2.11 - Soccer Supremo Part One [T1] (Patreon)

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Hey everyone! Part Two of this is coming up in a few minutes. I've split it because this is the longest chapter ever and email can't handle it.

...

11.

Friday, April 2

The NEC Arena, Birmingham

"Please welcome to the stage our special guest, the League One Manager of the Month for March, the former Bayern Munich trainer, the face of Soccer Supremo... Max Best!"

There was very generous applause as I strode past the sofas and hopped up onto the platform. While the clapping continued, I took in my surroundings. It was the kind of space where TED Talks happened - bare black walls, industrial-looking lighting frame attached to the ceiling, willowy curtains hanging down to soften the vibe and to make the exits a little less noticeable. Did I mention the sofas? Instead of the harsh conference chairs you might expect at such a venue, in this room the attendees were on plush couches in red, pink, black, or white.

The sofas were somewhat more diverse than the attendees. There were a few women, a few south Asian guys, but it was overwhelmingly white men in varying states of unfitness. All 7 of the abs in the room could be found on the stage under my third-nicest hoodie. Almost everyone else was wearing t-shirts with slogans such as 'Let's Get Warhammered', 'Live Love Slay', or 'My Brain Has Way Too Many Tabs Open'.

Let's be frank, it was a room full of nerds.

I had a lapel mic attached to me, which meant I could use my arms fairly freely. "Thanks, Jacob. Quick correction: Co-manager of the Month."

"Of course." The man on the stage with me was Jacob Childs, one of the bosses at the company that created Soccer Supremo. I had met him in Canada when I was doing World Cup analysis and that chance meeting led to me trousering a hundred thousand pounds to have my face on the cover.

As part of the deal, I had to do a couple of events, so here I was in Birmingham at the UK Games Expo. I was motivated to put on a good show because I wanted to extend and improve my contract; I planned to blow everyone's socks off.

Jacob said, "I'm sure we will have questions about that arrangement later. It could be something we include in future versions. Asynchronous co-play. Intriguing! Would you join me in the comfy chairs?" I eased myself into a massive, cosy armchair. On the arm rest was a remote control paired to a laptop that was virtually invisible from the front; I would need that later. Jacob sank into his chair with a little grunt. "What do you think of the Expo so far?"

"It's bewildering," I said, which got some laughs. "It looks big in the photos but it's ten times bigger than I would have thought. And it's bigger on the inside than on the outside. Is this the right audience for a Dr. Who joke?" Whoops and cheers told me it was. "Heh. I have a question, though. The Expo is all board games and miniature armies and that sort of thing. Not much in the way of computer games."

"No," said Jacob. "Normally we wouldn't be here, that's true, but we are experimenting with Soccer Supremo spin-offs." What follows is what he said, but he might as well have slipped into Greek for all I understood him. "We created a two-person deck builder with a focus on deck balance and synergies. You might sub in a target man and a full back with elite crossing, but focus too much on your attacking output and you could be caught out if your rival has enough counter-attacking points.

"One of our designers created a timed deck builder where you exchange resources - cash and squad slots - for new signings. The aim is to maximise your haul, with bonus points if you fill secretly-assigned holes in your squad. We have a ready-to-play demo of that one; we're calling it Win The Window."

So far I was pretty bemused, but the audience was getting giddy with excitement. The Venn diagram of Soccer Supremo player to board game nerd probably wasn't a perfect circle, but there would be soooo much overlap. And the more footy became data-driven, the more the thousands of people exploring the stands in the Expo would be attracted to games set in that world.

Jacob seemed to read my mind. "We have some ideas that are less centred around numbers and conventional mechanics and are more about wit and persuasion. Imagine there are four decks. From the first two, we draw a card each. I draw Sir Alex Ferguson from the managers pile and Tottenham from the club pile. You draw Pep Guardiola and Chelsea. The third deck decides the stadium and we pull Wembley. The fourth is a circumstance. It's raining heavily. Now you and I must explain why our cards would win."

"Ferguson is the GOAT but Pep's record at Wembley is absolutely crazy, plus he loves to drench the pitch before a match."

Jacob leaned forward. "And that's how it starts! We argue and the watchers vote on the winner."

"Okay but can we agree I won that one?"

Jacob smiled. "The possibilities are endless. Catan but instead of sheep and bricks it's players and stadium upgrades. Ticket to Ride but it's football clubs trying to get to an away match on time. We aren't planning a big pivot into board games but our staff have been working very hard and very single-mindedly on one game for a long time. We're letting them have half a day a week to let their imaginations run riot. Who knows? Perhaps some of the mechanics will make it into Supremo."

"That's really interesting," I said. "I like the concept of making jobs less one-dimensional. And I can think of another benefit of whipping up a few card games. It lets you book a space at this Expo and you can advertise to a demographic that is quite likely to enjoy your main product."

"That's awfully cynical, Max," said Jacob, seemingly delighted to have been caught red-handed.

I jabbed my thumb at the audience. "Who are these guys?"

"They're some of our most enthusiastic Supremos, our beta testers. They get to playtest new versions of the game with the latest player packs but one of the extra perks is the chance to win an invite to this event and to meet the guest speaker. When we announced you would be here, interest went through the roof."

"Really?"

"Yes. I think it's our second most popular event ever in terms of entries into the draw."

"I think I'm going to regret asking this, but who was the most popular?"

"Taribo West."

I laughed, and so did many of the audience. Taribo West was a Nigerian defender who sported funky haircuts and had a pretty good career - he played for both Milan clubs - but he was famous and beloved among Soccer Supremo players because when the game was in its heyday, West was available on a free transfer at the start of the season. He would sign for virtually any club and he soon turned into one of the best defenders in the world. It was the closest most Supremos would get to having Playdar.

"Genuinely delighted to be in the same conversation as Taribo West. What a player he was! D LC. Every time I started a new game I told myself I wouldn't sign him, but I always did. He was so overpowered."

"Back to our beta testers. They are wonderful people, enthusiastic, helpful, passionate. Without them, the game would never ship."

"Ah, okay, so I don't need to dumb it down like when I talk to club owners." That got plenty of laughs. "Hey, guys," I said, to the room, "raise your hand if you rotate goalies." Most hands went up. I made an ecstatic noise. "I've finally found my tribe!"

Jacob seemed very pleased with me so far. "Okay, so the plan was to talk to Max about his career and the tremendous season Chester FC are having, followed by a Q+A, but our guest has a better idea."

"That's right," I said. I grabbed the remote control, stood, took a couple of steps forward, swept my eye around the room, and locked onto some of the nerds. "Some of you probably have exotic and clever questions which, let's be honest, are about you trying to show off. Hey guys, that's my job." Solid laughs. "Don't make me get my abs out." More laughs and a couple of wolf whistles. "Ha. But I think everyone wants to know the same basic things. What's it actually like being a football manager? How does it compare to Soccer Supremo? How well does Soccer Supremo compare to real life? If I'm good at this game, could I actually do well in a real football club? That's what you want to know. Am I right?"

Shining eyes everywhere. I was already overdelivering.

"Another good question is, to what extent is Max Best's management style influenced by hundreds of hours he spent playing the game? Well, let me just fess up now that I haven't played Soccer Supremo for years, apart from helping my COO get started. I played and loved an old version, back when the series had a different name. You all know the name but my sponsorship deal encourages me not to use it." I smiled; a room smiled back. "That's to let you know that the Soccer Supremo that's in my head looks a little different to the one in yours.

"Fortunately, as we can infer from things Jacob has said, his company is a pretty good one to work for. There are some guys who have been there for decades, including a few who worked on the version that I played for all those hours. Those kind chaps have helped me to create this little presentation."

I clicked, and on the giant screen behind me came a familiar image - the loading graphic from the old game. There was scattered but enthusiastic applause.

"This version was an absolute banger. Flawless. Well," I said, adding a little doubt to my voice. "A couple of typos." Laughter. "Seriously, though, a masterpiece. So what I thought would be fun would be to load up an old save and talk you through it."

I clicked. On the screen, the old menus appeared. An oversized cursor clicked on 'LOAD GAME'. It brought up a list of save files. The first one said 'Relegate Tottenham'. The second said 'Only Players Named Max Challenge.' The third said, 'Max Best Chester FC 2027 Pissing the League'.

There was much amusement. The cursor chose the Chester save and up came an old-school menu, which looked almost identical to the one in my head. The cursor clicked on Chester Women Squad and brought up the current squad list.

Jacob was beaming; we hadn't let him see this until now. "Wow. Such a nostalgia hit! So this is the actual, current women's squad at Chester. Does it use our data or have you written it yourself?"

"It's your data."

"Maybe it's a good time to point out that you're the manager of the women's team, as well as being the player-manager of the men's. But I assume from this that we're going to focus on the women?"

"Not quite," I said. "What I want to do is take your, ah, Supremos on a journey. It's basically the last month of my life until yesterday, told with the old Soccer Supremo format, the old font, the old system messages. I'll talk you through what happened and why I did what I did."

"Max," said Jacob. He seemed pretty emotional. "This is spectacular."

I smiled. "I had the idea, yeah, but your team worked hard on this. They had fun with it." I turned to the audience. "What do you think, guys? Is this what you want?"

Hard, sustained applause.

"I think we have a hit on our hands," said Jacob. "I'm going to sit at the front for a better view. I'm really looking forward to this! Okay, Max, take it away."

He departed and I was alone on the stage. Just me, a lapel mic, and a clicker. I clicked.

***

On the top left of the menus was the date: March 7, and the current fixture: Brighton W vs Chester W.

"Okay, first a bit of an overview of what's gonna happen here. We're going to start with the most important match that took place in the last four weeks, the women's FA Cup Quarter Final against Brighton. I thought about leaving that until the end because it's really the only match I got stoked about and it's always best to end on a high but it's hard to do this any other way than chronologically because mood affects decision-making.

"Right. The stakes of this game. It's Chester's first ever FA Cup quarter final, men's or women's, ever. Win and we're in the semi-final. Holy shit! We are only in the third tier, but we're top of the league, undefeated, and only Durham can catch us. We actually play them during this period so a heavy defeat against Brighton could send us into a tailspin that costs us promotion. As well as being a decent player and manager, I'm also something of an innovator. I have invented a new way of structuring content that I call in media res."

I clicked and the Match Overview screen appeared. There was the usual basic info such as the team names, number of minutes played, and the identity of the referee but the most important thing (apart from the score) was the match commentary.

One line appeared across the centre of the screen.

Scottie Love throws the ball underarm towards Meghan.

This disappeared, replaced almost immediately by:

Meghan looks for a forward pass. She plays it to Sarah Greene.

Greene drives foward...

But she's tackled.

I faced forward, mouth fixed in a flat grimace, as the clock ticked up with no more match commentary.

Then:

22'

Nice pass into space by Brighton's captain.

They have a chance to build an attack.

The ball is with number 8. She plays it early towards the front two.

Number 10 holds the ball up well.

She turns and looks for her strike partner.

9 has a chance to shoot!

But it's straight at Scottie Love.

"Twenty-two minutes," I said. "First shot on goal. What?" I smiled. "I think we need some context. Where do we start? Back to our squad screen, I think."

I clicked to show our squad again, but with the menus cut off so we could focus on the names. Three were written in bold and had an asterisk next to them.

"Not sure if the new versions do this, but the old game picked out three players as the stars. Ours are Sarah Greene, Meghan, Kit Hodges. You can see we've got two players out on loan, including our only DM. No injuries that would stop anyone from playing, no suspensions. Pretty much ideal. We have deadly strikers and rugged defenders, but our strength is our midfield. I often play five across the middle and most teams can't handle us. Brighton are in the WSL, though. Which brings us to our opposition analysis."

I clicked and the menus returned. The cursor slid to the left, where it clicked on 'news' and then filtered by 'scouting reports'. A card came up.

Your scout Fleur has been watching Brighton and Hove Albion Women in recent weeks. She reports that Brighton like to play a possession-heavy 5-3-2. Their main strength is their miserly defence.

"Think about this," I said, looking down, walking around aimlessly. "The WSL has some of the strongest women's teams in Europe. Brighton have decent resources but their pockets aren't as deep as the megaclubs so they do what their men's team does, which is to use data to find talented players they can develop. In the meantime, how do you survive? How do you pick up points against much better teams? If you're playing Soccer Supremo, you do something like this."

I clicked and brought up one of the old-fashioned formation graphics. It showed a flat back five, three midfielders positioned close together in the middle of the halfway line, and two strikers.

"Looks normal, right? Just have loads of defenders and hope for the best? No."

I clicked and the graphic changed slightly. The icons representing the players were in Brighton blue, but now most of them had thick white borders.

"That border tells you, the Supremo, that they aren't using the default tactic. So what has changed? I don't have time to go into every player's positioning or individual instructions, but basically the defenders and midfielders are triangulated in possession, short passing, defensive mindset. The objective, almost the only objective, is to keep the ball. Even in the WSL they have more than 60% possession on average. 

"These guys pass sideways across the back five just endlessly. It's almost bizarre until you remember what I just said - they are one of the weakest teams in the top division and they play against Chelsea, City, United, and Arsenal for like 40% of their season. Those teams press high and get turnovers close to the oppo's goal.

"Solution? Outnumber the oppo's press to an absurd degree. Five defenders, three pivots. Cycle the ball around until there's a gap you can safely move into. Tedious? Yes. Press-resistant? Yes. Every pass is controlled, every player knows where everyone else is. They move the ball up the pitch and as soon as they see something they don't like, they come back to base.

"That's what I meant about this being something you'd do in a game. It's a kind of hyper-optimised min-max strategy you only see in simulations because it would be utterly tedious to play this and to watch this. Well, guess what? Someone at Brighton doesn't give a shit about that. This is efficient, so let's do it, no discussion.

"I picked a starting eleven I thought could do well against this 5-3-2, but I'll explain more about that in a minute."

I clicked to bring up Meredith Ann's player profile. There were quite a lot of single-digit Attributes and it didn't bear much resemblance to the numbers in my head.

"The game's all about numbers, right? Let's talk numbers. The most important ones aren't shown, are they, otherwise the game would be way too easy, but we need them for this chat." I clicked and two numbers were added to Meredith's profile - her CA and PA. The game had them crazily wrong, but it didn't matter for my current purposes. "Current Ability. What if we took an average of the two teams and compared them to each other. What would we get?"

I clicked to show just the top left square, the one with the date and fixture. I clicked again to add average CAs next to the team names.

Brighton W (Avg. CA: 105)

v

Chester W (Avg. CA: 65)

"Numbers are out of 200, of course. Okay, so we're big underdogs and they had home advantage, but I think we were a fair bit closer than those numbers would suggest." The real numbers were 100 for Brighton, and up to 80.7 for us. "Some of their CA is tied up in higher stamina. That makes sense; they're a full-time pro team and we're semi-pro.

"So let's get into the meat. What formation did I pick?" I clicked and brought up a very familiar formation graphic with the names of my players under their icons. "My mentor Ian Evans used to laugh at me when I got all clever and talked about expected threat or heat maps. You can play with your silly machines all you like but you'll always go back to four-four-bloody-two. I don't like making him right, so why do it? Two main reasons.

"First, it let me maximise my on-pitch talent. This was our maximum possible CA. Pure, ruthless, mathematical efficiency. Sometimes in these games I like to disrupt things, to subvert expectations, to see if I can cook up a bit of dramatic narrative by bringing on my best players late in the ninety. That has kinda stopped working as well as it used to, so I thought I would keep it simple. Start strong, compete for as long as possible.

"Second, I knew that Brighton wouldn't deviate from their plan and I wanted to use that against them. They want to play the ball around their defenders? Fine by me. We can settle into a compact 4-4-2, play defensive, and if we're lucky, absolutely nothing will happen in the first half. What does that give me? It turns the match into a 45-minute showdown. We're not as fit as a top-tier team, but we're pretty fit. Compress the match into one half and suddenly our CAs look a lot more similar, don't they? Manager tip - if you have a stamina advantage, do things that force the oppo to run around more. I learned that from Saturday morning cartoons!"

Some laughs, but not many. The audience were too engrossed to do anything other than listen, hungrily.

I pointed to the formation. "I decided on this within minutes of the draw being announced, told it to the players in the next training session, and we had been working on aspects of it for weeks. One advantage I have as a manager is that I can do an impression of pretty much any player. In training, I went into the middle of a back five and ran the game like Brighton's number 4 does, while my first-choice eleven kept their shape. Slightly tedious for all concerned, but players do like to know there's a plan."

I left a long pause, staring at a couple of guys. When the tension had risen sufficiently, I clicked.

The formation graphic changed. Now it had a huge giant red X over it.

"One thing I learned from playing Soccer Supremo... Sometimes your plans go to shit."

***

Chester, a month earlier.

Livia: Sorry to bother you, Max, but I thought you should know that one of our players has had a positive result in a urine test.

I stared at my phone with all kinds of things happening to me. The most immediately concerning from a medical standpoint was that my heart had stopped. The front of my head was abuzz, literally vibrating with wispy thoughts being born and dying mere moments later, like mayflies.

Failed drugs test. Huge worldwide ban for the player. A year out. Two. Career wrecked. Which career? Wibbers, Youngster, Roddy? Devastating for the club and the player. How many sponsors would drop out? Or would it depend on which drug had been used and why? Peter Bauer snorting the devil's talcum powder off the chiseled abs of a famous tennis player would be a lot different to Ryan Jack using the wrong hair-loss shampoo.

But why hadn't I seen it? How come there had been no hints in the player profile? I brought up the profiles for the men's team, swiping through. Couldn't find anything. Ditto the women. The squad seemed completely normal.

If I couldn't spot someone taking fucking steroids, that was a big gap in my powers. Who was most likely to be juicing? Realistically, Magnus Evergreen. He had been a bodybuilder; maybe he was addicted. Was that an unfair assumption? Possibly. Who had gained a lot of strength in recent months? Almost everyone. Tomzilla and Nasa loved being able to hit our gym any time they wanted. Peter Bauer was bulking up to cope with English football. Youngster, Wibbers, and Dazza were getting stronger, but surely that was at a normal rate? I frowned. Bark. He was developing physically faster than expected. Hmm.

And the women? A similar story. The defenders enjoyed the weights more than the midfielders. Femi and Meghan had added a couple of points of Strength this season. Luxury Bell, too. Her mood had been fluctuating a tad more than the others. Drugs caused mood swings, right? Should I have been keeping an even closer eye on that? Was that the clue?

I turned to look at Luxury, who was a few tables away, happily chatting with some of her closer friends. She appeared to be absolutely normal. What about Pippa Hoole? Juicing herself to avoid The Cliff? Nah, come on. She had been easing out of the squad a little bit more every week while five Welsh kids zoomed past her. No amount of human growth hormone could turn back time.

I looked at the message again, this time with a slightly less panicked eye.

Positive result... in a urine test.

Frowning deeper than ever, I asked myself why Livia had sent a text instead of just telling me. I searched and spotted her standing about ten yards away, behind a cameraman. She took a half step behind him. It was Henri. I quickly looked to the left and another camera was on me from that angle.

Urine test. Livia took someone's urine. My urine. She was taking the piss.

"You've got to be kidding me!" I said, bounding off the chair and rushing at her. She backed away with impressive rapidity.

"Whoa whoa whoa," cried Henri, using himself like a shield to protect the damsel in distress. "Calm yourself, Max."

"She fucking pranked me!"

Livia was holding on to Henri from behind, pulling him - and by extension, me - away from the others. Judging by her face, she was enjoying herself immensely. "Says the guy who hired an actor to prank the men's team!"

That calmed me about ten percent. Calmed me enough to get properly angry. "I nearly had a heart attack! That's a horrible message to get, Livia. What's funny about a failed drugs test?"

Henri moved the camera to the side, just long enough to make eye contact. "It is partly my fault, my friend. I thought we could test your skills."

"Test my patience, you mean. Jesus fuck." My heart rate was starting to return to normal.

"Max," said Livia, apologetically. "I didn't mean to stress you that much but it's not a prank. Read the message again."

Scowling, I obeyed. "Positive result. Positive. But that's bad. Negative would mean no drugs were found."

Henri and Livia exchanged a look. They didn't think I was going to work it out. Livia said, "Max, one of your players is pregnant."

That doused my anger like a bucket of cold water. "Er... oh."

"We thought we could prank you a little bit, and then see if you can guess who it is. She knows about this and agrees it could be a funny scene for the documentary and a cool way to tell the group."

Henri said, "She thinks you'll never be able to tell." I massaged my brows with my fingers while calming down. I did that for so long that Henri dropped the camera. "Okay, this was a bad idea. Or a good idea poorly executed. Livia will just tell you and that will be that."

"Wait," I said, meekly. I took ten seconds to compose myself while I bathed in a pool of liquid relief. Christ, that had been stressful! I tried to see things from Livia's point of view. She was one of the few members of staff who felt she could stand up to me, and in her twisted way was looking out for the interests of the club.

A funny scene for the documentary? It had got off to a bad start, but it had the chance to end well. Could I guess which of 25 women was pregnant? The woman in question thought I couldn't. Challenged accepted, mate.

But I couldn't let Livia off scot-free. I got a sad, weary look about me. "I don't know if I overreacted just now. Maybe this was funny, I don't know. We can play out the scene and see how it looks on tape. It just hit me hard because I was thinking that if someone we work with every day had a drug habit then we've really failed them collectively, you know, by not noticing, not supporting them, not helping them with their demons. It made me feel like a bit of a shit person."

"Oh, Max," said Livia. "I'm really sorry."

She seemed suitably miserable, but about thirty percent more than I had intended with my speech, so I threw my arms wide. "Hug it out?" She accepted. Henri turned and extended his left arm to create a hug zone. "You can get fucked," I said. "Okay, to business. Pregnant. Um... shit. Is it a good pregnant...?"

"Yes," said Livia.

"Okay," I said, slowly, as I sorted the women's squad list by Morale. The player in question wouldn't be at the bottom of the list, right? Not if she was happy to tell the team and excited about this mini-game Livia and Henri had dreamed up. A sudden thought hit me. Youngster and Meghan wanted to move into one of my flats! Was that because Meghan already knew...?

I looked around until I saw her. She was with her old mate Sarah Greene, plus Kisi and Queenie, our backup goalie (who had nearly overtaken Scottie Love in terms of CA).

I eyed the player profile that was hovering above Meghan's head, looking for clues.

There was just... nothing.

I squinted and turned in a slow circle, taking in the group as a whole. I thought I saw something flicker on a player profile and my feet took me towards a table with Femi, Scottie Love, Luxury Bell, and Pippa Hoole.

Pippa.

Hmm.

Was that why she was cliffing a couple of years earlier than Ryan Jack? Preggers Pips? Little baby Hoole? But then her Morale would be higher, right? Unless she had lied to Livia about being happy about the pregnancy.

I was out of my depth on this!

But then came another tiny flicker.

Luxury Bell, a 26-year old right back who could play in the centre of defence. CA 75, PA 88. Would be a very good WSL 2 defender. Being pregnant would rule her out for a calendar year at least, right?

I pulled at my bottom lip. The WSL was expanding, so next season two teams from WSL 2 would be promoted. We would definitely be one of the two. Luxury Bell was one of the players who couldn't come with us to the top tier, but I couldn't bin her off because she got pregnant. That would be monstrous. If she took a year off starting now, she would catch the last part of our WSL 2 season, and get close to her ceiling when she was 27 turning 28. We could put her in the shop window and I would be able to tell all our WSL 2 opponents that we had a good player they should snap up.

I stared at her profile; nothing happened.

Or maybe she would quit football. Be a full-time mum. Or what if she wanted to switch to a job where she wasn't liable to break her leg every single week? Something in our admin staff, maybe? She would be a good employee - she was smart and determined.

While I stared at her Determination score, it went up three points, down six, and returned to normal, all in the space of half a second.

Holy shit!

I felt my flappy gob slowly open as I stared harder. Her Decisions score went mad before settling back to normal, and then her Condition went from 100% to zero three times in two seconds.

"Luxury," I said. "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

Femi, Scottie, and Pippa gasped. Luxury slammed the table, laughing. "No way! No fucking way!"

The other players, sensing that something was happening, rushed over. "What's going on?" yelled Angel.

All eyes were on Luxury. "I'm preggers!" she shouted, but the word was only one letter deep before joyous shrieks came from all directions.

***

Birmingham

I cleared my throat as I looked up at the slide. "Yeah, on the morning of the match," I said, smiling wryly, "I found out that a key player couldn't make the starting eleven. If you want to know why, watch season 4 of Chesterness."

The crowd seemed to like being teased in that way. Jacob shouted, "No advertising your products!" He was smiling, though.

I got introspective, trying to put myself back in the mindset of being on the team bus heading down to Brighton. Luxury Bell still wanted to play, which was crazy to me and I didn't know how to say that in a gentlemanly fashion, but Livia made up for the prank by telling Luxury it wasn't an option. "Okay, so as I said, my strategy had been to start strong and hope the subs added some value, but not to make the subs my entire tactical plan."

Tell me you're thinking about Bench Boost without mentioning Bench Boost.

"But plan A was out of the window. I still liked the idea of being super defensive in the first half, but could I achieve that with squad players? It's easier to defend than to score, isn't it? What if I kept four or five key attacking players out of the first half and put them on at half time or in the second half and asked them to run non-stop? Think about it. We make the game a 45-minute affair. No jokes about Brian Clough at Leeds, please. Coming out for the second half, Brighton are a little bit tired while we send on five wonderkids. Let's have a fucking go, yeah? Yeah. So which five players do I leave out?"

I clicked five times, and with every click a player photo appeared, along with some key stats and Soccer Supremo Attributes. I had included the CA as provided by the game company's data team, but mentally corrected them as I spoke.

"Sarah Greene." 90. "My most valuable player. My favourite Chester player depends on my mood and what day of the week it is, but if it ends in a Y, it's Sarah. Complete range of passing, vision, creativity, crosses, set pieces, volleys, dribbles, long shots. It's absolutely insane to leave her out of your team, even for a minute, but sometimes you gotta get crazy.

"Dani Smith-Smithe." 84. "Amazingly destructive wide player. Dribbles, two-footed, ruthless finishing. Deaf. You might have seen on Chester's socials that we announced that we had established a signing section. Loads of gammons and idiots piled on, laughing about our spelling mistake. Cue a reveal video! No, we didn't mean a singing section, we meant a signing section! A bunch of deaf fans all sitting together, doing rude chants in British Sign Language. Jacob, can I say what some of the chants are?"

"Please don't."

"Heh. Dani loves it. Guys, if you get a job in this business do what you can to look beyond what's considered normal. Dani would never, ever have made it at another club and that's genuinely pathetic because she's pure fucking class!

"And her so-called weakness is a strength on the pitch. You can't taunt her! You can't get under her skin. And because she played pan-disability footy, she got used to being clattered all the time and she doesn't react badly to it. What does that mean? It means I've got an absolute menace who can play either wing - or in the middle, but that's normally a waste - who can't be sledged or kicked out of a game. She's utterly fearless. Seriously, she's an immense player.

"If we're really going for it, let's rest both our strikers. Angel." 76. "And Kit Hodges." 95. "If you can create an opportunity for them, they'll put it away. Yeah, Brighton's strike duo is a little more physical, a little more dynamic, better defensively, blah blah blah, but sorry for being old-fashioned, I do like a striker who can score a goal.

"Finally, Meredith Ann." 63. I had wanted to use her as a sub even in the first version of the plan. A 10% boost would take her to CA 70, more or less, and my hope was that at such a level she would be able to dribble past CA 100 defenders and maybe slip a free kick past a triple-digit goalie. "I'm not going to say anything about her. If you don't get it, you don't get it."

That comment caused one of the biggest stirs of the speech so far. A murmur of chat that got louder and louder but when I spoke next, the room fell silent. Hanging on my every word, mate.

"So if I've got those five to bring on, what's my final formation going to be? 4-3-3 would work. I do love attacking down the flanks, though, and how do you fuck up a back five? With four forwards. Could we finish the match in a 4-2-4? Yes, if I start the match with Maddy Hines in the line up. She's M RC " - I liked that I could chuck out all the jargon - "and I personally don't mind using right mids at right back. Give them conservative instructions, nudge a team mate closer and bosh, they're fine.

"I don't have the biggest squad because there are far fewer fixtures for the women, so with what I've got left, I pick a 3-5-2.

"In goal, Scottie Love." 63, maxed out. "She had a neck injury a few weeks before this game, and I was able to let her recover while the young backup got some minutes.

"Three at the back were Dafina, Meghan, Femi." CA 62, 87, and 85 respectively. "Dafina is one of our Welsh youngsters and her progress has been amazing. She trains with us, gets some first-team minutes, and has regular contact with the Welsh under 17s. Getting your players into their national team is a bit of a hack, guys. Top tip.

"Midfield was Ridley T on the left, a central trio of Mari, Charlotte, and Pippa, with Maddy on the right." CAs 75, 61, 84, 45, and 73. "Ridley T is a left back and you can play left backs in left mid if you don't mind losing some attacking threat. It's funny, that. A left back playing at left back is normally more of an attacking threat than one playing two zones further forward. Okay then the most interesting choice in the middle was Pippa.

"She was one of the first players I found in Chester when I was building the team. I promised her that this new team wasn't going to be a passing fancy of mine, that she would get to be part of something serious. I kept that promise, but now her legs are starting to go. Will she mind me saying that? Um... yeah. Please keep that shush." Laughter. "But really, I felt like this would be her last big game and she's, you know, perfectly capable of running around, scrapping, playing neat passes. Remember how the first version of this line up was hyper-efficient, mathematical? One player drops out and I'm getting all sentimental, thinking about narratives instead of percentages. Is that the behaviour of an elite manager? Um, no. But also: definitely yes."

I took a sip of water.

"Em... for more context to that, I did have another option. Fioled, a very talented young Welsh midfielder, who has loads of energy and is mint. She's maybe 10 points in CA ahead of Pippa. Sometimes, though, you've got to go with your heart, right? You can still be ruthless. I told Pippa if she played shit I would sub her off but that we would pretend it was an injury. Leave with her head held high, kind of thing. Spoiler alert - she gave it everything she had and made it to half-time." Smattering of applause. "Yeah, it's hard watching brilliant people get to the end of their careers. Especially because I don't age and won't ever slow down." Amused chuckling.

"Then the 2 in the 3-5-2 was Kisi and Alwen." Kisi was 74, Alwen 62, giving an average CA for the starters of just 70.1. "Kisi's a winger very much like Dani, and Alwen is a clever forward, not a beefy target man. I needed some kind of focal point, though, so I asked Alwen to stay high and do a Tom Westwood impression. Tom's a brilliant guy we've got whose parents, weirdly, were an Energiser battery and a Duracell bunny. Er, that's a weird image. Cut that. Anyway, if the oppo want to do endless horseshoe passing around the defence, the last thing they want to see is Tom Westwood. Alwen understood the assignment. I asked Kisi to be a little more patient in case I needed her for the whole 90, and dropped her into the CAM slot so she could combine with the midfielders."

I took another swig of water.

"Back to the first half."

We returned to the Match Overview, with the match possession, shots on target, and shots off target stats being displayed in the corner. As the minutes ticked up, the amount of possession settled - 70% for Brighton - and the number of shots crawled up. When the 'action' stopped on 45 minutes, Chester had zeroes in both rows, while Brighton had 3 shots on target, 5 off.

I clicked to show the Match Ratings. Scottie Love was on 7 out of 10, but we had more than a few 5s and 6s. Pippa was one of the 5s, which was actually a triumphant way for her career to end.

I laughed and said, "Not gonna lie, that half was a total stinker. Heh. There were a few hairy moments, and I did make some tweaks, but it was mostly a case of sticking to the plan." I was about to move on when I picked someone out in the audience. "My job isn't on the line in this match, but yours could be. Imagine your team's had no shots after half an hour. Your own fans are booing you. The job information page has you moving from slightly insecure to very insecure. Do you have what it takes to stick to the plan? Extreme strategies need extreme discipline. Have you got diamond hands?"

The guy's neck tensed. He gritted his teeth. The guy was ready to run through a brick wall! I had barely put any heat into my voice.

I addressed the entire room again. "Little motivational speech, there. Can you do that? Life's not like a bog-standard RPG where it's press X for the kind option, circle to be a dick, triangle to ask for more money. You need to be able to wind people up or talk them down from ledges. You need to be able to scream in a six foot four striker's face and then calmly give him a tip on how to get the better of the centre half who's outwitting him. And when it comes to the women's team, you need to have off-the-scale emotional intelligence because as a male manager you can't be in the dressing room for the entire break so you need to go in and get your points across fast and in the right tone. Time becomes your greatest enemy. You can't waste a single second in there!"

***

West Sussex

"All right, shut the fuck up." I looked around the dressing room at the Broadfield Stadium in West Sussex. One day, Chester Women would be a big enough draw for Brighton to play their matches against us at the Amex Stadium, where the men played, but that day was in the future. "My favourite movie..." I said, rubbing my face hard. "Is..."

"Come on, Max," complained Angel. "Think about your speech before we come in here!"

"How could I?" I said, waving my arms around. "I was fucking asleep!"

"It was pretty rank," agreed Angel.

I saw Luxury Bell in her training gear - she had warmed up with the others and stayed out on the pitch taking shots at Queenie - and clicked my fingers. "Got it. My favourite movie is Junior, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as scientists who find a way for a man to have a baby, thus eliminating the need to have women at all. The ultimate gammon fantasy! Er... You know what? I haven't seen it and it sounds abysmal.

"No, my favourite movie is Look Who's Talking, in which Bruce Willis is the voice of a wise-cracking baby. Holy shit there was so much cocaine in the 80s! Yeah, you got me, I haven't seen that one either. Um... okay, look, forget the movie thing. Babies babies babies. Hmm... Yep. Check this out. We're here today to give birth to some football. We first conceived of this moment nine months ago, and victory has been inside us, ah, gestating - "

"Okay, no," said Charlotte, getting up and pushing me towards the door. "No no no."

"Wait wait wait," I cried. I should point out that almost everyone was laughing. "I've got parenting advice for Luxury!"

Charlotte relaxed a fraction. "Really?"

"Yeah! Get this on TV, guys, it's gold. Okay, what you do is you tell all your mates that when it comes to your little baby Bell - oh my God, baby Bell, like the cheese! - you tell them you're not going to give your kid a phone until they're 17 and no iPads until they're, like, 12. Or until they need one for school. And then, right, what you do is the first fucking minute the baby stresses you in any way, you download six hours of Peppa Pig and you shove that iPad right in that little brat's hands. Okay? That's - hey, stop shoving me. That's how you raise a child!"

***

Birmingham

The earnest faces of the Soccer Supremo megafans were turned to me like sunflowers basking in the powerful glow of my wisdom.

I took a breath and got my serious face on. One of the side doors opened, created a breeze just strong enough to ripple the nearest curtain. I nodded some more. "I repeat. Half time is a precious resource. Don't waste it."

***

West Sussex

A couple of minutes after being kicked out of the dressing room, I went back in like nothing had happened and went straight to the tactics board. "Okay, as I was saying, we're going to 4-2-4. Fuck these pricks. Seriously. Let's ruin their day.

"Ridley T left back. Maddy right. Charlotte and Sarah in the centre of midfield. You two can join the high press. Left wing is Dani. Right is Kisi for now. Kisi, run hard, yeah? Meredith will replace you later so put it all in. Strikers are Angel and Kit, obvs."

I stared at the magnets. There was a big problem with my tactical concept - nine times out of ten, Brighton would find it easy to pass the ball through us. The other time we would have an awesome chance to break into their penalty box. Our chances would be higher quality, but Brighton would have more of them. If I had complete tactical flexibility, I would have been tempted to go 2-3-5, a complete inversion of the home team's strategy. I had something that sortof came close, if I squinted hard enough.

"Be ready for a switch to 3-4-3. Meghan, there's a world where I move you up to DM and I might even ask you to mark their 8." In phases of play where Meghan was close enough for the marking instruction to kick in, we would effectively be 2-5-3. That would be a system I doubted Brighton had faced before, so it would ask them some questions at least. Put some stress on them. Stressed players made mistakes. "Captain, lead them out."

Femi stood and demanded the others form a huddle. "This is it, ladies! This is the biggest half of our season! Semi-final's 45 minutes away! Put everything in! Do it for your friends, your family, those who are here, those who have passed, those who are yet to be born. Make them proud. Make yourselves proud!"

I already had goosebumps before the roar came. Luxury Bell had tears in her eyes, and she wasn't the only one.

***

Birmingham

I walked along the stage, dangling one foot over the edge for a few seconds. It wasn't much of a drop but it was still pretty exciting. "One thing Soccer Supremo can't prepare you for is the sound of management. I'm sure most of you have played football or been to a few matches. You know the sounds of the sport. I could probably play audio and you could tell if it was a volley, a short pass, someone taking down a high ball, a mis-kicked shot. Add in the buzz of the crowd, the ref's whistle, the songs and chants, all that stuff. But it all takes on a different meaning when you're the manager.

"When you've managed a hundred games, the way your players shout 'let's fucking go!' at half time sounds different. You can hear when they know they're gonna win. Or you can hear anxiety, tension, doubt." I gestured towards the screen. "This half-time break was one of the all-time top five let's fucking goes. Apex Mountain."

I looked down for about six seconds.

"I don't think I'm the best football manager. When I'm being arrogant and cocky it's normally, like, a performance. It's entertainment. I think I'm better than most at riding the emotional waves of a match, though. I think playing so much Soccer Supremo helped me with that. A match is a process, a process, a process. You refine the process and you get better outcomes.

"Okay. But your players are emotional and if you can tap into their emotions you can basically give your team a power-up. They'll run faster, concentrate harder, be more determined. Knowing when to be a ruthless technocrat and when to prance around the technical area like a deranged fan - that's where a lot of magic is born."

I clicked and we were looking at the Match Overview screen as the second half kicked off. We had sped up the commentary so that it was a rush of words culminating in phrases such as: 

But she puts it over the bar!

But it's well saved.

But she overhits the pass!

The coders and I had made the stats area bigger for the second half, made the numbers pop when they increased. It was intended to make it feel like it was an all-action whirlwind, and it was pretty effective.

Every now and then, the stream of text would slow so that people could read it. 

Chance for Chester!

Here come Brighton.

Chester again.

Brighton again!

Oh, the audience were thinking, if this part has been slowed down, it must mean there was a goal.

Nope!

I was toying with their emotions like the heartless bastard I was. And they were loving it. For a while it was like they were at the stadium, like it was one of their closest relatives or loved ones who was on the pitch.

The action paused.

"I don't have the xG stats and I wouldn't include them here because I don't have that live on the touchline as I'm making decisions. I only have my feelings. Are we battering? Are we getting battered? This first ten minutes was amazing, wildly entertaining, but I was getting more and more stressed.

"My body was telling me that the risk versus reward was out of balance. If you're a third-tier side against a top division outfit, things aren't going to go your way. But I felt that, yeah, we were getting some quarter-chances but the Seagulls were getting half chances. That's not sustainable. I did what I always do in that situation - I turtled up while I had a think.

"Not long after, I shifted us to 3-4-3."

I showed that on a graphic.

"Ridley T slotting into the left slot in the back three, Maddy right mid. We have two natural strikers and then a series of players like Sarah, Dani, and Kisi who are attacking midfielder types. Normally I wouldn't put one of them in the very front line because they're more effective one slot deeper where they can help the midfield connect with the strikers. But remember what Brighton are doing. Five at the back, keep the ball. I wanted bodies up there, disrupting them, annoying them, forcing them into mistakes.

"So I got Kisi over, told her to play as a right forward, get between the left back and the left centre back and cut out those passes. Work your arse off, I said. She looked at me, annoyed, and said, what do you think I've been doing?" Chuckles around the room. "I was like, you've got ten more minutes. If you aren't sprinting non-stop when Brighton have the ball, I'm gonna give you next Sunday off and you'll spend it in church with your parents." Bigger chuckles. "I call that 'putting the fear of God into her'. So we're doing 3-4-3 with a tilt to the right, okay? The back three and Charlotte have to stay in the rest defence, but the rest can bomb forward. With the way Brighton play, I'm hoping to turn the risk reward more into our favour. I'm hoping the number of chances keeps going up, but slower. And, of course, I'm hoping for a goal."

The second half resumed, and again the way the commentary went faster and slower wound people up.

Angel shoots!

Great save!

Here come Brighton.

They have created a good angle. Shot comes in...

It clips the outside of the post!

"I said, I'm hoping for a goal!" I called out, significantly, as the clock passed 70 minutes. A few people leaned forward, expectant.

The text slowed to a crawl and the sounds of a football stadium played over the speakers.

Scottie Love takes the goal kick short to Meghan.

Meghan plays a short pass to Charlotte.

She turns away from pressure and sends the ball to Sarah Greene.

As in a real stadium when Sarah went on a dribble, the volume rose.

Greene shows excellent close control. She goes past one player.

She flicks the ball to Hodges.

Hodges combines with Angel.

Angel turns towards Smith-Smithe, but turns again and plays the ball into the path of Greene.

Greene with a piledriver from 25 yards!

The roar of the crowd came to a crescendo.

The shot veers just wide!

"Ooooh!" went the audio. Some of the hands in the audience twitched as though their owners wanted to hold their heads.

I grinned.

"No more audio from now on," I said. "Text only."

There were chances. There were injury scares. Possible red card? No, it's only yellow.

There was even a disallowed goal, for Brighton. There was a cheer in the room when the referee disallowed it, even though it had happened a month prior.

With 15 minutes to go, I replaced Kisi with Meredith Ann.

The theme from Jaws played.

"Okay, no more audio startiiiiing... now."

I showed that we were now using a pure 3-4-3, with Meredith central, to the right of Kit. I even showed a close-up of Meredith's individual player instructions. Dribbling? Yes. Pressing? Yes. Free Role? No.

I showed a different screen, too. The one that said who should take our free kicks. The name changed from Sarah Greene to Meredith Ann.

"This is called foreshadowing," I said. "I invented this."

Time sped up and slowed down. Brighton had a flurry of chances, but we responded in kind. Finally, with 88 minutes on the clock, we got a free kick.

The theme song from Rocky started playing, to some nervous laughs.

A wonderful opportunity for Chester to take the lead. This is a perfect position for a left-footer.

Meredith Ann places the ball down with extreme care.

The Welsh Colombian takes a few steps back.

The referee blows her whistle.

Meredith Ann steps forward...

Looks left... Shoots right...

But the keeper guessed correctly. She catches the ball easily!

There was a groan from the audience.

"Yeah," I said, laughing. "Meredith Ann needs to put more pace on those shots. She'll get there. But what do you do when the full-time whistle blows, just after you've had a chance to win the whole thing? You know your players are thinking about that. We could have won! One kick and we would have won! But you've got to get them ready for extra time. We've got thirty minutes to go and we have plenty of gas in the tank. You have to get them together and get them focused on the task at hand. Do you tell them to forget that big moment? Show of hands. Do you tell your players to shake it off?"

About half the hands in the room went up.

"Yeah, maybe. Do that if you want. Me? I think you're just drawing attention to it. One thing I do well, by accident, is I almost always only look forward. Here's the plan for extra time. Here's our tactic. This is what we do next. Why mention the past? Who gives a shit?

"Okay so when I said we had plenty of gas in the tank, maybe that wasn't quite true. Our five subs certainly did, and the defenders did, but our wide players and Charlotte, a key midfielder, didn't. So I made everything more conservative. Back to 3-5-2, with Meredith Ann in the centre of the midfield. The plan was to get some control, take some time off the clock, and have Meredith dribble from midfield, cause some havoc."

The match commentary resumed, and there was a period of relative inactivity followed by a series of shots on goal.

"Shots are about two to one in favour of Brighton at this point and there isn't much we can do about it. Play for penalties, maybe, but we're a very young team and we don't have a lot of experience of shoot-outs. The balance of play was about as good as we could have got, which is why I didn't experiment with Meghan in the DM slot."

Meredith Ann dribbled, combined with Dani, combined with Sarah, passed to Kit, whose shot was saved.

Brighton cut through us like a knife. Shot over!

We tried again. Nothing doing.

Brighton once more... This time a shot on target.

GOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

I shook my head. "Gutted. Absolutely gutted. But look." I showed the match ratings. "We're 7s and 8s. What more can you ask for against a better team? Nothing. But I was out of options. There was nothing left to try."

I let my head fall, theatrically.

"Unless..."

We cut to some actual footage of the match. Our women kicked off and after a few passes, our strict formation seemed to melt. A few exchanges later and six ladies were over by the right touchline playing short passes to each other, doing flicks to beat pressure, keeping the ball in that area of the pitch.

We went back to the Soccer Supremo tactics screen. The 3-5-2 formation glitched, glitched again with some of the icons forming a little circle on the extreme right of the playing area, then it glitched a final time, the whole thing turned to greyscale, and in big red letters came the text RELATIONISM MODULE NOT FOUND.

This got a few hearty laughs from the users who knew what it was and had requested it.

The 'story' switched back to the match commentary, and now it was all about Chester possession.

Then...

Smith-Smithe is fouled!

But from her prone position, she flicks the ball to Charlotte.

First-time pass to Greene.

Greene with an incredible piece of skill to divert the ball to Angel!

The striker runs at goal and tries to tee up Hodges.

But the pass is no good.

The referee blows her whistle. She is bringing the game back. Angel was fouled when playing the pass!

It's in a threatening position.

Meredith Ann wants to take it.

She places the ball.

Brighton line up their wall.

Meredith Ann strikes it left-footed...

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

Her shot clipped the wall and wrong-footed the keeper!

Chester are level!

On screen came a photo of a chess grandmaster calmly thinking about his next move. A caption said, 'Max Best deciding what to do next.'

"You see," I said, sagely, "football management is all about making calm decisions. You get new information, you reconsider what you're doing. The rational side of my brain was telling me to go back to 4-4-2 defensive, play for penalties, see what happens. The pressure was on the home team, right? It would be humiliating for them to lose to little old Chester. Yes, given our stamina levels and general lack of experience, the measured thing to do would be to park the bus and make Brighton do all the running. I'm actually quite a calm and rational person, you know."

The grandmaster vanished, replaced by actual footage of me at this point in the match, running around like a maniac, neck veins popping, hurling my arm towards the Brighton end. There was no audio but I was clearly screaming 'attaaaaaack!'

"Who's that clown?" I said, disapproving.

Back to the match commentary and the intensity rose a notch. There were under 10 minutes left but both teams were attacking with ease, neither team able to get much of a grip. Chance after chance after chance.

Smith-Smithe takes the ball down beautifully and turns to give the ball to Ridley T.

Smith-Smithe turns on a sixpence and dabs the ball past a surprised defender!

The winger is rampaging down the left.

She looks up.

Will she cross? A retreating midfielder slides to block.

Smith-Smithe pushes down the line and fizzes a low cross into the box.

Angel is there!

But her snapshot is blocked!

Brave defending by the home team's captain.

Greene is first to the rebound. She unleashes a shot left-footed!

But it's blocked again!

And it breaks kindly for Brighton.

The Seagulls break from defence with speed.

Some of the Chester players are flagging.

Meghan rushes at the ball and crashes into a tackle.

Bad foul!

The referee tells the home team to play on.

They're crossing the halfway line and suddenly they have four against two!

The first pass is a good one.

Brighton's number 22 has fresh legs. She drives towards the box and shapes to shoot.

Femi slides to block it...

22 knocks the ball to the right.

Scottie Love rushes out to narrow the angle..

The ball is played square.

Number 9 has an open goal.

But she has scuffed her shot!

Disaster!

But it is going in anyway.

The makeshift right back Maddy Hines has a chance to stop the ball crossing the line.

Or does she?

No!

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

It was a heroic effort from Hines, but ultimately futile.

Brighton are going into the FA Cup semi-final!

Chester's players are on their backs, breathing heavily.

What a cruel end to this match!

I waited ten seconds.

There was dead silence in the room. You could have heard a pin drop.

Quietly, I said, "What do you do? The game's over. Your players have given it everything. They've carried out your instructions and they've been brave and brilliant and very nearly bridged a huge gap. What do you do? What do you say in the dressing room? What do you say on the five-hour drive home?" I counted to five, and in a whisper-soft voice said, "If anyone knows the answer to that, please let me know."

***

[Do not stop reading. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 pounds. Go directly to the next half of this chapter.]