under-rated and should have played more for England. It’s good to have him back in the country. Or, it will be, when he eventually comes. And that’s the problem, for me. It’s such a strange club. The manager’s obviously got something about him to do what he’s done, but he’s currently playing football... in a different country! So’s half the squad. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

”Nor me,” said Dane.

The striker continued. ”He’s got other interests; he’s distracted. But I think he’s a distraction for his own players, too. You saw the craziness against Arsenal. What was all that?! They did well for about an hour in that game. How would it have been if they weren’t looking to the touchline going, what’s he doing now?”

The Wolves fan was nodding. ”In the end, they’ve got no chance of staying up. It’s a great story, it really is, and they’ve got to be so so proud of what they’ve achieved but they’re not defensively secure, the players have mistakes in them, he doesn’t have a first-choice keeper, there’s no midfield, no attacking structures, and no settled system. It’s one thing being clever in the Championship but in the Premier League, at the top level, you need a defined style of play. You need a first eleven that you don’t change much and you build your season around those boys.”

The defender slash striker nodded harder. ”That’s it. Now how can you build a settled team when half your best players are out on loan playing in Wales and Gibraltar and wherever else? It’s naive, at best.”

Dane said, ”I agree with everything, and also I’ve been manning the transfer desk over the summer. Wolves have spent 110 million on new players. Ipswich 120 million. They’re doing everything they can to stay in this league. What have Chester done? A few bits and bobs, a striker who won’t join until this week I think?”

The Norwich guy shook his head, sadly. ”He’ll need time to settle. You’ve got to bring your players in early.”

Dane said, ”They have signed top, top quality players... but for the women’s team. There’s rumours of two talented youth team players joining. Why isn’t that money going to the first-team squad? They need reinforcements! They have spent money on office space, solar panels, heat pumps, and the local five-a-side centre. It just doesn’t add up for me. They’re acting like a club who don’t even want to try to stay up.”

I turned the volume down, then turned the screen off. There was an awkward silence until someone behind me said, ”Why did you turn the volume down before you turned off the telly?”

I slotted the remote into its little holder and faced the group, which had swollen with b-boys from the adjoining rooms. ”This way, when someone turns it back on, they aren’t deafened. When I get home after an away match or some scouting and Emma’s in bed, I put headphones on, listen to something, make a snack, herbal tea, then go to the sofa and play an Xbox game that doesn’t need sound. If Emma left the volume on the telly high, it wakes her up but I don’t hear it.” I closed one eye and looked up. ”I’m just realising how mad that sounds.”

”Doesn’t sound mad,” said someone. ”I know exactly what you mean.”

”Sounds a bit mad,” said someone from Glendale.

”I think it shows how detail-oriented you are,” said a BoshCard guy. ”You have the mastery mindset. I’m going to glaze you on LinkedIn, except in my version, when you finished explaining why you turn the sound down, everyone here applauded.”

That made me laugh, but through the glass, stuff was starting to happen on the pitch. Dozens of people were emerging from the tunnel, shuffling around in suits or old Chester kits. ”Max,” said someone from Glendale. ”Why aren’t you involved in that?”

”The parade?” I’d had the idea that for our first game in the Prem, we should get players from past teams onto the pitch, to pose for photos, to let the marketing team create all kinds of content. ”I’m, like, twenty minutes from our first ever home match in the top flight. I like to be available for sponsors and fans and all that, but some days you’ve just got to focus on doing your job, if you get me. I know it’s a special day for everyone but I need to take a step back and concentrate. If we lose 7-1, no-one’s gonna be happy that I shook everyone’s hand or gave a speech. Do you know what I mean?”

”Shit,” said the BoshCard guy. ”Now that’s going on LinkedIn.”

I gave him a crooked smile because I felt like he was insulting me but he felt like he was complimenting me and that was an interesting little moment, but Brooke pushed through a couple of people. ”Max, sorry, time’s running out. Can we do the thing?”

”Sure. Here?”

Brooke looked around. ”You sure?”

I jerked my thumb towards the screen behind me. ”The British Broadcasting Corporation just pulled my pants down in front of millions. I have no ego left. Monday’s therapy session is going to be the best ever.”

Brooke smiled and waved through Chesterkid’s mum. It’s horrible but I’m not sure I would have recognised her if I’d passed her in the street. ”Hi, Max.”

”Hi! Is this okay with you? The finance guys like it when I spend time with the sponsors.”

”Oh, er, yes. Why not?” She glanced behind her. ”This is perfect. Chester is in the toilet.”

One of the Glendale dudes said, ”Chester is in the toilet? You should be on Football Focus, love!”

I smiled. ”Chester is her son. He was in the Chester Knights, the pan-disability team. Go on, tell me what’s up before he gets back.”

”Okay, so, you remember he’s losing his sight.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. ”He’s... B3.”

The mum’s face lit up. Genuinely delighted that I remembered. ”Yes! Well, he was B3 when he played for the Knights but he went to B2.”

”Oh, top!”

”No, that’s worse.”

”Shit, sorry.”

”It’s all right, Max. So he’s B2 but he’s getting to, you know, getting to the point where’s he’s pretty much functionally blind. It’s not the end of his life, it’s the first chapter in his new life, but it’s so amazing that we’re in the Premier League and he gets to see it! So amazing that he’ll have these memories. We’re all very happy that it’s happening now and not... But, er...” She cleared her throat, while my body seemed to have produced a bath of acid for my eyeballs to soak in. ”He... We asked him what he wants to see before...”

I tried not to blink, but had to. I wiped away the first tear.

”We thought, I don’t know, a mountain in Switzerland or a Scottish lake or sunset on a beach in Jamaica or something but he said no, there’s nothing. That’s what he said to us, except he did confess to one of his friends that the thing he would like most of all would be to get a selfie with, you know... yourself.”

I doubled up, fell to my haunches, pushed my fingertips into my forehead.

No no no no no.

I am not an appropriate role model for a young man.

I am not the last thing a young man should want to see.

I eased myself to full height, then said, ”Before we go any further, did anyone suggest, like, a line of beautiful girls doing the can-can? Because that can be arranged. I know a guy.”

The mum had started crying just after I did, but she laughed. ”Sorry, Max, but you’re his hero. And you stayed in his room. He knew about you before anyone else in the city. He says he was your first ever goalkeeper. That’s his claim to fame.”

The stinging was back. ”Oh, Christ,” I said, bending down again. I tried some breathing exercises; they did nothing. Then I thought, hang on, he wasn’t my first goalie. There was a goalie on the Beth Heads. She was the first. The inane pedantry helped calm me down. I slowly got up, felt my stomach, and said, ”You hit harder than Mike Tyson.”

That got a good laugh, then the mum eyed the doorway significantly. Chesterkid had returned. These days he was 19, tall, gangly, awkward. Gone were the thick goggles, replaced by nothing. There wasn’t much vision left to magnify. I shooed the b-boys out of my way; they parted readily. ”Chesterkid!” I bellowed, striding to his side and wrapping my arm around his shoulder. ”Great to see you. Come here a second, I need you for something. These LinkedIn guys don’t know how to pose for photos. They keep doing duck face. Shocking. Let’s show them how it’s done, yeah?”

”Max! Why are you up here?”

”I wrote my tactics on a napkin that got put on a tray of food that got delivered to these big shots. It’s all very zany.”

”Haha.”

”I can’t remember if we were supposed to be doing 4-4-2 or 2-4-4. Damn it! All right, look straight ahead. There are, conservatively, eight people taking this photo. Say cheese. No, that was lame. Say fight the power!”

We posed for his mum, for the club’s photographer, for a couple of randos. Then I heard Joe Anka’s voice coming through the PA.

”Hey, everyone, I need Chester for a minute. I’ll send him right back. Come on, mate.” I ushered him towards the lift, went down to ground level, made him grip my elbow as we steamed towards the side of the pitch. A steward opened a gate and I rushed us towards the halfway line.

Joe was introducing players from past Chester teams. I nodded at some super old boys, one of whom was being supported by a grandson. There was Smasho and Nice One and more players from that generation. A few more guys I didn’t really know, then we were into what Chesterkid might call the Max Best Era.

Robbo Robson, Angles, Tony Hetherington. Carl Carlile and Aff got days off from Saltney and West, but some guys, like Henri, had important matches to play for their current clubs. Glenn Ryder had come from Gibraltar, though, and of course Joe Anka was a member of that side himself. We also had Benny and Tyson from the Youth Cup winning side.

I arrived just as Joe was finishing his speech. He handed me the microphone.

”Sorry, Joe. Late addition to the parade.” I waited for the camera operator to get into position. When Chesterkid and I were neatly framed on the big screen, I said, ”Obviously the concept of this event is to celebrate the players who kept the club going, who kept it alive so that your humble servant Max Best - that’s M-A-X B-E-S-T - could maybe kick it on a notch or two. But when we were thinking about the parade, we missed a group of players. This is Chester - yes, that’s really his name - and he’s here representing the Chester Knights. Some of you know the story, but when I first came to Chester, I wanted a job as a scout or something like a director of football. I said to MD, let me show you my skills. He said, fine. Win a game with the Chester Knights. No problem, I said. So I turn up and it’s the pan-disability team. Okay, it’s not what I’m used to but whatever. There’s a ball, there are players. How hard can it be? Well, I don’t remember exactly but I think we won a hundred-nil.”

Chesterkid shook his head in a sort of panic, which got a laugh.

”Because Chester and the Knights won, I got the chance to manage the under 14s, and because I managed the under 14s... MD sacked me just after half time.” Huge laughs from the stadium, even from the Brighton fans. ”There’s one of the under 14s. Benny, come here.” Benny came closer. I said, ”MD binned me off, didn’t he, Benny?”

I held the mic to his mouth. ”Yes.”

”And whose fault was that, Benny?”

”Yours, boss.” Big laughs from around the stadium. Encouraged, Benny got even cheekier. ”Got to take responsibility for our actions, don’t we?”

”Hmm,” I said. ”Remind me who invited you to this thing...?” I glared at him before breaking into a big smile. ”Yeah but seriously, everyone. To the extent that we’re here because of me, to an equal extent we’re here because of the Chester Knights. That game, no joke, is why all of us are here. You are in the Premier League because your pan-disability team were a lot better at following my instructions than, well, all this lot.” Another generous laugh, then applause. ”Joe, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna give the last word to Chester, then we’ll hear what Chester thinks about what Chester said.” Joe gave me an easy smile and a thumbs-up. I moved the mic away, whispered in Chesterkid’s ear, held the mic to his mouth, tapped him.

He took a deep breath and yelled, ”COME ON YOU SEALS!”

It brought the house down. I turned the mic off and threw it to Joe. I summoned Benny and Tyson. ”Look after him,” I said.

”Yes, boss,” said Tyson.

I watched them shuffle away, and for a moment I felt good about myself. I’d done something good. Very good. But the feeling faded quickly. My time at Chester was coming full circle. It started with Chesterkid and being sacked by MD, and it would end with Chesterkid and being sacked by MD.

The universe was better at poetry than I was.

***

Thirty Seconds Until Kick Off

Rudi Platz came up to shake my hand. Johnny Planter rushed past with a giant fork. The linesman working the near side walked past me and said, ”That were class, that. Good lad, Best.” Sandra rubbed my back.

The players were in position. The home fans waved their huge flags with more energy. The away fans chanted, though some of the sound was lost to the hole on the west side. I swiped away the Bench Boost and Triple Captain options. I swiped away the reminder that I could start the match in the Relationism module.

The world was watching. Up to 50 million worldwide.

There were probably more people watching this, the least attractive of the Premier League’s Gameweek 2 fixtures, than had watched any of my matches in charge of Bayern Munich.

The Deva Stadium was massive in Malta.

***

The game started as expected, with a blitz from Brighton. If they could get an early goal, they would be able to do all their clever shit and would pick us apart for the rest of the match. I didn’t see a world where this one finished 7-1, but us getting pummelled was very much on the cards.

We survived.

We got through the first four minutes.

Four turned to five.

Brighton settled into their regular patterns, which was the cue for me to pace up and down the technical area, staring so hard it’s a wonder my guys didn’t turn to stone.

Brighton were a team that liked to press hard in the attacking third and they weren’t as interested in firing crosses into the box as Arsenal. For those reasons, I had selected Marek in goal. Marek had CA 145, five points lower than Owen, but he was much better with the ball at his feet. When Brighton were rushing at Cole Adams, for example, Cole would have the option of playing forwards as usual, or backwards, knowing that Marek wouldn’t just blast the ball away. This would obviously let us keep control for longer periods than if Owen was between the sticks. (I will admit that it pleased me to use two different goalies in my first two PL matches. My only regret was that I didn’t have a third who was equally good. Imagine the complaints if I took rotation to an even higher dimension!)

The rest of the team was broadly similar to the one that started against Arsenal.

The back four was Lewis, Cole, Murray, and Helge.

Then a midfield five of Cheb, Jimmy McNeill, Youngster, Wibbers, and Leo Los. That was an extremely fluid set of players, with Wibbers trying to get close to the striker when possible, Youngster sometimes dropping to DM, and the others shuffling closer together to form a three.

The striker was Gabriel.

All in all, our average CA was 143.5, which was miles off the levels of the away team, but actually 3 points better than Burnley the previous season. Burnley got crushed and finished bottom so it was cold comfort, but it was still something!

The only senior players on the bench were Roddy Jones, Bark, and Pascal, which was borderline unprofessional of me. Nah, scratch that. It was unprofessional of me. Yes, we would have lost the first few matches even if my whole squad was in town, but Jesus Christ, Max! Roddy’s CA was 105. What was he supposed to do to turn our fortunes around?

Sandra snuck up to me. ”What are you thinking?”

”Nothing. Everything. What?”

”It’s just that you’ve been staring at this patch of grass for, like, a whole minute.”

”No way,” I said.

”You have.”

A weird pinging noise came from the public address system. ”Er,” I said. ”Right.” I covered my mouth. ”Can you sit down, please?”

Someone else might have taken the request personally, but for some reason Sandra groaned and said, ”Oh, God. What have you done?”

”Me? Nothing. Honest.” She didn’t seem to believe me. I made sure my mouth was still covered and said, ”Have you ever heard of plausible deniability?”

”Christ,” she said, as she rushed to the dugout and took her seat.

I stood there alone, scanning the pitch. Our Condition scores were matching Brighton’s almost point for point, because although they had players with way better natural stamina, they weren’t currently taking advantage of that fact.

Perhaps a note about Brighton’s style would be in order. I had told Emma about how they tried to break into the final third, but I hadn’t mentioned how they got out of their defensive third, mostly because it was extremely boring.

What they did was simple but extremely effective. Like Arsenal and all other elite teams, they waited for opposition players to run at their defenders and goalie - historically the least technical players in a team - then passed the ball around them, exploited the resulting space. Brighton had a few set moves that were very predictable but pretty much impossible to stop. Their centre backs and goalie would form wide, airy triangles, and if they were being pressed by two players, it only took two passes to completely bypass them.

A team like Arsenal would know that Brighton were going to get through their first wave time after time but would press anyway, because first of all they had the fitness to keep running for 90 minutes, so why not, and also because once a game, Brighton coughed the ball up during this phase of play, and there was a very high chance of scoring a goal from that mistake. Furthermore, Arsenal’s defence was so solid that they could deal with Brighton’s powderpuff forwards.

My Chester team were not Arsenal. If we played like Pepe Salazar’s team, we would lose by five or more goals.

My solution was, once again, not to press in the final third. Just let Brighton have the ball. So what? What were they going to do with it?

Nothing.

Literally nothing.

Clunk, their lanky centre back, stood with his foot on the ball for ten seconds at a time.

Van Kooten, the other CB, did the same. The goalie did it, too.

The plan was to stand on the ball, wait for Wibbers and Gabby to crack, then go through their break-out routines.

Yeah, nah. That’s not for me, dog.

We didn’t engage. We formed a mid block, flooding the middle of the pitch with blue-and-white shirts.

We stood off; Clunk stood on the ball.

It wasn’t entertaining but every minute that Brighton wasted doing this nonsense was a minute my lads didn’t have to sprint. The oppo were making it easier for us to compete!

Also, as a newly-promoted side, as one of the biggest underdogs in the history of the Prem, we were allowed to play like this. Rudi Platz must have thought that as a former Bayern Munich manager, I would have some principles. I would have some standards.

Yeah, nah.

Stand on the ball for 90 minutes, if you want. Chester get a draw, and a draw works for me! A point against a top-half side, at this stage in our development, would have been absolutely gob-smacking. I would have loved it. I would have printed the number one out and framed it, turned it into a piece of topiary.

That said, there is almost never a downside to pushing the oppo out of their comfort zone, and there is always an upside to making people laugh.

The PA did that strange ping again. I turned and picked out Joe Anka, who was up in his audio-visual booth. I shrugged at him. ’What are you doing?’

For some reason, he responded with a thumbs up.

Curious!

The Brighton backline tried to move forward, Leo challenged, Brighton regrouped. Clunk put his foot on the ball. Gabriel did nothing. The Chester fans were too busy singing and enjoying themselves to care about how shit this all was.

Clunk rolled the ball to his other foot, and stood on it from the other side.

Ooh! Get you with the tekkers!

An odd thing happened at that point. The stadium’s giant screens burst into life and the PA sent mad sound effects into the air.

The screen showed a still image of Clunk - from THIS match - lounging on the ball. There was a frenzy of fast cuts. Clunk, his foot, the ball, his head, Clunk, the ball, his head, his foot.

Then it settled into the full-length image with bolded words in crazy fonts. For some reason, a cute dog appeared, as if he was the one talking:

Wow! So skill! Such entertain!

The screen cleared, and there was a buzz around the stadium. Lots of laughter from the Chester fans. So fun! Much amuse!

I. Kept. A straight. Face.

Brighton probed again, were rebuffed, and settled into their baiting tactics. Taunting us. Come get the ball, you losers! We’ve got the ball in your stadium. Whacha gonna do about it?

The PA pinged.

The big screen burst into life with a full-length photo of Van Kooten. Beepy computer noises spread around the stadium. Text on the screen read:

Computer! Identify that player!

Calculations filled the screen. Lines at angles, equations getting bigger, a meme image of a confused woman.

The screen went blank and the ’computer’ spat out its findings:

FLAIR 20

SKILL 20

AMAZEMENT 20

MATCH FOUND!

Degree of certainty: 99.9999%

This player is: Pelé.

Huge laughter.

I. Kept. A straight. Face.

Brighton launched an attack. My guys hustled, worked hard, covered each other, and got the ball off the pitch. Throw-in Brighton.

The ref whistled furiously, then jogged over to me.

”Best,” he said. His name was Anthony Castle and he was a Mancunian. Maybe the only Manc who knew nothing about football.

”Yo,” I said.

”You’re not allowed to barrack the oppo with electronic messages during a match.”

”I know.”

”You’ve been punished for stunts like this before.”

”That was in the EFL. This is a brand new governing body. I’ve got a clean slate.”

”Just stop!”

I looked innocent because I was innocent. I spread my arms. ”Why are you asking me about it? I can barely remember my own password, let alone do whatever this is. Do you think I’ve got a control chip in my head?”

He cricked his neck. ”Just stop it.”

”What are you talking about? It’s probably the work of a disgruntled AI chatbot. Hey, but this conversation does raise an important issue. Sport is about movement and excitement and activity. If a player doesn’t move the ball when it comes to him, shouldn’t you book him for unsportsmanlike conduct?”

Anthony Castle tried to give me a withering look, but it was beyond feeble and anyway, I had almost no shits left to give.

Now, I will admit that what happened next was unhelpful.

Whoever was in control of the screens put up a well-known meme, one from a show in which a guy driving a car shaped like a hot dog crashes into a shop. The driver gets out and tries to pin the blame on someone else despite the fact that he himself is wearing a hot dog costume.

The man in the hot dog suit, along with his catchphrase, appeared on the screen at the Deva:

We’re all trying to find the guy who did this!

”Best,” said the ref, shaking his head.

”Why are you mad at me?” I demanded, in a pleading tone. ”Rudi Platz is the one doing this anti-football crap. Tell his players to move the ball or you’ll give an indirect free kick. People paid money for this. People were excited to come here. Is this football? A guy standing around doing nothing? You should be happy there’s something to watch because otherwise we’re literally paying to watch grass grow.”

”Just make it stop.”

”It’s not me! How can I stop it?” Mate, I could have passed a lie detector test.

***

Brighton’s players didn’t like being laughed at, so they mostly cut out the press-baiting crap. They moved the ball around until they got space in midfield, passed forward, and the next phase of the match began, the one I had told Emma about.

Brighton had bodies in midfield; we were in a medium block. There wasn’t a lot of space to work in.

As always, Platz kept two of his players high and wide. That was designed to open more gaps in the centre, so most managers allowed one of the wingers to go unmarked. If I did the same, our players would slide across to cover one side of the goal, and if Brighton could play through us, there would be a winger free on the far post. It’s how Brighton scored a lot of their goals, and while I understood the risk-reward calculation that led other managers to let it happen, I wasn’t a fan.

I set my full backs to man-mark the wide forwards.

I put Murray Burnett on Brighton’s striker, but not as a strict man-marking job. Sometimes I told Murray to follow the striker when he dropped into the between-the-lines gap, sometimes I kept Murray as the last defender.

So, these gaps. As expected, Brighton flooded them on and off, making their style of play somewhat unpredictable. In one move, they would play sideways and backwards, with their players spread out except for their wide forwards, who would drop centrally. Then it would invert, with the wide forwards going high while hugging the touchline, and three or four players would slide into my DMs.

Against a normal team, these rotations and moves were often deadly. How could you defend against it? If you instructed Helge to stay with their left winger, Helge would find himself in midfield one second, right back the next, midfield again. In that positional chaos, Brighton would find endless easy short passes and open up angles for dramatic through balls.

Yeah but clever as it was, it didn’t work well against Chester, because Chester had me and I had hot keys.

I could make Helge play as a normal right back, trigger him to man-mark the winger, undo that instruction, move Helge to right wing to be a target for a long pass from our goalkeeper, move him back to default, all in the space of half a minute. Helge would be in the right place at the right time, as would everyone else.

And that meant I could get really, really funky with my defensive schemes.

One night, high on cheese, I had dreamed up a Brighton-buster, a lovely little plan I called ’The Twin Trumpets’. Imagine my back four as the valves on a brass instrument, and by pressing them I send one player into the DM zone. Now imagine another line of four players, the second trumpet, which also sends guys into the gap. By playing my trumpets in a jazzy style, I could deploy Lewis and Leo as DMs one minute, Cole and Jimmy the next.

Brighton’s players didn’t know where the pressure was going to come from, or when.

Was it a risky strategy? Sure, just like anything else. But if Cole attacked the DM zone, Murray would be man-marking the striker. If Brighton sent runners from midfield, they would be tracked.

What my tinkering did, broadly, was allow us to write the narrative. We decided who went where, not the opposition. The price was more running than we were used to. More sprints, more twists, more turns. Chester had a cup match coming on Tuesday but if we didn’t run today, Brighton would batter us.

Meanwhile, as I told Emma, sometimes we didn’t run. Sometimes we left the gaps free, because Youngster was an interception machine.

25’

Clunk takes the pass from the goalkeeper.

Clunk waits to see what will happen.

Clunk is jeered. He passes to Van Kooten.

Van Kooten is jeered.

He moves the ball forward. There are ironic cheers from the home fans.

Brighton players begin their rotations. Chester’s lines are very straight.

The ball is played forward.

Poor first touch from the forward. Youngster takes the ball from him.

Youngster gallops away... but he is fouled.

Yellow card for Brighton’s striker!

More minutes passed. I pressed hotkeys at the right time. We rode our luck, of course. Brighton took some long shots, won some duels that left us in tricky spots. But overall, we were doing great. Frustrating the away team, even if we weren’t creating much threat ourselves.

That was okay. It was a long season. Having any part of the team working at this point was a bonus. Imagine this, but with Peter Bauer and co in the line up! We would be able to grind out some draws, keep in games while our attack got up to speed. If we weren’t too far adrift by January... Wibbers, Gabby, Ruud...

Could we?

With a smile, I forced myself to calm down and face facts. It wasn’t going to happen. Which meant I had to think of ways I could continue to earn a living in the future, and one of those was through LIT (formerly Maxterplanalytics).

A Brighton player went down and summoned the physio - the guy’s Condition score dropped 5 points so I didn’t do the whole ’cheat’ thing. While he got treatment, I went to my backpack, dug out a thick binder, and brought it into the technical area. ”Sandra,” I said. ”Help me hold this open.”

She took one side and held it. I angled the binder so that it was perfectly perpendicular with the ground, then I flicked through the contents.

What was on every page was a snapshot of a passing routine favoured by Brighton, generated by DOVE. It’s hard to describe how cool those graphs were. They made every passing move look like the skeleton of a dinosaur or some absolute horror with teeth and claws that can only be found in Australia.

Sandra pushed the folder downwards so that we could actually see the graphics. ”No,” I said. ”Hold it straight.”

”What? Why?”

”Because this is guerrilla marketing for my company, LIT. People are going to see the name of the company, the name of the product, and look it up. Some of them will realise I’m doing super-interesting things with football data and they will pay me money to get access to this stuff.”

Sandra closed her half of the binder and frowned. ”RPG. What’s that?”

”Radiant passing grids. It’s the name of this type of chart.” I pushed the binder fully open again for the benefit of the cameras on the other side of the pitch. ”See this one? This is the one where Brighton go through the middle in the right 6 space. You get all these branching pass maps. This is just a snapshot but Pradeep’s got animations for it, too. It looks like a body with blood flowing around it. You can see at once that they pass to the right in this scenario way more than to the left.”

”I know. We did all this.”

”Could you look impressed as I’m explaining it, please? This is an advertisement.”

”Do I get paid?”

I turned the page. ”Ooh, this is a good one. Look at this. This is what happens if you press them on the right side of a kick-off.”

Sandra sighed. ”Your company is called LIT. Why is that?”

”It’s short for Maxterplanalytics. Analytics. Litics. Lit. Lit means good. The company is good. I don’t understand why people don’t love the new name. They complained the original was too long. Why is no-one ever happy?”

”But now you say LIT formerly Maxterplanalytics, so it’s even longer.”

”Well, maybe.”

Sandra looked at the front again. ”So you think people are going to type RPG by LIT and you’re going to get sporting directors asking you to go there and do a pitch.”

”That’s the plan.”

”Okay, good luck I guess.”

”I don’t need luck. It’s foolproof.” I closed the binder and scanned the pitch. Our Condition scores were dropping slightly faster than Brighton’s. Our match ratings were about a point lower on average, but there was a palpable sense that the players knew the plan was working and they would keep fighting to make it work. ”We’re fucking great, Sandra. I love these guys.”

***

42’

Youngster with another interception! That’s his fifth of the half, three more than anyone else.

He drives clear, adjusts to the right, passes to Leo Los.

Los with a glorious first-time pass into the path of Roberts.

Roberts lines up a shot...

But passes back to Los.

Los with another imaginative pass.

It’s a difficult chance for Gabriel...

But he gets it all wrong. He shanked his shot closer to the corner flag than the goal!

Warm applause from the home fans.

That was Chester’s best chance of the match so far!

***

We survived until half time, and went into the dressing room in high spirits.

We had our quiet time, as always, while I kept an eye on Brighton’s tactics board to see what they would change. It didn’t look like Platz was thinking about tweaking anything in terms of formation, but if I were him I would tell the Brighton players to pick up the tempo.

If they came at us harder, what could we do? Nothing really. The good news was that my constant interventions were having an outsized effect on the game. The bad news was that, although I still felt relatively fresh, I didn’t think I could do that sort of thing while I was on the pitch. In the Spider-Man video games, you can spend ’focus’ to get boosts. I had a focus bar of my own, didn’t I? I could use it to make my players dance to my jazzy tune, or I could use it to play. Both? That was pushing it.

Then again, I’d had this thought before, but I had adapted to every league I was in. By the end of a season, I was normally able to combine my roles to a pretty high level. Imagine getting honed to Premier League sharpness and going down to the Championship!

It would be pure carnage and as a former Premier League guy I surely wouldn’t need to think about The Sentinel.

”Sir,” said Brick, popping his head into the room. He had been guarding the corridor, which in this case is a synonym for ’blocking the corridor’. ”Can Brooke have a word?”

”Yep,” I said. It was highly unusual that she would ask to see me at half time, so it had to be important. Maybe something had gone badly wrong in the stadium. A kid had fallen into the PetPride pit while trying to sneak up one of the cranes? I followed Brick outside.

Brooke smiled. ”That went well! Okay, quick version. DigiWorld are losing their minds about the bullet-time footage we gave them.”

”Really? Was it good?”

”It was new. They love new things. Now, it did look very cool but it was just footage of that dumbass standing around doing nothing. God, try that in the NFL and see what happens. Holy smokes! Yeah, anyway. For the second half, can I ask Spectrum and Pradeep to prioritise getting some cool shots? Maybe DOVE got enough data from the first half? I don’t know. DigiWorld have been pushy but overall they have been easy to work with. If we help them with this, they’ll owe us a favour, and they might even show more of our matches, which could be worth a substantial amount.”

I had already added the entire Brighton squad and backroom staff to my database, so I was happy to go along with this request, but I spent a few seconds thinking about what the real Max Best would say. You know, the one who didn’t have a computer game in his head. ”I like the idea of being owed a favour and I think DOVE will have a pretty good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of these Brighton players. Go ahead and call Spectrum. Tell him he’s not an analyst, he’s a movie director now. Then ask if he thinks that’s a promotion or a punishment.”

Brooke laughed. ”I’ll let him know how important it is to the club. Thanks, Max.” She took a few steps away. ”Love the sneaky advertising, by the way, but I think you might want to work on your SEO.” She laughed some more as she swayed away, bringing her mobile to her ear.

I frowned. ”What does she mean by that?”

Brick said, ”I think it means you’ll be changing your company name again soon.” He showed me his phone, where he had already searched for RPG LIT. It linked to a load of those stupid books that Henri liked. Talking cats, heroic Australians - it was so unrealistic!

I tutted. ”Kin ’ell.”

***

I went back into the dressing room, felt sure that Platz wasn’t going to change anything, then did a quick speech.

”Guys, you know what today means. The parade of former players. They had first halves like we just have. Good, solid, professional, winning your duels, hitting your numbers. They had every possible second half, too. Wins, losses, draws. But they got invited back today, they got cheered to the rafters today because they kept going, kept fighting, kept believing until the final whistle, week after week.

”You saw that kid I brought on. Chesterkid. He’s, er... he’s losing his sight. Could wake up tomorrow and it’s just gone. I’m not gonna feel sorry for him because he wouldn’t want that. He’s 19 and he’s gonna live a long and happy life, listening to Boggy, listening to gay bangers, reading my memoirs in braille. Some people say that’s the best version because it’s like you can feel my haircut through your fingertips. But if today’s the last match he sees, I want it to be one where he can say the lads wore the badge right.

”So keep doing what you’re doing. Whatever happens, keep scrapping for each other and keep your focus. Do that for Chesterkid, but do it for yourselves, too, because you saw that Brighton lot waste tons of good opportunities and we do have the talent to get chances of our own - if we stay in the game.

”That’s it. Captain?”

Youngster stood and yelled, ”Come on, you Seals!”

***

We had ten perfect minutes. Brighton came at us faster, sent more bodies into attacks, but that left us with more chances on the counter.

We nearly got Wibbers through, and a few minutes later, Leo wrecked a good opportunity by throwing himself to the ground looking for a free kick. Sandra covered her mouth. ”We need to toughen him up. You don’t get soft decisions like that, not in this league.”

”Not if you’re in a Chester shirt,” I said, but I had always known Leo would be lightweight. He would bulk up in the months ahead, much like Peter Bauer had done, much like Dan Badford was doing.

My main worry was his reaction to adversity - in not getting that decision, it looked like the stuffing had been knocked out of him. His Morale dropped a level and he didn’t run as enthusiastically.

Still, his dart forward had scared Rudi Platz, and my favourite commentary message popped up.

It looks like Brighton are adopting a more cautious style.

Yeeeeah! Get back in your crevice, you worms!

***

65’

I started to pace up and down the technical area with more urgency.

Cracks were appearing.

Our Condition scores were falling much faster than Brighton’s.

We only had to hold out for another 25 minutes, but when I looked around at our fatigue levels, that felt like 2 and a half weeks.

The home fans sensed that the players were flagging and increased the volume. ’Ches-ter! Ches-ter!’ I punched the air to encourage them. ’Max Best’s blue-and-white army!’

The guys on the pitch responded, especially Leo. His Morale rose, his head rose, he got back in the game.

Top.

But I was very, very worried.

The players I had ’played’ the most on my Twin Trumpets were the guys suffering the most. Cole, Jimmy, Leo, and Wibbers. With a full squad I would have subbed them all off.

I didn’t have a full bench.

I had to ask myself how much I wanted a point against Brighton. Was it worth the risk of injuring key players? Of course it wasn’t, but I couldn’t give up when they had worked so hard.

The first thing I did was stop smashing the hot keys so often, stopped demanding so much of individual players. I dropped Youngster into a permanent DM position, and after a bit of thought, I put Cheb Alloula in there with him. Using two DMs was a conventional solution, which meant Brighton had all sorts of ways of approaching it, but Brighton’s forwards weren’t exactly scoring 9 out of 10 across the board, were they?

Then I moved Wibbers to be a second striker alongside Gabby. We would have the option of booting the ball to the Brazilian and hoping Wibbers would get on the second ball.

Then Jimmy and Leo would block passing lanes and force Brighton to recycle the ball.

All in all, a very efficient, low-energy way of defending.

I was feeling pleased with myself when Brighton chipped a ball over the top of our defence, Lewis cleared it easily, but then the ref stopped the game.

Cole Adams was on the ground in agony.

It didn’t look like there had been a collision but his profile had gone all kinds of red.

Suspected calf injury.

Shit!

As we watched Dean and Livia rush onto the pitch, Sandra said, ”What do you think?”

”Calf tear. Medium to bad. One to three months out.”

She swore, took a minute to feel sorry for herself, then turned. ”Bark?”

”Yeah.” Bark could be a runner in midfield while Cheb went to left back. Maybe we would slip Jimmy McNeill into the second DM slot, or let Youngster have that space to himself and have three in the screen ahead of him. So many tired players... ”Maybe we should do a triple change.” I spoke to the physio who was in contact with Dean and told her to tell him to slow things down. To Sandra, I said, ”I don’t want more injuries. Are Pascal and Roddy warm?”

”Yes.”

Sending on Bark, Pascal, and Roddy would totally mess up our average CA, but what choice did I have? I had backed myself into this corner when chasing personal riches in UEFA tournaments. ”Fuck,” I spat, seriously pissed off at Max ’Generational Wealth’ Best and his money-grubbing schemes. Cole Adams was gonna be in the treatment room for a month because of me. And why were our Condition scores slipping so fast? Because we didn’t have a Premier League fitness plan. It had taken me until very recently to hire a head of performance. ”Sandra, can you kick me in the balls, please?”

”No. Focus.”

Holding out for a draw seemed unlikely, but getting more injuries seemed very likely.

”Take Jimmy and Leo off, too. Roddy and Pascal will press in midfield. That’ll help, and we’ll keep Wibbers and Gabby high up the pitch for breaks.”

”Got it.”

She rushed around, making the triple change happen. Our CA would fall from 143.5 to 138.7.

Quite the drop.

I opened and closed my fists. As Cole was being stretchered off, I said to Sandra, ”Get two of the lads ready.”

Sandra turned to the bench, which bore a strong resemblance to a primary school. ”Which?”

Apart from Owen, there were only under 18s to choose from. Dominic and Hamish had played against Arsenal, so I didn’t want to use them again. ”Adam.”

”Adam?” said Sandra.

”He’ll go on for his brother. Wibbers will be pissed at being subbed early until he sees who it is.”

”Okay.”

Adam Roberts was CA 58, PA 92. A hundred points of CA behind the average Brighton player. This was moronic. Could I stoop lower? Yes, I could. ”Adam... and...” The kid I named would get a 5 point boost to their CA in the next month or so. Picking Chris Ross, a midfielder, would give me some bonus XP, but I didn’t care about that. Who would benefit the eighteens the most in the Youth Cup? At the moment, we were short in the striker position. ”Marco.”

Marco Burton was a Chesterborn lad. He only had PA 88 so as with Adam, you could say this was a waste of a power-up, but as things stood we weren’t going to win the Youth Cup without Marco to finish our pretty passing moves.

That was in the future, though. Putting Adam and Marco onto the pitch right now would bring our average CA to about 122. Sandra smiled but partially covered her mouth as she said, ”Max.”

I covered mine. ”We can’t get injuries! If we get into an injury doom spiral, we’re toast. Look, I fucked up. I pushed the guys too hard today.”

She raised her hand towards the pitch and shook her head. ”You had to. We would have been picked apart if you didn’t.” She patted me on the back and nodded to herself. ”You two! Come here.”

Cole’s stretcher was nearly at the edge of the pitch, being applauded by everyone, including the Brighton fans. I paused the St John’s Ambulance people so that I could clasp Cole’s hand. He was almost in tears. He looked at me. ”Sorry, boss.”

He was saying sorry to me! What a world! ”Don’t talk shit. I was just saying to Sandra I wanted more injuries. I bought all that special treatment stuff, didn’t I? Counter-current pools and all sorts. Finally we get a key player in to use them. Perfect!” I squeezed his hand. ”Great game, Cole. Really well played. You know that kid who’s going blind? I’m gonna offer him a free tattoo of me but the tat will actually be you, so that he’ll have one of a real hero. That’s how well you did.”

Cole shook his head. ”You’re mental.” But his Morale briefly nudged up.

”Right, be off with you. Your recovery starts now, do you get me?”

”Yes, boss.”

They carried him away. I watched him go for a few seconds. Cole had recently hit CA 140; he would leave a big hole in the squad.

***

Rudi Platz couldn’t seem to believe his luck when he saw the changes I had made. He ordered his guys to attack, attack, attack.

68’

Brighton with another slick move. They get an overload on the right.

The ball is slipped behind Lewis Lamarre.

It is cut back. Number 9 shoots...

He gets the contact all wrong...

But it wrong-foots Marek Masarik!

The ball will trickle in at the near post...

No! Masarik showed great determination and footwork. He keeps the scores level!

69’

Brighton attack down the right again.

This time they elect to cross.

A midfield runner gets a yard of space and connects with the ball beautifully!

It’s flying in...

Tipped over the crossbar by Masarik!

Spectacular!

70’

The corner will be taken right-footed.

Brighton have a height and strength advantage in the six-yard box.

Here it comes...

But it’s far too high. The chance is wasted.

The Chester fans cheer like their team have scored!

71’

The relentless pressure from the away team continues.

Cross... headed away by Murray Burnett.

The ball falls kindly for Brighton. Van Kooten lines up a long shot...

But he hits it straight into Barkley!

Great block by the Jamaican international, not that he knew much about it.

Gabriel wins the duel, feeds Roberts, and Chester are away!

Chester are breaking at speed.

Roberts has Bochum sprinting to offer support.

Roberts is tiring. Clunk gets between Roberts and the goal.

Has the chance gone?

Roberts... scoops the ball left-footed, behind Clunk, and Roddy Jones is racing onto it.

Roddy Jones with searing pace. The entire stadium is on its feet. Jones bears down on goal.

The Welshman nudges the ball around the goalkeeper, who gets the slightest of touches on it.

Jones has to go away from goal to get the ball. Brighton players are streaming back.

Jones clips the ball back across goal.

Bochum lines up a spectacular volley!

But the ball is headed clear before it drops.

What a move! Chester came so close to scoring their first-ever Premier League goal.

74’

That break got Rudi Platz cautious again, but after much discussion with his team, he decided to take more risks. He swapped four of his players, and I’ve got to be honest, my heart sank.

The guys coming on were typical Brighton signings. Guys with huge upside, guys with flaws the coaching staff thought they could iron out. Basically Chester but bankrolled by a billionaire. Their changes didn’t weaken the team in the slightest.

With the new guys on the pitch and our players fading, Brighton upped the intensity once again.

75’

Corner kick to Brighton, to be taken from the right.

It will be an inswinger.

Helge Hagen has headed away three corners already. Brighton might want to try hitting the ball somewhere else.

***

When Brighton had attacking set pieces like this, Vikki sometimes came to stand next to me so we could discuss what to do. ”Helge,” I said. ”They’ve hit him three times from corners. What do you think about moving him? Like, if it was me, I would tell my guys not to hit the front post again. So if we move him, there’s a chance for Helge to be involved somewhere else. Two for one, sort of thing.”

”Okay,” said Vikki. ”But is that overthinking it? If they expect you to move him, they might target that zone.”

”Why would I move him?” I said. ”It would be stupid to move him.”

”Then why do it?”

”Because it’s genius.”

Vikki laughed. ”If it works, it lets us defend an extra zone. If it doesn’t work, we lose our best header in the area of greatest threat. It isn’t clear which is right. Go with your instinct.”

”You think about this more than me. What’s your instinct?”

”Keep him where he is.”

”Bosh. Done.”

I had Masterpiece Theatre open, and was idly threatening to send Pascal and Roddy up to the halfway line just before the kick was taken. This time I decided to leave it, partly because a group of Brighton players had detached from the penalty area and formed a huddle. What were they discussing? It only lasted a few seconds. They jogged into their starting positions, weaving between our players like we were training cones. It was all very dainty.

Then the corner was taken and there was mayhem. Three Brighton players surged around Helge. Someone’s hand went up, the ball hit an arm, the referee... gave a penalty.

”NO!” I screamed. ”NO FUCKING WAY!” I did something I rarely ever did - I went to the fourth official to rant. ”Is your guy fucking stupid? That Brighton twat grabbed Helge’s hand and threw it up! Didn’t you see that?”

The fourthoff looked at me like I was crazy. ”It’s a pretty clear handball, Best. His hand was in an unnatural position. Clear penalty. We’re checking it, though. The VAR is on it.”

Right, VAR. Thank fuck for endless delays while incidents were reviewed in atomic detail.

I paced away, digging the pads of my hands into my temples, noting that Helge himself was going bonkers, protesting furiously to the ref. For once, I couldn’t blame him. I literally could not believe this was happening again, but I took some deep breaths. The video ref would see what had happened, the decision would be overturned, the Brighton guy would get a yellow card for cheating.

”Count to ten, Max. Hommmm...”

I counted to ten. That’s how I knew how long it took for the VAR to confirm the decision. Ten seconds. My howl of rage was pretty demented, I’ll admit, but it was totally inconceivable that you could look at the footage and not see the foul.

”What the FUUUUCK?” I asked.

The official backed away from me. ”What is wrong with you? It’s handball! Open and shut case!”

”How can you spend ten seconds on the check? It takes more than ten seconds to look at all the angles. What the fuck are you doing? Is the VAR blind?”

Saying that word did what crystals and meditation never did - calmed me all the way back down. I didn’t want the last thing Chesterkid saw of Max Best to be me screaming at a guy who wasn’t even the one who fucked up.

I walked as far away from the fourthoff as I could, glancing up to note that the referee had walked forty yards to give me a yellow card.

Cool, bro.

Cool.

Anthony Castle. Add him to the list of suspects.

I tried to keep a blank face as Brighton’s striker lined up the penalty. Marek was really good at saving pens, but what did it matter if he saved it? Anthony Castle would find another way to screw us over, as he had obviously been ordered to.

That was a fight for tomorrow. Today the only battle I could win was to keep my emotions in check. Don’t get sent off. Show some kind of dignity, be a proper role model for Chesterkid.

Brighton scored - just. Marek got to the ball but it cannoned down from his lower arm. Unlucky.

I made the mistake of looking to my left, where the away dugouts were clearing. Their players and staff were going crazy, bouncing around, limbs everywhere. ”What the fuck?” I said, spreading my arms. Rudi Platz saw me and it made him laugh harder.

What. A. Prick.

***

Vikki came to me with an iPad. ”Here’s what the VAR saw.”

I watched the footage. The corner was taken and both Van Kooten and Clunk grabbed Helge. Van Kooten held him on one side, Clunk the other. Inexplicably, Helge threw his arm up. Behind them, a third Brighton beefy boy was jumping, already making the motion to flick the ball towards goal, but the ball never got there.

The view switched to a camera on the other side of the stadium, which didn’t show anything different.

”That’s all they looked at,” said Vikki. ”Check complete. Go with the on-field decision.”

”Thanks,” I said, moving away.

Brilliant. So now not only did I look like a petulant brat, I also looked like an idiot.

One thing, though: I knew what I saw. And I had a line in the curse commentary to back it up. But who would believe me versus the evidence of their own eyes?

Well played to the refereeing crew.

Well played indeed.

***

A minute and a half went by with my blood pressure through the roof.

My fists were opening and closing, I couldn’t think straight. My brain kept returning to the phrase ’perfidious Albion’. Cheats. Liars. Frauds. Can’t trust ’em. Don’t trust ’em.

Brighton were back to knocking the ball around their defenders, back to putting their foot on it, goading us.

I knew I would have to suffer this season but this was cruel and unusual punishment. This was unwarranted.

A deep ping resounded around the stadium. As if conditioned, I looked up at the giant screen to my right.

It was showing the penalty incident, but from the point of view of our ’Matrix’ cameras. As the corner was being taken, the viewpoint was the roof of the McNally, but then we smoothly moved around the Main Stand. By the time the ball was three yards from Helge, the viewpoint was on the away end, right in front of him, and we had a crystal clear view of Clunk pushing Helge’s arm. He was gripping it with both hands, lifting it up.

Crystal fucking clear, but just to ram the point home, Spectrum and Pradeep zoomed in on the foul, showing it bigger and bigger.

The Chester fans howled.

The fourth official shot me a look that might have been panic. I let my attention wander from him to the ref to Rudi Platz, wondering how many of them were in on the plot. Gut instinct? All three.

***

We went through the motions.

Adam Roberts replaced Wibbers, who got a standing ovation.

With five minutes to go, Marco Burton replaced Gabriel, who got another ovation.

I threw everyone into a low block. Brighton knocked the ball from side to side.

The final whistle sounded around the ground. The Brighton fans roared, but then the biggest noise came from the home fans. ’We love you Chester, we do! We love you Chester, we do! We love you Chester, we do, ohhhh Chester we love you!’

I told myself they were singing for Chesterkid; my jaw tightened.

Rudi Platz came to shake my hand. All he got was a death stare. I faced the halfway line, watching to see what would happen next. The referee and his crew gathered in their little line. Brighton players went to shake their hands. My guys shook hands with their opponents, but when Youngster approached the ref, he looked at me for permission. I stared at the goofy little weirdo. My client. My mate. Son of the man who saved my life.

We had discussed the Arsenal game. I reminded him that he hadn’t wanted to become a footballer because he would have to do things he didn’t want to do. We had come this far while mostly sticking to the right side of the line, but when he signed for Chester, he had made a choice. He was one of us.

Or was he?

Youngster looked from me to the refs, then stared at the grass, deciding. My throat tightened, my eyes watered again.

He turned to his left, called out sharply, and strode towards the McNally. The rest of the squad followed like baby ducks.

”James,” I called out. He looked at me. ”Don’t forget the corners.”

He nodded and veered right. He and the lads formed a line and applauded those fans who had braved the rickety new zones. Lewis and Leo stripped off their tops and hurled them into the temporary stand, causing glorious uproar and starting a chain reaction. One by one our home kits, with their Premier League badges, were flung away. Five, ten, fifteen! Youngster intervened. Save some tops! There’s another corner! Fuck that, said the guys. We love this corner. This is our corner! Youngster shook his head, took the captain’s armband off with utmost care, threw his shirt into the rows of fans, then put the armband back on over his bare flesh.

I watched it all, drank it down like I had just crossed the desert and gone straight to a pub in Alexandria, then noticed that a camera guy was right in my face.

I pulled my hood over my head.

Sunshine for the Chester fans.

Shadow for DigiWorld.

Twilight for Emma.

Heh. Could turn into a good day after all.

***

DigiWorld Post-Match Interview

Nat: Max Best, thanks for joining us.

Max: Yeah.

Nat: That was a tough defeat. How do you feel?

Max: That’s between me and my therapist, Nat.

Nat: Cole Adams was stretchered off and looked like he was in a lot of pain. Can you tell us more about his injury?

Max: Because you started with that instead of the referee crap, I’ll say that it’s 3.6 Roentgen; not great but not terrible. We’ll look after him. He’ll be aight.

Nat: Since you mention the ref -

Max: Oh my God. [Laughs despairingly.]

Nat: What did you make of his performance?

Max: The referee did his job.

Nat: Would you like to expand on that?

Max: The referee... did his job.

Nat: You were upset about the penalty incident. Can you tell us more about that?

Max: Chester FC have interrupted the smooth transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. We must be punished. Sorry, what was the question?

Nat: The penalty incident.

Max: There was no penalty incident, Nat. There was a foul on our player and the referee gave the team owned by a billionaire a penalty kick. What more is there to say?

Nat: What... Are you saying there’s... What are you saying?

Max: Did you see it? You saw it. Why are you asking me about it? It’s obvious.

Nat: At the time, it looked a clear handball. Helge Hagen had his hand straight up and the ball hit it. No-one in the studio thought anything of it until we saw the alternate angle you provided.

Max: I can’t persuade you of something if you’re being paid to believe the opposite. Let’s just move on.

Nat: I’m saying the VAR didn’t have that footage. At the time, it looked a stonewall penalty. You seemed to have a better view of the incident than millions of people worldwide. The first replays showed that the on-field decision was correct so we were taken aback by your reaction.

Max: [Laughs.] You’re portraying me as the bad guy because I saw what happened. That’s a wild take. Look, it might be a hard concept but I don’t shout for every throw-in, I don’t lose my shit a hundred times a match like the guys you are used to. I can take most refereeing decisions in my stride. You think they get everything right in the sixth tier? In the fifth? I do expect better up here but it’s not better, is it? It’s actually worse because when you get VAR involved, it’s two people making a mistake. One’s a mistake, two’s a scandal, then I come out here and find you agreeing with the bad decisions. Three’s an agenda.

Nat: I don’t have -

Max: Let me ask you a question. If this match was being played at newly-promoted Wrexham and the billionaire Ryan Reynolds was in the stands with his sad little face going, ooh, why did the wef give a penno, we didn’t do nuffink... Do you think the VAR check would have been more than TEN SECONDS?!

Nat: It might have been. Who can say?

Max: I can say. We get clips of VAR checks, along with the audio, and what we find is that it takes them the best part of a minute just to find the angle that shows the incident most clearly. Why was this farce cleared so fast? Because they weren’t looking for the truth. Personally, I would bin VAR. Put it right in the bin, right now, and if the ref has it in for us, tough shit, we just have to suck it up like thousands of teams in the past. But if you’re gonna have it, use it for us the same as for everyone. No way is VAR looking at an Arsenal corner for ten seconds. No way. There would be unholy fury if they got it wrong. There would be mayhem. There would be questions in parliament! [Pause.] Parliament. That’s interesting.

Nat: Apart from the penalty incident, which you shouldn’t have shown, you put some other videos on the screens mid-match. What are you trying to achieve?

Max: Shouldn’t have shown? The truth must be hidden. Protect the agenda! Protect it. You can’t handle the truth! [He laughs.] Wow, nailed the accent. As for what I show during matches, I’ll take direction from the Chester fans on that issue. The away fans, too, maybe. You made them get up at 4 a.m., didn’t you? That’s one hundred percent a decision by DigiWorld. That’s you, Nat. Personally, I think it’s abysmal to treat people like cattle. I offer away fans 25 pound tickets, the best value-for-money food in the entire pyramid, great beers, sensational kebabs, and to spice up their day, some light teasing of their team’s mores and foibles. Tell me again what I’m doing wrong.

Nat: For the second match in a row, you refused to shake hands with the opposition manager.

Max: The guy was dancing around like he had just secured world peace. He knew his team cheated to get the penalty but still he celebrated the way he did. It’s a slap in the face. Cheat, sure, if you need your win bonus that badly, but don’t rub our noses in it.

Nat: He was laughing in disbelief that you thought it wasn’t a penalty.

Max: He knew it wasn’t a penalty. His players knew. They had a little huddle before the corner and they agreed on what they were going to do. Watch it back. It was planned. It’s from the training ground. I would appreciate it if you didn’t gaslight me about things I know to be true.

Nat: Leo Los had a poor game.

Max: [Sighing.] What?

Nat: Leo Los had a poor game.

Max: [Quietly.] Nat, your father was one of the greatest who ever played this sport so I know you don’t believe the words coming out of your mouth. Who is ordering you to say this?

Nat: No-one tells me what to say. Leo Los was one of your big summer signings but he has been ineffectual in both games.

Max: [Noisily rubs his face.] I bought Leo for 6 million and everyone at Chester will be gutted when we sell him for 30. He’s a dreamweaver. He’s got the magic in him. All that bullshit that we had to sit through today with Brighton players running around creating specific angles and shit, all that tedious back and forth, sideways and sideways, Leo Los can do all that with one flick of his boot. Maybe you prefer guys with one foot on the ball flicking Vs at the paying fans. Is that what you prefer, Nat?

Nat: Of course not but that’s part of a tactical system. Those players are at least good at what they’re doing.

Max: They’re amazing at what they’re not doing, yeah. World class lollygaggers. Imagine them doing that in the 70s! They would get snapped in half. Your dad would have booted those pricks out of the stadium, and he would have got a fffff... got a flipping knighthood for doing it.

Nat: He did get a knighthood.

Max: Did he get it for standing on the ball? Or did he get it for being thrilling, running at goal, showing his skill, creating memories that will last? [Pause.] When football’s good, it’s like a photo you can see with your eyes closed. [Quietly.] If you are paid money to do this thing, your only thought should be to create moments in time that are literally indelible. Fans could lose their sight but still see that image. That’s the goal. That’s the only goal. If you’re not doing that, what are you doing?

My men, they were incredible today. Incredible. They had to scrap and battle but when they got on the ball, they tried to create those memories. [More quietly.] You’ve got your agenda. You say you don’t but you do. So does everyone else. You’re all so keen to serve your paymasters that you’ve lost focus on what’s important. You keep sniping but I’ve given Premier League debuts to four under eighteens in two matches. You can steal our points but you’ll never steal our pride. We are Chester, we are us, and we earned the right to play in the Premier League whether your billionaire mates like it or not.

Four teenagers. Four lads who will have long careers in this sport. They’ll feed their families from this sport. I’m building a stadium, building an academy, a coaching staff, a youth team, a women’s team, a men’s team. I’m doing football the way every single one of your viewers says they want it. I’m building memories and careers and I’m going to keep building this place until they drag me out the door, kicking and screaming.

Nat: And when will that be?

Max: That’s the wrong question.

Nat: What’s the right question?

[He smiles enigmatically, then walks away.]