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Player Manager - A Sports Progression Fantasy

14.14 - Wanted

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14.

Sunday, September 27

Match 3 of 22: Liverpool Feds versus Chester Women

Human beings have unlimited wants and needs, which must be satisfied in order to survive.

The phrase had been repeated many times by my economics teacher but never fully explained. It was supposed to be self-explanatory but I could never wrap my head around it. After a few years of running an impoverished football club, I thought I understood it a little better. In a world of scarce resources, how can you ever be satisfied?

If your wants are unlimited, you can't.

I needed food but I wanted an all-electric mini, white with a Chester FC wrap.

According to my teacher, both impulses had to be satisfied in order for me to survive.

What a strange choice of word! The more I tried to puzzle it out, the more I felt my skull cracking. Psychologists said that humans needed shelter, food, connection, social status, and a sense of purpose. Economists said humans needed a new iPhone.

To survive.

What?

I felt someone bumping into my personal space, causing a tiny bit of friction on the edges of my awareness. It was Dylan, the defender from 3 R Welsh, boyfriend of Bonnie, protector of Angel. "Hi, Max."

"Dylan! Thanks for not startling me."

"I know when you're lost in thought. What is it this time? Ley lines? Aliens?"

"I was thinking I don't understand very much about the world." I glanced away from the pitch again; Dylan looked well. Eating better, drinking less, and living life with a renewed sense of purpose. "Is Bonnie here?"

"She's playing for Saltney."

"Yes, of course. Wait, why aren't you watching her?"

"She wants me looking after Angel. No security here, is there?"

"No," I said, looking around.

Liverpool Feds had grown out of an informal Hope University team and had done amazingly well to get to the third tier of the women's game and stay there. The club ran on good vibes and hard work and it showed in the attention to detail, the kits, the togetherness, and yes, even in the CA. They had a competitive average of 60. With Dani and Sarah Greene carrying knocks and unavailable, we were 'only' at 64.3, and the tiny pitch would make it harder for us to create space and wear down the oppo.

The Feds didn't have a stadium, but simply trained and played at a local sports centre, as though a third-tier team was based at one of Chester's satellite 3G pitches.

"They're doing well to stay at this level, aren't they?" I mused. "No stadium. That has to count against their Facilities Score."

"I'm sorry, Max, I'm not sure what you mean by that."

"Right. You know Soccer Supremo? I'm the face of Soccer Supremo."

"Angel was impressed you scored that deal but you only got half what she got from Jejune."

"It's not a competition," I said.

"Tell that to Angel," said Dylan.

I smiled. They knew I was a consultant for Angel's agency, but they can't have known what percentage of her success was feeding into my pockets. "I'm honestly not trying to compete in that realm. If she keeps playing like this, she will absolutely batter me in endorsements."

"Like this?" Dylan gave Angel a dubious look. "I thought she was struggling. Not getting the ball."

"That's not her fault, is it? The others are always looking to Kit." I scratched my head. I didn't like the way the women were playing; it reminded me of the time after we had signed Goliath and our defenders hoofed high balls towards him. "Not sure if you heard but Sarah Greene and Dani have injuries so today's midfield is Kisi on the left, Charlotte and Pippa in the middle, Maddy on the right. That should be good but they're getting knocked off their stride."

"Apart from Pip it's such a young team," said Dylan.

"Are you going to tell me not to rotate goalkeepers, mate?"

He smiled down at his hands as he rested them on the fence. "No, boss." He scanned the area. I hadn't been on the bodyguard course Dylan had taken, but I imagined this kind of environment was pretty easy to handle. There was the football pitch, which carried its own risks to his 'client', a fence - it was low but you'd spot someone climbing over it - and a couple of hundred spectators milling around. This being a community club and a women's match, the onlookers were disproportionately parents with their children. Not a lot of hoodlums or ne'er-do-wells.

We watched in silence as I got more worried. I was getting 5 XP a minute, which was nice, but there were plenty of moments that made me wince. A mis-timed tackle from Luxury Bell was brainless. How would we fare if we had a player sent off? Not well, although there was always the chance the adversity would make the women snap out of their funk. Scottie Love came for a cross and got nowhere near it. Poor decision-making from the goalie. Maddy had two good chances to get ahead of her marker and send in crosses but both times she thrashed wildly at the ball and the crosses went into orbit. She shrank into herself.

I blew air through my cheeks. "Without Sarah and Dani, they're moving the ball to Kit too fast. It's like, get it to your best player as fast as possible. It's dumb. I don't like it."

"It's two-nil, Max. Kit scored both. It's patently not dumb."

"It's dumb and shit and I'm frustrated by almost the entire performance. I'm realising that Sarah Greene has been papering over a lot of cracks." I stared blankly ahead while I scanned the match ratings. We had far too many players on 6 out of 10. The curse gave Kit Hodges 9 because she had scored two goals. Angel was on 7. I would have reversed those numbers. Angel was moving defenders out of the way to give Kit time and space to shoot. Without Angel, without the goals, Kit would have been on 5 out of 10.

Dylan, who was low-key a gentleman, didn't like it when I got heated up about the women's team, so he tried to distract me. "What were you saying about Soccer Supremo?"

I decided I wanted to be distracted. Pascal had interesting options on the bench, including five brilliant Welsh teenagers and the future best player in the world, Meredith Ann. We could afford to lose one match in the league and still have our destiny in our own hands. The biggest contribution I could make to the women's team was to ensure there were no bottlenecks in our training. "In Supremo you've got numbers for everything, right? For example, you are pace 1."

"Out of 20, isn't it?"

"In your case, it's 1 out of anything."

"I did get blowed up."

I slapped him on the back. "That's true and you're not that slow. Let's say you're pace 3. I'm Tactics 20. That's out of 10. There are player and team reputations going from 1 to 10,000, if I heard it right." I had been asking the makers of Soccer Supremo a few carefully-chosen questions, and they had been happy to answer. In the past, seeing any part of the game had triggered visions of strange alien writing and on rare occasions, I hadn't even been able to hear what people had said to me. As I had earned XP and unlocked more areas of the curse, those things had stopped happening. Spectrum sometimes played Soccer Supremo in the Sin Bin and the last time I'd caught him, the screen had been blurry in sections but nothing like as horrible as in the past. "Fans come up to me and say oh you've got to sign so-and-so. That player is reputation 3,000, for example, but Chester's reputation is 2,500. That means we can't sign him. That's why we're called Max's Misfits, right? We can only get good players whose reputations tanked for some reason, or someone like Colin who wants to be a coach. His playing reputation is high but his coaching reputation is low. That's a way I can hack the system."

Dylan leaned down and gripped the railing as though he was angry, but it was just him thinking hard. "Charlie Dugdale. He came down from a higher league."

"Because his current club weren't paying him and their reputation score was crashing. We were an upward move."

"Kit Hodges. She dropped two levels."

"Right, because we're paying her double what she used to get. Think of when Wrexham got taken over. Right off the bat, you paid Muggles League One wages. I heard you had a player on 7,000 a week when you were still in the National League. Money will overcome some issues, right? I mean, money doesn't teach Paul Parker how to set up a team in tier two. Ryan Reynolds can't tell Paul Parker how to set up a team in tier two. Your big, noisy stadium can't retrain your players after years of long throws and being the world's most expensive pub team."

Dylan coughed. "I think you might have gone off topic, Max."

I almost winked at him. Wrexham were struggling in the higher league, but I wasn't laughing too hard. We would suffer the same fate. "Just try to imagine that everything is broadly based on numbers. Clubs have a Facilities Score. What it means is you can't train a player much beyond the level of your facilities. A lot of these Liverpool Feds players are exactly the same standard even though they've got room to grow. That hints that they're hitting a cap, right?"

"They're the exact same standard? This is your AI computer talking, is it?"

"I can't discuss that because I signed a non-disclosure agreement with myself." I rubbed my cheeks. Needed to shave when I got home. "I'm wondering how it all works in Soccer Supremo."

"Why don't you ask them?"

"I did but I can't trust the answers." Not least because my curse wasn't based on the current version of the game, but one from 25 years ago. Who knew what the designers had changed in the meantime? Probably almost everything. "Um... That sounds mental. You're thinking, it's their game, they should know. But I'm trying to imagine if the real world were governed by numbers. It might sound mad but it helps me to think. So let's say I've got six hundred thousand pounds to spend."

"From your Gibraltar winnings?"

"No, I mean Chester. Heh." I wanted to say that I would soon have more in my personal war chest than the club I worked for, but Dylan wasn't on big money and I didn't want to rub his nose in it. "You've seen Bumpers Bank. Oh, have you been recently?"

"Yes."

"Top. So you know it's a crazy mix of shitty cabins and really nice new builds."

"It seems like yesterday we were making fun of you for all those Portakabins and look at it now! You've done well. And the new stadium looks absolutely stunning. Wrexham fans joke about it looking like it's made of lollipop sticks but - oh, what's this now?"

The Feds put a few passes together and got a shot on goal. Scottie Love was having a 5 out of 10 match and she flapped at it. The shot crept wide, but it was yet another warning. "They're going to fuck up, Dylan. It's sloppy, I'm telling you. I'm not happy with what's going on out there."

"They're trying their best."

"Mate, don't get on my case for pushing them to be better! We spend three hours a week doing Relationism! Short passes, clever movement, you know what it's like. Why can they suddenly not play a short pass? Why is Kisi giving it to Charlotte and then standing there like a sack of spuds? They need to take responsibility. It's winding me up."

"What do you think Chester's Facility Score is compared to Wrexham's?"

He was calming me down again. I breathed in. "Yeah, this is the thing, I can't answer that because I don't know what ours is. I honestly don't have the slightest clue right now. Here are three unknowns. One, if we've not got a pitch and one stand has been knocked down and we technically don't have a safety certificate to play home matches, does that mean we don't have a stadium? Are we like Liverpool Feds?"

"In the world of the game, you mean?"

"Yes, but what if the game's realistic? Players think 'hmm we're homeless' and train like it? It's not that far-fetched. Two, our gym is ninety percent finished. If the finished gym will add ten points to our score, is the ninety percent finished version giving us nine points?"

"Yes," said Dylan, subject matter expert.

"Or do we get zero until the last builder hammers in the last nail and then we get the ten points?"

"That one," said Dylan. "It'll be that one. Until it's finished, it's not finished."

"Three, same question with the shower block and dressing rooms. Our Facilities Score could be anywhere on a huge range, do you get me? Could be zero, could be twenty-seven. If it's the latter, what am I worried about? What if in a couple of weeks all three projects get signed off and we're fine?"

"You will be fine. You know how I know? Because it isn't a computer game. You've got your good coaches and your nice pitches and that's what makes training good."

"Then why do Man City spend a billion pounds a week adding to the Death Star? No, there are definite levels and limits. I can't afford a limit so I have to act like I'm in the worst case scenario. January could be dramatic, Dylan. Beloved characters might get binned off."

"Would you sell Angel?"

"Not the women. Certainly not Angel." I swept my hand across the pitch. "No, these fuckers don't get off that easily. They have to sort their heads out and take us to the top. Ugh! Maddy, come on! Chin up! This is where Pascal needs help. Maddy's head's gone but he's got too much going on so he can't see it. You know what? I'm going to shut up and let him learn. Where was I? Selling some of the male players so I can get Bumpers up to the standards. I've got six hundred grand in transfer budget but I'm going to use it on a building. I can't have this stress and uncertainty. I wanted to do the away end at the Deva next summer - five million quid - but it has to wait. I need a million for the restaurant, seven or eight hundred for the medical block, that's just the shell, right, equipment is extra. Six hundred for the reception, meeting rooms, media centre. I need to sell players to a value of one point seven million. I wonder if I could get the deals done soon? Like in the next two weeks. Then I could convince MD to let me start on the expansion and we'd have it ready two or three months earlier than if we waited."

"Where will your office be?"

"Above the medical block," I said, narrowing my eyes as yet another ragged phase of play led to a shot that squirted under our goalie's body.

"Two-one," said Dylan. "Crap."

"Here comes the first of the Ffamous Five," I said, as I looked for something to do with my hands that wasn't biting my nails. Pascal was replacing Pippa, who had struggled in an increasingly rare start, with Mari Hughes. That removed 18 years from our total age without changing the CA very much. "And he's inverting the full-back," I mused. I wasn't sure I liked it at this point in the game but at least he was doing something. Jackie's response to adversity had too often been to stare like a deer in the headlights.

"Why did we never do that? That inverting thing?" said Dylan, meaning 3 R Welsh, the army unit I had managed for a season.

The answer was that I didn't have the perk to do it, but I couldn't say that. "It's an interesting move," I said. "If you're controlling the ball, you don't need four defenders, right? So you move one into midfield and let the three remaining defenders shuffle closer. You're still compact but you have more options when you're in possession. It can work great. This... yeah, look. Luxury Bell's there now and we already look a whole lot better. More composed. It's also a signal from Pascal that we're aiming to dominate this midfield, that the players shouldn't hack the ball towards Kit as often. But it's a risk, isn't it? If we lose the ball, we don't have anyone in the right back slot and a clever team could fuck us up." I found my thumbnail moving towards my teeth again and, with a grunt, pushed it away.

"Can I ask something? You're not yourself. Are you all right?"

I eyed him. What had he seen in me? "It's that time, Dylan. That time before an event. There's something coming and I'm on edge. You know what it reminds me of? I don't know if you ever heard there was a pine marten living in my roof, just above my bedroom. The little fucker was screaming his head off all night. The roof tiles are all meshed up now and he can't get in, we hope, but I got the Brig to install a couple of cameras around the house so I could finally catch the little fucker. No-one else ever saw him, right, so there's that slight suspicion of whether I was making it up. When I'm in bed now and I hear some thump, I can go to the app and see what's outside. I tap the icon, it loads, then it fetches the feed from the camera. I've seen so many movies I keep, like, visualising what could be just outside my house. Sure, it could be a cute little hedgehog, it could be a fox, it could be the pine marten. Or it could be a burglar or a death squad from one of the nation states I piss off on a regular basis. It's sort of horrible, you know, those few seconds while the feed loads."

"You're describing the army. That's what it's like when you're in a war zone every time you infil or exfil."

I was pretty sure he was using military words I might have heard in movies, not the real ones from the army. He was describing the feeling of entering or leaving a hot zone. A hot box. A hot toddy. "Fuck, Dylan, can you go one conversation without one-upping me?"

He lowered his head, half-smiling. He was worried, though. "You're talking about the Gibraltar money you're getting this week, right? That's the thing you're waiting for."

"I was talking about the stadium. October 10th. But yes, getting paid is another colossal moment."

"Do you think the Mateo guy won't pay? Is there a chance?"

"There's a chance of anything. I mean, I can't say I haven't thought about it. What... Hang on. Why do you think the money's coming this week?"

"We worked it out. Found a file that shows when UEFA pay out the prize money. The first batch is September 28th, which is tomorrow. A few days for it to go into Mateo's bank account. Few days for the transfer to you. Could be there by Friday."

I shook my head. "This is mental. Can you stop digging into my private affairs, please? Are you going through my bins, too? Am I going to see you on the camera feed one night?"

He smiled a little. "I don't know where you live, Max, and I don't have plans to rummage through your bins. UEFA payment dates are public info. We were just speculating if you would maybe skip the Bolton match to go have a party, you know."

"Skip Bolton? Are you fucking insane? You remember what they did to Pascal. Fucked him up good and I'm going to return the favour. Again. Yeah, look, thanks for asking but I'm all right. I'll feel better when I've... when I've got the money." When I've unlocked the Interested Parties perk, is what I wanted to say. For 6,000 XP I would learn which clubs were interested in my players. By around the 88th minute I would have enough XP to buy it, but then I would hang around Jericho Lane for a while picking up stray XP so that I would have enough to pay for tomorrow's Secret Sandra.

I had an uneasy feeling about what I would discover when I bought the perk. It was amazing how in the past this one had been low down my list of priorities but now that I had decided to buy it I literally couldn't achieve happiness until I had it unwrapped and installed.

What did I want? Lots of interest in my players, or none? Of course the former but Chester were a tiny club with few resources. My players had wants and needs they had to satisfy in order to survive - they all wanted to go to bigger clubs. And I wanted them to go to bigger clubs! What was I anxious about?

Rejection. Even if I was amazing for a player's career and we were winning every week, he would want to move to a club with a higher reputation score. I knew I shouldn't take it personally, but I knew I would. And every time I looked in his player profile, I would see the sharks circling.

Kin hell. My brain really didn't seem developed enough to handle this perk and what it would tell me.

One thing that was cheering me up big time was Angel's performance. "Dylan, I want to talk to Codename Fox after the match. Before she goes into the dressing room, ideally."

"Okay. Why Fox?"

"It's from a movie I watched the other day. It's about a team of assassins who can curve bullets. It's bonkers. Fox is played by Angelina Jolie and sometimes Angel reminds me of her."

"If you watch movies about assassins you're going to have anxiety, Max."

Pascal's changes brought some stability to the performance, which helped me to relax, but not enough to enjoy the game. We got a penalty that Kit stuck away for her hat trick. Three-one.

But Pascal overdid it with the substitutions, giving minutes to Fioled (45/122) in the left midfield slot and Alwen (46/101) on the right. The midfield was three-quarters tiny Welsh girls, all fifteen points off the standard. The Feds saw their chance, raised their game, and the match became wildly entertaining for the neutrals and absolute hell for me.

"You wanted him to give minutes to the young players," wailed Dylan, who was a huge Pascal fan and didn't like the way I was chuntering about selling him to Kaiserslautern or Mainz or whoever the fuck. "And you wanted the matches to be entertaining. Job done."

"We need to get promoted," I said. "Fuck entertainment."

"See, this is your problem," said Dylan the Wise. "You want things for ages and ages and when you get them you're never satisfied. This is brilliant. Your team is brilliant. Try to enjoy it."

Mari made a mistake in midfield, Luxury Bell was out of position, Liverpool Feds got lucky with a cross that spooned up over Scottie Love's outstretched arm but under the crossbar, and it was three-two.

Dylan shut his flappy Welsh gob while I suffered.

The women galvanised themselves - they knew not winning this one would be a major blow. Pascal looked pale as he told Luxury to stop inverting. He danced around, tweaking everyone's positions. Quite a lot of wasted effort there - he needed to remain ice cold at these crucial moments. See the bigger picture, manage the temperature, not fuss around the edges.

Then came the big moment. That spike of joy followed by horror followed by dread that makes live sport so addictive. Mari won a tackle - she had responded well to her mistake - and Charlotte worked an angle for a through-ball towards Kit. Kit, on the left of the area, had two defenders with her and the goalie had gambled on closing the shot down.

Angel made a great run and was unmarked in the centre. She had an open goal!

Kit took the shot. It thudded into the defender, who was a mere yard away. Behind the defender was the goalie. One or the other was one hundred percent going to block any shot from that angle. Kit literally had zero chance to score. Her teammate had a hundred percent chance of netting. Pass the fucking ball!

I kicked something and the nearest spectators took a few sidesteps away from me.

After Kit's moronic mistake, the Feds went right up the other end... and did something equally brainless.

The final whistle blew and some of our players celebrated. Winning because other teams are just as inept as us was not a long-term strategy. I nearly went onto the pitch to give the happy ones a piece of my mind. What the fuck are you celebrating, mate? International Be Shit At Your Job Day?

I didn't go with my impulse, which I suppose is what people mean by 'maturity'. Instead, I focused on Angel.

Since we had signed her, she had increased from CA 5 to CA 60. Her physical Attributes were better, as you'd expect from someone training at least three times a week. She was faster (adding two points in Pace and Acceleration, which were now 12 and 14 respectively) and she was fitter (Strength 4 to Strength 7; Stamina 5 to Stamina 9). She was better in the air (adding three points in Jumping (8) and Heading (12)). Her on-the-ball skills were improving. She had been Dribbling and Technique 5 but was now Dribbling 8, Technique 9.

Her Finishing was still an absolutely gorgeous 20, and her Long Shots skill was slowly rising. That was currently 11.

But what satisfied me most were her mental attributes. Teamwork 5 was now Teamwork 11, and there had been other gains. She was Decisions 12 and Determination 14.

It was all great and with her PA 155, there was so, so much left to come.

Her Morale had slipped to very poor. I couldn't blame her. Playing with a strike partner having a shoot-on-sight-whatever-the-sitch day like Kit would demoralise anyone, but I had more belief than ever that Angel would reach her potential. A fully-formed Angel could play in a Champions League winning team, for sure, and that team would be Chester FC. Whatever the new perk told me about the clubs that wanted her, she was staying. It would take a world-record fee for a female player to tempt me. Fuck that. Someone would have to obliterate the record fee. Five million, minimum. Ten million or get out of my face.

While the players shook hands with their opponents and gathered their stuff, Dylan and I walked round towards the dressing rooms. "Dylan, mate. Do you mind doing this? Bodyguarding, I mean?"

He smiled. "No, Max. It's..." He struggled to form his thoughts into a shape, and chose something simple. "It's nice to be wanted, you know?"

I didn't have time to think that through because we had arrived on the corner of the pitch closest to the dressing rooms. I saw that Pascal was stressed off his tits; Elin and Jill were each carrying something he had forgotten to pick up from the dugout. He was frazzled. He looked at me and swallowed. The Live Table showed that we were top of the league with three wins from three and that we had the best goal difference. Something had gone wrong today but it hadn't cost us. I would give Pascal the space to sort it out. Support him, not micromanage him.

He and the players filed past me and I remembered I had come with the intention of getting enough XP to buy the Interested Parties perk. I bought it and was immediately fascinated by what I saw.

One of the Liverpool Feds players, Gill Bertrand, a CA 70 PA 81 midfielder, was wanted by tier two Blackburn Rovers. I actually stepped towards her to let her know I'd be interested in talking to her before she made a decision about her next move but I was slightly too late. Dylan had intercepted Angel and used his bodyguarding tricks to discreetly kettle us further onto the rapidly-emptying pitch. Mission complete, Dylan retreated and went into his 'bouncer' mode. This wasn't the time for randos to come asking for selfies.

Feeling safe, I turned my full attention to Angel. I checked out her posture as though I didn't already know how she was feeling. "How are you doing?"

She aimed her eyes at the penalty spot. "Fine. Great. Good win today."

I made a scoffing noise. "Tsk. Yeah. Treat me like a media knob." She glanced at me quickly, then looked away. I sighed. "That was so frustrating."

She looked up. "Did you think so?"

"I have thoughts, mate. Thoughts."

"I'm sorry," she said.

That stopped me in my tracks. "What? What for?"

"When Kit didn't pass I yelled at her. I know you hate that. I just couldn't help it that time."

I bit my bottom lip as I tried to stop myself from grinning. "Okay, I do hate that but I didn't see what you did because I was too busy kicking the shit out of a fence." Angel looked down but her lips were curled up at the edges. "If I've broken my foot because of the worst non-pass since the very day I came to Chester..." I shook my head and stretched out my hands. "In the end it's my fault. When you buy Kit, she's gonna play like Kit. Right? I don't want to talk about that, not really. I want to talk about you."

I sort of wanted to start with what the new perk revealed. Of fucking course Angel was the most in-demand player in the women's squad, although we had never received a formal transfer bid. The twenty-plus clubs who were tracking her included Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Angel City, and Wolfsburg. I smiled when I thought about the worldwide bidding war I could one day trigger. Angel: The Auction. What a fucking tense hour of live TV that would be! Rounds and rounds of secret bids getting higher. Some combination of game theory and TV know-how to extract the best possible price while generating the most intrigue. Something like, after each round a set number of clubs would be eliminated and the viewers (and participants in the auction) would discover the value of the lowest bid. A major UK celebrity would clomp into the room at the halfway point and intone, "In the last round of bidding, the reserve price was met. There will be a transfer today." The buzz from the directors of football and carefully-chosen celebrities. The goosebumps all around the world.

She smiled because I was grinning. "What?"

I didn't let the new information change what I was planning to say. "I want to put you on TV," I said.

"What happened to taking me out of the credits and airbrushing me out of scenes?"

"That was before. This is now. What I've seen from you this season is three perfect team performances. Your movement is unselfish, your work rate has been top from start to finish even when you're not getting the rewards you deserve. I mean, you've been technically solid. Good, crisp passes, sensible options, really just smart. Clever, intelligent play but what I loved is the ethos. Using your skills to help the team. That's Chesterness, Angel. That's what this is all about. You... I don't want to go overboard but if you keep playing like that, you're gonna be my favourite player." I looked at the list of clubs who were interested in her. How interested were they? Appearing in that list had to indicate some willingness to make a transfer bid, right? Interested clubs weren't just sending a scout to have a look. They were interested in buying the players. So where were the scouts? Not many had come today, but there had been a succession of others recently. "I know it's a lonely business, playing like you did and someone else getting the glory, but believe me you're getting more attention playing like that than Kit is from bagging all those goals. To be clear," I said, worrying about my tone, "I want you to stay and be part of what we're doing here... for years. But, ah, it's nice to be wanted." I smiled. "Even if they can't have you."

Angel didn't smile. She almost looked... angry. Before I could check her Morale, she said, "I'm gonna be your favourite player? Is that your usual bullshit?"

"No. What? No!" I took a few seconds to think about how to express myself. "I've had some good strikers, haven't I? Foquita's going to be one of the best players in the world but he has a selfish streak that could hurt his teams and his next managers won't be trying to stamp it out the way I did. Stamp it out's not the right phrase. Optimise his decision-making, maybe.

"Henri was a maniac who got frustrated, got sent off, got fucking exiled from his host city!

"Colin? Now there's a player but he's at the end of his journey, right? And I don't get any pleasure from seeing him do cool things because I didn't teach him that. It's a bit egotistical, I know, but I like to think I played a part in a player's journey.

"My dream striker is a threat on both feet, headers, good movement, holds the ball up, lays it off, but most importantly, knows when to do all those things! I don't know what happened over the summer but you've come back at a whole new level. You could have looked at Kit and become more like her but you've chosen to be more like Sarah Greene and Meredith Ann. That was the right choice. Making good choices is the difference between being a star and being a megastar. You're on the path to megastardom, and you're on the path to being the striker I've always wanted."

Two things happened when I said that.

First, her Decisions score jumped one point.

Second, her Morale hit very good.

"I should go," she mumbled, not looking at me.

"Yeah," I said, confused. She looked upset but the curse said she was happy. I took a half a step backwards to get out of her way.

She didn't move, and she risked a glance. "What did you want me to do?"

"What?"

"You want me on TV, you said."

"Oh, right. It's for Chesterness Series Three colon Max Best's favourite player."

She bit her bottom lip and glanced at me again. "That one was bullshit, right?"

"Yeah. Soz. Although maybe that's a good title. Better than writing a movie about bullet-curving assassins who take orders from a loom and calling it Wanted. It's early days in the season, isn't it? The name will come, but what we definitely need soon is a scene where we show a few journos and fan content providers around the new stand. Sophie, Henri, and I agree that we need to film it before the first match. Not gonna lie, it could be a boring piece of content. You'll show them around and say how many seats there are, why we made certain decisions, why we spent more on the floodlights and cables, things like that."

She looked up at the nearest floodlights. The ones here were pretty bog-standard but I could see what she was thinking - aren't they all the same? It might have been the first time Angel learned there were different levels of floodlights, just like there were different levels of strikers. "Why did we?"

I smiled. "Because I'm a maniac who wants the best of the best and I insisted that the Harry McNally stand be specced for the Premier League and for hosting European competitions. Brighter floodlights cost more to run but they make the pitch look better on TV, and we need big, beefy cables for high-definition feeds. You'll learn all this. You and Brooke will show the visitors round and you'll compete to steal the scene."

"I'll compete with Brooke? What about you?"

"I'm busy. I'm in south Wales all week and if I can avoid a pointless drive back to Chester, that suits me fine. I know it isn't much of a bonus, but it's one you deserve. I mean, if you want to do it."

She went blank, then came out of her trance by saying, "I don't want to compete with Brooke; it wouldn't be fair on the poor girl." I laughed; cocky Angel was one of my favourite versions. Her face was softening and tension was leaving her neck. "We'll do a rehearsal and we'll come up with some killer lines for each other to say." She nodded to herself as she started to visualise the scene, to put her own twist on it. She looked at me sharply. "You're going to be in Wales all week? What about Bristol Rovers? Did you forget you had a midweek match?"

"I'll be there," I said. We could have postponed the fixture because we had at least three players on international duty, but we had a big squad. "Bristol is basically Wales, right? I'll watch the Welsh national team in the morning, go to Bristol, play where Sandra tells me to play, head back to Wales."

"What exactly will you be doing with them?"

"Meeting the national team manager to see if we can work together and on Wednesday night they have a big match in Cardiff. It's a qualifier for Euro 28."

"Qualifier? I thought they were the co-hosts."

"They are. It's complicated. You'd better get in with your mates. Well played, Angel. I'm buzzing off what I saw from you today. Buzzing."

She nodded, took a few steps away, then stopped. She turned back to me. "No bullshit?"

I looked her right in the eye. "No bullshit." One beat later I jabbed my index finger at the wall that separated us from the changing rooms. "Now, those fuckers... That's a different story."

Angel let out a light laugh, nodded, and went inside.

Her Morale was superb.

***

By way of a goodbye, I clapped Dylan on the back and walked around the width of the pitch, behind the goalposts, moving between the little groups of families and curious local street urchins. Any one of these ugly little oiks could be the next Dixie Dean, I mused. A PA 200 striker I could train to play like the new Angel. Wouldn't that be something?

I settled into a spot that gave me a view of all three pitches at Jericho Lane. I would stay until the next round of matches started, add a few dozen new players to the database, and get enough XP to keep Secret Sandra running for another day.

I had done pretty well to keep composed during the chat with Angel because there was a flood of new information in my head. Three squads with new data: Chester Men, Chester Women, College 1975. I could go through every player one by one and see which other clubs were interested in them. Me being me, I started with College.

The funniest one was the first I clicked on. I sniggered at what it said in the profile of Magnus Evergreen. It informed me that Chester FC wanted to sign him. Yeah, you think? I tried to tell myself that I didn't want to bring Magnus back to Chester to see if that would be enough to remove Chester's 'interest', but it wasn't.

I had seen most of the women go past after I unlocked the perk, but Dani and Sarah were at home. I had their profiles in my head, though, and was fascinated to see that no-one wanted Dani while one club was tracking Sarah Greene. Manchester City! The club that had sold her! Stupid twats. Get fucked with that. Not for sale.

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There wasn't a lot of interest in most of the women, but Burnley liked Kisi Yalley, Leeds United wanted Femi back, and the Ffamous Five were wanted by Welsh clubs. Every data point was fascinating. When I had downtime I would see if I could work out why Swansea wanted Dafina and Wrexham wanted Alwen.

The men, then. They were the players with genuine transfer value. I wanted one point seven million pounds in incoming fees without selling one of the guys who could come with me to the Premier League and without weakening the team. Oh, and if you could put that moon on that stick for me, that would be great.

I didn't go through the men's squad in a very methodical way, but bounced around at random like a cyclops in a hall of mirrors.

As expected, Youngster and Wibbers were wanted by clubs in the Prem and Championship. A couple of the names were surprising. Man United were looking at Wibbers, though they had never contacted us to that effect. It didn't matter much; I would do everything I could to keep him. I had a very strong suspicion I wasn't going to be finding a lot of Wibbers and Youngsters the way I had done in the past.

No-one wanted Lee Contreras, which was bittersweet. He was the one player who had hit his ceiling. I sighed. Nothing's easy. I would have to create a market for him, that was all.

Sticky, our goalkeeping coach, was still wanted by Bradford City. I hadn't seen that coming. Chip Star was impulsive and had gone around hoovering up my short-term targets, but this was a long-term infatuation. Someone at Bradford - not Chip or Folke Wester - knew a top goalkeeping coach when they saw one. That gave me an idea I had to act on right away.

I whipped my phone out.

"Sticky," I said, putting a smile on my face so he would know not to worry.

"Max?"

"Sorry to bother you. Were you at church?"

He laughed. "Not bothering me. How can I help?"

"What would you say... Hang on, how do I phrase this? Um... What are we missing...? No, ah... Do we have a high-level goalkeeping setup? What's stopping us from saying that?"

"Oh." He was munching on something. He chewed for a few seconds. "Some gear that I've told you about but mostly we're good. An assistant coach is the next step."

"Ah! That's what I wanted to know." If Chester's Facilities Score was actually not holding us back, what else could cause a training cap? Lack of staff. I was pretty sure that wasn't a factor for the men's outfielders because the first team had Sandra, Peter Bauer, and Colin Beckton, plus additional sessions from guys like Ray, Clive O'Keefe, Jude, Elin, Well In, Spectrum, and even Terry from the Chester Knights. Oh, and the Brig did fitness work. We had plenty of bodies, but I was willing to tolerate the idea that I needed one more top-class, full-time first team coach for the outfielders, and reserving budget for another goalie coach was a logical further step. "Okay so if we pick up an assistant goalie coach in the summer, we'll be good for the Championship?"

"I would have thought so."

"I suppose we need three coaches if we get to the Prem," I laughed.

Sticky didn't laugh. "Yes."

"Oh. Er, fine. Let's get ahead of that, yeah? Not sure if you've noticed but we're going up. Can you get me some names? People you like. I'll check them out over the coming months."

"Can do."

"Bosh. Seeya."

Here was my dream scenario: Sticky would find an amazing goalie coach and I would see that Bradford were also interested in signing him. Wait, hang on. What would that prove? I drummed my fingers against my phone for a while. I had come up with a great scheme but it had slipped away. No, wait. Sticky was great and Bradford had wanted him. If I found another goalie coach Bradford wanted, he was likely to be good. Right? I frowned. My logic wasn't rock solid but there was something there. It was blurry for now, but it could resolve into something later on.

Another full-time coach for the outfielders? Maybe I should do that anyway. A grand a week would get me someone decent. Fifty thousand a year was a drop in the ocean compared to the millions I would lose if players stopped improving.

Yep. New coach. Done. In addition to putting down more permanent buildings, though. I still needed to sell some players.

Slightly more methodically, I went through the rest of the goalies and the defenders. There were only three with clubs interested and one was Matt Rush, who I didn't own. I really didn't like the idea that I was training a guy who might play for Chelsea.

Bayern Munich were keen on Peter Bauer. That got me thinking hard. They didn't want him based on his recent 45 minutes against Carlisle United, surely? No way. This was something historical, same as Bradford's interest in Sticky. Maybe it simply meant the club and player had an affinity. Was that possible? Any such 'noise' from the perk would reduce its value, for sure.

Could I put feelers out and see if Bradford wanted Sticky? That would potentially clear up some confusion, but it was more likely to lead to Steve thinking I was trying to get rid of him.

"I need to be careful with this," I mumbled.

That's when I saw that Zach was wanted. When I saw by whom, my knees wobbled, some of the blood drained from my face. I got my phone and did some research and confirmed what I suspected about that club and its owners.

I slumped to the side of the fence and stayed there for a minute, but I was only delaying my return home. The plan was to have an early dinner with Emma before driving down to The Vale in gorgeous south-east Wales. I got back to my feet and stared out onto the pitches, finding no superstars but adding 1 XP per minute to the pot. I would leave when I hit 50 XP, which in the morning I would donate to one of my rising stars so they could improve faster.

With a sinking heart, I quadruple-checked Zach's profile. Humans have unlimited wants, and did I not want to see that.

***

XP balance: 50

***

Monday, September 28

There was no sign that I was about to hit the first genuine bump in my quiet takeover of Welsh football when I strolled out onto the lush pitches at The Vale resort. The space was beautiful and fully-equipped - no worries about a training cap here - and I spotted Roddy Jones, eyes wide, joining in with the drills. The Welsh coaches had decent numbers and the work seemed serious, the vibe friendly and positive.

As players ran and doubled back and yelped and shouted, Patrick David, the Welsh men's manager, stood on the centre spot, arms folded, alongside his long-term assistant manager Daffyd Elis. Patrick David was considered good-looking by people who find blandness soothing, though he had a good, deep Welsh accent that was at least fifty percent of his personality.

He had been a good player, though not a great one, and was considered a promising manager based on a freak run of results that had pushed his Swansea City side into an unlikely playoff run. His lack of tactical acumen was found out in the final, and he had been sacked after a poor run the next season, a run that he blamed on injuries.

He was a Welsh manager who had come within 90 minutes of bringing a Welsh team into the Premier League, so it wasn't completely crazy that he had been given the job as the national team manager, but it was crazy that he could prove to be the bottleneck in my plans to turn his country into one of Europe's top teams.

He pissed me off by switching into drills that showed his way of thinking for Wednesday's match. It wasn't just that poor Roddy Jones got sidelined - the kid was too callow to realise he was being sent to his bedroom while the adults told rude jokes in the kitchen. No, it was David's tactics.

He wanted to use 5-3-2, at home, against North Macedonia. That team was not high in the rankings but every now and then they scored a major scalp. It was true that they were dangerous and Wales were not just going to turn up and slap, but a defensive, fearful mindset was hugely at odds with how the rest of the Welsh teams were going to be playing.

To make matters worse, David planned to use Neco Price as a striker.

Price was, from the outside, Wales's brightest star. He played for Tottenham and routinely scored ten or more goals per season. He was tall, fast, and had been sold for big fees. He was paid 80,000 pounds a week to play football, more than treble what the Welsh squad's next best earner, Leeds United's lightning fast winger Chris Morgan, was earning. You might think pocketing wages higher than my entire budget meant that Neco Price was better than everyone at Chester put together.

The problem was, he was shit.

"Max Best, as I live and breathe!" said Patrick David, in a break. He had been told I was coming. "Let's get a coffee, will we? You're buying! Hahaha!"

I was on my best behaviour. (Not my Best behaviour, that would have been catastrophic.) I said, "Patrick, nice to meet you. I liked some of those drills you did. Coffee's on me if you explain them to me. Spill the beans, yeah? Pun intended."

"Pun? What pun? Oh, here we go. Here comes trouble!"

Our progress to the coffee shop was interrupted as David had a buoyant conversation with some rando. After their brief chat, the guy walked on, and he was bouncing. That was David's strong suit. He had great Motivating and Man Management scores. In theory he was the perfect national team manager. He only got the players a couple of weeks at a time and it wasn't his job to improve players or to come up with amazing tactical solutions. The best thing he could do was to make coming to the national camps fun so that the best players would want to play for their country.

Contrast the careers of two of the greatest ever Welsh players. Ryan Giggs played over a thousand matches in total but only turned out for his country 64 times. Gareth Bale played less than half the club games but almost double the amount for Wales. The difference? For Giggs, Wales was a drag but Bale absolutely loved pulling on the red shirt and that in part can be attributed to the culture created by the managers who were in charge when he broke into the squad.

The coffee shop I thought we were going to turned out to be the Headquarters of the Welsh FA. It was deserted. A couple of offices had their doors closed in a way that made them look very empty. Somehow the brain is capable of knowing such things. I didn't really care for an audience, anyway. If things got heated, at least I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of a crowd.

David made us coffees from a machine he described as proudly as if it was his firstborn. We sat at a table. The space was over-designed. Almost every detail was painted Welsh red, half the carpet was red, as were most of the walls. The tables and chairs in the canteen were part of the same set but were lurid, mis-matched colours. It probably looked great in the architect's drawings but in reality it was unpleasant. If a room was a piece of music, this was an orchestra tuning up, everyone messing about with their own instruments, plucking and sawing and giving them experimental bashes. I couldn't think of a single space in Bumpers Bank where I would want this, but all the clashing colours and shapes certainly stimulated the mind. Can I blame the furniture for what happened? Yeah, let's. "Gwen said you had some ideas for me," said David, breezily. His body language wound me up. Also, my ideas weren't 'for him'. I didn't work 'for him'. He was one of those managers who begged for the job and once he got it, immediately turned into the local emperor. He wasn't going to listen, I knew it, and I was going to lose my temper.

In the movie Wanted, in which a super-cool band of fat-shaming assassins curve bullets by imparting spin on their guns like a Sri Lankan cricketer bowling a doosra, push/pull visual effects show when a character is about to go berserk. That process was underway with me but don't forget, it was the furniture's fault.

"Yeah," I said. "I have ideas. It's just that I'm the best scout in the world and one of the sport's most original thinkers." Talking about myself was making the push/pull craziness ramp up so I did a 180. "You've got crazy charisma and everyone likes you. You get those lads worked up and they run for days, everyone knows it. Players love playing for you and they want to run through brick walls for the shirt. With the right structure, the right team, we could annihilate this qualifying group. You in charge of a squad I choose, with a really good tactical thinker helping you make in-game tweaks, would be fucking incredible."

"A squad you choose?"

"Yes."

"A really good tactical thinker? I have an assistant. Daffyd Elis. I always work with him. Oh, did you mean you?"

I was in the zone now. My energy had risen to wild levels but I was controlling it. At last I had ascended! I gave him a cheeky smile. "Me? I'm busy breaking the all-time points record for League One, Patrick. I'm busy building the Northern Powerhouse. Maybe you've heard of it. You might have seen me taking the worst team in Europe into the Conference League. I've got a lot on my plate so no, I don't want your job or Daffyd's job but I do want to work with a manager who will attack North Macedonia at home."

"We will attack. Who says we won't attack?"

"You're doing 5-3-2."

"Who told you that?"

I frowned and pointed to the door. "I just saw you prepare it! 5-3-2 with Chris Morgan in central midfield and Neco Price as striker!"

"Have you got a problem with Neco an' all?"

"Ah, basically, yeah. He can do one thing on a football pitch, which is run to the far post and get a tap in. I read a story once about a Chinese governor, or maybe he was just a rich dude, I can't recall. He had loads of hangers-on and his mates were like bro, why do you have all these nobodies clinging on to you, eating your food, drinking your wine? The rich guy goes, bro, they've all got secret talents that only I know about! That guy you don't rate, he can bark like a dog. There's a big silence. Excuse me? He can bark like a dog! He's amazing. So time passes and one day they're invading their neighbouring province. Ancient China, you know? It's what they did. So the army sneaks up to the gate and there's a guard and he says 'Oi! What's all this?' And the governor shoves his mate to the front and he barks like a dog. The guard says, 'Oh, that noise I heard that sounded like an army approaching? Just a dog.'"

Patrick David's mood had shifted all over the place while I was talking but when I stopped abruptly, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. "You might call me dense, but doesn't that story prove that... Prove that Neco Price... is good?"

I bit my lip slightly. "The right ability for the right moment, the right player for the right system. I like Neco. I saw him take Roddy under his wing out there. He's a good guy and I know he's popular. There might be a match where you need someone who ghosts in on the far post and slots home. Tottenham try to score that goal from every attack, don't they? Tottenham don't play 5-3-2. If you're playing 4-2-4 and you've got a Gareth Bale type - Chris Morgan! - on the left marauding into the box spamming low crosses to the far post, bosh, you pick Neco Price as the right winger all day long. But even in that setup, you wouldn't build on the right, would you, because Neco literally can't do anything. He doesn't win headers, he doesn't defend, he can't control the ball, he can't pass. He is a terrible football player who is elite at one specific skill, a skill which in most matches won't be used. He's a waste of food and wine until that one specific time you need a guy who can bark like a dog."

"This is going in my autobiography."

"Write this down, Patrick. If you pick Neco Price, you're playing with ten men for ninety-nine percent of your minutes. Tottenham can get away with that in enough of their games and they can generate enough chances for Neco to get decent stats. Wales can't. You need to fill every slot on the team with useful players and you need to give them tactics they can get their teeth into."

"Such as?"

"North Macedonia play 3-5-2. They compress the centre of the pitch to a wild degree. It's absolutely insane but what's crazier is that it sometimes works." I pointed to the door again. "With that group I'd do 4-2-4. You'll lose the midfield battle but that's fine because you want the oppo to build and come at you. You'll keep the four forwards forward. Your CMs will be defensively-minded to take care of Elmas and Nikolov. You could man-mark them at points to break their rhythm. When you counter, break with speed. Mad speed from the front four. Macedonia are an old team and if you drag them into sprints it will be mayhem. In defensive transitions they cover zones, not individual opponents, so your boy Neco won't be put under pressure and his technique won't fail him."

David put his hands to his head and mimed an explosion. "My brain is on fire. Do I understand you're asking me to use Neco Price after all?"

I nodded. "If you play a counter-attacking 4-2-4, that's where he's useful. He can break, run on goal, and finish. Or he can get on the end of someone else's chance. That's his purpose in life. Using him in a 5-3-2 is bonkers. It's tragic."

Adding that last part was a mistake. I always did best when I stuck to being positive and when I told people how the world could look, could be. When I nagged or negged it got their backs up. I was getting slightly better at not being a dick but it was almost like I had a training cap on me.

Patrick David, the Welsh men's manager, stood, offered a handshake, told me it had been very interesting but he had to get back to work.

"This was work, you stupid prick," I screamed, internally. Instead of smashing the clown's beloved coffee machine as he deserved, I simply sat, groaned, and tutted. Maybe there was hope for me yet.

I took a minute to calm down and called Emma.

"Hey bebs," she said.

"Babes," I whined. "I stuffed it up."

"Aww. What happened?"

"He just annoyed me. He's complacent. He's nowhere near as good as he thinks, you know?"

"I thought you said you could make it work."

"I can," I said, leaning back. "I mean, in theory. You remember Kidderminster? Bob Horseman isn't a megabrain but he knows his limitations and he gets people around him who complement him. A scout and a tactics guy. It works amazingly well, too, because Horseman doesn't have a massive ego. This David guy thinks he's it."

"Well, he won't last long then, will he?"

"No. But if he gets sacked after the next Euros, that's a disaster. Euro 28 is going to be co-hosted by Wales, babes. It's Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland. It was going to be Nireland, too, but they couldn't get a stadium ready. Imagine Wales not having a team in their own tournament. It's inconceivable. I think I'm justified in going full Max to stop that, you know?"

Emma was confused. "Don't the host countries always get into the tournament? Someone made a joke about China wanting to host a World Cup because it was the only way they'd get to play in one."

"Yes, you normally give the hosts a bye because it's better for the atmosphere and ticket sales, but what if there are four countries? That's a bit too many to just wave them all through, you know? Even UEFA sometimes consider sporting merit when they make decisions. They came up with a pretty decent scam, to be fair. It's got some common sense, sporting merit, while it puts their finger on the scale to get the hosts to their own party. What's going to happen is that they will give byes to two countries."

"That doesn't seem like much of a scam."

"Ah, but it's deceptively clever. They're going to decide which two after qualifying is complete. The four hosts will compete in the qualifiers as normal. If two countries qualify on merit, voilà! The other two get byes. England will get through, so if you think about it, all Wales need to do is outperform one of Scotland or Ireland. Wales are ranked about 30th in the world, Scotland are 45th, Ireland 60th. So Wales are in a great spot, babes. Great. But this Patrick David guy could really fuck it up. I'm worried. This is an unbelievable chance to do something epic. Epic! Can you imagine if Wales get to the semi-final and beat England at Wembley? Ha!"

"Is that possible?"

"I mean, it'd be easier if I had a Welsh grandparent! It would be possible, yes, but only with a proper team, you know? Everyone pulling together and I don't mean on the pitch. Fuck! 5-3-2 against North Macedonia? He's got a fast winger in central midfield. You know I used to do that with Sharky sometimes? That was because he was all I had. This clown has an entire country to pick from! Jesus Christ."

Emma sounded like she was smiling. "Homm," she said. "Homm."

"Hommmm," I repeated, and making the noise actually did calm me down.

"At least it's distracting you from thinking about Zach."

"Oh, great. Now I'm back to worrying about that, too. Wow."

"Soz. What are you going to do?"

"Food and watch Bristol Rovers until the women's team get here. This evening it's the kids."

"I meant about Patrick David. Don't go full Max, babes."

"Don't go, did you say?"

"It's their country, isn't it? You can only help them as much as they will let you."

"Hmm," I said, and eased back on my chair like I always did at school. Was I ever going to grow up? "Okay, here's what I'll do. On Wednesday night I'll sit with the FAW guys and we'll watch this horror show unfold. If no-one gives a shit, I'll keep my gob shut. If it's obvious David is going to fail and keep his job, I'll forget my epic revenge fantasy and I'll stick to developing the kids."

"That sounds right."

I blew air out of my cheeks. Being mature was super boring. I wanted to go toe-to-toe with Alan Turner in front of an audience of a hundred million. "All right, fine. I'll spend the summer of 28 fucking... collecting Panini stickers."

"Or getting married."

I laughed. "Most weddings are one day, aren't they? How long is ours going to take?"

"There are phases, babes. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Got to get back to work. Seeya. Mwah."

"Mwah."

I sighed, got up, pushed my chair back in, and brought the coffee cups to the sink. I noted that Patrick David didn't clean up his mess after him. What a prick. As I left the area, I noticed that something had changed. The door to one of the offices had opened by an inch.

You know, one of the empty offices. That I had convinced myself was empty. Because, what, I had X-ray vision?

Fuck me. I felt my neck heating up. They'd heard everything.

What a clown I was.

***

Tuesday, September 29

Match 9 of 46: Bristol Rovers versus Chester

I drove to Bristol and joined up with the rest of the group pretty late. I'd spent two days watching all kinds of Welshness. The women's manager was a lot more open to my ideas than Patrick David. The youth teams were decent, super keen to try Relationism, and I got to fill out my database. I told Gwen which prospects from the south would one day play for a combined eleven. I scouted more coaches, identified more talent.

I had everything except for an ally in the most important position.

Aggravating!

Also aggravating was Zach's dumb voice saying dumb things like, "Hi, Max! How are ya!"

"Hi. Is Brooke here tonight?"

"She sure is, y'all!" I think he said.

I scowled through Sandra's pre-match team talk. Bristol's average CA was 95. Ours was 93.4, excluding me. It would be a close game decided on fine details. I knew who I fancied when it came to those. Sandra stopped suddenly. "Max, are you paying attention?"

"No," I said, in an unplanned toddler voice.

People laughed, which boosted my mood. What was going on? I looked around. Sandra said, "Are you in a grump?"

"A little bit, yeah."

"Is it us?"

"No, it's Wales."

More laughs, more mood boosts. Sandra looked at Peter Bauer - not playing tonight - and nodded. He said, "Max, do you know in which position you're playing?"

"Er, I'm guessing right back because Rushy isn't here." And because I was listed as the right back on the curse screen.

Peter said, "Do you want a recap on Bristol's left winger?"

"No. I did my homework. Can I take the free kicks, please?"

"Of course," said Sandra.

"No, I mean all of them. Anything in Bristol's half. Just so you know, I'm going to shoot from absolutely everywhere. Has anyone seen the movie Wanted? It's about assassins who can bend bullets. I think if I catch the ball just right I can score the world's first figure-of-eight goal. I want to defy physics in a visually interesting way."

Sandra said, "Max is on free kicks, everyone."

I got up and scanned the room. I had a mission for someone. Vimsy would have been perfect, but he was gone. He and Jackie Reaper had got their claws into Tranmere and that bunch were moving up the league. Henri had found his scoring boots and was starting to love life in an all-white kit. "Hmm," I said, as I scanned the room again.

Andrew Harrison was starting tonight. He was wanted by Burton Albion, which didn't make a lot of sense. They were in League Two. No-one wanted Bark. Why not? He was improving rapidly. I would try to make him look good tonight. Show people what a talent the kid was.

I remembered what I was looking for. "Peter," I croaked, trying to be subtle. I jerked my head towards the corridor. Once outside, I asked him to get Brooke to come down from the VIP seats at half time. "Need a quick chat with her, please. Urgent. Nothing to worry about. Tell her it's all chill but, you know, make sure she's here, do you get me?"

***

Extracts from the BBC's Live Reporting service.

18:30 GMT

Welcome!

We have a much reduced slate of EFL action to report on tonight, as plenty of clubs have taken the opportunity to postpone matches because of international call-ups.

Most eyes will be on the Championship. Three incredible matchups there, including the Sheffield derby, moneybags Birmingham against moneybags Wrexham, and Preston at home to local rivals Blackburn. Wow!

Down in League One, it's a tough test for depleted league leaders Chester against in-form Bristol Rovers, a battle of the wanderers in Wycombe versus Bolton, and there's an intriguing clash between Northampton and Peterborough United in which the losing manager is expected to lose his job. I suppose that's what happens to losers.

In League Two, Tranmere's title credentials will be tested in a tie against AFC Wimbledon.

18:33

Team news

Multiple changes for Chester!

Injuries, suspensions, and international call-ups mean the league leaders play another brand-new lineup. Cole Adams, Youngster, and Darren Smith are away, as is Magnus Evergreen, who isn't a Chester player but everyone talks about him like he is. Such a confusing club. Can someone tell them I'm trying to monitor twenty matches at a time here?

Steve Icke is in goal. We think player-manager-but-not-manager-tonight-what-on-earth Max Best will play right back, while club captain Christian Fierce is rested. It seems to be 4-4-2 with club record signing Gabriel making a rare start, and there's no space even on the bench for Peter Bauer, who was amazing in Chester's previous match. What's wrong with that lot? Seriously.

Chester XI: Icke, Owens, Green, Hall, Best, Dugdale, Contreras, Harrison, Barkley, Beckton, Gabriel.

18:58

'Chester are strong away from home'

Bristol Rovers boss Julen Zapata spoke in his pre-match press conference about the difficulty of facing Chester. 'They are a challenging team, in a tactical sense unpredictable. Very hard to prepare but I think we are prepared. They are in a strong moment but what is ridiculous is how they approach away games. They don't care. I have heard Max Best say it is an advantage to play away from home. That is not normal. They are not normal. It is a big challenge but we believe in what we're doing. Our results are also good. We might have one or two surprises for Chester. I think our fans will be very happy with what they see.'

19:19

'Chester are a team playing with confidence'

Nice One

(Former Chester player and FA Cup hero)

Max Best and Sandra Lane have got Chester playing with confidence. They aren't talking a lot in the media but have got their heads down, are putting one foot in front of the other, quietly taking care of business. They will lose games this season but not many and I'm backing them to go straight up.

19:45

Kick-off!

It's showtime all up and down the country.

19:49

A flurry of early goals already! In the Sheffield derby, it's Blades who have struck the first blow. One-nil to the home team! Meanwhile, Paul 'Smithy' Smith is dancing for joy as the Cobblers take an early lead against Posh.

19:52

I'm getting complaints from international readers who don't know which teams are winning. Not sure what to do about that. You have to learn the team's official name, their shortened name, plus as many as two nicknames. Repeat for all 92 clubs. Those aren't my rules, guys. Really sorry.

Oh, and what a chance that was for the Tellytubbies! So close!

Okay, yes, that one was a joke. Sorry.

Here's a real one. Bristol Rovers are officially 'The Pirates' but are known locally as 'The Gas'.

19:55

No, really, stop writing in to complain. Yes, this IS the BBC and yes, we're allowed to have personalities.

20:00

GOAL - Bristol Rovers 0-1 Chester

Oh my word what a goal!

What a sensational goal at the Memorial Stadium!

It was good combination play between Dugdale, Beckton, and Contreras that resulted in Dugdale racing forward. He was chopped down in Max Best territory. Max Best ambled forward from right back, absolutely crashed the free kick over the wall and past Dewsbury, and stood still while his teammates tried to make him smile!

20:02

I've been watching that Chester goal back and it seems as though Max Best wasn't happy with the placement of the defensive wall. All I can think was that his shot touched a defender's head and Best is worried it will be given as an own goal. There is absolutely no chance of that, but what do I know? I'm just a guy who watches 20 matches simultaneously three times a week.

20:10

GOAL - Tranmere Rovers 0-1 Wimbledon

Wow! Thumping volley after a corner was recycled. You don't save those!

20:17

GOAL - Bristol Rovers 0-2 Chester

Whaaaaat is happening?

Max Best has just scored the same goal! The same free kick from the same spot on the pitch!

And he's even more unhappy about it!

This has to be one of his weird jokes. It has to be.

He absolutely leathered the ball and it blasted through the wall and went diagonally into the top-right of the net. You know when James Bond goes into headquarters and throws his hat onto the coat hanger? Imagine that scene, but instead of Sean Connery looking smug because he did something cool, it's Max Best unhappy with himself because it wasn't as cool as in his imagination. Or something. Who knows with that guy?

20:27

Approaching half time in all our matches.

A reminder that Sheffield United are leading their neighbours. It's tense (and goalless) in the battle of the celebrity owners. We're all-square in Lancashire and Northampton have crumbled after taking an early lead.

20:30

Peep peep peep!

***

I left the pitch slowly, aiming to be one of the last players in the tunnel.

I didn't see Brooke, but an old guy in a smart jacket asked me to follow him. My CBO (Chief Business Officer) was behind a double door, very much in the 'home' part of the stadium. Before I crossed the threshold, I bent to take off my boots but the old boy smiled and said not to worry about all that.

He left us alone.

Brooke looked nervous. "Nice goals," she said.

"Yeah," I said.

"You didn't seem real happy about them."

"Um... I wanted to do something extra cool. Like really bend the ball an unbelievable amount, but they put the two bravest players next to each other in the wall."

"I don't follow."

"What happens when you take a free kick is all the players jump up, right? Most guys flinch or turn their heads away but some players jump straight up. Not me, by the way, I think it's mental."

"I've never seen you in a wall."

"Yeah, because I don't like being thrashed in the face on a cold night, even by Emma. Okay not sure if you can imagine this but if they're going to jump straight up there's a guaranteed gap between their heads. It’s not visually interesting but we need to win so I put the ball there, in that gap. Yawn, boring. Few minutes later, we get another chance from the same spot, they line the wall up exactly the same. I couldn't believe it! We wouldn't ever do that. There aren't many times when I'm a megabrain on the defensive side but I know how to take a free kick, right? I know the mistakes I take advantage of. That's why we never put Zach next to Christian."

"Zach's brave."

I closed my eyes. Brooke was dressed all business-like, all serious. She had been up in the director's box networking, getting to know people. This could have been a night off for her but she had chosen to spend it following Zach to the ends of the earth. At least he looked good out there. He was the captain and the defensive leader, yelling at the rest of us, organising, taking responsibility. It had to be pretty hot.

"Brooke, listen. I had this situation before with R. Brown and, well, it was painful and this will be painful but I want to try to be a bit more mature about it this time."

"I'm listening," she said.

"Okay. Right." I sucked in a breath. This was hard. It would have helped to look at something else but there were only some photos of past Bristol Rovers stars and teams and I can't say I was very interested just at that moment. "So... I know that St. Louis City are interested in buying Zach. Who are St. Louis City? They're the only majority female-owned club in Major League Soccer. It's going well so they're looking to expand and they're one of the bidders for the new franchises in the women's league. My research says that St. Louis is one of the top three or four best locations for a new women's team, so they've got a good chance of winning the bid. Why do they want Zach for the men's team? Obviously, he's a good player and he could thrive in MLS. From what I've seen, the standard of defending is a weak point for the league and a fully-formed Zach would be an upgrade on most centre backs. But I know that. They don't. He's only in League One and they can't be sure he could hack it at a higher level. They don't have access to Masterplanalytics, right? So why the interest? Of all the players in the world, why him?"

"Tell me."

"It's obvious. They want you to head up their new franchise. You'll be the general manager or whatever they call it. You'll build an entire club, starting with the fonts - I know you love a good old font chat - and while you'll have some starting points like shared training facilities, you'll basically be starting from scratch. They know that if they want you they need to get Zach over. So that's it. That's what's coming. I would just like to know, like, how far you are down the road because, you know, I've got a lot on my plate."

"You worked all that out by yourself?" said Brooke. "You're actually a genius."

"Yeah."

"And you're not mad?"

"I can't say I'm not gutted. Of course I'm gutted. But," I said, sighing. "This is the sport, isn't it? This is the point. You start small and you try to get to the top."

"You don't. There’s an elevator right there but you wanna climb every inch of that rock face."

"Yeah but I'm a fucking moron," I said, and she smiled. "I'm not mad because, I mean, you've overdelivered on such a spectacular scale... I mean, you're a legend. You've boshed this and you want to get to the next level. Building a whole new club, that's cool. I'd be tempted, too. And St. Louis, I mean, I'm sure it's got a honkytonk on every street corner. No, I'm not mad. And I have to take some responsibility. My original sin."

"What do you mean by that?"

"When you came to your interview I was a dick. That was always going to bite me on the arse. That's no way to start a relationship, is it?" I shook my head. There was no point dwelling on the past but I hadn't been all that much better with Patrick David, had I?

Brooke walked around the little space, looking at old team photos. "What about Zach? Don't you need him?"

Zach was CA 98, PA 139. Loads of room to improve. "It's not ideal, to be honest, but you can have him for one point seven million."

"One point seven million?" she repeated, and I thought her lips twitched. Angry that I was trying to rinse her before she had even started her new job? "So you'd let us both go in January?"

"I mean... No. I need to sell someone to get Bumpers up to standard. Why not Zach? He can go and find an apartment and get your new life started. You can hack a long distance relationship, right? I mean, it's Zach. You don't need to worry about him finding another dream woman while you're finishing the season over here. Even if he met one, he would piss her all the way off and she wouldn't speak to him for three months. By the time she has realised he's actually sex on legs, he'll be picking you up at the airport." Brooke hid a smile by turning away. I said, "But if you need to go early, we'll work it out. You've earned that much, that's for fucking sure." I felt my muscles cooling down. "I should get back to work. Lock up these three points, yeah? I get the feeling the second half of the season is going to be tough. It's gonna feel..." I didn't want to pop our positive little bubble by finishing with the word empty. So I shut my gob.

Brooke did something unexpected. In a low voice, almost a whisper, she said, "Good luck, Max."

And that was that.

***