1.8 - Raffi Brown (Patreon)

8.

Solly didn't get a walk that week; I was racking up XP. I still didn't quite know what was happening to me but I finally had a sense that it would lead to something good.

City were playing Crystal Palace on Saturday, the 27th. I had four evenings before then, plus the Sunday League bonanza the day after, then 3 days after that. So hitting 2,000 XP by the month's end seemed easy. The only real issue was the cost - I'd spent more than 100 pounds on tickets to two games. That was unsustainable.

Anyway, I had a genius idea that I tested on the Tuesday before the City game: I drove to the Powerleague 5-a-side pitches in Ardwick. Ardwick always seems so far from Moss Side but when I looked on the map it was just a few miles away. My perceptions of distances were still firmly fixed in the public transport phase of my life; I'd only had a car for a year.

What I was hoping for was a continual stream of weekday matches to watch, just like Hough End on Sundays. If I got XP for the organised league matches at Powerleague, I could score a lot of XP in one evening. If I also got XP for the 'friendly' games there, then I was quids in. Yes, it would probably only be 1 XP per minute, but it would be free.

I got there at quarter past 6, and there were two games going on. I asked a goalkeeper if he minded me watching, and he said no. I think he liked having an audience; he put a bit of needless flash into his saves. It didn't take long to learn that I was getting XP. I set a 20-minute timer and when it went off I took a 10-minute break. Then I went back to whichever game was going on - and there were more and more through the evening, peaking between 8 and 9:30 - and because I was taking breaks it wasn't as tiring. I'd stuck 120 XP in my pocket by 9:30 and was just about to call it a night when I thought I'd just watch one minute of the 9:30 kick-offs to help me unlock the 'scouting X players' achievements.

And that's when I saw him.

Raffi Brown     

Born 8.8.2001 (Age 21) - English   

• Acceleration 7     
• Bravery 6      
• Dribbling 7
• Heading 8
• Jumping 7
• Pace 10
• Passing 12
• Stamina 4     
• Strength 4       
• Tackling 3     
• Technique 8
• preferred foot B          
• CA 2 PA 139
• Midfielder (Centre)

PA 139! That was almost as much as Tom Heaton, a Manchester United player. His attributes were not overwhelming, but I had a sense that there was something special about him. I stuck around to watch, intrigued.

He was strangely ugly. I keep reading that beauty is related to symmetry, and seeing Raffi Brown was the first time I thought the theory might have legs, because this kid was lopsided. His mouth looked like it had been drawn by a primary school kid - it sloped down to the right slightly. His eyes also had slightly odd slopes, like the same primary schooler had rearranged herself, or moved the paper she was drawing on. His nose stuck out to the left; his eyebrows were different lengths; his ears didn't match. If all this makes him sound like Quasimodo, dial that image much further back towards 'normal human'. He wasn't grotesque - he was just slightly off in every way. Including how he sort of lumbered around the pitch.

But then he got the ball and I actually gasped - suddenly he was totally transformed. He had the balance of a ballet dancer and the power of an Olympic sprinter. He shrugged off a challenge, feinted to pass with his right, dragged the ball back onto his left and played a pass through to the striker. The whole thing took maybe 0.7 seconds. Do you believe in love at first sight? You should.

Entranced, enchanted, I stayed to watch this guy, my pulse racing every time he got the ball. And every time he got the ball, he did something. A delightful, cushioned one-touch pass. A shot that made the goalkeeper dive the wrong way - how? A spin under pressure, seeing there was no pass on, and a calm turn to play the ball back to his keeper. So simple, so obvious, and something that so few amateur players would do. Then there was his defensive work - he tracked his runners, made interceptions, was always somewhere useful, always impacting the game. The other team kicked him, tried to rile him up, but he was like a zen master. He finished the half unruffled, and as far as I could see, with 100% pass accuracy.

At half-time I asked the goalkeeper for the name of the team, then went to reception pretending I was one of their players and wasn't sure what time the game was next week. She told me.

I waited at a bus stop trying to process what I'd just seen, and only at the last second did I stop myself from getting on a bus. I had driven there! I got in my car and waited until I was a bit more clear-headed, then drove home at about three miles an hour while my brain kept accelerating.

What had I just witnessed?

***

I went to the Powerleague on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, too, and took Friday off.

***

XP balance: 1431

***

Saturday was the City game, and I wasn't looking forward to it. I dreaded seeing all the City players with much higher numbers than the United ones.

But what I saw was a fucking fantastic match, a proper classic. Crystal Palace scored two goals before half-time. I tried not to celebrate the Palace goals - I was in a home section. This was the kind of match City sometimes struggled with. Teams who had fast players could hurt them on the break - I didn't need to be a tactical genius to know that. And that's what happened - Palace absorbed City's anaemic pressure (no shots in the first half!) and used fast counter-attacks to create chances. Boom. New season, same as the old season.

But one thing had changed for City this year - now in addition to having about 30 world-class midfielders to choose from, they also had new signing Erling Haaland - a freak of nature who looked and moved like a Viking marauder. Roared on by - fair play - an electrified, frenzied crowd, he scored a dramatic second-half hattrick to secure the win for his new team.

Erling Haaland     

Born 21.7.2000 (Age 22) - Norwegian   

• Acceleration 18           
• Bravery 18
• Dribbling 13
• Heading 16
• Jumping 15
• Pace 18
• Passing 12
• Stamina 16      
• Strength 19       
• Tackling 8             
• Technique 14              
• preferred foot L                         
• CA 189 PA 197     
• Striker

Amazing numbers.

Elsewhere, United just about beat Southampton 1-0, while Liverpool blew away the cobwebs in quite some style, winning a record 9-0. (By the way, in the real Fantasy Football game I had used my Triple Captain on Mo Salah, and he was the only Liverpool player not to score or assist! Despite my new powers, I was shockingly bad at the game.) Those big teams should be winning most weeks, given how much money they spent. But as United had proven, sometimes spending money didn't guarantee success.

Talking of spending, how much had Haaland cost? If I remembered correctly, not that much. I thought I remembered seeing sums like 51 million pounds being mentioned, but this was one of the hottest players in world football. United had signed the short defender for more, and had just bought Casemiro, a 30-year-old midfielder who never scored, for more still.

So after the game, while I waited for the majority of fans to leave, I did a quick online search. And yes, the transfer fee paid to Haaland's previous club, Borussia Dortmund, was 'only' 51 million. But City also had to pay Haaland's agent a staggering 34 million. 34 million quid for the easiest bit of work any human has ever done!

Imagine the phone call.

"Hello, is that Manchester City?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to buy Erling Haaland?"

"Yes."

"Great, I'll send over the paperwork."

Amazing.

As we say in England, it's nice work if you can get it.

I did that thing again where I stood up like I'd seen a goal.

Nice work if you can get it... agent fees… nice work if you can get it… 34 million pounds… nice work if you can get it… How can you get it?

A picture flashed across my mind - a player standing with one foot on a ball, looking at me with his arms crossed, an amused smile playing across his crooked lips.

Raffi Brown!