Glory Of The Football Manager System

In the hotel lounge behind me, Bray said, ”You cheeky sod,” to a television in Moscow at 20 past 4 in the morning.

Keane, flat: ”You have never done it, then.”

”Done what?”

”Stood in front of a room of players who have just lost something.” Keane did not look at him. ”Because I have, and it does not make you feel better. It makes you feel considerably worse, and you do it anyway, because they are 19 and you are not.”

”So you think it was for them.”

”I think,” Keane said, ”that if he wanted to feel better he would have said what every manager in this game says, which is that we win together and we lose together, and everybody nods and nobody remembers it by Thursday.

”He did not say that. He named the 3 players he sent up and then said the reason was him. That is not a man managing his image, Jamie. A man managing his image does not hand you a clip that can be played at him for 20 years.”

”I still think he has made himself the story.”

”He has,” Neville said. ”On purpose. That is the point of it. That is what taking the blame is.”

”Right, but is it his to take?”

”Yes,” said Neville and Keane, at the same time, and Jones let the desk go for a second.

”See, this is where I am on my own,” Carragher said, and he was almost laughing, ”and I am fine with it. I watched that game twice. The full-back does not get back. He does not.

”And every person in football has spent 6 hours pretending he did, out of kindness, and now the manager has gone and made it official.”

”And what would you have him do?” Henry said.

”I would have him say nothing. Say the shape was wrong, say we will look at it, get on the plane.”

”And on Wednesday, when 5 million people are on the street,” Henry said, ”that boy stands in the middle of it knowing every single one of them has decided it was his.”

Carragher opened his mouth and shut it again.

”Yeah,” he said, after a second. ”Yeah, all right. That is the bit I had not thought about.”

”Thank you.”

”I still do not like it, mind.” Carragher had gone back to his elbows. ”I want that on the record. I have conceded the point and I am still in a mood about it.”

”Does it hurt him?” Jones said.

”Course it hurts him,” Keane said. ”There is a clip now. It gets played at him for 20 years, and the first time he loses a game at Crystal Palace somebody puts it on the internet with a laughing face on it.”

He looked down the camera.

”And that lad Hakimi will not have one word said to him about it for the rest of his life. He is 19. That is the trade the man made, and Jamie, that is why it is not about him.”

Carragher was already out of his seat.

He does that. He comes off the sofa like a dog off a lead and his accent gets thicker the happier he is. He was not happy this time. He was something else.

”Can I do the list, David? Because I wrote it out on the plane and I did not believe it and I had written it myself.”

Tap.

APRIL 2017 TO JULY 2018.

”15 months ago that man was a caretaker.”

”He was a youth-team coach,” Keane said.

”He was a youth-team coach, Roy. And 2 years ago he was in the county league, and this programme ran a photograph of him stacking shelves on a night shift.”

Tap.

5 TROPHIES IN 13 MONTHS.

”FA Youth Cup. Under 18 national title. Then they give him the first team with 5 games to go, 5 points off the drop, as a caretaker. Wins 5 out of 5. Europa play-off place.

”Then his first full season. Carabao Cup. FA Cup. Europa League in Lyon. 2nd in the Premier League with Crystal Palace, which is the highest a London club has finished in 113 years.

”Youngest manager ever to win the FA Cup. Youngest manager in the history of UEFA to win a major European final.”

He turned round from the screen.

”And he had never lost a final. Not one. Not at any level, anywhere, ever.”

Neville, flat, from his seat: ”He has now.”

”Well. Yeah.”

”That is the whole of tonight, though, isn’t it,” Neville said. ”The first final that man ever lost in his life was the World Cup final, in the 92nd minute, and then he went and put his own name on it in front of 400 journalists.”

Tap.

PRE-TOURNAMENT: MOROCCO 200-1 TO WIN GROUP B.

”200 to 1,” Carragher said. ”Portugal, Spain, Iran, Morocco. Every model had them 4th. I had them 4th. Gary had them 4th.”

”I had them bottom,” Neville said.

”Roy said Iran would beat them.”

”I have apologised for that on this programme twice,” Keane said, ”and I am not doing it a 3rd time.”

Tap.

IRAN W 3-1

PORTUGAL L 2-3

SPAIN W 4-3

RUSSIA W 3-0

CROATIA D 3-3 (4-2 pens)

ENGLAND W 3-1

FRANCE L 3-4

”Beat Iran. First World Cup win in 20 years.

”Robbed by Portugal, and I said it that night and I will say it again, that goal in the 94th minute is onside.

”1-2 down at half time to Spain and out of the tournament. Wins it 4-3, scores in the 93rd, and they ran 9 and a half kilometres more than Croatia in the quarter-final, which I have not stopped going on about since.

”Puts the hosts out of their own World Cup. Puts Croatia out on penalties after 120 minutes. Puts England out in a semi-final.”

He stopped at the screen.

”And then goes 3 down to France inside 45 minutes of a World Cup final and makes it 3-3.”

Tap.

FIRST AFRICAN OR ARAB NATION TO REACH A WORLD CUP FINAL.

MOROCCO’S FIRST KNOCKOUT MATCH SINCE 1986.

YOUNGEST MANAGER TO TAKE A NATION TO A WORLD CUP LAST 8.

”Before we do the tactics,” Jones said, ”the awards. Because one of them has caused an argument in this building all night.”

Tap.

GOLDEN BALL: ACHRAF HAKIMI (MOROCCO).

”A right-back,” Carragher said. ”A 19-year-old right-back, from the losing side, has been voted the best player at a World Cup.”

”And there are people this morning saying he only got it because of the story,” Jones said.

”Then those people did not watch the football.” Carragher was back at the screen inside 2 seconds. ”3 assists in a World Cup final. 3. Nobody has done that since 1966 and the man who did it that day is on a stamp.”

Tap.

HAKIMI: BASICALLY 3 ASSISTS IN THE FINAL. 12 KM COVERED. 11 ENTRIES INTO THE BOX.

”The free kick that makes it 1-3, he wins. The cross for the overhead kick, he hits it first time on the half-turn at a full sprint, and I want somebody to show me another full-back on this planet who hits that ball.

”And then in the 90th minute he goes to the byline for the 11th time and cuts it back for the equaliser.”

”And 2 minutes later they score down his side,” Neville said.

”They do.”

”I am not being cruel. I am saying that is the whole of it in one player.” Neville had not moved. ”The reason they got back into that final and the reason they lost it are the same 19-year-old boy running down the same strip of grass. There is no separating it. There never will be.”

In the lounge behind me I looked round for Achraf and he was not in that room.

He had gone up. I found out later he had gone up at half 4 and sat on the floor of a corridor outside his own door for an hour, because his roommate was asleep and he did not want to wake him.

”Thierry, you have won this award.”

”I have,” Henry said. ”And I would give it back to have the other thing, and so would he, and that is not modesty, that is just true.”

He put a finger on the desk.

”But I want to say one thing to that boy, and he will not be watching this, and one day somebody will show him.

”You are 19. You have been given the best player at a World Cup. Do not spend the next 10 years apologising for 4 seconds of it.”

Tap.

GOLDEN GLOVE: HUGO LLORIS (FRANCE).

”Roy,” Jones said. ”You told this programme after the quarter-final that Yassine Bounou was the best goalkeeper at this tournament and it was not close.”

”I did.”

”He has not won it.”

”He has not won it because his team lost 2 games and Lloris has won it,” Keane said. ”That is how the award works and I am not going to sit here and moan about a French goalkeeper who has had a fine tournament.

”But I will say this. That lad saved 3 penalties in a shoot-out in a World Cup quarter-final. And in the last minute of the final he ran 100 yards, got up above Varane and Giroud, and put a header off the inside of the post.”

Tap.

”A goalkeeper. From open play. In the 94th minute of a World Cup final. 2 inches.”

”If that goes in?”

”If that goes in we are talking about the greatest single act by a goalkeeper in the history of the game, and instead we are not talking about it at all.” Keane sat back. ”Football.”

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.