Glory Of The Football Manager System

[The Dressing Room. Half-Time. Crystal Palace 1-2 Arsenal.]

Konaté was sat in the corner with his head down and his fists on his knees, and nobody had taken the seat next to him, because the lads could read weather.

I crossed the room and took the seat next to him.

”Gaffer.” Jaw tight. ”The bounce. I had it. Half a boot.”

”You scored one and you missed one bounce. Do the maths on that, lad. The maths says you’re winning.”

”The maths says one-two.”

”The maths says forty-five minutes.” I stood up and said the rest to the room. ”Listen. All of you. Heads up. Look at me.”

Heads came up.

”They have scored twice from two moments. One ball nobody else in their team can hit, and one run we tracked for sixty yards and lost for five. That is not a team beating us. That is two moments. And here’s what I know about them that you can’t feel yet because you’re in it. They’ve stopped.”

Wilf looked up, sock tape in his fist.

”They’ve stopped. Wenger’s lot are sat on one-two with forty-five minutes to go because the old man can smell it. Twenty-two years, and it’s forty-five minutes away, and every man in that dressing room next door is thinking about holding what they’ve got. And teams that hold, lads, teams that hold give you the game. They drop five yards. Then another five. Then Mustafi’s stepping out of a line that’s stood on its own six-yard box, and the hole behind him isn’t a hole anymore, it’s a car park. Christopher.”

”Gaffer.”

”He’s tired and he’s stepping earlier every time. Live in the car park. Bojan.”

Bojan looked up. Calm as the lake at Massy.

”When Mustafi steps at you, and he will, let him come. Let him get close enough to smell you. Then put it where he was standing.”

”Where he was standing,” said Bojan. ”Okay.”

”Rúben holds the middle. Mama, nothing changes at the back, same half-yard. Aaron, you’ve got the fastest man in Europe in your pocket, keep him there. And lads.” I looked round all of them. Konaté last. ”One of theirs hits sixty-yard passes. One of ours hasn’t lost a header since the under-elevens and his old man’s upstairs with a radio to prove it. We’ve got better moments than they have. Go and have them.”

Clack-clack-clack went the studs down the tunnel.

Eze and Olise were last to the door in their warm-up bibs, and I caught the pair of them by the shoulders.

”Start your sprints at fifty-five. Both of you. Be ready when I look.”

Eze nodded. Olise’s eyes were already out the door and on the grass.

[46’.]

RAAAAAAAH.

The bowl took the teams back like a tide coming in. Fifty-six thousand under the lights, the Groupama roof holding the noise in and stewing it. To my left the cliff of red and blue, twenty thousand of them, the biggest away following in the club’s hundred-and-thirteen-year history, and Tom Donaghue’s drum starting up before the ball even moved.

DUM. DUM. DUM-DUM-DUM.

And then, rolling down from the top tier of the away end, the song. Glad All Over. The old one, the one the club has carried since before colour television, twenty thousand South London voices in a French bowl with the CLAP-CLAP on the beat going off like a shot and rolling round the roof, and our lads’ heads came up another inch, every one of them, because you cannot help it.

At the other end, fifty feet of white bedsheet rippled along the front of the Arsenal tier. MERCI ARSÈNE. Twenty-two years on a banner. Their end sang his name, slow, like a hymn.

Two ends. Two songs. One trophy on a table in the tunnel with ribbons in both colours waiting to find out which ones got cut off.

[49’.]

Their first idea of the half was the only idea they’d had all night. Xhaka, sixty yards, hunting the yellow boots, and Aubameyang went for the channel at full tilt, and the whole bowl stood up to watch the race.

Except it wasn’t a race. Aaron ran WITH him, stride for stride for thirty yards, and at the exact second Aubameyang reached for his touch, Aaron’s leg came round him from the side, snick, clean as a card trick, ball won, rolled back to Pope like a gift.

Aubameyang pulled up and stared at him.

Aaron jogged away. Never looked at him once.

”AARON! AARON! AARON!” The away end gave the tackle a bigger noise than some goals get.

[52’.]

It happened the way I’d told them it would. Arsenal dropped five yards. Then five more. Xhaka started fouling because his legs had gone before his brain had, thud, free kick, yellow card, the referee’s whistle going preep every ninety seconds. Wilf ran at Bellerín for the thirtieth time and Bellerín backed off so far he nearly stood on Ospina.

The drum got louder. The bowl leaned in.

[58’.]

Rúben won it in the middle. Thock. Clean as you like, took it off Ramsey’s toe and rolled it forward in one motion.

Bojan, in the pocket. Back to goal. Mustafi behind him.

And Mustafi stepped.

He stepped early, the way tired centre-halves step, all his weight arriving at a man who had spent fifteen years of his life learning what to do when weight arrives. Bojan let him come. Let him get close enough to smell him. Then turned, one touch, the ball gone before the contact came, rolled with the outside of his right boot into the car park where Mustafi used to live.

Christopher was already there. He’d been living there for ten minutes.

One touch to set it. Whump. Low, through Koscielny’s legs, past Ospina’s dive.

Riiip went the net.

[Crystal Palace 2-2 Arsenal. Benteke, 58’.]

The away end did not make noise. The away end made weather. Limbs everywhere, a flare going up pink at the back, the drum lost inside something bigger than the drum, RAAAAAAAAAAAH, and Christopher running to the corner with both arms out and Bojan jumping on his back and the whole front row of red and blue spilling over the hoarding.

I looked up. High, right, the box on the halfway line.

The old man was on his feet. Blanket gone. Radio in one hand, held up over his head like a trophy of its own, his other fist pumping the air.

Christopher kissed the badge in front of twenty thousand people and I had to turn round and look at my bench for a second because there was something in my throat, because the man was leaving in June and he had just scored in a European final and the only people in the stadium who knew both of those things were me and him.

”GAFFER!” Bray, grabbing my arm, all pretence of calm gone. ”NOW?”

”Now.”

[61’.]

The fourth official’s board went up. Bzzt. Lit numbers.

EZE ON. MILIVOJEVIĆ OFF. OLISE ON. NAVAS OFF.

Mili came off like a captain. He’d given me everything for sixty-one minutes and he’d carried Ramsey’s goal on his back for twenty of them, and he ran off, ran, clapping the away end, and when he reached the line he took Eze’s face in both hands.

”Fix what I broke,” he said.

”Watch me,” said Eze.

Navas jogged off behind him to a standing ovation from people who knew exactly what sixty-one minutes of sixty-yard tracking runs had cost a thirty-one-year-old. He high-fived Olise on the line and said something in Spanish, and Olise, who does not speak Spanish, nodded like he’d understood every word, because at sixteen you understand everything on a night like this.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.