Glory Of The Football Manager System

The room sat with it.

”Quick win. Three points. Home by Sunday night. Salzburg again Thursday.”

Mama opened the door. Room broke up.

Bray caught me by the corner of the analysts’ office on the way out.

”Set piece.”

”Which one.”

”KB-fourteen. Bowen on the back post. They have a young left-back who steps in at every near-post run and forgets the back post twice a match.”

”Call it at the first chance.”

”I’ll call it at the first chance.”

[Bus. M3. Sunday April 8. 11:42 BST.]

The team bus pulled out of Beckenham at quarter to eleven. The Netflix crew were on the bus with us, the way they had been on the bus to most away matches since January. Tomás was at the front of the cabin with a small camera on a mount filming the lads’ faces in the seats behind. Ruth was in the third row with the boom mic. Elena was at the back with the new lad and a laptop open.

McArthur was reading something on his phone. James and Olise were sat next to each other listening to the same playlist on one set of earphones, one earbud each. Pato was asleep against the window. Pope was reading a paperback. Joel Ward was doing a crossword in a Daily Telegraph that I had not realised anybody under fifty bought any more.

Sarah sat next to me with the Bournemouth iPad open. The diamond was on the screen because she had not closed the Salzburg file since Wednesday.

She closed it.

Pulled up Bournemouth.

”Eddie.”

”Eddie.”

”Same shape as October.”

”Same shape as October.”

”You think we score before the half hour.”

”I think we score before the half hour.”

”I think we score in the second half too. Pato has been training in front of the back four for ten days like a man with something to prove.”

”Pato has always trained like a man with something to prove.”

”Pato has been training like a man whose contract talks have been going for four weeks and are not closing.”

I looked across the aisle at Pato. He was asleep with his mouth open against the window the way Konaté had been asleep on the bus to the airport on Wednesday. He looked exactly thirty years old.

”Right.”

”He needs the goal today. Get him the goal.”

”All right.”

The bus moved south.

[Vitality Stadium. 14:00 BST.]

The Bournemouth fans on the way to the ground gave us a clap as we walked past. Which was the kind of small thing that did not happen at Stamford Bridge or at Anfield but which happened at the Vitality and which was why coming here was a different kind of away day.

Lineup as named on Saturday morning.

Eddie set them up exactly the way Sarah said he would. Two banks of four on the edge of their own area. King and Wilson as the outlet runners. Stanislas and Daniels on the flanks dropping in to make a back six when we had the ball.

The first twenty minutes were ours and felt like nothing. Seventy-one per cent of the ball. Two efforts on goal. James drifted into the half-spaces and could not find a runner because the runners were not running yet. Olise took on Francis twice on the left and got blocked off twice. Pato held the ball up with his back to goal because there was nowhere else to put it.

Twenty-three minutes in, Sarah came to my shoulder on the touchline.

”They will give us this.”

”I know.”

”Bray’s set piece.”

”I know.”

Thirty-fourth minute. Free kick on the right, twenty-eight yards out. Bray’s hand went up. James and Olise to the corner of the box. McArthur over the ball. Bowen on the back post.

McArthur played a low pass to James at the corner. James took one touch with the outside of his right foot and put a low cross to the back post.

Bowen came across his marker.

The header went down. It bounced once. It went under Begović’s body and across the line.

Jarrod Bowen, who had not started a Premier League match since February, who had been a substitute in seven of the last ten, who had been told he might be sold in the summer if a Championship side offered the right number, ran past me on the touchline towards the away corner with both his arms out and his shirt pulled up over his head and the away end was singing his name before he got there.

I had my hands on top of my head.

Sarah was laughing.

”That was Bray.”

”That was Bray.”

”It is always Bray.”

”It is always Bray.”

Half time at one-nil.

Dressing room was three minutes of water and one minute of me. Same shape. They will push the line a yard higher in the second half because Eddie has nothing to lose. Pato in behind. James on the half-turn. Rúben and McArthur do not chase, they wait. We score the second and we go home with three points.

We scored the second in the fifty-eighth.

Eddie pushed the line a yard higher. Pato got behind it on the third attempt. The ball was a long one from Tomkins, fifty yards on the diagonal, and Pato had been moving in the channel for fifteen minutes and Steve Cook had been getting impatient because the score was nil-one and Cook was getting impatient.

Pato got on top of the ball with his right shoulder. Took it down with his right foot. Was fifteen yards out before Cook could put a foot in.

Begović came at him.

Pato cut it back across his body to the edge of the box where James Rodríguez had arrived because James was always going to arrive.

James hit it first time. Low. Curling. Far corner.

Begović got nowhere near it.

Two-nil.

James went to the away corner and pointed at Pato with both hands and Pato pointed back at him with one and the away end was singing for both of them and the rest of the team got there.

I had my arms folded.

”Don’t smile, Daniel.”

”I’m not smiling.”

”You’re nearly smiling.”

”Nearly is allowed.”

The last half hour was the kind of football you play when you are two-nil up away, fresh from a three-nil first-leg European win, and in the middle of an eight-match run-in for the title.

We did not chase a third. We kept the ball. We let McArthur stand on it for fifteen seconds at a time in our own half because nobody was coming to take it off him. Bournemouth got a corner in the eighty-second that came to nothing. Lerma hit a long shot in the eighty-seventh that Pope caught at the second time of asking.

Ninety plus three, the referee blew it.

Two-nil.

The away end sang the manager record by name because the manager record was on the away end’s phones already because somebody had checked.

[FULL TIME: Bournemouth 0–2 Crystal Palace.]

[Goals: Bowen 34’, Rodríguez 58’.]

[Premier League: 2nd. P31 W24 D5 L2. 77 points.]

[Manager Record: P51 W42 D7 L2.]

Eddie was waiting on the halfway line.

”Daniel.”

”Eddie.”

”Three-nil in Austria.”

”Yeah.”

”You looked tired Thursday. You did not look tired today either.”

”That is the squad.”

”That is the squad you have built.”

He shook my hand. Squeezed it once. Walked off.

[Bus. M3. 17:20 BST.]

The bus left at half past four. Tomás filmed the lads getting on. Elena watched the footage on her laptop on the way past me and nodded once and did not say anything. The new lad sat across the aisle from me with a notebook and did not ask me a question.

I sat next to Sarah. The Salzburg tablet was open. The diamond was on the screen.

”Five days.”

”Five days.”

”They have to score four at Selhurst.”

”They are not scoring four at Selhurst.”

”No.”

”Bowen.”

”Bowen.”

”Tell him on Monday morning that he is in the squad for Salzburg.”

”He’s in the squad for Salzburg. I’ll tell him myself.”

”Good.”

She closed the iPad.

”Daniel.”

”Yeah.”

”City beat Spurs three-one. Aguero a hat-trick.”

”Four points.”

”Four points. Same as Friday morning.”

”All right.”

”The gap holds. The gap does not close.”

”The gap does not need to close yet. The gap needs to close in May.”

”Right.”

The bus rolled through Surrey. Pato was asleep again. McArthur was reading. James and Olise still on the one set of earphones. Tomás had the camera off now and was eating a sandwich Ruth had brought him from the team meal that he had not gone to.

Emma texted at half six. The bus was in Wandsworth.

Heard it on the radio. Two-nil. Coming home through the village?

I texted back.

Yeah.

Maggie has pink tulips. Said you should have them.

I read it twice. Set the phone face-down on my knee. Looked out the window at the brake lights ahead of us in the slow lane.

Texted Maggie.

Save them. There in an hour.

She texted back.

Brown paper. Twine. Twenty quid in the till. Knock the side door if I am closed.

I closed my eyes. The bus moved north.