Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

5.

INTERIOR: What seems to be the inside of a changing room, with walls made of large grey bricks.

MAX BEST is in his trademark black hoodie and is holding a football. He's pacing around, scowling. The words: Max Best (Player-Manager) appear on screen.

MAX

All right, you animals, listen up. We've got a tough game today so we need loads of energy. Pace, yeah? Speed. I need you absolutely relentless, guys. Set a tempo and stick to it.

[THE CAMERA PANS UP TO: A pair of sloths lazily moving around some ropes strung up in a kind of tower.]

MAX

[Exasperated.] Rico, what are you doing up there? I need you to put the corner flags out. Tina! When I sign a South American midfielder I expect a little more dynamism, do you know what I mean? Wha - ? I know it's cute, but... [He pinches his nose.]

[CUT TO: Tina the sloth having a lovely snooze.]

MAX

Can we get some coffee in here?

[AERIAL SHOT: A zoo.]

NARRATOR

Experience Latin American Adventure and meet some of South and Central America's most spectacular species! Chester Zoo - we're simply the best.

[CUT TO: Max Best wobbling across a tightrope while holding a corner flag.]

MAX

Not as easy as it looks...

[Close-up on Rico the sloth, who makes a noise like he's laughing.]

***

Monday, February 8

I was sitting cross-legged on a cushion on a table in the Sin Bin while holding a long, thin stick that I sometimes tapped against a huge TV.

"That's gorgeous," I said. "Love that."

"You make that look easy," said Dazza, the Aussie forward.

"You take those passes under pressure so nicely," I said. "They taught you well at United. What next, though? I want you to drive forward. Look at this gap here. Drive into that space, pluz." On the screen, Adam Summerhays, having done the hard part, the part that normos can't do, the part that civilians could only dream of doing, turned away from the oppo's goal and played a safe pass backwards. I sighed.

The man in question said, in his Manchester accent, "I was trying... I wanted..."

"I know what you wanted," I said. "You wanted to not fuck up because you're getting grief on social media." I eyed Alex Short, the club's sports psychologist. I had no say in what he talked about in his therapy sessions but convincing my young players to listen only to people who had a fucking clue about the sport seemed a decent use of Alex's time. Maybe Adam would respond to an impromptu team talk. "My favourite movie about a farmer with undiagnosed mental health problems is Field of Dreams starring Kevin Bacon."

"Costner," said Alex.

"Shit, I keep doing that. The movie's incredibly romantic in its portrayal of sport. It's all about the joy of the game, the elation of simply playing. I'd really love for you - "

There was a knock on the door and Henri Lyons poked his head inside. "Max, what's keeping you? We're here."

"You're early," I said, confused.

"No. We're not. Hello Darren, Adam, Alex."

"Uh," I said, tapping my phone's screen. "You're on time but it feels early. Feeling early is just as rude as being early." I looked at the laptop I was using; I had a couple of great clips lined up. No way did I want to finish before I showed them. "I need five minutes."

Another head replaced Henri's. It was an increasingly breathtaking woman - who looked somewhat like Julia Roberts - my girlfriend's best friend, Gemma. Like Ems, Gems was from Newcastle. She said, "Are you going to make us wait out here in the cold?"

"No," I said. "Adam, I've got some friends helping me with something in a bit. One's come all the way from Newcastle. Is it all right if a couple of people sit in?"

Adam wasn't fazed. At Man United, his every fart had been analysed by huge teams. "Yeah."

Gemma came in, followed by Henri, followed by Jimmy, Gemma's white-haired dad, followed by Aff, another of our former players. The door was slammed shut harder than any transfer window, fists were bumped, shoulders were massaged, hands were blown on.

"It's bloody freezing out there," said Gemma.

"It's as cold as a French duck," I agreed. For some reason, Henri aggressively ruffled his hair and mumbled rapidly under his breath.

"What is all this?" said Gemma, looking from Dazza to Adam to Alex to the TV to my cushion to my teaching stick.

"Individual feedback."

"There are two players," she said. "What's individual about that?"

I shook my head. She always knew just how to get under my skin, but I wanted her dad's expertise so I had to be nice to her. "It's a management technique I invented. I call it 360 degree feedback. What I do is I go through clips with two players and let them talk honestly and openly about what they're seeing. We're so committed to teamwork, Gems, that we do our solo work together."

Aff looked interested; we hadn't done this when he was around. In his Irish accent, he said, "D'ya always have a defender and a striker? So they can, what do you call it, comment on each other's weaknesses?"

"Striker and defender is a good mix," I said, "but it's pretty random. I reckon everyone can learn from everyone and if you don't plan it too hard you get, like, synergies. Fresh perspectives."

"Why's Alex here?" said Henri.

"There's a risk this could go badly so he's here to fix what I break." I laughed at Alex's alarmed expression. "And it's useful for him to know what goes on, right? If Dazza goes to a session and says waah I'm shit, I'm a fraud, Alex can say yeah no Max said he was delighted with your progress, let's talk about all the cute names you have in your country for deadly species. Alex, what's a saltie?"

Alex sat up; he hadn't been expecting to talk. "Um... a sardine?"

I raised my eyebrows at Dazza. He smiled that languid smile of his. "Saltwater crocker."

"And what's a crocker?" I said, in the tone of a teacher determined to force the student to give the entire answer.

"Crocodile," he said.

"Absolutely fucking mental," I said, re-centering myself on my cushion. I checked the time. "Okay, we're talking about Adam now. He has been getting good minutes recently and we're pointing out things he did well and areas for improvement."

"Should we be here for this?" said Gemma.

"Good point," I said, counting heads. "There's one too many people here. Gems, you have to clear out."

"No way," she said, shifting closer to Adam and grabbing his arm. "Adam doesn't mind, does he?"

"Um," he said, melting as she gave him the works.

Her dad piped up. "I was here for the Sunderland match. You worked your socks off, Adam. We all felt your manager hung you out to dry."

"Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head. "I mean, that's objectively true, but... Hang on, that's a good intro." I used my remote to skip a couple of clips. We watched as Adam sprinted around the Deva Stadium trying in vain to stop Sunderland's playmaker, Patricks, from dominating that side of the pitch. "This clip's so interesting. I saw some people using it to make jokes, like this is inept or something. Henri, in this scene, which player would you want to sign for your club?"

"Patricks," he said.

"Yep," I agreed. "What if you're putting together a high-energy, all-action, pressing and counter-pressing team?"

Henri smiled and dipped his head. "Then I would want Adam Summerhays."

Aff said, "He shouldn't be over there on his own pressing like dat. Why's no-one backing him up?"

"Yeah, that's my mistake," I said. "I asked Adam to mark Patricks but he's got too much energy to stroll around doing nothing. In youth team games this is how he would do it. Press the ball in a certain radius and let his pace get him back on his target before they can do damage. Patricks is a step up, though, isn't he, Adam?"

"He's unreal. Handed me my arse."

"Don't talk shit," I said. "I just said it was my fault. But this thing that's sooooo funny to loads of morons on the internet, I can tell you for a fact that football managers around Europe weren't laughing when they saw it. They're like, hey now! That boy can press. It makes no sense to do it on your own but any decent coach can put this energy into a structure, can't they? People watch the sport in different ways. Haters gonna hate. The people you should care about - me, Sandra, directors of football - find you intriguing. What I love about this season is that your data is shit."

"Dad," said Gemma. "Have you met the new Max? He's much kinder and more considerate than the old Max."

At first, I couldn't understand what she was saying, but then it clicked that she thought I was being harsh. "Gems, I watched Field of Dreams this week and it's all soppy and sentimental and skips over the parts where the great players became great. It doesn't show the fucking toil and graft and relentlessness. There's no point being delicate. Diplomacy won't help Adam be the best he can be. All the ballers in this room want the same thing - to hit our heights and to get paid. Even players who fucking hate my guts are interested in what I have to say in these sessions."

She looked at Henri. "Is that true?"

Henri laughed, hard, and it took me far too long to realise she was suggesting that Henri hated my guts. I sagged. "Alex, I'm going to need some therapy because of that jibe. Could you make a note, please?"

He took an imaginary pen and scribbled. "Noted, Max."

I leaned to my right. "Adam, your data is shit this season but that's fine because when things start to click - to really click - your numbers will spike and it'll trigger alarm bells on computers all over the country. Sporting directors are going to say, well yeah his numbers are trending up but how's his energy? How's his character? Someone will show this clip and the next ones."

I clicked and we watched Chester against some green-shirts. "This is Saturday," I explained to Jimmy. "Home to Bristol Rovers. They're relatively weak." Average CA 95, about ten less than our strongest eleven. "We beat them four-nil in the cup recently."

Adam's face lit up. "Max went to town on them. He did to them what Patricks did to me. So on Saturday they come to Chester and try to low block us."

"Low block?" said Jimmy, like he had never heard the phrase, which was odd because I was 100% sure he knew what it meant. Maybe he simply wanted to keep Adam talking so the time in the cabin would stretch out. Civilians always wanted to hear what it was like on the other side of the curtain and Jimmy was right in the belly of the beast.

Adam explained. "Like, they had ten men behind the ball, tried to block us out, tried to make it nasty, take time off the clock, all that stuff."

"Jimmy knows all about that kind of football," I said. "He's a Newcastle fan."

"Oof," said Alex. "Shots fired."

Adam kept going. "Max - the gaffer, I mean - he told us all about low blocks back in the non-league days when he and Henri and Aff were tearing it up. He said what you do is you get a massive battering ram - " Adam smile-nodded at Dazza - "so that you can win headers in the box, and your midfielders take long shots. On Saturday when we see the low block, the gaffer and Wibbers play central and shoot on sight and it's just, like, carnage. They're doing artillery practice, so Bristol flood the area in front of goal, but Max gets us into 4-2-4 and we slap down the sides. I mean, it was brutal. Four-nil in about 20 minutes, and on the bench we were going 'stop it, they're already dead!'" Adam smiled, but not for long. He nodded towards the screen. "This is the end, though, when the boss, you know, rested the senior players because by then it was five-nil and no risk. There's me on the left, and Hamish, the new kid. It was five-one in the end."

"Adam has slightly mischaracterised what happened in the second half," I said, eyeing him. "Yes, some senior players got rested, but our new big-money signing, Joel Reid, went on at the same time as Adam, who is my second-choice left back. Two senior players went on, in fact. Okay, back to what I want to talk about."

I unpaused the clip. It showed only the left-hand side of the pitch. Adam sprinted hard along the touchline towards the defending team's corner flag, but didn't get the ball so he jogged back. There was a cut and the same thing happened, and again. The fourth time, Adam didn't make the sprint.

I tapped the screen with my tapping stick. "Making that run and not getting the ball is fucking annoying, I know. You feel like the other players don't trust you. You start to doubt yourself. And it all leads," I said, clicking my remote to bring up the very first clip, "to a mindset so that when you do get the ball, you turn back, nice and safe."

I left a moment of quiet, then went back to the start of the making-the-runs-but-being-ignored clip. I let it run as I spoke. "I know it's shit but you're a professional, mate. You have to do the right thing over and over whether you get the ball or not. Whether you feel like part of the team or not. All these runs you were making were impacting the game, weren't they? This defender here has to respond and look, this other guy is keeping an eye on you, too. One slides closer to you - which is space for someone else to exploit - and one's getting, you know, mentally drained by worrying about you while he's trying to stick close to Gabby. Yeah, it's only a little bit but it adds up and it's like those adverts about being on your phone when you're driving. It only takes a second for something awful to happen. And think of what happens in this room. Sandra, Spectrum, Peter, Colin, me, we're watching this footage and we see you go again and again. We see it. So do other managers. If you make this run again and again, you'll always have managers who want you in their teams."

Adam licked his lips. "You're right, boss. It's just... It was demotivating because they was giving Hamish a lot of ball."

I scoffed. "Safe passes to jazz up their stats. Only because he was right there. They'd have done it with you if you were more central. If I didn't want us in energy-saving mode I'd have gone fucking mental. I'm gonna let it slide this time on account of my new-found kindness and, er, considerateness, but that's between me and those other fucks, innit? All I want from you is to do your things as well as you can.

"By the way, they pass to you in our own half, don't they? They do trust you on the ball, it's just they're not sure what you're gonna do in the final third because so far that has been pretty much nothing, which isn't your fault. What's the actual theme here? We're talking about one of the most normal dynamics in team sports, aren't we? New kid has to prove himself.

"When you retire, I'm gonna come to your final game and as you're leaving the pitch, I'll be there, ageless, handsome, seven-packed, and I'll go, 'Hey rookie! You were good.' Instant tears all round, cuz, but it takes time, bro. This part of your career gets squashed into about four seconds of screen time, or Kevin Bacon yadda yaddas it in voiceover. 'And I worked really hard for three years.' Do you know what I mean? It's not glamorous but everyone has to do it. You'll get more passes when you get closer to our levels and all that. I am as sure that you'll help us to Championship glory in a couple of seasons as I am sure that I have the best abs at the club. And I'm never wrong, am I, Gems?"

"Holy fuck," she said.

"Dazza, chip in."

Aussies are known for their straight talking, unless the topic is a deadly animal that wants to kill you, in which case they invent cutesy nicknames like 'sandies' or 'jellbois' or 'chompdudies'. Perhaps spurred on by the presence of Gemma or Henri, Dazza rose to the occasion magnificently. "Adam, you're a bloody ripper. Us lads are all buying your stock, yeah, but you're not skulling shoes just yet." He pointed to the screen, where Saturday's Adam was looking somewhat isolated and, yes, crestfallen. "I wouldn't send that pass out wide either, coz what's coming next? I'm a striker, mate. I want you to get biffin' and stick a cross in like your man Aff, here. What a left-mid he was, by the way! Beat a man, get a cross in. That's what I want. That's just me, mind. Gaffer might not want that, fair dinks, I'm just saying."

"I prefer a low cut-back most of the time," I said. "High percentage chance, isn't it? But aesthetically, nothing beats a left-footed cross and a big boofed header. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Nothing unless maybe something a defence isn't expecting and can't prepare for." I clicked my buttons. "One more clip to show."

The footage changed quality and angle in a quite disorientating way. It showed some tiny children playing a match, probably 7 v 7. A little kid on the left of the pitch - much faster than the others - dribbled past one, then another, and a third, and wrapped his foot around the ball, sending it from the left of the pitch into the penalty area, where a fast striker had the simple job of redirecting the ball into the goal.

"Oh my God," squealed Gemma. "Adam, is that you? You were so cute! You're barely bigger than the ball. Aww, can I squeeze your cheeks?"

Aff said exactly the same thing as Gemma, but it only took him one word. "Deadly," he said, eyes shining.

Dazza was leaning forward, lips curled at the edges. "Hey, now!" He slapped Adam on his shoulder. "Where has that cross been hiding?"

I said, "Man United coached it out of him."

"No!" said Jimmy. "Why would they do that? That's real football, that. That's beautiful."

"His coaches wanted more control. I mean, they're not wrong. I literally just said I wanted a higher-percentage process, right? But now that I know it's there, I want this back in your game, Adam. This - " I played the clip again. Even though the cross came at the end of a move in which he beat three opponents, it felt really early. Everyone expected Adam to dribble further, for the move to develop in a way that would give the defence time to set themselves before the next action. "Get this right and it is undefendable. And yeah," I grinned, "it's beautiful. I'll lose a percent in control to get this in our arsenal. Even if it doesn't work, it'll give defences kittens, won't it?"

Adam was pleased to get praised but a tiny bit embarrassed by the appearance of the 'baby video'. "Where did you get this?"

"Your dad. He's worried about you. I popped in to see him after visiting my mum. He and I had a big chat. I told him if he ever doubted me again I'd knock him out."

Adam scoffed. "My dad would batter you."

"Yeah," I said. "He probably would."

"So what did you really say?" said Gemma.

"Er, nothing, really. We just talked. I was like, could Adam ride a bike within seconds of getting on? Dad goes, no, he fell off a few times. I went, boom, mic drop! Basically that. That's the short version."

Gemma looked up at the ceiling. "I didn't ask for the short version. Boys. I don't know how you stand it, Alex."

The psychologist shrugged. "Having 70 points after 31 games helps. The women beat Lewes yesterday, too, so the atmosphere is very good, very positive. They get these sessions, too."

I turned the TV off. "Dazza, keep doing what you're doing. Adam, your dad's proud of you, and quite right, too. Just keep your head down and shut out the noise. Everything feels really hard because it is really hard but you're doing well. Can you give me some of those early crosses against Runcorn tomorrow night? I haven't shown Colin this tape yet; it'll blow his mind if you drop one of those out of nowhere."

"I'm playing?"

Tomorrow we would play against Runcorn Linnets in the Cheshire Senior Cup, a tournament for clubs who came under the auspices of the Cheshire FA. No-one really cared about it except for me, but it was a great way to give minutes to our lesser players and winning it ensured that the curse would give us an attendance bonus the following season. "Yeah, and your dad's coming to watch. I'll play 20 minutes and I'll ping the ball to you if you make those runs. Do you get me?"

Dazza's head whipped round. "You're playing?"

"Cheshire Cup's an important competition for us. You guys go on your fucking socials and all you hear is people saying to bin it off. I say otherwise and the best way to prove it is to fucking play. No way are Runcorn Linnets knocking us out of a cup. I'm here to win stuff, mate. I want silverware to carry around on the last day of the season. I want the guy who edits our Wikipedia page to get carpal tunnel."

Dazza surprised me. "Can I play?"

I closed my eyes for a few seconds. "Why do you want to play against Runcorn Linnets, mate?"

Dazza nodded towards Henri. "He's got twelve for the season. I'm on ten. Quick hat trick and he's playing catchup."

Henri bristled. "Goals in the Cheshire Cup don't count!"

I had no idea what personal contest they were engaged in, but Dazza had an ace up his sleeve. "If the boss is playing, it's serious. It counts."

"It does not!" said Henri.

"Give me strength," mumbled Gemma.

"Let's head out," I said. "Good chat all round."

***

We went outside and I got the usual dose of cringe as an outsider looked around the various craters and cabins that made up our training ground. I wanted to get in the cars and head off as soon as possible, but me being me, I went to the other extreme. Throwing my arms wide and spinning in a circle, I yelled, "Is this heaven? No, it's Chester."

"It's cold, Max," said Henri, from behind at least two scarves.

"Not in the mood for whimsy, I take it?" I checked the time. "We're still early," I said. "Can we pop upstairs for a second?"

There were no objections so we went to the second floor of the utility block and waved hello to Brooke, who was pacing around her office on a call to someone. We crossed a pretty big expanse of nothing.

Jimmy said, "What's this area going to be?"

I stopped for a second. "Er, whatever we need. Probably offices. Over there," I said, pointing, "is the Chester Foundation. That's our charity. They do good stuff. This here," I said, moving forward again, "is Nicole. She's a physio slash chiropractor and it wouldn't be crazy to have more specialists here. This part of the building overlooks the gym and our main pitch and the river and it's got surprisingly good feng shui, but we're building a new medical block, so... Probably stick all the physios in there, you know?"

I rapped on a closed door and poked my head in. Nicole was treating Scottie Love, the women's team's first-choice goalie. Scottie was face-down on a massage table that Nicole could raise or lower with a nudge of her foot. Presently, Nicole was gently kneading Scottie's shoulder muscles. "Max," said Nicole. "Come in. We're nearly done."

I stepped in and closed the door. "Oh, really? I love this bit. Scottie, I've got some friends here. Are they allowed in to see the transformation?"

Nicole's method involved people stripping down to their sports bras and shorts - she was such a wizard she could spot problems just from the asymmetry of muscle groups. I had gotten used to it, as we all had, but strangers found it disconcerting at first. Scottie's face was sideways so her words came out a little funny. "Why are they here?"

"They're gonna help me look at a flat I might buy. They're, like, property experts."

"That's cool," mumbled Scottie. "Wish I had that. Not that I'll ever be buying a flat."

"Well, yeah, prices are mental," I said. "But it's almost all people you know and I'm sure one of them would help if you needed advice. They love showing off."

Scottie propped herself up to stare at me from a better angle, then went, "They do, huh?" She slumped back down.

"What!" I said. "I don't show off. Can I let them in? One's a normo and he's never seen anything like this. It'll blow his mind."

"Yeah, sure," she said. I knew the tone - she was blissed out.

I opened the door and got everyone in. Henri knew Nicole from our time in Gibraltar and was familiar with her methods, so he went to sit in a corner while he texted his girlfriend or whatever. Aff, interested, pulled a chair away from the wall so he could be a little closer. Gemma and Jimmy did the same.

"This is Nicole," I said. "We discovered her in Marbella when I was dicking around in Gibbers. William was injured and was gonna miss a match but Nicole just, like, karate chopped him a few times and then he was all better."

"That's not quite how it went," mumbled Nicole, but she was grinning, showing off her braces. I didn't know a lot of 50-something-year-olds who wore braces.

"So what we're looking at here," I said, "is our goalie, Scottie Love. We went down to Lewes on Sunday for the FA Cup Fifth Round. Lewes are a really interesting organisation - they pay the men and women the same, very progressive - and we're technically the same level of football. Only thing is, Lewes don't have Max actual Best doing their recruitment. I mean, lol, right? And we played a WSL team 4 weeks ago so we've been buzzing off that, learning, progressing. We had a spectacular month of training and went down south and... I wouldn't say crushed exactly."

"We crushed," mumbled Scottie.

"What was the score?" said Jimmy.

"Four-two," I said. "Lewes tried to surprise us with a 4-3-3 but I've got crazy flexibility so I matched them with Sarah Greene dropping to support the strikers. They adjusted to that pretty well so I swapped Sarah and Dani and they adapted to that but couldn't cope with Sarah dribbling from midfield." I sighed. "We've got too many weapons."

Aff gestured towards Scottie, "Dat doesn't explain dis."

"Oh, right," I said. "Well, we went down with Sealbiscuit even though it was on the edge of its range. We went early just in case, but also to give it time to recharge. Full-time, showers, have some food, all that stuff, but it wasn't quite charged enough for the trip home. We had to wait, so the ladies ended up playing head tennis and you know how competitive they get. It's a sickness, how desperate they are to win."

Scottie looked up at me and made a scoffing noise.

I said, "You know who's bad at headers? Goalies. Scottie sticks her tongue out, closes her eyes, throws herself at a dropping ball."

Scottie laughed. "That's not... I can do a header!"

"Ball hits her right on her whale spout. Impact goes straight down her spine, crushing her vertebrae. You might not know this, Jimmy, but I'm going to be the face of Chester Zoo. They chose me because I know loads about giraffes. A giraffe has the same number of bones in its neck as Scottie Love, but a giraffe would be better at heading."

Scottie's Heading score was actually 5 - normally. Right now that number in her profile was written in red: 2. That wasn't the only number to have fallen - she had lost points in Stamina and Handling.

Gemma said, "But what's happening?"

"Oh," I said. "Nicole's just fixing her on, like, a molecular level. No big deal."

"I'm not," said Nicole. "I'm looking for tension in the muscles and releasing the fascia. Sit up."

"Mmm," said Scottie. She eased herself into an upright position. Nicole probed her back, mumbling things like "hmm" and "there", which I personally always found disconcerting. "Look left. Look right. Hmm. Yes." She got a mini-trebuchet contraption, held it against Scottie's neck, and said, "Breathe in. And breathe out." When Scottie's last wisps of breath were leaving, Nicole triggered the device. It felt the way I imagined being hit by a paintball would feel. "Look left. And right. Hmm."

Nicole made Scottie stand up, which made me clap my hands and laugh. "Amazing."

"What?" said Scottie.

"You're fucking taller, mate! You're taller. How do you feel?"

She closed her eyes while she took a journey around her own body. "Amazing. I feel like I've been in a spa all day."

I smiled at Jimmy. "All the tension that builds up gets released and there's this euphoria, like you're newborn." His eyebrows raised a little.

"Dad," said Gemma. "Get an appointment!"

"I'm no footballer," he said.

I tutted. "We're a community club, mate. And even if we didn't use our resources to help the wider world, I think we could make an exception. Your daughter keeps me out of prison. I think we can fit you in. What's up with you, anyway?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Loads," said his daughter.

"Hang on," I said, for in the post-Nicole rush that I never got tired of, something was wrong. Scottie's Stamina and Handling were back to normal, but her Heading was still three points lower. "Huh." I tried to work out what I was seeing. Scottie was cured, but not completely. She was a goalie, so she wouldn't need to head the ball. So could I use her in the next match or what?

Our next fixtures were against Leeds, who were around the CA 54 mark, and Middlesbrough, who had CA 62. Queenie, our backup goalie, had improved to CA 58. She was more than good enough for the first, then, but I would ideally need Scottie back for the second, just to absolutely nail the league down.

"Scottie," I said, slowly, "can you walk around a bit?" She did, in a three by one yard rectangle. "Yeah," I said. "There's something off." I took a tiny risk in what I said next. "I think it's her neck?"

Nicole turned to me, eyes narrowing, but her attention jerked back to her patient. "Scottie, come here a second." She made the goalie stand in front of a mirror. "Look left. Right. Hmm." She placed her fingers on Scottie's neck like it was a guitar. "That's... incredible. Max, feel here."

I moved in front of Scottie. "May I touch your neck?"

She said, "Yes."

I copied Nicole's method, moving my fingers up and down Scottie's bones, but whatever it was that the physio could detect was way out of my league. I shook my head. "It's always staggering to me that you can touch a muscle and feel what's wrong."

"I'd get cocky," said Nicole, probing Scottie's neck expertly, "but all the time I was learning to touch like my mentor, I should have been learning to see like Max Best."

I smiled. "I only see that something's not right. What are you getting?"

"I'm not sure," confessed Nicole.

We spent a few seconds looking at Scottie, who I realised was on the verge of freaking out. I touched her on the elbow. "You're fine. You can get dressed." She grabbed her tracksuit top and pulled it on. "I'm gonna ask you to skip main training tomorrow. Have some ibuprofen ready." That suggestion provoked a reaction from Jimmy. "What happens," I explained, "is that you get all that tension relieved but, ah, all the demons come out, too. When I get one of these seshes, there's always one little point on my back that's in agony, and the next morning I feel like my entire side has been hit by a truck." My goalie was already dressed and was pulling on her shoes. "Scottie, the recommendation is that you keep moving so try to do some light cardio. Stretching and moving. Join the yoga sesh. No goalie stuff and strictly no heading. In the evening, stay home and watch some awesome movies. Neckflix and chill. No, cut that, that's awful. Need a list?"

"No, Max."

Henri perked up. "What's next on your list, Max?"

"Field of Dreams again," I mumbled, while I pondered Scottie's profile.

"Ah. It's about a manchild who concocts a sprawling fantasy merely to spend more time with his father. Yes, I see."

"Could you shut the fuck up for a second? I'm trying to think." I decided I'd tell Scottie she was getting a break. Maybe that would help keep her from making her injury worse. "Scottie, you're fine, okay? Please don't stress. Next up's Leeds and they're terrible. We need to give Queenie some minutes anyway. I want you back for Boro so you're gonna do what the physios tell you, yeah?"

"Yes, Max."

I glanced at Nicole - she wasn't worried. I had curse information, though. Losing three points in Heading was pretty unprecedented, as far as I could remember. "You know the way I'm a bit of a helicopter parent and all that? Just so I can breathe easy, I'd like you to go and find Physio Dean, tell him I want you to get your neck X-rayed." Scottie's eyes widened, so I smiled. "I know everyone thinks I'm a big tough guy - " I waited for someone to make a suitable noise, and Gemma provided it - "but I'm not. We're gonna go the distance on this one, right?" Henri eyed me strangely, but his energy receded. I continued. "This is the professional thing to do and covers our arses with the insurance people. Nicole, will you go down to see Dean? Have you got time?"

"Yes," she said. With the scene over, Henri stood, followed by Aff. Gemma and Jimmy did, too.

Nicole had gone to scribble some notes on Scottie's file, but when she saw Jimmy crossing the room, she said, "Excuse me." She approached him at an angle, as if he was a Vermeer hanging in a prestigious gallery, but ruined the effect by grabbing his lower jaw. "Do you grind?"

"Whu?" said Jimmy, afraid to move his mouth. "Nuh."

"You do," said Gemma. "Mum says."

"Hmm," said Nicole. She stepped to the side and moved her fingers around Jimmy's neck like it was a saxophone. "Let's see about an appointment."

"He lives in Newcastle," I said.

Nicole looked suitably worried. "Oh, dear."

Something strange happened then. I got a very strong impulse to leave but an equally strong one to stay. While I tried to puzzle that out, Gemma stepped around her father, peering at his jaw. She said, "Max, you promised us a nice lunch."

I was still trying to work out the previous thing, so I simply said, "Yes."

She nearly lost patience with me, but for her father's sake she kept control. "So we'll be in Chester this afternoon. If there's any chance Nicole has time to see my dad today, I can postpone my appointments."

"Oh," I said, comprehension coming in an awesome wave. "Nicole, please fit Jimmy in. He's mint. He, er..." My throat dried up. "He made sure my mum's new house was good." Nicole went to her diary, which was an actual book made of paper, not some app. Mondays were her busiest day because players got banged up on the weekend and tried to get the kinks worked out. I peered over her shoulder. "Vincent Addo! What the hell! He doesn't need physio. He's just lonely because his friend's in Germany."

Nicole frowned, but said, "If he's lonely..."

I looked around for options and found the right one lightning fast. "Gemma's gonna call Andrew Harrison, who's gonna call Vincent and invite him to..."

"Golf," said Gemma, quickly.

"Really? Ew. Okay, good." I tapped the page. "Vini's gonna send you an apologetic text, canceling the appointment. Jimmy will take his slot."

Nicole smiled. "You can't be sure."

"Vini's not like me; he needs loads of social contact. If you invite him, he will come. He's a good hang and that's his problem. Everyone thinks he must have loads of friends but actually he hangs out with Youngster all the time. I never know how much to intervene in this stuff but since Youngster's gone, yeah, round of golf will hit the spot. And Nicole, I remembered why I came here in the first place. Magnus thinks you should sit in the dugout next to me sometime, find out what we actually do around here. Tomorrow night's the Cheshire Cup against a fairly low-ranking opponent. Colin will be in charge but I'm picking the team so I'll be able to talk about, you know, the way things work and what we're trying to achieve and how you fit into it. If you want. Totes optional."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Nicole smiled, super cute, looking like a teenager. "I'd like that. Aren't you going to play?"

"I'll be a sub," I said. "We'll win if everyone takes it seriously. Dazza asked to be picked, which is a good sign. He wants to, like, score more goals than some absolute rando. Not sure what that's all about but as long as we win I don't care."

"Good," said Nicole. "I'm fascinated by the whole Max Best thing."

"There isn't a whole Max Best thing," I said.

"Yes, there is," said Henri, Aff, and Scottie, in unison.

"There isn't. But it'll be fun. Er, 7:45 kick-off. Just, like, enter the stadium sometime before then, kay? Autobots, roll out!"

"What?" said Gemma.

"Um, it's time to go."

"Oh. Why didn't you say that?"

Aff shook his head. "He did."

***

We got in our cars and hauled arse. Imagine you live in, say, Iowa, and need to drive to Minnesota, and it's a whole ordeal with boredom, life lessons, and shitty car radio, but compress all that into sixty seconds because you're actually driving from Bumpers Bank to Sealand Road and it's literally right there.

We parked and got out in front of a fairly unremarkable block of flats about halfway between the Deva Stadium and the city centre. The flats appeared, at first, to be one united thing, but when you looked there was a two-storey unit shoved up against a couple of three-storey ones. The car park was extensive, though I didn't like seeing vast swathes of paving stones. On a hot day it would be unbearable. There were a handful of trees and bushes, which had grown large but somehow didn't make the space seem less purely efficient.

"This needs a hedge," I said, which was something I hadn't said since I left the world of banking. Boom! Print that out and hang it on your wall. Great line.

We pottered towards the building and met the estate agent. His name was Mark and when he saw that it was really me, his eyes bulged. He tried hard to retain control of the sitch, but largely failed. He looked down at a folder he was carrying in a way that made it really clear he had never been to this location before and had no more clue than us what we were about to see. "14 units," he mumbled. "One and two-beds. Two have dedicated entrances, so you could... Privacy. Low maintenance. Unallocated parking, potential for further development." I looked behind me. There was what looked like a small communal garden and behind that, the car park. It was easy to imagine slapping down another building in all that wasted space. "Shall we go inside?" Mark led us into the ground-floor flat in the two-storey part of the unit.

It was absolutely fine. Walls painted in neutral colours, modern-ish kitchen, decent bathroom. You could really just move in and get on with your life, which was what I wanted.

I did moronic things like test how smoothly the curtains opened and closed, like seeing what was in the fridge, like trying to guess if the person who lived here kept their savings under the mattress.

Meanwhile the experts - Jimmy and Aff - checked the quality of the fixtures and fittings and murmured to each other about the fire doors and the energy rating and the insulation and whatnot. Henri followed behind while looking at the floor plan.

Gemma sat next to me on the bed and murmured, "Why's Henri here?"

That surprised me. They'd had a bit of a fling but had been perfectly civil ever since it ended. "I don't want to spend loads of money and then have him say, hactually mon amis, you could have got nought point five percent higher return by investing in, fucking, I don't know, French wines or hams. He has a lot more experience of this than me. Aff and your dad know walls and floors and wires. Henri's here for the numbers side, do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah."

I gave her the old elevator eyes, taking in her waist. "He's always had a great eye for figures."

Gemma tried to stare me out, but cracked. "Holy fuck, Max. You're a piece of work." In true Gemma fashion, she tried to get the upper hand back by taking control of the conversation. "How's Andrew doing?"

Andrew Harrison was her boyfriend. I'd discovered him via Playdar when I was in Tenerife, and he was low-key sneaking up on his cap. He was 95 out of 121, quietly becoming an important part of our tactical options. Quietly turning into an asset, too. A few months after he maxed, I'd be able to sell him for a truckload of cash. There was no real hurry, though. Now that his CA was nearing triple figures, you could see that he was a proper player, not just a guy who could run around loads. If we stayed another season in the third tier, Andrew would be fucking amazing. In the far more likely event that we got promoted, he would help us when we wanted to do any kind of high-energy strategy.

I didn't dish out compliments like confetti, though, and I loved teasing Gemma. "He's doing okay," I said, checking the others weren't within earshot. I lowered my voice and said, "Something's draining his stamina. I see him in the evening and he's full of beans, full of running, but he gets here every morning just... knackered. Utterly drained. There are days he gets out of his car, he can barely walk." I scratched my sideburns and bounced a little on the bed. "Highly perplexing."

Gemma's eyes popped, but her day job involved demonstrating massive self-control. She counted to five or ten or whatever her number was before she leaned a little closer to me. "One of these days, you're going to go too far, Max Best."

"And then what?" I said, twinkling. "You're going to jump me?"

"You wish," she said.

I smiled. "Andrew's doing fine. He's about 20% better than last season and he's starting to appear on some of the charts."

"Oh. Can I see them?"

"No. I don't want players obsessing over their data, it makes them play weird. Just trust me for once."

"I do trust you."

The estate agent pottered into the bedroom. "Should we, maybe, ah, go to the next one?"

"The next one?" said Gemma, astonished. "How many of these flats are you looking to buy?"

I looked left and right, up and down. "All of them."

***

We checked out a few of the flats, the stairways, the external walls and so on, then went to Tiny Tino for lunch. My treat, of course. Henri's girlfriend, Luisa, wasn't waitressing - she was working for Chester, spending time with our Brazilian players, helping to keep their spirits up in our 'horrid' winter, teaching them a little English, helping them choose a phone contract and showing them where to find cool clothes and so on.

Henri, Aff, Jimmy, Gemma, and I ate and joked and talked about the flats we'd seen. Gemma said, "Max, what the fuck. I knew you had marry-Emma money but to buy fourteen flats in one go? What the fuck?"

I poked at some piri-piri chicken. "I was watching Field of Dreams," I said, forgetting that I'd said it like ten times already. "It's a baseball movie. Or it's a ghost story. Or a fairy tale. I don't even know what it is; it's bonkers."

Henri said, "Max, I know this movie. It is about a man trying to heal his relationship with his father. The redemption arc for the Black Sox mirrors his own redemption arc. Through sport, all wounds can be healed."

I groaned. People were always trying to get me to talk about my family. "Jesus," I muttered, leaning my head against Jimmy's shoulder for a few seconds. "As you know, Henri, all American movies are about the writer's relationship with his father. You learn to, you know, skip that." I shrugged. "Unless you need it, I guess. No, those parts didn't land for me." I took a swig of water while I tried to get my thoughts together. "It's about a guy who buys a farm in the middle of nowhere and he hears a voice. The voice says, 'If you build it, they will come'. Has anyone heard that line?"

"I have," said Jimmy.

"Yeah, it's massive," I said. "Famous quote." I poked my chicken in a distracted way. "I put it into a search engine. Loads of hits. It's a really famous line from movie history, just like 'Elementary, my dear Watson', or 'Play it again, Sam.'"

"Wait," said Aff. "You told me once that Humphrey Bogart never says that in Casablanca. He says, 'Play it, Sam.'"

"Exactly," I said. "In Field of Dreams, the voice says 'If you build it, he will come.' But the entire world decided a better line would be 'if you build it, they will come'. They, not he. A baseball team, not Kevin Costner's father. I've been obsessing over that shift. Imagine being the writer of a smash hit movie and for the rest of your life at every party, cute women say 'Oh my God, you wrote that line!' If you're that writer, what do you do? Do you clarify the sitch? Do you fess up and say actually the line I wrote was a bit underwhelming?"

"Max," said Henri. "You're veering."

I tutted. "Don't you think it's fascinating? There's a line repeated in the movie 20 times but the entire fucking world hears and remembers a totally different line with a radically different meaning? What does this say about the human condition?"

"We don't care," said Henri. "We only care what it means to you."

I scrunched up my face and squeezed my fork. "Fine," I said, postponing the superior line of conversation until I found better friends. "If you build it, they will come. What does that mean for me? Kevin Costner built a baseball field in the middle of nowhere in Iowa. I'm building football centres in Saltney, Chester, Chorlton, and Gibraltar. If I build it, they will come. Talented players, coaches, assistant managers, fans. If you build it, they will come. But in the movie, the fans, so to speak, just want to stay a while to watch some baseball. How long's a baseball match? Eight minutes? There's no way to find out. But I want people to come to my projects and stay for years. But how? Where will they live? Adam Summerhays is in Henri's digs. Dazza's in a flatshare with, like, four incredibly beautiful women who he torments by not sleeping with them."

"Really?" said Gemma, way too excited.

"That story's true until disproven. When Henri bought that B and B place and said he wanted to turn it into digs for the players, I thought he was crazy. Is he really gonna keep it full? Turns out he could rent the rooms five times over. I've just signed six young players and the one thing they all whisper in my ear is, 'where the fuck am I supposed to live?' I haven't had to think about it for a while but getting housed is super hard. There's nowhere to live in this city, and whenever a place becomes available, the landlord goes, huh, everyone else is putting his rents up, that sounds fun. So my guys are getting squeezed. Chester FC has no money and what it has is earmarked for the new stand. Housing could be a huge obstacle for our project here, and the club can't solve it yet. But I've got a bit of cash tucked away."

"Your Gibraltar winnings," said Henri.

I nodded. "Yeah."

Henri's eyebrows rose a fraction. "I saw the brochure. The flats are on the market for one point eight million."

Aff dropped his fork and said, "Jayzus," while dabbing his lips with a napkin.

Henri said, "Do you have that much?"

"No," I said.

"How much have you got?" said Henri.

"Isn't it gauche to talk about money like this?"

Henri shrugged. "You want our opinion, no? Jimmy and Aff can tell you if the building is sound. I can tell you if the numbers add up. If you tell me the numbers," he added.

I fussed with my hair. Did I want people to know how much spending power I had? Not really, but I was in over my head, wasn't I? I had invited these people to help me. "Jimmy, quick question. The Weavers bought my mum a bungalow. If I've got some spare cash, should I offer to buy that from them before I go flinging money around? They said not to think about it but, you know, I do. I don't know what the right way to approach them is."

Jimmy blasted the table with calm; it soothed me and caught Gemma in its area of effect, too. She gave him a sweet smile before turning back to her plate. "They wanted to do something nice, Max. You offering to buy the bungalow from them, I mean... What purpose would that serve? No, I'd say no. Forget it. Go on with your life."

Gemma said, "Emma will tell you when the right time is, Max."

"Oh," I said. "Okay." I nodded a few times. "Good. Numbers. Okay, so as you've heard, it's fourteen flats, half one-bed, half two-bed. It's up for one point eight million and I could put down a deposit for half, which I know is far too high but I don't have a lot in the way of credit history and I don't even have a long-term contract so that's my way of, like, persuading the bank to, you know..."

Henri smiled. "Are you worried about how you will be received if you go into a bank? Do not distress yourself. They do not get many applicants who literally set their own salaries. Tsch. But please continue."

I did. "If I drop half as a deposit, the mortgage payments on the rest would be about four thousand five hundred a month. The flats are making 125,000 a year right now."

Aff nearly spat his drink out. "Jaysus," he said.

"That's eight thousand-odd a month. Nearly nine thousand. That's decent, right, Henri? To keep that going, I need an average of 750 pounds per month per flat. If I buy it tomorrow, three flats will go vacant, because that's the owner and her family. That's three flats I can rent to the new lads, yeah? Or to Nicole, or Bones, or whoever else comes to Chester because I chase them across Europe until they give in. I want to rent these one-beds to the young players for 500 a month and the two-beds for 1,000. That way I don't lose money. Um, right? Yeah, that has to be right."

"But if you are waiting for the current tenants to leave," said Henri, "what will actually happen is this. Someone will move out of a one-bedroom flat and you will rent it out for 500 a month. Perfect. Then someone will move out of a two-bedroom flat just as a youth team player signs his first contract and this young man will be desperate to move out into the world, out of his parents' home, and you, being a soft touch, will offer him a one-thousand-a-month flat for half that. That is what will actually happen. You will not make money from this."

I shrugged. "I've had that money in the bank since I got it. I don't really know what to do with it. Put it into Saltney? MD's got it covered. Into Chester? Even I know that's mental. Into West Didsbury? Yeah, but they're still so low-level I can keep them moving up the leagues on plain talent alone and what they need is five million quid for a new stadium and either I'll get it all or nothing. And what if I lose my gifts tomorrow? If I buy, fucking, fourteen flats close to Chester city centre earning over a hundred grand... I know I can live off that because I lived on loads less until very recently. And if literally everything else in my life goes to shit, Christ, I can live in one of the flats! Worst case scenario suddenly looks pretty decent, doesn't it? And if things keep going well, if all my numbers keep going up, perfect! I'll have a place I can rent to the youth team players and the randos I sign. Normally when you own a flat, it's bad news when a tenant leaves. Right? In my case, I'll be like, yay! I'll call Hamish and tell him he can move out of the cupboard under the stairs."

Jimmy said, "Is the market really so difficult around here?"

I nodded. "It's what I hear, yeah, all the time. Chester, Manchester, Gibraltar. I've somehow wound up dealing in three places where it's hard to find low-cost housing. It could be a bottleneck for my projects, you know? I never wanted to get into property because Henri made it seem like a nightmare but if I buy those flats, I can house an entire team."

"If you kick everyone out," said Gemma.

"I already said I wouldn't do that."

"Then what's the point?"

"People leave!" I said, exasperated. "They leave without being pushed. They get jobs in, fucking, I don't know... Kent. When they go, I'll use the slot for my peeps. Henri, help me out here. As long as the rent covers the mortgage I'm not losing out, right? Let's assume I don't need a profit."

"Think of the maintenance," he said. "People smash windows or crash into those nice carports outside. Or the tree falls and takes part of the roof with it. You need some profit just to break even."

"Yeah, sure," I said. "But if I'm, like, sixty and it's time to retire and I've got one of these things in Chester and one in Manchester, I'm going to be all right, aren't I?"

"Would you jack up the rents at that point?"

"Yeah. If that was all I had."

Henri smiled and looked around the table. "Are the voices in your head telling you to do this? What accent have they got?"

"It's not a voice," I said. "It's more like, here's a problem, which is that my staff can't find a place to live, and here's a solution, which is my various consultancy fees."

"And your sponsorships," said Gemma. "They must be adding up."

"Yeah," I said, scratching the back of my neck. I had just under a million pounds in my Maxterplanalytics account, which was my share of the UEFA prize money from Gibraltar, but I also had my image rights company. This was a totally-legal (no, really) instrument which allowed for 20% of my Chester salary to be funnelled into a company that would be taxed lower than I would as a person. That was adding up, plus I had 25,000 a year from BoshCard going into that account. Chester Zoo and Ganymede (the shampoo company) were each paying me 50K a year, while Soccer Supremo was at 100. That account was creeping up towards £250,000. There was also my share of the profits from the agency, but since my stake was owned by a series of shell companies I had to be careful about accessing that money. "Do you think I should slap everything I've got into this investment and keep the mortgage low?"

Henri stuck out his bottom lip. "Before I answer, let us discuss the flats themselves. They seem well-designed to me." He looked from Aff to Jimmy.

Aff nodded. "The layout's good. You could argue about moving some of the rooms around, but yeah, they're a clever use of the space. The interesting thing is the car park. It's bigger than it needs to be. Could you put another set of flats there? That'd really take your investment to the next level. Me? I'd want to buy something poorly laid out so I could fix it and add some value, but in terms of a simple investment opportunity, I've seen worse."

"And I've seen better," said Henri. "In Field of Dreams, doesn't Kevin Costner go broke following his dream?"

"No," I said. "Because it ends the day before he's due to lose the farm. But if my sums are right, if I put up half the cash as a deposit, I'll make three thousand pounds a month from this deal."

"You will," said Henri. "And that sounds nice. But..." He tapped on his phone. "Your nine hundred thousand, given a meagre 6% return on investment, after ten years would be worth 1.6 million. Opportunity cost. What else could you do with this money? Plenty. Or you could give footballers artificially cheap rent."

I scraped my bottom tooth. I knew he was right. "Thing is, Henri... When I was poor and had nothing, you let me live in one of your houses for free. I don't think you lie awake at night thinking, shit, I should have charged Max market rate!"

"I do, my friend. I really do."

"You don't. You think about all the fun we had. All the people we helped. All the memories we created."

He looked down at his hands, before looking up at me with a crooked smile. "No, I think about the money I lost."

I threw my hands up in mock dismay. "This is what I'm saying. You didn't lose anything! When you left Darlington you sold that place to a nice family and you got an extra ten percent by saying it's where the great Max Best lived. Okay, it's settled. I'm going to go to some banks to see who's smart enough to lend me a bit of cash."

Henri sighed. "Do me one favour. Don't tell them you intend to rent the rooms to young footballers at reasonable rates," he said. "Tell them you're a cold, heartless bastard and you'll evict everyone who lives there unless they stump up another 30% on what they're already paying."

"And once I get the money, I do whatever I want?" I said.

"Naturellement," he said. "When you owe the bank a small amount of money, you have a problem. When you owe the bank a large amount of money..."

Gemma knew this one. "They have a problem."

The table burst into life as my four friends chatted away. I watched them talk, drifting up, wondering what fairy tale I was in. When exactly had I decided I wanted to buy a property worth 1.8 million pounds? How was that even possible? Surely someone would stop me. I would try to buy the flats and someone would call the estate agent saying, hey, not him. People like him don't own property.

But people like me did. Gary Neville, the ex-Man United player, owned loads of houses and some hotels, while former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler owned between 30 and 90 million pounds of real estate, depending on which search result you clicked.

The English dream was to get on the property ladder and climb it. I was running towards the ladder, ready to leap, ready to skip a few rungs, ready to splurge 1.8 million pounds.

One point eight.

Million.

Holy fuck.

***

An hour later Emma and I were pottering around the city centre and came to a halt in front of a branch of Natwest. "This one," I said.

"Oh. I thought you'd do Lloyds. You like a fancy name, don't you? Lloyds of London."

"I do like the name Lloyds," I said, briefly doubting myself. "Natwest is a bit mid. It used to be called National Westminster. That's a classier name, isn't it? What I'm thinking is there are two advantages to establishing a relationship with this bank. First, I never worked for them, which means I don't despise the brand with all my heart. Second, it's in the same network of companies as Coutts, the bank for obscenely rich people. I plan to be obscenely rich one day soon, don't I?"

Emma tilted her head. "You're going to get rich renting rooms worth a thousand pounds for half that? It's so crazy it just might work!"

I tutted and spoke with massive patience. "I'll get rich by leeching onto UEFA and never letting go. Okay so there's the potential for satisfying progression, right? I start here like a normo but one day, Natwest will call and say 'bro, you've got too much cash, we want to kick you upstairs', meaning Coutts, and that will be like getting promoted to the Premier League, won't it?"

Emma shrugged. "I don't really know what Coutts is. It's like you're starting a word but not finishing it."

"It's the Queen's bank," I said. "I think. Pretty sure."

Emma whipped her phone out, asked me to spell Coutts, and brought up Wikipedia. "Yeah, the Queen's bank. Why the Queen? Why not the King? Oh, shit. Talk about great names!"

"What?"

"The two most senior staff at Coutts are called Lord Remnant and Emma Crystal. Surely the best names ever?"

"My new goal in life," I said, striding through the door, "is to get so rich that I can meet Lord Remnant and Emma Crystal."

Inside, there was a queue for normal banking and a sort of lounge type area. I went over there and looked around, smiling as I thought about what I was going to say. Not all that long ago, this would have got me all kinds of sweaty. Sweaty and tongue-tied.

"Max?" said Emma. "You okay?"

"This is nuts, isn't it? I'm asking for way too much. I don't have a lot in the way of a credit history, I don't have a long-term contract at Chester, and my sponsorship money could dry up at any moment. I'm thinking about the paperwork. We don't even pay the gas or electric bills at our house." Our landlord, Ruth, took care of everything as part of hiding my location from people. Could I even prove that I lived there? I shook my head. "No bank in their right mind would lend to me, right?"

A woman in a simple suit saw me and came out of her office. "Hiya. Can I help you?"

I put my doubts away and tried to summon a cocky smile. "Who do I talk to about getting a million pounds?"

Her smile fixed on her face and she looked me up and down. "Chelsea?" She laughed suddenly and invited us to follow her into the office. It said 'manager' on the door. "My son's not going to believe this."

As we followed, Emma gave me one of her sexiest, lip-twisting smiles. "I don't think she's gonna ask you for a gas bill, babes."

***

Tuesday, February 9

Cheshire Senior Cup Quarter Final: Chester versus Runcorn Linnets

"This is nice," said Nicole, as she settled into the little dugout next to me. It was a cold, crisp evening and she was wrapped up nice and warm. Magnus Evergreen had brought her a hot drink in an insulated cup. He was to Nicole's right. Colin Beckton was prowling around the technical area in front of us. "Okay, start by explaining that."

"Colin? He came here to get into coaching and he's good at it, but if you're a coach with Colin's playing career, club owners are going to be interested in bumping you up to the manager's role, so we're testing it out. Giving him opportunities. Some people don't even like it, you know. Managing looks fun from the stands but it takes a certain kind of personality to actually enjoy it."

"Does Colin?"

"I think so. The vibe I get is that he prefers coaching, but he keeps his cards close to his chest. For such an instinctive finisher, he's quite methodical. Takes his time."

"What's that over there?"

She was indicating the Harry McNally stand, where about four hundred fans were wearing high-vis jackets. "It's our Yellow Wall. That's a thing in Dortmund where there are like 20,000 fans in one stand behind the goal. They all wear bright yellow and it looks amazing. There isn't much interest in these Cheshire Cup games so I've made it a pound to get in the McNally if you wear high-vis. It's fun. Party vibe in there and it's a boost for the players because otherwise it could feel dead."

"The fans look like the ushers."

"The stewards, we call them. Yeah, so that's why the actual stewards are in all-black with a white sash. There won't be any trouble tonight. People are here for a cheap pint and to see us score loads of goals and to take a sneak peek at the next batch of talented youngsters."

Nicole eyed the pitch, trying to make sense of it. "It's not only youngsters, is it?"

"No but the average age is 21.6, which is really super low. It's a good team, too. Let me give you the overview. Runcorn are in the eighth tier, so they're one step lower than my West Didsbury team." Runcorn's average CA of 27 was actually decent for their level, which tended to cap at around 30. West Didsbury's league went up to 40, which was why they were currently only second. League One, the division Chester were in, ran from CA 91 to 110. Our shittest players were twice as good as Runcorn's best, hence our average CA was 79.3. "What it means is that almost any eleven we put out should win, but I like to go through the usual steps anyway. First is to know what formation the opponent will do. They play 4-4-2, which is basic but it's solid and all the players know their roles. I've got a team that can switch between 4-4-2 and 4-3-3, though today isn't really about tactics."

I paused as the match kicked off, triggering thirty seconds of low-quality, high-fun mayhem. It settled down as soon as we strung three passes together and from that moment we were very much in control.

"In goal we've got Banksy. He's really talented but it's hard to give goalies exposure to the first team. That's part of why it's so important we win these Cheshire Cup games. From the first round to the final is five matches. That's five chances for Banksy and the others, five games for Colin and Peter to hone their craft. You'll hear people complain there are too many games in a season, and that's true, but these ones are good because we can use our entire squad, including the weaker players."

Banksy was steadily improving, as you'd expect from an outstanding talent who was working with an outstanding goalkeeping coach. He was getting just enough first-team action to keep him chugging along. His CA of 64 was still miles behind Swanny (108) and Sticky (101), but he was only 18. Banksy was filling out, too. Getting stronger, getting slightly better at bashing players out of his way at corners. By the end of this season he would be good enough to play in League Two. What would I do with him next season? Really difficult choice. One option would be to loan him to Saltney and bring Rainman back to be Chester's third-choice goalie.

"The defence is really exciting," I said, but I realised I had fallen silent for so long that Nicole had started chatting with Magnus. She turned to me, ready to listen. "Adam at left back. He has been getting loads of minutes recently because I need him to kick on in the next few months because we sold Josh earlier than I planned. I'm not too worried because we can play formations that don't use left backs, but giving him loads of action now will keep him going for a while. The trick is to involve our weaker players as much as possible without costing us too many points, because if we have a nice gap at the top of the league we can actually give out more minutes."

"That is exciting," said Nicole, with extreme generosity.

"No," I smiled. "My sophisticated squad rotations aren't exciting. The actual defenders are. You know, their profiles and their backgrounds and their stories and their potential. Adam's fast and technical. He'll play most of his career at a far higher level than this. Then there's Peter Bauer, dreamy centre back. Tomzilla, another dreamy centre back. Basically going to be the perfect defender. On the right is Nasa, who's a fucking menace. He doesn't do much as an attacking threat, but as a pure defender there won't be many better."

Adam was 66/137, nine points away from being League Two standard. The Brazilian defenders were at similar levels. Tomzilla had improved to 65/178, while Nasa was 63/150.

Peter was still getting most of my Secret Sandra attention but I was starting to rethink that particular investment because he was now 90/166. He had hit League One quality! He had added some muscle - and two points of Strength - and was better able to cope with the physical demands of English football. In theory I could play him as one of two centre backs, but in serious matches I would still prefer to use him in a back three. I suppose deep down, I was scared of making him look shit and scaring him away.

"I'm tempted to shift my attention from Peter to Nasa," I said, then realised I had no reliable way to discuss Secret Sandra with an outsider. "I'm talking about, like, slightly focusing our training sessions around what a particular player needs in order to get them to improve faster. Peter was training with the lads at Man United one day a week and that was helping him improve fast, combined with us tailoring our sessions to hone his skills..."

"Did we do that?" said Magnus, slightly amazed.

"Yes," I said. "It's very subtle. I don't like to mention it in case it causes jealousy."

He nodded to himself. Wow! That way of explaining it worked great. "Anyway, now Peter's close enough to the pack to sail under his own steam. Sail under his own wind. What's the saying?" Neither of the others knew, so I sailed on. "The question is, who's next? If we turn our attention to Nasa, we'll have a more balanced team sooner. If we had a cup final tomorrow, Magnus would be my only real option at right back, followed some distance behind by Andrew Harrison. That's fine for this season but next year I want choices. So it's about putting the work in on the training pitch now to get the benefits in, like, August, versus putting effort into something that might have a more immediate payoff, like, ah... yeah, maybe Magnus himself. He had loads of European experience and you can see it in his training."

"You can?" said Magnus, leaning forward again.

"Yeah. It's bursting out of you. In a good way." He was up to CA 97, which was growth of about 1 point per week since his return from The Rock. "Training's the key to everything we do here, Nicole, so that's the most likely area of conflict between the coaching staff and the physios and the players. Getting the best balance between healing time, training time, and playing time is really hard." Nicole was a phenomenal addition to our staff, but her methods came with more cost than I had previously realised. Players left her sessions floating on air, standing taller, ready to work, but in many cases the next day was a write-off as they woke up feeling like they had been hit by a truck. Massively net positive, but some extra planning was required. "Around key matches I might delay some players' sessions with you, or ask to bring someone forward from Wednesday to Monday or that kind of thing. I hope you won't take it personally. It's actually a reflection on how effective you are and obviously I'll try to minimise disruptions. Oh hey, how was Jimmy?"

"Better when he left."

"Was Gemma happy?"

"Very. She said any time I needed help suing UEFA I should give her a call."

I watched as the lads on the pitch strung a few passes together. Decent stuff, but slow. Colin took a few steps towards us. "4-3-3 for a while, boss?"

"Why?"

Colin thought about coming up with a sound tactical reason, but instead he grinned and said, "Because I'm fucking bored!"

I laughed. "Valid reason, mate. I think you should let it play out for ten minutes or so. Let our lads settle. Be patient."

Colin nodded. "Yeah. Yeah," he repeated, and moved back to his zone.

I went back to telling Nicole about our line up. "Our midfield three, when we're in a three, is Ryan, Omari, and Bark. Ryan's an experiment in longevity. He's holding up okay." Ryan Jack, 38, was clinging onto his CA 77 like a sloth to a rope. He was a great role model for the lads and I tried to give him as many minutes as I could. Omari was 78/103. He had been playing in Wales but training with us at Bumpers Bank. "Ryan is letting Omari take the set pieces. Omari's a bit better but Ryan's more senior so normally that would be that. Ryan's not about that kind of status crap, though. He wants what's best for the team and I think he's doing it to make Omari feel more valued."

It was a shame about Omari's relatively low ceiling. I imagined that next season I would loan him to a League One side, possibly with an option to buy at a reasonable price. Or he could move to Saltney for a while and help me get the team into European competitions. It would be his call.

Bark was 94/130. "Bark's interesting," I said. "He's another guy who's quietly keeping his head down and working hard with no complaint. His improvement is solid but his output isn't great. In this industry we've got a phrase, a 'data darling'. That's someone who, like, always appears on the top-right of a chart."

Magnus went, "Cough, Max, cough."

"You okay, buddy?"

"Yes, darling. I mean, yes Max."

"Wow," I said, and waited for Nicole and Magnus to stop grinning. "Bark isn't anyone's data darling, not yet, but he has snuck up to being League One quality. I'm expecting a steady rise in all his metrics but we're all kind of waiting for the breakout moment when he has a purple patch, a run of games with goals and assists that will make people sit up and take notice."

Nicole said, "What can you do to help with that?"

"Amazing question." I pointed. "We're gonna play him in central midfield later," I said. "That's not his position. It's not that we're trying to make him look bad, right, it's that this time on the pitch is good for him. There are players like Bark who you see for years and they're really good but never actually produce much, then you look away for five minutes and when you come back, they're the captain and they're bossing matches. The problem for Bark is that he's getting better but so's the entire team so he can't make himself feel that he's becoming more important to what we're doing. Not sure if I'm explaining that well. He's gone from being a small fish in a small pond to being a medium fish in a medium pond. This time now might be good for him."

"What time's that?" said Nicole.

"We're... Some of our better players are improving slower than normal. That's not ideal but it does let the other lads catch up a bit, right? Bark could wake up at the end of the season and think he's as good as almost anyone at the club. Heh. Which brings us to Wibbers. He's at left-midfield right now but he'll move to striker later. I've been super careful with him. There are guys of the same age with the same level of talent who have already played a hundred more matches than Wibbers. Is that good for those players? Is it fuck. We're letting him out of the box more often now; he's close to the levels of the top players."

William was CA 105. Dazza, who was completely dominating his duel with the oppo's captain, was 110. Wibbers would catch up by the end of the season.

"And who's the boy?"

"Oh, that's Chas. Chas Fungrieve. He's 17." With me including him in first team training and making sure he got private sessions, Chas had kept improving after our Youth Cup triumph. He was now CA 60 and had single-handedly taken our very weak boys team a couple of rounds deeper into this season's Youth Cup than I had expected.

Chas's PA was only 83, but that was enough to have a long and fun career. If he stuck around at one club in particular, he would become a cult figure. I was tempted to try to get him to one of the teams in Gibraltar, but he was a smart kid and wanted to go to uni.

"He's very gangly."

"Yeah, a real beanpole. He doesn't score as many headers as you'd think, though he's getting way better at that. He's very technical. Good feet for a big man, as they say. We will get a decent transfer fee for him when he goes."

"You know," said Nicole. "You often talk about players going. Is that a defence mechanism? So that it doesn't hurt as much when they depart?"

"Probably," I said. I leaned forward and clasped my hands together. "It works both ways, doesn't it? A player wants to leave to get a better job. I want a player to leave so I can get someone better. We can debate who's in the wrong, who's using who. But I watched this movie, Field of Dreams, and it's really bonkers.

"One of the key scenes is about an old dude who played one match as a sub but didn't get the chance to bat. Didn't make a catch, either, so it was like he was on the pitch and no-one passed to him and he didn't touch the ball and then it was the final whistle and he never played again. Kevin Costner kind of has the power to give this guy a second chance, but the guy says, no thanks. I became a doctor. I loved baseball and I always wondered if things could have been different, but I'll never regret becoming a doctor."

Telling this to Nicole and Magnus, two people with medical backgrounds, hit different. I pressed on.

"This doctor guy was good enough to get on the pitch in the major leagues, but maybe not more than that. Top 2% but not top 1%. It's still pretty top, isn't it? The thing I struggle with most is taking a kid like Chas who I don't think will make it to the Premier League and giving him training and opportunities. Is that fair, when I know deep down what his limits are? The movie helped me find some peace with it all. Yes, you should take players and bring them as far as they can go. Not everyone can make it to the Prem. Not everyone can play for their country. So what? If you love the game, you just want to play it, right? We had this kid called Benny. He got to play in the FA Cup."

"He scored," said Magnus.

"Yes!" I said, remembering. "That was amazing. He won the Youth Cup and now he's getting some action in the Welsh leagues. Everyone here, it's their dream to play this sport. I don't need to overthink my role in that."

Magnus leaned forward. "Why are you thinking this, Max?"

I pulled at my lip. "The movie was weird. I was watching it going why would anyone make the decisions Kevin Bacon did? But he's got the voices in his head, right? They tell him to do things that to the outside world seem pretty mad. He could make more money by doing what all his neighbours do but he wants to put his money into sports." I smiled. "I don't know, that maybe touched a nerve. But there was this one part where the voices said, 'go the distance'. Like, keep going. Do what you're doing. And that slapped me in the face because I had doubts about this season."

"Doubts?" said Magnus. "Don't you think we'll win the league?"

"I do," I said. "But it could be close, and we're one game from Wembley. I should stay here and make sure we blast everything. But if I do that, we'll lose momentum six months from now, or a year from now. There's a voice whispering to me: go the distance. What does that mean? It means I should stick to the plan. We need to get reinforcements for next season. Guys who can make sure we stay in the Champ, but who can come with us to the Prem. I need to scout a little further afield while I have the time, which is now. I don't really care if we win the league by one point or by ten. I'll be here for the semi-final. But we need top talents I can get for cheap and that means going to low-cost-of-living countries like Norway."

"Er, boss," said Magnus.

"Oh, wait," I said, rushing to my feet.

Runcorn had hit a long ball that Peter had headed away, and after a midfield scrap sucked in a few bodies, we broke. Wibbers drove forward with the ball and moved it left, into the path of Adam. Adam pushed it a couple of yards ahead and crossed, low and early, just like he had as a tiny player. The ball curved into Dazza's path, and the stupid Aussie doofus put it wide of the far post.

Dazza fell to his knees, hands over his face, but then he got up and took a few steps towards Adam, hands up, apologising. Adam took it with good grace, while Wibbers walked over to give Adam a high-five.

"Whoo!" yelled Colin. "The fuck was that? Holy... Hey, Adam! Adam! Very nice, mate. Very nice." Colin grinned as he got out his little notepad and scribbled happily.

I went back to the dugout. "Sometimes I really love this job."

***

At half time, three goals ahead, we made a couple of changes.

We put 16-year-old Roddy Jones on at right back. Roddy's PA 184 marked him out as a future megastar, though his CA of 56 meant we had to be careful about how and when we used him. "Roddy's amazing," I told Nicole. "He's already training with the Welsh national team, but obviously it's a risk to use a weak and feeble kid in defence. Here in the Cheshire Cup it's safe, but in league matches when we give him ten minutes we play him further forward with someone else doing the primary defensive shifts."

"And that other sub is Joel," said Nicole. "The new player."

"Yeah. I'd prefer to give these minutes to Tommy Thompson but he'll come on later, along with one or two of the other new kids, depending on whether I feel like having a run out. But Joel needs to get match fit. He hasn't played for a long time so he got the second half the other day, second half today, probably the same against Lincoln on the weekend, and then it's Mansfield, who are one of the weakest teams in this division. If all goes well, he'll start that one. He should be, like, 90% fit going into the big one."

"Plymouth," muttered Magnus, darkly.

"Yeah," I said. "Plymouth in the Vans Trophy. Probably the third best team in our league." Average CA 111, slightly too good for League One in normal circumstances. "Really tough draw, that, although I suppose we could have got Portsmouth."

"If you want to win trophies," said Magnus, sagely, "you have to beat the best teams."

"They won't fancy playing us," I said, watching Joel closely. He was a tremendous piece of business. I had worried that buying someone whose CA (119) was far above our training cap was stupid because it would degrade, but the way he had battled to keep his levels high at his former club made me think the drop wouldn't be too bad. And even if it was, we'd get those levels back soon enough at the start of next season. It was always easier to bring a player back to his previous levels than it was to get there for the first time, although I knew one player who was kicking on rapidly.

As if reading my mind, Magnus said, "How's Youngster doing?"

"Great," I said. "Amazing." He had raced to CA 115. "Bayern put him on the bench, you know, at the weekend. That was a nice gesture from Basti. Gives Youngster a chance to see the top top pros getting ready, gives him a sense of the levels and all that. Although the cynical part of me thinks it happened because the bigwigs want to plant the idea of Youngster moving to Germany one day. If he's as good as I think he is, they'll be in the auction. Buttering him up now is smart and it doesn't cost them anything."

"Are they playing tonight?"

"No, tomorrow. Home to Celtic in the Champions League. It'll be noisy as fuck. If they put him on the bench for that one, wow."

"When's he coming back?"

"This week. He'll be available against Lincoln. He's flown around a bit but hasn't played, so I might throw him back into the team. Why not, right?" I frowned and caught myself before I bit my nail.

"What's wrong, Max?" asked Nicole, gently.

"Everything's going too well. That means something horrible has to happen, doesn't it? Losing to Plymouth in the semi-final would be devastating. Maybe I should stay here and make sure we're super ready for that one. Going to Scandinavia just before that match is dumb, isn't it?"

Magnus leaned forward. "Go the distance, boss. Go the distance."

I squeezed my fists into my temples. "If we beat Lincoln, I'll go to Scandinavia. There. That's sensible, isn't it?"

Magnus shook his head. "You're not supposed to be sensible; you're supposed to follow your heart. Live your dream, boss. It's clear you know you should go. Just go."

"Just go," agreed Nicole.

***

Wednesday, February 10

A couple of dozen players and staff descended on Henri's digs to watch Bayern Munich versus Celtic. Peter had found out that Youngster would be on the bench again and it was such a surreal thought that his goofy smile would be lighting up the Champions League we just had to mark the occasion.

Toquinho (AKA Tockers, a Brazilian playing for Saltney Town but very much part of the wider gang), being one of the more sociable guys, was on hosting duties. His fellow Brazilians - Gabriel, Tomzilla, and Nasa - were helping. At some point in their time in the UK they had learned that our parties consisted of pouring potato crisps into bowls and they were honouring our traditions while also providing grilled meats and veg, too.

Vincent Addo was in the middle of the sofa, stressed out of his tiny mind. "I'm sure he'll get minutes today," he said. "I believe it." There was no chance of that, but it was cute to see him so invested in his friend's happiness.

Wibbers and Sarah Greene were over to the left with Tom Westwood and his Welsh girlfriend. Omari and Bark were teasing Meredith Ann about me calling her the best player in the world as the cliffhanger at the end of season 2 of Chesterness. It was a scene that blew up on social media but I hadn't really thought about the timing. When season 3 aired, it would be helpful if Meredith was regularly dunking on teams otherwise she might look a bit of a fool, through no fault of her own. "Isn't it loads of pressure?" said Bark.

Meredith popped a Monster Munch into her mouth. "I eat pressure for breakfast."

"Huh," said Omari. "I eat porridge."

This half-joke sent Meredith into fits, and I actually took a couple of steps closer in case she choked on a crisp.

"Ooh!" went the guys watching the match. Celtic had nearly scored. I didn't have the Match Overview in my head, but I could see Bayern's squad list and could check their profiles. I had access to their live Condition scores, so in theory I could diagnose when someone was hurt enough to be subbed off. How could I use this skill? I couldn't.

I went over to Charlotte and asked her for a quick chat. It was too cold to go out in the garden so we went to her room. She had decorated a little more since I'd been there last. Put her stamp on it. "Do you like it here?"

"It's pretty good," she said. "I think I'd have left if Henri took out the carpets, but yeah, it's pretty good. I'm quite settled." I nodded. Charlotte was living here rent-free because she was managing the property on behalf of Henri. She said, "Are we going to beat Brighton?"

After beating Lewes 4-2, we had drawn another WSL side in the Women's FA Cup Quarter Final. It could have been worse but Brighton probably had triple-digit CA. Even with Bench Boost, we would fall short. "We are one hundred percent going to beat them."

Charlotte gave me a tiny smile. "I see."

Time to get down to business. "I'm buying some flats," I said. "I mean, it looks likely. All seems to be going pretty smoothly."

"Nice. Where?"

"Sealand Road."

"That's why we're called the Seals, because we used to play there."

I smiled. "I know that. I'm the face of Chester Zoo because I'm an expert in Seals of all kinds. So these flats are between Bumpers and the city and it's a pretty great spot for players. That's why I'm buying it."

She got a worried look. "You don't want me to move in there, do you? Like, transfer me? You have to agree a transfer fee! I don't want you to fall out with Henri."

"Wow, imagine that!" I considered it. There wasn't much I could do that would get him to hate me, but whisking Charlotte away from his digs would probably do it. Especially since he had kept the carpets in for her. "Shit. It's really easy to imagine him blowing up about me poaching his tenants. No, I was just looking at Youngster there in the Allianz Arena and I was thinking I could predict his wages for the next, like, eight years, and I reckon I could get really close to the real numbers."

"Especially since you set them."

"Right, yeah, I could get the first couple of years spot on. Heh. But what about you? I actually don't really know what's going to happen." Charlotte was 82/101 and earned £450 a week, which was above the market rate for a third tier player. "I reckon you're a starter for the next two seasons at least, but what does that mean financially? Attendances aren't going up as fast as I would like. We've revised our hopes for the first WSL season down to, like, a two thousand average."

"That would still be pretty good," said Charlotte. "That's like Aston Villa, Everton, West Ham levels."

"Yeah but those levels are piss poor. I want to fill the fucking stadium. Anyway, that's for Brooke and her team to solve, right, but I'm wondering how it's going to go. The documentary will end sometime. If the men are in the Premier League I'll be able to keep everything going at the same level, but almost everyone in the women's team needs a side hustle. What I was thinking is, maybe you could be my property manager. Keep an eye on my flats the way you sort this place out. You take the calls about broken boilers or whatever, call Aff to get him to fix things, make sure everyone's paying the rent etc. Some of the tenants will be players and it'll be easy to deal with them because if they give you shit I'll destroy them, but there will be some civilians in there, too. Could be some challenging people. You've already got good skills but you could, you know, build a career and get yourself a tidy little wedge on the side. This one would be eight hundred quid a month."

"Eight hundred a month?" she said.

"Yeah, ten percent. That's standard, Henri says."

"These flats are gonna make you eight grand a month? Fucking hell, Max." She was both impressed and annoyed, which felt about right.

"Do you need time to think about it?"

"No," she said. "I'll do it. It's... I'll do my best. Thanks, Max."

"No, thank you. Top bins. Now let's see how the world's second-best Bayern Munich manager gets on."

***

Bayern huffed and puffed through the match, set up in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation. Celtic battled hard and kept the score at nil-nil for ages, but Zoran Bratko, one of Nicole's former patients, scored a header to put Bayern in the box seat.

Bastian, their manager, went more defensive in order to cling onto the win. I booed and chanted 'Attack! Attack! Attack!' until Peter Bauer complained.

In the 85th minute, Basti subbed off his shithead left back and put my boy Willi Tillmann on instead. "Whoo," I cried. "Free Willi!"

In the 86th minute, constant Celtic pressure... led to a quick counter-attack and a composed one-v-one finish from Danny Kowalski. Sighs of relief all round. Peter yelled out, "Max taught him that!"

"All right," I said, standing up, facing the front door, clapping my hands. "I have to go and brush up my Swedish. I'm going to Mal-muh. I think it's pronounced Mal-muh but some people say Malmer."

There were screams all around me, as though the entire population of Malmö heard me butchering their city's name. Vincent Addo was suddenly blubbing like a baby. I gasped before I even fully processed what it meant, and turned to face the TV.

Youngster was on the side of the pitch, about to go on. My eyes locked onto the top left of the screen. The 88th minute! Including injury time, he would get five minutes of Champions League football.

Peter Bauer's hand was on the back of my head, giving me a little shake. "A gift," he said. "From everyone at Bayern Munich. Well," he said, because Germans have a pathological need for accuracy. "Almost everyone."

I opened Youngster's player profile and half gasped again.

His transfer value had shot up from 3.8 million pounds to 6 million. Too good to be true! Too good to be true!

As Youngster went to take up the slot next to Diogo, the prick who had mutinied against me when I was in charge, I yelped, "Oh, no!"

Peter panicked. "What? What?"

I pointed, as all eyes fell upon me. "It's Field of Dreams. Midnight Graham, the guy who gets on the pitch as a sub. His one chance in the major leagues. Doesn't even touch the ball and that's his entire top-level career done. It's happening now. This is it!"

The party mood chilled and we watched in collective horror as what I described played out exactly as I knew it would.

For twenty seconds, which was how long it took Danny Kowalski to pass the ball to Youngster, who played it safely back to him.

"Fucking hell, Max!" cried about five people, and I was assaulted by Monster Munch and assorted other crisps.

"Oh," I said, grinning. "Yeah, okay. Soz."

I sat on the sofa, next to Vincent, who had been most affected by my catastrophising. "Don't you have to go and learn Swedish?" he said, sourly.

I put my arm around him and squeezed. "No. Oh my God, are his parents watching? They might not know. Call them, Vini! Come on! Put them on video chat. Come onnnnnnn."

He was back to his good-natured smiles. "Why don't you do it?" he said, as he dialled.

"Meh. Mr. Yalley doesn't pick up when I call. He's worried I've got him another football club to own. Heh. Ask him if he wants to come with me to Sweden."

"What exactly are you going to do in Sweden?"

"Nothing much," I said. "Just ask a load of complete strangers for five million quid."