7.

Thursday, August 5

Emma wasn't in bed; I found her down in the kitchen, leaning against the island, reading a document on an iPad while sipping coffee. I slipped my arms around her waist and nuzzled into her neck and it felt so good I decided to treat her to a song, which I delivered in a falsetto.

"You're smoking hot in the morning sun; I squeeze your bewbs in the pouring rain."

"I think you might have misheard the lyrics, babe."

I turned her around and cupped her face in my hands. "And the moment that you make yourself a coff, I wanna hear the kettle boil again."

She twisted her lips. "I didn't know you were up. Do you want tea or coff?"

"Er, tea. I'll do it, though. You get back to your briefs. I know you love working on briefs."

Her eyebrows twitched. "Why is that word so funny to you? There are so many good lawyer jokes."

"Like what?"

She sipped her coffee, put it on the counter, and gave me her full attention. "A man's in an interrogation room and the police want to get started. The guy says, I won't say anything without my lawyer present. The policeman says, but you are the lawyer. He says yeah, and I want my present."

I scoffed. "Okay, not bad." I gave her a smooch and started to brew a tea.

"You've got a busy day, today, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Gonna have brek at Bumpers, train at Saltney, do some admin. Then it's a big video analysis sesh with the whole gang, plus Pradeep is going to sit in."

"Is that his first time?"

"Yeah."

"Aw, he must be really excited."

"It's Pradeep. He's always really excited. We're going to be watching clips from loads of games. Chester are away to Coventry City this weekend, so we'll start there. Any of the coaches who want to dip out can leave, but I'll be staying with Well In to watch Celtic and some of the other teams. He'll give me a second opinion about Pafos."

"That's the team that Henri are playing tonight? In the Europe League?"

"Europa League, yeah. They're from Cyprus, pretty new team. They've got Brazilians, Swedes, loads of guys from Africa. From the outside it looks like someone there has got themselves a Pradeep and they're bringing in much better players than their budget would suggest. They've been in Europe a few times in recent seasons so presumably they're making a decent profit. They seem really, really dangerous, and Henri's banned for the first leg, the clown."

Emma frowned and turned her coffee cup around so she could warm her hands better. "Sandra, Peter, Colin, Jay Cope, all your coaches. They're gonna watch the team that College are going to play? To help you? Give you ideas? What do they get out of it?"

I shrugged and stirred my tea. "It's just interesting, isn't it? We look at the challenges and if we see anything interesting, I can call the head coach and point it out. If you're Peter and you make a suggestion and it wins a match a thousand miles away, that's fun, isn't it? Plus we've got two of our current players there and we want them to do well."

"Doesn't Sandra want them to get knocked out so she can have them back?"

I laughed. "Did she say that to you? She's joking. Yeah, and when Chester get into Europe we'll be playing these teams and we'll need to know about fucking coefficients and how you arrange training in a week where you fly to Kazakhstan and all that. Better to start now and get a sense of the challenges, right? It's like I said, they can dip in and out as they want."

A small suitcase was open on our living room table. In a few hours, Emma would be flying over to Denmark to watch her dad's team play against FC Midtjylland. I spotted the precise moment her train of thought was derailed by the random assortment of letters in the middle. "How do you say the name again?"

"I call them Copy/Paste FC because no way am I trying to type that."

"Maaaax! I'm not like you. I don't want to travel Europe pissing people off for the lolz. How do you say it?"

"Mid-yee-lan. Mid at the start, lan at the end. The sounds in the middle don't exist in English so do a round, wobbly mouth and make any noise you want. The Danes will love that you made an effort."

"Mid-yee-lan," she repeated. "Are you going to get the coaches to watch them, too?"

"Yeah, but just quickly. The Magpies should put up a good fight but Midtjylland are a couple of levels above them. That was an unkind draw we got. If Banksy gets off to a good start, it could be close, but if he throws one in early on, it could get messy."

"Don't be defeatist! Banksy's a ledge."

"Yeah and Sharky's fast, Stefan Clown's smart, you've got a good CAM and an in-form striker. All results are possible. I'm not being defeatist, only realistic. One thing I know is that this has been great for Banksy." He had started pre-season on CA 69 and had responded incredibly well to the challenge and the responsibility of being the starting goalie in a major competition. He was already up to CA 74, while the starting eleven had gone from 79.6 to 82.5. "And if the Magpies get knocked out in the third round, that's one point one million quid in prize money, so they've already done well."

"Uh-huh."

Emma wasn't massively interested in endlessly rehashing the details, so I switched to a new topic. "Are you enjoying all this? Flying around Europe with your parents?"

"Course I am. It would be even better if you were there."

I stepped closer to her, put my palms on her cheeks, and softly sang, "And you fly away on a summer breeze; while I stay and dream up plans and schemes. And it's me who needs to know; how deep is your coefficient?"

She had been enjoying it until the last word. She reached up, took my hands away from her face, and went over to the living room.

"I'm thinking of starting a band," I called out. "Football-themed songs. Instead of the Bee Gees, we'll be the xGs. Babes? Babes!"

***

I drove to Bumpers and arrived at the same time as the postman. He handed the mail over, joking that I had cost him ten steps on his fitness tracker, and I popped into reception to give the stuff to Jojo.

"What kind of post do we get?"

"Mostly bills and junk," she said. "Same as anyone. Some fan mail, though. Cards."

"Here's one," I said. "Generic postcard. Castle, lake, yachts, house." I flipped it over. "Heyyyy, it's from Banksy!" I flipped it over again. "Koper. Right."

"Where's that?"

"Slovenia. Bruno's Magpies played there last week."

Jojo nodded. "Okay, and who's Bruno?"

I smiled. "That's one for the philosophers. Have you seen Dani today?"

"Yes, she's here. In the canteen, probably."

"I'll bring it to her."

I strolled across to the canteen and smiled as I went inside. It was noisy, busy, smelled great, and I could see at once that more finishing touches had been added. There was a counter behind which sat an obscenely expensive little coffee machine. Just one of those things cost 13,000 pounds, but it was the kind of luxurious touch that the players went weak at the knees for. There was only one catch - no-one was allowed to make their own coffee. In an attempt to keep this place friendly and social, I had made a rule that you had to ask someone to do it for you.

In general, the players understood my reasoning and even quite liked it. The young men, in particular, found it an amazing ice-breaker. 'Do you need a coffee, ladies? Always happy to help.' The women's team had already tweaked my idea. The player who trained the worst was punished by having to make the coffees in the morning. I was quite surprised to see Dani there.

She was behind the counter looking fairly relaxed and happy which fit what the curse was telling me about her Morale. There were a couple of notebooks and pens where people had written their orders. I flicked back to the previous page and saw someone had written, 'Are you doing anything tonite?'

I pointed to it and made a gesture. Who wrote that?

Dani tried to stay impassive but there was a very smug smile just behind that blankness. She mimed zipping her lips.

I took a pen and wrote:

So you trained shit yesterday?

She tapped on her phone and showed me the screen.

No I was mustard but in the match I tried to score a rainbow flick, messed it up, and the other team won. Meghan wasn't happy. Do you want a coffee?

Me: Are you good at making them?

Dani: When it comes to pressing the button that says coffee I am the GOAT.

Me: You got sent a postcard from Slovenia. Can I read it?

Dani shrugged. She genuinely didn't care.

I was burning with curiosity, so I decided to go ahead. First, I checked the postmark because I couldn't work out how Banksy would have had time to send a postcard from Koper. The Magpies had flown in and flown straight back to Gib.

Dani: What are you smiling at?

Me: He sent it from Gibraltar. I bet he pre-ordered the postcard, too, because he wouldn't have had time to go to a shop. Actually, he probably bought a pack of ten in case he messed up the writing. The guy's working very hard to make this seem effortless.

Dani pretended to be unmoved. I turned away from her, leaning against the counter, facing the rest of the canteen while I read.

Dear Dani,

I am writing this in the terminal in Trieste (Italy) which is the closest airport to Koper (Slovenia). It's really, really late and everyone's exhausted because it was so hot in the stadium but we're all buzzing. We did it! One-nil on aggregate. Tense as anything but it was good because I had to concentrate the whole 90 minutes because one mistake and we would be flying home. Wait, we're flying home anyway, haha! That was stupid. I got three clean sheets in the last three matches but it's because our defence is top. We are going to Denmark next. I heard you have started pre-season training. I hope you are well. Best wishes,

Wilfred Banks

Why had he sent this to Bumpers? Too tired to think straight? Letting rival suitors know he was around?

I turned back, raised my eyebrows at Dani, handed over the card, and when she had finished reading it I wrote the word Casanova but then crossed it out.

Dani did her famous laugh, but then double-thumbed her phone and showed me the screen.

I like him.

A dastardly thought came to mind. If the men's team kept pairing off with the women, I could retain my players for longer. Overpay Dani to retain - and underpay - Banksy. The same with Meghan and Youngster, Sarah Greene and Wibbers. Of course, I'd have to keep and overpay Zach Green in order to keep Brooke, and if Meredith Ann hooked up with one of the players, I would need to keep him (or her) around. What a mess it all was!

Dani: What are you smiling about?

Me: I'm just thinking how much more fun it is now that we get to spend more time together.

Dani: Ha.

Me: Random thought. I might write a book one day. Like, 50 years from now. I'm sure I'll have forgotten all this stuff but it's actually really cool. Do you think you could keep these postcards and let me use them to jog my memory?

Dani: Sure, I don't give a shit, but just so you know I already shredded the first ten and all the letters.

Me: Dani, wtf?!

Dani: lolllllllzzzzzzz your face!

I gave her the 'you got me' smile she had been hoping for, and turned to admire my domain. Busy kitchen, happy players, motivated staff. "What do you think?" I said.

She beamed and signed, 'done good job'.

That was incredibly motivational. "I have a surprise for you later." Her lip reading skills failed her on the last part, so I wrote the word surprise.

She signed. "What is it?"

I took the pen and wrote: Sin Bin, 1 p.m. She just stared at it, so I underlined what I had written three times and added, Y/N?

She frowned but nodded.

I tapped the word surprise a few times, trying to get her hyped. It kinda worked.

***

Well In led the training sesh, which was quality. I went at it pretty hard, knowing I wouldn't play in the second leg against Poznan. I would have liked to rotate the whole team but too many of my players wanted to start every match. I would give them this one to make it easier for me to have them on the bench in the Celtic matches.

I knew one guy I wanted to use as a sub. "Wibbers," I said, bringing him off to the side near the end of the session. "I've been thinking."

"Oh, God," he said, but his Morale didn't change. He was bagging goals in the Champions League and I was drenching him in cash. His life was going pretty great.

"I'm guessing you want to start the second leg even though it makes no sense and even though the best thing would be for you to rest and even though there's a risk of you getting injured and missing the actual biggest game of your career so far. Am I right?"

"Wembley is bigger than Celtic Park, boss. But yes. I want to play."

"Wrong answer, but I respect it. You're in. Put that in your pocket, take it to the bank, that's safe." I looked around, on the watch for spies. "Listen," I said, covering my mouth because while Saltney's main training pitch was secluded, there was a non-zero chance someone was pointing a long lens at us. "I want you to come off injured. You'll hobble around on crutches for a couple of days and we'll train in secret so no-one knows you're okay. Then you'll be on the bench for the first leg against Celtic which they will think is a fake-out, except, surprise! You come on early."

He listened patiently. "Haven't you used that one before?"

"Yeah but not for ages and what we'll do is, we'll have everyone say oh Wibbers must be injured because otherwise he would refuse to leave the pitch because he's such a warrior. Yeah, let's do that. You'll refuse to leave the pitch, play on for a minute, collapse, and we'll have a blazing row on the touchline. Heh. Anyway, Celtic aren't gonna go through my entire history looking for scams. They'll prepare two scenarios, one where you recover in time, one where you're really injured. I mean, if just one defender is lazy and doesn't study the video of you because he thinks there's no point because you won't be there, then it's worth doing it, right? That tiny advantage could be the difference." I paused. I would be able to make five subs against Celtic in three different 'windows', plus half-time. If I was going to bring Wibbers on in the first ten minutes, I might as well make the most of that window. "How many guys can we stretcher off against Poznan before it gets obvious it's a scam?"

"One."

I nodded. "Three? That's what I was thinking."

"Boss, no. Come on. It's the Champions League!"

"Cheb! Gabby! Come here a minute."

***

I went to Bumpers to do a quick sesh in the gym and twenty minutes of special swinging exercises Magnus had taught me. Long, much-deserved shower, then off to the hydrotherapy room to soak myself in one of the jacuzzis I called a 'pleasure pond'.

Vincent Addo was in one of the ponds along with Omari Naysmith and Toquinho. I pointed at the two guys, then at the other pool. They got out and switched, and I slipped into the warm water, sitting on the seat, letting my legs float in front of me as they wanted. "Hi, Vini!"

"Hi, boss."

"Are we still friends?"

I had given him a pretty extended on-pitch blast in the first leg against Poznan. He gave me a cautious look. "Yes."

"Good." I closed my eyes for ten seconds, enjoying the movement of the water, the smell, the blissful reward that comes after hard work. "Good session that."

"It was excellent. I thought I would be too stiff to train well today but he eased us into it."

"Have you been doing the sessions with the Brig and Magnus?"

"Yes. Strength with flexibility. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with Magnus but my body seems to like it."

"He's activating your fascia, the stuff that's deep inside you. I'm already thinking that my players will have less joint pain when they're older because of those exercises. You're very lucky to be here at your age. Learning good habits." Livia and one of the more popular Saltney Town coaches walked past on the outside - Vini tracked them every step of the way. "Learning good habits," I said.

He chuckled. "Magnus told me to keep my head still while moving my eyes as far to the side as possible. I'm only doing what he told me!"

"Something makes me think you've taken that out of context. So how are you doing?" His eyes flickered to the side, just slightly. I turned to see what he was looking at. The exit. "We don't have to talk if you don't want."

He sat up straighter. "I want to. I thought someone was coming in, that's all."

"Anyone in particular you're hoping to see?"

He scoffed at my transparent attempt to extract gossip from him. "How am I doing? I am... good. It has been a strange few days. Big win, private jet, recovery day. But a lot of time on the phone with my parents. They watched the match and were uncertain what to think. My mother was worried you were unhappy with me. Father wanted to give you another kick in the nuts."

"He's still in Ghana, right?"

"Yes."

"In that case, tell him I'll fight him any time he wants."

Vini did a hissing sort of laugh. "I told him what you said to me at half time and he changed completely. He's on your side."

"Oh? That's... That's actually weird."

"It is not," said Vini, sounding just for a second like Youngster, his mate. He closed his eyes and rubbed his lids. "What you said is like something he always said to me. Keep your head in the match. In the match. Forget who is watching. Play the ball, play the game, forget who is watching. One time, my coach told me a scout had come to see me and that was the worst I ever played. So my father had an idea. Before every match, he told me a scout from a big club was watching me. One week it was Real Madrid, the next it was Chelsea. He wanted to... what's the word? Desensitise me to it, but it made me angry, and one time we had an argument in front of the whole team. My coach said, what was all that about? I told him and he got very excited. That's great, he said. That's perfect. When the match starts, go to the opposition striker and say, excuse me, are you Gideon Afriyie? When he says yes, look impressed and tell him there are three scouts to see him."

I laughed. "Your coach sounds amazing."

Vini smiled. "He was. Of course, I was still angry when the match started and I didn't speak to anyone but Afriyie scored two goals so after the second, I did what the coach suggested. After that, Afriyie played like a lost dog." Vini shook his head. "It helped me to understand what my father was trying to teach me. I got better at staying in the moment. One day, my coach brought a stranger to the side of the pitch before a cup game. He said to me, Vincent, this man is a scout. He's here to watch you. I asked from which club and he told me it was the big team in our area. I scoffed and said, great, tell me when Real Madrid are here."

"You little shit!"

"I know. But he liked it. That was the next step, then the national team spotted me, then you did. And now I am here in a jacuzzi, two matches away from a six-figure bonus."

"Three," I said.

He winced, and squeezed his eyes shut. "Three. Fuck."

"Quite ironic to tell me a story about being in the moment when you're skipping steps."

He couldn't believe he had been so stupid. "If selected, my concentration will be perfect."

"You're probably gonna start, dude. You can relax." I pushed the water around, lifted my hand, watched as I made it rain. "You've reached a good level, Vini." He had put on a serious burst since pre-season, adding a frankly crazy 7 points in CA, taking him to 84. "Well In loves coaching you. He says you're like a sponge, you listen, you take feedback on board. I've got no doubt you can get to a higher level but it's my job to look out for anything that might stop you peaking. I found a tiny thing, didn't I, and maybe I overreacted, but I don't want to watch you play out your career in the Championship. It's Champions League or one of us has seriously fucked up and I don't want it to be me."

"I don't want it to be you, either, because I know it won't be me."

I smiled and pointed at him. "That's it. That's the paradox. You've got to be cocky and confident to get to the top, but you've got to be humble, too." I watched as Livia and her friend walked back along the path. Vini caught me checking them out and made a noise. "What?" I said, leaning back. "I need to check the paths have been put down level."

"The paths," he said, doing that hissing laugh again. "You're an absolute scandal."

"I know. But listen, however hard it was for you to get here, that was the easy part. Getting to the next level is ten times harder, and getting to the next next level is ten times harder than that. I don't know how Wibbers and Danny Prince took it on Tuesday - "

"I do," said Vini. "Wibbers was excited. He was talking non-stop for about 45 minutes. Did you see when Max did this, when he did that? He said you took your levels higher and he wants that. Danny was sort of the same but he was freaked out because he thought he came here as the star, the best player, and for four weeks he's been joking with Cheb about who's the top dog but on Tuesday you blew them both to smithereens at the same time as you were bossing everyone around. He was like, shit, this guy's been coasting. After an hour you're like, okay we're done here, and you go back to playing in first gear. I think it woke him up, if you feel me."

It was all music to my ears but I tried not to let it show. "Danny's fascinating. Your ceiling is just a tiny bit higher than his but I'm a lot more sure you'll make it. He's had good facilities, good opportunities, but he got to this level and stayed there for years. I mean, I don't only blame him. It's the culture at Blackburn, right? At most clubs. It's all about who's in the team on Saturday. Am I in the team? No? I'm dropped? I'm gonna go knock on the manager's door." I shook my head. "Who gives a fuck about that? The goal has to be to be the best player you can be. Get your head down, train, take advantage of all the coaches and physios and equipment. You need minutes, too, but he got chances in the team so either he's just happy being the level he is or he doesn't have anyone screaming at him to do more." I let my hands rest on the surface of the water and enjoyed the sensation of them bobbing around. "I wish I could sign him so I could be the one to drive him forward because I love watching him and I think he could even play for England. We don't have many left backs, never do. But..."

I stared at nothing for so long that Vini turned to see what I was staring at. "But what?"

"What?" I said, snapping out of some reverie. "Listen, I pay a lot for a sports psychologist. I can't make you go but I'd love for you to work on this with him."

"He's at Chester."

"Ah, fuck that, just go and book an appointment. If Saltney need to pay for it to make it all clean for the records, we will. Just go." I rubbed my lip. "After the match in Poland I got interviewed by this guy who is obsessed with UEFA rankings. I was like, why am I enjoying this? And it's because he goes super deep on one topic. I think I always wanted to be really, really good at one thing. Yeah, I wanted to be an expert. But I've ended up being involved in all parts of the football club, plus I'm on my way to being an elite gardener." I laughed. "Slugs love me, mate. But I think at some point I'm gonna need to go really really hard at one thing to see how good I can get at it. Like, how smart am I really? It'll have to be something about footy. Probably tactics. I wonder how good I can really get? Can I be the world's best at tactics?"

"You're amazing at tactics!"

"Not really. I might be top forty but the top ten are miles, miles ahead of me. This year I'll be doing my UEFA Pro course, right? After the second leg, the transfer window closes, and then all my clubs are on autopilot until January and even then there's not gonna be much to do, so I'll be able to sit in here for an hour, pressing the jet stream button again and again, just thinking about big diags again and again."

"Big diags," he said, amused, but I wasn't joking. The imps had finally come up with a tempting new perk. It was called Big Diag and had one simple but desirable effect - it would add an element to my tactics screen that would allow me to instruct players to smash the ball diagonally to someone on the other side of the pitch. I wanted it bad, which was part of why I was going to sit out the second leg against Poznan.

"Hey, listen," I said, scooching closer to Vini. "I want you to max out your ability, get paid a million quid a month, run the midfield for Ghana in a World Cup. You can tell who's a romantic football fan in Europe because they all sigh and say they'd love to see an African team win it in their lifetime. You've got so much talent! You need a bit of luck, get the right mix of players coming together at the same time, find a decent coach. If you want a shot at winning a big tournament, how's two top-class DMs for a starting point? Mate, I'd love to see you and James scampering around midfield absolutely wrecking Spain and Germany and Argentina. You're a stylistic match, too. James is patient and sets the tempo. You're frantic in a good way, you can crunch into a tackle, get the crowd going. You're both interception machines and you've both got elite stamina. You'll just keep going. World Cup quarter final extra time, in the heat, the fucking, I don't know, Swedish, are all on their backs getting leg massages. You and James are still fresh, still ready to snuff out another twenty attacks. Fucking hell, mate, I want to see it."

"I want to be it," he said, softly.

I eyed him. "If you don't want me to push you, let me know. I don't want your parents worrying about you when I'm getting on your case."

He looked away. "They want you to push me."

"What do you want?"

He looked down, and in the space of five seconds went from looking young to old to young again. "I want you to keep to your promise."

I nodded, furiously trying to remember what I had told him when I was pitching him a move to the UK. Great training, meaningful minutes, progression... I was nailing it, wasn't I? "Remind me what I forgot."

"You promised that while I was recovering in the hot tub, you would hand-feed me grapes."

I laughed hard and turned to the other pool. "Omari!"

"Yes, boss?"

"Fetch the grapes."

"Sorry, boss, can't hear you," he said, turning around to press a button. Huge, frothy, loud bubbles emerged from the water.

I faced the front again. "I tried," I said. An idea struck me. "How about a consolation prize?"

"What's that?"

"Let's fly your parents out for the Celtic game."

It was like I'd zapped him with the Petrify curse from Harry Potter. "You're not serious? The club will pay?"

"I'll pay, Vini. I'll pay on one condition."

"Which is?"

"That your dad won't kick me in my nuts."

He tried to look solemn. "I can't promise that."

I pointed to the outside world. "Go and find Secretary Joe. Work out the details. Would they prefer to come here or go to the second leg in Glasgow? 55,000 super loud Scots debasing themselves by singing the world's most boring song which happens to be the anthem of Liverpool FC? Whatever. Just make sure I get my air miles."

"Where will they stay?"

"We're not gonna give them a sleeping bag and tent. We'll sort it! Holy fuck! There might be two seats left on whatever flight they need to take. Come on! Get on with it."

He was grinning hard as he pulled himself out of the pool. "Yes, boss."

***

I had a quick lunch, realised I was weirdly hungry for blueberries and grapes, and made myself a nibble bowl before heading to the Sin Bin. Dani came running at me; I fell into a kung fu stance.

She rolled her eyes and signed at me.

"Huh?" I said. She started to repeat the signs and then I remembered. "Yes, the surprise! Come on."

She fell into step beside me and I badged us into the new building that contained the Sin Bin. We had four analysis rooms now. Three small ones for individual player feedback, and a cinema-style one big enough for the whole squad. I had overspecced it so that we could watch movies together as a reward or punishment. Reward: Scott Pilgrim or Skyfall. Punishment: Ryan Reynolds' The Adam Project or Ryan Reynolds' Red Notice.

"Wazzuuuup," I said, as we entered. "Brought some fruit. Anyone want fruit?"

No-one replied, which might have been something to do with the absolute banshee wail that emerged from Dani's lips when she saw who was in the room.

I had discovered Dani yonks ago, in a pan-disability tournament in Crewe. Her manager that day had been a guy called Alex and once a month I emailed to ask if he would come and work at Chester. The first, like, eight times he had politely declined but after that he had simply ignored me. I assumed I had been blocked but then, out of the blue, he had written to me. Ten minutes later he was our Chester Knights co-manager, easing the burden on Terry. And since Alex was a legit floating megabrain, I had invited him to come to our coaching meetings to learn what it was like in pro footy, and to challenge us when it sounded like we were talking shit.

Dani ran to him, hugged him, and burst into tears. Vikki, who I had somehow convinced to come to Chester while watching a match on TV in a bar somewhere in Norway, looked alarmed. Jude and Yorkie gave each other worried looks. Pradeep and Spectrum were way at the back but I had told Pradeep not to speak in these meetings until he understood what the vibe was. His eyes were comically wide, taking in the latest craziness, perhaps relieved that he hadn't caused it. Luisa, Henri's girlfriend, leaned forward and tapped Vikki on the shoulder. She said something like, "This is normal, don't worry."

Peter Bauer came to grab a handful of berries and grapes. He mumbled, "Girls cry as soon as they see him. Alex will fit right in around here."

I popped a blueberry into my gob. "Come on, Peter, you're not that ugly."

He smiled. "Are you going to explain this?"

"Um... nah. Alex, bro, can you invite Dani to sit and watch? It might be pretty boring but she's more than welcome."

He signed and I settled into my spot feeling absurdly content. I had felt bad taking Dani away from her old team but if there was a point to life it had to be to maximise your talent. She had to leave her friends behind and join us at Chester. This, though, was a bridge between the old world and the new. I was one hundred percent sure that in normal circumstances, Dani would have got up and left as soon as the first clips were shown, but not today. She was on cloud nine, Morale through the roof, constantly wiping tears from her eyes as she texted her parents, her friends, the Harry Styles fan clubs. I popped a grape into my mouth. Life's good, sometimes.

"Can I start?" said Peter. He was talking to Sandra and Colin more than me, which was rude because I was the pharaoh around these parts. I rose above it by means of ingesting blueberries.

"Sure," said Sandra. "There's not much to say about Coventry. They're 4-2-3-1 merchants and it's all about individual details. It'll take five minutes. The only real question is who will be the sub goalie."

I smiled. "I'm working on it. Sticky's talking to a dude. Big character, big talent. He's, like, snorkelling off the coast of Norwich or something so we're getting one text a day from him. He's mad. Just your type."

Sandra pointed from Colin to Peter to Jay Cope. "No-one tell Aiden what he just said. She was just starting to like Max and then he gave me a bench full of primary school children. Peter, what have you got?"

While we had been chatting he had been connecting his laptop. He rubbed his hands together. "Clips," he said, simply, before pressing the space bar. I tended towards the verbose and really admired how some people got to the heart of the matter in as few words as possible.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

On the big screen appeared various clips of Chester getting battered and bullied on set pieces. Most were from last season, but there were plenty from pre-season, the Josh Owens throw-in against Wrexham, and the two goals West Brom had scored against us. One was from a corner kick, the other from a free kick deep in our half.

"Clips," said Peter, slapping the space bar again in an upbeat sort of way.

We watched as I slapped corners and free kicks onto the foreheads of beefy boys, leading to goals. We watched as I smashed direct free kick after direct free kick into the net.

"Clips," said Peter, downbeat.

We watched as Joel Reid and Wallace Wells took corners and free kicks that led to absolutely nothing.

I turned to check the faces in the room; it looked like everyone understood the message.

Peter hammered it home anyway. "Despite having tall players, aerially powerful players, we are below average at defending set pieces. Max is incredible at offensive set pieces. Non-Max Chester is dogshit at offensive set pieces." He smiled. "Alex, do you want to explain what I said to Dani?"

Alex signed; Dani replied. "She got it. She says everyone gets it."

Peter dipped his head. "Everyone gets it. Including Max, but he refuses to do anything about it."

"I don't want to be Set Piece FC," I declared, pompously. "I refuse to turn this club into Arsenal. We have standards. Beauty is truth, set pieces are ugly, ye on earth, that is all ye need to know."

Peter rubbed his forehead hard, frustrated, but then he grinned suddenly. "Beauty, is it?" He wiggled on his seat as he got the next clip ready. He slapped his keyboard again, and sat back, very pleased with himself.

A gasp came from behind me. Vikki?

The screen was showing a YouTube video from ten years ago. Some kind of high school dance troupe, dancing in sync to Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. It was absolutely fine but being honest, if I had clicked on this video by accident I would have stopped after twenty seconds, maximum.

Peter stopped it after a minute and pointed to the back of the room. "Guess who choreographed this, Max?"

"Michael Jackson," I said, with one hundred percent confidence.

Peter guffawed. "Vikki. Now, personally, I find it charming that you hire talented people without knowing the full extent of their talents, but when I found out about this - "

"Hang on," I demanded. "How did you find out about this?"

Peter looked confused. "I can't remember." His face untensed and he waggled his eyebrows at Vikki. "Okay, it was a drunken night out. But Max, don't you see where this is going?"

"You want our players to learn a stupid dance every week like they do in Ted Lasso? I'm tempted to say yes only because the Bee Gees are my favourite band."

He clicked his tongue. "Let Vikki be our set piece specialist!"

"What?" I said, slowly.

"She's a choreographer! She knows football! Let's give her authority to come up with defensive schemes, attacking schemes, trick plays, quick throws, quick corners, all the stuff! You say this is ugly but nothing's uglier than losing to an ugly team. Let us at least repel them! She has experience of working with not-very co-ordinated people to produce dynamic and interesting results. Our players would be very keen on this! Vikki will make our set pieces clever, and there's nothing more attractive than intelligence. You don't like Arsenal because they do the same brutal routine against every team but if we give Vikki time and resources we will be able to tailor our approach to every defence, every goalkeeper. She won't be a hammer but a scalpel. We will dance our way to an extra ten points this season!"

I tutted and turned around to talk to everyone behind me. "Hands up," I said, "everyone who wants an extra ten points..." I looked down, trying to think of the perfect phrase to finish the sentence. Something like 'everyone who wants an extra ten points being boring, being ugly, being base, being lowest common denominator, being agricultural.' I didn't get much time to find the perfect phrase because no sooner had I paused than every hand in the room went up, including Dani's. She couldn't possibly have read my lips! "Oh, guys," I said, in a kind of despair. "I want triangles. I want beauty. I want goals that are so dreamy old men weep. I want opposition fans to scurry off home not just beaten, but beaten in a way they can't possibly imagine their team playing."

Sandra said, "Yeah but ten points."

I laughed. "Fortunately, this is beneath Vikki. She wouldn't want to do it."

"I think I might," said Vikki.

"No, you'd hate it."

"I'm actually quite excited."

"You'd get bored within days."

"Since I started thinking about it, my head's been like an earthquake. Ideas keep tumbling out. I think I could make a big difference here and I think you'd love it."

Peter lifted his finger to forestall my next complaint. "Two set piece coaches have been turned into Premier League managers, and that number can only rise. This pivot would not harm Vikki's career in any way, far from it, and she would still have time to do the individual skills training you're so keen on."

"Argh!" I said. "Fine. Jesus Christ. Let's not go deep. Let's stay shallow. What's the future of football? A jackboot stomping on the fans' faces forever."

Peter was unmoved by my rant. "Was that a yes?"

I rubbed my eyebrows hard. A full-time set pieces coach? I switched to rubbing my head hard with both hands before picking my phone up. "Hello? Dark side? Have you got any more space over there? Oh, you do? Great!" I rubbed some more stuff for a while before staring at Peter's shoes. I inhaled slowly before turning to Vikki. "I want at least one routine per season that goes viral for being funny or you're fired."

She seemed delighted. "Got it."

Sandra was shaking her head. "It's easy to make people laugh through being incompetent."

"Bad incentive," agreed Alex.

I made eye contact with Vikki. "No. It's not. She's too good to do it shit. Vikki, negotiate with this lot about how much training time you get."

"Yes, Max."

Peter smiled as he took his seat in the middle of the rows. Job done.

I stood up. "All right, let me say a couple of things. In case you don't know, that bro up there is Pradeep. He works for Maxterplanalytics but Chester's our main customer. We're trying to get some data models up and running. We've got what we might call DOVE version one point oh and I'm going to test it hard during the QPR match."

Half the people in the room put their hands up. I pointed at Jay Cope, the new women's team manager. He said, "What's DOVE?"

Pradeep opened his mouth but Spectrum jammed him in the ribs. I tried not to laugh. "Decision Overweight Evaluator. It's basically the usual, modern analysis of player performance but it tries to give extra points for actions that come from better decision-making. It's solid but now that Pradeep's here we're going to go at it hard. Really hard. I want it to be the absolute best software in football to the point that fans celebrate when their club hires us."

Jay nodded and said, "Why did you say QPR? You've got Cov next."

"Right, yeah. Like, obviously I'm not an expert in this stuff but if we want to create a next-level product it's obvious to me it needs to be done not from some dude in the stands who clicks a button every time someone passes the ball to the right and a different button every time he passes left, but by an AI thing that's watching video. So what video is reliable? The one we control. You might see it next time you go to the Deva, but we've put up like fifty cameras all over the place. They'll be there, fixed in place, for ever - or until we demolish another stand.

"All those feeds are going straight into Pradeep's AI. We can teach it that a pass from there to there is exactly 7.8 yards and a guy who can run from point A to point B is doing 20.2 miles an hour while the defender chasing him is doing 19.7. And so on. Basically, we can perfect the model based on data from the Deva and Saltney and then we can tentatively expand to other stadiums. So for now our home games are when we try to make big jumps forward in this technology. Make sense?

"Of course in the end we need to be able to assess matches held in other stadiums. I've got a plan that will involve getting our guys to go to Anfield or Elland Road while secretly wearing special lidar vests that will map the stadium to twenty decimal places and the AI will be able to convert all the data it gets from the match feed accordingly. Er, yeah, but we have to start small, kind of thing. Start on a solid base before we expand. That means starting at places we have mapped out to incredible accuracy."

Colin Beckton said, "And what do we get from that?"

"The goal is to recreate my scouting ability and player analysis. If the next Messi comes to the Deva, we should know that. Can we see that just from the warm-up? That'd be cool, right? And if one of our guys is giving us 5 out of 10 performances every week, I want the computer to be spitting out danger signs. Call it future-proofing the club for when we're all gone."

Colin grew thoughtful. Peter was still smugging hard. Dani was showing no signs of wanting to leave.

"All right," I said. "Let's watch some football."

***

A few hours later, MD texted. I replied, and he came to Bumpers to meet me. He found me in the gym, being put through my paces by Magnus, who needed a guinea pig for some new exercises he had been developing. Christian Fierce was in with me, and we were both sweating like pigs. Happy pigs.

MD entered the studio space where we sometimes did yoga or pilates. He looked from me to Christian to Magnus and smiled. "This looks painful."

I tried not to laugh because I was in a spot of bother. In this latest task, Magnus had simply asked me to make contact with a wall with three parts of my body. I had done that but he had quickly increased the challenge level. Currently, I was using my inner thigh to push a yoga ball against the wall. Meanwhile, one hand was sliding a disc against the wall in a sort of rainbow arc while the other hand only had to push against the wall and at the end of every rainbow arc, to stretch away as though someone was loading my palm with a custard pie.

Complicated to describe, very simple when you've seen it, but after three reps soooo many muscle groups were on fire. "Piece of piss," I grunted, and regretted it. I tried to do another rep but my body decided to collapse in a heap, while I panted, wondering what my obituary would say if this was the thing that killed me off.

"Oh, my days," said Christian, who knew I was a decent physical specimen. He laughed nervously. "You sure about this, Magnus?"

Magnus took the disc from my hand and gave it to Chester's captain. "Batter up."

MD watched, appalled, as Christian went through the same process as me. Christian hadn't done as much in the morning so he was able to make it to 7 reps before tapping out. "The fuck's wrong with you, Magnus?" he wheezed.

I had recovered enough to sit up cross-legged, but I was dizzy. Drained.

MD said, "Er... Quick one, Max. Should I...?"

"I'm good, mate."

"Okay, I've been looking into naming rights for Saltney. We had a decent offer from PosBet but you didn't like that."

Magnus looked up, sharply. "Max would never go with a betting company."

MD nodded. "It's not a betting company. It makes an eco-friendly concrete. In Germany, they call it beton. This one absorbs carbon from the atmosphere over time, so it's carbon-negative. You can't use the word negative in your product name so they went with positive. Positive Beton. PosBet. But it didn't feel right."

"Ah," said Magnus. "I learned something today. Thank you, Mike."

MD smiled. "I learned something, too. I learned that if anyone offers to train me like a pro footballer, I'm to say no."

"It's a piece of piss," I said, still absolutely destroyed.

"So," said MD, ignoring my last statement. "I think we've hit the jackpot. Amazing brand, quite good money, and it fits the Saltney ethos."

"Hit me," I said, though if he had actually hit me I would have curled into a ball.

"We can get ten grand a year if we call the stadium and training ground Y Chwedlau."

I curled into a ball.

MD laughed. "Hold up, there, superstar. Y Chwedlau means The Legends and it's the name of a brand-new Welsh Sports Hall of Fame which is being created in Cardiff."

"The Legends," I said, uncurling.

"I knew you'd love it! The Hall of Fame's going to be great. Welsh rugby stars, golfers, footballers, whatever else they've got. Special moments that happened in Wales whether by Welshmen or not. It will be ready in time for Euro 28. Wales are going to qualify, right? There will be huge interest, anyway. Tens of thousands of sports-mad visitors! Strike while the iron is hot!"

"Sorry," said Magnus. "But, ah..." He scratched his head vigorously. "It's just that I play for Saltney Town and even if you made the announcement of the new stadium name today, it's too late. The next two matches will be played in Wrexham."

"Got to beat Poznan, bro," I reminded him.

"I'm not complacent," said Magnus, with intensity that was actually scary.

MD stepped back about two inches. "Yes, Magnus, it's a good point but people in Wales are only starting to wake up to the absolute chaos engine that is Max Best. I have persuaded the Hall of Fame that this is the biggest bang for their marketing buck. Even this season it will pay off. Think about it. The second leg against Poznan, the TV commentators will love to say, 'of course, we're only here at The Racecourse because The Legends Stadium doesn't meet UEFA's criteria.' They will mention it many times, I'm sure!"

"True dat," I said, as I worried about how much sweat a human being could leak before he died.

Magnus was nodding to himself. "It's publicity even though the match won't be held there. That's clever."

MD stepped forward a couple of inches. "Thank you, Magnus. I'm not Max levels, but I'm quite good."

Magnus smiled. "Yes, you are."

Christian, weight on one knee, said, "But ten thousand? I mean... I know naming rights aren't as lucrative as people think, but..."

MD smiled. "That's ten thousand guaranteed. If we make it into Europe it goes to fifty. If we make it into any UEFA league phase, it's another fifty. So this year it would be the full hundred grand, and they are willing to commit to a five-year deal." He shifted his weight around. "I do think I negotiated well but I suspect our friends at the FAW played a part. I mean, their hope is that we are creating the future legends of Welsh football. Max slapping Poland's best and brightest in their home stadium assuaged any doubts anyone had. Where are the Welsh players? They're in school. Ha! Amazing. They ate it up."

"Hundred grand a year is mint. What's it called again?"

"Y Chwedlau."

I tried my best to repeat it. "Kwed-lai. Kwed-lai. The Kwed-lai Stadium. It's kinda hard but I don't hate it. Am I allowed to call it The Legends Stadium?"

"Yes, as long as we brand it in Welsh and TV companies use the Welsh version and explain in their own language, which they will be happy to do."

"Kwed-lai," I said, from my position on the floor. "The Legends. Bosh." I lay there for five seconds. "Can someone grab the absorbent kitchen roll? I've left a legendary puddle."

***

Europa League and Conference League Third Round First Legs

A host of Saltney and Chester employees turned up at Y Chwedlau to watch our mates in European action. We had two big screens going simultaneously. On the left, College 1975 were at home to the Cypriot team Pafos. The cameras kept cutting to Henri. On the right, Midtjylland were at home to Bruno's Magpies. The cameras kept cutting to Emma.

I was super stressed watching the matches and probably wasn't good company. The money, though! The difference between winning and losing could be measured in millions of pounds.

At least I had both the teams in my mental squad list so that when a player got kicked to the floor, I could check his Condition. A few nasty-looking tackles turned out to be no big deal. I had texts coming in from Emma, from Sebastian Weaver, from Henri, but I could only bring myself to look away from the screens once every ten minutes. Too much at stake!

One of the biggest cheers came when a Danish striker went through on goal, only to be denied by a sprawling star-jump leap from Banksy. "Yes, mate," I said, clenching my fist.

Sticky rushed to my side when he saw the replay. "Did you see that?"

"I did."

"Bloody Nora! What a save!"

"Can the new guy do that?" It seemed like the new guy would take the same wages as I was on - 9,900 a week. Given his track record, that was actually a bargain. There was just one problem - he was so crazy that even the Turkish league wouldn't touch him.

Sticky laughed. "The new guy would take his cap off and throw it at the ball."

I found my stomach was churning. "Great," I said.

I leaned forward, pushed my thumbs into my eye sockets, and suffered.

***

College 1975 0 Pafos FC 0.

Copy/Paste FC 0 Bruno's Magpies 0.

***

Saturday, August 7

EFL Championship Match 2 of 46: Coventry City versus Chester

Coventry had an average CA of 135; ours was 113.5.

They played 4-2-3-1, we were limited to 3-5-2.

These were the days I had been thinking of when I talked about hitting the cliff. The jump from League One to the Championship was massive - Coventry had amazing players in all areas of the pitch. Guys who had played in the Prem, guys who were attracting interest from the Prem, guys on loan from the Prem. Cov's playing style was like a slightly more aesthetically pleasing Wrexham, but it was very hard to stop and we found it hard to play through their lines. Tough day.

I wasn't worried about relegation because we were probably already better than 5 or 6 teams, and even against the 'cliff' teams we would be able to scrap our way to some draws and eventually turn those into wins, but as things stood there was a grim inevitability to our 3-1 defeat.

It could have been depressing, but we'd had a great week of training, which made it easier to see the long-term benefits of how I had assembled the squad.

Our 'worst' player was, by far, Dan Badford, who was CA 95. Way below the required levels, and he gave the ball away more than a few times in the first half, but just hang on a second. CA 95! Dan Badford! A kid I had found wearing a big puffy jacket on the touchline at Das Tournament! He had started our first two league games and was closing in on triple digits. Don't look how far short he was, look how far he had come.

The next worst was Peter Bauer, who also had a difficult day. But he had eased to CA 104, and while he sometimes got bodied or ragdolled by one of English football's cavemen, he also showed moments of supreme quality. He was getting there, fast, while reminding the world that there was such a thing as style.

Bark was the next highest, on CA 106. Appearing for his country had given him a boost, though he still mostly played safe when he had the ball at his feet.

Cole Adams was 114; Swanny, Zach, and Christian were 116; Colin Beckton and Dazza were 118; Youngster 121; Joel Reid 125.

I was ecstatic with everyone's progress. So we were 20 points behind Coventry City. So what? At least, unlike them, we weren't the punchline in a Monty Python sketch.

AND we were doing it for less than half of their wages.

Colin scored his second of the season, Dazza and Bark built up their fitness, Dan got another half of Championship football under his belt, as did Helge Hagen. Nasa, Tomzilla, and Wallace Wells got onto the pitch. You know that picture of the dog in a room on fire and he's saying 'this is fine?' Imagine that, but without the fire.

This is fine, mate. Trust me.

Chester FC after 2 matches: drawn 1, lost 1, points 1.

***

Tuesday, August 10

Champions League Qualifying Third Round Second Leg - Saltney Town versus Lech Poznan

The Legends Stadium was cute and cosy but it didn't meet the standards required to host matches of this level. As such, we had struck a deal with Wrexham's lovely, charming, and capable owners, who made fantastic movies and TV shows that brought joy and laughter into millions of lives. The rest of our European adventure would be played at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground and while there were endless possibilities for mischief in that scenario, I decided not to be a dick about it. Welsh team representing Wales in a Welsh stadium. No pranks, no stunts. Let's play ball.

The away end was bouncing - literally. About 500 guys had flown out from Poznan, and they were either the super die-hard fans or they had booked their tickets before knowing the result from the first leg. They were noisy and passionate. Wrexham had marketed the match to the local Polish population, too, and there were hundreds of Polish ex-pats in the home end.

Plenty of curious locals had turned out to see the first European match in the stadium since the 1995-96 season, and there seemed to be quite a lot of Wrexham fans who couldn't get tickets to see their team play in the Championship (it was always sold out) so why not come to this one?

Also, the ownership had cooked up a great scam where you got 'loyalty points' by attending this match, and fans with loyalty points would be first in line to get tickets to the next round. Since that was going to be against Celtic, the Scottish giants, The Racecourse would very possibly sell out, so if you wanted to guarantee your ticket for that one, you had to come to this one.

All in all, there were close to 5,000 in the stands, which was pretty cool. I went around the edge of the stadium posing for selfies and having quick chats with strangers. When I got to the away end, they jeered me and did 'the Poznan', turning around and bouncing. I put my hands on my hips and quietly judged them.

I even talked to the media and would describe myself as very charming and approachable. The interviews all went pretty much the same way.

"Max, you've got Celtic in the playoff! What do you think of that?"

"Well, Bob/Brian/Babs, we have a second leg to play against a good team from a great country and it's a shame we couldn't play the match at Y Chwedlau, The Legends Stadium, sponsored by the Welsh Sport Hall of Fame in Cardiff, but we're happy to be here at The Racecourse. We've had a warm welcome from the people of Wrexham and we're hoping to put on a good show for them and yes, if we make it through to the next round we also won't be able to play at Y Chwedlau, The Legends Stadium, sponsored by the Welsh Sport Hall of Fame in Cardiff, but something tells me The Racecourse will be full for that one!"

The match itself went very much as expected. Omari played instead of me, and that was the only change from the previous round. I had wanted to do a weird formation to confuse Celtic, but 4-3-3 was the best fit for the players and I didn't want to go 2-0 down in the first 20 minutes.

Omari and Tom Westwood had both hit CA 90 during the week, which was top. Since the start of pre-season, the most common amount of CA growth per player was 6. Davey Barnes was on 96, Wibbers 118, and Gabby 119. Our average was 111.2, which was a little short of Poznan's 115, but we had crushed their Morale in the first leg.

While winning again would have been good for our coefficients, I wasn't too bothered about winning or losing this one. The plan was to pretend three key players were injured, so it was quite possible that Poznan would score a few late goals.

We made it to the 43rd minute with no defensive alarms and put together some nice moves. Then Cheb got injured. "Shit," said Well In. "Fuck!"

"Don't panic," I said, making a rare appearance next to him. "There's only a minute to half time. Let's get him to the dressing room and assess him. We can go Men Behind Ball for a minute."

"Right," he said, and made it happen.

It was bad news, though. Cheb couldn't continue. No matter - Carl Carlile would get 45 minutes of action.

Cheb was such an important player for us that the flow of the game shifted completely. Poznan pushed us back and we had to get defensive. Our biggest threat came on counters, which suited us.

We conceded a goal in the 70th minute, which briefly got the Polish fans rocking and their team came at us harder than ever. We were under the cosh for two minutes but they threw too many bodies forward and we broke. Davey lined up a left-footed long shot, but scuffed it. The bad connection pushed the ball into the path of Wibbers, though, and he took a touch and applied a finish.

1-1, and that was the nail in the coffin for the Poles.

In the aftermath of the celebrations, Wibbers sat on the grass with his legs out. The physios raced on and fussed over him, but he said he wanted to keep playing.

"Get off the pitch!" I yelled.

"Fuck off!" he yelled back.

A minute later, surprise surprise, he went down again, and this time he did leave the pitch, hobbling, and got a blast of my almighty wrath.

I used the opportunity to make a triple change, giving time to Ash Bradley, the left-winger, Toquinho, and young Charlie Cullen, one of the future legends of Welsh football.

Then Gabby hurt himself and left the pitch in floods of tears.

Aff got ten minutes in front of his mum.

I should mention that Well In was freaking out. More blood had drained from his face with every injury. The coaches, physios, and our unused subs were also aghast and there was a lot of hands-on-head action. Who would even play against Celtic? Did we have any fit strikers? No-one from Celtic could have watched it play out and detected the slightest hint of a scam. These reactions looked real because they were real.

Poznan scored near the end to make it 2-1, and scored again to make it 3-1. Their fans did the stupid backwards dance thing, which actually helped me to get into a grumpy and frustrated mindset.

The late goals made the aggregate score look a lot more respectable. Saltney Town 6, Poznan 4.

I looked suitably downbeat as I trudged back towards the dressing room. Someone from the TV company asked me for a quick word.

"Max, you're through, but at what cost?"

"It looks pretty grim, Bob. We've got a few knocks and I might have to play up front. I can do it but it's not my favourite, you know? I wouldn't back myself against defenders of the quality that Glasgow Keltic have. So, uh..." [I stare at nothing for a few seconds, haunted by the universe's twisted sense of humour.] "Yeah, look, I think I'm gonna have the entire squad on penalty training for the next two weeks because if we're still level when we go to Ibrox then that could be a way through for us, you know?"

"Max, Celtic play at Celtic Park."

[Distracted.] "I bet, I bet." [Soft, sad, puppy eyes.] "I think I need to..." [I walk off.]

(Later, Emma accused me of laying it on a bit thick, but I patiently explained that when you're playing the role of Max Best, you're playing a character with many layers and hidden depths.)

The mood in the dressing room was like a funeral home.

"Guys," I said, after closing the door behind us. "We're through to the playoff round! This club will either be in the Champions League or the Europa League! 8 matches against the big dogs of Europe! What are you all depressed about?"

Well In looked at me like I was crazy. "The injuries, Max! We don't have a strike force! How are we gonna cope against Celtic?"

"Ah, right, the injuries. Okay, about that. Um..." I looked around and picked up a kit bag and held it protectively in front of my crotch. "There's good news and great news. The good news is, your reactions were very authentic and Celtic will have fallen for it, hook line and sinker."

Well In's features spread out as he stood taller. He sagged. "Oh, you bloody bastard. You nearly gave me a heart attack! You bloody bastard! So who's injured and who's not?"

I jerked my head and Cheb, Wibbers, and Gabby hopped off the treatment tables and benches and stood next to me. "Keltic will witness the firepower of this fully operational Death Star!"

"Hurr hurr hurr," said Vincent Addo.

***

New perk available this month: Big Diag

Cost: 2,500 XP

Effects: Adds the option to make a player more likely to hit cross-field passes and diagonal long balls.

Pretty simple perk, but desirable. Not expensive, either, which probably hinted at just how useful it would be. It was easy to imagine it giving us a point or two across a season, though, and that made it worth the cost.

For example, when I was the Bayern manager we had played against a Stuttgart team that liked to bunch its defenders into a small rectangle. I had asked the Bayern players to hit the ball across to the other side of the pitch, and they had done so. But if I bought this perk, I would be able to switch that tactic off and on without having to yell it out for all to hear.

It was an incredibly compelling perk when I thought about having Helge Hagen in the team. If the giant Norwegian was playing at left back, I could quickly switch him to left midfield or left wing and activate Big Diag on the right back. From his position on the far side, the right back would pound the ball high to the left, where Helge would almost certainly win the header against his opponent. If we collected the ball, we would be thirty or forty yards further up the pitch. Very useful.

In fact, it was a no-brainer.

I bought a monthly perk for the first time in absolutely ages.

Good job on that one, imps!

***

Thursday, August 12

Europa League and Conference League Third Round Second Legs

A couple of dozen interested parties gathered in the Legends Lounge at Saltney, the new name for the 'fun room', where once again the two matches were being shown on two big screens.

College were in Cyprus against Pafos, and the atmosphere seemed to be pretty intense. Henri was back, though, so the head coach Alby McHugh had more firepower at his disposal. College's average CA had nudged up to 101, but I could only guess what Pafos were at. About the same, probably.

Meanwhile, the Magpies had quite a few players who were capped, so they had only increased their average by a tiny fraction; their CA was 82.7. It would need a miracle for them to beat their Danish opponents in normal time. If they could take the match to penalties, though...

Once the matches kicked off, I asked why I was putting myself through this torment in public. The players were pretty interested in the football - Banksy was in one match, while Fitzroy Hall and Andrew Harrison were in the other.

But their friends and family were more interested in playing pool, table tennis, or the awesome arcade driving game I'd bought. It was one of those that had a proper racing seat and it moved left and right as you steered. It was already a huge smash hit with the Welsh kids that came to The Legends, and the adults were almost as crazy about it.

The first halves were beyond tense. At least four people told me off for biting my nails. No goals were scored. Both matches were poised on a knife edge. Millions of pounds were at stake. Come on, lads!

During the break, Livia turned up, dragging the struggling Tranmere Rovers manager Jackie Reaper with her. He looked shattered - being crushed in every match of the season so far will do that to a man - so I dragged him over to the car game and made him drive while I yelled at him to do it better.

I think he enjoyed it; I certainly did.

We settled in front of the screens a few minutes into the second half. He looked at me. "Are you not gonna make fun of me for being a bald fraud?"

"Nah, you're not bald. Oh, wait."

He shook his head and sighed. "I've missed dis."

"How's Diggy Doggy? Actually, I don't care. The sooner you're out of there, the better."

He didn't speak for a while. Eventually, he jabbed his beer at the screens. "You've got a lot riding on these?"

"Sort of. It's not... At this point it's not that I'll lose money, if you get me. It's about how much surplus there is and what I can do with it."

"You're still wanting to build that stadium in Manchester?"

"Yeah. No. Maybe. I don't know if... It depends, right."

"On what?"

I squirmed and lowered my voice. "Like, I want to keep the vibe going there but they're winning games at the place they're using. It'd cost a fortune to build the stadium and okay it will help me turn it into a talent factory, but I could maybe do 80% of the job without spending that money."

Jackie gave me a strange look. "Your football club needs a home, Max. You know dat. You dragged them out of their little place in the world, where they were perfectly happy. If you don't give them a new home you'll be just like MK Dons or those American teams that move clubs to a new city to make some quick cash. Was dis all a cash grab?"

"Nah," I said, annoyed that he was telling me things I knew were true but didn't want to hear. "I want to do it but... The timing's bad. If Saltney don't beat Celtic then I'm not gonna have enough to do the stadium. Unless both of these get to the league stage," I said.

The universe is a prick, sometimes. It decided I hadn't been punched in the dick enough recently, so it overcompensated.

First, the Cypriot team went one-nil up against College.

Then Copy/Paste FC finally smashed one past Banksy. Emma sent me a text that was mostly 'fuming' emojis.

I pressed my hands into my temples hard enough to crack my skull open. This was the worst of all worlds. The Magpies would be out, and College would drop into the Conference playoff.

"Bad bad bad," I mumbled.

"Could be worse," said Jackie. "You could be bald."

In the last 20 minutes, one of the matches changed in tone. Pafos retreated, hoping to cling onto their lead. Mistake! Don't do that! College sensed opportunity and repeated the trick they had tried against me. They sent Dan Del Rio to be an extra striker and shunted their full backs into the middle. Henri had tried to beat himself up about that 'shit move' but I had sent him a message saying that it was really clever - against a normal manager - and if there was a chance to run the play again that they didn't take, both he and McHugh would be fired.

The tweak worked great. College's defenders pinged balls into the penalty area, where Del Rio, Henri, and Till Rehder all had the beating of their opponent in the air. We watched mad scramble after mad scramble, then Henri flicked one header that fell kindly to Till, who rolled the ball neatly past the goalie.

One-all!

The action on the other screen was far more sedate. The Magpies worked hard but couldn't lay a glove on Midtjylland. The last candle of hope was snuffed out when Stefan Clown picked up a knock and had to be subbed off. Midtjylland didn't seem too bothered about going to get the second, but all of a sudden, they did. Some neat passing bypassed a tired midfield, a series of good decisions were made, and Banksy was throwing himself at a shot he couldn't get anywhere near.

Two-nil, game over. The Magpies were out of European competition altogether. The third round was a decent first effort.

All eyes turned to the College match, which went into extra time.

My nerves could barely take it!

I wasn't getting XP for looking at the action, so I tried to calculate how much money the Magpies had earned. Being knocked out at this point was worth 1.1 million. That would pay their salaries and bonus for the year, plus cover the costs of the Gibraltar Lions. The Conspiracy was guaranteed to make a profit.

But how much?

"He's very good," said Jackie.

"Who?" I said, stupidly turning to the arcade machine to see if anyone had beaten Dan Badford's high score.

"Your McHugh guy."

"Oh," I said, looking at the screen. "What's he done?"

"At full-time, the other manager put on a tall centre back to combat the three big lads, so McHugh moved Del Rio back into defence and pushed the full-backs higher. He's gonna attack down the flanks."

"Hit them where they're not," I said. "I like this a lot. I like it a lot."

It took another ten minutes for the change to pay off, but then Andrew Harrison picked up the ball, drove forward, and passed it right to Bobby Pons. He hit an early cross that went past everyone. Li Anjie caught up to it, surged into the box, dropped his shoulder to go left, but spun a shot towards the bottom right of the goal. The goalie flapped at it but the ball went under his hand, somehow.

Two-one!

There was the usual half-time-in-extra-time break, after which the home team made a stupendous effort to get back on level terms. Peter Schnakenberg made two decent saves and one outstanding one.

When the final whistle went, I leaped and jumped and ran around like a crazy person.

College 1975 were guaranteed to progress to either the Europa League or the Conference League.

That beautiful Australian had just added at least 4 million quid to the Conspiracy's coffers! After all the costs, I would probably wind up with about a million quid from my share of the Gibraltar money. Decent. Very decent.

I took my phone to a quiet room and sent messages to all the players in the Magpies squad. I told Stefan Clown he was outstanding, told Banksy that he would be the best goalie ever to play in the National League, told Sharky he was the most exciting thing on two legs. Don't tell Emma I told you that, I added. Then I bigged up the PFA Free Agents and assured them I would help them find new clubs in the coming days.

That wouldn't be hard at all - they had all enhanced their reputations.

I wondered how many of them would want to do it again next year. Next time the Conspiracy would control three clubs who had qualified for Europe. The local players would be better and Mateo's training compound would be fully online. If we could get three clubs into the league stage, that would really give Przemek's YouTube community something to talk about.

***

Friday, August 13

Briggy came to my office with a cheeky smile, and opened her laptop. A YouTube video was loaded. "Your new friend," she said.

"Przemek," I said. "What's he up to, the scamp?"

"The usual, I think. I don't actually watch them, Max. Kasia told me to skip to 7 minutes 40."

"Oh, she sent this to you? Did she put crosses at the end of the message? How many? Were they crosses or kisses?"

Briggy smiled. "You're an ass. Are you going to press play or what?"

I nudged the laptop into position and hit the space bar.

Przemek said, in his somewhat monotonic voice, "And now we turn to the fun part. What's happening in Gibraltar?" A bunch of numbers filled the screen. "As you can see..."

I pressed pause. "We're the fun bit at the end of his videos, are we? That's bonkers. I love it." I swung around on my expensive office chair. "I might watch it later to brush up on my Polish. Do you want to brush up on your Polish?"

Briggy's smiled remained in place as she picked up her laptop and closed it. "Bye, Max."

"Tell Kasia I said thanks, and put two Xs. No, three. Two and a half."

"Bye."

***

Saturday, August 14

EFL Championship Match 3 of 46: Chester versus QPR

Thursday night had been a pretty massive proof of concept for my Gibraltar scam, but this match against QPR had the potential to be even more important in my quest to squeeze more money out of this sport. If Pradeep's DOVE programme turned out to be a winner, I would be able to sell its data and insights to teams all over the world. Sign 20 clubs who paid me a million a year to improve their teams without me having to lift a finger and I would very quickly be able to buy a controlling stake in Temps Perdu.

QPR were pretty weak, with an average CA of 111. That made them about as strong as a very good League One team, and I fancied us to overpower them. Even with our depleted squad, our starting eleven had 113.5, plus home advantage. Sandra was sticking to the 3-5-2 shape that gave starts to Peter and Dan, with Helge replacing Dan at the break.

The new away end was open and a thousand Londoners were in there, making a din. Just as importantly, the West Stand was once more full of Chester fans and the attendance was trending upwards again - 8,400 full house for this one. More of the away end would come online in the coming weeks, adding another 3,000 ticket sales and another 3,000 voices.

I backed Sandra to take care of most of the day's work and took a seat in the dugout, but this time I had joined the growing ranks of weirdos who sit next to a football match and watch events unfold on their tablets. In my case, I had two screens that showed Pradeep's data in real time. Pradeep and Spectrum were up in the media zone, acting as a sort of control room.

As the match unfolded, I compared what I was seeing with the output of Pradeep's model. Superficially, it was impressive. When I tracked a player, it was like watching him with infra-red vision. The more positively he impacted the game, the brighter his heat trail was. The more shit he was, the colder.

Pradeep's ability to take the raw feed from the many cameras around the stadium and turn it into hard data was sensational, and the output was quite good.

Bark passed to Dan, who played a no-look pass to Joel Reid, who sliced a pass that went behind a defender, perfectly into Bark's path. He crossed and Dazza smashed the ball into the net.

Goal!

But I went back and 'watched' the sequence again and again on Pradeep's tablets. Bark's heat map was suitably red. Dan's output was classed as a mistake - he went blue. Joel's was bright red verging on yellow because he had played the key pass, but I knew Joel had been trying to do something completely different. Should a player be credited for a great outcome that was actually pure dumb luck? Answer: no. Finally, Dazza got a bright red output but it should have been even brighter. That finish, based on the angle and height the ball came to him, was really, really hard and he had made it look easy.

I sat glumly as I found more and more things that weren't quite right...

Youngster sent a forward pass to Dazza, who got a touch that sent it into Colin's path. Colin sped into the penalty area, scored, and cupped his ear to the QPR fans. I wondered what the QPR fans had done to annoy Colin, and when. A decade ago, perhaps?

On the tablet, Youngster's involvement showed as suitably red, Dazza got way more credit than he deserved, and Colin strangely got far less. Again, he had made it look easy because of the quality of his movement. In a way, he had created the goal before Dazza even touched the ball, and that was something Pradeep hadn't told DOVE to learn.

Sandra dragged me out of the dugout and forced me to celebrate with her. Chester's first win at this level! Sandra's first win at this level!

I felt like I had just lost 20 million quid a year.

This is what it sounds like, I thought to myself, when DOVEs cry.

***

Chester FC after 3 matches: won 1, drawn 1, lost 1, points 4.

***

Monday, August 16 - One Day Until Saltney versus Glasgow Celtic

I called a special early-morning meeting with Pradeep and Spectrum in their office at The Legends. It was the kind of meeting that could go so abysmally badly that the entire business would crash, in this case before it had made a single dollar in revenue.

To take the edge off any potential unpleasantness, I had brought snacks.

"Monster Munch," said Pradeep, holding up what looked like a packet of crisps. "What's this?"

"They're puffy potato puff things smeared with powdery goodness."

Spectrum said, "Max, it's corn!"

"Wow, really?"

"Yes. Please don't get Pradeep addicted to Monster Munch. The powder gets all over the keyboards and he's a screen-toucher, too."

"Pradeep," I complained. "Don't touch other people's screens!"

He smiled and bit into a Monster Munch. As the first hit of flavour landed, he froze.

"Fucking hell," said Spectrum. "This office will never be clean again."

I swivelled on my chair. "Pradeep, how are you settling in?"

He had flecks of Monster Munch over his lips. "Good! Very good. It's so exciting to be around the action. A real football club. Two real football clubs! It's a dream come true."

"Great. I'm pleased."

He went to pick something up, but Spectrum grabbed his wrist. "Wash your hands before you touch anything."

Pradeep grinned. "Max," he said, nodding to the thing.

It took me a minute to realise what I was looking at. "The breathing trainer! You hacked them? I knew you could do it. Top of the class, mate. Amazing. Physio Dean will be delighted to get these working again." I leaned back, wondering how to start the main event. I had been thinking about it all weekend and couldn't find a diplomatic way.

Pradeep said, "Are the Bee Gees really your favourite band?"

"No," I said. "They've got some all-time bangers, though. And they're from Manchester."

"Really?" said Spectrum.

"Kind of. They were born on the Isle of Man but grew up in Manchester. So they're Manx and Mancs."

"That's amazing," said Spectrum. "So funny."

"What's the joke?" said Pradeep.

"Spectrum will tell you later. Yeah, they grew up in Chorlton, near where my football club is. I watched a video where one of them went back to visit his old school and he bought the house he grew up in. He showed his grandkids around and blew their minds by saying three brothers and a sister had shared one tiny room. Yeah, add the Bee Gees to Manchester's Hall of Fame. See, if that was Liverpool, they wouldn't shut up about it but in Manchester we're way cooler. It's like hey, that's where the Bee Gees grew up, over there's where Max Best went to school. You go, hey that's nice. Remember the past, move into the future." I stood up, stretched, grabbed a single Monster Munch, and sat back down. "Pradeep, listen. Your programme is amazing. It's so great. But I'm not seeing the right results from it."

He seemed a bit crestfallen. "Oh."

I pushed a plate of croissants closer to him until he took one. "Over the weekend I read about football data and how it can be misleading and one of the complaints was about forward passes only being counted as positive at a certain point on the pitch. Like, if Peter Bauer is in his penalty area and sprays a pass all the way to Wibbers on the right wing, that's not counted in that metric. I read that and my head exploded. What! And I'm guessing you took all the metrics that are currently en vogue and put them into DOVE."

"Yes I did. They're cutting-edge. They're the best ones."

"Well, sure. The best from everyone else. But round here, we do things different. We don't put stupid restrictions on our models. I think, mate, I think we need to start again. Start from scratch." I waited for a reaction, but all he did was hold the croissant. I waited to see if he would throw it at me. He didn't. "Let's start again so I can train your AI with what I know. I'll make, ah, character sheets for every Chester player based on the Soccer Supremo numbers. Pace 10, Acceleration 11, Decisions 13, all that stuff. We'll teach it the difference between Pace 14 and Pace 7, right, and after a few weeks or months it should be able to look at the players who come to the Deva and instantly go, he's Pace 10. Right? That will be easy, and maybe an amazing AI could learn what top Technique looks like, but no-one else will be able to get close to us when it comes to Decisions."

Pradeep was intrigued. "Train it from scratch... Teach it to analyse players based on your model."

"Right. I will give it a hyper-accurate starting point and I can train it to say this decision was good, this was bad, this pass was the right idea, wrong execution, all that kind of thing. I'll even be able to give it detailed analysis on most of the opposition players. Before every match, I'll feed their character sheets into DOVE and it will watch the match and go, huh, okay, that makes sense. We'll teach it step by step. If we need guinea pigs for certain things, we've got two whole squads. Like I was thinking of setting up training drills where a machine fires footballs at a player and we see how reliably they can control it to see how close DOVE can get to my level of accuracy. But I'm not sure about that. Probably we need to base everything on actual matches because in training the whole mentality is different."

Spectrum said, "We could learn about a player's professionalism that way."

"What do you mean?"

"We could train DOVE to see how someone plays and how he trains. The more similar the two things are, the more professional the player."

My mouth dropped open a little. "Amazing. But how do we get footage of players from other teams training?"

He said, "Maybe we can't. But we can get to know our own players better. If you have two left backs and need to sell one, sell the less professional one."

I mimed my mind blowing. "This is great. Look, guys, this will take time. It will cost me money and it will stop me making money quickly. But I think we have to try to make the absolute best programme that has ever been made, one that's based on the most accurate model of football that currently exists." I tapped my head and smiled.

Pradeep smiled back. "We could save time by adapting the existing model."

I said, "You can't really open it up and see what it's doing wrong, right? It's a black box and we would always be guessing. No, let's start again and make sure that almost everything it learns is right. We go slower, we go deeper, and when it starts to think for itself, it's gonna think more like me."

Spectrum said, "That's what we want, is it? Something that spits out more and more dad jokes?"

Pradeep snorted. "Spectrum, that was very funny. You should be John Liner's warmup act tonight."

I glared at Spectrum. "That can be arranged." I let my face relax. "Pradeep, this is your baby. I know what I want and what I need, but I think I know how frustrated I would be if I were you."

He said, "I wrote a League Two programme. That got me a big transfer to a Champions League team. Now I have to raise my game." He chomped the end off the croissant.

I made a grunting noise and punched the air. "Fucking yes, mate! Urgh! Yes, come on. That's the spirit. You're gonna fit right in around here, Pradeep." I stood and went to one of the many whiteboards dotted around the room. I picked up a marker and wrote two words in big block capitals.

I pointed to it, while eyeing Spectrum and Pradeep. They looked at each other, nodded, looked at me, nodded.

"Great. I'm gonna train and come back. DOVE 1.1. What do you need from me? Brainstorm. Let's go."

I picked up a bag of Monster Munch, checked the ingredients list, and dropped it.

On my way out, I looked at the words I had written. They were words that had served me well until now. Words to live by if I wanted to raise 80 million quid in three years.

NO SHORTCUTS.

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