Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Morocco Team Base, Kaliningrad Stadium, Russia. Monday 25 June 2018.]

Three days back they took a goal off us that crossed the line clean. I’d watched it forty times since, and I stood in the away dressing room in Kaliningrad, the air thick with Deep Heat and nerves, and told the lads I was done watching it.

”Onside,” I said. ”Every one of you knows it was onside. So do they. So does the whole planet, and it did us no good at all.”

Benatia lifted his head off his hands. ”It did us one thing, boss.” His voice was low, and the room went to him, because that is what a room does when the captain talks. ”It made the whole world hate them and love us. Forty thousand out there tonight, and half of them not even ours.”

”Then let’s give them a reason,” I said.

Sofyan was already up, bouncing on his toes, that engine of his running before the whistle. ”We don’t wait for it,” he said, to the lads, not to me. ”We take it off them. First minute. Every minute.”

”Here’s tonight in one line.” I stepped into the middle of them. ”We win, we’re in the last sixteen, and they go home. We draw, they go through, and we fly back to Casablanca on the back of Wednesday.”

”So a draw’s no use to us. There’s no sitting in. We chase this from the first whistle to the last.”

I crouched in front of En-Nesyri. The lad hadn’t said a word since the hotel. He was simmering.

”They’ll play keep-ball and bore the life out of ninety minutes,” I said, staring a hole through him. ”Let them have it. When it breaks, it breaks to you. And when it does, you put it so far past De Gea that no man in a dark room in Moscow can lift a finger to it.”

En-Nesyri looked up. Cold eyes. He didn’t nod. He pulled the shirt off the peg and put it on, and somehow that was louder than anything Sofyan had said.

[En-Nesyri. Finishing 16, Composure 15] [Mental state: cold]

Ziyech was last off the bench, the little smile on, rolling a ball under his sole. ”Give me their tired side, boss,” he said, ”and I’ll send them home crying.” Boussoufa laughed. Even Benatia cracked.

They went down the tunnel with a clatter of studs on tile, Benatia slapping the frame on the way out, THUMP, and the noise came in to meet us.

And what a noise.

You hear a World Cup before you see it. We came up the tunnel steps into drums and brass and forty thousand voices, and Kaliningrad was not the biggest ground in Russia but tonight it did not need to be.

The Moroccan end was a red ocean, three tiers of it behind the near goal, and they were not sitting. They were up, arms over heads, bouncing as one, a song rolling down that I’d heard grow louder every match of this tournament.

Drums under it, boom boom, boom boom, a brass section somewhere in the middle blasting the tune, paaarp, and over the top the high ululation of a thousand women that lifts the hair on your arms.

A lad no older than ten sat on his dad’s shoulders on the front row, waving a flag bigger than he was, screaming, ”Yallah! Yallah!” over and over.

Behind the far goal, Spain. Red and gold, scarves up over heads, rolling through their own song, ”A por ellos, oé,” proud and heavy and certain, the song of a country that turns up expecting to win.

The neutrals filled everything between. Russians, a knot of Brazilians in yellow who’d adopted us for the night, a few lads in England shirts who’d stayed on after their own game, all on their feet, phones up, drunk on the sight of it. It’s the World Cup. Everyone belongs to somebody for ninety minutes.

The old fella was in his seat by the tunnel, flat cap low, scarf knotted at his throat in the heat, and as I passed he leaned right over the hoarding and got a hand on my arm.

”Not tonight, Danny.” His eyes were wet and fierce. ”Tonight we take it back.”

I put my hand over his and held it a second. ”Too right we do.”

I didn’t go to the dugout. I walked to the edge of the technical area, toes on the white chalk, and that’s where I meant to stay for ninety minutes.

Out on the grass my lads were loud with it. Bounou clapping his gloves and bawling at his back four to switch on. Benatia going down the line of them, forehead to Saïss, then a word for Mendyl, then Hakimi, who was bouncing on the spot like the grass was too hot to stand on.

Hierro strolled out of the Spanish tunnel to my left, calm, sleek suit, hands in pockets. He’d inherited a circus when Lopetegui went days before the tournament, and he stood there like none of it touched him.

Then the anthems. Morocco’s first, and the red end sang it so hard I saw the players’ faces go on the pitch, Benatia with his eyes shut and his fist on the badge. Then Spain’s, and their end answered, forty thousand pulling two ways at once, and the neutrals soaked up both and cheered the ends of each.

I ran my eye down my own eleven and let the numbers come up, one last look before the noise took my thoughts.

[MOROCCO. STARTING XI (live readiness)]

[Shape: 4-1-4-1, 4-3-3 on the break]

GK Bounou 98% · Form 14

RB Hakimi 100% · Form 15

CB Benatia 95% · Form 14

CB Saïss 94% · Form 14

LB Mendyl 96% · Form 13

DM El Ahmadi 92% · Form 14

RW Ziyech 97% · Form 15

CM Sofyan 99% · Form 15

CM Boussoufa 90% · Form 14

LW N. Amrabat 95% · Form 14

ST En-Nesyri 100% · Form 15

Pheep.

Kick-off, and the ground took a breath and gave it straight back.

Spain took the ball and settled onto it like they were pulling up chairs for dinner. De Gea to Piqué, into Busquets, out to Alba, back again. Patient. Insulting, almost.

The red end would not have it. Every touch a Spaniard took, forty thousand whistles came down, fweeeet, and when Busquets dwelt on it a beat too long a bloke three rows back cupped his hands and bawled, ”Pass it then, you’re putting us to sleep!” and his whole section fell about.

The Spanish end sang over the top, ”Olé,” on every pass, mocking, and for a minute the two ends went at each other and the football was almost the sideshow.

Out on the pitch Sofyan wanted none of the patience. He chased Busquets like it owed him money, snapping at heels, and when Ziyech jogged back a yard slow he spun and screamed, ”Track! Hakim, TRACK!” Ziyech stuck a lazy thumb in the air, but he tracked. The one man on this earth Ziyech runs for.

”Shape!” I was out on the line, arm flat. ”Let them have it deep. El Ahmadi, screen. Nordin, watch the switch.”

The block held, and Benatia stood in the heart of it and conducted, sliding the line two yards this way, two yards that, a hand up, a shout, a man who’d done it a thousand times because he had.

Bray leaned in. ”They’ll go long diagonal to Carvajal.”

”Nordin’s got him.”

Carvajal got the switch, and Nordin folded him with a shoulder, clean, and the red end came up like he’d scored. A woman near the front screamed, ”Otra vez!” then again in English, ”Do it again!”

Ten minutes. Seventy per cent theirs, not a shot. Our end got restless, a chant building, feet stamping on concrete, boom boom boom, wanting us to go and take it.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the Massage Chair.