Glory Of The Football Manager System

Southgate, God help him, did it again. Off came a forward. On came a defender.

Danny Rose came on. Another body for the back line. Kane dropped even deeper into his own half to try and get a touch of a ball his team no longer had.

I stood there and watched England answer going 1-1 down in a World Cup semi-final by putting yet another defender on the pitch, and I understood that fear had taken Southgate’s brain clean out of his head. Panic was flying the plane on its own.

You could see it breaking out on the grass. Walker was screaming at Stones to push up. Stones was pointing him back, 2 England defenders arguing about which way to panic. Pickford came 20 yards off his line, bellowing at all of them with his arms wide, and none of them could hear him over the green end.

Kane stood in the centre circle with his hands on his hips. A striker with nobody left to feed him, looking over at his own bench like a man asking what the plan was and getting no answer back.

He had 5 defenders, a sweeper, and a striker stranded in his own half with nobody to pass to. He had built a fortress and left himself no cannon. A team that cannot score cannot win, however many men it puts on the door.

We kept coming. We smelled the blood in the water.

The songs from the white end had changed. The Judas song, the one with my name in it that they turned into something to spit, had gone quiet. You cannot sing hate when you are frightened. Fear and hate do not live in the same throat at the same time.

Now there was just a low, nervous hum off them, 38,000 people who had felt it turn and knew they could not stop it. Somebody tried to start the cocky song again, [”IT’S COMING...”], but it died in 20 throats.

It did not catch, and that dying is a sound of its own.

The green end sang loud enough for the whole stadium. [”DI-ma Magh-RIB! DI-ma Magh-RIB!”] The drums hammered under the chant. [Boom, boom, boom-boom-boom.] A whole end that had crossed a continent to be here, and now smelled the kill.

Sofyan grabbed Harit by the back of the neck as they reset. He said something short into the kid’s ear, then shoved him up the pitch. The boy went. Whatever those words were, they moved him.

Nordin won the ball. Of course it was Nordin. He does the running nobody claps for. He stepped across a tired England midfielder and took the ball off his toe in the centre circle.

We were gone again. Straight, fast. [Click] went the stopwatch. This time Sofyan was already in a sprint before the ball was his.

He played it wide and kept his run going. Give and go. The wall pass, the oldest thing in football. England’s packed defence had so many bodies in it that 3 of them stepped out toward the ball and none of them tracked the runner.

The runner was Sofyan Amrabat. He was finishing the move he had started 60 yards back, arriving unmarked in the box with the goal open in front of him.

Pickford came out to close the angle.

Sofyan did not blink.

[SMACK.]

Low, hard, past the keeper’s legs and into the far corner. The net snapped back.

2-1.

This time the noise was different. I have thought about why ever since. The first goal was relief, 40,000 people letting go of a breath. This one was disbelief turning into reality.

This was a whole stadium, a whole nation, a whole continent, not quite able to take in that a team of reserves, of nobodies, of men left off the plane in everybody’s mind, was winning. They were winning. They were dismantling England in a World Cup semi-final with 20 minutes to go.

[Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu!] The women again. [Paaaarp!] Every air horn in Moscow at once. Underneath it was a roar so deep and wide it stopped being a sound. It became weather. A thing you stood inside of.

Sofyan Amrabat did not run to his own fans. He ran to the English end.

He ran to the 38,000 who had sung all night that it was coming home. He stood still in front of them, his arms wide and his chest out, and he roared at them. I knew what was in that roar. I knew what that boy had been told his whole life.

Not quite Dutch. Not quite African. Not quite anybody’s son. And here he was, in front of a country that thought a trophy belonged to it by right, telling them with his whole body where it was actually going.

They did not sing back.

I let a shout out. Both fists, a roar torn out of me that I did not choose. 78,000 people swallowed the sound whole. Then I clamped it down. I could feel the next 20 minutes coming toward me like a tide. I turned to Rebecca and my bench, and I started getting my boys ready to hold on.

I made my move before Southgate could make his.

”NUMBER 9!” I had Rebecca on the sub before the ball was dead. The board went up on our side this time, our red and white numbers under the lights.

Off came a blowing Saiss. Done, cramped to nothing. On came Fellati. Fresh legs and fresh lungs for the 20 minutes I knew were coming. Saiss could barely lift his arm to slap the new man’s hand as they crossed. He had left all of it out there.

Because now England had to chase.

Now, 2-1 down and running out of time, they had to come out of their bunker. Here was the cruelty of what Southgate had done to himself. He had spent 20 minutes taking his attackers off. Now he needed them, and they were sitting in their tracksuits.

He threw on what he had left. Rashford. Vardy. Bodies forward. All of it late, all of it panic. He sent his big men up into the box for the first time in half an hour and started hammering long balls and corners into our area.

It was frightening. I will not pretend it was not. This is the part they never show you on the highlights. The 15 minutes at the end when a wounded England throws everything it has left at you. You have 11 men on their knees trying to keep a lead you have no right to be defending.

Rebecca’s board was coming true in front of me, the amber numbers turning red in real time. El Ahmadi went down with cramp, dragged himself up, and went down again. Fellati, 10 minutes off the bench, was already blowing so hard I could see his shoulders from 60 yards.

Hakimi, my Hakimi, amber all week, had given every drop he had. He was running on the memory of his legs.

[Ssssshhhh.] Corner to England. 78,000 breaths held.

Trippier stepped up again. He hung it on the near post, the same poison as ever. Maguire climbed. This time there was no Benatia voice quick enough, and no Da Costa a half-yard early. Maguire got his head to it clean.

Munir Mohamedi, the keeper who waited a month, the keeper the English fans had counted the run-up of and jeered, threw his body across his line. He stretched out a glove, tipped it onto the post, and scrambled it away.

[CLANG.]