1.3 - Man Management [T1] (Patreon)

3.

Sunday, October 25

Inside Man is a heist movie.

It's about a handsome Englishman who wants to rob a bank so he robs a bank. I watched it in bed with Emma, her laptop turned sideways so we could spoon, but I annoyed her by pausing it every three minutes because a new idea had occurred to me. 

"It's so interesting," I said, halfway through. "I remember this being one of those heists that's full of finesse, but it isn't. I mean, the plan is pure megabrain but the scene-by-scene interactions with the hostages are all brute force and half the movie is the robbers cracking open a great big, inexplicable hole, you know? Brute force. It's like heist movies exist on a spectrum from Inside Man on the brute force end - guns, hammers, threats - to Ocean's Eleven - no weapons, no fights - on the finesse end."

"That is interesting, babes. Press play."

"I've got it in my head that I can do some kind of Ocean's Eleven, smooth as silk rapier thrust of a heist but my skill level is cudgels in a dark alley."

"The button is right there."

"If I was in a heist movie I'd be the guy saying 'If we do it my way, no-one needs to get hurt!' But when it comes to football I'm just a brute. People piss me off and I square up to them. I want to do elegant three-year revenge plots. I want to be a finesse guy like Danny Ocean slash George Clooney."

"You are a finesse guy, babes. Finesse that button."

"I'm not. You know what I was thinking of doing against Sutton United? Bombing them back to the stone age."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I would pick Peter Bauer as one of the three centre backs and instruct him to loft high balls to our three strikers. Real 1980s shit."

"So? If that's the plan, that's the plan. You never used to second-guess yourself like this."

"Asking Peter Bauer to kick long is like putting a thoroughbred horse on a carriage and asking it to drag tourists around."

"Not everything has to be beautiful." Emma turned around and pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes. "Three defenders, three strikers. You're going to do three-four-three? Is that because you're mad at Matt?"

"I'm redirecting the club's scarce resources towards its greatest assets - its forwards."

"Oh, really? That's the reason. Okay. What about Lee? And Colin?"

"Colin's fine," I said. "Maybe it was one of those days, maybe it's just what happens when you get older, but when things got going, he got going. I can accept some lethargy as long as it isn't a regular theme."

"And Lee?"

"Lee blew it. He can do one. I was hoping to get four hundred grand for him, now I'd take a hundred. Scrap that - he can go for free and I'll pay for his taxi."

"What about Matt?"

"He thinks he's too good for Chester FC; I'm gonna send him packing."

A shadow crossed her face. "This is finesse, is it?"

"I said I'm a brute." I brushed my fingertip across her eyebrow the way she liked; it did nothing.

"Danny Ocean didn't start life as an elegant gentleman thief, did he? He practised and he got better." She eased my hand away as a form of rebuke. "Danny Ocean would get four hundred thousand for Lee Contreras. That's your mission."

"That will be quite an achievement when he can't even get in my team."

She gave me a blank look that sent danger signals rushing around my entire body. "The scene in Ocean's Eleven where the caper is described and Brad Pitt follows every bullet point by saying 'which is impossible' - that's charming. The scene where George Clooney bitches about the team he assembled? That's not in the movie, is it? Because that wouldn't be charming. It would fucking suck to have to sit through that."

"Yes," I said. "It would be like a Jose Mourinho press conference." I tugged on my bottom lip; I had to choose my next words carefully. "I know exactly what to do."

"What?"

"I'm going to shut my gob and press play."

The life returned to her face; what a payoff! "I like that you know your weaknesses and I like that you want to be better. I don't like when you talk about binning people off, especially someone like Lee who hero worships you. Maybe he doesn't know what he did wrong, babes."

The frustration burst out of me. "He - " I counted to five. "He does know."

"Is Lee Contreras the enemy of football?"

"No."

"Is Matt Rush?"

"A bit."

"Can we go back to the movie?"

"Yes."

"Why's it called Inside Man?"

"Because like in any good heist they've got someone on the inside and because being inside means being in prison and the first scene is him in what looks like a prison cell. Huh."

"Did you just have an idea?"

"The team's in a good place but there were a couple of things that surfaced in yesterday's match that seemed to come out of nowhere. Maybe I'll join in training this week and get a feel for what's bubbling under, you know?"

Emma smiled and put my fingertip against her eyebrow. "You have unlocked Finesse Level Two."

***

Monday, October 26

With Sandra unwell, Peter Bauer took the first half of the session and Colin Beckton the second. Defensive awareness and positioning followed by skills and finishing. I enjoyed it and by the end felt tired but undeniably better at football. 

After the final sprint that wrapped up the session, I put my hands behind my head and sucked in air. My expert analysis was that training was mint, the culture was positive and morale was high. The coaches had great curse numbers, most of our matches were against opponents who could stretch us, and the balance of in-game minutes and rest seemed optimal. If players weren't improving, what did that leave?

Three options, as far as I could tell.

One, Bumpers Bank had too many crappy cabins.

Two, while we had great coaches, we didn't have enough coaches.

Three, we had too many players in the squad and they weren't getting enough individual attention. I really wasn't convinced by this one. We had four goalkeepers, which seemed like the proper number. We had eight defenders, nine midfielders, and six forwards, though there was plenty of flexibility in those roles. Pascal, for example, got most of his minutes not as a forward, but in midfield.

27 players was too many, but that number included me - I didn't normally take part - and it included Peter and Colin, who were often on the sidelines barking instructions. It also included three players who were on loan at Saltney Town. Normally, players who were on loan left the host club and acted like they belonged to their new club for the duration of the loan. I, of course, did things differently.

The trio trained with Chester, taking advantage of our better facilities and coaches, but they also trained at Saltney, where they got to know their teammates. It was unusual slash flat out weird for players to train with two teams but I had tested it and it worked great so long as we monitored their work loads. If Chester needed a few lads to drop out of a certain drill, we could cut those three with no grumbling.

As for players not getting enough personalised attention, we had a handful of awesome part-time coaches who came in a few times a week to give extra sessions to individuals or small groups.

From the inside, our training setup seemed to be in good order but I personally wasn't bothered about there being too many players or having to wait my turn to do a drill. Maybe elite players were more sensitive to such things, and that was part of why elite coaches tended to want relatively small squads. Well, if our squad was too big that problem would be solved by selling some of the players, which in turn would raise the finances to improve Bumpers Bank and pay for more coaches.

It was a solution full of finesse, worthy of the megabrain scheme hatched by the protagonist of Inside Man, though he wanted to take money out of a bank and I wanted to put money into one.

"All right," I said, as I took my position at the front of the group. "Quick team meeting. I've been fretting about what happened on Saturday."

Our resident data nerd, Spectrum, interrupted me, because he knew this was coming. "We did break the record for the best-ever start to a season in League One. The previous best after 14 matches was Leyton Orient in 2013 with 35 points. We've got 37."

I didn't shoot my mouth off even though his words triggered me. With awe-inspiring patience, I said, "Who gives a fucking shit? In 1985, Man United won the first ten matches of the season but finished fourth and the manager was sacked soon after. In 2023 Big Ange made the best start in Premier League history, Tottenham finished fifth, he was sacked... actually quite a long time after. If we finish fourth or fifth I won't hang around waiting for the sack; I'll walk."

Spectrum had gone into battle with me and against me many times and wasn't afraid to stand up for himself. "We have won eleven league games in a row. The best in the League One era is 12. The all-time third tier record is 13. We're on a historically good run."

"We're on a run of one match where we played abysmally. That's the only run I care about. What did the stats say about Saturday? How did the first half compare to what we normally produce? How were our Expected Goals? The Expected Threat charts?" I knew how they looked because I had seen them; it wasn't just the eye test we had failed.

"We won," said Spectrum. "It's good to have high standards but you're acting as though we lost."

"There's an ancient Japanese saying," I informed the group. "If you shoot for the target you will win the prize. If you shoot for the prize you will win fuck all."

Peter said, "So eloquent, those Japanese."

I said, "I don't want to hear about points or records or win streaks, okay? I just don't. We look at our oppo and we form a plan and we train and implement the plan. Every week is a heist movie. The goal is to go and grab three points not through luck or brute force but through skill. That's what I'm here for. If there's someone who's happy to be dogshit and get rewards we haven't earned, this isn't the right place for you."

With the diplomatic skills I was famous for, I didn't use that opportunity to take a jab at Matt Rush.

"A lot of things went through my head over the weekend but while we don't need to overcorrect, we do need to make sure we're all aligned. I didn't present a Maxterplan this season because I was out in Gibraltar, so here it is now. You ready?" I looked around the goalies, defenders, midfielders, and forwards I had assembled. "The goal is to win the league. Not in some abstract, wishy-washy Ted Lasso yeah if we believe maybe we'll get close kind of way. I'm talking start to finish domination. Zach, say hoo-rah in an American accent."

"HOO-rah!"

"There we go. It might surprise you to learn that we're not actually the best team on paper but matches aren't played on paper. Sandra and I are setting you up so we nullify the oppo's strong points while making sure we have enough going forward to get results. The Brig's got you fit. Peter's defensive coaching is really evident in our defensive record, isn't it? We're really hard to play against and when the oppo do create chances our goalies are coming up with big saves.

"It's a well-oiled machine but lads, we need to make the most of it because in January everything could change. Okay, Magnus is coming back from Gibraltar so that's another body."

Magnus Evergreen was a player-physio who was extremely versatile and while most players had a Potential Ability between 1 (randos on the street) and 200 (Messi), Magnus's was minus 2. His CA kept rising along with the rest of the squad, so I had concluded that players with minus PA were broken but in a good way. It was a glitch that was beneficial. Maybe we would be able to train him past CA 200! That would be something. A former champion bodybuilder slowly turning into the best football player in the world.

"We're also getting the two lads from Brazil. They're undercooked but we'll ease them in. What it means is the squad will be bloated so if we get good offers for players, we have to take them. We need the cash and we need the squad space and the money will let me bring in another coach who can maybe focus on individual sessions.

"There has been no movement on selling anyone but we need to be mentally ready for the likelihood that we'll be weaker when the January window closes than when it opens. Okay? That's why we need to be putting points on the board right now when we've got an amazing balance and we can hit teams from all angles. Spectrum thinks I'm psychotic but to me it's rational to be very, very alarmed by any drops in standards.

"Now, this week's matches could very possibly be a microcosm of our season. It's Doncaster Rovers on Wednesday, at home, on our beautiful pitch in front of our adoring fans. I'm thinking three-four-three with Pascal and Wibbers as forwards, one of them dropping to be a link option, loads of rotations, movement, beautiful, intricate passing moves. Mwah!"

I did a chef's kiss.

"Saturday's the FA Cup down in London against Sutton United. Why should those fucks get to see our beautiful moves? We're going there with a three-four-three but three proper strikers and we're going to hoof high balls up to them. Finesse on Wednesday, brute force on Saturday. Finesse until January, brute force for the rest of the season. It could very well go like that so enjoy this time, right? Is everyone really clear on what the plan for the season is?"

Dazza said, "What about cups?"

"Excellent question. We're out of the AOK Cup. We will always go for the Cheshire Cup - we should be able to win that even with our reserve players. You know I'm romantic about the FA Cup and there's a strong financial incentive to progress in that competition. Last year we played Manchester United and got a million pounds.

"Lads, a million quid would come in very handy right now, let me tell you. I'd love to get to the fourth or fifth round but it depends who we draw. Sutton United away in the first round is a pretty good start, to be honest. But the really interesting cup this season is the Vans Trophy. It's only open to third and fourth-tier clubs so it's the last time we will be in the competition. Last chance to win it! Also, the final is played at Wembley. Do you want to play at the home of football?

"What I see in front of me is a squad that can very easily cope with most opponents in the league while blasting its way through the Vans. We take what we get in the FA Cup. I'll hammer the point home. If we're ten points clear by January and we've got a league match just before we face a Premier League team in the FA Cup, we can rest players in the league match and really have a go in the cup game.

"Do you get me? All the work we put in now will pay off later. If we're only third in the league we will have to bin off the FA Cup match. A heavy defeat live on BBC 1, the only match some of your friends and family watch this season. That doesn't appeal to me and I'm sure it doesn't appeal to you, either."

Youngster put his hand up. "You normally tell us who our main challengers will be."

"Er, yeah, no-one. Honestly, we're in a battle against ourselves. I mean, there are clubs with starting elevens around our level but I think we're going to have more depth and much more tactical flexibility than everyone else, for a while, at least. I mean, when has a League One club ever had a sixth choice centre back as good as Peter Bauer?"

"Sixth?" he said, laughing. "I'll accept fourth."

I lifted my hand and brought it down in little steps. "Me, Christian, Zach, Fitzo, Magnus, you."

"You?" said Peter.

"Christian," I said. "Who's the best centre back at this club?"

My captain looked from me to Peter and back again. "Meghan."

"Fair," I said. "I'm going to talk to the women tonight. If I remember, I'll ask if they have any tips for us."

"For us?" said Peter.

I nodded. "They've been front-runners in every season they've played, right? The men got in pole position once, years ago, but there's basically no-one left from that group. It's a different mindset when you're chasing a team down."

Pascal piped up. "The women have to win every week or their chance of promotion is gone and their season is over. I agree with your analysis, Max, but you are trying to create a sense of urgency whereas for the women, it is baked into the nature of their calendar."

He was right. The women only played 22 league games compared to 46 for the men. They had virtually no room for mistakes, whereas we could lose five or six matches and still win the league by miles. "It's true that the mindset might not really be something we can learn from. Tell you what, when you're in the canteen with them, or up on the roof terrace, why don't you talk to them about what it's like? I also want to get tips on how to handle difficult men. Who better to ask, right?"

I looked up at the gym. Someone was in there, using one of the static bikes. Meghan, maybe, since she hadn't played yesterday. She was easy to manage. She was self-motivating, loved training, had a burning hunger to improve. I had lost faith that Matt Rush had any of those attributes, but surely the Munich guys would, otherwise how would they have ended up at such a big club? If they were like Meghan, managing them would be easy. I found myself smiling. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Not in the slightest.

"I need to work on my man-management skills," I mused, which might have seemed like a non-sequitur to the lads. "I want to have quick chats with a few of you. First, though. Zach, please step forward."

He navigated through the legs of the guys who had flopped down at the front. "Zach, I am stripping you - "

I paused to check if Brooke was in the area, which got some sniggers.

"I am stripping you of the title of vice-vice-captain. Please return the armband."

"You never gave me one."

"You mean you lost it? Christian, fine him for that." More quiet laughs. "Zach, we have come a long way from you breaking my arm during a goal celebration. You've slid across what I call the heist-o-meter, away from pure brute force towards finesse. You've got an awesome balance these days and when we were struggling on Saturday, you stepped up. You brought the energy and the will to win that was missing. You led by example, you got your mates going, you got the crowd going.

"Therefore," I said, as I pulled an armband out of my pocket. It said VC on it. "You're the new vice-captain of Chester Football Club." This announcement got cheers and applause while Zach took some hefty thwacks to the back. "This club is being run along Brooke Star's ultra-capitalist principles so this promotion comes with extra work and responsibility but no extra pay. If you have a problem with that, you know who to talk to." This got some friendly jeers.

As Zach admired his trophy, he said, "Should I give a speech, boss?"

"I don't know what you do in bed, do I? All right," I said, clapping my hands. "That'll do for today. Why don't you play a mini-match? Oh, shit, that's what I wanted to say. Guys, listen up one more second. Important. Thank you. Okay, basically I want to increase the amount of Relationism training we're doing and I want to use it in real matches a few times."

There was a buzz, especially from the younger players. It was going to be hard to explain Relationism to Briggy, so instead of using words I had asked her to come to watch the women train later on.

"If we've lost players in key positions, let's do something that doesn't need positions. Yeah? It could be a solution to losing key players in January, couldn't it? Okay, off you go. Ryan, quick word?"

While most of the group rushed onto the pitch, Ryan Jack came over. He was a midfielder, 38 years old, basically a fossil, but he still had a role to play. He was one of our players with the highest capacity for finesse and he was a great role model for the youngsters. He was also super interesting as a case study in how CA decayed over time. For as long as I could remember, his CA had been virtually static, flitting between 76 and 77. If he played more than about twenty minutes his stamina would turn red, fall by one point, and he would lose a point in CA. He wasn't actually injured, he was just old. He would spend the week getting back into the groove until he was 77 again a week later but that had been a hard cap for ages.

During the morning's session, though, he had popped to 78, which was a number I hadn't expected to see next to his name until the year 2066. "What's up, bosh?" he said, in his Scouse accent.

"I feel you've, ah, been looking fitter and fresher recently."

He did something almost unbelievable - he smiled broadly. "You noticed? I thought maybe it was all in me head." He nodded towards the new gym building. "It's dat. It's dead nice, bosh, the whole thing, but it's the flywheel."

"Oh," I said. The flywheel trainer was a new piece of kit we'd bought. It was a low platform that had a harness attached to a wheel. When you pulled, it pulled back, giving you the benefits of strength training in a smoother, safer way than lifting weights. Some of the lads loved it, some hated it, but so far I had only given it a few experimental tugs - my Attributes distribution was quite malleable and after being super-fit in the early weeks of the season, I was transitioning to a more skills-based character sheet.

"I can work on meself without pulling a hammy or having my hip pop out. It's great for flexibility. It's taken years off me!"

I smiled. It was great to hear the dour old bastard be so positive but he was maybe exaggerating. "It has taken 20 years off you and now you feel 40."

"Sure, boss, sure. I love the steam room, too. Melt away the aches, then a glass of lemon tea on the roof terrace. What? What are you grinning at?"

I shook my head. "I've just been focused on what's wrong, you know. What's left to do, what's unfinished. The bits that are done are great, though, aren't they? You've cheered me up, Ryan. You're not gonna join in this scrum now, are you?"

He raised his eyebrows and whipped his training top off. "I'm fit as a fiddle, me. Gonna show these young 'uns how football's supposed to be played."

I watched him jog away - I've seen faster wheelbarrows - and called Cole Adams and Fitzroy Hall over. Cole was a CA 96 PA 147 left back who was in the Irish under 20 squad. Fitzroy was a 98/118 centre back I had signed for free when his contract expired at his previous club. He was the third choice centre back and probably hadn't played as much as he expected - I had agreed his deal before I knew Peter Bauer would join us - but Fitzroy's steady rise in CA towards triple digits showed his professionalism.

"Lads," I said. "We're going to be playing a lot of three-at-the-back in the coming weeks. Fitzo, that's good for you, obvs. You'll get more action and you'll start both matches this week. Using a back three will help me give Peter minutes, too." Peter was the poster boy for footballing finesse but he hadn't played for years and wasn't yet up to the physical challenge of League One football, which was fast and furious. Having three centre backs meant there would always be two teammates near him who could take up the physical mantle and leave Peter to astound and delight with his glorious passes and nerveless skills.

"Peter's incredible," said Fitzroy. "Top-tier technique."

"True dat," I said. "Cole, it's less good for you, but I've seen you do well as a left-sided centre back so we'll keep you involved, and obviously we'll switch to a back four in phases. I want to give Jamie minutes, for one thing."

Jamie Brotherhood was a youth team right back with CA 48, PA 95. Giving him more exposure to the first team would speed his development and put him in the shop window.

Cole said, "Is this because Matt Rush played like shit?"

"Erm," I said. What would a good manager do? Tell the truth? That didn't seem right. "My AI computer told me to make this change."

"You chucked it in a skip and crushed it."

"Right. Erm... its dying wish was for us to play three at the back for a while. Okay? Hey, Cole, do you want to be a professional footballer?"

"Er, yeah?"

"Good. Because this is what it's like. Shit happens you have no control over. A manager loves you, buys you, gets sacked the same day you arrive. It's amazing how many players have that exact same story. You can't control that, right, you can only control how you train. If your managers aren't looking at you, someone is. Fuck, it could be that ignoring your incredible levels in training is what gets a manager sacked. Do you know what I mean? And as for me, I expect you to keep working hard in training so that when we go to a back four we slap harder than ever."

"Yes, boss. I'll work harder."

"I don't want you to work harder. I want you to keep doing exactly what you're doing because that is mint. All clear? That's it." 

They sped off and I took a pause to enjoy the sounds of the game. It was frantic, with too many players in too small a space. That made things frustrating and there was lots of jeering and gentle mockery but when you did something good the degree of difficulty made it so rewarding. Judging by this noise, anyone would think Bumpers was a fun place to work. Would Munich sound like this? My subconscious mind decided that German training sessions would be quiet, punctuated only by the sound of the ball being struck and some short, sharp commands from the coaches.

I turned away from the group and laughed at myself. The protagonist in Inside Man was ice cool. He didn't worry about whether he was using the right mix of finesse and brute force. He didn't worry about his man management skills. He just did the mission. Why couldn't I do that instead of driving myself crazy?

I turned back. "Lee," I called.

Lee Contreras jogged over. He had trained well but had steered clear of me. "Boss?"

I had gamed this out in my head and had a decent idea of how to approach it. "Ah, yeah. How you feeling?"

"Good," he lied. "Top of the league." He scratched his face. "Wins in a row. Records. Like Spectrum said."

"Mmm," I said, and left a long gap in which Lee would be generating hundreds of nightmare scenarios the way I was doing to myself about Germany. "Yeah," I added, thoughtfully.

"I was - " he started, which I took as my cue to begin.

"So the thing is, my tolerance for selfish play is virtually zero. I think it might be an actual medical condition but we haven't hired a club doctor yet so there's no way to find out. What you did on Saturday infuriated me but as you can see, I'm totes calm. My eyes aren't even twitching, look. See?

"I want you to talk to Spectrum today. I asked him to get all the data together to show you the graphs and charts that other teams are going to be looking at. You'll see that your baseline has been slowly rising through the season, right, which is awesome. If you're the sporting director of Wigan or Salford you might look at that growth and project it into the future and think you could buy a guy who is on the up. You'll see one spectacular match where the numbers leap off the page like a pop-up book. That match was my gift to you, mate. I took the spare capacity the team had and instead of going for more goals I gave your career lift-off. Sent you to the moon.

"Then you'll see the numbers for Saturday and you'll see that what you did didn't even make sense. You normally have a low expected threat, which is fine because no-one expects you to ping big diagonals or go on mazy dribbles, but you do contribute to the team's attacks. You get control in the middle and move it wide so Duggers can do his thing. You make runs that draw the oppo to you and you creates space for your teammates to bomb into. That stuff shows on the data, but on Saturday all of that was a big fat zero. What's the point getting your passing stats up while everything else craters? No, that was rhetorical. There is no point. You blew your shot at a big move."

I zipped my hoodie tighter - I was getting cold.

"Obviously I'm pissed off and don't want to use you for a while but we could spin it. We'll say you picked up a little calf strain in the early stages against Barnsley and you battled on but all you could do was, you know, play crap. Brave crap. You'll have a couple of weeks out of the matchday squads, you know, as cover for that story. If you get another shot back in the team and your data goes back to how it was, the sporting director who's keeping an eye on you might think, ah we can discount that one strange performance. Yeah," I said, wishing Emma had been here to see this virtuoso display of brutal finesse, "there might be a way back from the brink."

It was a lot to take in, but one phrase was rattling around his mind louder than the others. "If I get another shot..."

"Right now the idea of writing your name on a teamsheet makes me, you know." He didn't know, but I had no intention of clarifying. "The good news for you is that Sandra wasn't there to see it first hand and I've got director of football things to do in the near future. There's one of those Transfer Rooms in Paris soon and I want to be there so I'll miss at least one match. If you train well Sandra might pick you for that and if the data shows the good Lee, the team player Lee, maybe we'll be able to write this off as a blip."

Okay so he was in the doghouse but there was a route back in the near future - he could live with that. "Yes, boss."

"That's it," I said. Lee moved back towards the maelstrom of players. "Where are you going?"

"To play," he said, confused.

"You're injured."

"Oh," he said, remembering that detail of my proposed scam. "Wait, you said I had to train well to get back in the team."

I sighed and put my left hand on my hips while rubbing my forehead. "Lee, I'm mad at you and I don't want you to have fun in front of me, okay? I shouldn't have to spell that out. Go find Spectrum and look at your data. If you still feel like having fun after that, ask him to explain it again."

He hesitated. I made my eyes go wide. He scarpered in the direction of the Sin Bin.

That had gone fairly well, I reckoned. Next up was Matt Rush. Being brutally honest I wasn't motivated to try to 'fix' him. He wasn't our player - he was registered to Manchester United - which meant Chester didn't stand to benefit by increasing his transfer value. He wasn't one of the lads who had been jettisoned by other clubs. Chester was an amazing place for misfits and rejects, but maybe not so much for those on the fast track. Not the ones with bad attitudes, anyway.

We were getting an amazing deal in that Matt was a high-potential player whose wages we didn't have to pay, but if he played shit there was literally no point having him around. What I really wanted was to send him straight back to United but I also needed to be able to look Emma in the eye and tell her I'd made some kind of effort.

"Matt," I called, and I found myself getting tense just by looking at his face. What would George Clooney do? He would smile.

I didn't smile.

"Yes, gaffer?"

"Yeah, just a quick one. I've been looking at the data from Saturday and you didn't play better in the second half than in the first. It seems obvious that I don't know how to motivate you and more matches like that are going to be a net negative for your career. You've played eleven matches, haven't you? That's a decent start to life. I'm gonna suggest you get the United guys to start looking for a different club for you to join in January."

"A different club?" he said. It might have been wishful thinking but he seemed shaken.

"Yeah, one that suits a player of your calibre, or with a manager you respect or whatever it is that's holding you back."

"I respect you."

"Mmm, yeah but you don't. It's fine. I don't take that stuff personally, you know? It's just numbers, like in Soccer Supremo. You're ambition 12, we're facilities 6. You're ego 20, I'm Matt Management 1. You're allowed to think you could do better elsewhere but as the expert I'm saying this would be a good time for you to pursue that and get yourself something lined up for January.

"For now you're popular here and if you leave the fans are going to follow your career with enthusiasm, you know. It'll be like oh, there's that Matt Rush what played for us! Look at him playing for England! Yay! What I can't allow is for players to act like they're doing us a favour by being here because when everyone else realises what's going on it's going to get very toxic very quickly."

"I don't know what you're saying. I've been working hard. I've got a goal and four assists. United's loan manager is buzzing off me."

"Have you talked to him since Saturday?"

"No. How could I?"

"Talk to him. Ask him to crunch the numbers. Maybe he'll agree with you that I'm a total psycho but I know what I saw. There's a way through this that keeps your rep intact, right, so talk to the loans manager, get him to call me and we'll work out the next steps."

"This isn't fair. This is fucking weird. I'm your only right back! What are you doing?"

I felt my face hardening. George Clooney would have been very disappointed in me. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Matt. I appreciate it."

***

XP balance: 421

I ate lunch alone in my office and reflected on the ways I was unsuited to football management. I was a tactics hack compared to Evaristo but most tragically I just wasn't good with people. Bayern Munich was going to be a circus where I would arrive as the ringmaster and leave as a clown.

I granted that I was exceptional at one thing - grinding for experience points. Yesterday I had surged past 9,000 XP by watching the women's team play a home match in the Women's FA Cup against the amazingly-named tier five club Long Itchington Ladies. I had thought about taking control of the match just to get double the XP but it felt wrong to deny Pascal an easy win; I satisfied myself by picking the starting eleven for him.

I presented the line up to him on slips of paper and watched him assemble them into a coherent team within seconds. He tried to push them into a more radical setup but always reverted to his first instinct, which was the 3-5-2 formation I had in my head.

It was almost the youngest possible team we could have named, with eight players under the age of 20. Our opponents had an average CA of 25. Our ladies averaged just short of CA 50.

Pascal was a more natural head coach than I was, and unlike experienced managers he relished the challenge of using the team I forced on him. After we raced into a three-nil lead he spent most of the rest of the match coaching his players through the game. Over a thousand fans enjoyed the 7-2 win and our Colombian/Welsh forward Meredith Ann had scored her first ever hat trick in the UK. There would be many more, I was sure. Good times all round.

My phone buzzed.

Emma: I fell asleep before the end of the movie again.

Me: I know. If Hollywood knew how often you started snoring just as act three started, heads would roll.

Emma: Did the baddie get away with the money?

Me: Yeah he just carried it out of the bank like an absolute boss and no-one tried to stop him.

Emma: How?

Me: That's the twist, babes. That's the whole thing. Brute force buys you the space to do some finesse.

Emma: You're going to make me watch the end, right?

Me: Right.

Emma: How did it go with Lee and Matt?

Me: I didn't reach George Clooney levels of charm but I didn't go full Inside Man, either. I decided to stick to my original plan and play pretty football against Doncaster then batter Sutton. It'll make analysts pull their hair out, for one thing. How can one team go from one extreme to the other? And no-one back home will care that Peter is being used to do long ball tactics. They'll say oh that's just how it is in England.

Emma: None of the sponsors are going to the match this Wednesday. Did you know? Whose party am I going to crash?

Me: Text your mates at Glendale and say I'm going to be mad if they aren't there. The Vans Trophy is the road to Wembley, babes. Chester have never played at Wembley Stadium. The Glendale lot are proper Chester fans. I'm doing it for them, you know?

Emma: I'll talk to them.

I went to fill my water bottle and strolled back to my office. Different trophies carried different levels of prestige and the attendance for Wednesday was likely to just break a thousand. Pretty abysmal but while I was building the playing squad, Brooke and her team were building the fan base. Chester had about a hundred thousand inhabitants, while the wider Cheshire West borough had over three hundred and fifty thousand. It would take time for the club to overtake Liverpool and Manchester United in their hearts and minds but one day we would sell out almost every week.

What had I been thinking about before Emma's texts?

Experience points.

I bought the perk I had been saving up for: Bench Boost Deluxe.

The original Bench Boost did one simple thing. In one match per season, it made my substitutes more effective. That was extremely useful and easy to hack. I had used it in a match with rolling subs, where players could leave the pitch and return to the action. In doing so, all my players counted as being substitutes and that had helped me beat a Manchester City youth side with a bunch of randos, a feat that had been the catalyst for almost everything else I had achieved.

To my surprise and delight, I had found that I was able to use Bench Boost more than once per season simply by managing different teams. I could manage in a local league in Manchester and trigger the boost, then head to Chester to manage a professional match. So long as it was different teams in different competitions, the option was there.

An upgrade offered me the chance to expand the perk even further. I would no longer be restricted to one match per season, but one match per competition per season. Chester's men's team played in five different competitions per season - buying the upgrade was a no-brainer. It had proven its worth many times over.

The Deluxe version, the latest offer, allowed me to extend its use in very interesting and attractive ways. 

New perk available this month: Bench Boost Deluxe (plus Half-Assed)

Cost: 9,000 XP

Effects: Nominate an ally and boost their bench! Once chosen, the ally cannot be changed during the season, but you may choose one match per competition in which your ally's bench is boosted. The effect can be triggered remotely. Example! Make the manager of West Didsbury your ally and boost his subs bench in one league, one FA Trophy, one FA Cup, one Lancashire Challenge Trophy, and one friendly fixture.

Buying this perk also unlocks Half-Assed. If your ally acts as an assistant manager, you may boost his or her bench to half the usual Bench Boost effect.

Effects do not stack. Perks may not be used against teams you have a stake in.

I had already decided that my ally would be Llewellyn (known as Well In), the manager of Saltney Town. In simple terms, the difference between Saltney finishing first and second was the difference between eighteen million pounds and three million. Anything I could do to help Saltney win the league was a priority, even at the expense of my German adventure. I was nervous about it, but not to the tune of fifteen million quid.

Well In was the assistant manager for the Welsh national team and I desperately wanted Wales to qualify for the 2028 European Championships. Their group was tough but by buying this perk I would, in a small way, be able to lend a hand.

After buying the perk I went through the process of making Well In my ally. Nothing spectacular happened but the payoff on all that effort would come over time. If I stuck to managing for a while I would be able to buy perks with more immediate gratification.

If I unlocked enough perks I might start to feel like Danny Ocean slash George Clooney. Wouldn't it be amazing to go a week without pissing anyone off?

***

Briggy stood by me as we watched the women train. "The gig's better than I thought."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she said. "You're really talented but you have no clue what you're doing. That's fun."

"Thanks."

"I've been trying to catch up. There's a Soccer Supremo forum thread called 'Who's This Clown?' Guess who it's about?"

"Tim Curry."

"It's about you. Basically a long discussion about why you were chosen to be the face of the game."

"That sounds fucking mint. Send it to me."

"Maybe I should finish reading it first."

"Finish?"

"It's 61 pages."

"You know what? Forget it."

"Did you really kick a football into a journalist's face because they were perving over your girlfriend?"

"For legal reasons I have no comment."

"Did you beat Sutton United seven-nil because they tried to get Chester banned from making transfers?"

"I plead the fifth amendment but wryly note that the fucks got relegated. Fucking chumps. Come at the Best you best not miss. Kin hell."

"You have a match against them this weekend, is that not right?"

"Yeah," I said, vaguely. There was a very interesting dynamic going on. Normally, Pascal would have chosen eight or nine of our best eleven for the Sunday match and Monday's session would have been all about their recovery. But because I had picked a team of backups, the starters had been forced to sit on the sidelines and watch. Now the reserves were strutting around, flushed with victory while the starters were the quiet ones, the uncertain ones. I had taken the globe, given it a good shake, and now the snow was falling in a new pattern.

Briggy said, "That's Angel. There's Meghan. Femi."

"Have you been studying the website?"

"No," she said, eyes darting around the pitch, trying to understand the drills. "I've been watching your documentary series. Chesterness. I have to say it's very good. Daring. Surprising. It's almost experimental at times. I found myself wanting to learn more about football and that is something I never expected to say."

"It's a brilliant production. My mate Henri is one of the producers and he's really creative. Bit of a dreamer. His co-producer, Sophie, we found doing a media course at the local Uni. She's great but she's completely ruthless. Someone told her you have to be honest as a storyteller and she took it to a bit of an extreme.

"The two of them dovetail and smooth over each other's faults. I don't want to overstate my role but I see what they're up to and I veto some parts and encourage them to go harder at others and they accept my input because they know I'm not trying to whitewash Chester's reputation but I want to do something as awesome as possible." My attention briefly drifted from the session to Briggy. She looked the same as always, professional, aloof, menacing, but there was something else there. "You're more engaged."

"I am getting to know the characters. In that show you chew up the scenery, don't you? The joke is that Angel wants to be on camera all the time but you are the ham actor in the production. Do not be offended. It is entertaining."

I wasn't offended in the slightest, but I sensed she wasn't being quite honest with me. No problem; her business was her business. "I hope it came across that we aren't just a football club. We have a purpose. We're trying to do things."

Briggy's eyebrows knitted and she turned away from the pitch to look at me. "What's your purpose with Bayern Munich?"

I shoved my hands in my hoodie's pockets and looked down. "To survive."

"And then?"

I tried to stay blank but couldn't contain a grin that quickly grew to massive proportions. "Nuffin."

"Nothing? Really?" Briggy bit her lip and scoffed. She pointed. "Everything I read says what you have done with these women is impressive. To do it at the same time as promoting the men is considered supernatural."

"That's just brute force."

"What do you mean?"

"I swamp the pitch with talent. Bury the oppo in skills. I'm working on getting more refined but maybe I'm just not a very refined person, you know? Henri, the guy I told you about, he's all about using the right knife and fork and pairing wines with cheeses and whatever. Me? I'm like hey this wine was twenty percent off, pile in."

Briggy covered her mouth with her hand. When she took it away, she said, "I'm with you on that one."

I snorted. "This is fun, look."

I felt that Briggy was standing a fraction closer to me. "What should I see?"

"This drill is one of Jackie Reaper's. He was the last manager for the women. Pascal has picked it up from somewhere and now he's presenting it to the women as though it's new to them. They're playing along because they like him." I shook my head. "Not being funny but this is why we win."

"You just said it was brute force. You win on sheer weight of talent."

I raised a finger. "I don't like when people remember things I say. Write that down." I watched as Angel earnestly asked a question about the drill she knew the answer to. Scandalously currying favour with the new manager. Briggy was watching the scene, not following the way I was. "Briggy, are there any countries in Europe you wouldn't go to?"

"In Europe?" she said, amazed. "Like, refuse to go? No."

"Okay," I said.

She seemed to get my meaning and smiled. "If you want to take me on a holiday, I'm game. Somewhere hot? Oh, that reminds me. Do you know a Greek player called Nikos Iliades?"

"Yes. I played for a team in Gibraltar and we knocked Nikos's team out of a tournament. Do you know him? He's brilliant. I'd love to sign him."

Briggy showed her teeth. "That might not be an option. There was a quote on page forty-something of the Soccer Supremo thread. A journalist asked him about you. His reply... I need my phone. Here we go." She cleared her throat. "Here's what Nikos had to say. Of all my opponents, Max Best is the most complete. He is a complete footballer and he is also a complete prick."

I laughed hard and scratched the back of my head. "Okay. Guess he's not coming to Chester." I chuckled a few more times and decided it was a fitting codicil to my Gibraltar story. I had stirred up a lot of trouble but created some unbelievable moments in footballing history. Oh, and bagged a million pounds along the way. "Nikos couldn't hack it in England. The first time he saw mushy peas he'd run straight to the airport."

"What's mushy peas?"

I raised my eyebrows. "For my sake, I hope you never find out."

***

While the women continued their warm-up slash technique drills, I exchanged notes with Briggy about the types of calls I got and the ways she could help me without being less able to grab a baddie by the head and go arghhh and snap his neck.

"I don't do that, Max. That's just in movies."

"I'm going to need you to watch Inside Man and not fall asleep at the end. I need someone to talk to about it." 

"What's that thing the girl with short hair did?"

"It's called a nutmeg. Almost everything in this sport gets shortened, so that one's megs. Kick the ball through someone's legs and you shout 'megs!' I was always good at megs even before - "

"Before what?"

I shrugged vaguely. "Before I got scouted." Briggy's eyes narrowed as she looked around. There was something in the air. I smiled. "You can feel it?"

"Yes," she said, confused. "What's happening?"

I nodded to the pitch. "They're gearing up to do Relationism. It's like a magnet calling all football fans to the area."

A few people had appeared, edging along the touchline closer to where Pascal and his assistant coaches had balls, bibs, and water bottles. Brooke emerged from the big building. More people came from the left. A bunch of dudes in shorts carrying backpacks shuffled around from the right. Briggy watched them come closer before suddenly doing a one-eighty. Chester players using the gym had stopped their routines to gather by the big windows or on the roof terrace. A gaggle of youth players emerged from the same door Brooke had, but unlike the American they rushed to the touchline near Pascal and sat cross-legged, wide-eyed.

"The fuck?" said Briggy. "Why does this remind me of a zombie movie?"

"Because you watch shit zombie movies," I said. "All right, it's the last drills before we hit the main event." I scanned the players. "The mood's good. Up a couple of notches from last week."

"How can you tell so precisely?"

Mostly I was looking at the Morale numbers in the curse. It was possible to sort the players from highest to lowest Morale, and one of the post-season updates had added an overall summary in the form of a single number. The women were at 5.5 (out of 7), which compared nicely to the men, who were 'only' on 5.2 despite being on a near-record-breaking winning run. "I suppose you'd call it the level of banter. Like in a second that girl Meghan is going to take a shot and then her mate Sarah Greene will take the same shot but do it miles better. Watch."

It happened as I said and Sarah gave Meghan a bit of lip. Meghan bit back. Briggy said, "It's fun to watch but it's not evidence of a good mood."

"It is," I said. "And look at all the little groups. They're blending together because yesterday we started with eleven backups and they feel they contributed and the firsts are proud of them but they're also thinking hey, this tiny Welsh girl is coming for my job."

Briggy clicked her tongue. "Why is it always about Wales?"

I pointed. "The Welsh thing sort of starts with her. That's Mari Hughes. She was one of five Welsh girls I found in a scouting run. I call them the Ffamous five with two Fs. That's a Welsh thing. You don't know that? Maybe you'll see it on a train station one day. Double Fs for days.

"I had to convince those girls that Chester was the right place for them to come and I got all, you know, charismatic with their parents. All sort of yooooo this is the only place to be, I'll teach your daughters to play! They were sceptical but I put the girls on the team bus with the older players and that was it, you know? They were starstruck. All five signed up and pretty much straight away I used them in a match that we won. I was like, yeah I'm not messing about here. This is Chester. We get things done.

"The kids got hyped but the parents got even more hyped and it turned out that one of them was the big kahuna at the Welsh FA. She asked me what I would do to promote football in Wales. I said the best thing would be if I owned a football team in Wales. They saw the logic and helped make it happen."

Briggy was shaking her head. "I didn't follow that at all. Why would it be good if you owned a team in Wales?"

"Because national teams are one area where brute force tactics go well. Scout the country, identify the talents, train the players, double the intake, profit."

"Seems you can be quite convincing. Why did they fall for it?"

"Because it's true. Saltney are flying and we don't even have a stadium. Do you know what the budget for the Welsh FA is?"

"You know I don't."

"Eighteen million pounds a year. Do you know what Saltney Town's budget will be if we make it into the Champions League group stage?"

"Six trillion."

"It's rude to do stupid numbers like that. The answer is also eighteen million. I'll have the same budget as the whole of Wales. And do you know what I'll do with that?"

"Buy a beach and retire?"

"No. I'm going to double down. Go even harder. Fuck things up, mate." Just for a second, Briggy seemed properly impressed. Pascal and his assistants were moving the cones around. "Okay but in a minute you're going to see Relationism."

"That's that thing you've been teasing."

"It's a style of football I found in Brazil. It's like the opposite of what most managers do. I mean, I'm feeling like a fucking caveman these days but hopefully I'm the caveman who sort of picked up a bird feather and looked at a blank wall and thought, I'm gonna invent memes." Briggy giggled, which pleased me. "Relationism is finesse in a world of brutalism."

Briggy looked behind us to the swelling crowd and up to the roof terrace. "This seems like something I should know about."

"I'm hoping Relationism will be something of a secret weapon when we get to higher leagues. It's why I gave Pascal this job. He can coach it and that puts him in a group of about two in this entire country. I'm the other one, except I'm shit at coaching, but I think it would be helpful to explain what the opposite of Relationism is. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes."

"You heard me talk about football as chess, right? If you're a pawn on the board, do you enjoy chess?"

"No."

I paused. "I realise that almost everything I ever say contradicts something I said before, which is frustrating. This weekend I got mad at one of the men's team because he wasn't doing what he was told. But that's because the men's team primarily does what we call positional play. That's where the manager is the king. The football pitch is a load of chess squares but obviously it's more dynamic than chess. If one guy moves up a square, the nearest pieces have to move in a certain arrangement. It must all be carried out according to the design of the floating megabrain, i.e. me."

"Positional play," said Briggy, trying to follow me.

"Yeah. It's... It's all about the manager and his ego. My plan's better than your plan. My brain's bigger than your brain. I... I am aware of how boyish that sounds. But okay, that's what my players understand and it's what they aspire to be better at. A pawn in chess isn't paid three hundred thousand pounds a week, is it? But in the abstract, ego is what modern football is all about. It's a willy-waving contest between two dudes."

"And you're not into that?" said Briggy, with a lot more sass than was needed, in my opinion.

"I said it before, I need a purpose. First it was can I get some onions on my kebabs. Then it was can I build up some savings. Then it was can I get married. Then it was can I change football. Now it's can I fuck up an entire country. I will wash the kit if that's what it takes to make a positive difference to this shitty, failing planet. I've got to be honest, Briggy, I love being smarter than the next guy. I love rocking up to his house and ninety minutes later his fans are booing him because they've seen what this sport should look like. Yes, yes, yes.

"But I knew I needed something radical, revolutionary, and if the current paradigm is all about the manager then the new new thing has to put power in the hands of the players."

"Relationism."

I licked my bottom lip. "Some idiots call it Bestball as though I invented it. That's disrespectful to the people who actually did. I went to Brazil to study under a guy I assume isn't in the top hundred practitioners but he was the only one I could find. I put myself in the middle, a real inside man, and tried to learn it through brute force because that's all I know."

"That sounds like me in my first days of training. One of the instructors said that I was a hammer so everything I saw looked like a nail. I don't want to be a hammer."

I jammed my thumbnail between my front teeth for a few seconds. "Yeah. You can pick a lock and you can kill a man with, like, a kumquat. What I want..." I said, slowly. "Someone comes at me with brute force and I turn into a mist. You can't hammer a mist. Check this out. Pascal's ready with the first scenario. He learned this from me. We start with a full-sized match then get it smaller and smaller until we're working on the micro-level skills.

"What's exciting is that we're both new to Relationism and it's a very emergent technology. Players spontaneously create new patterns, new paradigms. The coach's job is to stand back and let it happen. I'm much better at being aloof than Pascal, but him being unable to contain his excitement gives instant feedback to the players and they try hard to iterate on what got his approval."

Briggy was giving me a strange look. "I can't even begin to imagine - "

Pascal blew his whistle and she fell silent. An 11 versus 11 match started, striped bibs versus spots, and at first it looked normal. "That's what positional play looks like," I said. "Overtly structured. Positioned by the hand of the creator."

"Hmm. I've seen this. About three seconds later, I look away."

"Don't look away."

It took a few more phases of play for the structure to dissolve. Meghan, the central defender, passed to Mari Hughes in midfield. Mari drifted close to a teammate and played a pass to a third player. The three pinged passes around in a quick triangle. Meghan moved closer and the triangle became a square. When the opposition tried to press, the stripes sent more bodies close together, moving to the side of the pitch. Within twenty seconds, almost all of the stripes were in a thin rectangle along the side.

"What?" laughed Briggy.

The spots carefully sent more and more bodies into the mess until they turned the ball over. That triggered a frantic response from the stripes, who reacted like angry wasps until they got the ball back. The spots in turn fell into a frenzy, and the cycle repeated until the ball was jabbed out for a throw-in.

The players spread out in their starting formation and there was a brief stretch of 'normal' play. Then Sarah Greene dribbled fast and hard to the right until she ran into traffic. When level with the opposition penalty area she pinged passes to her teammates. They formed what I liked to call 'the blob', a strange, ever-changing, unstructured group of teammates, and when the stripes tried to intercept they were left kicking fresh air. Sarah kept the ball in her team's possession with one-touch deflections, scooped passes, tricks, flicks, and - 

"Megs!" cried Briggy, as Sarah dabbed the ball between a defender's legs.

The defence rallied and Sarah's team were forced back, though they kept the ball under their control. Suddenly Sarah was sprinting out of the blob and into the open spaces. The youngest player on the pitch, a thin, lanky girl playing at the base of the blob, fizzed a pass through a clutch of bodies. Sarah gathered the ball, dipped her shoulder, and touched the ball at an angle that confused her direct opponent, Meghan. Sarah burst forward, shaped to shoot, dumped the goalie on her arse, and dribbled to the goal line. She rolled the ball onto the line and started to walk away, as if to say the opposition was so bad she wouldn't defile her image by scoring against them.

"Holy shit, she's cocky," gasped Briggy.

Meghan was steaming back to get the ball. At the last possible second, Sarah turned and kicked the ball across the line. Meghan was not happy and there was some shoving. I heard Sarah call out, "Don't be shit, then."

I snorted.

Briggy's eyebrows were high and showed no sign of coming down. "Isn't this... something to worry about?"

"Nah, they're best mates. This is, ah... How can I phrase it? It's a kind of unconscious recognition that our actual opposition isn't enough of a challenge so the more ambitious players are sort of pushing each other as hard as they can. To put it into context, the team that started yesterday - with eight players under 20 - they're already better than the weakest team in our league.

"No, don't worry about this sort of thing. The women invest a lot more time keeping the mood good, especially the ones who have had experience of shitty dressing rooms. From all the stories I heard, when a women's dressing room goes bad, it's unbearable. If I have to intervene with this group I'll be very surprised. So far all I've had to do is let a couple of them know I know they're squabbling and remind them that I'll send them into orbit in order to preserve harmony."

"Which you will, so it's an effective threat."

"Yes."

"But do you know when they're squabbling?"

"Yes. Case in point - Sarah and Meghan are not. So what did all that trash-talking do? It got Meghan's gander up. It's hard to score a goal, right? Meghan will win the next five duels, just you watch, but if Sarah does win the next one she'll know she earned it against a fired-up, top-quality defender and she'll be buzzing. Oh my God, how did we get so deep into that? What do you think about Relationism?"

Her neck shot back, pushed away by the eruption of a smile. "It is beyond weird. It looks like loads of kindergarteners chasing a laser pointer. I think... I want to believe that you're not completely full of shit but it's like you've just described an amazing painting and then you've whipped off the cover and it's obviously been scribbled by schoolchildren. It... I'm sorry but it doesn't seem serious. How do you keep track of the players?" Her smile widened. "Are you going to do this in Munich?"

"Ah, no." I laughed. "Hard no. Ha. That would not go down well. Anyway, I won't be there for long enough. It can be learned relatively quickly but mastering it takes longer. I used it very, very successfully with my youth team but they had been playing together for years and years and the effect is much greater if you know and trust your teammates. Trust is a real issue for me. Two players lost my trust on the weekend. This way of playing you're watching now, it gets quite esoteric, actually. When I'm coaching this stuff I don't talk about overlapping full backs and double pivots and that sort of thing. I talk about sharing energy. The ball gives you energy and you have to move it around to lift your mates up." I frowned hard and lifted my hand to my head as though I was in pain.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I was just thinking... That's what we did on Saturday. I was down, Christian was down, Colin was low on pep. Zach had loads to spare. Cole was up. We kind of spread the surplus around, took some from the crowd. I thought that was Zach's leadership but maybe it was a little bit of Relationism training coming out, too." I looked up and squeezed my eyes in a vain attempt to understand the world a little better. "Fascinating. It's like a drug, you know." The first time I had used Relationism with the youth team, the interface wasn't the one that had been copied screen-for-screen from an old version of Soccer Supremo. No, the idiots in charge of writing the DLC for the curse had based the new module on the addictive mobile game Candy Crush.

As you might expect, it had messed me up in a big way. It was fun but scary and I had been afraid to use it again. When I had tried Relationism with a different set of players, the interface was much more sedate. I wasn't sure if the curse had been tweaked so it wouldn't be so manic or if the interface depended on the group, their familiarity levels, their energy, and their excitement.

"All right, Briggy. This is Relationism. Whatever you're thinking, I guarantee you're underestimating its importance. One day, I'm going to change the world with this." I glanced up at the roof terrace. "Everything's looking good here. I'm going to hit the gym for half an hour."

"Do you know what you're going to say in the meeting?"

"Yes."

***

After training, the women piled into Sealbiscuit, our awesome all-electric team bus. I hopped in my repaired Mini and drove. Briggy hated being a passenger, so she was relieved that the trip was so short.

We were having a team meeting in a lecture hall at one of Chester University's buildings. I would have been happy to do it in the Sin Bin but Sophie and Henri, the producers of our documentary about the women's team, hated the lighting and since me addressing the troops set the tone for the next few weeks, they wanted good footage.

The lecture hall was unremarkable and it took me a few minutes to ignore the cameras. I made some general remarks about my expectations for the season and assured them I was happy with their progress and their output so far. Then I got to the good stuff.

Using Spectrum's laptop, I cued up a supercut of incidents from the season so far.

"Okay, ladies, this first compilation is called Chester players crashing shots into defenders from six inches away." Most of the women laughed. "Scene one. Who's this? Oh, it's Kit."

Kit Hodges had been our record signing until relatively recently. She was a flame-haired goalscorer who had dropped two divisions in order to get a full-time wage and to be part of a special project. Her CA had ticked very slightly down to 89, but it had remained stable at that level, which was fine by me because she was massively overpowered for the league we were in. She was miles ahead at the top of the goalscoring charts but her habit of shooting whatever the situation was getting on my tits. In the clip, Kit took a shot that crashed straight into a defender and the ball flew away from the danger area. I mean, literally nothing else could have happened. It was insanely stupid, but you could forgive a player for getting excited and making a bad decision.

"Scene two. Who's this? Oh, it's Kit." It was another clip from the same match. "Scene three. Who's this? Oh, it's Kit." Another clip from the same match! The next one featured a different opponent, but everything else was the same. "Here's the plan, ladies. I'm going to show you twenty-three clips from six matches and say the same thing in the same tone again and again. At some point, one of you, hopefully Kit, says Max this is boring. And I make an exasperated face and say, yeah."

Kit was blushing but was trying to maintain eye contact with me. Defiant!

"People are paying money to see us now, Kit." I pointed to the screen behind me as I stepped to her. "This isn't good enough. In half of these clips there's someone you could pass to. I'm managing you next week against Durham." That caused a minor sensation in the room, with many glances being cast towards Pascal, but Durham were keeping pace with us at the top of the league and I wanted to blast them with Bench Boost. If we beat our closest rivals away from home, we would take a huge stride towards winning the league. "It might not be completely fair but some of the men's team have pissed me off and I'm feeling very sensitive about selfish play right now." I turned and pretended to be surprised that the clips were still coming. "Oh, there are more?"

I played the rest in silence and glanced at Angel. She was our second striker and she was the one suffering the most from Kit's refusal to pass the ball. Angel was glowing. Kit's defiance, meanwhile, faded a little with every blocked shot. By the time the clips finished, Kit was very, very still.

I walked back to Spectrum's laptop. "Hang on," I said. "There's a little bit more." I pressed play on a new file, though it seemed to be a continuation of the previous one. "Who's this? Oh, it's me."

The action was from the men’s team in a famous defeat to Kidderminster Harriers where I had single-handedly tried to claw a way back into the match but a crazy determined defender named Christian Fierce had foiled me at every turn. He had become our record signing and was now our club captain.

I kept my mouth shut as I took shot after shot that Christian or one of his mates blocked.

When it was over, I pointed to the screen. "I've been there, Kit. I know how it goes. There are days you think you have to do everything yourself." I smiled. "Not six matches in a row, I don't think. You're not up against Christian Fierce, I reckon."

Kit dipped her head but came up with teeny tiny smile. "No, Max," she said, softly.

I brought my palms up to face the group. "I could have gone in ten different directions with this. Straight passes down the line that pad someone's stats but the recipient can't do a fucking thing about. Women sprinting to nowhere to get their running stats up. Big chest bumps after huge tackles but if we go back ten seconds we see it was your shitty, lazy pass that put the team in danger. Do you get me? This is me nudging you back towards a place of team work. You meaning all of you. Okay?"

I took a sip of water knowing that my memoirs would benefit from a break in the blocks of dialogue.

"Next topic," I said. "This one is a general issue. It's called hey, my eyes are up here." This got a lot of laughs, especially from Kit. "Yeah, that's a bit of a crappy title but I couldn't quite think of the optimal one. Okay, here's a clip from the first game of the season against West Brom. I'll just pause that.

"Does everyone know Briggy? Briggy, see we've got a back four here? One two three four spread across the side of the pitch we're defending, yeah? West Brom have two attackers here and here, ready to press, but they're not pressing right now. They're saving energy because there's no actual threat from us at this point.

"We're just gonna move the ball across the pitch, okay? Catch this." I threw her a laser pointer. "The ball's here, do you see? This player is called the right back. She's going to pass to this centre back here. Can you shine the light to where you think the ball should go?"

"The path or the end point?"

"Whichever you want."

"Like this?" Briggy aimed the pointer at the ball and moved it about a foot to the closest player.

"Ah, interesting, but you've put the ball in between Meghan's feet, right? If you put it a little bit in front of her, just a little bit, she will be moving forward when she takes control of the ball. If she's moving forward, we're creating danger, yes?"

"So you want it about here?" said Briggy, moving the beam.

"I'd say that's about perfect. Class? No-one wants to speak because they all know what's coming." I let the clip run. The pass from the right went about a yard behind Meghan. She had to go back, control it, and push it forward. "Oops. We've lost our momentum. Shame. No matter. Meghan's going to fizz a pass to Femi, her centre back partner. Briggy, show us where the ball should go."

"Like this?"

"Amazing. You're a fast learner. Aaaaand... play." As before, Meghan passed behind Femi, who had to retrieve it. "Oh, boy," I said, in a strained voice. "Fortunately, Femi's going to fizz the ball to the left and we're going to get our momentum back!"

"You said this one wouldn't be personal," said Femi.

I smiled. "It's not. Two in three of our passes go backwards like this, from everyone." I let the footage run, and it went from incident to incident, with promising attacks coming to a crashing halt because of sloppy, imprecise passes. "It's actually unbelievable. It's amazing that we ever get as far as the oppo's penalty box. I mean, look at it. Jesus. No pressure. No pressure on that one. See that one?" I paused. "This one's more forgivable, right, because of the angles and the way the pass has to be pushed through. Like, I get that we're not going to get a hundred percent on this one but I think we can do loads, loads better than we are. Don't you think?

"Now, one thing I really like is that when you're on the receiving end of these loose passes you don't show your displeasure. I think after the twentieth one I would blow a fuse, you know? Which helps no-one. So kudos on that but I think I want to see you remind each other of where these passes should be going. We can do that without it being taken as a personal attack, I think.

"And in the interests of fairness, I have to say that one of the players who does this the least is Kit. I think it's because strikers know that if you put the ball behind someone, they aren't going to be able to send in a cross or play a through ball. All right, bit of an abrupt turn in the conversation coming. We need something to transition from one thing to the other. Briggy, can you come and do some juggling?"

"I can only juggle knives."

"That's... upsetting. Oh, how about questions about this stuff I've shown you? No? No-one? Straight into the next topic, then." I pinched my nose. "Erm... I can't really give you much information but I might be in a position where I have to deal with a bunch of arrogant, entitled, millionaire footballers. Ha. It might surprise you but I'm not sure I'm really the right person for the job.

"For example, I came in here and had a pop at our best player, who is almost certain to break our league's goalscoring record unless I piss her off into wanting to leave the club in January." Kit sat a little straighter, but I wasn't sure if it was the way I called her our best player or if it was the idea of leaving. Probably the former. "I'm also beefing with some of the men, too.

"It's always the same stuff and I'd like to try something different, maybe. I was thinking about whose opinions I valued and your name came up. Who better to ask about how to handle men than a room full of women?"

Charlotte, one of our best midfielders, spoke. "Max, half the girls here are seventeen. They don't know anything about boys. I'm 24 and if I understood men I would write a book and go on tour and make billions."

"Er, hang on," I said. "You live in a former bed and breakfast with ten men and from what I hear you've got the place running like a prison. Poor Tockers can barely speak English but he fucking knows when it's his turn to hoover the hallway, doesn't he?"

Most of the room laughed. Maddy Hines, a creative midfielder with tattoos and piercings called out, "He's got you there, Charl. You are good with men. Come on, spill the tea."

Charlotte pushed her short hair away; it fell straight back to where it had been. "What is it you're going to do, Max?"

"I can't give the specifics but let's say I'll be a project manager for something and the participants will be famous footballers. They won't know who I am, they won't like what they read about me, I won't be paying their wages. I won't have any leverage over them, do you know what I mean? Normally I'd think yeah, fine, if you're going to be difficult it's no big deal. If you don't care, why should I? But I need the project to go well so that I can do this other thing that will make you proud of me. I'm just floundering a little bit and I'd love some help."

Kisi Yalley, the younger sister of James 'Youngster' Yalley, said, "Are you asking for our help in making boys like you? Because if so, the documentary is going to take a sharp turn."

I sizzled down the nearest lens and winked, which got a good reception from the group, but then I sat back and scratched my chin. "I don't think I need them to like me..."

Angel, breakout star of Chesterness series 1, said, "Are you sure?"

I thought about Lee and Matt and Kit. If I wanted them to like me, I wouldn't have done what I did. "Yeah. The mission comes first."

Charlotte said, "I'd love to help, Max, but I don't understand how."

Angel said, in a voice dripping with meaning, "Max Best is asking how we get what we want from rich, arrogant, famous footballers."

There was a pause before Kisi went, "Ohhhhhh!"

"What?" I said, but suddenly loads of women were talking at once.

"Tell him the wrong answer to provoke him into telling the right one."

"Ask him what he would do if he were you. He loves a spot of micro-managing."

"He loves bossing people around, you mean."

"He loves it when you act like his personal waitress."

"Put your phone away when he's talking."

"Let him do most of the talking."

"Tell him he's right."

"And clever."

"He's proud of his hair."

"And his girlfriend."

"Don't take it personally if he's talking to you and then starts staring into space."

I held my hands up. "What the hell are you talking about?"

For some insane reason, all the women turned to look at the eighteen-year-old Angel. She said, "We're not very good at it, Max. When it comes to the kind of person you're describing, we don't normally get what we want. The person you're describing is crazy stubborn. He's not stupid, though. If you explain what you're doing and why, he might go along with it, especially if it benefits him or he thinks it's funny. If he's got the wrong idea about something and you spell it out for him, he can change his mind. But if you want one thing and he wants something else, forget it."

There was something really strange about the way they had been talking since Kisi said oh! But Angel had basically confirmed what I had been worrying about. "Yeah, so, it's virtually impossible to manipulate one of these guys. They've got enough money..."

Angel said, "Have you got enough money, Max?"

"Me?" I said, in a dismissive tone. "I've barely got any. I don't even own my own home. No, it can't be money with this lot. What else are they into? Maybe if I had more time to get to know them... but I don't. What the hell am I supposed to do with twenty stubborn arseholes who each have their own motivations?"

"Oh, that one's easy," said Kit. "Do what you just did to me but for each of them. Half an hour later, you've united them against a common enemy. You."

I smiled, but I knew something about Kit. While she hadn't liked being named and 'shamed' - who would? - her Morale hadn't dropped and in the Future part of her profile were two phrases that had been there at the start of the meeting. The first went: 'Is delighted with the team's form.' The second: 'Hopes the club can hang on to Sarah Greene'. But a new one had appeared when I announced I would be the manager for the next game. 'Is keen to impress her new manager.'

I checked the time. Pascal wanted to take this opportunity to discuss some tactics, which meant my time was up. "I'll finish with one little message. It's three and a half hours to Durham and the same back. If we don't win on Sunday, I'm choosing the music on the way home."

Angel frowned, shrugged, and said, "You tell us what we're doing wrong and you give us incentives to win. It's like, hello? It's not that complicated. You're good at this."

***

Wednesday, October 28

Vans Trophy Final Group Stage Match: Chester (League One) versus Doncaster Rovers (League Two)

The latest blog post from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.

Hey Nonny Nonny Let's Dunk on Donny

Donny came to the Deva and all they got was a dunk and a doughnut. Doncaster's Rovers were dunked out of the Vans Trophy - it's over - with no goals scored - oh, Lord! Chester served up a sweet treat for their fleet of fans, playing sugar rush football out of a neat 3-4-3 suite. Next up's Rotherham but that won't bother 'em. Wembley here we come!

The only goal came early, as Gabriel scored a powerful header from a Bark corner. Chester pressed for a second but were denied by a wonderful performance from Doncaster's goalie. Despite the thin margins, manager Max Best felt confident enough in the win to give minutes to Peter Bauer, Jamie Brotherhood, and Alfie Clitheroe. Fitzroy Hall got his fifth start of the season, while Ryan Jack caught the eye in the first half.

Lee Contreras was not named in the match day squad, giving credence to the rumours that he had picked up a minor knock. Best himself didn't play. Perhaps he is saving himself for the weekend's FA Cup first round tie against Sutton United, who News of the Blues readers might remember tried to get Chester a transfer ban simply to improve their chances of winning a match against us. If you don't remember that incident, don't worry. Max Best does.

Attendance: 1,109. Full match report and photos to follow.

***

Saturday, October 31

FA Cup First Round: Sutton United versus Chester

I thought I was over Sutton but when I got to the stadium I found I wasn't. I wanted to smash them up good, humiliate them, punish them for the time they had attempted to destabilise us just so we would be off balance for a league match. Fortunately, I had mapped out the entire plan back home in Chester and it was so specific I pretty much had to stick to it.

I had named myself on the bench in case of emergency, but I wanted the 900-odd XP I would get for managing more than I wanted a goal. There was no challenge to the match, anyway. Sutton had an average CA of 68, which was a little lower than I'd been expecting.

We were using 3-4-3 with Sticky in goal and Cole and Fitzroy looking after Peter Bauer. Andrew Harrison (87/121) started in central midfield - he was creeping ever closer to Lee's level. On the left of midfield I picked Josh Owens and this would be a rare match where I allowed him to unleash his long throw. He could hurl the ball absolutely miles, which caused panic in the opposition box. It was unpleasant to watch but that's what I wanted from the day, and that's also why I'd picked Gabriel and Dazza to start - they were just as big and strong as Sutton's cavemen defenders.

Overall, we had an average CA of 92.7, so when I replaced Ryan Jack with the youthful Alfie Clitheroe in the second half, we would still have far too much quality for Sutton.

We kicked off and it was ugly stuff. I'd told the lads to hit it high and central. Dazza and Gabby competed for headers and Colin Beckton hared after the deflections and rebounds. Ryan Jack clipped free kicks into the danger area. Josh Throw-Ins hurled.

We brute-forced two first half goals and brute-forced two second half goals. Gabby scored one in each half but he also had two goals disallowed because he was caught offside when we hit a long shot that the keeper saved. I hadn't explained offside to Briggy yet but this scenario was simple - Gabby was being lazy. I wished I had brought Luisa down to London with us so she could shout at him in Portuguese. No matter - I would clip the incidents into a video and smack Gabby over the head with it.

Peter came through unscathed, more or less. His CA of 78 put him at the bottom of League One in terms of quality. He was adding a point or two per week, which was really exciting.

The plan was to simply walk out of the stadium having gathered a solid haul. We were through to the second round of the FA Cup and I had added 919 XP.

XP balance: 3,140

Soon I would have enough to buy a new formation. I would see what that unlocked, but the following purchase would probably be another Attribute.

"Max," said Briggy, who had come into the dressing room. "Someone's here to see you. He looks like a pirate."

I frowned because I knew exactly who she meant. Pedro Porto, the manager of Manchester United. Why was he in London watching a crappy cup match? Yeah, easy answer. Man United were playing West Ham the next day. Why not arrive early and scout Wibbers and Youngster? Pedro was probably going to complain that I hadn't used them. "Coming," I said.

I went out into the corridor and sure enough, it was him. Loads of people were going up and down the corridor almost tripping over their feet as they saw him. The manager of Manchester United! Here! It didn't bother me, even though I was objectively better looking.

"Max," he said, offering a handshake.

"PP," I said, clasping his hand. "Nah, cut that, that's all kinds of wrong. Pedro, this is Briggy, my assistant."

They exchanged pleasantries. "Max, that was terrible. Is this how you play now?"

"Yeah. I've pivoted from wanting to be everyone's second favourite team to everyone's second least favourite team." I gave him a friendly punch. "After Man United."

He offered me a thin smile. "Hated, adored, never ignored. That's how our fans want it. Max, I would like to talk about Matt Rush."

That blew my mind. Matt was barely in the top fifty players at United and Pedro Porto was under pressure. Despite everything that was going on around him, he was making time for that little shithead? "Uh, weird. Well, he's not inside."

"I know. He's outside. We watched the match together. He told me this long ball - how do you say - bombardeamento? - was your plan but I didn't believe him. He has been telling me about life at Chester FC."

"He has mentioned my shit man management, I bet. You can believe him about that one, too."

Pedro looked at his watch. "When are you leaving? An hour, perhaps? Can we sit and discuss?"

I inwardly groaned. Talking about Matt Rush for any length of time was not my idea of fun. I thought about Emma and Inside Man and George Clooney. Who better to learn some finesse from than Pedro Porto? The guy oozed class. "Yeah, I suppose," I said. "Oh!" I said, brightening. "Just had an epic idea. I need a Portuguese speaker to come and yell at my player. Come in for a second and say Gabriel, if you are caught offside like that again I will punch you in the dick."

Pedro laughed from surprise. "I will not say that, no."

"Okay, say if you are caught like that again, Max will punch you in the dick." Pedro chuckled but I was getting hyped. "Imagine this on a Brazilian talk show twenty years from now! Think about it, mate! Gabby's there reflecting on his career.

"He goes yeah I moved to England and had a mediocre season but I got a big-money transfer to Chester and I struggled again but I was starting to find my feet. One day at a random stadium in London I scored two goals and thought I had done well. Who comes in the dressing room to congratulate me? The manager of Manchester United! He jabs his finger in my face, tells me if I'm offside for being lazy again he'll cut my balls off, and he leaves. I never spoke to him again! 

"Think about it, Pedro. Think of the reaction to that story! And think what it'll do for Gabriel. He thinks he can stroll around because it's a tiny stadium and no-one's watching but when he realises you were here, he'll never fucking slack off again. Mate, come on. Come on, mate!"

Pedro's smile had been widening as I got more and more into the tale, and he finally cracked. "Okay, I do it. I do it - in my voice - and then we talk about Matt, okay?"

"That's a deal." Before we went in, I noticed Briggy giving me a strange look. I leaned closer to her. "What?" I mumbled.

"You do not suck at your job."

My morale spiked to preposterous levels. I'd earned the Briggy seal of approval! I took my shining eyes and blasted them right at Pedro. "You ready? Let's go inside, man."

...

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