2.3 - Max's Misfits [T1] (Patreon)

3.

Ian Evans gave me ten minutes to organise my team. My guys grabbed luminous yellow bibs and then formed a loose huddle in our half of the pitch. As Raffi went to grab his, Shona called out to him, 'Why you playing a match?' He smiled at her as if to say, 'it's okay, honey. This is part of the plan'. You can't spell smile without lie, readers.

Henri picked up a bib.

"No way," I said.

"Max," he said. But instead of finishing the sentence, he pulled the bib on. He twisted left and right to allow me to admire his form.

"Dude," I said.

"Max," he said, and this time he pushed his finger onto my lips. The international gesture meaning: 'hush, babes'. Fucking French people! If he got injured I would never be able to step foot in Darlington ever again. I would have to spend half my income on bodyguards. Half my search history would be 'Darlington mafia' and 'are Peaky Blinders from Darlington' and so on.

As he jogged away, I tried tearing some of my hair out. "Argh!" I said, then smiled at Shona, as if to say 'this is all part of the plan'. She gave me a Look.

Magnus Evergreen arrived. You remember him. He was the player/coach/physio with the cleanest aura in Chester. I guessed that Dean had called him as backup in case things got feisty and more medical staff were needed. Yeah, well. I wasn't planning on getting injured. Not again. "Magnus!" I called.

He pottered over, his huge arms swinging low. "Max Best," he said, offering me a handshake.

"Yeah yeah yeah. We'll bond over a chai tea latte and a ceremonial exchange of friendship bracelets. But later, yeah? I need a sub. Get changed and grab a bib."

He gave me a placid look and held out his wrist. They were covered in bracelets and ornaments and shit. "Do you craft your own?"

"No!" I said, pushing his arm down. "Sorry. I'm stressed off my tits. Would you please help me out? I urgently need a guy on the bench. I'm not fit, my bro hasn't played much. Neither of my bros have. I'd kill for some tactical flexibility."

He looked worried. "Okay," he said. "But you shouldn't joke about killing. It darkens the soul."

Now, this might sound absolutely bonkers to you, but even in the eye of a footballing hurricane his words resonated with me. "Can you... lighten a soul?"

"You can try."

"Mate!" I said. "I want to fucking talk to you. At length. About all this shit. But now I need a spare left-back. Do you feel me?"

"Okay," he said, and he walked towards the businessy building. In fucking slow-motion! And while I gnashed my teeth, he turned and said, "I've been learning about breathwork. And I have a lot of thoughts about Slowmadism."

I jabbed a thumb at him and jiggled it around. Good for you, buddy!

That reminded me. Maxy No-Thumbs. Rage flooded me again. But it was a cold rage. For once in my life, I had sight of the bigger picture, and that was making Henri Lyons look good. If this trial finished with Ian Evans telling MD to try to sign Henri, then that would be a good day. Raffi, sorry to say, was secondary. It was possible he was already tainted by his connection to me. Still, if it was a choice between Raffi looking good and me looking good, I'd be choosing Raffi all day long. My career at Chester was stuck on the launch pad. All because I'd tried to deceive the manager. Really, people are so sensitive sometimes. So, priorities, in order. 1. Henri. 2. Raffi. 3. Win the game. 4. My playing career.

I rubbed my temples. Time was already running out. What did I need to do? Talk to Mike Dean about all this? No. We'd been outplayed. How, though? I raged again, but this time it was hot, violent rage.

I stomped over to Dean, the physio, and gave him a blast of attention. He'd been the one leaking all our plans to Ian Evans. "Dean, mate. Thanks for this. Appreciate it. If there's a loose bit of bone in here," I pointed to my skull, "And it gets jabbed into my fucking brain, don't feel bad about it. I'm sure you did what you thought was right."

He spluttered at me, but I'd gone super cold again on my way back to the huddle.

Time! Running out!

I opened the tactics screens. Chester FC were playing 4-4-2. Diarmuid Dubhlainn, also known as Aff, was their dangerman on the left of midfield. Sam Topps was their captain, their pitbull in the centre of midfield. Not as limited as he appeared to the naked eye - he had decent technical qualities.

My screen showed some things I already knew. Ben Cavanagh, Chester's reserve goalkeeper, was on my team. I was quite happy with that since according to the curse he was slightly better than the first team keeper. I also had Carl Carlile, a talented and flexible defender who routinely stank the place out. There was something undermining his performances - a big shame because he potentially had a good career ahead of him. I also had Magnus Evergreen - he was listed as a sub. He could play anywhere in defence or midfield, and he was by far the weirdest player I'd ever scouted. He had that minus 2 PA, but now his CA was written in red - it had fallen from 23 to 22! WTF was with this guy?

I also noted with some dismay that Henri's CA had gone red. Dropping to 54 meant he was still easily the best player on the pitch, but drops were bad. My mantra was: number goes up!

I shook it all off. Not the time! The default tactic was 4-4-2, of course, and the curse had put most players in good positions. I was on the left of midfield, which didn't feel like where I needed to be. I quickly used what I knew about the players to rejig the team, putting myself in the centre of midfield next to Raffi with Henri ahead of us. I imagined a powerful triangle of like-minded players getting a grip on the game and dominating it.

Since no-one on the touchline could hear us, I didn't even pretend to give instructions. The players knew what I wanted. I had two new formations I could try, but doing so would give me a splitting headache and this wasn't the right day for that.

What else?

I bit my nail while I thought about what I could do. Something occurred to me and I disabled the match clock from my vision. Behind it were two buttons - Bench Boost and Triple Captain! A slight boost to any subs that came on, plus my captain's influence score being counted triple. Those abilities were only supposed to work once per season, but this match (Chester FC vs Max's Misfits) counted as being played in a different 'season' to all the other times I'd used it. I was really using these perks in a way that wasn't what the designers could have intended. And I loved it.

"Raffi mate," I said. "You know the way I get a bit weird?"

"Yes," said Raffi, with nowhere near enough hesitation.

"Er... well, bit of a mad superstition thing here. Can you just pretend to be fiddling with your laces or doing something with your baby when the match starts? And then come right on for Magnus. You'll be off for 30 seconds, tops."

He sighed. "I'm not even going to fight this," he said, as he loped away.

Magnus Evergreen came on. When he realised he was going to start, his whole posture changed. He became visibly less weird. More serious. He saw me gawping. "What?" he said. "I know my job."

"It's just for a minute," I said. "You won't be annoyed?"

"I know my job," he said.

So that was an early activation for Bench Boost. Now for Triple Captain. It was based on an attribute I couldn't see - influence. Who was the best choice for captain? Raffi was a lead-by-example type. Henri was a lead-by-scoring-goals type. I didn't know the rest of the team very well. So I took a risk and gave myself the C. (The team sheet now read Max Best (c) and I liked it.)

Vimsy stepped onto the pitch with a ball. The match ball. He was going to referee. Not exactly neutral, but what was I going to do? Zap through a portal and come back with Uriah Rennie? I wish.

What else? I thought. What else, what else?

I checked through every screen. Virtually every option on both teams was on its default setting. All normal. Nothing out of the ordinary...

...Until some impulse to look in every last nook made me check the 'tackling' section on Chester FC's screen. Their tackling intensity was set to 'hard'. Because this was a friendly, my options were limited to 'easy'.

So.

There was at least one advantage to being a dinosaur!

Or maybe Ian Evans had his own version of the curse. I'd started to pick up little hints here and there. Insinuations that certain managers had inexplicable powers. Jose Mourinho's players used to be amazed at how he'd predict what would happen in certain matches. He'd design his entire tactical plan around one incident that he couldn't have known would happen. And then it would happen. Pep Guardiola would often get plaudits for moving players into new positions. Well, I knew the trick now, didn't I? The trick was to have access to a cosmic database of where players could play!

So what if Evans was inflexible by design? Could he have a curse that let him gain XP when he didn't change tactics? And was he able to spend that XP 'buying' motivation?

Yeah yeah yeah. Food for thought.

Right now, all that mattered was that I'd set up the team as best I could. The irony was that if my guys pulled through and helped me win, helped me get a contract, then that would hasten their exit out of the club. Almost all of them were easily upgradeable.

And as for me...

...I felt lean. Mobile. Agile. Invincible.

I was going to put on the greatest performance by a Max since Maximus Decimus Meridius in the movie Gladiator.

I glared at Ian Evans. An emperor I wouldn't mind usurping.

Get ready to be entertained, mate.

***

We kicked off. Henri passed the ball to Raffi, who touched it to me. I played it to our left back. Absolutely beautiful. Five seconds in and everyone who mattered had touched the ball and completed our passes. The match ratings didn't change - every player on the pitch currently had a 6/10 rating. So the curse wasn't impressed by my 100% pass completion rate. Fine. Be like that.

The match settled into the normal patterns you get when two teams play 4-4-2 against each other. A lot of huffing and puffing and cul de sacs ending in long passes.

I strolled around, dividing my mental runtime between the action on the pitch and the high-level manager view. The ratings of the players on the first team started to creep up - a few 7s here and there. Ours didn't.

It was early days, but it seemed like we would be in for a struggle unless something changed.

What is it that people like Magnus Evergreen have on posters in their hallways? Be the change you want to see in the world. Is that it?

Anyway, I decided it was time for the party to start.

"Yes, Raffi," I said, moving into position to receive a pass from him. I took a touch and looked forward - Henri pointed to where he wanted the through ball. I took a swing, one beautiful 7-iron of a pass coming right up! But my foot hit fresh air. While I'd been daydreaming about backspin, Sam Topps had whizzed past and nipped the ball from my toes. By the time I realised what had happened, he was ten yards away.

Nothing came of that break, but my match rating dipped to 5. Wow.

My next involvement came when a Chester player hit a back pass to his goalie, who booted it upfield. It was curving and spinning in my general direction, so I got into position to take it on my chest. Once I had it under control I'd move left or right depending on what the sitch was. I glanced right to see how that part of the pitch was shaping up, and in those microseconds, fucking Sam Topps appeared out of nowhere, jumped for the ball, and headed it away from me.

Oh, I thought.

Well, fine. I increased my workrate, running close to my teammates when they had the ball so that I could get involved in the game. I longed to create chances for Henri. A quick hat-trick here would do everyone the world of good. But every time I got the ball I felt Sam Topps storming towards me. Once I hit a pass that he blocked; it went out harmlessly for a throw-in. Another time he barged me off the ball before I could sort my feet out. The third time, I finally got my body working and was able to drift past him. But no sooner had I eased past Topps than another Chester player was zooming off with the ball. The ball that had been in my possession mere seconds earlier.

With me out of position and Raffi darting forward to help me attack, we were suddenly short at the back. Chester's midfield passed it left to Aff, who skinned Carlile and crossed to where there was a superabundance of Chester players waiting to knock it into the net.

1-0.

I went down on my haunches.

You're a human being. You've had that dream where you are trying to run but you can't. Imagine that dream, but it's really happening, and it's costing you a life on Easy Street.

This was too fast. Bewilderingly fast. If you think a speed attribute of 5 is slow then Chester were generally a slow team. From the side of the pitch, from the stands, watching as a fan or a scout, they seemed lethargic. Glacial, at times. But on the pitch, in the middle of it all, the players were like electrons whizzing around faster than the eye could see. Maybe this was why older players took up golf. In that sport, faster, younger men didn't steal the ball every time you were about to do something beautiful with it. Of course, I didn’t have advancing years as an excuse.

"Max," said Raffi, coming over to check on me while the teams reset. "You okay? You hurt?"

"Nah," I said. "It's just too fast."

"I feel ya." Raffi was more or less holding his own, though, with a match rating of 6. Mine was down to 4.

So that was that. I was, officially, dogshit.

How had I come to believe my own hype? How had I come to believe that me being half-decent was even possible? Because of fucking Jackie Reaper, that's why. Him and his moronic pep talks. I grunted with frustration and trudged off the pitch. Magnus Evergreen, a player with spindly legs and minus PA, would do a better job than me. Mark this side quest as FAILED.

...

Big discussion on the last chapter! I love it.

Thanks for making 2022 an amazing year for me. I think it's fair to say we'll be starting 2023 with a bang... See you on Monday!