13.
Bad guys move fast. By the time I had showered and dressed, all kinds of news awaited me.
Ipswich Town were 'pursuing sanctions.' The right-leaning member of parliament for Chester South had tweeted that I should 'stick to football.' The English Football Association were investigating whether I had 'brought the game into disrepute'.
Regress were frothing at the mouth, and their bots were flooding social media with personal attacks on me - I hoped their servers in Moscow could handle the workload. TalkSHITE were 90% against me, as you might expect from a radio station owned by The Sun.
The Daily Mail had labelled me a 'nutter' - British for a crazy person - and featured me under the headline 'Nutter Woke Nonsense'.
MD and Brooke, were, to put it mildly, perturbed. They'd had to sit next to the CEO while I was blasting him and unlike me, they couldn't turn off their phones and tune out the right-wing griftoverse. Brooke had to explain to sponsors why their ads hadn't shown in the match. MD had those conversations plus had to deal with an unhappy girlfriend.
Regress were big in Wales, so Gwen and the Welsh FA had come under instant pressure to sack me as the national team manager. In a brief, fractious meeting, MD wondered if it wasn't too late for me to apologise. I replied with something along the lines of, 'How about we drive to Manchester and bundle Mr. Yalley onto the nearest plane, save Regress the trouble?' MD pinched his nose and went, 'I don't know if I can keep doing this'. Brooke didn't exactly rush to my defence, so I said, 'First they came for the Ghanaians and I did not speak out, then they came for the Texans and no-one was left to speak for me.' She gave me a look so withering the plastic toggles on my hoodie melted. Didn't she like poems?
Worst of all, I had an email from Jacob telling me it was likely I would stop being on the cover of Soccer Supremo.
So I was on the verge of losing the Wales job, two of my most important allies, and at least 200 grand a year, but as my role model Paul Braun liked to say, all publicity is good publicity. Right?
***
Tuesday, December 12
I awoke to good news about my latest perk request, but generally felt at a low ebb. The high of punching a fascist was gone and now there was only an ache in the pit of my stomach, a feeling of loneliness and worry. How bad was this going to get?
I ate poorly and trained shit.
Briggy appeared near the end of the session to find me on the touchline, sitting glumly. "This time you have gone too far," she said.
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Do you really believe that?"
"Not in the slightest."
She smiled and gave me a friendly nudge. "Sometimes, just sometimes, you do something that lifts my heart. Here," she said, handing me her phone.
It was showing a post on a social media app. There was a link to a clip of the end of my speech, below which was some text in Hungarian. There was an English translation:
When the silent majority finds its voice, dictators tremble.
"This is cool," I said, "but I've told you before to turn off video autoplay."
"My phone, my rules. But Max, don't you know who that is? Look at the picture, the name."
"No."
"He's the leader of the opposition in Hungary. He's going to win the next election and kick Fuckface out of power."
"I'll believe it when I see it. The right don't play fair."
"Neither do you."
I looked at her, wondering if she was referencing the curse. "What?"
"Never mind. You're massive in Hungary, a symbol of the resistance. Be proud of yourself." She eyed me as if checking I remembered Polish Anna's last request - make us proud. How could I forget? Satisfied, Briggy said, "There's a phone call you need to take. I'm going to set it up. Max? Be pleasant or I will have to defend my country's honour."
That was a fairly baffling comment, but she dialled and soon enough, handed her phone to me. I said, "Hai, moshi moshi?"
"Arigato, Max!" The voice was incredibly familiar, full of warmth and humour with a German accent. "How is your morning going?"
"My morning? Wonderful. I'm public enemy number one... again."
"Haha, not in my house! Don't tell the Liverpool fans, but I like your style very much. So, listen, I know you are busy fighting the good fight but I wanted to ask you something. What do you think about Peter?"
"Feel free to give me some more context." I wanted to add the caller's name to the end of that statement, but I didn't know it.
"For the German national team! You know, I enjoy very much how Peter plays and last night I did see a new side to him. Breaking the lines with his running as well as his passing. What a performance! The data shows he is improving rapidly, yes? He's perfect for how I want the team to play."
Liverpool... German national...? I shot to my feet. I was speaking to Jurgen fucking Klopp! "You want to use Hybridism with the German national team?"
"What is Hybridism?"
"Nothing, forget I said anything, you wouldn't like it, it doesn't work."
He laughed loud and if I had any doubts it was really Klopp, those doubts were dispelled. "So what do you think? Am I right to be looking at him? When Wales play Germany and he's in our eleven, what do you think?"
"I think, well, there go ten of my tactical options."
"Haha, yes! But you will survive. You are so flexible, so creative. Where did you learn this?"
"From watching you, mate."
He cackled. "Schleimer!"
"Are you watching Ghostbusters?"
"A Schleimer is, ugh, what's the word? A suck-up."
I pretended to be talking to Briggy. "Your national team manager just said that I suck."
I felt Kloppy - as I felt able to call him now that we were superfriends - was wagging a finger. "You are too funny, Max. Too funny."
"So what can I tell Peter? That you're watching him or that he'll be in the next squad?"
"Tell him that he is close."
The back of my neck tingled. Peter Bauer being called up to the Germany squad would be the antidote to some of Regress's poison. They had done their usual 'flood the zone' crap, but I could flood a zone, too. Relentless positivity. Hope not hate. "Can I leak this? A bit of good news would help around here."
"Would it? Ah, because you have been a Plagegeist. Yes of course you can, but would it help if I did it?"
Was that a trick question? Klopp had a very high approval rating in England, especially now that he had left. "Er, yes. Yes, it would."
"I will talk him up in the media, with pleasure. He's a very interesting player to discuss."
"Actually, hang on. Maybe I should get him to sign a new contract first, before his value goes up."
Kloppers laughed hard and long, then came more finger wagging. "You are funny but you are also a bastard. This is good; it is a hard life. I might go to Nottingham; they have two players eligible for Germany."
"Ah, hold up. I'm probably going to rest Peter for that one. I haven't actually told him yet and he'll hate it, but he'll one hundred percent play in the home game to Leicester."
"Leicester don't have any Germans right now... But on the other hand, I can enjoy one of your pre-match speeches in person!"
"They made me promise not to give another speech before a match until this mess blows over. The Leicester game won't be that interesting, I don't think. Routine, run-of-the-mill home win. You're welcome, obvs, but it would be a waste. Peter should be in your squad, Punkt." Full stop, end of discussion. A gust of wind made me feel the cold; I needed to move. "I have to go."
He signed off, I gave Briggy her phone and jogged onto the pitch to take part in the end of the session. The ball was passed to me. My first touch took me past Lewis and I sped into the penalty area. Peter Bauer came across to close down the space. His body shape wasn't quite right so I dabbed the ball through his legs. Marek rushed out of the goal to narrow the angle, but I clipped the ball past him, shin-height, and into the net.
After treating everyone to a little bit of fantasy football, I treated them to a song. "I'm no clown, I won't back down, I don't need you to tell me what's going down! Get in! Maxy one-nil!"
As I walked away, Peter said, "You're in a good mood all of a sudden. Was it Caramel on the phone?"
I grinned. "Someone with even whiter teeth. Hey, Peter, how do you feel about Hafnium?"
"I don't have strong feelings either way."
I reversed course so I could put my hand on his shoulder. "You'd better learn what it is, bro, because you're gonna be playing heavy metal football."
Peter eyed me. "This is one of those things that sounds amazing in your head, but..."
"I was just on the phone with my boy Kloppo. He wants to take you to the toppo. Peter Bauer? You have ascended! You are this close to forcing your way into the next Germany squad. One more great performance will push you over the line, I'm sure. Leicester City are gonna fucking get it!"
Peter's Morale shot to the moon, went sky-high even as I told him (indirectly) that he wouldn't be playing against Forest. I was the best manager in the world, mate! No wonder the big dogs were calling to ask for my help.
***
After lunch, I went back down to South Wales to gather experience points by watching Cardiff play Chelsea in the AOK Cup quarter final.
The person in charge of reserving the tickets was surprised I had turned up, as if she expected that I would hide in a cave while the storm I had unleashed was raging. Er, no. I had calculated that if I went out every night, I could boost Pascal Bochum before the Leicester City match. He would help to keep us in the Premier League, which was the single biggest thing I could do to piss off the nation's gammons. No way was I staying home.
The match was fascinating. Cardiff were a customer of Lit, thanks to Scott Conrad, and I could see our cameras dotted along the base of the pitch and at various points around the roofs, but all my focus was on the tactics screens; this was my first time seeing Evaristo since I had fought against him in Bologna when I was Bayern Munich manager.
Back then, he had coached a squad of lesser players to amazing heights and he had given me my first glimpse at what I was now calling Hybridism. Evaristo's version of Hybridism had actually been more sophisticated than what I was proposing, but tonight he was deploying a bog-standard 4-2-3-1. I couldn't tell if that was because he was new to the job, because these Chelsea players were too stupid to learn his style, or if he had simply given up on being a trailblazer.
I briefly treated myself to a little daydream. What if the way I had used Bayern Munich against his Bologna team had unnerved him to the point that he had abandoned his system? He had turned out to be a prick, so making him lose confidence in himself would have been satisfying in the extreme. The irony, of course, was that I had still never seen anyone do anything quite like him - he was genuinely brilliant and thrillingly original.
At full time, while I was bringing up the new perk shop, a gammony Welshman shuffled towards me and said, "Keep politics out of sport, Best."
"What's your name?"
"Charles."
"Fuck off, Charles." He had very clearly spent much of the match hyping himself up to say something to me, something he could brag about on his Facebook groups, but as with most bullies he could dish it out but he couldn't take it. He looked hurt, hunted, wounded. "What?" I said. "You thought I would back down? Don't start fights you can't finish, Charles. Seriously, fuck off before I make you the most famous man in Wales."
The threat was beyond his single-brain-celled comprehension; he shuffled away. People who overheard the exchange gave me uncertain looks; I stared them all out. When that was all done, I faced the pitch and went internal.
That morning I had got confirmation that the women would be able to get more PA upgrades. God Save the Queen 2: When the Going Gets Tough was available for 6,000 XP - the same cost as for the men.
The original God Save the Queen perk had been structured slightly differently than the male version. The women's one contained two more Attributes, which was the imps trying to help me out by giving me access to more options, including three of the best ones: Passing, Technique, and Finishing.
There were 21 Attributes not covered by that first perk, so I had expected the expansion packs to come in three groups of seven. And behold!
'When the Going Gets Tough' included seven Attributes that were useful if your team was under the cosh, if you were having to dig deep to snatch a win or to cling onto a draw: Aggression; Bravery; Determination; Influence; Marking; Tackling; Work Rate.
Not the sexiest list, tbh, but getting one perk approved confirmed that I would be able to get at least two more, which meant that someone at Chester was gonna get some PA boosts.
Who, though?
Last season, I had given a boost to Angel even though she was nowhere near her ceiling, but that was to test what happened if you increased an Attribute beyond 20. This season, there was no new knowledge to garner, so the optimum use of the perk was to expand someone's PA. The problem was that the squad was so immensely talented that none of the key players were anywhere close to their peak.
My options were Queenie, a PA 94 goalkeeper. Great person, bubbly character, awesome to have in training and on long away trips, but she was soon to be the third-choice goalie. Absolutely not an option.
Charlotte had been capped at PA 101 for a while. By blasting her with all four upgrades I could get her to 105 this season, 110 the next. That was a LOT of upgrades to give a player who would still be nowhere near the standard. I would be better giving them to Meredith Ann to speed her development.
Mari Hughes (97/110) could maybe hit her limit this season, and she was obviously a better midfield option than Charlotte, but still wasn't much of a candidate. What's the difference between being 110 or 120 when the players ahead of you are over 150?
Alwen, a centre forward, had smacked into her cap of 101. Better to give upgrades to a forward than a midfielder, but still, she wasn't anywhere close to being an option.
So unless I bought someone in January, the only real candidate was Kit Hodges. She was 122 out of 123, so I could start pumping her up pretty soon. An extra point of Finishing plus an injection of Determination and she would probably climb to CA/PA 126. With two more upgrades, she would get to PA 128. Repeat the whole thing at the start of next season and I was looking at creating a CA 134 striker.
Then again, next season Haley Goodhew would peak, and I would be very tempted to give her a boost or two. A dominant starting goalie was way more valuable than a backup striker. But Haley would be 33, while Kit would be 26...
I said something that I doubted had ever been said before: "The women are far more complicated than the men..."
XP balance: 2,960
I wasn't all that close to being able to afford these perks and I would buy the male versions first, so I still had time to think about it. I doubted I would change my mind about this season, and even if I divided next season's perks between Kit and Haley, I would find myself fretting about Kit's contract expiry.
Tomorrow, I would talk to Kit about signing a contract that would tie her down for an extra season. If she refused to extend, that would change my calculus. Yep, that was the plan. Extend Kit, grind for XP, send her on courses as cover for her new abilities.
I felt someone was staring at me. There were still plenty of stragglers in the stadium, guys who had hung around after the final whistle to let the concourses and car parks clear. An average white man was filming me on his phone. Just standing there, phone horizontal, pointing it at me, absolutely shameless. Daily Mail? The Sun? TalkSHITE? Regress? Southampton FC?
I opened the Perk Construction Kit and filled the suggestion box.
Give me a perk that tells me who people are and/or who they work for.
I hit send before I really thought about the wording, but it didn't matter. If the imps translated the idea in a strange way, I could reformulate my request more precisely. I was under no obligation to actually buy the perks I dreamed up, though it wouldn't surprise me if the imps had installed a limit on how many items could be in the shop at any time - it could be that I would have to buy some crap to free up space for others.
The guy was still filming me, but because we had Dani I knew that AI lip-reading software was seriously, seriously good. I got my phone out and pretended to chat.
"Hey, babes. Yeah, Chelsea won. Pretty interesting, yep. All right, so you got the hotel room? Cameras set up? Is the escort already there? Wait, how many? Ooh, you cheeky little minx! Marriott Hotel, meet them in the lobby in an hour, got it. Haha, no I didn't use all my energy in training, haha. Okay, see you soon."
I stayed where I was for a few minutes, deep in thought. If Kit was getting the boosts this season, where did that leave Charlotte? I was going to see her tomorrow afternoon; we could have a proper talk about her future.
When I got up and slid along the aisle, the mystery journalist had vanished. If he had gone to the Marriott Hotel to film me meeting Emma and some escorts, I would laugh myself to sleep... on the other side of the city.
***
Wednesday, December 13
The imps came through, in style.
New Perk Available: Parasocial
Cost: 200 XP
Effects: Reveals the name, job title, and employer of pertinent people.
At first, I found the wording so vague as to be almost meaningless. What did pertinent mean? But I hadn't ever bought a perk that wasn't useful in some way, so I paid the price and went down for breakfast.
Right away, the usefulness smacked me in the face. Six people in the breakfast room had 'profiles'. Four were the refereeing crew from last night's AOK Cup match. Their names hung in the air above their heads, along with their Condition scores. One was at 55% and if he had been one of my players, I would have sent him straight to the medical rooms.
I made a beeline for that table, crouched, and spoke to the dude. "Billy, hey, Max Best."
Amazement. "Max, yes, hi."
"I couldn't help but notice that you slowed down near the end last night. Did you tweak something?"
He wasn't sure how to react, so his face did a bit of everything. "Er... yes?"
I gave him a friendly punch in the arm. "Don't train until you've had that checked out, okay? I think you've pulled a quad; you don't want to make that worse."
The main ref said, "You saw that? From up in the stands?"
"Max Best sees all and knows all," I said, rising to my full height.
One of the others said, "What are this weekend's lottery numbers?"
"77."
"It only goes up to 59."
"Max Best," I proclaimed, "does not see and know all. By the way, Bravo dived for that free kick they scored from."
"We know," said the ref. "We watched it back later when everyone was complaining about it. The VAR didn't think it was a clear enough mistake to overturn the decision."
"Hmm," I said. I didn't want to make a big deal of it but crap decisions like that could get managers fired.
The injured guy said, "We need your special software! I hear it's amazing!"
"Yeah," I agreed. "That would have helped, actually. It would have given you a 3D map of the whole incident. See it from all angles, spin the camera around. You'd have seen the guy was already falling when the defender clipped him. No way are you giving that free kick."
"When will it be ready?"
I scratched my cheek. "Not sure. Prototype by next season? All I know is that developing software is crazy expensive. It's literally painful to see the bills." I tilted my head. "Worth it, I suppose, if we can get better decisions without slowing the game down too much." I knocked the table. "Good chat, lads. Good process."
I moved off towards the buffet, positioning myself so I could see the refs. They had little 'information' icons by their profiles. Clicking them told me I could easily hide the profiles and bring them back. I tried it, bosh, perfect. The imps had been unusually helpful with this thing! Why? What it meant was that I could go to a new location, scan to see who was there, then hide the profiles and live like a normo. It was a sensationally good perk, so why had it only cost 200 XP?
The identity of the fifth guy offered no clue. He was an agent with 40 million quid of talent under his management - the profile helpfully listed the players. He must have been in town to watch one of his guys, who played for Cardiff. Very, very, useful to get this info outside a football context. This perk would supercharge my ability to make deals at the Transfer Room summits, or any venue that had a lot of agents. Me knowing their names would be the ultimate flattery, and knowing which players they controlled would let me use my time efficiently.
Again I asked myself why this incredible perk was so cheap.
I decided it was all about the sixth guy. He was a journalist working for BBC Radio Wales, meaning he was one of the good guys. But what if he had been a Daily Mail lowlife who was secretly following me around?
Now I would know. Now I would be able to protect myself. Good imps!
I was so pleased with this new power that I loaded a plate and sat on the BBC guy's table and chatted with him for twenty minutes. I don't want to brag but I made his day. Near the end, I said, "I'd offer you an exclusive interview but I won't be the Wales manager for long. Regress have their hooks in everything and everyone's terrified of them."
"Come on," he said. "You've got them running scared! They're bricking it! That's why they're going at you so hard. They're doing well in Wales but no-one's more popular than you. Maybe Gareth Bale..."
The back of my neck got tingly again. Flood the zone! I leaned closer to him. "I've done more for Wales than any of these Regress pricks. I need to get the message out, don't I? Why don't you whip up a quick radio documentary about 3 R Welsh? Bunch of salt-of-the-earth Welsh lads I managed. I took them to the final of their Army Football cup. The doc would focus on them and their role in creating Dragonball, which is now used to great effect by every age group in the national team setup. You could talk to Peter Brown and Rex Jones. Those are a couple of teenagers who are getting drenched in trophies and medals while wearing a Welsh badge, Welsh kit, Welsh colours. Every country in Europe is looking at Wales and Saltney Town going what the fuck is happening over there?" I ripped the head off a croissant. "I don't like to ask for help, but if you want to see Wales at a World Cup..."
He thought about it. "I'd love to, but it would take ages. You say whip up a quick documentary, but these things take months..."
"What the fuck, BBC," I said, shaking my head. "Bro, I'll email you a 28-minute audio documentary this Sunday. You play it to your boss, he loves it, you broadcast it early next week. You can take the credit, put your name on it, say you've been working on it in your free time and it has taken you many sleepless nights. You get a promotion, win awards, all that jazz."
"What are you saying? I can't do that!"
"Jesus. All right, never mind that. It's better if it doesn't say 'Made by Seal Studios' on it, but do you want it or not?"
"Probably?"
I looked up at the ceiling. The bad guys had a playbook, had machinery. They could whip up an attack ad in ten minutes and have it on the air in twenty. The good guys were so slow that by the time they had put on their armour, they had already taken fifty daggers to the back. I knocked on the table, told the guy it was nice to meet him, then went to my room and called Sophie. She listened, made notes, asked questions, and told me she would get right on it. "We'll have a rough cut by the time you play Forest."
***
I drove north to Bumpers, arriving in time to join the end of training. Then I watched the end of the women's session before taking Kit Hodges, that most gorgeous of redheads, into one of the small meeting rooms. She was on £1500 a week and had 18 months left on her contract.
"Kit," I said.
"Max," she said.
Normally, our meetings started with us trying not to grin because we both knew she would say or do something flirty to get me to blush, but today she seemed subdued. At first, I assumed she was trying to be more professional after Sophie's outburst about Angel in Venice, but something told me this went beyond that. I leaned away from her, giving myself a more widescreen view. "What are you doing?" I said.
"What do you mean?"
"You're being strange. There's something going on but I can't tell what it is."
"I'm nervous. You haven't spent much time with us this season, now you've brought Angel back and you've asked me to come for a private meeting."
I relaxed. "Oh, okay, got it. No, it's nothing like you're thinking. The opposite, in fact. I'm as happy with you as with any player across both squads. You've taken a back seat to Elsa Lund but you haven't complained, you've just kept working and you've scored goals in the Nando's Cup when you've had minutes. No no no it's all mint, all top. I want to know if you would be interested in extending your contract by a year."
"Extending?" she said, frankly amazed. "What about Angel?"
"What about her? Inter Milan was a disaster, she's a year away from being as good as you, and her contract is ending. But even if she stays, I need three quality options when we're in the Champions League. Your position is rock solid, Kit. What's brought this on is that I've been thinking about sending players to elite training courses. Details to be decided but I'm talking about hiring Linford Christie to teach players to sprint, learning footwork from gold-medal fencers, doing cutting-edge VR stuff with the world's top megabrains. World-class training, science-fiction stuff, really pushing the envelope of what's possible."
"Whoa."
"I know, right? I'm gonna send some men, some women, see how it all goes. It's an experiment, but a very expensive one, so I don't want to give it to someone who's unhappy. Don't want to invest six figures in a secret Regress voter who hates it here and thinks I'm a bald fraud."
Kit nodded. "You mean Kisi Yalley."
I laughed. "Funny."
"I'm happy," she said. "And intrigued. Why me?"
"Hmm," I said, wondering how honest to be. I shuffled on my chair and eyed her seriously. "One thing is that I can send you somewhere for a couple of weeks because I've got cover in your position, but the main thing is that DOVE thinks you're near your limit, and that's my read, too."
"My limit?" she said, eyes darting around.
I unlocked my phone and showed her some player radars. These were circles broken into segments with labels such as 'shots', 'goals', 'touches in opponent's box', and so on. The more a segment was filled, the better the player was at that particular facet of the game. "This is you two years ago. One year ago. Now. Tremendous improvement, but it's slowing and the trend is, uh, terminal. Don't worry, almost no-one knows about this. If we do have to sell you, I don't want other clubs seeing this data, do I, because I want to rinse them.
"But I'm gambling that with the right prompts you can, you know, push past this apparent boundary. I'm gambling that I can get some extra oomph out of you. To do that, I need you to commit to staying the rest of this season and all of next. If you're not happy by the summer of, er, 2030, of course I'll let you go, but I'm talking about investing serious, serious amounts of money in you so... yeah. Extend and I'll do my absolute utmost to kick you to a higher level and that's a triple-lock promise."
"What's my plan B?"
"Er... You go back down to a lower level, like you did when you came to us."
"You mean to WSL 2 or something?"
I smiled. "No. To Man United or Liverpool."
She eyed me, with some of her natural flirtiness emerging. "That's a lower level, is it?"
I couldn't help it; I got cheeky. "Do I need to show you the league table?"
"No." She was quiet for a moment. "Same deal but longer?"
I shrugged. "We can bump your pay if you're motivated by such trifles."
She got a highly attractive twinkle in her eye. "Sadly, I am."
"Two grand a week," I said.
She looked all the way to the right, all the way to the left, then into my soul. That was a hefty pay rise. "You're joking."
"I'm not joking. I don't think anyone's gonna offer you anything like two K a week, so I know you'll stay here, which means I'll feel good about investing in you." I shook my head, almost sadly. "I'm actually a genius."
"You know what would be even more genius? Two thousand five hundred."
"You know what would be even more genius?" I said. "Putting you in the bomb squad, not giving you another minute, and vindictively letting your career fizzle out."
She nodded, sagely, then said, "On the other hand, you don't have many redheads, so I'm willing to bet you wouldn't do that."
I stared at her.
She said, "On reflection, two thousand a week is highly motivational and I'm more than willing to let you tie me down and put myself in your hands."
"Jesus Christ," I said, leaning back in admiration for her flirt game. I thought of a great line that would make her laugh, but I decided to be boring so that Sophie wouldn't tell me off again. "The contract will be exactly the same with two numbers changed, so we can get it sorted today and we'll find the right time to announce it. How does that sound?"
"Sounds good," she said, with her Morale up. "Sounds great." She shook her head. "Count me in. Count everyone in. Hearing Angel talk about Inter Milan has freaked everyone out, including the girls from Barcelona. The grass isn't always greener on the other side..."
"You know what is greener?"
"What?"
"Your new pay packet. Bosh! High five!"
***
After agreeing terms with Kit, I met Charlotte in the car park. "Hello to the dictator," she said.
I looked behind me to see who she was talking to - there was no-one around. "What?"
"Haven't you seen this new Regress stuff?" She had her phone in my face before I could tell her I didn't want to know.
It was a meme in which I was dressed as a general, with medals and little military sashes and stuff. "Er... This is them attacking me? I look really hot in that outfit."
"Yeah, they're not bright. But we agreed you would stop telling the women's team how hot you are." I groaned, but she laughed and said, "Just joking. Or am I?"
"Christ," I said. "Get in the car."
"Si, generalissimo. At once. Where are we going?"
"Sandy Lane."
I started driving, but when we went towards Chester instead of to Saltney, Charlotte turned in her seat and said, "You missed the road."
"It's a different Sandy Lane," I said. "There's the one Saltney Town live on, and there's one, like, a mile away. Don't you think that's too close to have two streets with the same name? If I was actually a dictator, I would change one. Life in my city would be perfect."
We followed the path of the River Dee, going three-quarters of the distance to the house I had bought for Bonnie and Dylan. "Is it true you're getting binned off from Soccer Supremo?"
"Looks that way, yeah."
"Ouch. That'll hit you in the wallet."
"It's worse for my ego; I've liked being the Supremo. But if 30% of their sales are to fascists, they can't associate with me. It's just more motivation to get to the very top, you know? Win leagues, Champions Leagues, go to World Cups. If Wales bin me off, there are other countries, and spite’s a fantastic motivator. Okay, where's the entrance? God, it's hidden. See this hedge? Everything behind there belongs to the house." I laughed. "How do you get in?"
We were visiting a unique property that had come on the market, a grade 2 listed building called Walmoor Hill or Douglas Castle. It was a local landmark that had its own Wikipedia page. Imagine owning a house that had a Wikipedia page! That was what levelling up looked like.
It was going for 1.9 million pounds, and it was absolutely stupendous. It looked like a castle, with crenellations, dark stonework, and a tower. The grounds were extensive and splendid, close to the city but utterly private and secluded. It was magical. A scaled-down Hogwarts with a Tesco and a Nando's just down the road. I tried to convince myself that I should buy it, thinking that if I could persuade Charlotte, the maths would make sense.
"It's got 7 bedrooms in total," I said. "So we could rent it out as a swanky hotel for referees or UEFA delegates."
"Remind me why you're expanding your property empire?"
"I have to assume I'm losing all my sponsors, plus every time I get attacked by gammons, I feel an urgent need to get richer. It's like I'm building a protective shell around me. Also," I said, slowly, "done right, this will make me richer and I can use that money to do things that will piss off my enemies."
"Like what?"
"Top secret, soz."
"Yeah, I shouldn't pry."
I brushed my hand over an ornamental hedge. "Okay, since you're being chill about it, I've decided to double down and really, really make sure West Didsbury get promoted this season. Until now they have been bobbing along in the top three with loads of Exit Trial kids getting loads of minutes. I'm very openly and publicly going to rent their advertising boards for the rest of the season at a cost of one hundred thousand pounds. The boards will read: Not Here, Not Ever. That's all they'll say until June, a six-month-long middle finger to Regress.
"I don't know what West will do with the money, obviously, because I don't own the club, but if I were them I would persuade Marcus Wainwright to leave Bruno's Magpies. They're out of Europe anyway and he's a League One quality striker. If he agrees - for example by taking a hundred grand signing-on bonus - he's way too good for the National League and he'll just slaughter everyone. Then next season I'll have a club in League Two that's even more full of Nutter Woke Nonsense than I am."
Charlotte pushed her short hair away from her ear. "Sometimes you are so complicated it's crazy you get anything done. Is this right? You are going to send Marcus Wainwright, a top striker, to a shit league, to blast your way to the title. This will raise the profile of your vegan hotdog football club and their non-stop left-wing antics will give ulcers to Regress voters."
"Yes."
"Great. Love it. But what's it got to do with Chester Hogwarts?"
"Dropping an unplanned hundred grand on West is going to make my supply of money dwindle. I don't like it when my supply of money dwindles, Charlotte. Money go up, that's the plan. So I need to make some extra dough to balance my, uh, gift to the good people of South Manchester. Most of the houses I've bought, I've paid all-cash, so I'm not worried about being over-leveraged. With this one, I'll put a smallish deposit, one that won't put a massive dent in my bank balance, so I'll still have cash if I need it for my mum, but I'll be getting a little bit of a profit after the cost of the mortgage, and that will pay for me spaffing money at West Didsbury. That makes sense, right? Emma said I was talking horseshit but I think it's totally logical."
"She doesn't want you to buy another house?"
"She doesn't care either way, says it's my money. She'd just rather I didn't try to explain myself after a long, stressful day when I can barely form sentences and she's trying to watch obscure Reality TV shows. She generally approves of me making this whole property thing more professional. Did I tell you I was changing the name of the company that owns all these buildings?"
"No."
"We're gonna call it: Low Blocks Limited."
"Low Blocks. Brilliant." Charlotte looked up at the exterior of Chester Hogwarts, then opened the brochure, which had all the details plus the layouts. "Using this as a hotel is right out, Max. It has the wow factor, it's Instagrammable as hell, but it only has four bathrooms. You can't use it as anything where you would rent rooms individually. Who would pay 300 quid a night to share a bathroom? And it only has seven bedrooms in total so the income potential is minimal, but it's even worse when you think the cottage add-on would be where the hotel manager slash cleaner would live, so you're only talking about six rooms. It's a non-starter."
"Look," I said, leading her to the front door for the second time. "You've just come from the airport, you're tired, you're stressed, you're gobsmacked by the place. Chester Hogwarts! Chogwarts!"
"A boutique hotel called Chogwarts? Max."
"It's got its own Wikipedia page! You go through the front door, what's to your right?"
"A bar," she said, with a hint of a grin, as I slipped behind it and touched the bottles of spirits.
"A bar! Look at the panelling, the detail, the design. Stick a suit of armour in one of the corners and you could rent it to Harry Potter nerds who don't want to go to Scotland. The garden's massive, it's got features for days. Guests will put up with having to wait ten minutes for someone to brush their teeth."
"Nope. This place is completely useless unless you yourself want to live here."
I tutted. I couldn't justify dropping the best part of 2 million on a property that wouldn't generate suitable income; I was nowhere near those levels of wealth. But I wanted to own Chester Hogwarts. "Listen to this," I whined, reading from the Google Reviews of the property. "John gives this place one star, saying, 'The tenant was seen in the gardens strolling around naked singing ‘Murder on the Dance Floor.'" I looked at Charlotte. "You know how much I love Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and the use of the passive voice is genuinely thrilling. So many questions! Was seen in the gardens... by whom? Why does it fall on John to report this? But there's more - check this out." I read again. "It would have been okay except for the overwhelming presence of banana peels. Holy fuck, Charlotte! The guy who lived here is literally my spirit animal."
She sighed and looked around. "It's an unbelievable property, Max, but it's in no way practical. You've been thinking about this for days and you haven't come up with a single way to even cover the mortgage. It's ten times too nice to be a digs, but not suited to being a mini hotel or anything else. Veto."
"Aww," I said, but she was right.
So we got back in the car and whizzed close to the old Roman walls, to a modern, charmless apartment building that was for sale at 1.75 million. Bakers Court (on Steam Mill Street - great name) had three three-bed flats, and six two-beds. 21 bedrooms in total; it was earning ten grand a month in rental income and had zero character.
"This is more like it," said Charlotte, approvingly. Whether she was playing midfield or managing a weirdo's property portfolio, she was incredibly practical. She loved the electric gates that gave access to the flats and the car park. She loved the floor plans and the location and the steady rental potential. There was a convenience store downstairs called Best One. "That's an omen," said Charlotte. "This is a great investment," she said, finally. "If you're thinking of buying this, I approve. If you're thinking of buying this and letting me take a cut of the rent, I approve with all my heart. This is the easiest money going and it'll only get easier when people move out and we can jack up the rents. This area is up-and-coming."
I nodded and dug up the estate agent's mortgage calculator. If I paid the full amount in cash, I would earn myself ten grand a month, but I would lose a huge chunk of my liquid capital. If I put down a deposit of 300 grand, I would make two grand a month in income and still have most of my capital to invest in Temps Perdu. That was a good balance, I felt. I would feel all right about overspending on West Didsbury knowing that Bakers Court was going to replenish my balance.
In a few years, when my life had settled down, I would stop expanding and start paying down the mortgages. And if things went well, Charlotte would still be right there with me. I touched her on the arm. "There are some good cafes round here. Let's go find one."
***
We found a quiet little hipsterish place, got coffees, and settled into a corner. People stared at me, but a quick blast of my new perk assured me none of them were journos.
"Charlotte, here's the thing. You're a good player and you've helped us to get to this point. You believed in me when your mates didn't and that's meaningful. You're a club legend and it's important that we do what's right for you."
"Oh, shit, you're binning me off."
"What the fuck," I said, laughing. "That's the opposite of what I just said!"
"Yeah, but... come on."
"Look, here's the sitch. You're 26 and you're at one of the top clubs in the country but you are getting fewer and fewer minutes every season. The Spanish ladies are ahead of you, taking the minutes in the key games. You're getting some in the Nando's this year, but next year we'll be in the Champions League and that means we won't even be in the Nando's. I'll use Macca and Cheeky in the Champions League and I'll bring in another player of their level so I can rotate the three and continue to dominate in the WSL. So where does that leave you?" I sipped my drink. "Truth is, what makes this weird, is that you are WSL standard. You could play for Brighton, Newcastle, or whoever gets out of the WSL 2 this year. Looks like Charlton again. But there's one thing those places have in common."
"They're miles away."
"Yeah."
"So I couldn't run your properties from there."
"Right." She was currently getting over two thousand pounds a month as a management fee, and if I bought Bakers Court, that would rise to three grand, which was not an amount she could easily walk away from. "But listen, if you want to go to Newcastle, I'll back you a million percent and I'll do my best to make it happen. You're not going to get good wages there, but if you go for, say, three years, when you come back to Chester or Manchester, there will be a job waiting for you. You know I can't go fifteen chapters without buying some new property."
She held onto her coffee with both hands, lifted it, stared into its depths, put it back down. "Can I stay at Chester?"
"Yes, but I have an idea I think might be better."
She looked at me, warily. "What is it?"
"Promise you won't get mad at me for meddling."
"I won't promise that."
"Okay. So I told you I'm renaming the company and getting more serious with it. I want you to become a full-time employee, starting in the summer. You can't spell CEO without Charlotte." She perked up on hearing the three letters. "Yep, you'll be the big boss; we'll get you a dictator outfit. You'll have your hands full running all these buildings, dealing with tenants and co-ordinating with Aff."
"Aff?"
"Yeah, I want him in on this. He's playing for West but his minutes are going down, too, so why not go full-throttle at his next career? I can't imagine buying a building for a million quid without ever seeing it, but if you and Aff told me it was a winner, I probably would sign the papers. That's how much I trust your judgement. But you know I'm a woke nutter; I want to improve my buildings over time, so when a tenant leaves, Aff and his boys will swoop in, fix everything, replace the windows, insulate, add underfloor heating, I don't know, whatever's possible while still being, er, cognisant of the bottom line.
"Low Blocks will also buy rundown buildings, demolish, rebuild, so Aff can do interesting projects from start to finish, not just be a glorified handyman. Our mission statement is to improve the city's housing stock while drenching ourselves in cash. Aff will be busy enough and you'll co-ordinate everything. You won't be able to train full-time but you'll keep fit and play for Saltney."
"Saltney," she said, suddenly unimpressed.
"Yeah. They're crushing the third tier in Wales. With you they'll crush the second, then in the top tier it's matches against Cardiff and Wrexham, cup runs, things like that. It won't be the same level of insane progression and competitiveness, but it'll be pretty good, and the rest of the week you'll be an actual superstar." I gave her a smile. "Just not in the industry you hoped."
She took two long swigs. "I could run the business but play for Chester?"
"Yes, that's an option." I waggled my head. "I personally don't like it for you. You'd be fourth, fifth, sixth-choice central midfielder. Yeah, you would play, you could have great moments in important matches, but I think I know you quite well and I'm sure you would hate it. With Saltney you would be the big fish, you'd be their Macca Serra. It's like, obviously a million times better? But it's your choice. Actually, maybe let's take Newcastle off the table because they're gonna be fuming with me ten days from now. I've got a good relationship with Charlton."
"Why are Newcastle gonna be mad at you? More stunts?"
"Nope. I'm just gonna humiliate them and strut around their stadium like I own it. If I know the Geordies, they aren't going to like it. Heh. Bunch of pricks."
Charlotte drained her coffee and placed the mug down with infinite care. She rotated it by the handle, left and right, then sighed. "What was the mission statement? Improve the city's housing stock and drench ourselves in cash?" She pushed the mug an inch away. "It's not as pithy as Not Here, Not Ever, but it's pretty compelling. Let me think about it?"
"Absolutely."
***
That evening, I drove to Charlotte's old club, Manchester City, to watch their AOK Cup quarter-final against Fulham. To the outside world, I was keeping an eye on Ed Heath, but actually I was grinding for XP and thinking about which perk to request next.
I asked for one that gave me a club's Facilities score. Dead simple.
Near the end, a batch of City fans spotted me and gave me a predictable amount of shit, but not because I had taken a stance against Regress. No, they didn't like me for purely footballing reasons, which actually made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
They sang, "Going down, going down, going down!" followed by, "You're getting sacked in the morning!"
I stood, put my hands to the side of my mouth, and shouted, "Do you mean sacked from Chester, Wales, or Soccer Supremo?"
One guy bellowed, "Any one will do. We're just saying you're a knob."
I replied, "Yeah but can you be more specific with your chants, please? Thank you."
Predictably, they loved it, and the interaction went semi-viral on social media.
XP balance: 3,425
***
Thursday, December 14
The Daily Mail ran a big article about me that they cross-promoted heavily. The gist was that I was a self-hating Englishman, basically a traitor to my country.
They gave as evidence my beef with Alan Turner, the fact that I had no players in the England setup (the Mail didn't tend to acknowledge the existence of women unless they were in bikinis), and my 'love affair' with Wales.
YAWN.
Hadn't we already done this one? I was learning that no story was too boring for the Mail to recycle.
But this time, it came with a twist. This time, the article also pointed out that there were no England flags at the Deva Stadium or at Bumpers Bank. We had German flags, Ukrainian, Welsh, but no England flag! (They didn't mention the numerous Union Jacks, which is objectively a better design.)
In what seemed like a co-ordinated attack, a Saltiness of Gammons descended on Bumpers Lane and painted England flags directly on the road. They were filming themselves while filming our response, which was to laugh at them. Beth kept trying to phone me, so on the fifth time I picked up and left my phone by my laptop, which was playing a speech from the leader of Regress in which he promised to deport every single man, woman, and child from the country apart from him, his supporters, and his German wife.
I went to the zen garden to think about the new perk that was available. My request to see a club's Facilities score had been approved, but it would cost me a whopping 4,000 XP. I needed that perk, but for the moment it was a lower priority than getting all the PA boosts. I used the suggestion box to request the next God Save the Queen perk.
In the evening, I watched Reading (nickname: The Royals) versus Notts County (The Magpies) in League Two, grabbing XP and adding more players to my database. At the final whistle, the stands cleared and I spotted a couple of lads very obviously recording their post-match reactions for a fan media channel. I made my way down there, interrupted the recording, checked if they were Regress nutjobs, gave hearty approval to the name of their channel (The Royal Ramble), then gave them my thoughts on the match and Reading's squad in a good-natured ten-minute blast.
They released it on YouTube with the title, GATECRASHED by Max Best!
It was their most-watched video of the season by far. Top comment: How come he knows our squad better than our manager seems to?!
XP balance: 3,799
***
Friday, December 15
The second God Save the Queen perk had been called When the Going Gets Tough, and the third was named Going for Gold.
It took me a minute until I realised why it had been so named; it contained Attributes that might help in the Olympics. Acceleration; Balance; Jumping; Pace; Reflexes; Stamina; Strength.
From that list, I would probably give Kit Hodges an Acceleration boost to help her get an edge on defenders. Next season, if I went all-in on Haley Goodhew, I would do Jumping or Reflexes.
Yeah, good upgrade. It would be 6,000 XP well spent, but first I had to grind. To that end, I went all the way back to South Wales again, this time to watch Swansea versus Wrexham. At full time, a Wrexham fan who was filming himself talking saw me walking nearby and yelled, "Keep walking, Best!" That's why we only talked about the match for six minutes, although we spent another ten discussing the Welsh squad.
XP balance: 4,360
***
Saturday, December 16
The final God Save the Queen boost became available, and despite my attempt to break it into smaller chunks, it was the same size as the recent two. This one was called 'Going for Goal' and contained seven attacking Attributes: Anticipation; Crossing; Decisions; Long Shots; Off the Ball; Set Pieces; Teamwork.
Three of those weren't specifically about going for goals: Anticipation, Decisions, and Teamwork were useful when defending, but I thought the imps had done a good job in taking 21 Attributes and splitting them into three coherent perks.
Which one of these would I give Kit?
The best for a striker was Off the Ball, which was her ability to find space and to be in the right position to score. If I went full Haley next season I would be torn between Anticipation and Decisions.
The shop was now fully-stocked with God Save the King variants; I was going to enjoy handing out the boosts. As soon as Kit Hodges peaked, she would get the first of her four bumps. Pascal's second of the season would arrive soon.
***
Also arriving: a Seals Studio audio documentary called The Unit United, featuring Dylan, Hot Rod, and players and coaches from Saltney Town. I listened to it on the way to Nottingham, told Sophie it was a five-star achievement, and asked her to call the guy from BBC Radio Wales to see if they wanted to broadcast it or not. If they didn't, we would.
***
English Premier League Match 17 of 38: Nutters Forest versus Chester
Forest had a new manager, and a good one, too. He was an Austrian called Ried Gwinn who played 3-4-2-1. The former Man United manager, Pedro Porto, had used a similar system, but Man United didn't have the players to make it work. Forest did. They had intelligent, hard-working wing backs, massive defenders, clever forwards. Very well optimised, astoundingly well coached. It wasn't like Evaristo's Bologna where every phase of play led to a new formation, a new interpretation. This was one thing done so well it was hard to stop it.
I knew it would be a brutally tough match, and much as I wanted to sit this one out, gather XP, and stay fresh for the pre-Christmas Newcastle game, I had to play from the start.
I decided to match Forest's system, using 3-4-3 as a base. That meant Pascal got in the first eleven, and even with him in the team we had a pleasingly high average CA of 151.8. Forest were 155, which was a few points up since I had last seen them. They had spent their summer money well!
Too well.
They stifled, squashed, squeezed, shut us down, opened us up. I was playing central midfield alongside Jimmy McNeill and I couldn't get a grip on the game. It was nil-nil at half time, which was actually unhelpful because it duped me into keeping my best players on the pitch for longer.
The hammer blows fell in the 61st and 66th minutes, after which Gwinn made Forest drop deeper, confident we didn't have the tools to hurt them. He was right.
I gave minutes to Cole, Roddy, Bark, Leo, and Errol Obikwu, but all in all it was a miserable afternoon. We left Nottingham with our tenth league defeat of the season, our goal difference worse by two, and I only gained 95 experience points.
On the long journey home, I learned that a betting company known for its witty banter had YET AGAIN paid out on 'Chester to be relegated' bets and that Regress were crowing about our defeat all over social media.
Miserable.
***
Sunday, December 17
As always, the women cheered me up. In this case, by battering Tottenham 4-1 while I gorged on 1,332 XP.
But it wasn't only that we were keeping pace with Chelsea and easing away from Man United, who were fourth - Angel told me that Helen's mother had been in the stadium, and she had asked her to deliver a card to me.
While Angel watched, I laughed at the front of the card. Inside, Helen had written:
Hello Max.
I'm too poorly to go shopping for cards so I used this one.
SMILEY FACE.
Thank you for being kind to me.
TWO SMILEY FACES.
I like football about this much.
(There was a line about three millimetres wide.)
THREE SMILEY FACES.
Angel grinned because I was grinning, but then I spotted that there was more text on the back.
Helen's mum had written: They want to dismantle the NHS, Max. We could never afford leukaemia treatment on our own. It breaks my heart to think what would have happened to my Helen if those awful men were in power. You've given me more than some free gin and tonics and a phone. You've given me hope for the future. We have nothing to offer someone like you, but if you ever want to try my famous French Toast, you know where we live!
Angel didn't spot that my bottom lip was wobbling like a jelly because she took the card from my hands, looked at the front, and said, "Happy Birthday Dad? Is there something you're not telling us, Max?"
***
XP balance: 5,787
***
Monday, December 18
Emma asked if I had been Christmas shopping yet, or even thought about it. "When?" I said. "I've been grinding."
"I know. So let's go tonight."
"Tonight?" I said, gobsmacked. "I'm going to London."
"Oh," she said, softly. "I was hoping... Okay, but who's playing?"
"It's Fulham against Not Forest."
Her jaw tightened. "You watched Fulham the other day and you literally just played Forest. What's so important about it? What can you possibly learn that you didn't learn from the other matches?"
What could I say to that? From an outside point of view, she was right. But if I went to London, I would be able to buy a new perk instead of just dreaming them up. I would be able to boost Pascal before tomorrow night's match against Leicester City and that tiny boost could make all the difference. "You really want to go shopping?"
"You can't give everyone scratchcards for Christmas, babes. What about Jamie? Bonnie? You should get something for Briggy."
The idea of trudging around endless shops being asked to pose for selfies, having my head pecked about transfers, wrapping everything I bought, hand-writing cards, it all felt exhausting. Better to drive a thousand miles around the country watching crappy football matches than to suffer through Christmas shopping. But I had maybe veered too far in the direction of grinding and hadn't spent enough time with Ems. I said, "Come with me to London. We can have dinner with Donny Wormwood."
For some reason, she frowned and said, "Oh."
"They have television in the South, babes. We can stay overnight, visit Tempsford in the morning. Watch their training, hang out with Vimsy, be in Leicester well in time. Oh! And we can go shopping in Cambridge or wherever. We can ask Vimsy where's good. And it won't be as stressful to do it down there because no-one knows who I am. I'll just be some generic eye candy who wants to buy nunchucks for my former bodyguard, not the starboy everyone wants a picture with."
Ems smiled. "That sounds like a plan. It'll be nice to see Vimsy again. But what will you get from it? From Fulham v Notts?"
"I don't call them Notts any more," I said. "Someone asked what Forest had done to piss me off to the extent that I would refuse to use their real name for 6 years and I couldn't remember, so I'm putting a pause on that until they actually do piss me off. Er, what will I learn tonight? Like, maybe nothing. But maybe I'll learn the thing that gives us the edge that keeps us in the Prem. One time I watched Forest, I discovered Hybridism, but I didn't realise it until months later."
"Will it be a good match?"
"No. Forest are a machine. It's not anti-football, it's not that they're constantly shithousing and being dicks, but it is quite dull."
Ems looked from me to the TV. "You go."
"Not without you," I said. "Come with me or I'm not going. You are my special pumpkin and I haven't spent enough time with you. Come on! London! Donny Wormwood! We'll do cockney accents until he gets annoyed. Babes, I'm serious! Pack an overnight bag." She didn't move, so I casually walked towards the stairs, and just before I thundered up them, I shouted, "I'll pack it for you!"
She chased me up the stairs, into the bedroom, where frolics ensued.
***
ChesterFC: We are pleased to announce that Kit Hodges has signed a contract extension! The striker will be a Chester player until 2031. Manager Jay Cope said, "This is great news for the club. Kit is a natural goalscorer and a vital member of the squad."
***
Ems and I watched the match, both of us wearing long Santa beards as a disguise. In the second half, she showed me certain social media posts that implied that the disguises weren't totally working.
XP balance: 452
I bought God Save the King 2: Let's Get Physical, and while the stadium cleared, I re-examined all my thoughts on the perks and how to use them. I concluded that yes, I needed to boost Pascal this season and next, to the point that Jurgen Klopp would be calling me to ask about him.
I brought up Pascal's player profile, assigned him another point of Acceleration, and smiled as going from 19 to 20 brought him to PA 140. "Fuck the gammons," I said.
"Totes," said Emma. A moment later she said, "I'd love a bit of pork. Is it dinnertime yet?"
***
Tuesday, December 19
We watched part of Tempsford FC's training session, which was fine considering they only had a few semi-pro players, had lunch with Vimsy, then did some Christmas shopping. I asked in every shop if they had 'nunchucks for toddlers' or 'scratchcards for babies' while Emma picked out gifts that were actually good and tasteful.
While I was watching my wife decide between a water whisk or a Lego-esque building set, Kit Hodges popped.
She had hit her limit. CA 123.
I gave her another point in Finishing.
She moved to CA 125.
"Boom!" I said, startling several shoppers. I grabbed the whisk, the Lego stuff, an oversized jigsaw, and an umbrella shaped like a tiger. "Tis the season to be jolly! Ho ho ho!"
***
English Premier League Match 18 of 38: Chester versus Leicester City
We were only a few days away from the season's halfway point, and almost every PL team we had encountered had played 4-2-3-1. Obviously that was the best formation, the one that the greatest minds in the sport thought was optimal, so I decided to go with 4-1-4-1. He do opposite! (Translation: I wanted Youngster in his best position, which would strengthen our spine, and I wanted good defensive structure out wide, too. I expected a close match that would be decided in the last twenty minutes; we had to be patient with this one.)
Leicester's manager, Kenny Keen, was the dictionary definition of 'failing up'. He had been so hilariously bad during an ill-fated stint at Glasgow Rangers that the police had advised him not to go to home matches for his own protection. I genuinely believed the only reasons he kept getting jobs were 1) his name was awesome, 2) his haircut was spectacular, and 3) his celebrity girlfriend had been one of the hottest women of the noughties.
His starting eleven had an average CA of 150.
Mine was 151.8 for the second match in a row. (The games were coming thick and fast and we hadn't gotten many training pops, but that was quite normal around Christmas and didn't worry me.) Both teams were struggling in the league, so there wasn't much of a Morale gap. We had home advantage.
In goal I picked Owen, who had carved out a CA gap to Marek that didn't look likely to close.
Helge was left back, with Peter and Edgar in the middle. Magnus was on the right of defence.
Youngster was DM, of course.
Lewis was left midfield, Cheb right. In the middle I deployed Jimmy and Leo.
Gabby was up front.
The bench included me, Wibbers, Pascal, Dumi, and Rushy. Decent with lots of flexibility, though ideally the starters would wrap the match up on their own so that I could focus on Newcastle and Wibbers could get a break.
I expected to play, though, even if we were winning comfortably going into the final quarter of the match. The stakes were too high for me to take any chances. This was a relegation six-pointer, since Leicester were currently the team just above the relegation zone, and a win would take us to double digits, which would surely give everyone a Morale boost. Leeds and Wolves were on a terrible run of form, and it was quite possible that we would overtake one or both before January 1st, when Foquita and Willi Tillmann arrived. Not being flat bottom of the table going into the new year would rank as one of my greatest ever achievements.
Ten minutes before kickoff, I walked up and down the Main Stand until Sandra asked me what the hell I was doing. "Looking for Jurgen Klopp," I said.
She blew air through her cheeks, and said, "It's going to be one of those nights, is it?"
"I don't know what you mean," I said, haughtily. With five minutes to go, I grabbed a microphone and stood in front of a cameraman. My face appeared on the big screen and on the advertising boards came the words: MAX BEST!!!
The away fans did some pantomime boos, there were some groans from the home fans, some cheers.
The screens split, me on the left, MD on the right. The advertising boards read: Mike Dean, Chester FC's Managing Director.
I brought the microphone to my mouth and nearly laughed as MD threw his hands to his head, almost literally tearing his hair out. I had promised I wouldn't give a pre-match speech.
When the tension was at a peak, I bit into the microphone. Then took another mouthful.
It was made of chocolate.
When MD realised I was pranking him, he sagged, laughed, and shook his fist at the camera. Brooke was next to him, laughing hard.
Sandra came over, said, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and broke off a piece of chocolate. "Oh, that's good. Yoink," she said, taking the whole thing.
I shrugged and took a carrot out of my pocket, which I had brought because I was a role model and wanted to show kids that eating vegetables was cool, too.
***
The game kicked off, and I stood on the touchline watching closely. Match Ratings, Condition scores, With Ball screens, Without Ball screens. Match Commentary. When to trigger the once-per-match perks.
Kenny Keen teams tended to start slowly, so I didn't use Seal It Up and nothing I saw made me worry that Leicester were on the verge of swarming all over us. After 20 minutes, their average Match Rating was about 6.5. Ours was closer to 7.
Youngster was playing well - 8 out of 10 - and looked pretty unflappable. Lewis was struggling at left midfield, but over on the right, Cheb was having a much better time.
Cheb playing better made a lot of sense. First, he was 5 points of CA ahead of Lewis, but he was also getting more support. The Cheb triangle included Magnus and Leo Los. Magnus was rock solid, while Leo was a top technician. That meant Cheb could take more risks with his positioning and could combine with his midfield partner to do advanced combinations. Lewis couldn't do the same - he had to be mindful of not letting Leicester double-up on Helge, while Jimmy McNeill wasn't as technical as Leo.
I set our attacking tendency to the right. We would lean into Cheb.
***
31'
Elmham rolls the ball to Wilde, who knocks it into the path of Bauer.
Bauer moves away from pressure and passes to Leo.
Leo deflects the ball to Cheb, who touches it behind a defender for Leo to chase.
Great play!
Leo has the ball on the right. He waits for the overlap, then feeds the ball into Cheb's path.
Cheb cuts into the penalty area and looks for Gabby.
Gabby makes a run to the near post.
The pass comes...
Gabby can't get the shot away. He does brilliantly to retain the ball under immense pressure.
Gabby stabs the ball back to Cheb, who touches it onto his left foot.
He can't get an angle for the shot so he moves forward.
But he's tripped!
Surely that's a foul.
The referee hesitates...
And points to the spot!
The fans in the away end can't believe it. They are howling with frustration.
The referee waits for the video assistant to chime in...
And points to the penalty spot again!
This is an early Christmas gift for Chester, but three of their best penalty takers are on the bench.
Who will take this? It could be one of the most crucial kicks in the entire season!
***
Helge Hagen was sitting on the penalty spot in a yoga pose, cradling the ball, protecting the zone. Leicester weren't usually the type of team who would scuff up the spot or be provocative, but it was our policy not to give anyone the chance.
When the Leicester players accepted that it was really going to be a penno and there was no way to play mind games with us, the penalty area cleared. Peter Bauer walked to the spot and took the ball from Helge.
I had almost total faith in Peter but smashed the Free Hit button anyway. From an 85% chance of a goal to 95%. If Kloppo wasn't here, he would watch the highlights, and since the German national team had become weirdly shit at penalties in recent years, Peter being seen as a reliable scorer would only increase his chances of being called up. If Peter was summoned to the squad during the next international break, it could lead to a rapid boost in his CA. Maybe he would hit his peak next season. Maybe I would want to give him next year's PA boosts instead of Pascal...
(If the Mail knew I was planning to give all my boosts to Germans instead of Englishmen...)
Pascal himself was standing along with all the other subs, our coaches, our physios, tense, worried.
I leaned back against the side of the dugout to show that I was supremely confident and also because it looked badass.
Peter Bauer stood with his hands on his hips. The ref blew his whistle, the signal for the volume in the stadium to decrease by two-thirds. Peter ambled towards the ball, sent the goalie one way, flicked the ball the other way, then joyously sprinted to the edge of the Main Stand, where a ball boy handed him something. Peter ran along the touchline, pointing at people in the crowd, wagging his finger. When he got closer I saw that he was holding a microphone.
He stopped near the edge of the pitch and mimed that he was telling me off. Everyone else was pissing themselves laughing, but I knew how to handle this. I took the carrot out of my pocket and munched it like Bugs Bunny. Peter underarmed the mic to someone, hugged me, said things I couldn't hear over the absolute racket, and walked to his zone, clenching his fists, hyping himself up.
I looked up at the big screen, which was saying 'Goal!' via a variety of animations. That was fine, if generic. I had a better idea: when Peter or Pascal scored, we should show a giant disembodied Jurgen Klopp head, smiling down on us with great benevolence.
Absolutely flawless idea. Should I check with Jurgen first?
Nah, he might say no.
Livia was nearby, eyeing me. "Max, what are you up to?"
I tried to look innocent. "Huh? Nothing."
"Hmm."
Leicester lined eight guys on halfway like they were doing an onside kick in the NFL. They gave the ball to their goalie, who booted it long for the pack to chase. It went out for a throw-in, but we were hemmed in, surrounded by all these guys. Danger!
Or nah. I switched us into the Relationism module. Our players moved over to that side of the pitch, negating Leicester's numerical advantage. There were so many bodies in that area it became a quagmire, with the ball going out of play four times in quick succession. It was hard to get out of that sitch, but Leicester hadn't gained an advantage, had they? They had given us the ball, plus an excuse to run down the clock for a couple of minutes.
I glanced at Kenny Keen. He was confirming my suspicions that he was a follower. He followed elite trends, copied tactics, replicated moves. But did he really understand them? Who was impressed by this? What was he achieving? He was the exact opposite of Ried Gwinn. The Austrian didn't care what people thought of him, didn't think twice about his public image, and only did things that would help his team.
I shook my head. It was all right to lose to Ried Gwinn at this moment in time, but no way could I let Kenny Keen finish above me in the league. A man had to have standards.
***
It was still one-nil at half time, and at no point had I been tempted to use Seal It Up. I waited to see if Keen would change things, but he was one of those managers who delighted in saying, 'Plan B is to do Plan A better'. He didn't change anything, but Kalvin, our goalie coach, told me that four Leicester guys were outside warming up, including two fast, mercurial wingers.
"Okay, listen up," I said, moving to the front. "My favourite Christmas movie is Die Hard, but I can't keep going on and on about how flawless it is, so I'm gonna change things up. My favourite Christmas movie is The Muppet Christmas Carol because it has got real people in it alongside the muppets, and if you think about it, we are real people and Leicester City are a load of muppets."
Youngster said, "This is terrible. This is one of your worst ones yet."
I threw my hands up. "Well, I'm not feeling Christmassy, am I? We've got to finish this and then beat Newcastle and then I'll be in the mood to put up the tinsel, do you know what I mean?" I tapped the tactics board. "This is going great. I was planning to change it but we're really beautifully balanced.
"I've watched a lot of Leicester and Kenny Keen's previous teams - " and read through dozens of match reports in the Archive - "and they often only start having a real go in the last twenty minutes. When we get to that point, it's a shootout. If we hit them on the counter, that's game over. If they score, we have a problem because as shit as they have played so far, when they get going they can hit teams two, three times in quick succession. Yeah? Keep your mentality right. The league table says we're one of the worst teams who ever played in this division. If that pisses you off, good. Stay professional, stay intense, don't get cocky. Let's fucking go."
***
Leicester played much better in the second half, came at us with more urgency, more bite in their tackles.
We met the challenge.
Their xG crept up, but ours rose faster. Faster, not fast - this was not a classic match.
I was blissfully enjoying it until about the 65th minute. That's when I stopped focusing on the action and started opening up the Live Table twice a minute. I was thinking ahead, not living in the moment, and that's when I started to fret about all the things that would happen if we lost. I was giving myself ulcers.
"I need to get on the pitch," I said.
Sandra nodded and said, "Will you take Tiny Tim with you?"
I stared at her. "What?"
"Tiny Tim," she insisted. "From A Christmas Carol. Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim."
"Tiny Tim, right. He's the orphan who asks for more porridge."
She rolled her eyes. "I bet you could name the entire cast of Die Hard. Are you going to bring Pascal with you? What about Wibbers?"
I looked at my opponent. Keen was preparing some subs, and based on what I had seen in the Archive, Leicester would end up doing something like 4-2-4. It was always possible that one of their players would smash a shot top bins from 30 yards, but that could happen even if we turtled up. "How about 4-2-2-2? Helge, Jimmy, Gabby off. We'll have Lewis, Peter, Magnus, Cheb. Youngster and Edgar as DMs. Me and Leo behind Wibbers and Pascal."
"Is that too weak down the wings?"
"Lewis and Cheb will be one-on-one against the wingers, okay, but Edgar can sprint back and give us three CBs when crosses are coming in."
"I prefer Helge to be on the pitch when you're playing. That gives us huge set piece threat."
"I know but he's still learning to be a defender. We can't make him go one-on-one, not in the Prem. Not yet."
Sandra thought it through. "Pascal will roam wide, drop, give us more mobility than Gabby. Leicester won't be able to track all his runs, and you, Leo, Peter can hit passes to him from anywhere. Yeah, okay. It's a solid setup but when Leicester get more ambitious, our threat will grow too. Okay, good."
We waited for Kenny Keen to make his changes, then in the next break, changed to 4-2-2-2.
As I jogged onto the grass - to boos from the away end, cheers from the home fans - I used Seal It Up and told Cheb and Lewis not to make forward runs. If we kept a clean sheet, we would win, simple as that.
***
70'
Best plays a one-two with Leo and jogs to his right.
Best spots the run from Pascal and aims a long pass in his direction.
But Best smacks the ball into a Leicester player!
The ball flies behind Magnus. Leicester's left winger gets there first.
He looks up, shoots...
And puts it just over the crossbar!
The Chester fans breathe a sigh of relief!
***
"Boss," said Leo Los, who was the nearest player to me. "I know it's Christmas, but it's not the time to hand out gifts."
I had to laugh, which helped my heart rate to drop below 200 beats per minute. "Fuck me," I said, as relegation flashed before my eyes. The margins were too tight. One tiny slip-up and Leicester could get a point, which would make it five times harder to overtake them. Being the guy who made the mistake that led to disaster was not on my Christmas wish list.
I swiped all my screens away so I could focus. Once a minute I would dip into them to check for injuries, but this was it. This was the tactic, this was the formation, this had to work.
Owen wasted a few seconds by looking to take the goal kick short, then sending everyone long. We were quite narrow, so he didn't have many options other than to boot it straight ahead. The ball went over my head and my legs started moving. Wibbers competed but his marker won the header. It went straight to Edgar Wilde, who stopped to head the ball into my path.
Yes!
I accelerated, drawing some oppos to me, scattering others, and just as a tackle came in, I clipped a left-footed pass between two defenders. Pascal surged onto it - his newly-enhanced Acceleration gave him blur lines - and he was through on goal! He steadied himself, waited, and cut the ball square.
Wibbers had a tap-in.
The McNally went mental. The temporary stands rattled as our fans bounced around. The roar was long, sustained, spine-tingling.
For me, the relief was incredible. We still had a chunk of the match to play, but we would spread out, get behind the ball, make it hard for Leicester to play through us, and that would be that.
While the lads celebrated in front of our hard-core fans, I put my hands on my head and treated myself to an early Christmas present - a peek at the Live Table. Chester 11 points. Leeds 12. Wolves 13. Okay, then there was a gap to Leicester on 18, but we were really starting to motor. What would happen when we prised ourselves away from the foot of the table? Morale would soar, belief would return in a major way.
Elation coursed through me and I burst into song, a riff on Fool’s Gold by The Stone Roses. "I'm no clown, won't back down, don't need you to tell me who's going down."
***
With five minutes to go, as we were shuffling and sliding, repelling another insipid Leicester attack, the advertising boards and the big screens switched away from showing adverts to displaying an ominous phrase: "STAND BY FOR A MESSAGE FROM MAX BEST."
That generated a buzz. Some fans who were drifting away to beat the traffic returned to their seats.
I pictured MD and Brooke in the Executive Box, despairing, but I concentrated on my job, which was winning headers and booting the ball long. This was the job for which I was paying myself 50 grand a week.
Life's weird.
The full-time whistle went and I sprinted around shaking hands with everyone, including Kenny Keen. It was traditional, classy, and after all, he was our secret weapon in this relegation battle.
Then I stood in front of a cameraman while holding a real microphone.
"Hey, Chester. I promised I wouldn't speak before the match, but didn't say anything about after. Some people don't like what I have to say. They want me to back down. They want us to go back down. Those people, including one of our local MPs, a woman who is supposed to represent us and do what's best for Chester, have never done anything, never contributed. They are parasites and leeches, draining our money but giving us nothing in return.
"If I stay in this job another ten years, I will generate somewhere between one billion and two billion pounds for Chester, for the local economy, for local businesses. Think of the jobs. Think of what a difference two billion quid will make around here.
"So why would I give a shit what those people think of me? Why would I back down? I wouldn't. I won't. This is our city, not theirs. Our community, not theirs. Our club, not theirs.
"There's a brilliant Scottish saying. It goes, don't back down, double down. That's my new motto. I'm doubling down on everything. Three points from one match becomes six points from two. I'll see you in Newcastle, ladies and gentlemen, where your players will summon up the blood and strain every sinew to make it a blue-and-white Christmas. Peace out, come on you Seals, and by the way - we are staying up."
...
Thanks for your support!
SCHEDULING: I'm going to write the next chapter and post whenever it's finished. My guess - because I've got that once-in-a-generation family event on Saturday, is that I will post on MONDAY but don't hold me to that. It's Max versus Newcastle so I can't/won't rush it.
I don't know why YouTube recommended this video to me but it's sports-related and it's funny. A quietly jaw-dropping one minute thirty-nine seconds.