Glory Of The Football Manager System

About 20 minutes after that a man on a ladder shouted ”CHECKING THE GATE” and 200 people went silent in the same instant, and it is the exact noise a dressing room makes at 4 minutes to 3.

Then ”GATE IS GOOD” and all 200 started talking again in the same half second, and Bec sent me to get something to drink while they turned the camera round.

Which is how I ended up at the trestle tables at 3 in the afternoon.

Zendaya. 21, half in costume, sat sideways on a plastic chair with 1 leg over the arm and a script folded backwards in her hand.

”You are the football guy.”

”I am the football guy.”

”Everybody has been talking about you since 8 this morning and I have had to pretend all day that I know what a Crystal Palace is.”

”That is fair.”

”So what is a Crystal Palace?”

I told her, and it took about 4 minutes, and she asked 3 questions and all 3 were good.

”Wait. You are 29?”

”I am 29.”

”And you run a whole team of grown men.”

”I do.”

”How does that work?” She had turned round properly. ”I am 21 and there are 200 people out there and half of them were doing this before I was born, and I have spent 3 years working out how to be in a room like that.

”So how do you do it at 29 with men who are 32?”

”You do not manage a squad. You manage the 3 who set the temperature, and everybody else copies them.”

”Say more.”

”I have got a centre-forward who is 27. If he does a lap in the 3rd minute of a running drill without being told, 30 men do laps for a fortnight. If he moans about it once, in front of the wrong 4 people, I have lost 10 days.”

She sat forward.

”That is exactly the same. There is 1 person on every set who decides what the day feels like, and it is never the director and it is basically never the lead.”

”Who is it here?”

”Bec,” she said, with no pause at all. ”Obviously it is Bec.”

Ha.

”Yeah,” I said. ”I have met Bec.”

Then she got up, and she picked a bottle of water off the table on her way past, and she was 3 feet away and moving, and it happened before I could do anything about it.

It reads footballers. On a pitch, on a screen, across a canteen. In 3 years it has only ever done it to footballers.

[CURRENT ABILITY 31. POTENTIAL ABILITY 143.]

31 is nothing. 31 is somebody who has never played.

143 is Eberechi Eze. 143 is 400 matches in the top division of a proper country.

She turned round, because I had not said anything for too long.

”What?”

”Did you play anything as a kid. Any sport.”

”I ran. Middle distance.” She was frowning at me. ”I was decent and I stopped at 16 because I got a job. Why?”

”Because you move like somebody who did.”

”Is that a football thing?”

”It is the only thing I have ever been any good at,” I said. ”I look at somebody walking across a car park and I know.”

She looked at me about 2 seconds longer than was comfortable.

”You just went somewhere.”

”I did.”

”Are you going to tell me where?”

”No.”

”Alright.” She put the bottle back and picked up a different one. ”Good luck on Sunday, football guy.”

We did the last 2 setups after that, and between them Bec came over with a radio in her hand and did not sit down.

”Can I say something to you.”

”Go on.”

”You could do this.”

”I have got 1 line.”

”You have got 1 line and you have hit the same mark 31 times in 4 hours in 26 degrees and you have not asked me a single question since take 4.” Her radio went and she turned it off without looking. ”I have worked with 200 people who cannot do that and about 40 of them are famous.

”You are 29.”

”Bec.”

”I am telling you what I would tell my own brother.”

”I know what you are telling me,” I said, ”and I do not want it.

”But thank you. Nobody has told me I am good at a thing I had not already decided I was going to be good at.”

They wrapped me 20 minutes later.

Priya took the folder off me at the edge of the set, put it in a bag with a zip on it, shook my hand, and walked away without saying anything at all.

And then I went back to that gate and gave a woman a numbered ticket, and she went and got a grey pouch out of a rack and put it on the counter and slid it across.

Chk.

9 missed calls.

4 from Sarah. 2 from Rebecca. 2 from Bray. 1 from Steve Parish.

The first one was at 11:04.

I had been stood on a T made of orange tape at 11:04, looking at a tennis ball on a pole.

I rang Sarah before I had got to the end of that car park.

She picked up on the first ring and did not say hello.

”He is fine.”

”Say the rest of it.”

”He went over on it at 11 in a 4 v 4 and he was off the grass in about 9 seconds because Rebecca was stood 4 yards away, and she had him in a car and at the hospital by half past, and we have had the scan back at 3.”

”And?”

”Grade 1. The lowest one there is. 10 to 14 days.”

I stood in a car park at Leavesden with 200 people striking a fake street behind me.

”10 to 14 days.”

”He misses Sunday. He misses the 11th. He is back for Tallinn on the 15th if it goes well, and Rebecca says do not write that down anywhere.”

”Right.”

”Danny.” Sarah’s voice did the thing. ”Every single thing you said in that room last night is what happened. She had him off in under 10 seconds. She did not ring you and she did not need to, and there was nothing for you to do at 11 o’clock this morning that was not already done.”

”I know.”

”Say it properly.”

”I know, Sarah,” I said. ”That is not what is bothering me and you know it is not.”

It is this.

At 11:04 on Friday morning a 22-year-old that I paid 10 million pounds for in June went over on an ankle he has hurt twice this week, in a 4 v 4 on pitch 2, and every single person who needed to be there was there.

And I was 30 miles away on a T made of orange tape.

The system worked. The people worked. Rebecca had him in a car in 9 seconds and a scan by half past and I would not have made it faster if I had been stood next to her.

That is all true and it is not what was in my head.

I said yes to a film in the middle of May, in an office in Mayfair, with a coffee in my hand, because in the middle of May the biggest thing in my August was a Carabao Cup second round tie.

Then I got given a country, and a World Cup final, and a Community Shield.

And I still went, because I had signed my name and because Jessica Finch spent 3 months on it and because a man does not get to unsign a thing when his diary improves.

I would do it again and I would say so to anybody who asked.

The drive back was the longest hour I have had this year.

Tk tk tk.

Mo had the window down and the engine running and he took one look at my face.

”Good day?”

”I stood in a road.”

”Right.” He pulled out. ”My brother in law is still going on about the league.”

He put me down at Beckenham at 6, and Sarah was stood in that car park with a folder under her arm. In 2 years she has waited for me in a car park exactly 0 times.

”Everton have gone to 32. Steve has said yes, James has said yes, it is done in the morning.”

”Good.”

”And Dougie wants Rodrygo out on Monday.”

”After Wembley.”

”That is what I told him and he swore at me in Scottish.” She fell in beside me. ”Meeting is at half 6. Whiteboard is in your office and I have not touched it.”

Here is what a grade 1 in Jack Grealish’s ankle does to a team sheet 2 days out.

He was starting. He has been starting since the 26th of July. He was starting off the left with James Rodríguez inside him and Jarrod Bowen the other side, and Benteke on Fernandinho, and that shape has had 9 days of work in it.

Now I have got a hole on the left of a front 3 against the champions of England.

And there are 4 answers to it and 3 of them are bad.

Andros Townsend does the job and does not beat a full back any more.

Michael Olise is 16 years old and has played 68 minutes against Bayern Munich and is the best 16-year-old in this country, and Sunday is not the day.

Eberechi Eze can play there, and Eberechi Eze has never started a match at Wembley.

And Wilfried Zaha has not kicked a ball in a match since the 15th of July.

I did not go straight in to that meeting. I went up the stairs at the end of the corridor and out onto the balcony above pitch 2 instead.

He was still down there at 10 past 6 with a bag of balls and a boy of 16 feeding him crosses, and he did not know I was up there, and I watched him hit 40 of them.

96 per cent, Marcus has got him at. 400 finishes since half 2 on a Thursday and again on a Friday.

He has been at this football club since he was 12. He was relegated with it. He went to Manchester United at 20 and it did not work and he came back and half of England laughed at him for 3 years.

And he has not asked anybody a single question all week, because he already knows.

Prrrp.

He put the last one in the top corner and went and got his own ball out of the net, and looked up at the balcony, at me, having known I was there the whole time.

Then he pointed at the pitch.

Not at himself. At the pitch.

[WILFRIED ZAHA. CONDITION 96%. DETERMINATION 18.]

I went in and wrote his name on that whiteboard first, before any of the other 10. I have never done that for anybody.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.