8.

Friday, February 19

It was Norway versus Ireland in a women's international and I was watching even more closely than usual. Ireland were doing 4-2-3-1 - groan, yawn, kill me now - while Norway were trying 3-4-3. This felt like a tactical battle I would be having again and again, since 4-2-3-1 was the soup du jour while 3-4-3 was currently the formation that got the most out of my starting eleven. Tuesday night's Vans Trophy semi-final opponents, Plymouth Argyle, would be rocking a 3-4-3 variant, so there was even more reason to concentrate.

"Do you see anyone you like?" said Emma.

"I only have eyes for you," I said, planting a noisy kiss on her forehead.

She was sceptical. "You didn't notice that tall blonde on the right? Or that Irish midfielder who looks like Emma Stone?"

I got the team sheets out and pretended to study them. "Tall blonde?" I said, moving my finger around in a confused manner. "Emma Stone?" Emma shoulder-barged me. I smiled and said, "There are actually two amazing players I'd love to get. Two and a half. Two and two halves. It's a talented group but realistically I need younger players who can grow with my team. I'm thinking an age cut-off somewhere around 22."

Briggy said, "Emma, did you know you were marrying Leonardo DiCreeprio?"

"There's nothing creepy about it," I said, creepily. "I just want the women to be young. So I can teach them my ways."

"Okay," said Emma. "That's enough of the Silence of the Lambs voice. Who are the halves?"

"Norway have got a really good goalie but..." Their keeper was PA 140, one of the best in my database. She was a big step above Scottie Love (whose neck injury was improving, thank fuck, yay to me for insisting she rest), but I was really hoping to assemble the absolute best women's team in the world, and fast. If I had my way, PA 140 would be our backup, and it wasn't really fair to bring a Norwegian international over to Chester to be a reserve. That said, if I couldn't find anyone better in the next two years, Norway's goalie would be good enough for us to win the WSL. It was funny to me that I was aiming so high above that. "And there's an older midfielder with a great skillset... but she's 27."

"Oh, no!" said Emma, sarcastically.

I pretended I hadn't heard. "Would I sign a 27-year-old ready-made talent? Sure. But with the work permit situation I can't sign anyone from abroad until we're in the top tier so I've got to..." I paused while Ireland worked the ball to the wing. A cross came in that was easily cleared. "She needs to be more patient there. Why does no-one do decisions training? Where was I? Yeah I can't actually sign any of these players until I get to the WSL. Someone who's 20 now will be 22 when I have the financial resources and the legal possibility to buy them. Yeah so bearing that in mind, Norway have two standout players."

One was PA 173, the other PA 163. Those numbers were much more exciting than 140, partly because both were primes.

"Young enough to commit loads of resources to, and good enough to get into our future first team, which is really saying something. The 27-year-old is worth keeping an eye on because she's a DM." PA 155: also good enough to win the WSL. "She's got a great name, too. I don't know what would be funnier," I said. "If I shattered Chester's transfer record to buy a highly-rated young striker and immediately turned him into a right back, or if I went back to England with a Norwegian international called Haaland... who's a defensive midfielder."

Briggy said, "What if you took two weeks off work in the middle of an important period to find some players and didn't sign anyone. Would that be funny?"

"Could be," I said. Any Chester fan with a brain understood that this trip served a long-term purpose, but any match where you didn't score was always going to come with some regrets. "Maybe I'll send Spectrum a message to put out on the socials."

"Spectrum?" said Briggy. "Why not Brooke or the person who's actually running the accounts?"

"Because Brooke will try to negotiate the wording," I mumbled, as I tapped on my screen while trying to keep the pitch in focus so I could keep getting XP.

Me: Dude, the next text you get from me is to go out on the socials.

Spectrum: Okay.

Me: Hey, Chester! Max in Norway here. My scouting trip is nearing its end. I'm literally looking at a top player called Haaland! There are players I'd like to sign but negotiations go at a glacial pace! The capital city is called Oh, Slow. There's Norway to make it go faster because they're all worried about Russian. (Rushing. Urgh. That's terrible. Cut that.) It has been fun but I'm looking forward to leaving this cold, distant, seagull-infested seaside town and arriving in Plymouth! Looollllll. See you there. Kom igjen, dere Seler!

"When's the vote?" said Emma, checking her watch. Malmö's decision about loaning me five million quid was imminent.

"Er... The deadline's in about half an hour and they'll announce the result to the members first and someone will call me."

"That's exciting," she said.

"Yeah," I said. I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen. I mean, obviously I wanted to build the stadium but I had spent days convincing myself I wouldn't get the loan and had come up with all sorts of reasons why that was a good thing. Not being plunged six million pounds into debt was pretty compelling. "Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be."

"We're going to Wem-ber-lee."

I smiled. "We had better. I've told, like, ten terminally ill people they need to stay alive until April. If we win on Tuesday..." My jaw tightened and I couldn't finish the sentence.

"What?" said Emma, rubbing my back.

"Yeah, so," I said, my voice getting stuck in my throat. "I got Brooke to order some 'Chester at Wembley' scarves, which is the kind of thing that when it gets leaked makes us look arrogant or stupid but if we win on Tuesday night, on Wednesday morning I'm driving up to the hospital to hand them out."

"But the team are going to The Vale to train. That's the point, right? Glamorgan is close to Plymouth."

"I know but this can't wait. There's this one guy who's in a bad way. It all happened very suddenly. Apparently not long ago he was the very picture of health. He even went to Aberdeen and Gibraltar to watch me play! Now he's really struggling and I keep having this sort of horrible daydream where I get to the hospital and I'm all smug and chipper and yay look at me, I did it, and I get to reception and say behold, I have arrived, and they say sorry Max, but Mr. Price isn't here. Meaning, you know, we were too late. So I throw the scarf in the bin."

"Aw, babes."

"I know, it's stupid. I don't know why it's so easy to imagine, why it's so fucking vivid. There are always people in the hospital who are really poorly. I suppose it hit hard because he was pitch-side for my proposal."

"My proposal," said Emma.

"What? I did the proposal. It's mine."

"You proposed to me. You created a proposal and transferred ownership of it to me. It's mine."

I couldn't believe my ears. "Briggy, you get the deciding vote. I order you to answer seriously. I got down on bended knee, did a whole wotsit, created some literal romance. I think we can all agree that Emma's role, while important in a way, was also minimal. So whose proposal is it?"

Briggy nodded a few times. "It's a dilemma. What we should do is choose a football club in a distant part of the world, Japan perhaps, arrange a meeting of its members, fly there, and pose the question. Trust in the wisdom of the crowd. It's what Max Best would do."

"Thanks," I said, with a heavy sigh.

I thought that Emma had deliberately steered the conversation away from sick people because it was such a downer, but she returned to it. "You make it sound like you're at the hospital all the time."

"Not loads," I said. Pick almost anyone from our squad and he would be better than me at talking to the patients and, just as importantly, their families. "I go to the head trauma unit to talk to the guys who looked after me, and to see if I can get in the scanner again. And I had the benefit of loads of physios when I was recovering and that's obviously way more resources than most people get so when we've got some spare capacity I lend a physio to a patient and sometimes I give the families pep talks.

"At least there I can feel useful instead of the other wards which are, you know, even grimmer. Anyway, I was going through the main entrance about, what, six weeks ago and this guy was in a Chester beanie and he looked like his world had just caved in. We chatted about his dad and now I'm, like, invested. We need to fucking win on Tuesday and I don't care what it costs."

Norway's coach tweaked his three forwards so that it was the one on the left who dropped into the zone between the midfield and the strikers. It was hard to give a shit. I forced myself to think through the coach's reasoning and ask myself if it was rational or not. The match against Plymouth would be extremely close and could be decided on the narrowest margins. The left-most forward dropping one zone could decide the match, could transform the 500 scarves the club had ordered into tokens of joy, or into sarcastic reminders of a future that never came to pass.

"Have you been in the scanner?" said Emma. "Without telling me?"

I put my arm around her and squeezed. "No. They say there's nothing wrong with me and they want to know how many Manager of the Month trophies I need to accumulate before I leave them the fuck alone. I always say, one more." I rubbed the back of my head. "They asked if I remember more things from before the attack. Apparently, if I do, it's a really good sign."

"Do you?"

"Yeah. This trip made me think about when I used to play the old version of Soccer Supremo when I was young. I used to buy Swedish wonderkids by the dozen."

Briggy nodded. "That's why you were attracted to a blonde called Emma."

"I was attracted to Emma because her jackets had so many zips. I mean, it boggled the mind. What I wanted was to get her undressed so I could see what was in each pocket. I was thinking it had to be health potions."

Emma was shaking her head. "It had six zips, Briggy. Six. Maybe eight."

"Eight per sleeve. So the game would spawn a wonderkid in Barcelona and he would have an instant transfer value of 5 million pounds. But the same kid in Helsingborgs would be 20,000 quid. Buy him, ease him into the team, buy another one the next summer, before long you've got half the Swedish under 21 team at Carlisle United and you can only be beaten by algorithmically-blessed super keepers."

Emma took my hand. "It's all coming back to you. You're getting better."

"I'm getting better," I agreed, though it wasn't taking a metal bar to the skull that stopped me remembering gameplay from Soccer Supremo - it was the curse. The more XP I spent, the more little bits and pieces came back to me. If my goal was to remember a thirty-year-old computer game, I probably would have focused on unlocking all the player Attributes.

As it was, I felt committed to going down the Playdar path. Not so much for these foreign scouting trips - the work permit regulations meant I needed to focus my attention on the players already registered at clubs - but for when I got back home. Being able to find two players a day instead of one would be a huge benefit.

The one thing stopping me from buying the 12-hour-cooldown token was the actual logistics. I would have to trigger Playdar at 9 a.m. to be able to use it again at 9 p.m. What about all the kids playing during breaks at school? Or the office workers playing through their lunches? Midday was a rich source of talent, as was the half hour after school, and the evenings, when people with day jobs played five-a-side. The one really good use case for the faster cooldown was on Sundays. It would be very possible to find guys playing Sunday League in the early morning, followed by hitting a five-a-side place in the evening. Even that came with drawbacks. As the women's team manager, some of my Sunday mornings were spent on the team bus heading to our away game; the upgraded perk would be useless.

A 12-hour cooldown wouldn't greatly increase the number of players I found. There would be some slight benefits with the timing. For example, if I did an evening five-a-side run I would be able to go to a park the next morning and still use the perk. A slight step forward, yeah, but not really worth 5,000 XP.

So why bother with Playdar? Buying all the tokens needed to turn it from a fun gimmick into an overpowered megatool felt crazily expensive.

The simple reason was that the game had changed. Brexit meant that English clubs couldn't scour Europe and pluck its youthful wonderkids like berries. We had to wait until the kid was 18, at least, and that meant paying decent transfer fees to the local clubs. Good for them, good for football as a whole, but if I wanted to fill my squads with cheap, talented players, I was going to have to do it locally. Playdar was very helpful in that regard.

I brought up the perk shop and lined up Playdar 2. I was about to spend 1,500 XP. Should I leave that for a while and buy the cooldown token instead? No, I needed to know what other tokens I could buy. Playdar 2 it was. I paused.

Chester's first team squad was already too big. Did I really want to keep making it bigger? Training speeds would suffer. I'd have to keep loaning players out and it would get to be even more like spinning plates.

"Reserves," I said.

"What?" said Emma.

"It's another thing I remembered from the old version of the game. Every club had a reserve team. When the first team played, like, Oxford on a Saturday, the reserves would play them the night before. It was a good way to keep your players fit, to try different players in different positions, things like that. Bill Shankly once joked that the city of Liverpool had two great teams: Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves."

Briggy smiled. "I like the sound of him."

"These days most clubs have under 21 teams instead of Reserves but that's not quite what I want. I remember reserves being very useful in Soccer Supremo. Oh! Another thing just came back to me. When you saw Oxford's reserve line-up it gave you hints about who they would pick for the first team the next day. You wouldn't let your reserves use a guy on Friday if you planned to start him on Saturday. The computer would do just that, sometimes. Sneaky fuck."

Emma said, "We have a reserve team, don't we?"

"Sort of. Not a formal one. We schedule matches on an ad hoc basis and it has worked okay but it's always against the same clubs in Cheshire and they aren't that good. Even our backups are really pulling away from the levels of the local teams. I need to assign some budget so we can travel further afield. It's not a sexy use of our money but... And we need a reserve team manager. Not sure Colin or Peter can do that; it'll be too draining. I half hoped to find a great coach on this trip but they're all on Gemma money. Maybe I should have pitched the idea to some of them anyway. Come and take a pay cut! We've got a zoo!"

Briggy said, "If you want to persuade someone to come to Chester, show them a twenty-minute presentation about how amazing you are."

"Top tip, thanks." Her comment made me think of West, which made me think of Saltney. If I found a great player who I couldn't squeeze into the squad in one club, there would be a place somewhere else. "Okay, I'm doing it," I said, which drew funny looks from Emma and Briggy.

I bought Playdar 2, and it was almost immediately clear I had done the right thing.

First, in the Playdar sub-screen, there were now three token slots available. One was filled, two were open. Great.

Second, the option to further extend the perk was available. Adding another slot via Playdar 3 was only 1,500 XP. Also great, because if the prices threatened to rise exponentially I was quite likely to bin the whole thing off.

Third, the token shop updated, grew in size, and had more complete information. Top.

But the best thing of all was that the 12-hour-cooldown token vanished from the shop completely, replaced by an even better one. To show that it was better, the price had gone up. Fucking imps, was my first reaction, but Old Nick and his minions were also playing a game and they had their own rulebook. No doubt it said that if they offered me better powers, they had to increase the prices.

It was now called Daily Use 2. For 5,010 XP, I would be able to use Playdar twice per day. That was it. No cooldowns, no choosing between time slots. Just use it up to twice a day. Brilliant work from the imps, there. That one tweak got me stoked to grind and dump all my XP into Playdar. There was one note with the perk - "Crossing the international date line does not count as starting a new day."

Emma adjusted our hands so that we could be more intertwined. She leaned into me romantically and because it was bloody cold. "You good?"

"Yeah, I'm enjoying this match. Great quality."

"Good," she said.

The rebranded token made me look again at the Playdar mini-screen. The first token no longer said 24, but 1/d. One use per day. It felt strange to have my skills changed without my express permission, though there was no doubt it was an upgrade. I shrugged it off and checked out the rest of the shop.

The second item was called Range Multiplier 2. It would double the range of the scan, plus the length of all the highlighting effects. Desirable, but far too expensive at 5,000 XP.

Next was a fascinating option. Feedback Loop, 2,500 XP, which offered to reward me when the players I found through Playdar went on to achieve success as a professional. There would be experience point bonuses when a player signed their first professional contract - my brain went haywire thinking of how to exploit that - or won cups or played for their national teams. It was typical Old Nick, all about getting short-term benefits and not thinking about how much he would have to shell out in the end. Then again, I mused, most of his 'players' blew themselves up in short order, so there was no harm in offering big payouts down the line. The curse users wouldn't be around to claim their payouts.

Apart from the idea of signing thousands of kids to ceremonial one-day-long contracts in order to turn real-life money into XP, I quickly thought of another hack. I would stand outside Liverpool's academy, activate Playdar, and whoever it led me to would win leagues and cups galore. Instead of using Playdar to find players, I would get a steady stream of XP from players other clubs had already found!

The imps had thought of it. "You must play a significant role in the player's development to benefit from their achievements."

Yeah, well, that was a shame, but the token was still a fascinating option.

The next three tokens were related, each starting with the words 'Played Within.'

Played Within 1 Week would lead me to anyone who had played football in the last seven days. Simple, compelling, but what did it mean in practice? Like, I would slot that token into place, hit Playdar, and be led to Eastgate, where a PA 100 kid would be waiting near the clock for his mate. I would say, bro, did I see you playing footy the other day? He'd say yeah, maybe at such-and-such a place. I'd say wow you were good I wanted to talk to you but I had to rush off. Can I get you to come and train with our lads?

You know what? That could actually work. At least, until someone said, but you were in Norway that day, I seen it on the socials.

Okay, it could get weird, but so what? I would power through somehow. What's he gonna say? No, I don't want the chance to earn a hundred thousand pounds a week? As if.

So that one was 5,000 XP. A version that would show me anyone who had played within the last month was 6,000, and to get a whole year was 7,000.

The first and third ones were obviously desirable, but I couldn't see the point of buying the middle one. It was something I could mull over.

The final five tokens were more filters I could apply to refine Playdar's output.

For 2,000 XP each, I could filter by position, nationality, minimum age, or a minimum wage. The last one seemed useless at first glance, but the intent behind it became clear. It would have been useful on this trip, for example, because it would only bring me to players who were earning money as a footballer. That was a necessary first step to getting a work permit.

The final filter was the one I would probably want to buy first. With it, I could set a maximum age. 22, for example. No more being led to middle-aged salesmen or accountants!

Of course, it was the most expensive of the filters. 3,000 XP.

Fucking imps.

The half-time whistle went. "Well, that was all very satisfying," I announced. Last night's Malmo match had gone to penalty kicks, which ended 12-11 to the home team. The shoot-out dragging on for so long increased the tension so much that Emma punched me every time someone scored, but it had been a bit of a bonanza in terms of XP. At the final whistle tonight I would buy the two-a-day token and tomorrow I would go hunting for Vikings.

***

We spent the break mingling with scouts and bigwigs from Norway and Ireland, which was fun, especially because one of them turned out to be not a scout but the head of women's player development of Viking FK, the club whose stadium we were in.

During my time in Munich, Vikki had watched Chesterness and became aware that Chester Women were storming up the divisions. She asked about my development ideas and was thrilled by my appraisal of the national team players, in particular how I would improve the four women who could easily slot into Chester's squad. She even laughed when I repeated the 'wouldn't it be funny to buy a player called Haaland' joke. Just a great person.

It turned out that she knew the national team players very well and indicated that most would jump at the chance to move to the WSL. She offered to help me; in return I said I'd call her if I found any unscouted talents in the area. She thought I was joking.

The second half got underway with me redoubling my focus on the match.

The Plymouth semi-final was getting ever closer...

Twenty minutes passed before my phone buzzed. I stared at the unfamiliar name, but then my heart fluttered. Hanna from Malmö! With my money! Or not!

I picked up and was relieved when she kept the small talk small. "I have the results, Max. 59% of our members voted to give you the loan."

"I see," I said. "Got it. Thanks for letting me know."

"Next time you're in Sweden, drop by."

"There's a good chance I'll be there to knock you out of a cup, but thanks for the invite. It's reciprocated, of course."

I ended the call. "Well?" said Emma, eyes shining.

"59%," I said.

She yelped slightly. "Great! Oh. What did you need? 75?"

"Two-thirds," I said, staring at nothing. For someone who rarely lost matches, I was getting lots of practice at building a psychological shell around me.

"Argh," she said. "That's... annoyingly close. Shit. But we'll do West v Best, right? That's a regular match for the reserve team."

"Good point," I said. "That's a really good point. And we will get the stadium built. There's loads of money in football. My clubs just have to win a fuckton of matches. Here's an example of how easily money can flow to us. Chester sailed into the Vans Trophy semi-final, and if we win against Plymouth, it's a trip to Wembley. That's a million quid for Chester."

"A million?" said Briggy.

"Yeah. It would be the first trip in Chester's history so we would sell out whatever number they gave us. 140 years of pent-up demand, right? Literally once in a lifetime experience - as far as everyone knows... I reckon we could sell 40,000 tickets. You share the money with other other club, right, so you want a big opponent in the final. At this level, they don't come much bigger than Pompey. One of the episodes of Sunderland Til I Die has Sunderland v Portsmouth in the final of this competition and that match broke the record attendance. 85,000 ish. Normally I'd have thought there was no way we could get close to that but because it's our first ever go, and because it's first versus second in the league, I think the Pompey fans would be up for it. It would be huge. Titanic."

"85,000?" said Emma. "That's more than in Munich."

"Titanic," I repeated. "Fuck, we've got to win on Tuesday."

"What's the plan for that?" said Briggy.

"Phase one is tomorrow," I said. "We're at home to Mansfield Town, one of the worst teams in the league this year. Plymouth are away to Peterborough United, one of the teams challenging Plymouth for a spot in the top six."

Briggy nodded. "So you have an easier match and it's at home, so you'll be taking it easy while Plymouth have to work harder."

I said, "That would give us a slight edge, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," said Briggy. "Why are you grinning?"

"I'm not. I just lost five million quid. I'm devastated."

"Emma, why is he grinning?"

"I honestly don't know and I think he isn't going to tell us. I suppose we'll find out tomorrow. If we're staying in Norway tomorrow, we need to find a place to watch the match."

"It's a shame there isn't a Chester FC supporter's group around here," I said.

***

Which would normally be a great jump-cut to me watching the Mansfield Town match with 400 die-hard Chester fans in Oslo, but that particular outpost didn't exist. Also, an eventful Friday wasn't quite finished.

When the final whistle in Norway's match blew, I had more than enough XP to buy the first new Playdar token. I went with the 'twice a day' one, of course, and had a very pleasant surprise. I had expected it to go into the second slot, leaving me with one free, but it replaced the first one.

Not only could I now use Playdar twice as often, but I also had two free slots.

Bosh, mate. Bosh.

A new token appeared for sale in the shop. Daily Use 3, for 6,066 XP. Tempting.

Briggy tapped me on the shoulder and smiled. "Max, I've cooked up a scam."

"Yeah?"

"It involves going to a bar. Right now."

"You're so German sometimes. Lead on; we are in your hands."

We left the stadium and went towards a mini-fjord where there were some attractive Nordic buildings by the cobbled streets on the waterfront. There we found a dive bar called Gnu. Outside, the drainpipe was plastered with the little stickers common in Europe, supporting football clubs, bands, political parties. Little graffiti tags were dotted around, while the paintwork was chipping away. "This place screams Briggy," I said, "but I have no clue why."

We went inside and discovered it was a wonderful little place, with room enough to host bands, two beers on tap, a few metres of spirits to choose from. Most pertinently, TV screens were dotted around.

Briggy shook hands with someone she had spoken to on the phone and soon it was all organised. The bar would show the match, and would even open fifteen minutes early to let us get settled before kick off. "What do they want from us?"

"Nothing," she said. "They think it's funny to show an obscure match that no-one in this country cares about."

"Okay, turns out this is my kind of place. Hey," I said, rubbing my lip. "What if we bring loads of people?"

"What people?"

"People we meet. We'll go around the city in the morning and we'll invite tourists and randos and we'll, you know, all watch the match together."

Emma smiled. "Are you gonna open a fan club here?"

I slammed the bar. "Yes! A one-day supporter's club! Lifespan of a moth. Does Norway have moths?"

The barman said it did. Emma said, "Are you sure Mansfield Town is the match that's gonna turn them all into Chester supporters?"

"How about if we bribe them? Everyone who comes gets one beer on me."

"Can you afford that?"

I spread my arms. "I just saved a million pounds in interest payments! I can afford, like, ten beers, even at these prices. Hey, let's make it into a competition to see who can invite the most people to come and join the party."

"Not everything's a competition, babes."

"I'm up for it," said Briggy.

"Oh, yeah?" said Emma. "Fine. I'm gonna kick your arses."

***

Saturday, February 20

League One Match 33 of 46: Chester versus Mansfield Town

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"What the shit is this?" said Emma.

"What, this?" I said, pointing to a big sign I'd made. Stavanger Seals First and Last Meeting. I had hand-drawn the Chester logo in the top corners, but they were pretty bad. They looked more like lions than wolves. If Brooke had seen my artwork, she would have taken legal action against me to protect the brand, and she probably would have been right to do so. In smaller letters at the base of the sign, I had written: Handshakes with Max: 300 Kroner. Arm Twisted Behind Back and Face Slammed Into Bar by Briggy: 300 Kroner.

"No," said Emma. "Obviously the sign is ten out of ten, no notes. My question is: what's gannin' on?" Someone came in; Emma smiled at him. "Aki! You made it. Come in! Meet the gang." The gang was already twenty-strong. We had been charming people all morning. First at breakfast, then at the two Playdar locations, then in the tourist spots close to Gnu bar, then at lunch, then in the hours before kick off. Emma was winning our private competition five-four. Aki, a Finnish businessman we had met, was one of hers. That made six. She wasn't gloating, though, because Briggy had smashed us both. She was already on ten.

"I'm glad we met a Finn," I said. "Feels like completing a page in a Panini sticker album."

Emma was slightly exasperated. "What does that even mean? Max, what's this?"

She showed me her phone. I looked at the graphic Chester's marketing person had put out on the socials and said, "That's the team today."

She spluttered. "This is demented, even for you."

Briggy loved it when people told me off and she fluttered over like a moth to a flame. "What's he done now?"

"This team! We've invited literally ones of people - in Max's case - to watch a match but Max has binned it off!"

"First," I said, patiently, "I'm an introvert and it costs me a lot of social energy to talk to strangers on the street."

"Maybe if you hadn't spent so long flirting with the jogger with the freckles you'd have had a bit more energy to spread around."

"Second," I said, serenely. "I haven't binned anything off. That's a great team. Gabriel is our record signing. Chas Fungrieve is a reigning Football Association Youth Cup champion. Peter Bauer is a future legend of the sport, Cole Adams will be one of the league's young players of the season, and Sticky is a veteran goalie who's playing better than ever. I mean, that's mint, that."

"Yeah, it's mint," said Emma. "The best reserve team Chester FC have ever had. Only problem is, they're not playing West Didsbury, they're playing an important league match. At home! You told me you wanted the Deva to be a fortress. Talk me through the line up."

"Um, Sandra did it."

"Max."

"Okay, we are playing a modern, vibrant 4-4-2. Mansfield will do a stodgy old 3-5-2. In Soccer Supremo terms, they're 90 out of 200, right? They would have a good run at winning League Two but this ain't League Two. Okay so Sticky's in goal. No problems there. Cole left back. Mint. Peter Bauer next to Tomzilla. Like, that's one of the dreamiest combos who ever comboed. Nasa at right back. Fuck me if it isn't the most talented back four who ever played together at this level and that's a fact and a half."

"Babes, they're talented, but you keep saying they're not ready."

"Pretty sure I said they're hot ready. Hot ready. I'll admit the midfield is a little less cooked. Adam Summerhays left mid. Obviously he'll mostly be supporting Cole to make sure Mansfield can't build down that side. Bark's on the right and he'll do something similar to protect Nasa."

"Why does he need to be protected if he's hot ready?"

"In the middle," I said, powering past my mistake, "is multiple league champion Omari Naysmith and the Bolton Battler, He Who Never Tires, Andrew Harrison. Up front, our record signing, Gabbygol. Oh, and Chas Fungrieve."

"Three kids," said Emma, "and two Brazilians who just arrived in the country and need to be gently integrated."

"This is their gentle integration," I said. "What's mad is that this team isn't even as weak as you think. Yeah, it's not quite our best - " Emma made a noise - "but if Mansfield are 90 out of 200, our boys are 85.4. Approximately." Using my shorthand for player ratings, we actually had three golds and three silvers. The problem was the other five, who were in the 'tin' bracket, though Omari was one point away from bronze. "But we've got home advantage and miles, miles better Morale."

"But Max!" complained Emma. "We're only seven points clear at the top. If you lose today, that could go to four and then the pressure's really on and when people say it's self-inflicted, they'll be right. Why have you done this?"

Briggy was tapping away on her phone; she showed me the screen. "Is that Plymouth's strongest team?"

I scanned the graphic before checking the info at the top of the page. Peterborough versus Plymouth, it said, with today's date. I smiled. "Yep. They're putting out their best boys."

"Oh," said Emma, realisation dawning. "You've rested the entire first eleven but Plymouth have to use all of theirs. You'll have a fitness advantage on Tuesday night."

"Yep. And no-one even knows where Peterborough is, so they'll have an emotionally-draining trip around, er, I'm guessing Staffordshire? I can just picture their team bus. The captain screaming at the goalkeeper, give me the map! Give me the map!"

"But..."

"But what, babes?"

She smiled, nervously. "I don't know! It feels wrong but I don't know why."

I shrugged. "The clubs who are in a relegation battle with Mansfield won't be too happy when they see who I've picked but I couldn't give a flying fuck. Our players have been grafting all season to get to this point and I've been grafting for longer than that. We've bought ourselves breathing room by being excellent and now the priority is Tuesday night. I picked my team for that one and worked backwards to see who was left for today. Normally in this situation you'd need to hold a few players over from one match to the next so you don't get crushed but yeah, like I said, it's actually not bad, that eleven. Give it a year and it would crush League One! Our fans might not be super happy about it today but come Tuesday night they'll have forgotten this."

Briggy seemed to be all-in on the plan. "Just how much of an advantage is it going to give you?"

"A few percent, maybe. Those Plymouth players are used to playing twice a week every week, but there's some fatigue that builds up. Fatigue that we don't have because everyone at Chester gets time off. And I don't wish injury on any opp... Um... Maybe I should say I don't wish injury on many opponents, but the fact is Plymouth's guys are more at risk of soft tissue injuries from cumulative load. Ours could still pick up an injury but that's life. I'm talking about the probabilities. What I've done is maximise our chances on Tuesday night.

"There are side benefits, too. One, eleven of our squad players are getting meaningful action, getting one step closer to being the best they can be. Two, if we do drop points, I don't think I'll mind that much. It'll give our fans something to moan about, which is good because this sport's all about emotion, but most importantly, if Portsmouth get a bit closer to us the belief of their fans will go through the roof and they'll snap up every ticket to the cup final." I laughed. "We'll get a big percentage of the ticket sales, so it's definitely going to be financially better to lose today."

Emma shook her head. "Don't say that to Aki, okay? He's depressed enough without hearing that the team he just started supporting wants to lose."

"He's not depressed," said Briggy. "That's just his face. He's Finnish, after all."

"Well," I said, standing and clapping my hands. "Let's mingle! Make sure everyone has someone to talk to, yeah?"

Emma shook her head. "We know how to run a moth-like supporter's club, babes."

Briggy said, "Before we do that, let's talk about my prize."

"Prize?" I said.

"For bringing the most guests."

"Ooh," I said, wincing as though I had to deliver some bad news. Right on cue, the door opened and about twenty laughing and joking women piled in. They saw me and cheered. A tall blonde was at the front. She came slightly too close to me. "Has it started?"

"No," I said, curling my lip up just slightly. "We were waiting for you." I put my phone to my ear and said, "Okay, good to go." On the screens, the match kicked off.

The tall blonde laughed and gave me a hug. "I actually love you."

When she peeled off me, I turned to Emma and Briggy. One of them had her arms folded and was looking deeply unimpressed. "Um, have you met the Norwegian women's football team?"

***

It wasn't the entire team, but about eight of them plus partners and a few adventurous coaches and physios. Vikki, the head of player development, was with them, and I spent a few minutes trying to usher the mob to the bar. I had promised everyone a free drink, after all. It was like herding cats, but 20 mocktails later I thought I would get a break. Of course, the bar door opened again.

In walked a 14-year-old girl and her dad. The girl was one of the two targets Playdar had flagged. The second was a dud, but the first was mint on toast. Midfielder, left or central, CA 2, PA 134. The dad's English wasn't great and he was bemused by the whole thing, but Vikki handled it like a champ. She took over while I went to get a national team reserve player who played for Viking FK. I told her and Vikki that the midfielder was talented but she was a bit behind the girls who were already in Viking's youth teams. "She'll need extra support and patience. You need to fight for her." I challenged Vikki, saying it would be a big test of her credentials, and I got the national team player to promise to check in on the new starlet from time to time.

Bosh. New player. Absolutely no benefit to me in any way, but so what? I did wish I had the Feedback Loop token in place because this girl would probably have a long and glorious career. Long-term payoff for short-term gain. Isn't that how I had achieved everything I'd done so far?

"Max, you're not drinking!" said one of the national team players. They were all hyper.

"Neither are you," I said.

"We're on duty," she said.

"So am I. I've got a cup semi-final on Tuesday."

"Have one beer with us!'

I put my hands on Aki's shoulders. He was one of the few new day-long Chester fans who was actually watching the game. "Aki's going to be my sin-drinker."

"What does that mean?" said another of the national team ladies.

"When I need to have a beer, Aki drinks it for me. Mate," I said, giving him a tiny massage. "I want you passed out by six o'clock."

He gave everyone in the area a doleful look. "I came here to escape my daily routine."

There was the tiniest pause before the Norwegians exploded with laughter. "Aki! You're a ledge!" I think they said, in Norsk.

I scanned the area. Emma and Briggy were mingling, making sure all the randos we'd met were having a good time. Then I focused on the match.

Mansfield were trying to play a possession-heavy game, trying to get the ball and keep it, which suited my boys just fine. We were happy to sit back and stay solid. When we got the ball, we had the technical quality to pass it around, too. It seemed like it would be a low-scoring match.

My phone buzzed.

MD: Shrewsbury and Wigan have been on the phone already. They are fuming about this starting eleven. We will be reported to the EFL for fielding a weakened team.

Me: What's weak about it?

MD: Adam Summerhays.

Me: He started against Sunderland. Next.

MD: Omari. Chas.

Me: Led Saltney to the top of the league in their debut season in the Welsh Prem. Won the Youth Cup and is one of the top scorers in this season's competition. The goalie has played loads this season, the Brazilians need to play for their work permits. The EFL can come at us but they don't have a leg to stand on. Here's some gossip to cheer you up. Parky is on the edge.

MD: Oh? Interesting.

Paul Parker's time in North Wales seemed to be coming to an end. The curse was listing his position as 'very insecure'. After dragging Wrexham up from the National League with three promotions in four years, gravity had finally hit the club. Parky's style was too limited for the Championship and rich as Wrexham's owners were, their wealth was a joke compared to some of the clubs in the second tier. The Redpools (Reds plus Deadpool; why had no-one thought of that nickname yet?) probably wouldn't be relegated but they weren't out of danger.

Did I want them to go down? It would save Chester a lot of hassle in terms of policing our matches next season, and it would be extremely funny. But the atmosphere in a Chester versus Wrexham match had to be unbelievable and I had a soft spot for loads of the characters in the documentary, especially the cute coffee girl from season four. Ideally, the club would survive by the skin of their teeth. Good luck turning a losing season into an entertaining series of your documentary, you phoney Hollywood twats.

Mansfield, in their yellow away kits, were once more in possession, pushing us back, but we looked solid most of the time. Peter Bauer, captain for the day, was barking out instructions. Sticky was reliable. Cole knew his job.

When there wasn't much pressure on, Tomzilla looked good, but every few minutes he would find himself horribly out of position, or he would lose a physical battle. Nasa was scrapping and fighting and making life hard for anyone who came into his zone, but he then didn't have the energy to chip in on the offensive side and, truth be told, he was abysmal in possession. Once he tried a pass down the line that went straight out of play. Another time he played an aimless pass towards the centre circle that was intercepted and led to a great chance for the away team. Tomzilla pressured the striker and Sticky made a save.

I worked the room for a few minutes before checking the Chester squad page. It didn't give me loads of information about matches that were currently happening, but I could see the Condition scores of the lads. Things seemed pretty good, which was a relief because we only had Ryan Jack on the bench as a senior option. I'd never heard of the EFL sanctioning a club for having a weak sub's bench, but if we did get in trouble it would make more sense to come at us from that angle. Apart from Ryan, who was old enough to feature in something written by Tolkien, the average age of our subs was about 8.

While in the squad screen, I checked on Dan Badford. He was out on loan at Tranmere Rovers, working under Jackie Reaper, playing (intermittently) alongside former Chester boys Henri Lyons and Lee Hudson. Tranmere had played in the early kick-off and had won to stay second and to put pressure on the league leaders.

Dan's Condition was 66%, which since he didn't have an injury probably meant he had played the full ninety minutes. The Form section of a player's profile showed their last five matches. Dan's had a new number at the end: 8. He had played well! His Morale was only Okay, though.

I got my phone out and called him. He picked up right away. "Boss!"

"Dude," I said. "How you doing?"

"Yeah, great," he said. "Played the full ninety. Buzzing."

"Are you on the team bus?"

"Yes, boss."

"Is the bald fraud there?"

"Jackie Reaper is here."

"I'm looking at your data," I said, while examining a beermat. "Looks like a really good 8 out of 10."

"You are?"

"I always check what you're up to. I'll be honest, I've got one eye on the Mansfield match but it's frustrating to watch us on TV when I can't change anything so I'm skimming your charts to help with the stress. You're on the right path, mate. Number go up." Dan's CA had been increasing very slowly in recent weeks, which didn't worry me too much as long as it kept on that trajectory. I wasn't sure what his ceiling would be, or if he had one, and I was prepared to be even more patient with him than with Wibbers. Jackie was being patient with him, too, but Dan was now CA 88, which was at the top end of the range for League Two. "I think it's time you started most matches, right? Tranmere have 13 league matches left. Or is it 14? There was one match postponed, right? Okay so from that 14, how many do you think you should play as a minimum?"

"Don't know."

"Did you say eight? I would have said nine. Go and tell Jackie you want to start nine of what's left."

"Tell Jackie?" he spluttered.

"Yeah. Go to the front, sit next to him, pat him on the knee and tell him you're the best young player in the league and it's time to strut your stuff."

"This is a joke, right?"

"I'm not joking."

Dan's Morale plummeted to abysmal. "But... He's the boss. I can't..."

"Dan, listen. Jackie Reaper might look like a ghoulish computer-generated rendition of a middle-ages serf who got dug up from a peat bog, but he's actually a big softy. A teddy bear. You can say that to him if you want. Call him Teddy." I laughed. "Forget that. Just go talk to him and tell him you need to play more to keep improving. You're allowed to talk to him."

"Isn't Ryan Jack supposed to do that sort of thing?"

"No. You are because I'm telling you to do it. Ryan's busy searching for the fountain of youth."

"What would you do if I went to you and said I should start nine of the next fourteen games?"

"If I was the manager of Tranmere and you were basically my best player, I would say that I agreed with you. I'm very reasonable and so is Jackie. JR has done a nice job easing you into the first team but now it's time to move you from the reserves to the spotlight. Go on, lad. Call me back later with the good news."

I hung up and kept his profile up in a part of my vision. Henri was on the same team bus. He hadn't scored today but he was having a good season. He was starring on a winning team that was playing for big prizes and the fans loved him. Way better to be doing that than rotting in Chester's reserves, right?

I called Charlotte. She picked up pretty fast. "Max?"

"Hey, you busy?"

"Little bit."

"Quick one. The flats thing seems like it's going to happen. When it does, Henri's going to help you get it all set up. Like, making sure all the rent payments go into the new account and shit like that. He knows all that stuff."

"Oh, that's great. That's actually a relief."

"Yeah, there are people you can talk to when you get stuck. I don't expect you to know everything on day one! All right, that's it. Good luck tomorrow."

"Thanks, Max. Bye."

I put the phone away. Soon I'd have a few grand a week dropping into that account. Henri had told me to build up a cash reserve in case of emergency, but after that I could start spending it.

Emma detached herself from a little group. "This is fun, babes! Who were you talking to?"

"Oh, a few people." I lowered my voice. "We're playing dogshit. There is one too many undercooked players in the eleven and it's making it hard for us to get going. It's one thing to devise a brilliant scheme but living through this part is tough. That's why I'm doing admin. So I don't have to watch closely."

"I can help with that. Come and tell these guys what formation to use on Soccer Supremo."

***

While I was explaining how to beat 3-5-2 to a few skateboarder types who had been stunned to learn that Emma existed and wanted to talk to them, I noticed that Dan's Morale went up and up and up. He was talking to Jackie Reaper.

Five minutes later, as I insisted the dudes have another beer on me, my phone rang. Dan.

"Bro!" I said. "How did it go?"

"The first thing he said when I sat down was, 'If Max told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?' So I said no but if he told me to boss Tranmere's midfield, I would."

"Oh, fuck," I said. "That's amazing. He loved it, right?"

"Yeah, he did. I'm in."

***

Just before half time, Mansfield scored. I didn't like to assign blame to individual players because most goals conceded were a collective failure, but this one was all about Tomzilla. He had a few good minutes of winning headers, stopping moves, and playing neat passes, and he got complacent. As he miscontrolled a ball and let a striker get clean through on goal, he looked every inch a young man who had barely played any competitive football. The goal was bad but it could have been worse - Tomz was lucky he didn't get a red card for pulling the striker's shirt halfway to Glamorgan.

I checked the other scores. Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Oxford were winning. On the 'as it stands' Live Table, we were only four points clear. There would be a surge of belief in those other squads. Big mood boosts. Plymouth's morale soaring while ours fell just before the semi-final didn't seem optimal. Had I misjudged the situation?

"That's gonna be a tough second half," I said to Emma, Briggy, and the barman. "Now that Mansfield are a goal up, they'll pass us to death." I paused and checked the bottom of the table. Three points would be an incredible fillip for Mansfield's survival hopes. "Of course, they will have been expecting to get battered so being a goal up against our reserves might mess with their heads. They could get tight. Start to make mistakes, panic, turtle up. You know what? I think that goal might be the best thing that could have happened."

Briggy shook her head, smiling. "You're so crazy, you know? Here." She handed me a microphone.

"What?" I said.

"Talk to the fans. Tell them what you just told us. Analyse the game. They're hungry for insight."

"Huh," I said. I stared at the mic for a few seconds, wondering if this was a good idea. "I do like the sound of my own voice. Okay, let's do it!"

***

I got everyone's attention and summarised how the match had developed the way it had and why I thought that goal could actually help us play better later in the game when Mansfield stopped trying to score and started to cling onto the three points.

I talked about parts of the team that were working and parts that weren't, but emphasised that hard days like today would pay off in a year or two, and that I was utterly convinced that Tomzilla (67/178) would play for Brazil one day. "Mistakes like that are part of the process. His mood is in the toilet right now but Sandra and the lads will give him a lift at half time and he'll play better in the second half."

Vikki asked about the different training sessions I'd seen on my Scandinavian trip, wanting to know which country was doing it best. Instead, I answered in comparison to Chester. "It's good over here but it's in the direction of robotic. Lots of the same kind of stuff you see in England. Pass here, move there, zone 14, 3-2 build-up, blah blah blah. Fifty percent of drills where players need to think, fifty percent where they do what they're told. What do you think you're gonna get with that? I don't like saying robots, but..."

Vikki was nodding along.

"My goal at Chester is to have 100% of drills that challenge the brain, that test the players' decision-making."

Her eyes got wide as saucers, which made sense because I was talking like an alien.

"We're building a stockpile of drills where players really can't switch off, and when they get too good at one thing we throw in some Relationism because that's the ultimate in constant decision-making, and it's better than simple rondos because it's something we actually do in matches. I think coaches should take actual match situations and reverse engineer them to create drills. We do some mad things on the training pitch. The coaching team are actually quite normal people, which is a big problem for them."

This got good laughs from the group, but Vikki was completely rapt.

"They veer back towards common sense and normality and I listen patiently as they're planning out the week's sessions but suddenly I grab my hair and pull it and yell, 'Where's the chaos?'"

Some more laughs, but Vikki seemed alarmed. Had she heard a head coach ask for more chaos? Ever?

"Pop quiz, hotshots. What's one thing that is in every game of football, everywhere in the world, but is never in any drills, ever?"

I got a lot of blank faces gawping at me.

"The referee," I said. "Sometimes we'll be doing a drill and I'll get someone in black to just wander around the pitch getting in the way."

Vikki let out a single, disbelieving laugh.

"Cool, right? Not everything we do works but we're constantly trying to challenge the players and push them and yeah, they find it mentally exhausting at first but they build up that mental strength like a muscle and they're not physically drained because they get rotated in and out of the team so they can really focus on learning the game. My dream is to be the only football club in the world where players don't give a shit whether they're in the firsts or the reserves because everyone at the club is focused on one thing and one thing only - their own personal improvement."

Crazily, this got a crackle of applause.

Vikki didn't applaud but her eyes were sparkling. "Can I come and watch up close?"

I tilted my head, sensing an opportunity. "Have you got a coaching licence?"

"UEFO Pro, of course."

That was the highest level; she was more qualified than me. "Huh. Do you think Viking would loan you to us for a year?"

She seemed puzzled. "I thought I might perhaps travel to England for a couple of days, not move there." She laughed, nervously.

"What are you going to learn in two days? How about this: you come for a year and you'll learn from the best. Note, new Chester fans, that my name is Best so what I said isn't necessarily arrogant." I turned back to Vikki and gave her the full blast. "You'll learn things, you'll be amazed, you'll come back here ready to supercharge women's football in Stavanger. Oh, and Viking will pay your wages and accommodation so that's a good deal for me."

Briggy stepped in, helpfully. "Max can show you a twenty-minute slideshow about his achievements, if that would help you decide."

I dipped my head so I could peer at my bodyguard from a more disappointed angle. "Well, Vikki, think about it. Open offer. Okay, who's got the next question?"

***

Briggy's idea to get me to talk to the mob was perfect. When the second half started, they had much more context for what was going on. They looked at Tomzilla as a guy who had the talent to play for Brazil. They knew that Adam was a defender playing out of position and worried for him, they knew that Omari had been doing well in Wales and could take good set pieces but that he wasn't quite ready to start matches at this level, and after I pointed out how unfairly Chas Fungrieve was refereed, they got furious when the lad was repeatedly fouled and no action was taken.

The positive mood of new comradeship was just slightly beginning to fade, when I leapt up. "Look! Look!"

"What?" cried the leggy blonde.

"Mansfield are dropping back. They want those three points! They're dropping back and they'll give us a chance. Bark is good enough to hurt them on the right and if we can get service to Gabriel, I mean, he's the best player on the pitch. And fucking Omari can take a dead ball. If we play in Mansfield's half most of the time, we'll get free kicks."

A national team coach said, "What should Miss Lane do?"

The national team players and staff were fascinated by Sandra. The fact that I trusted her to get on with important matches while I did other things was a huge point in my favour. "Er, when she notices this is happening," I said, looking at the screen. She didn't seem to have noticed, but that was not a criticism. She was thinking about twenty things all at once. "When she does - oh, hold on." Colin Beckton, part of our coaching unit, had rushed to her side and was speaking from behind his hand. "I think that's it. Nice work, Colin, holy fuck. They will push our back line right up to the halfway line. Those defenders aren't blazing fast but they're quite mobile for the level."

"So you will press more?"

"Yep. Press and squeeze."

The coach nodded, but then frowned. "But that's the opposite of how you have played so far. What is your tactical identity?"

"All of them," I said.

"I'm sorry but that is nonsensical."

I shrugged. "Scissors beats paper. Paper beats stone. It's nonsensical to aim to be one thing. We're all the things." I was blowing the coach's mind, I could tell, and she had pretty good coaching numbers. "Come work for us for a year. You'll see."

Just then, Emma got the barman to turn the volume right up and I got goosebumps as I heard the Deva faithful get behind the team. The midfield pressing was good, led by Andrew Harrison, ably supported by Adam, Omari, and Bark, who weren't short on energy. Mansfield couldn't move the ball through the thirds and we were snapping into tackles. The pressure was building.

"Fuck," I said, bouncing on my heels. "We're gonna do this. It's on!"

Mansfield made some changes, with a striker being replaced by a defensive midfielder. I didn't mind them going ultra-defensive because it meant we would hurl crosses into the box and even if we lost one-nil, the final quarter of an hour would be exciting. Our fans would be somewhat placated by watching us end on a high.

But then something inexplicable happened. Sandra made a sub. Ryan Jack was waiting to come on - logical, because he was the only real choice - but it was Andrew Harrison who was taken off.

"Strange," I mumbled. The elder Triplet wasn't injured and his Condition score was high. I would have replaced Omari, since Ryan could take set pieces almost as well.

I had stopped bouncing and was pretty subdued while the rest of the temporary fan club screamed at the TV. They oohed as Bark dribbled past a defender and sent in a cross. They aahed as Peter Bauer sauntered forward with the ball, dropped his shoulder, rode a tackle, and combined with Omari to give Adam Summerhays the chance to cross. It was blocked, though, and cleared.

Then Sandra's plan took full shape. Cole and Nasa got closer to Tomzilla, while Peter and Ryan took up positions near the edge of Mansfield's penalty area. One playmaker could be shut down, but two was much harder. We had a golden spell with our two craftiest players pulling the strings, trying through balls, clipping passes out wide, chipping balls over the defenders.

It was seriously good. Gabby got into the game. Quarter-chances, then half-chances. Any second now, he would score. The belief in the home fans was audible, and it transmitted itself all the way to Norway. Emma yelled "Sandra Lane's blue-and-white army!" I joined in, followed closely by Aki.

The gods of football don't like no-good punk kids throwing the reserves into a serious match, though. When Peter took the ball from Omari and sent it diagonally backwards to Ryan Jack, the old Scouser simply flopped to the ground. There was no-one near him. Shit.

We had six players ahead of the ball, and Mansfield had the chance to break. They did, with speed and precision, moving the ball in a series of well-rehearsed quick passes, bearing down on goal, and as I started to feel sick - How could I put Sandra in this position? How could I do this to the fans who trusted me? - Tomzilla slid in and hooked the ball away from the rampaging ball-carrier. Tomz got up and blasted the ball out of play before roaring, before being chest-bumped by Nasa, before Sticky sprinted faster than I had ever seen him move to bear-hug the centre-back.

We were still in it! Another fucking Chester roller-coaster was taking its toll on the parts of my brain responsible for producing chemicals. Release the uppers! Flood Max with downers! Would sir care for some adrenaline?

But the ultimate mood-killer was our bench. If only Colin were available, or Wibbers. We could win this!

Me being me, I had gone full Max. Sandra's best option was sixteen-year-old Hamish Andrews, positionally a like-for-like replacement for Ryan but only CA 36.

Decisions 20, though. Determination 20. The camera zoomed in on the kid, ready on the touchline, unbothered by the noise and the drama. His complete and utter self-belief hit hard. I clenched my fists. "Go on, you cocky little shit!"

Emma was bouncing around. "Go on, Hamish!"

Mansfield should have gone ultra-attacking, should have gone for the second goal, but as the Live Table showed, they were desperate to cling onto the three points. It would be a huge achievement for them; the only other team in the bottom half that had beaten us were Crawley Town.

While I bit my nails - there was a lot of that in the room - I checked Ryan's injury. Based on the small drops in a couple of Attributes, it didn't seem too bad, while the Injuries tab simply said he had a 'suspected foot injury'. Vague. At least it wasn't his knee again.

Peter coached Hamish into taking up space where there wouldn't be too much pressure on him. That allowed the young Scot to play short, simple passes, to keep the ball moving, just like we did in training.

Sandra got bolder, pushing Adam Summerhays into an advanced left forward spot, while Nasa became a second right-midfielder alongside Bark. Not for the first time I marvelled at how fucking smart Peter Bauer was. He stationed himself as a sort of left-sided attacking midfielder, combining with Adam, Omari, and Chas, drawing Mansfield's attention to that side of the pitch, but then he would fizz a pass to Hamish, who would send it quickly to Bark, because our true intention was to attack on the right, where we could get overlaps going.

It was a good plan, pretty much the best we had, but its effectiveness was limited by the fact that neither Bark nor Nasa were great at crossing. Mostly they thrashed the ball along the ground, as hard as they could, which was what we had coached them to do, but Mansfield had more bodies in the box than we did, and were always first to the ball.

Still, every time we had an attack, the home fans got slightly louder, and when Tomzilla rolled a pass to the feet of Chas, who was hauled to the ground by a defender with no free kick given, the howl of fury was intimidating as fuck.

Every touch by an away player was being roundly booed now, every piece of time-wasting came with shrill whistles, and even Aki was screaming at the TV. Emma started a chant of "The referee's a Tory," but it didn't catch on.

With time running out, our lads kept battling, kept grinding, kept going through their processes. The camera cut to Sandra and Colin in deep discussion, pondering what more they could do. I couldn't think of anything. They were working miracles with the ingredients I had left them.

87 minutes gone and we got a corner. Sandra waved at Sticky, which I assumed was her telling the goalie to stay where he was. Wrong. She was ordering him to get into the penalty box. Seeing Sandra throw caution to the wind was almost as good as seeing a fjord.

"Death or glory!" I yelled. "Come the fuck on!"

Omari took the corner and - to the frustration of 8,000 Cestrians and half of Norway's women's team - hit the first defender. The guy headed the ball away, but Mansfield couldn't break and shoot at the empty net.

Amazingly, Sandra told Sticky to stay on the halfway line while Tomzilla went to be a striker.

We had a throw-in. Adam threw the ball to Cole, who passed to Sticky. He touched it to Nasa, who gave it back to Sticky and darted ten yards away to create a better passing angle. Hamish dropped short to be an option, too, but Sticky had a better idea.

He lofted the ball into the penalty area, where Gabby leaped and won the header. Tomzilla competed for the ball but couldn't win it. After a scrappy couple of half-clearances, the ball landed on the edge of the penalty box, on our right, and it was a very tired Chas Fungrieve who had anticipated it best. He tried to do a Zidane pirouette, spinning gracefully along the edge of the penalty box, but he didn't get very far because a defender cleaned him out.

Our fans went fucking mental, absolutely feral, but their rage turned to jubilation when the ref gave a penalty. Dramatic late-stage penalty!

The bar was going nuts, everyone yelling and screaming, but then there were groans and I realised the fucking Tory prick had given a free-kick, not a penalty.

"Are you fucking blind?" I yelled. "He was dribbling along the fucking line! How can you say he was out of the penalty area? What the fffaaargh!"

I paced up and down the length of the bar, head in hands, just utterly drained by the whole fucking ordeal. Why hadn't I put out a strong team? Or at least put a couple of the top boys on the bench?

Because I had abundant reserves of arrogance.

The camera cut to Sandra again. Sandra and Colin, crabbing around the touchline, pointing, waving, ordering players around.

"Shit," I said. "Shit shit shit."

"What's up, babes?" Emma had taken me by the arm, brought me to the spot I had been haunting for half an hour, calming me with her touch.

"I told them the priority was Tuesday but I said the squad I left would be good enough to beat Mansfield."

"So?"

I pointed at the screen, eyes stinging, throat contracting. "They believe me."

"Course they do," she said, softly.

"But..." I watched as Peter and Omari stood together, discussing what to do with the free kick. "Peter take it," I said in the form of a little wish. Where was Old Nick when you needed him? Peter wandered away, leaving a kid in charge. "No," I said. "The angle's shit. He can't... He..."

"What would you do from there?" said Briggy.

"Score," I mumbled. "He should... He'll have to clip it up into the middle, but he'll do it too slowly. He'll make it easy for the defenders. Maddening because we've got good height in there. Cole, Tomz, Gabby."

"Sticky," said Emma, because our goalie was in the mix, pushing a centre back.

I gently eased her away from me so that I could suffer properly. I put my hands on my head again and crouched. Omari eyed the ball. The referee blew his whistle. Players from both sides pushed and shoved each other.

Peter Bauer made a move, running sideways. Omari rolled the ball so that Peter could smack a shot first time. Why? The defensive wall was right there! I let out a frustrated groan before Peter even shot.

He didn't shoot.

Inexplicably, he stood there with his foot raised, waiting to shoot, for all of a second. The wall broke apart. Defenders streamed towards the German defender with the famous name.

Peter Bauer rolled the ball ten yards to the right, where Omari had snuck to. Now he had a much better angle. Now the defenders weren't set. I whelped with excitement.

Omari's cross was perfect. Sort of chipped, sort of floating, but not too soft. I shot to my feet, jumped, threw my head at the ball.

Cole had a go. Sticky licked his lips. Chas started to make the motion of a scissors kick. Scissors beats paper. But nothing beats Gabby!

Our record signing bullied two defenders out of the way, held onto someone's shoulders, hung in the air, boshed the bastard ball down, and was rushing to celebrate in the Harry McNally terrace before it had slapped into the back of the net.

In a dive bar in Norway: chaos.

I squeezed a Geordie tight. I high-tenned a German. I hugged a Finn. I hoisted some Norwegians into the air. How many? According to Emma: one too many.

Football, man. It should be banned.

***

When I came to my senses, somewhat, and as the camera lingered on the celebrations of our players, I virtually threw myself at Vikki. I gave her both barrels of my crazy eyes, highest intensity, no holding back.

"My players on that pitch today cost 942,000 pounds. With your help, they could be worth two hundred million. That's a lot of fishy ice-cream, Vikki. That's a lot of wool sweaters."

She gently pushed me away. "I have a job that I love. But thanks."

***

Over the course of the next couple of hours, two by two like they were leaving the ark, the Stavanger Seals departed. As each group left, I made them swear to remain Chester fans until midnight. They swore.

Finally, all that remained of the moths were me, Ems, Briggy, and Aki, while the bar filled up with its regulars.

"Babes," croaked Emma, who had done a lot of shouting. She had a piece of paper and a pen. "So... we're five points clear of Portsmouth."

"Yep," I croaked. "With thirteen games left to play."

"Okay that's terrifying."

"It's not," I said, rubbing my throat. "Tell her, Aki."

"It's terrifying," he said, with more than a hint of tipsiness. "They have Matt Rush, the best young player in the league." Who the fuck had he been talking to?

Emma gave him a fist bump. "Aki knows. Okay but babes, I've been busy being very clever."

"Do tell."

"I've worked out the semi-final team."

I smiled. "That's fun. Hit me."

"I think it has to be 3-4-3." She looked up; I nodded. Pleased, she continued. "Swanny in goal, obvs."

"Obvs."

"Though based on the last five minutes today you could play Sticky as a striker."

"Tell him that, will you? He'll sign a long-term contract if you say things like that."

Emma nodded. "Will do." She took a long sip of whatever she was drinking; I'd lost track of how much I'd spent. I knew that Aki had at least sixty quid sloshing around him. "Defence has to be Christian Fierce, Zach Green, Fitzroy Hall."

"True."

"The strikers," she said, raising an eyebrow at her own cleverness in leaving the midfield till last, "are Colin, Dazza, and Wibbers."

"Yep."

"So now you've got a big problem. Joel Reid on the left. I'm slightly struggling then because it's Youngster, Magnus Evergreen, and I think it was supposed to be Ryan Jack. So Magnus on the right?"

"Could be," I said.

"But if Ryan's injured you'll have to use Andrew, but he's crocked too, or Bark again, but he'll be tired. So I think you'll put Wibbers at right midfield and use Gabby up front."

Briggy said, "Max wouldn't have Wibbers at right midfield in such an important game against good opposition."

Emma nodded. "Yeah, yeah." She put her elbows on the table, collapsed her forehead into her hands, and stared at her paper. "You'll have to use one of the reserves. I mean, they've shown that they've got guts and skill and everything, but..."

"Babes," I said, reaching out to rub her on the arm. "You're really close. Ryan was never first choice for the semi-final. I'm promoting one of the other reserves. Someone who hasn't played much so he's got loads left in the tank."

"Dan? Is that why you called him?"

"No, I mean someone who has trained this season in England, Wales, Gibraltar, and Sweden."

Emma caught on early in that sentence but at the end let out a fake gasp. "Are you going to unleash... yourself?"

"Big time. Half mystery winger, half box-to-box midfielder. Aki, find a way to watch that match. Vans Trophy semi-final. It's going to be like the last twenty minutes, but for ninety minutes."

Aki nodded, unsmiling. "I do so love the idea of lengthening the torture."

Briggy blew air through her lips and wrapped her arms around Aki. "You're so funny!" She sat up suddenly. "Max. Um... boss."

I looked at her sharply. She got more deferential when she wanted something, which wasn't often. "Yesss?"

"How would you feel about training with some of the women from the national team tomorrow morning? Maybe skipping the match you wanted to watch in Denmark?" She got earnest. "We would still get to London on time, I promise!"

I exchanged a look with Emma. This was weird. Ems said, "What... why?"

Briggy got shy. "I got invited to a party tonight. By one of the, um, short-term Chester fans. I could, you know, make sure they're still Chester fans at midnight. And you could, er, drill some of them tomorrow morning. Heh."

"Oi," croaked Emma.

"Sorry. I have to admit, it'll just be the reserves."

I leaned back. Briggy hooking up was a pretty good reason to skip five hundred experience points. She had crushed my enemies twice, after all. "Go to your party, Briggy, with my sincerest blessing. And training with the reserves is fine by me." I smiled as I gazed fondly at the nearest TV screen. "You'd be amazed what some of these reserves can do."

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