10.
Before the men's first team squad headed to the Sin Bin for the weekly debrief slash rebrief slash prebrief, I grabbed Matt Rush and took him and Sandra into one of the meeting rooms in the coaching block.
At normal clubs, this chat would have happened in the manager's office, but mine wasn't the usual desk plus boxy computer plus wall charts. I had designed my office myself, so it had a bed, a luxury coffee machine, a futuristic reclining chair with floating keyboard and computer screen, a PlayStation, and a dartboard with a photo of Alan Turner. Not necessarily the place to have a chat about a young man's future.
"Rushy," I said, amiably. "Take a seat." He did so. "What the devil are you doing?" I complained. "Don't sit before Sandra does! That's bad manners!"
Rushy shot to his feet and mumbled an apology to Sandra. She rolled her eyes. "Ignore him, Rushy. You might notice that he sat down."
Matt Rush, a CA 141, PA 180 right back with high decision-making skills, hesitated. He looked from me to Sandra and said, "I don't know what to do."
I waved at him to sit. "I'm just joshing. Just pulling your plonker. Just rushing your quarterback. Is that a phrase?"
"No."
"Flag on the play! So you've been at Chester for a while. How are you feeling?"
"Good," he said, way too quickly.
"Urgh." I turned to Sandra. "He won't talk freely until he knows if he's in trouble or not. It's a boy thing." To Rushy, I said, "Mate, you're doing well, we're happy. This will be a positive experience, so start flapping your gob."
He looked from Sandra to me and said, "I don't know what you want me to say."
"Let's reflect on all that has come before and all that has come to pass."
"You go first," he said, which made Sandra laugh.
I did a tiny, fluttering hand gesture as I tried to sum up Rushy's career since I met him. "You were here on loan and you had your superbrat phase."
"I didn't have a superbrat phase," he said, and it struck me that he was quieter than I knew him to be.
"You had a hot brat summer," I said. "You were a high level superbrat. And I should know, because I really like you and opposites attract, ergo you are a brat."
"Opposites," scoffed Sandra.
I continued my summary. "Pedro Porto tried to help you out, things got better, but then United packed you off to our arch-rivals. Bad injury, tough times at United, career going nowhere, we signed you before we knew we would be in the Prem. The plan was to use you a lot more - in the Championship - than has actually happened so I'm just wondering how you're getting on."
"Well," he said, carefully, "because I'm not a superbrat I understand that promotion was a new challenge for the club and you don't think I'm ready to play in the Prem every week or even every second week and of course I'd like to play more but yeah, it's all right. Who are you using instead of me? Cheb and Dumi, mostly, so it's two guys who played for Bayern Munich. If you were giving Roddy minutes instead of me, I'd be more worried."
I nodded. "Are you saying all that because you think it's what I want to hear or do you really feel it?"
I thought he was about to break out into a grin but he contained it. "It's what I really feel. Did it sound forced?"
"Um, a little bit. Hey, what's up with you? You're different. Did you not sleep last night?"
He looked startled, but again, the moment was fleeting. "I slept fine." He scratched his neck. "All that's happened is I've been thinking about my career. What I can do better. What I can learn. So much of it is in the mind, isn't it, so I was looking for tools and mindset hacks so I could be a mentality monster. I asked, uh, someone if there were any tricks or whatever and he said that a lot of top athletes do Stoicism."
Sandra leaned back, satisfied. Clearly, she had been slightly puzzled by Rushy's change in behaviour, too. "This is you practising Stoicism."
"Huh?" I said. "He wants to play for Stoke?"
"No," said Rushy, and he leaned forward to explain. He stopped himself and leaned back. "You're joking. You know what it is."
"Not in depth," I admitted. "It's sort of like, be staunch. I'm guessing there's more to it."
"Er, yeah. Control what you can control, accept the things you can't. Refs sending you off, manager being, uh, the opposite of a superbrat. Your body letting you down. If I look after myself and I still get injured, that's just, like, a thing I have to deal with. I have to be staunch about it, yeah. Do you think that's a good mindset for a footballer?"
"So much of it is in the mind, yeah, so it's good to look for a framework that works for you. Let's take a quick detour." I whipped my phone out and did a quick search. I landed on a 'Stoicism for Athletes' page and skimmed it. "Plan Ahead. It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. Bosh, yes. Assess Yourself. The rational soul reaps its own harvest, succeeds in its own purpose. Whoa! That's gonna need a minute to unpack. I need to read me some Marcus Aurelius." I skimmed faster. "Fully Commit and Set Your Standards. Accept the Sacrifices. Set Your Discipline in Stone. This is getting me frisky." I went all the way to the last point. "Prepare For Defeat. You have now come far, and you are a competitor, a feared and respected opponent. But do not for one moment dare to think you are invincible; you are not. Sandra! This is what I've been saying!"
"It sounds better coming from someone who died three thousand years ago."
"Three thousand? That long? Rushy, your primary action item is to check that for us." I put my phone away, then took it back out. "Just looking if there's anything here about hating women."
"What?" said Rushy.
"There's normally a pathway from this kind of thing to the manoverse, which is fine if you want to play for Southampton, not if you want to play for me. But this stuff I just read, it seems pretty awesome. I can tell why your elite athlete friend recommended it to you."
I stared at him until he cracked. "Yeah it was a chatbot."
I slapped the table. "I knew it! Does your chatbot tell you that certain historical figures weren't all that bad? You know what, never mind. I'll get someone to hack your phone and she - or he! It could be a man! - will tell me if there's anything I need to worry about."
Sandra said, "Max is joking."
"Sure he is," I said, without smiling. I took a beat to mentally replay some of the phrases I had just read, and found myself nodding. "Stoicism sounds really apt for what we do. The daily struggle, the effort that goes unseen by the masses, the lack of reward."
Sandra said, "You're as rich as Croesus and you have a beautiful wife."
"Yeah but that's a fraction of what I deserve. Rushy, keep going with this. Maybe you can road test it and give us a crash course one day. Since you mentioned your body letting you down, tell me about your hamstrings."
His microexpressions went from sadness to staunchness. "Good, they're good. I'm doing my stretches and my extra physio. Cerberus are great, boss. They've got me doing more flex, more load, more reps. It's fucking hard but it's great. I feel better than ever, stronger than ever, and I'm not going on the grass worrying anything's gonna pop."
That fit what I was seeing in the curse. High Condition scores, physical Attributes ticking up. "Top. I'm getting glowing reports about how committed you are to doing what you need to do. Passed inspection!" I mimed ticking a box. "Okay, listen, I want to talk broadly then get specific. Here's what I think." I paused. "And what DOVE thinks. We've got you as pretty much the best trainer at the club so far this season."
First microexpression: utter delight. Second: competitiveness. "Pretty much?"
He was asking who was ahead of him, and normally I would have kept him guessing, but in this case I judged being truthful could create more healthy competition. "Roddy has improved the most. You got your Champions League qualifiers with College, he's got caps from his national team. You've had more Prem minutes than him, but he's had super-tailored extra training sessions."
I had been blasting Roddy with the Secret Sandra training perk pretty much non-stop this season, so it was doubly impressive that Rushy had almost kept pace with him.
"Roddy's a special talent but so are you. Of course you want to outperform him but long-term you need him to get as good as you so that you can alternate in the right back slot. If you're ever in a sitch where you have to play every game, like three matches a week, you're gonna be in injury hell again. If I were you, I'd want to beat Roddy to the ceiling, then give him a helping hand to catch up with you. Happy with that?"
He wobbled his head, indicating uncertainty. "Happy to help Roddy, course, million percent, but I'm hoping if I keep doing the physio and keep taking care of myself, I'll be able to play every minute of every game. But I know what you mean, boss. I have to accept that I might never be a three-game-a-week player even if I work super hard to achieve that."
"Kay. I like this new version of you. It's very easy to talk to someone who is agreeing with everything I'm saying, someone who is happy to bask in the reflected light of my boundless wisdom."
Sandra said, "No poems."
I tutted. "Your stellar progress has lifted you into the category of being a top Championship player. That's how you're performing right now, in other words. Your levels right now are where Lewis, Youngster, and Wibbers were at the start of pre-season. How do you feel about that?"
"Not sure."
"Yeah because you're a nutjob and you think you're already better than Cafu."
Again he suppressed a grin, which gave me an almost irresistible urge to make him laugh properly. I squashed it down while he chose his words carefully. "I don't think I'm better than Cafu because I never saw him play."
"He played like you but better. What I'd like to know is how did Cafu play when he was 22? That would be an interesting comparison, wouldn't it? Maybe he hit his ceiling aged 22 but I reckon that's pretty rare for a top player." He looked up. "Yes, you're going to be a top player. Jesus. What does thingy say about being needy?"
He glanced at my phone. "Who, Epictetus?"
"No, your chatbot." I waited three seconds. "I really thought I was gonna make you laugh on that one. So you're training great, you're already a quality player, you're becoming a weapon, I have a very good feeling about you staying fit this season, everything is bish and bosh. Look, it's not really anyone's place to tell you how to feel but I'm going to tell you how to feel. You are delighted. You are ecstatic to have reached the levels you have reached, and so early in your career, too! You feel a sense of enormous pride and accomplishment." I gestured for him to repeat my words.
"I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment?"
"Enormous."
"I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment enormous?"
I laughed; he was funnier than me this morning. "You feel great, having reached a new base camp in your career. Now you are ready to scale the north face of Mount Cafu."
Sandra said, "Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushy."
"Yissss!" I said, high-fiving her. "That's it. Yeah, compare yourself to Dumi and Roddy and Cafu if you want but in the end this is your life, your journey, and if you stick to your path, one day you'll say, I've made it! I've made it! And I'll say no you bloody haven't, get back to work."
I took a couple of seconds to think about the numbers. He would surely get to CA 150 this season, right? Which left 30 points of improvement to go. 15 next season, 10 the season after, hit his peak three years from now?
"If you don't get another bad injury," I said, slowly, "you could cap out aged 25. That gives you 5 or 6 years of fucking tearing things up. You'll be drenched in awards and fame and trophies and every time you pop into a deli for some cheesecake you'll meet a pair of staggeringly beautiful lawyers. That is the life that awaits if you..." I got my phone and opened the page I had been reading. "That is the life that awaits if you allow cookies on this website." THAT finally got the big smile I was aiming at. "Yiss, nailed it! But seriously, Rushy, you're doing too well for us not to mark the occasion."
He licked his lips. "How?"
"Dance party!" I swayed left and right in my chair while churning my arms. Rushy saw that Sandra wasn't joining in, hesitated, then danced. After what seemed an age, Sandra did an arm wave followed by a sort of karate stance.
Through the glass, Colin Beckton paused on the way to his office. He looked at the three of us, sighed, dropped his backpack, 'showed us how it's done' - citation needed - and walked off, smugly.
"Good," I said, clapping once. "Now that we've tricked Colin into showing us his best moves, we can beat him in the next dance-off. To business. The next three games are going to be defensive masterclasses."
Rushy frowned. "But you've been telling everyone we'll be attacking like crazy."
"Yeah, I know, I lied, duh."
"Oh." He tried to get stoic but couldn't. "But attacking those teams makes sense. Fulham, West Ham, Bournemouth, those are games we could win. And it's like you always say, it's three points for a win. One win's as good as three draws, so let's get at them."
"Or," I said, "we can leave the thinking to me and have a successful football club."
He dipped his head, smiled, and said, "Got it."
"For the record, Sandra partially agrees with you and I partially agree with you. Any other season we would go all-out on those three. But," I said, standing up, stepping back, and leaning against the wall opposite Rushy, "this isn't a normal season. We're in a relegation dogfight. I've studied the results of relegated teams and there are patterns. Teams that go down lose three games in a row as a matter of routine. Teams that stay up tend to be the ones that know how to scrap for a draw. They don't go five Ls in a row, you know? They don't let the points column stay static. It ticks up and that puts pressure on the other teams. If we draw three then beat Ipswich, we're laughing. That would be a seriously good return at this point in the season, okay?"
He frowned but was authentic when he said, "Yeah, okay. Yeah." He grimaced. "It's just, there was this phrase I read and I thought it summed up why we want to play front-foot football. Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. If we go looking for a draw, we'll lose."
Sandra said, "You have come far, you are a respected oppo, but don't get cocky, kid."
Rushy went, "Huh."
Sandra said, "We're not playing for a draw, we're playing for a clean sheet. If we defend with all our hearts, we might pick up some wins along the way. There will be nothing tentative about how we play." She paused for effect. "Unless it comes from you."
"Me?"
I said, "You've got a role to play in all three matches. We know how Fulham will play. They are a very competent Premier League team, better than us for the time being, quite balanced, quite good at everything, but they don't have the kind of megathreats that we've seen from Chelsea and Man U and all that. I'm going to man-mark Ed Heath and that's going to fuck up their creativity."
Rushy's eyebrows rose. "You're gonna man-mark him? Isn't he, like, your most important player for Wales?"
"Yeah but so what? He has beaten me a few times in training but I think I've got him worked out now. If he complains that I'm being mean to him, I'll send him to you for a lesson in philosophy. The plan is we're gonna play 5-4-1, doubled-up on the wings. So on the left it's Lewis in front of Helge."
Sandra said, "Height plus speed, counter-attacking threat, set piece threat."
"On the other flank, Dumi at right back, you ahead of him."
Sandra said, "Experience and superior positioning, deadly speed for counters, mental fortitude the likes of which hasn't been seen for three thousand years."
Rushy smiled. I said, "And you're a right back yourself so if Dumi gets moved out of pocket, you can slip in. I don't want Fulham getting jack shit from the wings, and I'll be in the middle with Jimmy. You and Lewis will try to get up in support of Gabby, but don't count on any help from me this time."
Rushy's eyes scanned left and right as he worked out the rest of the team based on that. "Who are the centre backs?"
"Edgar, Peter, and Magnus."
Rushy frowned. "So there's no Youngster? Cheb? Leo? No Wibbers?!"
"We're defending, bro. I want Magnus and Jimmy in the team because they got their first caps for Scotland - both got two, in fact - which means they're buzzing; we need every drop of positivity." I eyed Rushy. If reading about the Stoics helped his mindset, maybe I would be able to track that via his Morale. If he kept his mood up after a defeat, I would cut out half an hour of set piece drills and make everyone chant things like 'tentative actions lead to tentative outcomes!' The others were staring at me. "As for Wibbers and the others, we've got three matches in seven days. Every Prem team is sweating their forward players, and they'll keep squeezing until those players break down. We're giving our stars breaks where poss, and that will pay off in February and March when our squad is the healthiest in the Prem. Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay so the plan against Fulham is to defend, sit back, and take any chances that come our way. Basically, we go there, fight, and come home with a point. If we sneak a goal from a set piece it's double Nando's all round. If we lose, I might change tack when it comes to West Ham because they aren't going to steamroller us, but I don't see us as having the energy levels to play heart attack football three days after a draining trip to London. If we waste our energy, we will get dicked on Saturday, so I see the West Ham one going pretty much the same way as Fulham, except that I'll be playing left back."
"What!"
"Bowyer is West Ham's best player, right?"
"Yes," said Rushy. "And he plays right wing. Pretty much all their attacks start with him. If you knock him out... Okay, but if you're not disciplined, they will counter us, and if you are disciplined, you're only contributing to attacks when we've got set pieces."
"So?"
"So it's a waste, isn't it?" He spotted me smiling at Sandra. "What did I say? Oh, she agrees with me."
I sat back down. "You have to walk before you can run. It's too cocky, even for me, to rock up to established Premier League clubs and assume we're going to beat them. We have won precisely one game in the Prem, ever, and that's because it is very hard to win matches at this level. With guys in the squad like you training your butts off, it will get easier, but it's my birthday and I want points."
"It's not your birthday," said Sandra.
"It's my wedding anniversary."
"It's not."
"It's something, all right?" I held a finger up. "Saturday is my special something day and I want a treat. Zero goals against and we see what else happens. That's it, Matt. Expect to play the first half against Fulham and West Ham, and probably the second against Bournemouth."
He nodded, stoically, as he processed the information that he wouldn't be playing the full 90 in any of the upcoming fixtures, but he was about to get a lot of minutes across one week and that proved how much trust I had in his body. "Can I ask why the second half?"
"Course you can. Bournemouth are the most attacking of the three teams by far. They have pace, power, skill, and while I haven't seen them break down low blocks very well, they also don't encounter many low blocks, so maybe they're amazing at it. They do some really chaotic things that we haven't been able to quite pinpoint from the video, so I'm hoping that when we see them live we'll be able to decode their patterns. Just another reason to start cautiously."
"To work out how they do their rotations," he said.
Sandra pushed him on the arm. "Someone's been getting ahead of the briefings!"
Rushy did a little grin.
I said, "If we're coping, great, you can go on and get your minutes doing a defensive shift. If we're getting battered I might switch to heart attack football and go down swinging. You're one of the players I'd want on the bench if we have to come out of our shell. Show me against Fulham and West Ham that you can dig in, because I know I can rely on you to do the gung-ho stuff."
Rushy closed one eye. "So it's defensive against Fulham and West Ham, defensive against Bournemouth but ready to duke it out with them if they score or if you can work out their system and you decide that we should go for the win."
"Bingo."
I got up to leave, and so did Sandra, but Rushy just sat there. He was staring ahead, his eyes slightly hooded, and if I didn't know better I would have thought he was unhappy with how the chat had gone. But I could see his Morale, and it had risen two levels. He got up, pushed his seat under the table, and tried not to smile.
***
We walked through the canteen and out into the crisp morning air. Players were sauntering towards us from all sides.
Before we entered the Sin Bin, I heard the sound of someone slapping themselves on the forehead. "Stoke City! Stoic City. I'm so dense."
***
At lunch, I considered a dilemma. I was close to buying the final perk in the shop and ushering in a new era of self-generated power-ups. I really, really wanted to upgrade God Save the King and I was in a rush to find out if the curse would allow me to buy that upgrade, because if it wouldn't, I didn't know how much fun the whole thing would be. It was conceivable that I wouldn't much bother with the Construction Kit and would spend all the XP I earned training players faster.
Soon I would know.
If I managed the next two league games and cut down on Secret Sandra spending, I would be able to buy the final perk before we even hit December. But since I planned to play every minute of both fixtures, I would only get about 180 XP instead of about 2500.
The solution was obvious - go out and grind. But there was another use of my time that was just as valid. If I spent some time coaching our youth teams, I might stumble upon the answer to the question I had been asking myself: how do I combine positional play with Bestball to create a powerful but simple hybrid?
A growing pressure in my skull, in my body, told me that I was close to a breakthrough. It felt a little bit like in a murder mystery where the detective tells his mate - and the reader - 'Everything you need to solve the mystery, you have already seen.'
Cracking the case was even more exciting than entering the era of Perk 2.0, but I had to find a way to work towards getting both; I didn't want to end the week empty-handed.
After consulting the fixtures, I crafted a plan. I would work with our kids this evening, on Wednesday, and on Thursday, but on Friday night I would go to watch Preston against Blackburn in the Championship. Saturday was Fulham, and if I stayed overnight in London, I could watch Arsenal versus Tottenham. Three sessions with the kids, two bits of grinding. Good balance. Now I just had to man up and call Arsenal to ask for a ticket...
***
The floodlights at Bumpers were on, all of them, and that was a lot of lights. They created a very cool wintery atmosphere, turned Bumpers into a magical footballing wonderland, the kind of place where a paradigm might shift. Top facilities plus top players plus a top brain equals destiny.
"All right, listen up you worms." I paused and looked around. The under twelves were grinning at me, amazed that I was taking training. "You are wriggly, wriggly worms but today you will turn into butterflies!"
Patrick Rhodes was a PA minus one winger from Birkenhead. He was only 10 but he had opinions. "Caterpillars turn into butterflies, not worms."
"Huh? So what do worms turn into?"
"Nuffink."
I eyed him. "But you know what gobby 10-year-olds turn into, don't you?"
Patrick looked at one of his mates. "No."
I said, "Gobby 10-year-olds turn into gobby 11-year-olds. Top joke high five!" I ran around slapping the palms of all the kids. "Whoo, this is gonna be the best session ever!" I returned to my starting point and got my business face on. "Okay, here's what's happening. I want to do experiments with you. I'm not going to put you and a worm into a teleporter with the intention of creating a superworm. I mean football experiments. Hands up if you think I invented Bestball?"
Half the hands went up.
"Well, I didn't. I learned it from a chain smoker in Brazil and then I had to come back here and try to make it work even though I was suffering from black lung. I did experiments with the Welsh army guys. You know them? Dylan and Hot Rod and them lot. That was interesting because those lads were just happy to meet a famous person. They had no real expectations and they tried their hardest, but they weren't very good at football, soz to say. You lads are mint."
They were, indeed, mint. Benjy Garland was a winger whose PA was a lowly 44, but he was by far the player with the lowest potential. He had been with us since he was tiny - literally the size of a grape - and as far as I was concerned he could stay with us until he was 18. I could imagine there would come a moment when he stopped enjoying it because the other players were so much better than him, but it would be his decision.
At the top end, we had Carl Drexel, a PA 136 left winger; Paul 'Speedy' Wright, a PA 133 Pascal clone; Jordan Holland, a PA 129 DM; and six other players with PAs over 100.
I rubbed my forehead. "You guys all want to become professionals but I think it's all right to mess about with you for a few weeks; it won't hurt your progress. So I'm going to try some stuff. Some of it will be normal with a twist, some of it might be a bit strange. I just want to put my mad ideas onto the pitch, yeah? If I tell you to flip the ball onto your head and run with it, that's not me secretly telling you that's how I want you to play. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee I don't want you to do anything I say in these sessions in a real match. When we do something I like, I will tell you. Does everyone understand what I just said? Rudy Cooke, explain it back to me."
Rudy was an 11-year-old PA 117 centre back. "You're gonna tell us to do silly things and we're gonna do them but it's only for one time."
"You smashed that," I said. "That was outstanding. Good. Today is for me, not for you. Everyone happy to help me out?"
They were.
"Great. Everyone flip a ball on your head and run around."
***
After that silly start, I did a fairly normal session that ended with mini matches. At that age they played a lot of small-sided games. The biggest was 9 versus 9, but in training we kept things as small as poss so that players were getting tons and tons of time-on-ball.
After letting them get their fun in, I merged everyone into a 5-a-side with loads of subs. They ran around, played some pretty good football, but inspiration didn't strike.
I thanked the lads, rubbed my chin, and went to watch the older boys train.
***
On Tuesday, I started with a Bestball sesh. The lads were amazing at it. They took to it like ducks to water. On Wednesday, I went hard at positional play, taking it to a mad extreme, spreading them all the way to the sides of the pitch. On Thursday, I let them organise their own tactics to see if any of them did anything that sparked ideas the way Devi Payed had done.
On Friday, I earned 549 XP watching Preston lose to Blackburn, then drove down to London to join up with the rest of the Chester squad. We watched a movie, played some board games, and went to bed early. We were about to have the toughest week of the season so far. Three PL games in seven days.
***
Saturday, November 25
English Premier League Match 13 of 38: Fulham versus Chester
At breakfast, Dean and Livia went around checking that everyone was feeling fit and ready to play. No-one reported any problems, and the curse confirmed it.
"Sandra," I said, dragging her attention away from something on her phone. "We're locked in."
She nodded. "That felt like a good week in training. Did you get that impression?"
"Totes," I said.
The international break had been good for us. The starting eleven was the one I had told Rushy, and it would take to the pitch with an average CA of 149.2. Squad Morale was 3.8. Not obviously better than in recent matches, and not high enough for me to feel confident about sneaking a win. Fulham were CA 155, with significantly better Morale and home advantage.
But our underlying numbers were definitely trending upwards: we now had eleven players in the squad who were CA 150 or higher. The latest addition was Gabby.
Eleven players at Prem level!
It was a slight shame that one of them was Murray Burnett and two of them were goalkeepers, but still, it was a milestone. We had an entire team of PL-quality players. It was proof that we were on track.
And for the first time in months, I was able to name Cole Adams in the match day squad. He had fallen to CA 135 but if we could give him five or ten minutes, that would help him shoot back to his pre-injury levels.
We had prepared as much as we could, so it was time for me to get my game face on. I changed the background picture on my phone from Emma to Ed Heath. He was my target. He was my enemy. For 90 minutes, he would be my entire world.
***
On-the-whistle match report from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.
Author: D.Cox
Fulham 0 Chester 0: Stoppage At the Cottage! Fulham Fully Frustrated! Max Spells London with a Capital D!
It was D for defence, D for draw as the Seals battled hard to earn yet another Premier League point. This was a match in which Chester showed that they can dig in and work as hard as anyone. We ran, we pressed, we won more individual battles than we lost. Owen Elmham was flawless in goal, Peter Bauer more regal than ever, Matt Rush a defensive dynamo.
But the key battle was the improbable, surreal contest that was played out between Max Best and Ed Heath. There can't ever have been a match, in the entire history of the sport, where a national team manager man-marked that national team's best player, and certainly not a week after the duo combined to equal that national team's record for the most wins in a row!
Chester's flair player putting Fulham's chief creator in his pocket? I didn't expect it, Fulham didn't expect it, and Ed Heath certainly didn't expect it. Heath became increasingly agitated, which Best clearly thought was hilarious, though he gamely tried not to show it. He needs to work with Ed Heath, after all! Or perhaps he thinks that Roddy Jones is truly ready to take over as Wales' star player. Jones replaced Matt Rush for the final half an hour and was just as disciplined and effective as the Englishman.
At the final whistle, Max Best and Sandra Lane punched the air. No wild celebrations, but it showed they were both delighted with a point. Almost as delighted was Cole Adams, who came on with five minutes of normal time remaining. He's back from injury, and offers the club another defensive option. The timing couldn't be more perfect; Adams might even play a role against West Ham. After all, most clubs double-up against Bowyer, the England international right winger.
***
Sunday, November 26
I wore a disguise to the North London derby: big sunglasses, fake moustache, and a Kettering Town baseball cap.
Arsenal played their usual abysmal bulldozer football for the first twenty minutes but Pepe Salazar sensed that Lee Kennedy had set up wrong and released the handbrake. Arsenal scored twice in three minutes, the home fans got noisy as fuck, Spurs wilted.
The final score was 4-1, but a fairer result would have been 8-0. Spurs were fucking awful.
Lee Kennedy's job status twitched to 'slightly insecure'.
Hmm. We were due to play Arsenal and Spurs back-to-back at the start of February. I hoped Kennedy would still be in his job by then, because that Spurs fixture looked pretty good for a Chester win.
As for Arsenal... Maybe I would play eleven defenders, park the bus, make the game horrible, keep my creatives fresh. There was no point feeding them into the meat grinder...
***
XP balance: 19,859
***
Monday, November 27
I had a quick chat with Sandra about if we should change our approach against West Ham tomorrow night. "If we get a point, then our last five results will be solid. A win against Leeds, a defeat to Everton, a draw against Chelsea, then draws against Fulham and West Ham. Two types of ham! Six points from five games would put us 14th in the form table."
"If you're happy with it, I'm happy. You'll need to be just as switched on against Bowyer as you were against Heath. Maybe even more so, because as well as marking your man, you'll have to be part of the offside trap."
"Good call," I said, clicking my fingers. "Let's do some offside drills with me as left back. Today and tomorrow."
"On it. What are we doing with Jari?"
Jari Köngäs had gone to The Vale to train with the Remnants, but technically he wasn't allowed to train with Chester because he didn't have a work permit, and he wouldn't get one until he officially moved to the club on January 1st. We needed to get him as much up to speed as poss, though. "He can come to our briefings, use the gym, get individual training from Luisa or Clive O'Keefe or whoever. Maybe some of the lads would invite him to play five-a-side with them at Ellesmere Port or Winsford."
"Unofficial," said Sandra, with a nod. "Away from prying eyes. I'll arrange it."
"No," I said. "For legal reasons, it will spontaneously arrange itself with no paper trail."
She smiled. "I suppose his current club don't mind if he gets injured with us, because they know you'll buy him anyway."
"Yet another benefit to doing the right thing," I said, choosing to ignore the scoffing noises Sandra made. "I'll need to keep an eye on him," I mused. Jari wasn't in any of my squad lists so I couldn't see his CA from afar. I would check his progress and if he made some good early gains despite not being in formal training, I would think about diverting some of the XP I was hosing into Roddy Jones. "Half to the Dragonball, half to King Kong? Yeah, that sounds about right."
Sandra said, "Oh, boy, it's one of those days," and headed to the Sin Bin.
***
In between training with Chester - I fucking hated doing the offside drills - and trying to solve football using a group of twelve-year-old scallywags, I had a meeting at The Legends, in the head office of Lit.
Scott Conrad wanted to update me on his progress so far and his plans. He was wearing 'business casual', and was more gregarious and charming than ever.
Fair play to the guy, he kept his presentation short and sweet. In the space of five minutes, he told me that:
He had found an Indian club we could acquire for our DOVE-testing project.
He had secured our first sales of Harper Splats, with the customers being Cardiff City and Swansea.
He had spotted a potential bottleneck in our tech stack, and wanted us to get ahead of it by using 6G networks.
When he finished, my head was spinning. "Okay, let's review. First of all, you're enjoying yourself."
He tipped his head back and laughed. "Max, I love it. I thought working for the Premier League was the dream, but this is far more interesting and what's better, I've been here for a few weeks and absolutely no-one has stabbed me in the back! It's a refreshing change, to say the least."
"I'm happy for you. Okay, item one. This Indian club. You didn't list the price."
"It's free. There is really nothing there, just some amateur players, some kit, a field they don't own. We have committed to invest heavily in the club and everyone involved is excited. Indian football fans follow the Premier League and they certainly know who you are. The football side is one thing, but since we will be marketing the club, recording our progress, creating content, it will create jobs. This won't be cheap, Max, but we don't have to find money to buy the club."
"Right. Can't we use Seal Studios to create the videos?"
"They don't have local expertise. What content works in India? Do you know? I don't. Sophie and Harper don't. We should hire locals."
"Yeah, good. And what's the club? That's another thing missing. Small detail."
"I'm going to save the name till last because you'll either love it or hate it. Spectrum thinks you'll love it. The club is based in Gujarat, specifically Ahmedabad, a city of 8 million people."
"Oh, shit. That's a lot of scouting."
"Indeed. A city the size of London or Paris that is completely untapped. One of many such cities in India."
"I'm drooling. If you're going to seduce me, please provide napkins."
"Ahmedabad is relatively affluent, crime is low. Of course you would find it rather too hot. The club is tiny, another Saltney Town. It plays in a State league, which is the equivalent of our county leagues. Winning that league will get them into I League 3, which you can guess from the name is India's fourth tier."
"Oh, Christ, it's one of those."
"The Indian pyramid is one of those on steroids. I haven't been this confused trying to learn something since I had my one and only Finnish lesson. At the top is the Indian Super League, which is the long-term goal. Okay, now the fun part."
"The name."
Scott grinned, which made him look like a posh little rapscallion. I could just imagine him in shorts and a blazer running amok in a stately home, causing yet another nanny to quit. "The name of the club that is utterly perfect for our aims... is Income Tax FC."
"This is a joke, though, isn't it? You're doing a joke."
He opened a folder and took out a brochure that he slid across the table. It showed photos of the kit, the pitch, the players, a league table, and had lots of AI-generated illustrations showing a cute little stadium with our cameras posted around, soaking up data. There were suggestions for other clubs and football pitches in Ahmedabad where we could install DOVE. I put the brochure down - it was beginning to burn a hole in my bank balance. "Income Tax FC," I said. "Come and watch the adventures of Income Tax FC! Hey, who do you support? Chester, of course, but my Indian team is Income Tax FC." I shook my head. "It's insane. Crazy."
"Crazy like a fox?"
I tapped my teeth together, unsure, but said, "Fuck it, let's do it. If the next Messi is in Ahmedabad and the media have to reference how he started his career at Income Tax FC before moving to Saltney before moving to Chester - heh. Yeah, I'm in. Bosh. So Cardiff and Swansea are on the hook for Splats. Wow."
"It's not a huge amount they're paying, but they're covering the cost of the camera install and we will get all their data, of course, in order to process the video." He winked at me and chuckled. The real point was so that DOVE could track their players.
"Ace. Love it. They want cool goal shots and marketing materials? Sophie and Harper will be busy. We'll have to hire some people."
"Without doubt. My background is law but I've been in sales in one form or another for a long time and these are the easiest deals I've ever done. I can hook every club in this country, I'm sure of it."
"You're such a sweet-talker. Can you try to remember that I'm married?"
He laughed. "Let me tell you about 6G. It's not just twenty percent faster than 5G. It's a hundred times faster."
"Soz what?"
"I know. Do you know that quote? A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? 6G with the right applications is magic. One of the key applications will be for stadiums. Twenty thousand Cestrians want to be on their phones at the same time? FaceTiming, livestreaming, talking, chatting."
"Watching darts."
"Ha. Sure, if you play like you did against Fulham every week. 6G solves the slowdown problem, and it solves more issues too. There's a goal, you snap your fingers, the Splat replay is ready to broadcast. Just like that! With 5G, a 21 terabyte file will download in 5 hours. With 6G, it will take 18 seconds."
"Whut."
"I know! Think of the Deva stadium as a huge brain processing hundreds of tasks simultaneously. The broadcasters are showing our goals in Bullet Time, the refs are checking an incident from every angle, a fan with low vision is watching on a VR headset, and there is no lag, no latency. This is rather closing the stable door after the horse has bolted but one thought I had related to West Didsbury. Remember you had a long planning permission battle? If you told nearby residents that your stadium would give them connection speeds one hundred times faster than anyone else in Manchester, that might have eased the path, no?"
"Would have helped..."
"The technology isn't mature, of course, and the UK has barely rolled out 5G, but what I've learned is that to some extent, it doesn't matter what state the rest of the network is in. When you create a 6G zone, everything in that zone steps into the future, if you follow me. You create a bubble of high-speed connection. Life inside that bubble will be so absurdly good that rival fans will experience it and start to demand their clubs, towns, and cities install it, and Lit will be the company with the expertise to do so."
"This sounds mint... and expensive."
He smiled. "There are costs to being a first mover, certainly. When I was young, a microwave oven cost 500 pounds. Now they're under 50, and we have to thank the good people who bought the first ones. But if we want to take DOVE and our graphical programmes to their logical conclusion, we need robust, blazing fast connection speeds. Chester will certainly install 6G when it is commercially available. The question is, are there benefits to going early? I suspect there will be many, including ones we can't foresee. But at some point, the phone companies will pay us to add our equipment to their network, so that's another revenue stream."
The 6G chip in my head suddenly connected to the universe and downloaded about twenty ideas at once.
The most exciting was this: What if the curse included 6G towards the club's facilities score? If it did, then our players would train faster, and any soft caps we had would be nudged higher. If that were the case, it would be worth buying the 500 pound microwave.
I needed to create a perk that showed a club's facilities score. And then another one with an itemised list that showed every little thing that contributed to the score! That would be immense. It would tell me how much I could raise our score by adding another pitch or an Olympic swimming pool or an MRI scanner.
And my second idea was interesting, too. "Lit can be involved as consultants and whatnot but I think Chester FC needs to pay for 6G and own the equipment and all that. You know all about the Squad Cost Ratio rules, right?"
"I helped to draw them up."
The SCR rules were the Prem's latest attempt to stop clubs bankrupting themselves chasing glory. So far, no financial rules had ever impacted Chester, because we didn't have a rich owner who wanted to inject tons of money into the club. We simply couldn't spend more than we earned. But when we started to sell players for eight and nine figure sums, the rules could actually work against us, limiting our ability to re-invest all of the money at a time of my choosing.
"SCR is one of the reasons I bought those offices and stuff. It's not just to make the club more sustainable, but to give us flexibility in bending those rules. This could be another one of those... Chester buys 6G for the Deva and Bumpers, and the main customer is Lit. We pay a million a year for access. Chester pay us a million for DOVE. Chester's revenues rise by a million even though no money has really changed hands, and that's an extra million Chester can spend on players."
Scott had a couple of tiny creases on his forehead. "You will create tax implications doing it like that."
"I'm thinking of a world in which I have 400 million in the bank but I'm only allowed to spend 30% of it in one window. But look, this whole 6G thing is incredibly intriguing. I love a good infrastructure upgrade, so let's put you in a room with Brooke. The devil is in the detail, but Scott Conrad, you have pleased me. I hereby name you... Employee of the Day!"
***
Tuesday, November 28
English Premier League Match 14 of 38: Chester versus West Ham United
With the short turnaround between matches, there wasn't a lot of time to do anything except rest, get massages, and eat properly.
In the warm-up I spent a lot of time analysing West Ham. They were only CA 151, but they were a lot like Everton in that it was a lean 151. Their players didn't have points in Attributes they didn't need. The defenders had no Flair, their beanpole midfielder had low Technique. That worked because he was maxed on Heading; his job was to run around a lot and score from corners, bosh, end of.
The manager's strategy aimed to maximise the gifts of his best player, Bowyer. Bowyer was a genuine Premier League star, a creative wizard, a rogue who could unpick a packed defence, an archer who could start a counter, an assassin who could apply the coup de grâce to a move. He was top. The Hammers used to have a great left winger, too, but they had sold him and his replacement was nowhere near as good. Tactically, it was obvious that all we had to do was to stop Bowyer, but it was easier said than done.
West Ham hadn't rotated from their Saturday match, which was wild to me. Of course, I had shuffled my deck. Shuffled the formation, too. Instead of 5-4-1, we were 4-5-1, because having fewer defenders in the back line would make it easier for me to play the offside trap.
Marek was in goal.
I was playing left back, next to Edgar. Magnus was the other CB, with Dumi on the right.
Cheb was ahead of me, so we would have great threat on our side of the pitch. Bowyer was a good team player so he would help his full back to defend, which was obviously a great way to stop him from attacking.
I had three CMs: Jimmy, Youngster, and Bark. Had I chosen Leo instead of Bark, we could have named our first ever team with an average over 150, but Leo was still building up his strength. Physically, Bark was more suited to the type of match we would be playing. (Also, if I'm being completely honest, I wanted to give Bark starts as well as sub appearances so we could get a good transfer fee for him next summer.)
Rushy was right mid. Against Fulham, he had combined great with Dumi - mostly by listening to the Romanian and doing what he was told - and he had only played for an hour, so he was nowhere near the red zone.
Wibbers was the striker. When West Ham had the ball, he was going to man-mark a certain centre back. The analysts of other clubs would be tearing their hair out trying to understand why I was using a premium forward to nullify this technically-inferior player. What has the megabrain seen that we can't see? They would be looking for the answer for a long time because the intention behind that instruction was simply to stop Wibbers zooming around like a dog in the park.
Our average CA was 149.7. Bournemouth would see us smash through the 150 barrier for the first time in the club's history. That would be an amazing achievement.
That would be on Saturday, though. Tonight I had a job to do. A job I was perfectly suited to... if I could keep my concentration for 90 minutes and not get drawn into any petty bullshit.
Doom!
Dooooom!
***
On-the-whistle match reaction from Deva Station.
J: Hi, it's J and with me is Fudge. We're in the Harry McNally, where we've just seen Chester nil, West Ham nil. Fudge, what are your first thoughts on that?
Fudge: Yeah, my first thought is: what is going on? Max Best sticking to star players like he's their bodyguard.
J: Bowyer didn't get a touch, did he? He took the corners and free kicks but so did Max, and we looked more like scoring from those than West Ham did. But, I mean, really there isn't much to say, is there? Both teams had four, five shots? We used our subs, good to see Cole Adams get another run-out, Murray Burnett has vanished off the face of the earth. I know Sandra Lane said he has a bad back but I don't believe it.
Fudge: Here, Coxy's got his headline up. Chester 0 West Ham 0: Bowyer Fires Blanks As Best's Two Banks of Four Gamely Set Match for Snoozefest.
J: Coxy's mad, isn't he? I love him. Was it two banks of four? It was a four and a five from what I saw. The match was a bit drab but snoozefest? There was too much tension for it to put me to sleep. Especially in the second half, when West Ham were trying to wind Max up, get him to lose his cool. Didn't work, didn't faze him at all, and at full time he was delighted, wasn't he? Came over to us, jumped onto the board, punched the air. He's loving that point and if Max is happy, I'm happy.
Fudge: Ditto. Clean sheet, we're up to five points, it's all starting to come together. If we have to play like that to stay up, so be it. We make our own fun in the McNally, don't we?
J: And absolutely amazing to see the PetPride going up.
Fudge: It's going up, we're staying up, come on!
***
The rest of the week went much as the previous one. I tried things with the under 12s that led nowhere but didn't get discouraged, partly because a few of them popped not just in the mental Attributes I knew I was good at raising, but in technical ones, too. Maybe the curse had updated my coaching profile in the summer.
One difference from the previous week was that I got this text message from Henri:
I have begun writing a progression fantasy with a cocky, fast-talking MC who has an exploit that makes him overpowered. How much do you love this tagline? 'The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single smirk?'
On Friday night, I drove up north with Brooke to watch Middlesbrough against Watford. Dazza and Zach Green against Christian Fierce. Titanic!
The match was thunderous, chaotic, noisy, and finished 2-1 to Boro, who had an 8-point CA advantage and were competing hard to at least get into the playoff spots. Watford had their moments in the game, but there was an underlying lack of structure to how they played, probably because they had already sacked one manager this season and the new guy was already under pressure.
"What if Boro play Wrexham in the playoffs," I said, as the final whistle blew. "Zach and Dazza the Chester heroes again. Can you imagine?"
Brooke couldn't imagine, because she had run down the steps to be within kissing distance of Zach. Rude.
She had been surprisingly enthusiastic about Scott's 6G proposal, but the only 6G I was interested in tonight were the 6G experience points I earned. By which I mean 600, not 6,000.
Although actually it was more like 570.
(This is terrible. Cut all this.)
XP balance: 20,510
Target: 22,000
***
Saturday, December 2
English Premier League Match 15 of 38: Bournemouth versus Chester
Three things about this fixture led me to want to name my strongest possible side. Maybe not the one with the highest CA, but the best I could muster, no holding back.
First, there was a nine-day gap until our next match, which meant I didn't have to think overmuch about fitness or saving anyone's legs. Second, it was just time to smash 150. Third, Bournemouth were a menace and if we were tentative against them, they would teach us the folly of our ways.
They were a really interesting club. The owner was an elderly American billionaire who wanted to win stuff before he died, and as far as I could tell he was willing to do so within the rules. A true sportsman, for once! He had invested money lavishly but not recklessly, and like Brighton and Brentford, Bournemouth kept getting stronger even as they sold their star players.
Despite losing two players who had made it into the Premier League Team of the Year and losing their awesome manager, Bournemouth had an average CA of 156. Like most Prem clubs, they lined up in a 4-2-3-1, but unlike Everton and West Ham they were optimised for speed, skill, and stamina. They would attack us non-stop, press us non-stop. They routinely fucked up the biggest teams in the country and would do the same to us if we weren't careful. There was no single player I could mark that would make a difference, because the Cherries had the same level of threat from everywhere, and anyway, I wasn't sure I had the mental fortitude to defend for three entire matches in a row. Also, I was so close to clearing the perk shop that I really wanted to stay on the touchline, if possible.
So what to do?
My first instinct was 4-1-4-1, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It gave us beautiful balance and unlocked the true genius of Youngster in the DM slot.
Dumi had played two matches in three days, and while his physical data seemed fine, he was old and I didn't want to overexert him. Murray Burnett was still being a whiny bastard (in the privacy of his own head, to be fair), which limited my options slightly. Peter Bauer was the club captain and would expect to play, but he was 10 CA behind Edgar. Get thee behind me, Peter! (Into the dugout.)
My thoughts kept returning to Dumi. At Bayern Munich, he had trained with and against super-talented lightning-fast young whippersnappers every day. He wouldn't be fazed by facing Bournemouth's guys, good as they were.
So what about using Dumi in the centre, where he would have to run less?
Bosh.
And using the same reasoning, Edgar was the natural choice as the other centre back.
Bosh.
The rest of the eleven fell into place very neatly.
Owen (156).
Lewis (153), Edgar (156), Dumi (154), Magnus (149, captain).
Youngster (153).
Cheb on the left (159), Jimmy (149) and Leo (151) in the middle, Wibbers right mid (152).
Gabby (150) up top.
That would give us an average CA of...
Wait.
Whut?
I double and triple checked.
That would give us an average CA of 152.9.
It had taken us 15 games out of a 38 game season, but we had well and truly arrived. I had scaled the cliff from the Championship to the Premier League. I was incredible, I was a genius, I was a generational talent!
Sealbiscuit pulled into the stadium, and I spotted that it was different from the last time I had been to the south coast. It was bigger. Chester had briefly overtaken Bournemouth in terms of stadium capacity, but they had been continuing their own progression fantasy and now had 20,200 seats. That little 200 at the end seemed to be a deliberate slap in my face. Our stadium's bigger than yours will ever be, you povvy Manc pleb!
Every club in this league was rushing headlong into the future. Expanding their stadiums, trying to steal the hearts of every international fan, investing millions and billions in new talent.
Chester had arrived, but Chester had to keep sprinting. In the Prem, you had to run to stay still.
I clicked my neck left and right. "Bring it on."
And then, because in addition to rising to any challenge, I was also a petty bastard. I texted Brooke.
Tell the architects I want our final capacity to be 20,300.
***
I swiped Bench Boost and Triple Captain away, kept us in the positional play module, and hit Seal It Up. Pretty much the worst thing that could happen against Bournemouth was going a goal behind. That's obviously true for most teams, but while West Ham would drop into a low block and try to make it impossible to score, Bournemouth would rampage through your open lines. They were one of the most devastating counter-attacking teams in the world.
So we kept it solid.
On the right, Wibbers curtailed his attacking instincts and helped Magnus. On the left, Lewis and Cheb got as adventurous as they could, but always kept one eye on possible counters.
Edgar and Dumi looked class, while ahead of them, Youngster threatened to steal the show. Within ten minutes his match rating rose to 8, and within twenty it was up to 9.
My XP stash was ticking up at the rate of 14 per minute. I wouldn't get to 22,000 today, but on Tuesday I was going to fly out to Milan to co-manage Saltney Town, and that match would tip me way over the edge. I would check up on Angel, then head to Venice to visit a luxury car maker. On that trip, I would have plenty of time to mess about with the Perk Construction Kit.
Youngster played an ambitious chip that was intercepted and two quick passes later, the oppo's number 9 was slipping the ball past Owen Elmham... just wide of the post.
Youngster slapped himself in the head. His match rating dipped to 8.
Do not for one moment dare to think you are invincible, bro. I stepped closer to him and yelled, "Head up, James! Next one. Next one! Focus, focus, focus!"
***
It was goalless at half time, which was stupendously brilliant, but for once I had to do a serious team talk because with the help of some arrows on their tactics screen, I had cracked Bournemouth's seemingly indecipherable player rotations.
"Lads, listen up. We have gone 232 minutes in the Premier League without conceding a goal. We're not quite Chelsea 2005 just yet, but we're getting there, and that's obviously a new record for Chester FC. I'm pleased. Pat yourselves on the back. Now, listen, you're doing what I asked but there are times you seem confused about how Bournemouth are moving. It looks complicated, yeah, but it's super simple."
I pulled the flipchart slightly closer and started to scribble lines and arrows. I hesitated, because while I wanted to tell them everything I had seen, it was stupid to overload them with new information at half time. We could get deeper into this stuff before we played Bournemouth next time. For now, I would just tell them two things and hope that would be enough.
"Okay, check this out. When they're attacking, they are splitting into pairs. The 8 gets some space and runs at us. He goes diagonally up the pitch, to the right. Yes? You've seen that a few times. In this sequence, he's linked with the 9, so the 9 makes the opposite move. He comes back, diagonally, to the left. What does that do? Either Jimmy tracks the 8 and goes into Edgar's zone, which means there must be space somewhere else, or Edgar follows the 9 away, which leaves us flipped upside down, yeah? We've got a midfielder in defence and a defender in midfield. Not a huge problem but that simple exchange of players has disrupted us, confused us, created gaps.
"If you can see this happening, you can split your roles. Edgar takes the 8, Jimmy takes the 9. We have saved ourselves a couple of sprints, we're still in our structure. Yes? Everyone happy with that?"
Edgar said, "How are they deciding what the pairs are?"
"I don't know. My guess is that with every attack, the 9 chooses and the others work around him. Everything he does is the opposite of someone else, and then if the 11 and 7 are also making opposite moves, it looks like pure chaos. But it isn't. It's very simple. One simple instruction to create absolute havoc..."
My voice trailed away. Was this the 'one simple trick' I needed to create Hybridism? It felt close, but not quite what I was looking for. I would test it with the under 12s on Monday. One last session before I headed out to Milan.
"What's the second thing, boss?" said Sandra, trying to get me back in the dressing room.
"Yeah. Er..." I stared at my squiggly lines. "Have you seen the way they are playing around Wibbers in their build-up? It's the same thing but with the defenders and the nearest DM. One moves diagonally left, back, so the other will go the other way, to his right. They're making these big triangles with that and we're getting nowhere near it. Which is fine because it means we aren't falling into the trap, but if we do need a goal, we can do a couple of big surprise pushes. I'll sneak Youngster up here, and he'll sprint at the guy who's making the opposite move. James? Watch them do this, yeah? Watch how they split, just in case."
I pushed the flipchart away and looked around at my troops. I wanted to give them one quick blast of hype, but try as I might, all I could do was grin on one side of my mouth. Sandra said, "What are you doing?"
I lifted my hands shoulder high and clenched them into fists. "I fucking love this! That's five halves back to back that we've matched good Premier League teams." Get a grip, Max! Say something cool. Say something stirring. "I just fucking love it!"
"Come on, men!" shouted Magnus. "Let's make the gaffer fall in love with us one more time."
***
The second half started great. There were a couple of dicey moments where Edgar, Dumi, and the midfielders tried to anticipate Bournemouth's 'opposite' moves before they had really cracked the code, but from the 55th minute to the 60th, we kept them really quiet. That was promising!
But Dumi's age caught up with him. His Condition started to fall rapidly and I whipped him off, replacing him with Rushy. Magnus moved into the centre back slot, Rushy went to right back but his individual instructions didn't encourage him to go forward. Clean sheet mentality!
Even with Rushy on, our average CA was 151.7. That's what you get when you hire a generational talent and let him do your squadbuilding.
***
61'
Bournemouth pass the ball from the back.
They bypass Roberts with ease.
Number 6 clips a pass wide right. Alloula challenges.
The ball breaks in midfield. Number 8 gets on it and looks up.
There is a lot of movement ahead of him. The striker drops towards the ball.
Magnus Evergreen follows the number 9.
Matt Rush also chases the striker!
He has left a huge gap on Chester's right.
8 plays a neat pass.
11 takes a good first touch, and fires into the net before Wilde can block it!
Owen Elmham slaps the turf in frustration. No clean sheet for him today!
Chester concede their first goal in 248 minutes, a club record at this level.
Matt Rush holds his hands up in apology, but he will want to avoid Owen Elmham for a while.
***
My first reaction was to change everything, to go all-out, but I forced myself to stay calm. We needed to stay as we were for five minutes so that Rushy could ease himself into the match, could recover from his blunder.
Why had he gone sprinting after the striker? Just trying to impress, I guessed. A rush of blood to Rush's head leading to a kick in the teeth.
We stuck to the plan for a while, and once I was satisfied that Rushy wasn't having a total meltdown, I started to think about my options.
"Peter, you ready?"
"I was born ready."
I gestured for Peter and Sandra to come in. "We're going for it. Jimmy off, Gabby off. Peter and me on. We'll do 3-4-3, play fast, play forward. We'll keep Youngster and Leo in the middle; they're both playing well. Lewis left, Rushy right. Me, Wibbers, and Cheb as the forwards. Peter, you'll be key to this because if we're being matched in midfield, you'll need to go forward and be an extra man. Fuck the counters - we have to take a risk."
"No risk, no fun," he said.
"It's so cool when you say it. Sandra, say something cool."
"I saw a man pursuing the horizon."
I clenched my fists. "She fucking nails the assignment - again! I love this club. Let's fuck shit up!"
***
The match turned on its head. From being pretty much attack versus defence, it became attack versus attack. Bournemouth created more chances, and better chances, but in a low-scoring game you sometimes got lucky.
Twice I sent Youngster to be a second striker so that we could try to overwhelm Bournemouth on goal kicks. The first time, we very, very nearly made it work. The second time, they booted the ball long and we recovered it. Good, but I saw their manager responding to my tweak, and doubted they would fall into my trap again. At this level, traps had a tendency to ensnare those who set them. I pushed Youngster into midfield and kept him there.
***
I was the right-sided attacker and played exclusively left-footed for five minutes, tricking Bournemouth's number 2 into thinking I was still hurt. So he was left munching grass when I shaped to cross with my left, cut onto my right, and surged past him.
This was our best moment of the game - I had to make it count. I shaped to shoot, but adjusted my foot at the last second to spin a cross into the path of Cheb. He took it on the half-volley, smacked it at a million miles an hour, top bins... and the keeper saved it in spectacular fashion. Tipped it over the bar. It was great footwork from the dude to reposition himself, because I had deceived him for half a second.
At least we had given the away fans something to cheer. They stood and applauded me all the way to the corner flag, so I blew them kisses and pretended to swoon when they kissed me back. While I was doing that, I was using Masterpiece Theatre to put Magnus and Edgar where I wanted them, and to relocate Peter back to the halfway line. Yeah, we needed a goal, but Bournemouth would rip us a new one if we didn't think about a possible counter-attack.
Just as I was about to take the corner, the ref saw something he didn't like and stopped the game. It was good he did, because the Cherries had sent three players up to the halfway line for the counter!
I turned to their manager and thought, 'You cheeky fuck! That's my move.'
The ref finished his lecture, which was entitled 'I'm The Real Star, Everyone Look At Me.' The three rapid players were still on halfway. There was an imp on my shoulder telling me to go all-in. I turned to the other shoulder expecting to see an angel who would give me the opposite advice, but I had sent Angel to Milan.
I signalled to Peter that he should go into the penalty area.
All or nothing, baby.
I re-placed the ball, stepped back, took a deep breath, and aimed for a spot about two yards in front of the goalie. I imparted so much spin onto the ball that time briefly reversed. It was a pretty delicious corner, tbh, but a defender got a faint touch on it before Edgar could nod it goalwards. The ball slipped off the defender's head, onto the back of Edgar's, went out of the penalty area, was smacked away, and ten seconds later the entire Bournemouth team were by the corner flag, celebrating.
***
There wasn't really time for a stunning comeback and I wasn't in the mood to lose 5-0, so I dropped us into a more defensive shape. I had one sub left and could use it to give one player a boost. Helge, Cole, Roddy Jones, or one of the under 18s?
I went with Cole. If he hit his ceiling soon, he would be a candidate for any expansion of God Save the King. Also, it was good for Morale to know that when you got injured, you didn't get put in the bin.
***
Before showering, I sat in the dressing room and stared at the floor for a while. I was actually gutted. We had done so well, but one mad moment had cost us, had ended our little unbeaten run.
Played 15, won 1, drawn 5, lost 9. Because of the deduction, we had 5 points. Leeds had also lost, so they were 'only' 5 points ahead of us, but the team in 17th had increased the gap. We were 11 points from safety, meaning we needed to pick up four more wins than three other clubs. That felt very, very possible, but if we assumed that we would lose to Arsenal, the Manchester clubs, and Liverpool, then there really weren't many fixtures left. The margins were starting to get tight...
I felt someone staring at me, and sensed it was Matt Rush, wondering how much trouble he was in. I stayed still, letting him stew for a while. He would be feeling awful, would be punishing himself. Good. It would motivate him to become a better player.
Before I addressed the lads, I checked one number that had gone up.
XP balance: 21,393
Solid. I would empty the perk shop while I was in Milan, and I would have something to keep me busy while I was driving up to Venice.
I pushed myself to my feet, and was about to speak, but Rushy got there first. "Lads," he said. Pretty much everyone turned to him. "I fucked up. I cost us the game. I'm sorry."
Short and sweet! Everyone reacted positively to the speech. Everyone except Owen, I noted. "Nicely done, Rushy," I said. "Now sit the fuck down." He did. I went on a little tour of the space while I organised my thoughts. Towels and bags were hurriedly swept out of my way. "Hands up everyone who thinks I'm delusional." A two-thirds majority raised their hands, which was genuinely startling. Most of the people were smiling, though, and I caught on fast. "Hands up everyone who thinks I'm delusional when it comes to football." All the hands went down; I gave a wry smile. "Whaaaat the fuck. Okay so we've got a long trip back north and we're all gonna be various shades of unhappy. I personally am going for a shade called 'quietly seething in a way that is attractive to women'.
"But the reality is that we played well. As we are learning more times than we would like, it's not enough to play well. But playing well is the starting point for everything else we want to achieve, isn't it? We have been playing well, defending stoutly, and it's evident to the entire world that we're generating more and more goal threat.
"Now, if we were playing Arsenal next, I think I would be in a bad mood for longer, but next up is Ipswich and we are going to fucking batter them, and when we do that, the sun will come out, the birds will sing, and, er... the cheese will melt in our omelettes just how we like it."
"I have stopped mixing proteins," said Pascal. "And I'm off gluten," he added, with a hint of smugness.
I sighed. "Thanks for that. I nominate Youngster to sit next to you on the bus home and hear all about it."
Youngster groaned. "Why me? Rushy is the one who cocked up!"
That made everyone chuckle. Everyone apart from Owen Elmham, who was still pissed at Rushy. I pointed at him. "Owen, mate. Do you want to play against Ipswich?"
He couldn't believe his ears. As a Norfolk boy, he loved beating the Suffolk mob. He had double motivation, in that a player from Ipswich had hooked up with his ex-wife. "You know I do."
"Then give Matt Rush a fucking hug and tell him he's your special pumpkin. For fuck's sake, I'm not spending six hours watching the fumes come out of your fucking head. He fucked up, get over it!"
Owen stood, glared at me, then dipped into a sort of crouch and tensed every muscle he could. He went, "Arrrrrrgh!" Slowly, he released his limbs, shook it off, and went over to Rushy. "You are my special pumpkin," he said, in a menacing voice.
There followed a hug that started out awkward and turned into a real one. Owen lifted Rushy half an inch off the floor, then Rushy tried to do the same.
"Good," I said. "Heart-warming. But Rushy, you did done cocked up, as Brooke would say, so I have devised a suitable punishment. You ready to hear this?"
Stoicism flooded into him like a superpower. "I am."
"You're going to come with me and stand in front of a bunch of small people with poor social skills, people who ask outrageous questions and remember everything you say and use it against you."
He nodded. "You want me to front up to the media, got it. I can do that."
"Bzzz," I said. "Fuck the media, they get nothing from us that we aren't contractually obliged to give them. No, I'm talking, of course, about you coming to help me train the under 12s."
His stoic mask slipped, revealing a huge, relieved smile. "Oh-kay! Yes, haha."
"Last thing from me before I hit the shower. Pretty much everyone was good today, but a couple of special shoutouts. Rushy, one positive is that after that mistake, you played well. That's a very good trait, and a valuable one. Leo, I'd say that was the best you've played for us. You're on the right path. Cole, keep doing your reconditioning but as far squad planning is concerned, you're fully fit. Welcome back."
***
Monday, December 4
I was all packed and ready to fly to Italy the next morning to meet up with the Saltney Town boys on their glorious Champions League crusade. The Welsh champions playing a top-tier match against Inter Milan! It can't have happened before in the entire history of the sport. It was going to be a lot of fun, and I couldn't wait to start playing with the Perk Construction Kit.
First, though, there was the small matter of Matt Rush's punishment and my last session with the under 12s for a while.
They were gathered around us, beaming with delight that I had brought another first-team player with me. "Guys, this chap is called Clem Fandango."
"No, he isn't!" they shrieked.
"Wow. Okay, he's Matt Rush. You think you know all about him, but there are two facts you don't know. One is that he has never eaten a peri peri chicken without getting megahiccups, and two is that he's actually the co-inventor of kick and rush, alongside a dude called Joe Kick. That's where it got its name. Kick and Rush." A dozen blank faces stared back at me. "Why aren't you squealing with delight? You don't know kick and rush?"
Patrick Rhodes, the gobbiest of the group, said, "Do you mean rush keeper?"
Rush keeper was a rule variation in short-sided games. If you shouted 'rush keeper', the goalie was allowed to leave his area, so you could create overloads while risking counters. It was generally more fun for everyone. "In Manchester, we call it fly keeper," I said.
"Why?" said a perplexed kid.
"Because you're allowed to fly away from your nest."
"Oh. Fly keeper. All right."
"Yeah but kick and rush is, er... When I was in Germany they used it to describe long ball tactics. Like you would kick the ball long and run after it, but I grew up thinking of it as another name for pass and move. Give and go. You give the ball to someone and... I mean..." With my right hand, I chopped the air.
"Go?" said Rhodes.
"Yeah. You know what? I don't have any brainwaves today so let's train that. Get in your teams and play however you want. Show Rushy what you've got and once he has scanned you, we'll coach you and stuff."
The kids split into two groups, four teams, and launched into action. Their little 2-2 or 3-1 formations kept dissolving into Relationist structures and re-emerging into coherent shapes. At times, all four teams were doing Bestball, which meant there were no bodies, just tons of little legs scampering around either side of us. Matt was struggling to keep track of it all, and it was very clearly giving him a headache, so I told him to focus on just one match.
After a few minutes, I blew my whistle to pause it, sent Rushy and the zebra team into their goalmouth, called the red team over, and said, "Okay, you're gonna be my kick and rush dudes. When you get the ball, look for a pass, play the ball, then run ahead. Don't think too much, just run. If there are too many in the attack, one of the forward players should do the opposite move, i.e. get behind the ball. Did you see the Bournemouth match? That's what they were doing, sort of. Two go up, one goes back." Their faces told me I was making it too complicated. "Okay, forget all that. Here's the rule. When you pass the ball, I want you to run at least five yards ahead, okay? That's the only rule for now. Let's see it."
I blew the whistle and walked to the edge of the playing area, which had been marked out by cones.
The zebra team played the normal, Chesterish mix of quick passing, positional discipline, and Relationism.
The red team did the same but with one extra instruction: kick and rush.
It didn't take long for my neck and scalp to be covered in goosebumps.
Something amazing was happening.
It seemed like the red players were launching themselves forward in wave after wave, fast, intense, relentless. The lads were bright enough that once they started to play, once they saw that there were too many bodies beyond the ball, someone had to drop deep to create a new passing option, but once that player moved the ball to someone else, he had to sprint ahead. Five yards, drawing a defender. New pass, new sprint, new gaps in the lines. Wheels within wheels, fractal explosions and implosions.
Pass, move, give, go, kick, rush. The constant whirlwind of movement annihilated the zebra team's attempts to keep a structure, and because the player who passed the ball had to run somewhere, he often rushed to create a ladder pass, three players lined up and the middle one letting the ball go through his legs. The guy at the end of the ladder would touch the ball off, remember the rule, and sprint forward, drawing more defenders, creating more space. It was ceaseless attacking intent, threat generation dialled up to the max.
"Holy fucking shit!" I said.
"The fuck did you say to them?!" said Rushy.
It wouldn't have worked on its own. This wasn't something you could go to a random school team and expect them to master. It needed positional awareness and it needed a good knowledge of Relationism. This was the fusion of two football schools. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. My heart was pounding. If this was my hybrid, no-one would be able to copy it. Clubs would need to train Relationism first, before they could achieve this. I couldn't think of a single club in the country that would be willing or able to go through the pain.
Holy mother of God... I had carved out a structural advantage!
Or had I? My nerve endings were on fire, but I forced myself to stay calm. This was just the first experiment. I blew the whistle, trying not to look how I felt, lest I scare the children. "Rushy," I croaked. "Take over this group."
"What do I do?"
"Let them teach you how to play, bro; they're level 9000." I went to the other pair of teams, sent the pirates away, and got the yellow polka dot team into a huddle. "Lads. New rule. Every time you pass the ball, you have to run five yards towards their net. If you don't run five yards, whatever the situation, I'm gonna give the pirates one goal. Okay? Let's go."
Mouth dry, throat tight, I watched without blinking as a bunch of twelve-year olds played dream football, fantasy football. Fast, frenetic, full of flair, but controlled. Every player understood exactly what his teammate was going to do when he got the ball, so every player knew where he needed to be. Complete clarity for one team, complete bewilderment for the oppo.
The yellows scored.
They scored again.
The pirates scored but the polkas scored two more. This style was devastating.
"Holy fucking shit," I whispered. "We're gonna win it all."
In the movie Avengers: Endgame, there's a moment where Captain America says something that Marvel fans understand, but that leaves casual fans scratching their heads. I did the same as I watched the birth of Bestball 2.0, Synthetical Soccer, Rushing Roulette.
With a cackle, I threw my hands up and yelled, "Hail hybrid!"
...
Thanks for your support!
We've just started another heatwave here so I'm gonna slow down, look after myself. The last one was a few days, but this one is endless.
Next chapter next FRIDAY.
I'll use the little gap to publish SS1 on Amazon etc, hopefully, and to think about what scenes I want to include in Italy.
Italy? That's right! We're doing it.
Chapter 11 working title: Max Handles the Angel Situation Exactly How You Want Him To.