Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

2.

It’s Sunday morning and I’m shaken awake. I panic - is it Briggy giving me the bad news about Anna? No. It’s Anna giving me the good news about Anna. She has mad energy and wants to go for a walk around the hotel before an early breakfast. I laugh with relief and ask if I have time to brush my teeth. Anna says no.

”You go down and I’ll relieve you in half an hour,” mumbles Briggy, setting an alarm and disappearing back into her duvet.

”Why didn’t you wake Briggy up?” I wonder.

”Because I like Briggy,” says Anna.

I shake my head. ”You’ve been spending too much time with Max.”

Anna cackles. ”Agreed!”

***

Good Grief: The Decision Part Two

by Bethany Alban

I throw on some trackie bottoms and take Anna down in the lift. We head towards the front doors of the hotel, where there’s a nice, level path with lots of tactile planting. Big-leafed ficuses, fluffy grasses, ferns, shrubs. It’s very corporate, but a perfectly acceptable way to spend a Sunday morning. ”Working up an appetite,” I say.

”Oh,” says Anna.

”What?”

She points through one of the big windows; we see the warm, cosy, elegant dining room. ”Max is up already. That’s odd.”

That is odd. Max and Briggy have been disappearing once every two days to do some intense training together, and Max always comes back physically destroyed, which is funny, and grumpy, which is not. ”Didn’t he do his weird runs? He should be wrecked.”

”Oh,” says Anna again, but this time her tone is different. ”Bethany, we need to get in there. Quickly.”

”What? Why?”

”He has made a decision.”

”Yes, I know.”

”You know? Then why did you not stop him?”

I scoff. ”Have you met Max? How do you stop him? Anyway, what’s wrong with Scotland? He’ll be well-paid and there are flights from Edinburgh to Manchester.”

Anna is trying her best to stride back towards the hotel’s front door. ”He’s making a mistake. We must stop him.”

The urgency in her voice scares me. ”This way,” I say.

”Are you sure? Would you bet his life on it?”

I say, ”What the hell...?”

But we pick up the pace, and cut through a side door into the breakfast bar. We sneak up on Max from behind and listen to the first part of his conversation, me with extraordinary levels of interest, Anna with a frantic desperation.

***

Based on what I know, it’s instantly clear to me that Max is talking to Don Pino, the superagent who has offered Max a small fortune wrapped inside a large fortune to move to the Saudi Pro League. Max is leaning back, sometimes pulling on the string of a black tea bag, sometimes nudging his cutlery into more perpendicular arrangements.

”It’s just... I know the outside narrative leans towards superagent versus superagent, Don Pino versus Martini. I know the expectation is that if I take one agent’s offer I’ll alienate the other guy, but that’s just not coming into my thinking at all. It’s about what’s best for me, for my fiancée, for my mother. But this time, these discussions, it’s brought me closer to both you and Martini. Or at least, I hope so. That’s how I feel about it.”

He waits for a response. It seems positive.

”I know but it’s easy to underestimate what it means to me. You’ve given me an offer that’s, like, double what I thought I would get at the peak of my powers. It’s spectacular and it’s, like, it’s got actual meaning for me. I’m grateful. You’ve made me feel something that’s hard to put into words and, like, I was so much closer to choosing Saudi than I ever imagined. I kept thinking of my mum in a sort of white palace, like in a magazine, you know? A fashion magazine feature about a billionaire’s house in Monaco or wherever, but that would be my mum’s hospital room. Her recovery room after her treatment. I don’t know...”

Max scratches his head. I sense that Don Pino is keeping quiet, letting Max get it out.

”I just want to say that I owe you one. I know you would have made bank from me choosing Saudi but that doesn’t change the fact that it was so incredible. I owe you one. Do you still want me to rescue Emiliano’s career?” Quick reply. ”Would he go to Scotland?” A longer reply. ”He’s talented but he’s annoying and I didn’t have motivation to deal with that crap again. But now I do. I’ll sort him out, no probs. Every time he starts to backslide, I’ll invite Angel up to do a photoshoot in a spectacular dress. That seems to work on him! But it’s actually good politics from me, isn’t it? I take Martini’s offer but my first signing is from Don Pino. It’s a strong message that Max Best isn’t in the pocket of any one superagent.” Pause. ”Except Ruth, yeah. But can you blame me?” He laughs. ”What’s the deal with Emiliano, anyway? I checked to see if he was your nephew or something but I couldn’t find anything.”

There’s a fairly brief reply that makes Max laugh hard.

”You dog! Look, she can’t be that beautiful.” Pause. ”Like Monica Belluci? Uh... Maybe I should meet her and discuss her son’s career. Over a glass of wine.” Max listens and laughs again. ”I’ll have to meet her one day! All right, look, I just wanted to say that, like, I’ve decided to go to Hearts. I wanted you to be the first call I made. That seemed, you know, the respectful thing to do.” Pause. ”Uh, no I don’t know what time it is. I woke up and was hyper. I’m gonna spend the morning getting things sorted. Me leaving Chester is a bit like Brexit, right? It’s a decision with a thousand ramifications that I haven’t thought through.” Pause. ”Divorce? Yeah, maybe that’s a better analogy. You would know, right?” Pause. ”Didn’t I read you’ve been divorced, like, seven times? No shade but I don’t know why you keep going back to the well. Wait, that’s not you? Oh, sorry. What? It’s only five times. Mate! That’s at least... three too many times. Stop getting married!” Pause. ”Er, yeah, sure. What do you want to know?”

There’s a fairly long pause while Don Pino asks questions. I worry that Anna and I look pretty strange, hanging out behind Max’s table, very obviously listening in on his conversation. Even at this time, the breakfast room is fairly busy. I shoot Anna a look to ask if she wants to simply join the table. She signals to wait for a little longer. Max continues.

”Don, the thing is, I literally haven’t told a soul, okay? Nobody. So if I answer those questions, it’s like... I’m trusting that you’ve accepted my, ah, it’s not an apology. What is it? I’m extending the hand of friendship. And trust. If this stuff gets on the internet you could mess me up.” Medium-length pause. ”Okay.” Max takes a sip of his tea, grimaces, and goes back to jiggling the tea bag. ”The main thing is that Hearts already have a manager. As far as I can tell, he’s quite good, but if he’s a dick about this, he’s getting binned off. Obvs. But I’d like to go co-manager with him.” There’s a surprised noise. ”I’ve seen that Dallas Cowboys documentary. It fell apart because the leaders couldn’t share credit.

”I don’t need credit. The other day I was looking at my win percentages, thinking how much higher they would have been if I had tried to win every match. But I’d still be in League Two or wherever, right, because I wouldn’t have been developing all my young players. Nah, I don’t really chase those numbers and accolades or whatever. I’ll co-manage, let the guy do all the interviews, I’ll scout, do the tactics, play a bit, plan ahead. In a couple of years when I leave, he’ll be able to take over full-time, except he’ll have learned a few tricks and he’ll have a dynasty established. From his point of view, all he has to do is put his ego on a shelf for a little bit and he’ll be drenched in glory and job opportunities.

”He’d be mad to say no but, and this is a huge but, Don, I do need to talk to him face to face. While I’m courting him, I’m gonna start doing some, uh, conscious uncoupling at Chester but I do want to at least try to be as classy as possible and that means doing as much of this in-person as poss and my people shouldn’t find out through the media.”

Anna takes a step towards the table and pulls out a chair. I copy her on the other side.

”Hang on, Don,” says Max, staring at me. He covers the mouthpiece. ”Everything I say today is paywalled.”

”Kay,” I say, grabbing a quarter of toast from his plate and taking a bite.

”Say that again,” says Max. He’s looking up with an interested look on his face. ”Wow. That’s devious. Why haven’t I thought of that? Let me... Um... Let me work this out.” He collects four teaspoons from the table and places them one at a time as he speaks. Each spoon represents a mark on a timeline. ”I join Hearts now.” Spoon. ”We win the league in May.” Spoon. ”Next summer we do the Euro qualifiers and get into the Champions League.” Spoon. He stares at the tiny collection. ”By September, I’ve got my league winner’s bonus... and my Champions League bonus. I could leave at that point...” He eyes the final spoon. ”And go back to Chester.” He places the spoon down, to the right of the others. ”Make that push to the Premier League.” While he scrunches his eyes closed, he uses his free hand to pinch his nose. ”Um... Saltney in the Europa League again, a team or two in Gib getting to a group stage. Yeah, that seems like a lot of money. All told, that’s Saudi money.” He picks up the Chester spoon. ”And I’m back where I want to be, having missed a boring season. Huh.” He taps the spoon against his forehead. ”Do you think Hearts would go for it?”

There’s a long pause as Don Pino expands on this idea of his. I imagine him striding around his kitchen in an untied bathrobe. I hate my brain, sometimes.

”Max,” I say.

”Shh,” he says.

”Max,” I insist.

”Don, sorry, one second. What, Beth?”

I take a breath. ”Remember I was telling you about my idea for part one of this story? Basing it around that TV show, The Decision? What didn’t seem to sink in was that LeBron James went from being one of the most popular players in the league to leaving everyone cold. He lost all the love.”

”Love is a two-way dream, Beth. I keep telling you that.”

I click my tongue and put on a stupid voice. ”I’m Max Best! I’m your favourite manager’s favourite manager! We’re everyone’s second-favourite team!”

He looks at me with wide-eyed amusement. ”That was fun. Can I go back to my very important phone call now?”

”No. If you leave Chester for money, you can go back, but it won’t be the same. If you turn Hearts into winners and then fuck off before they’ve even had ten minutes to enjoy it, they’ll always resent you. If you leave, leave; if you go, go. These football clubs aren’t some... booty call.”

”Good grief,” he says. He shakes his head. ”Don, listen, my weirdo friends have woken up and they’re saying things. I would get more sense out of a sheep’s entrails. Can you please keep this under your hat? Don’t start plotting anything, except regarding Emiliano. Oh, hey! You know what? If he’s still out-of-favour, send him over early so I can see how he gets on in real coaching sessions. If he’s making a genuine effort, I promise to give him a chance.” Pause. ”So we’re good? Good. Amazing. Thanks. Sorry, what?” Max laughs, and he seems relaxed and happy. Decision made, a weight has been lifted. ”Pure 4-4-2. Toddy Braun at the wheel. I’m barely gonna do anything. Why are you laughing? It’s gonna look 100% the same as a normal Stuttgart match.” There’s a tiny pause while Max decides to be more honest. ”Well,” he confesses, ”98% the same...”

He hangs up and exhales. He gives me a vaguely affectionate look, reaches out to give Anna’s wrist a friendly grip, and looks at his plate.

”Where’s all my toast?”

***

Anna and I go to the buffet. She chucks a few things onto a plate and heads back to the table. I’m hungry but I don’t want to miss anything, so I grab some bits and I’m sitting down just as Anna is trying to say something important. Annoyingly, she clams up.

We eat together alone. Max jots some numbers in a notebook, annotates them with short comments and initials. On a torn-off sheet is Max’s assessment of the Hearts squad. More numbers, more letters. ”Whatcha doing?” I say. I’m thinking of the second page, but Max assumes I mean the one he’s working on.

”Trying to work out what kind of room we’ve got in terms of squad cost controls.”

”What is that?” says Anna.

”Er... there are rules about how much money football clubs can spend. I haven’t had a problem with that before because Chester, for example, doesn’t have anyone putting money in. What we spend is all earned from football activities. Ticket sales, sponsors, player sales. That’s all good money, if you get me. Bad money is anything the owners might put in.”

”Why is that bad?” says Anna.

”It’s not bad,” says Max. ”Not in itself. Like, if I put money into West Didsbury, that’s good for West Didsbury, isn’t it? But it’s bad for the other teams in that league. Either they get smashed every week or they have to find someone to put extra money in, just to be competitive. It’s an arms race. What some leagues try to do is put in some basic form of control so that you don’t get billionaires and countries coming in and dumping all their cash into some club and ruining the sport for everyone else.”

I say, ”Scotland doesn’t have Financial Fair Play rules, does it?”

Max frowns. ”It doesn’t seem to, no. No-one can agree on what it should look like. Anyway, what I’m doing is looking at UEFA’s rules. They are quite strict, which is broadly good, I’d say. With caveats. It stops the big clubs from completely taking the piss. If I want to take them to the Champions League, Hearts need to be careful not to run afoul of UEFA’s rules. Obviously this coming January is one where I’d like to make big changes to the squad, and the owners would support me but we have to be mindful of the rules. I’ve come up with a few obvious ways around them.”

”Like what?” I say, looking towards the buffet. If I go, Anna will talk to Max without me. If I stay, she might say what’s on her mind because when Emma wakes up, Max will rarely be apart from her. Which is cute but not conducive to telling a secret.

Max has suddenly noticed that my breakfast plate is insane. Some toast, one blob of honey mustard, some boiled carrots. It wouldn’t be the first time I used mustard as a spread, but this is a really nice hotel: it’s mad that I’m having to make do. Max gives me the tiniest look to show he knows I’m up to something, but then pushes over a small packet of butter. Relief spreads easily. His eyebrows twitch with amusement, but then he answers. ”Brighton have amazing squad players. Hearts can loan a couple and avoid transfer fees. I’m not a fan of the multi-club model but if you’ve got clubs in different countries, you can use them to navigate rules. What else? If we sign Emiliano, we can get him on loan with an option to buy. Delay the payment until the next accounting period, right? That period will have tons and tons of prize money inside, so if we shift our costs until a later date, we can stock the squad already.”

”This is the squad, is it?” I point to the second piece of paper. ”The initials of the players, their positions... what’s this?”

”Their Soccer Supremo ability ratings,” says Max. This causes Anna to glare at him, which is really mind-blowing. Max notices but it doesn’t seem to affect him at all. ”I haven’t seen all the squad in the flesh so I’m guessing to some extent but I think I know how to optimise the team. I think after this trip I’m gonna go to Belgium again to scout the USG squad, do the same in Brighton, head up to Chester to sit down with everyone and tell them what they need to do in the next couple of years, then when I go north I’ll know which players are in the Tony Bloom universe that I could potentially call on.” He lifts a finger and a waiter comes over. ”They cook the eggs fresh. Anna, do you want scrambled eggs? Poached?”

”I do but I won’t eat much,” she says. ”I don’t want to cause waste.”

I sense my chance to get more food without leaving the table. I look at the waiter. ”Scrambled eggs, please. We will share.” He nods and offers to get us tea or coffee. Max’s tea looks incredibly shit, so I ask for coffee.

”Why are you doing Hearts stuff? I mean, I know why,” I add, stupidly. ”I mean why aren’t you planning for Stuttgart?”

”There’s not much to plan. Toddy has his ways. Toddy gonna Todd.”

”What do you think of him?” I say. ”He’s got the famous name. People say he wants the Bayern Munich job. His record’s nowhere near as good as yours. Why’s he even letting you co-manage? If Stuttgart win, people will say it’s because you were there. Toddy can’t win, whatever happens.”

Max tuts and sighs. ”You’re doing that thing you do on your podcast where you ask about ten questions and explain why you’re asking each one. It’s hard to listen to.”

I shake my head, annoyed that he’s being annoying, but annoyed that he’s right. ”What do you think of Toddy Braun?”

Max stretches, picks up a pen, draws a few dots on the page he has open. ”I find him frustrating, TBH.”

”In what way?”

”The way I see it is that he has built Stuttgart to be this incredible 4-4-2 machine. Anna, you’ll see it if you come to the match. When they don’t have the ball, they close up together into a little box. They surround the ball with players, make it really hard to play against. They have a great defensive record and they can scrap for results against even the best teams. But some of the players don’t seem to have the right mentality. They get lazy and complacent and you can’t have that if you’re playing those tactics. You need guys who scrap and scrap and scrap. Why won’t he bin off the ones whose characters don’t fit? And yeah, okay, it’s a good defensive unit but sometimes you need a bit of fantasy, too. I’ve watched tape from every season of Toddy’s reign and I don’t see any progression in an attacking sense. I actually love the machine-like-ness of the defensive work, but when you’re attacking you need creativity, flair, imagination. The way they attack is so rigid. Ponderous.” He takes a sip of his tea, pulls a face, pushes it away. ”He has worked so hard to get to this point but he won’t take that last step. That last ten, twenty percent is right there but he won’t do what’s needed.”

I snort. ”Anna, did you hear that?”

”I did.”

Max is annoyed. ”What?”

”Nothing. Tell me why you think Toddy doesn’t make those changes.”

”He has tunnel vision and can’t see what’s really holding him back.”

I snort again. ”This is amazing. Let’s go for the trifecta. Do you think he’ll ever be the Bayern manager?”

Max is torn between expressing annoyance and being chilled. The latter feeling wins out. ”This is all paywalled, remember. Toddy at Bayern? Not on his current trajectory, no. The problem is that he so openly and brazenly wants that job and that’s gonna seep into his players and staff at Stuttgart. He’s giving everyone that feeling that his current club is too small for him so he’s always looking around to see what else there is. He should dig in, knuckle down, build something unbelievable. If he does that, he’ll get what he wants.”

”Holy shit,” I say. ”Anna, can you believe this?”

Max’s annoyance swings higher. ”What the crap is happening?”

The waiter brings our coffees and clears away a couple of small plates. That first sip of coffee seems to steel Anna’s resolve. She angles herself towards Max. ”I want to talk about what you are doing.”

”Okay,” says Max, and he flips his phone face-down. She has his undivided attention.

”I know you are trying to do something good,” she says, carefully. ”But you are going about it all wrong.”

”Okay,” says Max.

”You’re going all around the houses. Why don’t you go direct? Talk to the people in charge?”

He seems to know exactly what she’s talking about. ”Because I can’t control the outcome. I need to be able to control the outcome, Anna. I can’t take the slightest risk of failing.”

”Oh!” I say. ”You’re talking about co-managing Stuttgart because Dortmund made fun of a woman with a speech impediment.”

Max and Anna eye each other for a moment. ”Yes,” they say, in unison, which should be a clue that my guess is wrong, but the thought doesn’t even occur to me.

Max thinks hard before saying. ”I have chosen a particular case. The woman with the speech impediment. Right? Do you understand what I’m saying, Anna?” She nods. ”Under normal circumstances, that woman that I care about would be right at the bottom of a list. She’s not as in need as many other, ah, causes. If we line up a million causes, she’s right at the bottom of the list. She’s never, ever, going to get care and attention.”

”She will.”

”She might not. I’m not taking that risk. No way. You think I’m going to extremes? Yeah. That’s what I do. Like taking a month off work to drive you home.”

Anna looks down at her plate before she nods. ”Yes.”

”I’m really, really trying to do it the soft way. The good way. Social engineering done right. I want to turn...” He pauses to check what he’s about to say fits the secret code. ”I want to turn that football club into a place of joy. A non-stop, rolling party. The idea to put my cause to the top of the list will come from within the party. That’s plan A. Is it indirect? Convoluted? Of course. It has to be. How else could it be done?”

Anna mutters to herself while looking around the room.

Max continues. ”It’s plan B you don’t like. Yeah, okay, that’s a pretty harsh one. Brutal, even. Literally taking over a guy’s... team. That he built up.”

I feel my eyes boggle. ”You’re planning to do a mutiny on Toddy Braun? What, if he doesn’t follow your mad plan you’re going to take over? That would be humiliating. You would ruin his career to win one single match?”

Max eyes Anna. ”Yes. That’s exactly what I’m prepared to do.”

She shakes her head, hard. ”When the time comes to do that, you won’t do that. You think you can, you think you would, but you can’t and you wouldn’t. It’s not in you.”

”It is.”

”It’s not. Which makes everything else you are doing so distressing. You are building capital you will never use.”

”I will. It’s a done deal. I’m implacable. The die is cast. My Hearts is set and my heart is hard.”

Anna looks at him, then at me. ”Bethany, would you give us a few moments alone, please?”

”Oh. Of course.”

I get up - what choice do I have? - and take my plate to the buffet. I load it with foodstuffs of all kinds. Anna’s back is to me, and she’s doing most of the talking. Max’s face is set in stone but he listens patiently and at the end, it’s easy to read his lips. He simply says, ”Okay.”

Briggy appears, followed shortly after by Emma.

For the next few days, Max doesn’t mention Hearts, and barely mentions football. From time to time I’ll catch him scribbling in his notebook or watching a clip of a recent match from Scotland. His mind is made up but as far as I can tell, he doesn’t tell another soul what he has decided.

***

We go to Ghent. We sleep in Antwerp. Max gets an invite to watch training at PSV Eindhoven. We drive through Duisburg. Max gets an invite to watch training at VfL Bochum.

One of Max’s old players, the aptly-named Pascal Bochum, will be there, so we all get in The Hearse and emerge onto the side of a training pitch for as long as we can bear. Max takes Pascal off to the side and the short, black-haired forward listens carefully. He nods and sprints away. A few minutes later, he returns with one of the football club’s cooks. He’s Polish and his job for the next thirty minutes isn’t to peel potatoes, but to speak his native language.

Anna and Emma go inside with the cook, where it is warm.

I think about joining them, but I overhear two things that keep me out in the cold, autumnal morning. First is Max talking to VfL Bochum’s under-pressure head coach. I sneak close enough to hear as Max says, ”If you want to keep your job, use your best player.”

”Pascal is not my best player,” says the guy.

”Not your best player. Your Best player. Your Max Best player. Pascal’s a tactical wizard, we used him in almost every formation you can imagine, he has learned to battle and to scrap but he also knows how to exploit oppo manager mistakes in real time. You aren’t using him enough. Okay, he was raw when he got here but he’s ready now. Put him on the pitch and give him enough freedom to interpret his role. If you don’t want him, let me take him back in January.”

”I don’t control transfer decisions. What was the second thing you wanted?”

”If it’s all right, can I train here real quick? I’ve been building up to something and it’d be good to have some physios around, just in case.”

”Of course. What are you planning?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Max shows him an app. ”I got my data boys to whip this up for me. They tracked a random English Premier League player for 45 minutes. This app beeps and my watch vibrates to show the start of a sprint and the end of a sprint. I want to see if I’m physically capable of playing like a Premier League footballer for 45 minutes.”

”When he sprinted, you sprint. When he walked, you walk. Very interesting.”

”It doesn’t tell the whole story, obviously. There’s the decision-making, the adrenaline, all that kind of stuff. But just as a way of testing whether I can even mechanically sprint that much in that amount of time...”

”And can you?”

”I’ve been building up to it. I can do 30 minutes but 45 is honestly looming at me like a cliff. The Prem is intense. It’s mental. All right, I’m gonna warm up and all that. Thanks.”

I stick around for five minutes, then go inside for twenty to do my own form of warm up. I return with a hot drink and watch as Max runs around. It’s pointless, in a way, but fascinating. The world’s hardest bleep test. Briggy’s holding the phone, gently pointing out to Max that he missed a trigger. ”Run, you worm! No lollygagging. No shortcuts. Los! Los!! Schneller!!! Come on!!!!”

The goal, I later learn, is to cover around 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) in 45 minutes. Max could run that distance in a third of the time, no problem, if he approached it at a steady pace. It’s the sprints that make it such a physical challenge and to his credit, he commits to them - mostly.

When he starts to struggle, around the 30-minute mark, he doesn’t run as fast in the sprints and takes a few more strides to fall into a run. Briggy stops shouting and takes a new tack - telling him he should stop. ”Elite sport isn’t for everyone, Max. You don’t need to hit these levels in Scotland. Go to Scotland, Max. Actually, you know what? Maybe Saudi’s more your level.”

Max lets out a series of grunts, roars, and moans as he pushes himself to do the final fifteen minutes. Time drags like in a real match; it’s hard to watch.

When Briggy blows her whistle to signal the end of the ordeal, Max lies on his back, breathing hard. Pascal and I walk over.

Max says, ”The shittest Premier League player can do that for two halves, three times a week.”

Pascal says, ”Are you back on a stamina build?” This is one of Max’s wilder beliefs; he is convinced he can reconfigure his body to achieve varying physical aims in a relatively short time. Stamina build to run more. Skill build for greater control of a football. Abs build to look good when dressed as a rainbow. Pascal adds, ”I got the feeling you wanted to play fewer minutes, not more.”

Max thinks about it. ”This isn’t about playing. It’s about the challenge. I’m in my head too much these days so I need to do something physical. It’s pushing my body. It’s cleansing.”

Pascal offers his hand; Max shakes his head. Pascal says, ”What are you going to do to Dortmund?”

”Do? Nothing. It’s just a publicity stunt. Just building my brand.”

”Right,” laughs the German. ”But really.”

”4-4-2, keep it tight first ten.” Max’s breathing is starting to slow. He shields his eyes as he looks up. ”What would you do?”

”Me?” Pascal thinks about it. ”Dortmund play 3-4-2-1 with a very high defensive line. They don’t have a good DM so I would want someone fast to play in the space between the midfield and the forwards. They really give a lot of chances on counters.”

”Shame we can’t loan you for the match,” says Max, and now he raises his arms. A beaming Pascal pulls him to his feet. Max wobbles. ”Christ,” he murmurs, bending to brace his thighs. ”Maybe I should stick to Gibraltar and Wales.”

”It’s easier to train with a ball,” says Pascal.

”When I started this,” says Max, ”the idea was that when we got to the Prem, we wouldn’t have the ball. We need players willing to chase their tails for hours on end. And if we built this exercise around a training match, I’d find ways to cheat. Chase player B because he’s closer than the guy I should be chasing. Looks like I’m doing something, looks like I’m working hard, but I’m cheating. I know I’d do that. Like this, with no ball, just walk, sprint, walk... there’s no hiding place.”

Pascal nods. ”And you never ask your players to do anything you wouldn’t do.”

”Yeah.” Max creaks upwards and puts his hands behind his head. ”Not sure I’d ask anyone to do this.”

***

Dortmund

In the days before the big match, I’m kept busy. I’m filing pieces for the Mail while being interviewed by TV stations around Europe. The Swedes want to know if this stunt is an example of ’chat shit, get banged’. The Germans want to know what ’Mr. One Hundred Percent’ is planning. The Poles want to talk to Anna, which is completely out of the question.

By day, Anna sees the world and, in a rare display of Max showing that he can be a good listener, the further we go east, the more and more Polish speakers are roped in to spend time with us. Anna slips into her mother tongue so much it’s getting harder to come back out.

Emma draws up contracts, studies case law, and does all her usual daily business while finding time to discover Instagrammable cafes and cute cobbled side streets.

Briggy already has five potential clients, though they tend to be on the young side. There is work to do if she is to catch up with Don Pino and Martini.

As for Max, he’s normal. He goes running with Briggy. He goes walking with Emma. He doesn’t mention football except on the day before the game when he says he’s going to Dortmund early so he can train with Stuttgart and show them his big plan.

”So there is a big plan?” I say, with hope in my heart. It’s getting hard to get people to believe me when I say we spend almost our whole days together without him telling me anything.

”Nah,” he says.

***

On the morning of the match, Max heads off to join up with the Stuttgart squad. The rest of us take breakfast together, getting excited. Emma claims that Max hasn’t told her the plan, which I’m dubious about. Anna asks what she should wear. Emma says, ”Did you bring any big hats? Let’s all wear big hats like at the races!”

”Is that a clue?” I say. ”Max is gonna make Stuttgart run like horses?”

”Bethany,” says Emma, laughing. ”Are you okay?”

”It would really help if I knew what Max’s plan was. He could at least have given me a juicy quote.”

Emma says, ”Everyone has a plan until they get tickled by their girlfriend. Use that.”

I sigh. ”Thanks, Emma. Not sure that one will go down well with Daily Mail readers.”

***

The Westfalenstadion is immense, even bigger than the Allianz Arena in Munich. 81,000 are inside, watching a game that has become the most hyped of the weekend all over Europe.

With kick-off approaching, Briggy takes up a position near the tunnel. Max stands next to Toddy Braun in the technical area for a moment, then pulls his hood down and goes to sit in the dugout. That’s a disappointment, but it allows us to focus on Anna. Emma and I are with her in a section allocated to the WAGs (wives and girlfriends) of the Stuttgart players. Max has again pulled some strings to get a Polish-speaking neighbour for Anna.

The yellow-shirted home team get off to a good start, and Stuttgart (in white shirts with a red stripe) are pushed back into their curious little defensive square. It’s 4-4-2, keep it tight first twenty, just like Max said.

There’s a player’s wife loudly complaining about everything that’s happening, most notably the fact that her husband isn’t starting. I try to be nice to everyone; you never know who might help you with a story. ”Does everything look normal to you? The same as usual?”

”Yes, it’s always like this.”

”More or less the same lineup?”

”Weis is not starting. That’s the only significant change but he was injured in training. I don’t know why he’s on the bank.”

”So Max hasn’t changed a thing,” I wonder. ”Why did he come here early?”

”He took a few players away and did a private training.”

”Private training?” I say, my heart kicking into a higher gear. ”Do you know what?”

”It’s very secret. Only four players, I think. What’s strange is that Weis was one of them.”

I get goosebumps. Something mental is going to happen! And Weis isn’t injured. That’s typical Max Best bullshit. He loves to have his best players come off the bench; he thinks it demoralises the opposition. ”Thanks,” I say.

The atmosphere in the stadium is immense, and I worry that the noise and the vibration will cause Anna’s atoms to fly apart. She seems to be enjoying herself, though. It’s only her second-ever football match, and it’s quite far on the other end of the scale to the simplicity of Canterbury City FC. An employee of Borussia Dortmund has been told to make a fuss over us; they don’t need more bad publicity. Emma says she’s in the mood for a Hot Toddy and Anna declares she would like one, too, but she’ll only have a sip.

Dortmund score and the stadium erupts. The TV company are not stupid. After following the celebrations, they put a camera on Max. The home fans whistle and jeer; it’s fucking deafening. Max sees himself on the big screen and looks impressed. He points upwards and nudges the guy sitting next to him in the dugout. I don’t need Dani’s lipreading skills to make out what Max is saying: Phwoar! He’s good-looking!

There is more pressure from the home team. More great football, more speed, pace, and purpose. This detour is turning into a damp squib.

A tipsy Emma Weaver insists the phrase is ’damp squid’ but I point out that all squids are damp. She giggles and says, ”Let’s not squibble about it! Excuse me, can I have another?”

”Do you want to pace yourself?”

Emma says, ”Premier League WAGs can drink 14 Hot Toddies per match! I have to work on my tempo!”

I laugh but for some reason I feel like I have to be the sensible one. ”Let’s have a water next, eh? You don’t want to be so wasted you miss Max’s big moment, do you?”

”Suppose not,” she says, reluctantly.

So there’s a big moment coming! I’m excited again, having been talking about damp squids just moments before. It’s crazy how easily swayed I am.

Max’s big moment comes in the 30th minute.

The supposedly-injured Weis appears on the touchline, and at the next break in play, he takes to the pitch. Early substitution! The big screen shows Max with a cheeky grin on his face. The guy next to him nudges him and Max tries to hide the grin.

He can’t.

What comes next is so stupid I don’t even want to describe it.

Borussia Dortmund’s defenders are playing a ’high line’. That’s where they move towards the other team’s goal, as a unit, compressing the pitch and vastly increasing the chance that their opponents will be caught offside. It’s a high-risk, high-reward tactic that is crushingly effective when it works... and utterly cringeworthy when it doesn’t.

Max’s mastermind intervention into this match, his big super-tactic, the one he has used to crowbar his way into this event, is what we call on the playgrounds of Manchester ’goal-hanging’. Max has instructed Stuttgart’s striker to stand ten yards offside. He’s miles ahead of his teammates, miles behind the Dortmund defenders.

There’s a buzz around the stadium. What’s this? Why is this happening?

There’s some scrapping in midfield and the ball pops to Weis. He slaps a delectable pass in the direction of the striker... who ignores the ball and runs towards goal.

The defence throw their hands up. ”Offside!” they shout. But play continues. On Stuttgart’s right, a fast player sprints after the ball, gets there first, sprints forward. He overtakes the striker...

Who is now onside.

He’s behind the ball!

If the pass comes, he can’t be offside!

Dortmund’s defenders are streaming back, like Anna returning to Poland played at four hundred times speed, but the winger passes and the striker puts the ball into the back of the net long before they catch up. Stuttgart’s players celebrate wildly. Max tries to stay on the bench with a cute little smile on his face, but Toddy Braun drags him to his feet and hugs him.

There’s a delay while the video assistant referee tries to find a reason to chalk off the goal.

Anna asks me to explain.

”Okay, so... Max moved a striker into a position where he’s not allowed to touch the ball. But he didn’t touch the ball. He was a decoy. While the defenders were looking at him, the guy on the right must have been moving into position. He’s fast, so once he gets the ball, there is going to be a shot.”

Emma says, ”So what are they checking?”

”Well, the guy doesn’t have to touch the ball to affect the flow of the game. They’re gonna decide if he interfered with play. It’s tricky because he doesn’t do anything, but all the defenders are watching him.”

”That sounds like a them problem, not an us problem.”

I smile. ”You’re exactly right but as a defender, I don’t know. It would piss me off if I was playing for Dortmund and the ref allowed this goal.”

”But as a fan of justice and karma and not letting corporations trample over the little people, what do you think?”

”I think, one-all, game on, let’s fucking go.”

”There’s my Bethany,” says Emma, giving me a hug.

The goal stands, then comes one of the most Max Best sequences you’re ever likely to witness in German football.

Stuttgart play normally for a minute, then their striker sprints forward, into the same offside position as before. The home fans groan; the high line stresses them out at the best of times. Nothing comes of that move, and there’s another phase of normality, then another dart. Seeing the goalscorer unmarked, with the freedom of the city, alone in the vast expanse of this enormous stadium does something primal to the fans, who transmit their unease to the defenders and the goalie. The latter makes a rash charge out of his box and is lucky to get away with it. The defenders don’t know whether to stick or twist. Their head coach screams at them to keep the high line, but they have 80,000 other voices in their ear telling them it’s a bad idea.

We’re drinking gratis Hot Toddies by the bucketload; Max Best is living rent-free in a fanbase’s head.

With 40 minutes gone, and with Weis the best player on the pitch by far, Stuttgart get another mad break. The fast winger drives forward and the goalie, having learned from the first attack, throws himself in the way of the pass. The winger seems prepared for this possibility. He simply takes an extra touch and shoots into the empty net.

It’s 2-1 and this time Max is up on his feet, dancing around, shouting.

He’s furious.

”Oh, shit,” says Emma. ”Who’s pissed him off?”

I’m tipsy - my boss will be pished - but soak up all the information I can get. The replays show a perfect move. Weis collecting a pass and hitting it early into the winger’s stride. The second replay shows the same. The third angle is even better.

But there’s Toddy Braun and Max Best having a furious argument. Max is livid.

”He wants that defender to be subbed off,” says Emma.

”What? Who?”

”The one on the right in the middle.”

I stare, but the game’s going again. I’m trying to think through a fog of Scotch, trying to think what the right-sided centre back could possibly have done to annoy Max.

Dortmund play a series of fantastic, one-touch passes that ends with one of their superstars through on goal. He side-foots the ball crisply... and holds his head as the ball somehow goes wide.

I snap my head left, to where Max Best is picking up water bottles and hurling them at the back of the away team’s dugout. Water explodes everywhere and he has to be pulled away from the scene by coaches and physios. The referee jogs over and shows him a yellow card. The TV crew scramble to work out what has happened. Why is he so angry?

Toddy Braun tries to play peacemaker but all he gets for his trouble are some jabs to the chest.

No-one outside that technical area knows what the fuck is going on.

I have a secret weapon. I get the Mail’s nerds to send the clips to Dani Smith-Smithe. She gives me the lip-read of the exchange, which starts after Toddy has finished celebrating the second goal.

Max: Oh, you’re ready to talk now?

Toddy: Do you have a problem?

Max: Yes. After a goal is when you should be the most switched on. The fuck are you dancing around for?

Toddy: Because we’re winning. Didn’t you notice?

Max: I notice everything. I notice your number 4. Why’s he celebrating like that? He’s run to the away fans faster than he has run to the ball the whole match. Wants to be in the photos! Look at him! Look at his face, his body language. He thinks this is over. There’s an hour to go! This is so fucked! He’s gonna cost us this game. Sub him off. [To a substitute.] You! Schneider! Warm up.

Toddy: We’re winning! I’m not making a change now.

Max: His head has gone. Do you hear me? He’s going to fuck you the way he has been fucking you for years. Get him off! Bin him!

Toddy: No. Calm down.

Max: There are no words to describe how calm I am. I’m seeing things you can’t. You’ve got a famous win here. You’ve got three points. You go above Dortmund in the table. All you need to do is fucking grow a pair! Right now!

Toddy: If I make that change, it will be at half time.

Max: Fuck this.

[Dortmund play through Stuttgart as though one of the central defenders simply isn’t there. They nearly score. Max blows up. Toddy turns white.]

Max paces around, gnashing his teeth so hard it looks like they might crack, then he flips his hood down and goes to sit down. He watches. When we see him, we see only a hollow and a pair of brooding eyes.

We get to half-time with the score still 2-1 to the away team. Max stays where he is. Toddy can do his half-time talk alone. Briggy joins Max on the comfortable seats and tries to cheer him up.

In our space in the WAG area, Anna has been quiet since the explosion. Finally, she relaxes. ”So that’s what it feels like.”

Emma says, ”What do you mean, Auntie Anna?”

”You must be used to it by now.” The old Pole turns her head left and right. She’s thinking what I’m feeling. This whole stadium is afraid of him. They’re all relieved they’re up against Toddy Braun, not Max Best. They still have a chance. ”I’m glad I was here to see this. Something is going to happen, though. Something that will change the feeling.”

”Yeah,” I say. ”Toddy’s gonna dig in because he doesn’t want to fall out with his players. Dortmund will score two goals late on. People will laugh at Max.”

”It could be that,” says Anna, unconvinced. ”It could be that.”

***

Toddy makes three changes at half-time, and that gets Max off his seat. Number 4 is gone, replaced by Schneider. The other changes are in the attacking third - the new players are even faster than the starters. Max stands at the halfway point of the technical area and after a few minutes, he decides he likes Toddy again. He creeps closer to him, and soon they’re back discussing tweaks and tactics. The offside trick is used less often, and we get a straight Toddy Braun ’squashed square’ masterclass that suffocates Dortmund.

The home team make a substitution that causes Max to fly around the dugout until someone gives him a tactics board. He shows Toddy that Dortmund will change to 3-5-2, then zips the magnets into a tweaked 3-5-2 using the Stuttgart players. One of the centre backs is pushed forward to DM - a Max Best classic - and the central midfielder has licence to rush forward. Toddy shakes his head for at least ten seconds before saying, ”Fuck it.” He and his assistants make the changes while Max Best darts around the technical area punching the air, hyping himself up.

Five minutes of slaughter follow.

Stuttgart score.

And again.

Every goal makes Max more demented. He jumps around throwing his arm towards Dortmund’s goal. ”Attack!” When Stuttgart’s goalie dawdles over a goal kick, Max rushes towards him, neck veins throbbing, face red from the effort of screaming. ”ATTACK!”

It’s a complete onslaught on the senses. One man is shouting louder than 80,000. When a Stuttgart defender is awarded a free kick and has the chance to play a quick ball over the top but chooses to pass back to the goalie, Max tries to rush onto the pitch to batter the twat. It takes three coaches and subs to drag him back to the dugout.

Max smashes the underside of his fist against a perspex sheet and sits with his head in his hands for half a minute. He can’t understand these players. Can’t understand their lack of drive. We haven’t finished punishing Dortmund for what they did. And this game isn’t over. In this sport, you need to bury your oppo. Every football match contains within it the DNA of a zombie movie. The dead rise. The beaten come back to life.

Dortmund score a second. It’s four-two to Toddy Braun’s boys and we’re in for a grandstand finish but I can tell from Max’s slumped posture that he has checked out. To him, this is a team full of shitheads. He wouldn’t have accepted this mentality when he was in England’s sixth tier. The only surprise to me is that he stays in the dugout. I feel that he’s itching to leave, but then again, this might be the last football match we attend on our trip. Soon the cities get smaller, the distances between towns bigger. Max might help Briggy discover the next Lewandowski or the next Boniek, but it’s just as conceivable he’ll stay in his hotel rooms reading weird books.

In my part of the world, my phone’s getting messages too fast to respond to. Max’s despondency has made Emma sad. Anna doesn’t know enough about the sport to cheer her up, so selfishly, she re-engages with her new Polish-speaking friend.

I’m stressed, I’m lost, I’m all at sea, but listening to the unfamiliar language is soothing. Max did a good thing there.

Anna freezes.

Emma and I have the same looks on our faces as we turn from Anna - her look of absolute horror - to the pitch.

It’s a normal phase of play. Dortmund spread wide, trying to impose their attacking ethos onto the game. Stuttgart compressed, hard as nails, hammering the ball away.

My breath catches in my mouth as I see Max Best sprinting across to the far touchline. It’s a surreal sight to see someone with such a good haircut invading the pitch, but made more so by the fact that he’s carrying one of the physio’s medical bags. The physios are hesitating on the side of the pitch; they’re not allowed on until the ref gives permission.

Max’s run, carried out at Premier League speed, takes him to Dortmund’s left wing back slot. Max slides, dropping the bag, and throws himself to the ground next to a yellow-shirted player. It takes my brain a second to catch up. That guy was on the ground the whole time, but I didn’t see him because he wasn’t moving.

Max takes one look at the guy and even from this distance I can tell he’s overcome by panic.

Max pushes his hands together, which I know is him trying to get a grip on himself, but it looks for all the world like he’s praying. I look at Anna, who is watching, unblinking, not breathing.

The Dortmund player isn’t breathing, either. Treatment is as easy as ABC - Max checks his patient’s airways. That’s A. B is for breathing. Look at the guy’s chest for structural abnormalities, place your ear next to his mouth and listen. C is for circulation. Max checks the player’s hands.

Max’s own hands fly to his head. He’s freaking out. He doesn’t know what to do. He places his hands on his opponent’s chest and pushes. He lets the man’s chest expand before doing it again. He aims to maintain the beat of Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. The Stuttgart physios arrive and take over. The Dortmund ones come seconds later, with a defibrillator ready to go.

Max staggers around, drunker than his girlfriend. Briggy runs onto the pitch, grabs him, and guides him towards the tunnel.

He stops suddenly, tears streaming, and somehow pinpoints the exact moment the quick medical care he started saves the life of the defender. Max tries to be stoic until he’s off the pitch, out of sight of the cameras, but there are cameras in the tunnel and we see his face crumple into a soggy mess.

”I’ve killed her,” he bawls.

Briggy says, in her most soothing voice, ”Shush, shush. It’s all good. You did great. You did great.”

”You don’t know,” he says, like a little boy. ”It’s a life for a life. I’ve killed her.”

Right at that very second, up in the stands, Emma is sobbing. I’m doing my best to comfort her, but an unfathomable instinct makes me turn my head. Anna’s head has dropped. She is limp and lifeless. ”Anna?” I cry, which jolts Emma out of her own personal misery.

The old Pole’s chin slowly rises and she looks at us, but from a great distance. ”May we please go?”

Emma and I are drunk. Briggy and Max look like they’re planning on walking back to Manchester. I feel lost. The gobby WAG from earlier gets to her feet. ”Follow me, girls. I gotchu.”

***

Poland

The next days are subdued. I tell my boss I’m not coming back to work yet and if he gives me shit I’ll quit. I’m not motivated to write, to talk, to generate content.

Max is quiet. Anna is fading fast.

Names of places fly by. Soest, Haaren, Breuna, Kassel. The next ones I recognise are Leipzig and Dresden, but we’re in a race now. Anna doesn’t have long left.

When we finally cross the Polish border, Anna visibly weakens. There’s an extraordinary scene one afternoon when Max finally picks himself off his bed and asks Briggy to put him through his paces. When they return, they find that Anna has taken a turn; we have had to summon medical help. The doctor is an exceedingly handsome older gentlemen with silver hair. Emma says he looks familiar in some way, but she agrees it isn’t actually possible they have met before. Max disagrees, and flies into a rage when he sees the man.

He commands Briggy to stand between the door and the doc - ”Wreck him if he moves” - then goes into the bedroom to talk to Anna. After a minute, Max emerges into the outer room with a bottle of pills. ”What the shit is this?”

The doctor’s English is near-flawless. ”Barbiturates. They take away the pain.”

”And for what medical reason have you prescribed these?”

The doctor takes the bottle and stares at it, sadly. ”It’s the most I’m allowed to do.”

”Oh? So what’s this?” Max produces a thick, lush book.

”You know what it is.”

”Why would a doctor bring a patient a Polish Bible?”

The silver fox bristles. ”Why wouldn’t he?”

Max flicks through the pages, getting more exasperated with every unfamiliar word. ”What’s the plan? Should I read it to her?” He takes a stab at reading a line. It sounds like being trapped under a building would feel.

The doctor throws the bottle of pills to Briggy and gives Max a very intense stare. ”There are no pills large enough to endure your Polish.” The doc relaxes. ”Her eyesight is fine. She can read. She may find consolation.”

There’s a pause in the scene which makes me realise how absurd it all is. Max and the doctor are going at it like they know each other. Maybe the doc’s a Lech Poznan fan and doesn’t like that Max knocked his team out of the Champions League. Maybe Max saw a club pin on his medical bag.

The doc gathers his things and prepares to leave.

Max sticks out an arm and blocks his path. He leans a little closer and glares at the older man. He says one of the most insane thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. ”I knew you were Polish.”

***

Opole

The pills help.

Anna perks up for a few hours a day. We choose a coffin in Wrocław. We go for a walk in Olesnica Mala. We meet her closest relatives - not that close - in Opole.

We check into our last hotel and the trip is over. It’s a strange feeling. We have lost our purpose. Now what?

For her own inscrutable reasons, Briggy has been learning Polish, and she tells Max that Anna’s family have heard of a talented player in the area. Can we go and check him out?

Anna perks up. ”You owe us.”

”What?” says Max.

”You have done so much harm to Polish football. Now you must undo it.”

”Don’t talk shit.”

”Get that young man,” demands Anna. ”That’s what I want. I will spend the day with my family.”

”No chance,” says Max. ”As soon as I get in that van and drive off, you’ll pop your clogs and blame me. I know how this goes.”

”No,” says Anna. ”No. I will not die. Tonight there will be a church service. I will surely attend. I would like you to come with me, Max.”

”Here’s a different deal. Pop your clogs now and save me the ordeal. That’s what a good Christian would do.”

Anna cackles, which leads to a prolonged wheeze and some coughs. ”Go, Max. I will still be here when you get back. Go.”

Max gets to his feet. Briggy follows him. Emma and I look at each other, and decide a scouting trip is better than hanging around this unremarkable town all day.

***

We find the player and convince him to do some kickups in his back garden. Max kicks balls at him as a test of his first touch. As life-changing examinations go, it’s preposterous.

The kid and his parents go back inside to prepare tea. Max shakes his head. ”Of course he’s brilliant. Typical.” He seems genuinely angry. After a while, he sighs. ”Briggy, get to work. Babes? Be charming. Beth?” He looks me up and down. ”This kid’s one of the best players in Poland. Might as well get on his good side.” We take a few steps towards the house but he grabs me and we all stop. Max peers at me. ”You know all this is paywalled, right?”

***

We all go to church that night. Max is bored and itchy but works really, really hard not to be disruptive. Anna sits next to him, listening to every word of the service. She has spent the last week hearing more and more of her mother tongue, and this service has barely changed in her lifetime. It’s the ultimate comfort food.

When most parishioners have cleared out, Anna struggles to her feet. Max holds her loosely but firmly.

”Max,” she croaks. ”I have a confession.”

”Seems like a good place for it, you cheeky minx.”

”I didn’t steal from the Pewex.”

”What?”

”I didn’t steal the jeans. I have never stolen anything.”

”But your nickname was Sticky-fingered Sally. Six-fingered Susan.”

”You made those up, the same as I made up the story of the jeans.”

Max smiles with a frown. ”Why would you invent that particular crime?”

”I knew you’d like it. I knew you would add layers and layers of other stories on top of it. You’re a dreamer, but you’re not like any dreamer I ever met. You make things happen.”

Max doesn’t reply.

Anna says, ”I would like to read my Bible now.”

”Kay,” says Max, and he tries to shepherd her down the aisle.

”No,” says Anna. ”Don’t turn your back on the altar.”

”Everyone else did!” whines Max Best, 27.

”Not me,” says Anna. Max groans and gets behind her. He places his hands under her armpits. She says, ”What are you doing?”

”Relax. Sink into my arms.”

”No.”

”Do it or I’ll read the Bible to you.”

”That sounds very pleasant.”

”Do it or I’ll read the Polish Bible to you in Polish.”

She sinks into his grip and he drags her backwards through the church, facing the altar. It obeys the rules in the most disrespectful way possible. Anna can’t help but giggle.

Outside, the five of us gather for the last time. There’s a lot of looking each other in the eye, looking away, and smiles that don’t quite go anywhere.

”Thank you all so much,” says Anna.

Max sucks his lips into his mouth and clamps them tight. Finally, he says, ”No, thank you.”

Emma, eyes soft and dewy, tries to speak brightly. ”See yous all in the morning.”

”Yes,” I say, relieved. ”Yes.”

***

Emma, Briggy, and I are first to breakfast. Max looks like a truck has hit him but he forces himself across the parquet floor.

He slumps into his chair and adjusts the cutlery.

A woman approaches our table and speaks. I assume she’s explaining that they’re out of sausages, but Briggy replies in Polish. The woman walks half of the way out of the room, looks back, thinks about saying something else, and leaves.

”She said Anna passed away overnight.”

Max nods, not looking up. His throat bobs so hard it’s audible. ”Right.” His eyes roll around before locking onto the space the newsbringer just left. ”Briggy... Sorry, but... but can you check?”

Briggy seems to know exactly what this means. ”Of course.” She gets up. I follow. Why? Journalistic instinct. When I look back, Emma’s holding Max’s hand.

Briggy goes to Anna’s room. It’s not locked. She has been taken away but my instinct is that nothing else has been disturbed. Briggy soon finds the bottle of pills - still almost full.

”Oh,” I say.

She nods. ”This is good. He would blame himself.”

I check the side table, and bend down. I come up with a Bible that must have fallen. ”There’s something here...” There’s a bookmark and it shows what Anna was reading. I get my phone out, find the English version, and devour it. ”Amazing,” I say. ”That’s beautiful. I wonder who she was thinking of.”

Briggy places her hand on top of my screen and when I look at her, she is calm but serious. ”Those words were her last moments. What she chose to remember is for her alone.” She taps my screen. ”This is paywalled.”

***

We decide to stay for the funeral; it only adds a couple of days.

Max wears a suit and stands tall. I sense that while the priest is saying the holy words, Max is thinking about his new life in Scotland. He’s implacable. The die is cast. His heart is hard.

The service is sparsely-attended. The family burial plot lies open; the coffin is placed inside. Soil is tossed onto the top.

The locals depart; we are the last ones standing.

Max looks at the pile of earth and can’t help but make a joke. ”Seven decades of staying alive and all it takes to kill her off is one day of Polish cooking.”

”Don’t,” says Emma, who lasts exactly five more seconds before sniggering.

Briggy clears her throat. ”Max, er... Before we left, Anna gave me something to give to you, er... now.”

”Oh,” he says, frowning. ”Is it a billion pounds? That’d be handy.”

”It’s a letter. I didn’t want to bring it with me to, er...” She waves, indicating the funeral. ”But now I think it’s the best place. I’ll just get it real quick, okay?”

”Sure.”

Briggy strides away, leaving three English people standing by a freshly-dug grave in Poland. It’s a funny old world.

I say, ”Max, what did Anna say to you that time at breakfast? When you were talking in that code and there was something she just needed to get out. What was it?”

Max has to think. ”Oh. She asked me not to tell everyone I was going to Hearts. I said, yeah but I am. She said please don’t. I said why. She said she couldn’t tell me yet but she would soon. She said she had done something she knew would make me unhappy and she couldn’t face the idea that I would ever think less of her. I told her there was nothing she could do or say that would make me mad at her but she said she couldn’t take that risk. I wanted to reassure her but she basically just begged me. Don’t talk about leaving Chester, please. I said okay. I mean...” He waves at the grave. ”Reckon time’s up on that promise, right?” He slips his phone out of a pocket and checks how much signal he has.

”Max,” I say, throat dry. ”Wait a minute.”

He looks at me like I’m crazy. ”What?”

”Wait to see what she says.”

”Who?” he says, looking around the churchyard. He finally gets my meaning, gives me an amused smile, and puts his phone away. He crouches down. ”What an amazing woman. I’m glad I met her.”

Emma says, ”Amen.”

Briggy returns, holding an envelope with a surprising shape. It’s square, a little bigger than the average Christmas card. Why would it be square?

She hands it to Max, who opens it. There’s a photo and a piece of paper. Max the Emotionless. Max the Rock. Max the blubbering wretch.

Emma rushes over to him. Briggy goes to check he’s breathing.

I take a couple of steps towards him, too, but he’s in good hands. I look down and the three items are right at my feet. The envelope has shaky old-woman handwriting on it. Elegant, old-fashioned, but shaky.

TO MAX

Then there’s a photo set onto a piece of square card that would neatly fit into the envelope. The photo was taken inside the bungalow Mary Best and Anna shared. Their backs are facing the lens. They’re wearing blue-and-white Chester FC home kits, and they’re laughing at each other while double-thumbing the names on their shirts. Best 77 for Mary, Anna 77½ for the Pole. On the TV in front of them is a football match. It’s impossible to know for sure who’s playing, though we might take an educated guess.

I hand the photo over to a gobsmacked Emma, then bend to pick up the final piece of Anna’s final ever message.

It’s a gorgeous piece of creamy-white paper with three lines of her shaky, olden days handwriting.

Three lines to smash Max’s world to smithereens. Three lines to reshape the future of football. Three lines to confirm once and for all that the pen is mightier than the sword.

I TOLD HER.

SHE KNOWS.

MAKE US PROUD.