Glory Of The Football Manager System

Thump.

Nobody on that pitch said anything, and 29 men not saying anything is louder than a crowd.

Thump. He got the ball back off the net and put it under his arm.

”Again?” he said.

”No.”

”Gaffer, 5 more.”

”Christian.” I did not look up from the sheet. ”You are not taking them and you have known that since Pennsylvania.”

He stood there for about 3 seconds.

”Fine,” he said, and went and got the balls in for the next man, and that is the whole reason he is my captain in everything but the armband.

James Rodríguez took his 5 at about the 15 minute mark and did not speak at all.

Same run. Same 3 steps.

Tk. Tk. Tk. Tk. Tk.

Left corner, left corner, right corner, left corner, right corner.

5 from 5, and the 5th one he put an inch inside the post with Wayne Hennessey guessing right.

Jack Grealish, next to me, said, ”I told you,” which he had, in my own office, in about 20 seconds.

[JAMES RODRÍGUEZ. PENALTY TAKING 18. COMPOSURE 17.]

He has never taken 1 for me in a competitive match. He was 40 yards from the spot in Pennsylvania because I had taken him off, and that is on me and I have not forgotten it.

”James.”

”Coach.”

”Wembley. If it goes to a shootout you are 1st.”

He nodded once and went to get his water, and that is the entire conversation, and it is the most anybody has got out of him about anything this summer.

Nya Kirby scored 5 and put every single one in the bottom left corner.

Not 4 of them. 5. Same spot, same pace, same 3 yards of run up, at 17 years old, in front of everybody.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

5 balls, 5 identical noises, and Nick Pope did not get a hand to any of them.

”Nya.”

”Yes, boss.”

”Do you ever put one anywhere else?”

”No, boss.”

”What happens when a goalkeeper works that out?”

Nya Kirby thought about it for about a second and a half.

”He has to get there,” he said.

Hahahaha.

Bray laughed so hard he had to walk away.

Ellis Cartwright scored 5 and I had already stopped watching him, because I have watched that lad take 40 penalties in a car park in February and I know exactly what he does.

Michael Olise took 5 and scored 2, and got annoyed about it, and asked Sarah if he could take 5 more, and Sarah said no, and he asked me, and I said no, and he sulked for about 90 seconds and then went and helped Deano collect balls.

16 years old. He will take them for this football club one day. He is not taking them in August.

And then the one nobody had on a sheet.

Ibrahima Konaté.

He was 27th out of 30 and he only took them because I said everybody.

He put the ball down without looking at the goalkeeper, took 4 steps back and 1 to the side, and hit it.

DNK.

Underside of the bar and down and in, off a bar that was still ringing when he turned round.

Tim Krul stood up in his goal and said something in Dutch.

Second one. Same 4 steps.

DNK.

Third.

DNK.

By the 4th, 30 men had stopped what they were doing and there were 2 physios stood on the edge of the box, and Marcus Reid had come round from behind the goal to get the other camera on him.

He put the 5th in the bottom corner. After the other 4 it looked almost apologetic.

Then he picked the last ball out of the net and jogged back to the queue like a man who had done a stretch.

”Ibrahima.”

”Coach.”

”Where did you learn that?”

He shrugged with 1 shoulder.

”Nobody ever asked me to take one here,” he said.

19 years old. 6 foot 4. Centre-half. Signed for coppers off a French second division club 14 months ago, and he has spent this entire summer being the man Benfica dragged out of position 4 times on Wednesday night.

[IBRAHIMA KONATÉ. FINISHING 9. PENALTY TAKING 16. COMPOSURE 15.]

Finishing 9 and penalty taking 16.

Dnk. That bar again, in my head, on the walk in.

Those 2 numbers should not be in the same footballer. Marcus made a noise when I told him and then spent 20 minutes finding out that Konaté has taken 11 penalties in his life and scored 11, all of them for a French under 19 side, and none of them are on any database anybody pays for.

”How did we not know that?”

”Because nobody scouts a centre-half’s penalty record, Danny,” Marcus said. ”There is no reason to. There is no column for it.”

There is now.

I put the 5 on the wall of the meeting room at half 12 and did not say anything about it, and let 30 men walk past it on the way to lunch.

PENALTIES. IN ORDER.

1. JAMES RODRÍGUEZ 2. IBRAHIMA KONATÉ 3. NYA KIRBY 4. ELLIS CARTWRIGHT 5. WILFRIED ZAHA

Shf. 30 men going past a piece of paper on a wall and 28 of them stopping.

Zaha is 3,500 miles away in Beckenham and has not kicked a ball in America and is on that list, because Wilfried Zaha has scored 9 out of 9 for this football club in 6 years and I am not leaving him off a piece of paper to make a point.

Christian Benteke read it, and did not stop walking, and got his lunch.

Michael Olise read it 3 times.

Achraf Hakimi came and found me at 10 past 9 on Friday night. In a corridor, on his own, no agent, no phone in his hand.

That is how a 19-year-old asks for something he has decided he has earned.

Clk. A fire door 20 yards down that corridor and then nothing at all.

”Coach.”

”Achraf.”

”Sunday.”

”No.”

”You have not heard the question.”

”You want 20 minutes against Bayern Munich,” I said. ”The answer is no, and it was no on Tuesday, and it is going to be no on Sunday morning when you ask me again.”

He stood in that corridor and got about 4 sentences out at once, the way they all do at that age.

”I am not injured. I have not got a knock. I did the bike this morning and the bike again this afternoon and Rebecca has got the numbers, coach, ask her, the numbers are fine, I am fine, I feel...”

”Achraf.”

”I have signed for a football club and I have not kicked a ball for it.”

It is the true sentence, and I let it sit there for a second because he had earned it.

”Come here.”

Clk. Clk. Clk. His flip flops on a hotel corridor, 3 paces behind me, all the way.

I took him into the analysts’ room.

Bzzz. A projector fan nobody had turned off, and Rebecca sat under it with a tablet, because Rebecca is always sat under something with a tablet.

I did not say anything at all. I pointed at her.

”Tell him.”

”He played 7 matches in 26 days,” Rebecca said, without looking up. ”690 minutes. He covered 12.4 kilometres against France and 11 of them were in the second half.

”He then sat on a bus for 5 hours, flew to London, did a 6 hour medical, and got on a plane to America.

”He has had 11 days off in the last 5 months.”

”That is not injured,” Hakimi said.

”No.” She put the tablet down. ”It is worse than injured, because injured shows up on a scan and this does not, and by the middle of October you will pull something in a Champions League match and everybody will call it bad luck.”

”Rebecca.”

”I am not finished. Achraf, look at me.” He looked at her. ”You are 19. If you were 29 I would let you play 20 minutes on Sunday and I would be wrong and it would cost you 3 weeks.”

Tk. She put the tablet face down on the table.

”You are 19. So it costs you 3 years.”

Bzzz.