11.

  I heard you like numbers. Check these ones out!

  1.2.

  22. 44.

  130. 3-5-2.

  5,400. 8 million.

  And now the director's commentary version.

  1, 2. Czechoslovakia was one country, now it's two. Here's a fun thing to try at parties: Ask an old person what country Martina Navratilova is from and watch their brains melt in real time.

  22. The total number of players I could use in our friendly against Slovakia. 44. The number of players hoping to play in that match.

  Also 44. Slovakia's world ranking.

  130. My estimate for the average CA we would be up against.

  3-5-2. The Slovakian manager's favourite formation. They would dominate midfield for sure.

  5,400. The capacity of the Deva Stadium - for now - and also the exact number of tickets sold or given away (to sponsors, players, politicians, and to one woman who was jogging in the right place at the right time).

  8 million Euro. The fee paid to buy Leo, the Slovakian Messi, after Euro 2024.

  ***

  Monday, July 28

  In the summer of '24, during the Men's European Championships, I had a brief stint as a pitchside analyst for the official broadcasters. Beth wrote an article about it called something like 'How to Tour Germany On The Cheap by Blagging Meals from Your Old Mate Max.' During that time, I became friendly with the Slovakian national team and helped to get a talented young player fast-tracked into their first team, with spectacular results.

  Leo (the Slovakian Messi?) fired them into second place in their group and gave England a few scares in the next round. After the tournament, he was sold for big money but more importantly, the idea that Slovakia should play a friendly match in Chester took hold. The uniqueness of the event virtually guaranteed a sell-out, with all profits going to a charity in Slovakia and the Slovakian contingent being treated to an all-you-can-eat night out at Nando's.

  As the event had drawn closer, Chester had begun to really buzz about it. The city's football club was going to play against a national team! It wasn't completely unique in the history of the sport, but club versus country match-ups were increasingly rare. There was almost no space on the calendar, for a start. But here it was. This coming Saturday, Chester versus Slovakia, live at the Deva stadium.

  Wow.

  The narrative aspect was fun - tiny non-league club (as we were at the time) playing the 44th best national team - but for me this was a test of my mathematical and analytical skills and if I got it right I could potentially launch my club along two different paths of glory.

  I was fairly certain you couldn't pitch club teams against national teams in Champion Manager. You certainly couldn't in Soccer Supremo; I had asked Spectrum. So what was going to happen when the referee blew his whistle at 3pm? There were plenty of examples of the curse taking its lead from the highest-ranked club in a particular match (for example, when determining the XP generated by a cup tie), so I was absolutely convinced the curse would treat Saturday's game like an international. Just to be sure I'd organised it to look and feel like one - flags, national anthems, pageantry, visiting dignitaries - the works.

  If I was right, I would get baseline XP of 7 per minute, 6 at the worst. Whatever the number was, it would be doubled because I was the manager, and increased by 50% because of my Friendzone perk. I could get almost 2,000 XP from one match!

  Incredible hack, right?

  But that was far from the most interesting thing. If the quality of the opposition played a role in player development, then surely playing a national team with guys whose CA was DOUBLE yours would be a major boost. I was expecting massive things from this match and it was essential that I chose the starters and reserves very wisely.

  One of the 22 had to be me. When I was playing in the fifth tier, my CA had drifted down to what I called the 'soft cap' - the maximum CA you could sustain based on your club's facilities and the standard of the league. In the National League I reckoned Chester's cap was between 80 and 90. When I'd slipped below that level, I had felt it. I could pinpoint it almost to the minute - the ball hadn't come under my spell so easily, passes went astray, shots lost power. My solution was to train at Tranmere (who had a higher soft cap) and that had bought me at least 20 points of CA, while a couple of hours spent at Everton had probably bumped me up a whole lot more - before the slide had once more set in.

  I expected the Slovakia match to give me a similar boost to training at Everton, a boost that I could ride for months before the curse caught up with reality. By then, I hoped Bumpers Bank, quality coaching, and matches against good opposition would give us a soft cap of 100, but all of this was new territory for me and the club.

  Regardless, I had to play, but play as little as possible in order to maximise how much XP I trousered. I reckoned five minutes would be enough to add 20 or 30 points in available CA, which I would assign to free kicks, passing, pace, and technique with a week of intensive training. Yep, this event was going to kick me back towards mystery winger status. League Two beware!

  So who else got to play? For once there was overlap between how I wanted to exploit the curse and what the players wanted. Just getting on the pitch, being able to say you'd played against Slovakia, was highly motivational; everyone wanted to be involved. I had to include players who needed a boost to their CA, but leaving anyone out risked tanking their morale.

  Case in point.

  "Rainman," I said, before sipping my tea. We were in my office at Bumpers and I suppose he knew what was coming because I'd made him a cup of tea and when your manager did that, it was never good news. "How you doing?"

  "Good, boss, yeah."

  I looked up, then at Sandra, who was back from the Women's Euros. She gave me a nod. "Mate," I said, putting my cup down so I could gesture. "I know you expect to play on Saturday but I fucked up. I was hyper on the podcast, blabbing, talking shit. The guy said I shouldn't keep using four goalies every match and I rose to the bait, didn't I? Like a clown. The simple fact is I can't play four goalies against Slovakia. That was insane, even for me."

  His head dropped, but he was no pushover. "So you want me to tell Banksy he's not playing."

  I smiled. Great line! "You're third choice keeper and you're miles ahead of him. If it's the FA Cup final tomorrow and Sticky and Ben are out, you're starting. It's not even close. The difference between you and Banksy is that he can play in the Youth Cup this year, and if he has played against international players he's not going to be worried about some pipsqueaks from fucking Northampton or wherever. But even that's not an easy call, is it, because Bivvy's ahead of him in the Youth Team. So do I give Bivvy five minutes?"

  Bivvy was the youth team's goalie. Local lad, good kid, but he only had PA 30 - it was mad to even think about giving him one of my golden tickets. Mad, but that's exactly what I was doing. Bivvy was only ten points ahead of Banksy, so it was reasonable to think he would be overtaken by his far more talented rival soon enough.

  "Look, what I've decided to do is start the match with my strongest eleven. Those are the guys who will start against Fleetwood. Then comes what I'm calling the Velvet Divorce: at some point in the second half I'm going to take all eleven off and put on the Youth Cup team."

  Sandra nearly spat out her tea. "Sorry, what?"

  "We've got two goals this year. Get promoted, win the Youth Cup. This plan helps us both."

  Sandra opened her mouth to reply but a quick glance at Rainman made her pause. Meanwhile, the disappointment he felt had very definitely been tempered. His boss was being a lunatic again - not playing on Saturday wasn't personal. Sandra said, "Obviously, Max and I need to discuss the lineups and the subs and perhaps the final version won't be as extreme as that, but as he says, we will only be using two goalies. You keep yourself on your toes this week, though. There could be injuries, sickness. If I were you I'd want to be raring to go, just in case."

  I wagged a finger in agreement. "Yes! It's football, anything can happen but it can only happen if you're ready for action. Okay you've heard my plan and it seems Sandra wants to change my mind which is bonkers because the plan is literally flawless, but the point is you're not playing on Saturday which normally wouldn't be a big deal except I kind of said you would be. I fucked up and I'm sorry about that."

  "I was excited."

  Way to punch me in the dick! "I know. Saying one thing and doing another is what idiot football managers do and I hate that I did it. Like, if it's a big FA Cup match or whatever I do whatever the club needs, easy, and if you miss out there's the next round and next season, but playing a national team is maybe a once-in-a-lifetime thing so I should have been way more guarded. I'd love to give you five or ten minutes on Saturday, I really would, but I just can't. It's really hard, Rainman. It's like deciding which child gets to eat today."

  "It's not like that," said Sandra. "Being picked for the match is a treat, something to tell your kids, but not being picked isn't a slap in the face. Is it, Rainman?"

  "No," he lied.

  I said, "Okay this is a disappointing start to your week but you've played the first four friendlies and if you're cool you'll play against Morecambe tomorrow night, too."

  "What if I'm not cool?"

  "Then I'll throw a tantrum and not speak to you for a month."

  "The Andrew Harrison story," he said.

  "I don't know what you mean," I said. "Hey, you're one of the lucky ones. You're a guaranteed first team starter for Saltney - unless your form goes completely haywire, anyway. You can enjoy your season and focus on your skills and development. Okay some people get to play against a national team but they'd kill for your career path, for your guaranteed minutes, and to be as close as you to European football. By the way, there are goalies at Premier League teams who don't have a coach as good as Sticky. You're doing great." I sipped my tea. "Did you enjoy boot camp?"

  A smile escaped him. "Yeah!"

  I nodded. "See, I miss out on all that. I think I'd prefer white water rafting and playing soldiers to playing Slovakia."

  "Okay," he said. "Next time we'll swap."

  "Done," I said. "Next time the boot camp is white water rafting and Chester FC play against Slovakia, you can be the manager and I'll be the guy in the yellow life jacket looking absolutely terrified."

  "I didn't look terrified," he said.

  "You didn't see all the photos." I checked the time. "Training, mate. Be ready for tomorrow night, yeah? Morecambe are good."

  He left with his morale unchanged, which I thought was a massive win.

  Sandra closed the door - players never did - and moved to the left-hand side of my desk, notebook in hand. "You're taking this much too seriously."

  "You're right," I said. "It should be fun. Bit of fun." I did a thousand-yard stare. "It's not, though. Let's treat this match like we're loading 22 players with rocket fuel, right? Big boost before the season. Ben's one of the hardest decisions. He's our best goalie but he's near his ceiling so there's no benefit to filling him up with metallic hydrogen and watching him go whee. It's just that there could be a morale hit if he isn't included."

  "How has training been?"

  "Um, fine." That was a bit of a lie. CA improvement hadn't been as dramatic as I'd wanted, and maybe everyone was a point lower than they really should have been, but there were three easy explanations. One, Sandra had been away for July. Her replacements had good numbers but they weren't my assistant manager, were they? A coach's place in the hierarchy seemed important, at least to some degree. Two, we had mostly been doing fitness work. Three, BoshCard definitely felt like a non-league facility these days, and I was increasingly certain Bumpers would be an upgrade even if it was all a bit ugly. "Yeah, I think we'll have some mad gainz before the end of the year. I'm chill. But we have to get Saturday absolutely spot on."

  Sandra didn't look entirely convinced, but she would see for herself soon enough. "Let me check your basic principles for this Slovakia game. You think this experience will instil a hunger for more, a desire to play at a higher level in front of bigger crowds, an awareness of what the top levels of football look and feel like, and generally act as a catalyst for growth. Yes? I agree with that. It always happened with the girls when they came back from international duty and we saw it very clearly with Youngster. So, good, let's pick the team with that in mind. I absolutely agree. Are we going to use every sub?"

  "Totally. We get 22 doses of rocket fuel. The first eleven and the youth team. Boomshackalack!"

  I thought Sandra pursed her lips but when I looked again her face was neutral. "Who's going to be right back for the youth team?"

  "Roddy Jones," I said, like she was crazy. Who else?

  "Tell me you have job security without telling me you have job security," she mumbled.

  "Sorry, what?"

  "Nothing. What's the first team?"

  "Yeah," I said, shifting so that I could look at the magnets on the wall to my right. On the left, two sets of eleven were arranged in neat formations. Each magnet had a name attached. "Sticky in goal."

  "Have you told Ben?"

  "No. I'll do it on Friday, I think, if there are no injuries. If Sticky hurts his hand tomorrow night, Ben's in, no morale drop. Easy. Slovakia play 3-5-2 most of the time, and Fleetwood Town do 3-1-4-2, so it's the same but with a DM. What's your go-to against 3-5-2?"

  "3-4-3," she said.

  "That's your answer to everything."

  "That's right. It's mint."

  "I think I want a back four," I mused. "And there doesn't seem much point playing two strikers when we're going to struggle to get the ball."

  Sandra's lips twitched. "Your attachment to 4-1-4-1 is endearing and, yes, reassuring. You haven't gone completely off the rails."

  "I'm on the rails. I'm nailed to the rails. Everything I do is completely mathematical, completely rational. Some people call me a mad scientist. I like to think they'll flip that round and say 'Dam, he's a scientist!' By the way, I've been thinking a lot about 5-3-2. I think we're gonna need it when we're under the cosh, which could happen more than we'd like. I'd like to see it in training sometimes, but with Pascal and Wibbers as the strikers."

  "Huh," said Sandra. "Soak up pressure, fast breaks."

  "Yeah. It's really not my favourite way to play but I can imagine it being effective against a few teams that would dick us if we tried to go toe-to-toe."

  She wrote something in her notebook. "Got it." She sighed slightly. "Well, our 4-1-4-1 picks itself, mostly. Andrew Harrison right midfield, yes?"

  I knew she was goading me but I rose above it with class and sophistication. "Pascal right. I'll play left, I suppose. It won't be a fast and furious match so I should be able to do forty-five minutes of that. Only question is about the second half: do we use Wibbers as a striker or right-mid?" Sandra wrote something and frowned. "What?" I said.

  "Just thinking about this first team/youth team plan. It's genius, obviously. Very clever. I'm just thinking about Cole."

  "Cole?"

  "Yeah, we want him to get picked up by Ireland, right? And this match is going to be streamed on our website, isn't it? They might think it's worth having a look. They pay ten pounds, tune in, see he isn't there, isn't even on the bench. If you don't pick him, why should they?"

  "So, what? You want Cole instead of Eddie?"

  "Of course not. Eddie has to start. He still has room for growth, doesn't he?"

  "Er, yeah." Since the start of pre-season, Eddie had moved to CA 64. When he reached his PA of 75 he would pass the threshold of being a League Two player. Next season I would want to move on from him but for now it was unthinkable that he wouldn't start against Slovakia. "Okay but if I use Cole, I have to drop Lucas Friend from the second half team and he's one of the best prospects."

  "I like Lucas but I don't think he's as important to the club as Eddie, Cole, and Josh, and if we give Lucas a few minutes against Burton Albion or Notts County that will be enough of a step up for him. Too much, maybe. Maybe we let him train with the firsts once a week, use him in the Cheshire Cup, that sort of thing. He'll be on cloud nine with that, won't he?"

  "Um, sure. I guess," I started, as I did some calculations. International call ups were so beneficial it was like a system hack. "I guess getting Cole into the Irish system is a boost worth chasing, yeah."

  "And Roddy Jones is a cert to get in the Welsh setup, isn't he? You don't need to shove him in our squad to get a once-in-a-lifetime experience, do you? He'll actually play against them for real, at every age group. He'll be sick of playing Slovakia by the time he's in his mid-twenties."

  "That's true."

  "So can we swap him with Magnus, please? Magnus is our go-to guy in nine out of ten matches. There's an injury? Magnus. We need to switch formation? Magnus."

  "That's true," I said. "Fine. We'll put Cole and Magnus in for the second half, but no more compromises. I have a vision and the vision is mint. One match, two rocket ships."

  "I totally agree," said Sandra, sipping her tea. "Except..."

  She left it dangling and I had to go after it. "What?"

  "I was just thinking about Wibbers."

  "Wibbers?"

  "He's your big project, isn't he? Maybe even more so than Youngster. He comes on for the second half - "

  "After fifty minutes."

  "Oh? Why?"

  "So Henri can get an ovation."

  Sandra smiled. "Of course. But Wibbers plays most of the second half in a match where he can really test himself against superstar defenders who play for AC Milan, Napoli, PSG. And he looks around for a pass... and it's Benny and Tyson. I'm sorry, Max, but I don't think he's going to learn anything from that match. He won't get a kick of the ball, for a start."

  I tapped my desk. "Yeah."

  "All I'm saying is, to really benefit from this experience we have to get as close to Slovakia's level as we can. Okay, use all the subs at the end but the final few lads aren't going to benefit much, are they? It'll be a glorified rondo with our under eighteens chasing shadows."

  I stopped tapping. "I get what you're saying. Wibbers needs to start. He needs to play in the first half."

  Sandra looked alarmed, briefly, which was odd, but she pushed through it. "That might be a good idea, boss, but I'm wondering what the Brig would say about our youth team being thrown in at the deep end like that. If Slovakia want to run up the score it could easily get to 10-0, 12-0. It could be disastrous for the club and for the mental health of the young players. They'll be happy enough to be in the dressing room, to meet the Slovakians, to get clips for their Instas, all that stuff. They don't need to get humiliated in an actual match."

  "Hmm."

  "I'm worried Slovakia will find it disrespectful if they come all this way and the average age of the team they play is 16. Do you know what I mean? And it's a sell-out, isn't it? Five thousand fans, many of them coming for the first time, to see what all the fuss is about. The new Chester FC. This is the waiting list you want, isn't it? Put on a good show and we'll have two thousand people who want to come next season. You'll take that waiting list to MD and you'll say, look, we're ready to expand. But not if we take the piss, Max, not if we chuck on loads of toddlers."

  "Yeah," I said, frowning. Something strange was happening - I was agreeing with everything she said so hard I couldn't think why I'd ever thought I should play an entire youth team in the second half.

  Sandra went to the magnets. "May I?" she said. I nodded. She pushed the youth team magnets down, but slid three of them back up. "Banksy, Wibbers, Dan Badford. They're in first team training and the youth team. We'll use them on Saturday, so there's three of your Youth Cup starters getting great exposure."

  "Give me Tyson and Chas," I said. "Tyson gives us more goal threat, and Chas can make money for the club one day."

  "Sounds good," she said, sliding their magnets up, before pushing all the others to the far right edge of the board. "Ah, this is good. Now we can include Josh - I think that's important; he'll get a lot of minutes this season - and Tom." She found the magnets of guys like Ryan Jack and moved them into the main blob. After a few seconds she had put most of the first team squad there. "How many's this?" She counted and found she had 21 names on the left. "That leaves one slot for Omari Naysmith, Andrew Harrison, Sunday Sowunmi, Ben, or Sharky, who is one of our major weapons and will be a major threat off the bench late in games and who you told me I had to believe in."

  I scoffed. "Bit of a leading tone to your voice, Sandra. Er, yeah. It's Sharky, isn't it?"

  As she slid the last magnet into place, I got up and walked to the far side of the room, hoping to return with fresh eyes. My beautiful concept was dead and buried, replaced by intense pragmatism. But five of my Youth Cup side would get minutes against Slovakia - that was pretty good, while ensuring the event wouldn't turn into a freak show.

  I got close to the whiteboard and gave it a good old stare. Yes, this 22 was solid and wouldn't embarrass Slovakia or Chester itself, and that was an important consideration I'd forgotten when trying to optimise for CA growth across two teams. The men's first team set the tone for the entire club and, in some ways, for the entire city. That's why I'd gone to South America looking for top players instead of spending my summer at under 18 tournaments.

  "Okay. Five to ten minutes at the end for Banksy, Tyson, and Chas. And me. Do you want to have a think about the rest? Pick a first half formation then three sets of changes that use all the lads. We might have to use Tom at right midfield or something. I wouldn't worry too much about using people in weird positions for five or ten minutes."

  Sandra plucked one of the magnets that hadn't made it to the final 22. "Omari doesn't look like he's going to see a lot of action this season."

  "No," I mused.

  "Why don't you loan him to Saltney and spread his wages around some of the others?"

  "Sounds like you're asking me to take a five hundred pound a week pay cut. Want to go halves?"

  She smiled. "I thought the point of Saltney was the 3G pitch would raise enough money to put together a winning team?"

  "Yeah but that's slightly out of the window, isn't it, because of the Vincent Addo thing. His wages alone are half the projected income."

  "Isn't he joining in January?"

  "Yeah."

  She tutted. "On that podcast, you said his wages were 40 thousand. But he's only coming halfway through the season, right? You only need to put away twenty."

  "Er, right," I said, brightening slightly. "Yeah I should think in seasons, not years. Yeah, okay, that's a fair point but I still can't pay Omari's wages. I'm quite financially stretched right now. It's like if two things go wrong I can probably cover it, but not three. I like the idea, though. I'll keep it in mind."

  "You're already getting Rainman for free. If you actually pay for Omari, it's like two for the price of one. And I bet you've got your eye on Tom from January, you greedy get."

  I laughed. The thought had crossed my mind. Tom might not get much action once Foquita arrived. I switched my attention to the main blob of magnets. Loads of winners, there. Some back-to-back champions. "I know we can't seriously beat a strong national team, especially when we bring on the kids, but do you think we could win the first half?"

  "We could if our best player was playing."

  I nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. At the exact same time, we both said "Roddy Jones."

  Sandra added, "I knew you were going to say that."

  "This relationship is great, especially the mind-reading. We're like those couples where they finish each other's... Finish each other's... Sandra, come on. Don't leave me hanging."

  She took a few steps to my desk, gathered her notebook, and slapped it with her free hand. "I'm gonna think about this in Bosh Bistro."

  "Mmm," I said, leaning back. "I suppose we should think of a plan for Morecambe tomorrow night. I might go down to Best Bistro and do it there."

  "Patricia's still mad at you for Cole coming back from boot camp with a black eye."

  "How is it my fault he smacked himself in the face with a paddle?" I made an annoyed noise. "Culinary school's five times as dangerous as what those kids did. All those knives dangling off counters, chilli powder everywhere, chip fat fires, oil spills, peanut allergies, exploding ovens, shit music on the radio. Yeah. I think I'll stay up here."

  ***

  Saturday, August 2

  Pre-season friendly 6 of 6: Chester FC versus Slovakia

  About an hour before kickoff, I walked around the stadium taking in the atmosphere. Our final home match at the end of last season had been a near-sellout against Southend but it was nothing like this.

  That day had been full of anxiety and dreadful hope and the season ticket holders had turned up at their usual times and shuffled into the stadium barely daring to dream about what we might accomplish.

  This match wasn't included in the season ticket package, so we had a lot of people attending for the first time, judging by the way they were looking from their phones to the signage. I was pleased to see our stewards were spotting these lost lambs and were going over to help. All very friendly, very cheerful. That was good - it would make people more likely to come back. I felt there was tremendous potential demand for tickets at a revitalised Chester FC, but it would be moronic to take that for granted. We had to scrap and grind for every fan. Hard work off the pitch same as on it, and a smile from a steward was just as effective as one of Brooke's hyper-targeted emails or Facebook ads.

  I spotted a few tweaks to the stadium's footprint. Someone - Brooke, most likely - had installed a couple of information desks where visitors could go and ask questions. That was a good idea - it would help us make sure newbies were comfortable visiting the stadium. Emre's was open but the queue was so long I decided against going to chat to him. There were a lot more spaces for posters - ones of the men's team, the women's team, the bus parade, and lots that had been specially-designed for the day's match and written in Slovak.

  Another difference between this match and the one against Southend: the weather was better today. There was much more of a party mood. So what if little Chester lost to Slovakia? It was a rare football match where you could enjoy the day no matter the result. I noticed quite a lot of people wearing 'Leo' shirts, which meant Brooke had advertised the match to people keen on seeing the man himself. After bursting onto the scene in ideal conditions, he was finding his career a lot more of a struggle than most people had anticipated, but he was still the bright young thing of Slovak football. Had Brooke run ads on his personal Instagram page? The woman was far, far too good and every time I thought about how good she was, I thought about her leaving.

  Stupid, hateful, fearful brain!

  I got introspective and told the Brig I was ready to head back inside. While deep in thought I got a vague impression of masses of blue and white heading to the stadium.

  CA boosts, a permanent increase in ticket demand, the season ticket waiting list going up - today was going to lift the whole club.

  ***

  "All right, shut the fuck up," I said, striding into the dressing room like a colossus (five seconds after pulling the door open a tiny crack to make sure Sandra wasn't in the middle of anything. I'm polite like that). I went to the whiteboard. "4-2-3-1?" I said, pretending to be surprised. "Huh. I thought we might play 4-4-2. Slovak to basics. Hazza and Dazza up top."

  "Henri will start," said Sandra. "He'll come off after fifty minutes so he can get an ovation."

  "He likes those, doesn't he?" I clapped, once, scanning the room. Dazza was eyeing me carefully, as were Lees Hudson and Contreras. They had heard stories about how strangely I ran my dressing room, and now they were going to see it up close. "Right, we're all excited, it's a big day, blah blah blah. My favourite Slovakian movie is called All or Nothing. It's rated 4.7 out of 10 and like all Slovakian films, I haven't seen it." I pointed to the door. "There are more flags than usual out there and I'm letting them play some music before kick off for a change but at the end of the day, it's just a football match. They've got some top-class players, especially in the defence, so we'll have to play decent football if we're going to hurt them.

  "The flip side is, if we keep our shape and work for each other, we're not going to get rolled over. Eddie, be on your toes against Leo. He doesn't look like a menace but he is, okay? Youngster, you drift left to help Eddie. Ah, Sandra has told you all this, hasn't she? Look, just try to think of this as what it is - a pre-season friendly. You're allowed to enjoy yourselves, soak up the atmosphere and all that, but get the balance right in that you're playing for your place against Fleetwood a week from now. That's it - I'll do my big start-of-season speech on Monday or Tuesday next week. Today's just a match, same as West Didsbury, same as Morecambe. Go through your usual routines, do your warm ups, and I'll see you back here ten minutes before go."

  "Let's go Chester!" called Christian Fierce, our new captain for the season. His words triggered a lot of claps, stomps, and yells.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. A few hairs stood on end, but they settled down again.

  Today wasn't about emotion, it was all about the numbers. The green of the CA, the green of the money we were raking in. Much of this particular green would go to charity, but we expected every home match to be sold out and Brooke had big plans to increase our catering income. If she succeeded, we would be able to ask MD to increase the budget a little, and even a little could have a big impact.

  Some lads who hadn't made the final 22 were in the dressing room, slow to depart. Why hurry? I felt someone's eyes on me but when I looked at Andrew, he was on his phone.

  There were two main currencies in the dressing room, money and playing time. Both were finite. As we climbed the leagues, a player's need to play would grow ever bigger, and being left out of the team would be seen as a bigger and bigger slap in the face. I wondered if I could get to the very top of football on a small budget and a big dollop of Chesterness.

  I doubted it.

  But being a contract rebel worked both ways. If you weren't going to share your market value with Chester, I wasn't going to boost your market value. It sucked to have to take a hard line with Andrew, but he was the first to defy me on the issue. Since the abrupt end of our chat, not a single player had come asking for more money or even joked about how underpaid everyone was, which was normally a staple joke around these parts.

  I shook my head. I was pretty sure we would resolve this particular situation - after a healthy period of everyone being scared shitless by my hardline stance - but if we didn't, Christmas dinner at the Weaver household with Andrew and Gemma was going to be awk-ward.

  Or maybe not. If the Czechs and Slovaks could divorce and stay civil, so could Andrew and I. You know, in theory.

  ***

  While Sandra ran the warmups and talked to the referee and all that, I had more than half an hour to spare. I pottered around and shook hands with the Slovakian coaches. They were almost all Italian and the manager also ran a club team. That club was in European qualifying matches so he was doing that while his assistant took care of this match.

  The crew seemed happy to be in Chester, which was nice, but as we talked, guess who popped up? Beth!

  "Whoa! No girls in the dugouts. Ew."

  "Hi, Max," she said, dragging me away from the coaches. "How are you doing?"

  "Good, top, no comment. What are you doing here?"

  She was amused. "Someone at Chester suggested I embed myself into the Slovakian team for the day so I can get the inside track on this special event."

  "Oh, you'd love to embed yourself with the Slovakian team."

  She tilted her head. "I know it was your idea, Max, so don't give me that. Are you losing your touch? People are saying you've cracked. In five matches you've drawn to Buxton and lost to Blackpool and Morecambe."

  "Just find it hard to play against seaside towns, there's no shame in that. Everyone's got a weakness. Mine are rocky beaches where the rocks are too big and wobbly and weirdly slimy, do you know what I mean? Is this an interview? I didn't agree to be grilled by The Daily Mail. How's your story looking?"

  "It could use some juicy quotes. Maybe a footballing hook. Do you think you might win?"

  "Win? We're all winners, just for showing up. Is Leo around? Oh, he's warming up. Have you spoken to him?"

  "He's down. He was on such a high at the Euros and now reality is catching up. Teams have worked him out."

  "Yeah," I said. The element of surprise had done a lot for him. "He's in this phase where he's expected to be good but he won't be that good consistently for a couple of years but what people will remember from his career is this period where everyone's disappointed in him."

  "Er, thanks for the quote, Max, but that's pretty bleak. I think this is a positive story. An upbeat one. Isn't it?"

  I frowned. "Yeah," I said, but it didn't really convince me. "Their centre backs and goalie are spectacular. They are absolutely monstrous, right? The number 4 is a hundred million pound player on 400,000 pounds a week. Playing against him is absolutely zero fun but even if today tastes bitter it's medicine for us. We'll get closer to those levels, right? But yeah it could be a long ninety minutes and it's one thing looking at all this on spreadsheets and another seeing it on the grass."

  Beth moved closer and examined my eye sockets. "You sound weird. You're not your usual self."

  I slapped my hips. "Um... no, I'm fine. It's just, like, maybe I've lost some of that fire, you know? I've been in matches like this before when it seemed like we were up against a brick wall but I've come up with a plan or at least had something to give us a one in a hundred chance, but there's nothing there today. Nothing in the tank and that's strange because I'm rested and I thought I was up for it today."

  "Your squad looks fired up."

  "Oh, big time," I said, with a smile. My players jogged up and down through and around cones. "They're ready for another winning season. Ready to grind and put the work in and all that."

  "Are you burned out?"

  "Erm... no, not even close. I've got energy, I think. Yeah. I'm, er... I mean, look at it. It's a lovely day, the stadium's filling up, pitch looks mustard, the Slovakians are super friendly, the match is a friendly. It's just nice, isn't it?"

  "You're a big game player. Today doesn't fire you up because it's not a big game."

  "It is. This is really important for our season."

  Beth shook her head. "You don't believe that. If you did, you wouldn't be talking to me. It might be big for the players, for the club, but not for you." She nodded, apparently satisfied that I wasn't sick or depressed. "It'll come next Saturday when the season starts."

  "What will?"

  "The devil in you."

  "Devils, curses, wizards. Why do you write me as some kind of fantasy character?" On hearing how that sounded, I instantly held up my palm. "Don't answer that," I said, with a bit of a grin. "I think I want to go pose for selfies and stuff. Enjoy your embedding."

  "I'll see you at Nando's, will I?"

  My mouth dropped open. "You got yourself invited to that, too? When are you going to stop freeloading meals off me? Tsch!" I went off, shaking my head.

  ***

  The next fifteen minutes were incredibly strange, though I didn't fully realise it at the time. I walked around the edge of the pitch ready to pose for selfies or sign the match programme, but nine out of ten people looked at me and then looked away. They didn't know who I was!

  There were still more than enough people who did, of course, so I smiled at their phones and signed things.

  One person asked me to sign his programme. I think that's what he wanted, anyway, but he didn't speak English. I took the pen and hesitated, because the programme wasn't in English, either.

  "That's right," I said, flicking through the pages. "We got it translated into Slovakian. Or do you say Slovak? It's nice and glossy, isn't it? We've got a graphic designer helping us with the covers and a new writer." I flicked through the pages. The quality of the design had gone up a few notches. "This is very nice. I must remember to get my own copy."

  The guy smiled and nodded and waited for me to stop babbling. With a shrug, I signed it and handed it back. That's when I noticed his scarf - blue, white, and red.

  I frowned and took a few steps away, onto the edge of the pitch where the Slovakian team was doing their own drills. Leo waved at me with a big smile, which caused a bit of fuss in the stand. I looked from Leo to the crowd and realised that while there was an appropriate amount of blue and white, there was far too much red.

  "The fuck?" I said.

  I strolled around some more and it started to add up.

  Some in the crowd were singing along to the Slovakian music we were playing over the PA.

  Most were in white tops with blue shoulders and a red flash up the sides and they were waving scarves and flags that we didn't sell in the club shop.

  This crowd was something like 80% Slovakians!

  Leo, slightly out of breath, came and put his hand on my shoulder as we admired the scene. "So good," he said. "Feels like home!"

  "Yeah," I said. "It would." I turned and checked him out. Since I'd seen him at the Euros, his Attributes were up, his wages were way up, but his Morale was in the toilet. "How you doing? It's hard being the golden boy, I think."

  Pain flashed across his face, but was quickly replaced by a smile. "I'll get better. Do you have any tips for me?" The slight note of pleading in his voice was heartbreaking.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Well?" Leo said, when he realised I'd stopped talking.

  "I'll tell you after the match," I said, giving him a friendly punch to the chest.

  He rolled his eyes but went back to his warm up with his Morale one point higher. Very humanitarian of me but not the best timing! I supposed Beth was right and my heart wasn't fully in this as a sporting contest. It was a hack, a go-faster token you collect in a driving game.

  I walked back towards the dugouts and caught Brooke talking to one of the big shots from the Slovakian FA. I introduced myself, got a big handshake and a very intimate hug (from the man, sadly) and took Brooke aside. "It's, er, it's very, er, foreign around here."

  "I thought that's what you wanted," she said.

  "Why would I want that?" I said, which could have been misconstrued as gammony, so I continued hurriedly. "I mean, it's fun, I guess. Nothing wrong with it, but I was hoping our next five hundred season ticket buyers would be here."

  "Maybe they are," she said.

  "Huh."

  "And we're doing crazy numbers online."

  "Crazy numbers?"

  "We've sold 30,000 online passes for this match. About 29,000 of those are in Slovakia."

  "Holy shit!" Those passes were ten pounds each. I lowered my voice. "Does the club keep that cash?"

  "No, that'll go to charity, too; it was part of the sales pitch. We're only keeping the catering income and any merch we sell. But it's still good, right? This is how English clubs build worldwide fan bases. Although," she added, "it's more conventional for the club to tour the country, not for the country to tour the club."

  "Er, Brooke?" I said, eyes wide.

  "Yes, Max?"

  "You've just blown my mind. I'm fizzing."

  She gave me a wry look. "Please don't whip my skirt off."

  ***

  I got sucked into conversations with god-knows-who. Some politicians, people from various FAs, I think there was even someone from UEFA who was on holiday in the north-west and had bought a ticket.

  When I finally found myself in the dressing room with the lads waiting for me to give my pre-match speech, I had to work hard to bring myself down to ground level because my mind was absolutely in orbit.

  "Lads, very slight change in what I expect of you. How can I put this? Let's start at the beginning. Everyone wanted to play today and the people who aren't involved are gutted. But what if this wasn't a one-off?" I took a few paces around and scratched my chin. Yeah, that was the point, wasn't it? Repeatability. This match was a curiosity that five thousand UK-based Slovaks thought was worth paying twenty quid to attend, while thirty thousand back home had forked over ten quid each. In theory we could tempt more national teams into doing this - if we paid them enough.

  While a bit of extra income would be very useful in the short-term, long-term I valued the CA growth more than almost anything, so a country's FA could have all the profits. The people running FAs were people who liked money and who liked being wined and dined. If we could get six pre-season friendlies against national teams, I mean Jesus Christ, that would be one of the biggest hacks imaginable. It would be like sending my entire squad to play in a World Cup and I could do it every summer!

  "Not a one-off?" said Henri, who as always was the most likely to speak when I was mid-rant or mid-thought.

  "Yeah. It's a sell-out, right? Five thousand odd tickets were on general release but it's 80% Slovakians out there. We've got their flags up everywhere, we're playing their music, we've got some folk dancers outside and they're gonna do stuff at half time, we're selling Slovak food, we printed match programmes in - I mean, you get it. I thought I was being polite, just sort of thanking the team for coming, but what I've done - "

  Henri shook his head. "You've turned this into a home match for the away team."

  "Yes," I said. "It's not my fault. Who knew there were so many Slovakian people living in the UK?" Almost every hand in the room went up. "That was a rhetorical question! But look, I think we could do this again. I did it by accident but I think... yeah, I've brought Bratislava to the Deva stadium. I think people are going to lap this up! Think of the people over in Slovakia watching this thinking, wait, is the match in England or here or what? You'd love it, wouldn't you lads, if we went to play in some country and they served beans on toast and put a red mailbox in the centre circle? You'd think, this is a laugh, let's come back here. Right?"

  "Max," said Henri, "You're right. Wherever there is beans on toast, so there will be English tourists. But what do you want from us, the players?"

  I jabbed my finger towards him. "Yes, practicalities. Yes. Er, let's try and win the match and all that sort of stuff, yeah, but let's be diplomatic about it. There's going to be loads of flags and national anthems and pageantry. We've got fifty little kids waving a giant Chester crest and fifty more doing a big Slovakian flag. We've got the ambassador who's gonna shake your hand. There's all kinds of stuff going on, right, so just smile and go with it. What do I want from you? Respect the national anthems, for a start. We've got some royal from the far north and she'll be going up the line shaking your hand. Don't turn to your mate when she's gone past and leer, do you know what I mean? Don't go phwoar did you see that?! You're on camera, lads. Everything you do is being filmed on twelve cameras and five thousand smartphones. What else? Right, when the match starts, if someone boots you up the arse, get up and have words if you want but then fucking drop it. You hear me? We're not having the Battle of Bratislava out there. We're going to turn the other cheek, aren't we, Youngster?"

  "Always, Mr. Best."

  "Just think how awesome it is to play in a match like this and say to yourself: if I behave myself, Max might be able to schedule more matches like this. All right? If today's a success we might get the Polish national team interested. Who else are there loads of in England?"

  "English," suggested Henri.

  "A match involving the English FA might be hard to arrange," I said, glaring at him.

  "Irish," said Cole.

  "Welsh," said Rainman, who was in a tracksuit so he could join in the pre-match warmups and be in the photos and so on.

  "Hey, that's not the worst idea," I said. I could boost Welsh kids by arranging matches against Wales. It would be a hell of a conversation with Gwen but it would work, wouldn't it? "Okay my brain is exploding right now. I thought this was one and done but... Get out there and fucking smile. Smile, you miserable bastards! Come on! Go and be fucking charming, you worms!"

  ***

  When the clock struck 3, I was bouncing, absolutely convinced I'd be able to get more national teams here. Why the hell not?

  My players lined up and stood proudly for the English national anthem, and stood respectfully for the Slovak one.

  There's a bit of a cultural black hole in England that makes English people boo the national anthems of other countries. I did some research on the phenomenon and it dates back to high rates of glue sniffing in the 70s and 80s. Today there was no such issue, perhaps because the English fans were massively outnumbered and there was no segregation.

  "The players of both teams will now meet the Queen of Iceland and His Excellency the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United Kingdom," said our announcer. The queen, of course, was Emma in her big floppy hat. It was an inside joke that got taken far too seriously and had been funny to me right up until the moment the captains led the guests down the row of players.

  Sandra said, "This is going to bite us on the arse."

  "When we were talking to the politicos I said 'oh yeah the queen might come' as a callback to when I met the Slovaks in the Euros and at some point it got too late to fess up. Anyway, the ambassador gets to flirt with Emma all day. I really don't think he's going to mind."

  "Max," said Physio Dean. He directed my attention to someone in the crowd. An average-looking woman who was in floods of tears.

  "What happened?" I said.

  "Don't know," said Dean.

  The match was about to kick off and I couldn't spare so much as a minute, not with so much XP on offer. I waved at Beth and she hurried over. "Can you find out what's up with that woman there and help her out maybe?"

  Beth followed my gaze - the crying woman was hard to miss. "Oh, sure, will do."

  ***

  To try to combat Slovakia's 3-5-2, Sandra and I had cooked up a fairly ambitious scheme. The kind of plan that works very well in the National League.

  We did 4-2-3-1 with a pretty strong back six and a fast front four.

  Sticky (CA 53) was in goal, behind Eddie (64), Christian Fierce (74), Zach (65), and Lee H (70).

  Patrolling ahead of them were Youngster and Magnus, whose CAs were 86 and 61 respectively.

  The three fast forwards were Pascal (72), Wibbers (48), and Wes 'Sharky' Hayward (48). The idea with Sharky was that, okay he was far from international quality but he was still the fastest player on the pitch and if we could get him into space he could destroy any team. That concept was slightly diluted by him playing through the middle where the pitch was crowded, but it was the sort of thing we had been doing in the National League with great effect.

  The final starter was Henri, CA 73, which gave us an average of 64.9, almost exactly half of Slovakia's 130.

  It was fair to say that anything that worked today would work twice as well against Fleetwood next weekend. It was also fair to say that seeing the contrast in numbers up close knocked me off my stride for a while.

  The match kicked off and while my lads won a few headers, won a few races, and tried to pass the ball around, it was a no-contest from the very first minute. We were outclassed and my thoughts kept returning to that number: 64.9. That wasn't any sort of number. Not against Slovakia, not against Fleetwood, and not even against the weakest team in League Two, Colchester United.

  I bit my nails for a minute but the vibe of the day was so positive, so upbeat, that I was able to look on the bright side. Unlike Fleetwood, unlike Colchester, my team had room to grow. If I counted up the PA and divided by ten (because I didn't understand what Magnus's minus 2 meant) it came to 122. This team, at their peak, would get close to Slovakia's level. Really close!

  I clapped myself into a more positive frame of mind. Okay, we were miles off the pace but it was still eleven against eleven. There were still tweaks and optimisations. I had my hotkeys, my once-a-game perks. I used Seal It Up to try to keep it tight first twenty! (That perk, you remember, increased the positioning score of my defenders by 1 for quarter of an hour). I used Cupid's Arrow - which made passes between certain players more likely to succeed - on Zach and Magnus. I hoped that would allow us to move the ball out of defence and through Slovakia's press. It wasn't anywhere near as intense as what those forwards did in real matches, but it was still too much for our low-technique players.

  Despite my tweaks and my player's best efforts, the first half went as you might expect. Slovakia crushed us in midfield, carefully tore us to shreds with clever, patient passing and movement, and low-key bombarded Sticky's goal. Fortunately, he saved the first shot on target, which gave him the confidence to rise to the day's challenge. If the first one had gone in I really think we'd have conceded six in that half.

  Our strategy was to bypass midfield and hit them with fast counters and it died a death. Slovakia had three world-class centre backs and their goalie was fucking mint, too. The rest of the team weren't at that level, although they had a bit of stardust in Leo, but having a defence like that was very appealing. Take it from me, if you know you aren't going to score, matches get demoralising.

  Our clean sheet lasted eight minutes. The second goal came after thirteen. I braced myself for a humiliation but the lads had been through some shit at boot camp and it paid off here with a gritty show of togetherness. They battled and suffered and rode out the worst of the storm.

  "There will be more of this," I said, looking over my shoulder at my assistant. I didn't want to do that too much because the XP I was getting was immense. "We need a 5-3-2 option for games like this. Move that to the top of the priority list."

  "Agreed."

  I turned my attention to individual players.

  "Sandra," I said, and she appeared next to me with her notebook. "There's something off with Eddie's spacing. Can you check the tapes? Christian's trying too hard. I suppose he'll calm down when he's been proper captain long enough but keep an eye on him, maybe have a quiet word some time. Zach's been caught out a few times but that's the risk of how we want him to play, right? I say we double down on him going for the interception."

  "It cost us a goal."

  "Are you playing devil's advocate or do you really disagree?"

  "Devil's advocate. I like how he's playing but, yeah, these strikers are another level and they play against better defenders every week. We can't expect our guys to shut them down but if we can stop them even getting the ball... yeah we should keep pushing Zach to be aggressive."

  "Yeah. Lee H is fine, isn't he?"

  "Rusty."

  "That's a problem that solves itself. I don't have much to say about him."

  "He doesn't slap like Carl."

  "No, but he's way better defensively. His positioning is better and he makes better decisions with the ball. He's fine. I do wish I had an attacking right back option but I don't. Youngster's our only player who looks decent, as you'd expect. This is another level from the World Cup but he's loving it. He's actually competitive, have you noticed? Magnus is struggling but only to the level I expect. No worries there. Sharky's ineffective in the centre against this kind of quality. We need to make sure he's always out wide. Wibbers is trying to run through the defence but it's a brick wall. He's got craft but he's not engaging his brain. That's something to talk to him about. Pascal's hitting the space like he always does but we don't have good control of the ball so he's not helping. First we need him to drop to move possession in a triangle so we can get a grip and then build from there. Do you know what I mean? Henri's putting himself about a bit but he's outclassed. At least he's not losing his temper. Make sure we give him some praise, yeah? This is a selfless performance from him."

  "What about Sticky?"

  "He's doing okay, isn't he? He could have done better with the goals but he knows that. We don't need to tell him, I don't think. We'll only coach him when it comes to what he does with the ball at his feet, I think, and how he interacts with the outfielders. But if you ever bump into that guy who runs the goalie academy you could ask him to come and watch a match so he can give us some unbiased, outside, expert opinion."

  "Got it."

  "This formation was a good plan but it's not working." I rubbed my eyebrow, fretting about the Fleetwood match. They played in a similar way to Slovakia. "We need to test them out wide. Let's go 4-1-4-1 and give Sharky some passes to run onto."

  ***

  At half-time it was still 2-0 but the lads had worked their arses off. They trudged into the dressing room and stayed quiet not because that's how I liked it, but because they were shattered.

  I stood by the tactics board and idly moved some magnets around. I was getting a stupendous 18 XP per minute for managing this game and was already 819 up for the day. I was absolutely convinced the players were getting CA by the bucketload, but the gains always came over time and were sometimes hard to pinpoint. If Pascal turned green tomorrow would it be because he had played in Morecambe, because he had picked up a great tip in training, or because of Slovakia? It was hard to tell on a day-to-day basis but when I looked over a season there were definite bumps that came with matches like these.

  This one, our first League Two game against Fleetwood, a cup match against Bolton. You could look at it and see three demoralising losses, or you could think of it as three carefully-placed mini trampolines helping you reach a high platform.

  "Lads," I said. "Fucking outstanding. Work rate, sticking together, all top class. Give me ten minutes more, please, then I'll start ringing the changes. Don't forget our little performance at the start of the second-half. Everyone knows where to go, right? One more thing. I'll text and I'll email you so you don't forget but I want to do the Maxterplan on Wednesday after training so if you need help with babysitters or anything let us know, but you know that's a big deal." Doing it on Wednesday would let me see three days of training pops. If we got nothing from this international match that would push our season in one direction - dour, defensive, scrappy football. If we got the sort of green I was expecting, I would paint a bright, breezy, optimistic view of the coming season. "I think that's it. Nothing more to say, lads, you're doing great. Well done."

  I went into the corridor to see if there was any media stuff to do. I saw Brooke holding her phone up in front of a Slovak player who barely looked out of breath. Our fitness levels seemed high, but then you saw the elite players and realised how far behind you really were. Brooke pressed the red button on her phone and said 'thanks!' The guy hesitated, maybe wondering if he should say, 'while your phone is out...' But he realised she was out of his class and decided to fuck off with his dignity intact.

  "Whatcha doin'?"

  Brooke showed me. The clip was in Slovak but it was clear enough. The guy was saying something like 'I'm Marek Shranc and you're watching Chester TV!'

  "Are they called stings? Trails? I think I have the word in my head somewhere."

  Brooke shrugged. "Whatever they're called, we can add them to our broadcasts to IP addresses in Slovakia."

  I shook my head. "No-one there is going to watch a Chester match ever again."

  She smiled. "Wanna bet?"

  "You're good, Brooke, but no-one's that good. No-one's 'I'm gonna build a fan base in eastern Europe in my spare time’ good. Come on."

  "This match plus Bethany's article plus Chesterness will cause more than a ripple of interest and from tiny ripples mighty waterfalls are made."

  "Is that a Texan saying? I thought it was all cactuses there. Cactus, one-horse town, tumbleweed, 80,000-seater college football stadium."

  She actually laughed. "We have to get you to Texas soon. You'd love it, you know."

  "Have they got beans on toast?" I clicked my fingers. "I saw a bunch of scouts I wanted to talk to before the second half. See you at Nando's, right?"

  ***

  Half-time on the pitch was a festival of Slovakian-ness. Folk dancing, a guy crooning along with a guitar, and the ambassador giving a deathly dull speech. With those boxes ticked it was time for what was supposed to be one of the highlights of the day.

  My starting eleven - unchanged so far - lined up for the start of the second half but when the ref blew his whistle, my guys jogged off to the other three stands. Meanwhile all the subs, including me, jogged along the main stand and when the ref blew his whistle again we all stripped off. Tops only, to the disappointment of some.

  We handed our old tops to the first Chester fans we found then collected our brand new, shiny, magnificent Grindhog creations.

  Had it been a full house of Chester fans there would have been deafening cheers and applause, I'm sure, because word had spread that we had gotten a hell of a deal from the manufacturer and interest in the kit was sky high. Some photos were online, one or two videos were up with people who said they had a new kit before its release somehow, but whether those shirts were real or not, the videos only added to the mystery and sense of anticipation.

  Instead of a standing ovation, four thousand bemused Slovaks looked at each other thinking, "These Britons are crazy."

  Oh, well!

  At least the kits were nice. They had an insubstantial, silky smoothness. They were comfortable and stayed that way. Plus they looked great - blue and white hoops, a premium but unobtrusive font, and some subtle details you only saw up close. Pretty much ten out of ten right out of the gate from the Grindhog team.

  As for our team, we were soon under the cosh in the second half and there was almost nothing I could do about it. I signalled that Dazza should replace Henri just as the Slovakian manager was about to make a raft of changes himself. I paused the sub and went to negotiate with him. Maddeningly, Beth overheard me beg him to wait a minute so Henri could get a private ovation. There was no chance that detail wouldn't end up in her stupid article, but what could I do?

  Henri came off, and there was a great reception for our new star striker.

  I didn't let Henri sit down just yet, though he needed it. I had to keep getting that XP so I talked to him sideways, only looking away for two-tenths of a second at a time.

  "How was that, mon ami?"

  Henri shook his head, squirted water into his mouth and all over his face, and sucked in air. "Incredible."

  I smiled. "Are you joking now or what?"

  "Max, I am not joking. I am exhilarated. What a test! That defender had me on toast. Beans on toast." He squirted and panted some more. "Normally I feel if I keep plugging away I will get something, but today? This guy? He's another level."

  I spared a few seconds to check out Henri's expression. He was knackered, but he wasn't lying about the exhilaration. I beamed - there was no fucking way Henri wouldn't get 3 CA out of that game. Minimum! I slapped him on the back. "Sit down, mate. You were great out there. I'm really happy."

  He didn't move and I had to lose another few seconds of XP to find out why. He peered at me. "You are happy."

  I pulled him for a hug. "I'm happy I could give you this experience, mate. This is what it's all about, isn't it? The journey. Doing mad things. Seeing new places."

  "Getting our arses handed to us in front of five thousand strangers," he said, but he wasn't serious.

  "All the best clubs in Slovakia are ones where you get spanked in front of strangers," I said.

  He laughed. "It's not even funny. That's how tired I am." He went to the dugout and ate paste while the other subs excitedly asked him questions about what it was like out there.

  A minute later, Slovakia's first subs happened. Leo had been kept fairly quiet by Eddie and Youngster, but had slipped away twice and found holes in our lines that he exploited with speed and clarity of thought. The curse rated him 8 out of 10 even though he had barely broken into a sprint.

  I stood by the subs who were entering the pitch so I could give Leo a high-ten and a hug. He said, "You're going to play, aren't you?"

  "Yeah," I said, without enthusiasm. "Five, ten minutes maybe."

  He placed his finger on my chest - a polite but insistent gesture. "I came here to see you play. And don't forget you promised me a tip!"

  "I'm going to be right midfield in a 3-4-3," I said. "I'll show you a couple of things."

  "Yes, perfect. Good."

  ***

  I made the rest of the subs fairly cautiously, trying not to give too many minutes to the youngest players. It helped that Slovakia's reserves were much worse than their starters - this wasn't counting as a proper international so they weren't getting caps. As far as the statisticians were concerned, it was a charity match, so while it made some kind of sense for the starters to come, some of the reserves had 'picked up a calf strain' which meant they didn't travel.

  I put Cole on at left back, and revamped midfield so that it was Josh, Ryan, and Lee C. Pascal got to stay on for a while longer on the right.

  We conceded a third goal, but once again the lads dug deep and found a bit more shape.

  I took Youngster off and put Dan Badford on as DM. It was only intended for a minute before I switched to 4-5-1, but something weird happened.

  Dan Badford almost instantly looked like our best player.

  I mean, he glided around the pitch very much like Youngster, but instead of racking up interceptions like he was playing cornerback against the Cleveland Browns, Dan was just sort of... connecting things. He took the ball from Zach, ignored the pressure on him and rolled the ball to Ryan Jack before moving to be an option for the return pass.

  Our passing stats, which had been diabolical for the whole match, started to tick up. We even briefly got more than 40% possession.

  I sat on my haunches staring at it for a while. I was getting very curious about ignoring the position field on a player profile, but I had a mental image of a defensive midfielder. I suppose I had two. One was big and tall, a destructive presence, someone who could break up play and help on set pieces. Another was a Youngster type. Someone who could run for miles, someone indefatigable, a buzzing wasp you could never, ever swat away.

  And there against a bunch of Slovakia's best was a silky-smooth playmaker who was connecting the defence to the midfield without the help of Cupid's Arrow. "Sandra," I said, and she came and crouched near me. "Can we have some practice of 4-2-3-1 with Youngster and Dan as the double pivot?"

  "You like him there?"

  "Don't you?"

  She shrugged. "It doesn't look right."

  "Huh," I said, standing up. "It looks right to me. It looks amazing." I glanced at her. "You're really not into it."

  She shoved her bottom lip out. "No, sorry. But I'll do it."

  "What happened to finishing each other's...?"

  She laughed. "I don't think we've ever actually done that, boss."

  I pointed to Dan. "That right there might be the best thing to come out of this match. Okay, time's running out and we're not getting battered. We need to get Tom on. Take Zach off and switch to 3-5-2."

  ***

  All the substitutions took their toll - the match took on a weird, shapeless form. Neither team had any kind of momentum, there were too many unfamiliar partnerships, too many square pegs in round holes, and that only got worse near the end as I put Banksy, Tyson, and Chas on. Oh, and myself.

  We had a strange old team at that point, crammed somehow into a 3-4-3.

  We had a CA 13 goalkeeper. Cole (45) was the left centre back, with Ryan Jack (62) and Lee C (71) as his partners.

  Josh Owens (45) was left-mid while Dan Badford (40) and Tyson (34) were a crazily young central midfield partnership. I wanted to move Dan back to the DM slot to continue that experiment, but it looked ugly on the tactics screen so I kept to the default.

  Dazza (74), Tom Westwood (43), and Chas Fungrieve (19) was an attack with a bit of height and not all that much else.

  I was the right mid and took the captain's armband from Christian.

  Yep, this was fifty times stronger than the team I had been planning to finish the match with, and the very thought gave me a full-body cringe because this was absolutely shocking. CA 44.6 and an average age of about ten. Not for the first time, I was happy to have Sandra around keeping me sane.

  There were only a few minutes to go, though, so how bad could it get? It's fair to say Slovakia approached the final stage of the match the same way they did when playing in the back garden against toddlers, but my youngsters gave a pretty good account of themselves, battling hard, working hard, trying to get some quality when they had the ball.

  There were too many weak spots, though, too many black holes and you can't have that against a team of Slovakia's quality. Our opponents moved the ball around, opened a huge gap in our lines, and though I sprinted back to try to clear the ball off the line I didn't really have a chance. Nor did Banksy with the shot, but his positioning was awful.

  Four-nil down and I thought about going men behind ball for the rest of the match just to avoid humiliation. I decided losing 5-0 would still be respectable, so I didn't park the bus.

  As we kicked off and the Slovakians jogged half-heartedly into our half of the pitch, I decided I was proud of the players. Proud of how they had conducted themselves, proud of their effort, and more convinced than ever that everyone involved would benefit hugely from the experience.

  But as a player, something felt off.

  It was my job to patrol the entire right side of the pitch and I was doing that task to the letter because if I didn't, Slovakia's tactically-savvy players would rush into the space I left and there would be carnage.

  So I did my job, but when the ball came to me I felt so isolated. I mean, Chas was an option ahead, or I could hit Dazza at the far post and he could go for a knock-down. One of Dan or Tyson always raced across to offer a sideways option, and Lee C was gamely trying to do a Zach impression. But they felt like they were fifty yards away. In Brazil I had six teammates close enough to hit with a yo-yo, and indeed one of the moves in Relationism is called a yo-yo. Where was everyone? Why were they so far away?

  I didn't like it.

  I swapped places with Tyson and went into the middle. I took a pass from Lee C, touching the ball away from an onrushing Slovak. I dabbed a short pass to Dan, who gave it straight back. I shot it back to Ryan and he gave it right back to me. A Slovak dude was rushing at me and I decided I had to bring the ball away, so I shot in the direction of the left wing and he followed but oh-oh! I let the ball run through my legs. Dan collected it.

  Was that my first ever river in English football? I doubted it, but it felt like the first.

  My blood was pumping and I sensed a shift in the mood - on both teams. Slovakia's intensity increased, but so did ours.

  Jaw clenched, I ran towards Dan and took a short pass from him. I gave it back, took it back. When a Slovak came close I brought Lee into the action. He was a midfielder and so was Ryan. We played short passes in a whir while drawing more opposition players towards us.

  Relationism! I hadn't even coached it yet but the guys knew what I wanted.

  I could have stayed in that blob, in that wonderful pool of quick passes, of one-twos, but the pressure got too much for Lee. Perhaps he would have kept going if he was twenty yards forward with Zach and Christian behind him if he lost the ball, but he was the last defender in front of a kid, so he decided to break the flow.

  He fizzed a hard pass twenty yards to the left to Cole. A forward, annoyed by our dicking about, was running at Cole hard - elite level press incoming!

  Cole hunched up, ready to turn inwards, and the forward pounced. He got... nothing. Cole opened his body, let the ball run across him, and used his first touch to move the ball forwards.

  My legs started moving.

  Cole passed to Josh, who took a bump from behind as he laid it back to Cole. Cole passed to Dan, who slipped it first time to Dazza. He held the ball up well and touched it back to Tom. Tom decided he wanted to take a shot, which was in the direction of Youngster levels of decision-making because there were two huge defenders in front of him. He could have argued a defender might deflect it but yeah, not a good end to a very nice move.

  Except it didn't end.

  The ball had ballooned high and with wicked spin towards me and Slovakia's nearest centre mid. He was CA 116 and was a solid all-rounder.

  I stepped towards him to stop him competing for a header - he seemed happy to let me try and fail to take control of the spinning, dropping ball, and I felt his gaze move towards the strikers. He was plotting ahead. As soon as I lost control...

  The ball was going to drop to my left, towards our goal. I planted my left foot about twenty inches away and bent my right leg behind it, giving the ball a little kiss with the inside of my boot. It stopped there for a second as though caught in a Star Trek tractor beam.

  My opponent goggled as the main stand burst into applause, but my slow, lazy movements told him the ball would be in his possession soon enough. While I sorted my feet out and pointed for a dull sideways pass, the guy stabbed his foot towards the ball. Strangely, by the time his foot should have made contact, the ball wasn't there. I'd flicked it over the path of his foot and I was away.

  His attempt to grab me was both feeble and annoying - it's a new shirt, mate! I felt myself snarling as I powered diagonally right. While I ran, I switched Tyson back to CM to give us numbers in the rest defence.

  Seeing me maraud down the wing got the Chester fans up on their feet, and some of the Slovaks, too.

  I glanced left and saw the three strikers running into the box. Options!

  I also saw a Slovak midfielder running hard on an intercept course. Before he could affect play, I knocked the ball a little more to the right and thwacked a low cross whose twelfth bounce was exactly in the stride of Dazza.

  He couldn't miss!

  He made a sweet connection, hit it hard and high, and his arms lifted themselves in celebration.

  But the keeper saved it! He had danced across the goal as the ball passed in front of him, and he was just close enough to fling an arm out and tip the ball over the bar.

  Standing O for the move, standing O for the keeper.

  I wandered over but let Tyson take the corner. I was thirty yards from him, pretending to be absolutely wrecked by the exertion of my sprint. Tyson knew better, and passed to me even though I was facing the west stand. I touched the ball and whipped it to the far post, where Tom got a half-decent head on it. He knocked it back across goal and Chas flung out a long leg. Shot on target! It's going in! Goal for the fifteen-year-old? No. The goalie got down low and tipped it behind for another corner.

  The fucker had nothing to do the whole game. How was he this sharp?

  Tyson ran to take the corner - it would be the last action of the game and if we could get a goal we would be incredibly happy. He fizzed it to me but this time Slovakia were alert. As a guy sprinted at me I dropped a shoulder left, pushed the ball right, and lined up a shot.

  It fucking flew to the top-right corner. I mean, it was perfect. Flawless. Power, bend, even a bit of dip.

  The goalie saved it again and the ref blew his whistle to end the game.

  So that's what CA 155 looks like. Take note, Banksy. Take note.

  ***

  Some more numbers for you:

  Chester 0 Slovakia 4.

  1,540 experience points earned.

  I went round doling out hugs and smiles, promised to swap shirts with Leo, and went to collect Beth and bring her to the other media people for a post-match interview.

  "Max, tough day, how do you feel?"

  "We knew it would go something like this so we had, you know, very specific ambitions. We didn't win the first half, we didn't score a goal, and I'm not sure we won a lot of new fans with the way we got dominated, but I think everyone in the stadium had a good time and we raised a lot of money for charity."

  "It was exciting near the end!"

  "The passing move? Now I know why Pep Guardiola used to put eleven midfielders on the pitch. It's addictive completing passes against a good team."

  "No! When you were doing your skills and showing off. If that's a taste of what's to come this season, the Chester fans should be very excited."

  I shook my head. "It's a team game. We need team solutions but I think it's clear that we've got the core things right. The mentality, the spirit, and we'll add what's missing as we go. I think this match will help us develop. As a group of players we're motivated, determined, and ambitious. As coaches we've seen our players get a very serious test and I think we'll be looking at this footage a hell of a lot over the next couple of weeks mining it for areas of improvement. It's just a top day. I think this will be a great season."

  "What did Leo say to you at the end?"

  "He said thanks for the tip but if I do that in a game my manager will kill me. I told him if he's the player-manager he can do what he wants. He said he'd think about it. Oh, Beth, what was up with that woman? Nothing bad, I hope?"

  "No, Max. She was happy, she loved it. I've got the quote here. 'You sell Bazant beer, you smile at us, you play our national hymn!' She said she had been in England for five years and this was the first time she really felt welcome."

  Well, that got me going and I had to look down at the concrete floor for a few seconds to compose myself. "She's welcome back here any time," I said. "This is Chester."

  "Do you think you'll get the same level of welcome next week at Fleetwood?"

  I smiled. "Of course we will. We're little old Chester. No threat to anyone in League Two, are we?"