1.2 - Women Are From Venus (Patreon)

2.

The Premier League was nearly back. This coming weekend, in fact. Arsenal were playing Crystal Palace in the first game... oh. On Friday night. I had sort of promised Beth I'd be at the sports hall to watch her. A bit annoying to miss the big match, but then again, I needed to see footballers in the flesh.

So to speak.

I stayed home after work on Monday, and used Tuesday to visit mum. Wednesday I wandered around Platt Lane and Platt Fields scanning players to see if there were any interesting CA or PA numbers. There weren't. I did, however, get 5 bonus XP for scouting my 500th player.

That brought me up to 21 XP. In the 'shop' I currently had access to Player Profile 2, which promised to unlock a tab called History. That was selling for 100 XP. Attributes 1 would add another data point to a player's profile, but that was retailing at 315 XP. At some point, the option to buy '4-4-2 diamond' had appeared, for 100 XP. I wouldn't buy any more formations as they seemed to be useless. If it was the only thing left to buy, then maybe. Maybe I would be forced to buy them to unlock other options... In the meantime, given a choice, my preference was to see more attributes, but I wouldn't pull the trigger on that even when I had saved enough XP. You know, in case another special offer turned up. I love getting a deal.

With no time pressure, I felt chill enough to go 'gamespotting' on Thursday as well. What I was doing was quite similar to trainspotting, in that I had my thermos and some food in a little plastic bag, and the main reason for going was to see some little numbers. But with trainspotting there was only the joy of trains or whatever the appeal was. It didn't lead to anything. I was hoping all this watching, all this time, all this work, would lead to something. I couldn't imagine what, exactly. But there had to be something, right?

Right?

The only thing I could think of was that seeing all these numbers could help me win at Fantasy Football. I'd have to go and watch every team in the Premier League and as far as I knew you didn't get money for winning. But I signed up and selected a team. Just in case.

But that got me thinking - you could win money betting on football. This curse might give me an unfair advantage. Something to think about.

***

Friday evening was another sweltering one, and I was happy for the air con. It was all a bit awkward with Beth, though. She told me the wrong kick-off time to get me there half an hour early and I spent the whole 30 minutes in terror that she might start talking about her feelings or worse, 'our' feelings. I kept the conversation on safe topics, like what happens next for women's football, whether Haaland would be a success at Man City, and if they turned Foucalt's Pendulum into a musical, which band or artist should write the songs? Okay, maybe not the last one. I was becoming something of an expert in Love Island from reading the articles to my mum and Anna, and that helped me eat through the minutes.

When the opposition turned up, I nearly broke my forehead in half from frowning.

Beth noticed, and laughed at me. "What?"

I tried to speak, but was mostly just splurting out noises. "They're... little people?"

Another laugh. "They're Manchester City's under 16s."

That explained the spotless laser blue kits, the very serious looking coaches, and the many bags of equipment. "Under 16s? That one looks about ten." Until they started kicking balls around I wouldn't know their actual ages.

"So? These are some of the best kids in the country. They'll crush us. They always do."

"Why are they playing you?"

"There aren't tons of girls playing football. They pretty much take games wherever they can. And they support this league. It's one of the oldest women's leagues in Manchester."

"So you're a charity case. I knew it."

That got me a smack on the arm.

When the warm-up started, a lot of things happened at once. I could finally see Beth's CA (1) and PA (6). Hers was the highest PA I'd seen yet, and it kind of made sense because her main strength was running around harassing her opponents. But she only held the record for highest PA for the 8 microseconds it took my eye to glance at the nearest Man City toddler.

Sarah Greene     

Born 4.10.2007 (Age 14) - English

• Acceleration 6                   
• Bravery 3               
• Dribbling 12
• Heading 1       
• Jumping 3           
• Pace 4   
• Passing 9
• Stamina 4   
• Strength 3   
• Tackling 1       
• Technique 13       
• preferred foot R
• CA 12 PA 167
• Midfielder (Centre, Right)

Holy Moses! PA 167? So it's not out of 20, then? Just that attribute, or all of them? She wasn't the only one of the newborns with a high PA. The entire squad ranged from 33 to 169. Meanwhile, none had a CA higher than 15.

This wasn't what I'd been expecting, and it wasn't the only baffling thing. Sarah Greene had higher speed attributes than Conrad Etuhu, and higher strength, too. But it stood to reason that Etuhu could have picked her up one handed while the reverse was not true. The girl was a bag of bones. So I was back to mistrusting the numbers...

... and it took me a minute to realise that Beth was trying to introduce me to their new teammate. Lula was from Mexico and was studying Surface Engineering. It came to me that although I knew a fair amount about Beth, I didn't know what she was doing at Uni. There was no time - the game kicked off.

Again, it was 7-a-side, rolling subs, 25 minute halves. But this time the shape of the game was radically different. It was unlike any amateur game I'd ever seen, which is probably because one side would grow up to be professionals and had pro coaches. The City kids would pass the ball left and right, left and right, and when pressed, would play it back to the keeper, who would hang onto it for a few seconds longer than I thought was right. Someone, usually Beth, would sprint at her, and she'd pass it to one of the two options on the sidelines and City would quickly play it forward with Beth out of position. When a good chance came along, they'd shoot, and if nothing came up, they'd play a safe pass and keep possession. After three minutes they'd scored a goal and Beth's team had barely touched the ball.

It was... clinical.

I watched a few more minutes, and the score moved to 2-0. Something on the other touchline caught my eye. The City coach, a woman with the drab shoulder-length hair of a Business Studies teacher, did a little high-five with her assistant.

And that's when it clicked. This whole gameplan was a trap. A sneaky, insidious, Venus Fly Trap trap.

A couple of years before, Arsenal had a Spanish coach who tried to change the way they played. Instead of booting the ball down the pitch, the goalkeeper would always pass the ball to a nearby defender and the opposition would swarm all over the Arsenal defence and they'd inevitably buckle. But once, and I remember it clearly, Arsenal got it to work. As the opposition tried to blitz them, they fizzed the ball all around the pitch, dragging the other team out of position one by one, then hammered a beautiful goal down their now-defenceless throats. That was the model, the platonic idea of that tactic. It seemed like a high-risk move to me, borderline foolish, and indeed, the coach was later sacked. But seeing it here, played out by these little girls against these university students, it felt like bringing a gun to a knife-fight. In fact, Beth's team were so unprepared it was like bringing a gun to a marrow growing contest.

And that was all fine and good, but they didn't need to high-five about it. They didn't need to plaster their faces with smug grins.

My blood was boiling.