Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Lilleküla Stadium, Tallinn. Wednesday 15 August 2018.]

The media room under the main stand smells of wet concrete, cut grass and filter coffee left to scorch on a hotplate.

20 past 9. 40 minutes out. The corridor to that tunnel is 4 feet wide and every inch of it is UEFA suits, television men and armed police.

Marcus has me against a cinderblock wall with a laptop bag on his shoulder.

”They will work out how to play without him.” He has a pane open with their pressing numbers on it. ”Not tonight. Some time in October, and after that they win 22 on the bounce and they win the league.

”Tonight is the first competitive 90 minutes of their lives without Cristiano Ronaldo. Every man in that dressing room has spent 9 years next to somebody who scored 50 a season and fixed it when the shape broke.”

His eyes come level with mine.

”He is in Turin. They are on their own.”

Snap. He shuts the laptop.

”Boss, you have got a window. I cannot tell you how many minutes it is open for.”

[REAL MADRID. FIRST COMPETITIVE FIXTURE OF THE POST-RONALDO ERA.]

[HIGH LINE. ASYMMETRIC LEFT. FRAGILE IN TRANSITION.]

[PALACE: 180 COMPETITIVE MINUTES IN THE LEGS. THEY HAVE 0.]

Under the printed UEFA team sheet in my hand there is a laminated card with a shape on it that 4 people in the world have seen.

I put it in an inside pocket before the man stood next to me in a suit had a second look at it.

The Super Cup sits on a dark wood plinth 6 feet from the mouth of the tunnel with 2 men in white gloves either side of it.

It is smaller than you think. Heavy silver, 2 long handles coming up off it like wings. Before you walk out there is a ceremony and nobody outside a final ever sees it.

They bring both trophies out to stand either side of the Super Cup.

Sergio Ramos carries the European Cup. Their 13th, their 3rd in a row, won 3-1 against Liverpool in Kyiv 11 weeks ago. He puts it on the left pedestal the way you put a bag down in your own hallway.

Wilfried Zaha carries the Europa League. The one we lifted in Lyon against Wenger’s Arsenal in May.

He puts it on the right pedestal and stands there a second longer than he needs to.

3 months ago this football club was trying to stay in a division. On Wednesday night our silver stands 8 feet from theirs with the Super Cup between them.

Every man out of that tunnel looks at the thing in the middle. Gareth Bale does it while he is taping a wrist. Rúben Neves puts his knuckles on the felt base as he goes past.

Sergio Ramos walks past it with his chin up and looks at the Estonian flag over the north stand.

Rrrrrrr.

We go out at 3 minutes to 10. Floodlights full on and the sky over that north stand still holding a blue edge, because it does not get dark up here in August until half past 11.

[UEFA SUPER CUP. LILLEKÜLA. ATTENDANCE 12,424.]

CRYSTAL PALACE (4-3-3): Krul. Wan-Bissaka, Tarkowski, Sakho, Chilwell. Højbjerg, Neves, McArthur. Bowen, Benteke, Zaha.

Bench: Pope, Dann, Ward, Konaté, Tuanzebe, Hakimi, Rodríguez, Eze, Kirby, Pato, Olise, Cartwright.

REAL MADRID (4-3-3): Navas. Carvajal, Varane, Ramos, Marcelo. Casemiro, Modrić, Kroos. Bale, Benzema, Asensio.

8 European Cups on 1 sheet of paper.

PRRRRRRP.

Kroos rolls it to Ramos. Ramos takes a touch, looks up and passes it sideways to Varane at walking pace.

That is the tone they set and it is the tone they have set for 4 years.

We break it in the 4th minute.

4 minutes.

3 instructions went on that board on Tuesday night and they have not changed since. Higher line. Play into the space and not into feet. Cross early.

Sakho takes a lofted ball off Casemiro inside our own half and does not look for Neves.

Thump. Laces through it. 60 yards, straight down the middle.

Christian Benteke goes for it with Sergio Ramos alongside him.

Ramos is 32. 4 European Cups. 160 caps. He has been the best defender in the world in the air for about 8 years.

Benteke is 6 foot 3 and 14 stone and he has spent 41 minutes on a training pitch in Beckenham this month learning 1 thing off Bray.

Start 2 yards deeper than the man marking you.

He starts 2 yards deeper.

Ramos goes up early because he expects the contact at his back. It never comes. Benteke steps into the ground Ramos has left and gets about 3 inches above him.

Thud.

He does not head it at goal. He puts his neck through it and flicks it down and left, into the grass Marcelo has gone from.

Wilfried Zaha is moving before the ball comes off Sakho’s boot. 3 strides and Carvajal is behind him.

Shhk.

Navas comes 4 yards and spreads. Zaha takes a soft touch outside him with his right and goes round the wrong side, and there are 3 white shirts scrambling onto that line.

He does not hit it. He passes it. Low and left footed across the face of that goal, under Varane’s leg, under Ramos’s boot, inside the far post.

Fsst.

1-0.

4 minutes and 20 seconds.

RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAA.

Lilleküla Stadium goes up and away from you. This comes sideways and hits the technical area like weather.

”YOU ARE HAVING A LAUGH. YOU ARE HAVING A LAUGH.”

”WHAT IS THE SCORE. WHAT IS THE SCORE.”

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

That drum has been at every away end since March and it is 3,000 miles from home in a corner of Estonia going off in the 5th minute of a European final.

”AND IT’S GLAD ALL OVER.”

They start it before Zaha is back to the halfway line and they do all of it, in a ground where 6,000 people have never heard it in their lives.

And the Estonians stand up. They paid 50 euros to see the first European final ever held in their country and 4 minutes in they are on their feet with their hands above their heads.

”MIS TOIMUB.”

A man 3 rows behind our bench, to nobody, 4 times.

I found out on Friday what it means. It means what is happening.

Sergio Ramos gets off that grass, turns to Varane and puts both arms out. He is not asking a question.

Then Real Madrid have 20 minutes of the ball and I have never been more frightened on a touchline.

[POSSESSION 71%.]

Modrić drops between Sakho and Højbjerg and starts walking the game back to his own pulse. Kroos hits 34 passes in 12 minutes and misplaces none of them.

And Gareth Bale goes wherever he wants. Lopetegui has given him the whole pitch. Right, left, in behind Benzema, and for 20 minutes he is the best player on that grass by 2 lengths.

Tk. Tk-tk.

14 minutes. Bale comes inside Chilwell, pulls Tarkowski across, and whips it in. Benzema gets in front of Sakho at the near post and heads it early.

Tim Krul goes across his goal and gets a left hand on it.

Thump.

30 years old. 3 weeks of waiting. First save of his Crystal Palace career and it is that.

Michael Steele gets up, takes 1 step to the edge of that dugout and says 1 word.

”Good.”

He had Krul’s positioning off that line on a tablet all afternoon, worked back off Real Madrid’s shot maps from May.

19 minutes. Bale reads a Kroos diagonal, goes past Wan-Bissaka for 40 yards, low across the box, and Aaron gets a toe on it going away from his own goal.

Rebecca is at my shoulder with a monitor in her hand.

”Pierre is at 92 per cent on the recovery runs and he has done 6 of them in 4 minutes. Take the press off him or he is gone by 60.”

I cup my hands.

”PIERRE. HOLD. DO NOT GO.”

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.