Glory Of The Football Manager System

”Højbjerg?”

”That is the other reason I am ringing. Højbjerg is done. Southampton took the 10 in the end. Signed a 4 year deal, went through an hour after Grealish.”

”10. Not a penny more.”

”Not a penny more, and here is the beauty of it, son, and you know it because you drew it up. We sold Mili to West Ham for 35 a fortnight ago, a 27-year-old holding midfielder, daylight robbery in our favour. And now we have replaced him with a 22-year-old who runs until his legs come off, for 10.

”Sell the old one for 35, buy the young one for 10, come out of it richer and better in the same window. If the rest of them ever worked out it was that simple they would all be at it.”

”They can’t be at it,” I said. ”They won’t sell their best and back their own coaching.”

”No, they will not. Anyway. That is your midfield legs. Neves and Kovačić and Højbjerg in the middle, McArthur behind them. That is not a survival midfield any more, Danny. That is a proper one.”

I closed my eyes on the stairs and I built it, the way you cannot help building it.

Hennessey and Pope in goal, and a hole where a third keeper should be since Mandanda went to Marseille, with only young Ryan Fletcher up from the 18s behind the two of them.

A back line of Wan-Bissaka, who is going to be the best defender in the country inside 2 years and does not know it yet. Joel Ward. Dann. Tomkins.

Tarkowski, who kept my centre-half spot warm for half a season and told me so to my face. Konaté, 19 and enormous. Sakho, who the Holmesdale would carry through fire. Ben Chilwell at left back.

Neves. McArthur. Kovačić, signed permanent from Real Madrid, the best central midfielder in the country for 4 months straight, his wife expecting in December. And now Højbjerg, the runner, in beside them, bought this morning.

Nya Kirby. James Rodríguez, permanent, on a wage cut he took to play under me and worth every penny of the bonuses. Eberechi Eze still keeping his place, and Tyler Webb and Jake Morrison and Reece Hannam behind him in the 23s, all of them nearer the first team than they were a year ago.

Zaha out wide, still the heartbeat, and no Gnabry beside him, that flank lighter than it was, because Bayern had paid 75 million pounds a fortnight ago for a lad we got off Arsenal for coppers. Jesús Navas. Andros Townsend. Jarrod Bowen. Christian Benteke.

Pato, the showman, still promising Connor a Lamborghini. Connor Blake himself, coming up. And the academy behind the lot of them, Olise and Tyrick Mitchell and Antoine Semenyo, and the younger ones Sarah keeps telling me about, Brandon Aviero and Lewis Grant, boys I have watched grow 6 inches since the Portakabin.

The selling had all been done weeks back, in the first days of the tournament, while the internet was still arguing about the Portugal robbery. Bojan to Barcelona for 60, gone through before we played Spain. Gnabry to Bayern for 75. Mili to West Ham for 35. Kovačić and James made permanent the same week.

By the time I put Croatia out on Saturday, that money had been sat in the Palace bank for a fortnight, doing nothing but waiting for me to point at somebody.

So Grealish and Højbjerg this week, 20 between them, did not make a dent in it. There was still the guts of 130 million pounds in there.

130 million. For a manager who has only ever wanted to buy 10 million pound players. Dougie reminds me of that about once a week, and he is not wrong, and it is exactly why there was still that much money in the building.

We are not City and we never will be. So we do not spend somebody else’s money. We make our own. We find them young, or cheap, or broken, and we coach them, and we play them, and we make them worth 10 times what we paid.

That is the whole club in 3 sentences, and it is why I was 2,000 miles away and still building a team.

”Dougie.”

”Aye.”

”Hakimi.”

The pause on the line changed shape. It always does when I say that name. And it was the same pause it had been on Sunday, because nothing about that one had moved, and nothing about it was allowed to.

”Same as it was,” he said, careful, the way he goes when the ground is not solid. ”Still live. The money from the Bojan sale is still there for it.

”But Danny, I told you Sunday and it is more true today, not less. Real Madrid rang the boy the morning after Croatia. Every sporting director in Europe watched him run 60 yards through that midfield. He is dearer every day this tournament keeps him on a television.”

”So it might not happen.”

”It might not happen at this price. And I am not chasing a right back into 40 million pounds while a World Cup semi-final is making him dearer by the hour. I want him. You want him. But I am not standing here with the club’s money and no plan if it goes.”

”We have a plan.”

”We have a plan,” Dougie said, and I heard him almost smile down the phone. ”Because you gave me one in May. Before any of this. You sat in my office and you said, get me Hakimi, and if you cannot get me Hakimi, do not waste 3 weeks finding out. Get me the other one.”

”Theo.”

”The lad at the same club nobody is shouting about. Same legs. Same age near enough, 20 years old. Left side instead of right, but that is a coach’s problem and you are a coach.

”Flies up and down that flank all day and gets in behind. His name is not big enough for anybody to have noticed yet, so he is 8, maybe 10 million pounds. And he is sat in the same building as Hakimi, at the same club, and he is available today.”

That is why I gave Dougie that instruction in May, before a ball was kicked in Russia, before Hakimi was Hakimi to anybody but me and the number in the corner of my eye. Because a window does not wait for you to be ready.

”So we do it like this,” I said. ”You keep the Hakimi conversation alive. You do not slam a door. But the second it goes past what he is worth, you do not sit there haggling and losing me a fortnight.

”You move for Theo, and you get him done. We do not end this window with an empty shirt because we were in love with a name we could not afford.”

”That is exactly what I was going to do without ringing you.” Dougie let a breath go. ”But you would have wanted to be asked.”

”I would have wanted to be asked.”

And there it is, the whole of it, the thing I cannot say to anybody and can barely say to myself.

I made that boy. I put Hakimi on that right side at 19 when a whole country said he was not ready, and I stood on a line and watched him become the best young full back on earth in the space of a month.

And I am the one man in football who is not allowed to pick up a phone about him. He plays for the country I am managing, and if I so much as breathe on his registration while this tournament is running I am in front of FIFA and finished.

So Dougie does it. And I stand behind the wall, and I smile at the boy at breakfast, and I keep another name in my back pocket in case the first one gets away.

That is the job. Both jobs. At the same time.

”Go and eat,” Dougie said. ”Your fiancée has been standing at the bottom of those stairs for 5 minutes holding a plate. I can hear her.”

He was right. He could not hear her. But he was right.

I ate, because Emma stood over me until I did. Eggs gone cold and toast gone hard and a banana she put in my hand and folded my fingers round like I was 6.

She did not talk about football at all. She never does, when it matters. She sat across a corner of the table with her ankle hooked round mine underneath it and talked about nothing that mattered to anybody but us.

The wedding her sister keeps emailing about. A dog she has decided we are getting when this is all over, a decision I was not consulted on. Whether Moss Side or Dulwich, one day, when there is a one day.

The small stuff. Her stuff. The stuff that keeps a man on the ground when everything else in the world is trying to lift him off it.

I ate, because Emma stood over me until I did.

And then I went to work on the other desk, the one with England on it, and the first stop on that desk is a room that smells of Deep Heat and menthol and has a whiteboard on the wall, and Rebecca stood in front of it with a marker in her hand and a face I did not like.

”Sit down,” she said. ”You are not going to enjoy this.”

***

Thank you for 100 Power Stones.