Glory Of The Football Manager System

West Brom equalised in the fifty-fifth. Rondón from a long throw, the ball bouncing off Konaté’s knee, a defender’s nightmare. 1-1. The Hawthorns came alive. The West Brom fans, who had been subdued, found their voice. The nervousness that had defined the first half turned to desperate belief. Pardew was on his feet, pumping his fist, his touchline energy feeding into his players.

For five minutes, West Brom were the better team. Rondón held the ball up with the physicality of a man who sensed the tide was turning. Chadli drove forward from midfield. A cross from the right was headed over by Phillips, six yards out, and the Hawthorns groaned at the miss. Another minute and they might have scored again.

Then Rodríguez did what Rodríguez does.

In the sixty-second minute, a foul on Zaha on the edge of the box. Cynical, born of frustration, the kind that earns a yellow card and a free kick in a position that most players would float into the box and hope for the best. Most players were not James David Rodríguez Rubio.

He placed the ball on the turf. Four steps back. He looked at the goal, then at the wall, then at the goalkeeper, and his face had that expression, the one I had seen in training a hundred times, the expression of a man who was not hoping or calculating but simply knowing. He already knew where the ball was going. The goalkeeper did not.

Outside of the right boot. The ball left his foot on a trajectory that had no business existing in Euclidean geometry. It rose, then dipped, then curved, bending around the wall like a bird changing direction mid-flight. Ben Foster, experienced and capable, dived to his right. The ball was in the opposite corner before his gloves had left the ground. Inside of the far post. Net.

West Brom 1-2 Crystal Palace. Rodríguez. 62 minutes.

The away end erupted. I saw Bill Nighy in the front row, clapping with the measured appreciation of a man who understood he had just witnessed something that belonged in a gallery. Timothy Spall grabbed Rafe’s arm and said something that made his son laugh. Susanna Reid had both hands on her head.

And in the third row, my mum was on her feet, clapping with both hands above her head, Emma beside her doing the same, the two of them in sync, and Frankie, his arms still folded, the corners of his mouth twitching the way they did when he was fighting the urge to admit that something beautiful had just happened.

West Brom’s spirit broke. You could see it in real time. The equaliser had given them ten minutes of belief, and the free kick had ripped it away. Shoulders dropped. Runs shortened. The tackles that had been aggressive became hesitant. The crowd went flat. A team punched in the stomach that couldn’t straighten up.

I smelled blood. ”Michael. Warm up.”

Olise was off the bench in three seconds. Stripped his tracksuit, did two quick sprints along the touchline, and was standing beside me within a minute, his dark eyes fixed on the pitch, his body vibrating with the controlled stillness of a sixteen-year-old who had been watching for seventy minutes and had already mapped every weakness in the West Brom defence.

In the sixty-eighth minute: Olise for Navas. The Spaniard jogged off to applause. Olise jogged on, and the Palace fans started: ”Michael Olise! Michael Olise!”

His first touch was a turn. Receiving from Wan-Bissaka on the right, his back to the left-back, he let the ball run across his body with that silk-smooth roll and was suddenly facing goal. The left-back, forty minutes into a second half and expecting a tired winger, found himself looking at a fresh sixteen-year-old with the ball at his feet and murder in his eyes.

Olise played inside to Rodríguez, received the return, and drove at the defence. The left-back backed off. Olise shifted to his left foot, the foot that Paddy called generational, and crossed it. Low, whipped, into the corridor between goalkeeper and back line.

Zaha, arriving at the near post, met it perfectly. First-time, swept into the net, the ball barely leaving the ground. The cross and the run and the finish happening in a single, devastating sequence.

West Brom 1-3 Crystal Palace. Zaha. 74 minutes.

Zaha cupped his ears at the away end. The gesture that had become the squad’s signature. Then he pointed at Olise, the boy who had created it with a cross most senior wingers couldn’t have conceived. Olise raised his hand. No slide. No sprint. The nonchalance was terrifying.

The Hawthorns was emptying. West Brom fans streaming for the exits. The Palace fans in full voice now, their songs carrying across the vacant sections, filling the space the home supporters had abandoned. It felt less like an away end and more like a takeover.

In the eighty-second minute, Olise scored.

Neves recovered the ball in midfield, found Milivojević, who found Rodríguez. James played a first-time pass into the channel that Olise had been drifting towards for five minutes, the same inside-right position from Huddersfield, the same ghostly occupation of space that was becoming his signature.

One touch to control. One touch to shift it left. The centre-back closed, tired, desperate, legs gone. Olise cut outside, opened his body, and curled a shot that dipped and swerved and found the far corner with the composed precision of a boy making this look routine because, to him, it was.

West Brom 1-4 Crystal Palace. Olise. 82 minutes.

He turned. He looked at me on the touchline. And for the first time in all the matches I had seen him play, for the first time since Bristol City and Lazio and the League Cup and Huddersfield, Michael Olise smiled. Not the nonchalant raised hand.

Not the library-book composure. An actual smile, small and private and directed at his manager, the man who had watched him train with the U16s and said ”Don’t release him. Give him to me.”

I smiled back. I pointed at him, the way Pato pointed at Bojan. The crowd was singing his name. And a sixteen-year-old was standing on a Premier League pitch, smiling at the man who had believed in him before anyone else did.

The final eight minutes were a victory lap. The Palace fans sang everything they knew. The players passed the ball with the casual authority of a team that had scored four away from home on the last day of the year.

Pato came on for Zaha in the eighty-fifth, Dann for Abraham in the eighty-eighth. Standing ovations for each departing player. Abraham clutching the match ball, grinning. Zaha fist-bumping the Palace fans as he walked past the dugout.

The whistle blew. West Brom 1-4 Crystal Palace.

Six consecutive Premier League wins. The longest winning run in the club’s history. Olise scoring in consecutive matches. Rodríguez’s free kick already being replayed on every screen in the stadium, the West Brom big screen accidentally showing it because nobody had thought to switch it off. The away end bouncing, singing, and refusing to leave.

I stood on the Hawthorns turf, the December cold pressing against my face, the floodlights catching the mist rolling in from the hills. Two thousand voices. Nighy and Spall and strangers and families and children and a man in a faded Palace shirt who had been supporting this club since before I was born.

And in the third row, my mum. Crying. Frankie beside her, flat cap in his hands. Emma, her arm through my mother’s, both of them looking down at me.

It was time.

[FULL TIME: West Brom 1-4 Crystal Palace.]

[Goals: Abraham 41’, Rodríguez 62’, Zaha 74’ (assist: Olise), Olise 82’. West Brom: Rondón 55’.]

[Overall: P39 W33 D3 L3. GF: 95. GA: 34.]

[Premier League: P21 W16 D3 L2. Points: 51. Position: 2nd.]

[Six consecutive PL wins. Longest winning run in club history.]

[Olise: goals in consecutive PL matches. 2 goals, 1 assist in 2 appearances. Age: 16.]

[Rodríguez free kick: outside of right foot, far post. Goal of the season contender.]

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Thank you to Sir nameyelus and RAPAX for the support.