Glory Of The Football Manager System

Kovač changed 4 at half time. I changed 1.

James Tarkowski came on for Ibrahima Konaté at the break, because I told him he would get 45 minutes and I was not going to be the manager who says that and then does not do it in a friendly.

Konaté came off and sat down and did not sulk, and Tarkowski went out next to Aaron Wan-Bissaka and started talking before he had crossed the halfway line.

He put Kingsley Coman on for Ribéry and Juan Bernat on for Rafinha and 2 Campus lads on in midfield, and the tournament had agreed a friendly variation before a ball was kicked in it.

Unlimited substitutions. Both benches. As many as you like, as often as you like.

”He is going to use all of them,” Bray said.

”He has got 25 men in a hotel and 8 of them are 18 years old and he has 3 weeks to the Bundesliga.”

”Aye. And you have got 17 on a bench and a Community Shield in 7 days.”

”Yes.”

”So neither of you is going to admit you want to win this.”

Prrrrp.

”No,” I said.

51 minutes.

I had told Pierre-Emile Højbjerg to go late once, in the first 15 minutes, and then never again.

He went late on 51.

And it was the wrong 51 minutes, because Serge Gnabry had stopped counting on 48.

Rúben Neves stepped forward.

Højbjerg held. A second and a half, exactly as I had asked at half time. Neves stayed, exactly as he had said he would.

2 men doing precisely what I had told them to do, and I saw it happen and I was pleased about it for about a third of a second.

Because Serge Gnabry did not go behind Neves.

There was nothing behind Neves. Neves had not moved. Neves had stayed because I had told him to stay, and the only new space on that pitch was the one Pierre-Emile Højbjerg had made by standing still.

Gnabry was in it before Højbjerg’s foot came down.

Shhk.

30 yards out, half turn, McArthur 4 yards off him and Aaron Wan-Bissaka coming across the grass at him, and he did not try to beat either of them.

He hit it.

THWACK.

Bottom corner. Inside of the post. Past Nick Pope’s left hand before Pope had finished going down.

Dnk.

RRRRAAAAAAA.

1-2.

And he did not celebrate.

He did not put his hands up and he did not apologise and he did not look at me. He turned and jogged back to the halfway line with his head down and his hands at his sides, and 3 Bayern players came for him and he let none of them near him.

I stood there and waited for him to do something with it.

He did not do anything with it. He got back to the halfway line and stood on it with his hands on his hips and looked at the referee, waiting to restart, like a man who had finished a piece of work.

”COME ON!”

Højbjerg, to nobody, both arms out.

I did not say anything for a while and neither did Bray. We stood on that line about 4 feet apart and watched Nick Pope get the ball out of his own net and boot it up the pitch harder than he needed to.

”He was ours 8 weeks ago,” Bray said, eventually.

”Mm.”

”I am not being funny, but he has just done us with our own drill.”

”He has not done us with the drill.”

”Well. He has done us with something.”

I did not answer that, because I had it, and because saying it out loud on a touchline with 14 people in earshot was going to make it true faster than I wanted it true.

I had spent a half time telling 30 men that Serge Gnabry was watching Pierre-Emile Højbjerg.

Then I had gone and changed what Pierre-Emile Højbjerg does.

He was never counting a movement.

Bray was still looking at the pitch.

”Was that James?”

”No.”

”He was 4 yards off it.”

”He was 4 yards off it because of where I told him to stand at half time. So no.”

”Right.” He put his hands in his pockets. ”I did not say it was James. I said he was 4 yards off it.”

On 62 minutes Niko Kovač took Sven Ulreich off.

He had made 7 saves. 7. In 62 minutes of a July friendly, against a side that had 61 per cent of the ball and 14 shots, a 29-year-old goalkeeper who plays 5 matches a season had kept his team in front of a scoreline they had no business being in front of.

And Kovač took him off, because it is the 29th of July, and because he has 25 men in a hotel, and because Christian Früchtl is 18 years old and has never played a senior match and Bayern Munich are going to need him one day.

It is not a mistake. I would have done it.

I watched Sven Ulreich walk off that pitch and shake hands with the boy going on.

And then I looked at the boy.

[CHRISTIAN FRÜCHTL. AGE 18. CA 97. PA 148.]

[REFLEXES 15. HANDLING 13. POSITIONING 9. COMMAND OF AREA 8.]

148 potential. That is a Bundesliga goalkeeper and Bayern know it and they are right.

Positioning 9. Command of area 8.

He is going to make saves. He is 18 and his hands and his reactions are already there and he will keep out anything he can see.

He does not know where to stand yet, and he will not come for anything.

”Bray.”

”Go on.”

”Everything to the back post.”

”Everything?”

”Every cross, every corner. Nothing near post, nothing he can catch.”

”Right.”

”And tell Michael to cross it earlier.”

Bray went off down the line and I watched him say it, and I watched Michael Olise nod at him, and then for the next 6 minutes Michael Olise did exactly what he had been doing all night, because he is 16 and there was a man called Juan Bernat in front of him and Juan Bernat was the whole of his evening.

Nothing I said to anybody between 62 and 68 minutes made any difference at all.

”Pato. Grealish. Warm up.”

Prrrrp.

68 minutes.

Michael Olise had been on that right touchline for 68 minutes with David Alaba and then Juan Bernat 3 feet away from him, and he had not scored, and he had not stopped.

He got it 30 yards out and went at Bernat.

Juan Bernat had watched him go inside twice in the second half, and so had everybody else in that stadium, and so had the 6,000 in the North corner.

So Bernat showed him outside. 200 games of professional football tell a man to do that.

And Michael Olise went outside.

Then he stopped the ball dead with the sole of his boot.

Tk.

He has been doing that since he was 12. He learned it off a man called Grealish who was sat on our bench at that exact moment watching a 16-year-old do it.

Bernat went past him at about 20 miles an hour.

Left foot, early, before Bernat could turn.

It was not a good cross. It was 6 yards further back than he wanted it and it was going about 4 feet too high for Benteke, and if Sven Ulreich had been in that goal he would have come and taken it off both of their heads and I would still be waiting for an equaliser.

Christian Früchtl took a step and stopped and went back.

Shhk.

Half a step. That is all it was.

Benteke did not have to move his feet.

THWACK.

Bottom corner. Früchtl got a hand to it and got nothing on it.

RRRRRRAAAAAAA.

2-2.

Christian Benteke, 27 years old, 15 goals in a Premier League season, turned round and ran 30 yards to a 16-year-old and picked him up off the floor.

And in row 4 of the West stand, in a navy suit and shoes he could not run in, Achraf Hakimi was stood on a plastic seat.

I put Jack Grealish and Alexandre Pato on with 20 minutes left and Kovač put 4 more Campus lads on, and somewhere in the middle of that the match got away from both of us in a way I have not seen since.

There were 6 teenagers on that pitch by the 75th minute and 2 of them were mine, and none of the 6 had been told anything by anybody for about 10 minutes, and it did not slow down.

It sped up.

Every one of them had spent the summer being told he was not ready and every one of them had 15 minutes of an NFL stadium and 30,000 people and a red shirt or a blue one, and not a single one of them was going to be the one who backed out of a tackle in front of his own bench with a manager watching who picks a squad in 6 days.

I stood on that line and stopped coaching at about 78 minutes because there was nothing left to say that was going to be heard, and I have thought since that those 12 minutes told me more about 6 of those lads than the 3 weeks either side of them.

Thump.

Nobody protected himself. Not 1 of the 22.

Chris Richards, 18 years old, an American centre-half from Alabama playing in his own country, put Alexandre Pato on the floor on 74 minutes and got booked for it and did not care.

Joshua Zirkzee, 17, came on and had 2 shots in 9 minutes.

Scott Dann had a Bayern Campus midfielder by the shirt on 71 minutes and I did not know the lad’s name and neither did Scott Dann.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.