2.4 - Two Touch [T1] (Patreon)

4.

Football glossary: Two Touch. A type of game (usually a training sesh) where players are only allowed to touch the ball twice. Controlling the ball counts as one touch, and the subsequent pass or shot is the second touch. Once another player has touched the ball, your touches are reset. Two Touch sessions develop technique and speed of thought.

***

I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the sensation of my ambitions crumbling around me. It was like the moment after a video game boss fight where the thousand-year-old temple starts collapsing and you're supposed to sprint out. But I just stood there, defeated, and let my hubris entomb me.

Crash! I'd tried to take a shortcut into the heart of this world I knew almost nothing about and I'd been mugged, beaten, and left for dead. Wasn't that supposed to happen in chapter 1?

Bang! 15 yards to my right stood Ian Evans, snarling. He'd outwitted me so completely I barely registered on his radar anymore. His 'Crush the Rebellion' quest was marked COMPLETED, and now he was raging at his under-performing players. Shouting at a lazy full-back or a midfielder who'd missed a tackle was mother's milk to him.

Wallop! Between us, a discreet few yards back, was MD (looking pale), Physio Dean (fuming), Shona (proud/fierce/worried), and Smasho and Nice One (happy, unhappy, respectively).

So, I thought.

What the fuck, I thought.

The most likely explanation for what had just happened was that I was exactly as good at football as I'd always known.

But I was stronger and fitter than ever, so the curse had done something. And that's when I had one of the worst moments of my life. Because the answer was so obvious! So evidently true. The curse had given me the body of a good footballer, but something was stopping me from using it. What? Simple. My shitty, broken brain. Riddled with a neurological disorder inherited from my mother. Yes! And what that meant, above all the obvious things, was that it wasn't only my mum who was getting symptoms unusually early.

I was, too.

Fuck. My brain, my actual brain, was turning into Swiss cheese. What were the symptoms of my family's condition? 1. Personality change. Tick. Max Best, sexy beast? Since when? 2. Less control over emotions. Tick. That would explain why I was so prone to anger. And why I'd burst into tears because some 14-year-old thought I was cool. 3. Memory loss. I mean, maybe. There was the whole Champion Manager thing. What if mum had been the one that remembered it properly, and I was the one who'd forgotten? And there were little things. Jackie had said a phrase I liked but he swore he'd learned it from me. I couldn't remember ever saying it. And I'd forgotten that I needed to raise 500 pounds to get my licence. Sure, there was a lot going on in my life, but seriously. That should have been at the forefront of my mind.

I was kind of mashing my lips with my fingers. It was something to do.

On the pitch, the first team were suffocating us. There was clear blue water between their match ratings and ours. Aff was routinely roasting Carlile. Magnus was playing better than me, but only to a 6/10 standard. Henri was not in the game - we couldn't get the ball to him. He seemed to be enjoying his battle with the centre-back, though. Raffi was looking good visually - he moved well and his two-footedness got him out of jams over and over again. But his match rating was flitting between a 5 and a 6.

I made some tweaks. Short passing on that player, mixed passing on that one. I tried Raffi as a playmaker. I tried going long ball for a minute. Vimsy didn't us give an offside decision and I thought about scrapping the offside trap. (But it seemed like an honest mistake and not part of some plan to destroy me. The reserves were his mates as well as the first team, and annoying Henri Lyons by giving bad decisions on purpose would have been counterproductive.) Every change I made lowered our average rating. Every change back allowed the giant snake that was Ian Evans to squeeze even more life out of us.

Huh. So this is how it was supposed to work. Open a wound and press until it hurt.

Archaic, brutal... effective.

***

While the match clock ticked over, my thoughts bouncing between my various and many failures, Smasho and Nice One came for a chat. Really not the time, dudes!

"All right, Max?" said Nice One.

"I've had better days," I said.

"You went in two-footed on Deano, there," said Smasho, who was practically dripping with glee.

"Deano? You mean Judas."

Nice One shook his head. "Max, be fair. You've asked him to get involved in some weird shenanigans and he's tried to score some brownie points with Ian by letting him in on the plot. Ian's going to be here a lot longer than you. It's human nature." So they didn't know about the plan to let Evans go at the end of the season. That was interesting - I wondered if Physio Dean did. If Spectrum knew then presumably everyone on the coaching staff knew. My mind began fizzing. What if Evans had allowed the trial to go ahead as part of a plot to usurp Mike Dean? If Evans wanted to stay on, the best way would be to get the Supporters' Trust to fire MD. Who would then be replaced by an ally of Evans. Yes, that would work. And it would be easy to get rid of MD - especially if he was wasting his time on a moron like me. Nice One was watching my face carefully. Seeing me go through round after round of calculation, he said, "Careful, now. If you want to play here you really need to try to get on with people."

"Me?" I said, with an unpleasant kind of scoff. "Play here? Didn't you watch?"

Nice One looked at Smasho, who frowned. The latter said, "Yeah. You look decent. What's the problem?"

And here I was back to this lunacy! Again! You didn't need a curse to see how bad I was. Come on! I liked the guys so I put a lid on my temper. "I was pretty awful," I said. Understatement of the month. Carlile was being smashed in his battle against Aff. I tried setting Carlile to 'mark' his opponent. See if that helped.

Nice One shook his head. "I can't tell if you're joking. You've got nice balance, you're two-footed, you move great."

"I missed every pass, I was beaten in every duel, I was all over the shop. When you were on the pitch did you ever think you were stuck in quicksand while the rest of the game went on around you?"

Nice One nodded. "Yeah. Loads. So? Also, me and Smasho had some common sense. We never tried to be player-manager. Smasho, who's the last player-manager you can remember?"

"Ooh," he said, rubbing his neck. "Kenny Dalglish isn't it? In the late 80s."

"Yeah, managing one of the greatest club sides ever known. Players who knew the game inside and out. Not saying it was easy but it's as easy as it gets, I reckon. On the pitch, I mean. Off the pitch... yeah. But since then? Nothing. Oh, maybe Wayne Rooney at Derby, but he didn't play much. Stuck to managing 99% of the time. Now, Max, let me see if I understand what's going on here. You want a playing contract so you can help out around the club. That's weird, but we'll let it go. You've got your mate there in midfield and Henri Lyons as potential clients. You thought the best way to show them off was to try to pull the wool over Ian Evans's eyes."

"No, that was just for me. The other two can stand or fail on their own." I set Raffi to 'try long shots'. Maybe he'd get lucky. Or a shot would rebound and Henri could score.

"Right. Great. I'm sure you can explain that in a way Ian Evans will understand. So you've got caught out and now to prove yourself you've got to play a match. You've just come back from injury and you might have a big hole in your skull. You ran your mouth off and now you have to manage this team, too. You've never played at this level, you've never managed at this level, and after ten minutes you've subbed yourself off because you weren't up to speed in the game. You're beating yourself up because you think you should be instantly great at everything. How'm I doing?"

I didn't know where to look, so I chose one of his shoes. "Yeah," I said. "That sounds about right." He'd helped me calm about 80% of the way down. Maybe I didn't have holes in my brain. Maybe I was simply asking too much too soon.

Nice One bit his lip and shook his head at me. "Smasho, promise to keep this to yourself."

"What?"

"Max's stupidity."

"You'll need a lot more than my silence to keep that a secret."

"Benny looks up to him," pleaded Nice One. "If he finds out Max is actually clueless, it'll be like the Tooth Fairy and Santa all over again."

I held my hands up. "All right," I said. "All right. I get it. I've been an idiot. Now what?"

Smasho made an annoyed noise. "Now get out there and ease yourself into the match. Ian's been doing this for 40 years, and he was a good player, too. You finish the game strong and he'll give you a fair crack of the whip. No-one will remember the start."

Nice One nodded. "Seriously. We've all been through days like this. Every division is another step up. You'll feel like this every time you play at a higher level."

Smasho added, "And cut this player-manager shit out, too."

Well, reader. He was right. Trying to do two intensely demanding things at a higher level than I'd ever done... was dumb. And since this counted as a training session, I wasn't even getting XP.

"Nope," I said.

"At least change the formation," said Nice One, flapping his arms at the pitch. "You're matching them up with worse players. I mean..."

"I can't," I lied. "4-4-2's the best setup for this group." The truth was, if there was something wrong with my brain, it was possible that unlocking new areas of the curse was accelerating my degeneration. Buying a new formation didn't lead to a headache, but using a new formation did. What if those headaches were tiny black holes appearing inside my skull? I could still play, though. That wouldn't add to my brain rot. "But you guys are legends. Tell me, what can I do to play better? What I normally do isn't working."

Smasho laughed. "Yeah. It would work if you played in a veteran's league in Italy. Taking everything nice and slow. Get the ball, look around, puff on your cigar, play a pass sideways. But this is England." He looked at his mate. "Isn't it?"

Nice One looked left and right. This was their first time at this particular training venue. "Might be Wales."

Smasho slammed a fist into a palm. "This is England or Wales. Footy here's fast and furious. If you want time on the ball you've got to earn it. You don't know how to do that. That's fine, mate. You'd normally learn that in the youth teams, right? You coming in at your age, it's going to be hard. I'm not saying you can't do it, but it'll take more than 10 minutes, yeah?"

Nice One stepped in. "Max, there's a reason teams do Two Touch training sessions all the time. If a match is going badly, you go Two Touch for a bit. Get the ball moving around, get some confidence back. One touch, control. Two touch, pass. Get out there and play Two Touch for the rest of the half."

I nodded. It made sense. Don't dwell on the ball. Pass it before Sam Topps could even react. "Yeah," I said, as Raffi tried to line up a long shot but had the ball taken away from him. "Yeah. But that'll still be too slow..." I turned to the pitch and ordered Carlile to sub off. I moved Magnus to right-back, hoping he'd be able to deal with Aff a bit better. "I'll start with One Touch," I told the legends as I jogged into the midfield.

"We were just trying to help!" yelled Nice One. He seemed genuinely annoyed, but I didn't have time to wonder why.

***

The match continued to be bewildering, but now I only looked at the manager screens during breaks in play. There's a throw-in? Check the match ratings. Someone's dipped? Wait till the next break to try to see why. Compartmentalising the roles helped.

So instead of scanning the whole ocean every three seconds like a fucking submarine, I was only checking my immediate passing options. Where was Raffi? Where was the right-midfielder? Who was free at the back? I kept scanning and scanning and whenever the ball came anywhere near me I deflected the ball to whoever was open.

A booming goal kick came my way. I didn't want to head it, so I blocked Sam Topps's path and used the boney bit of my shoulder to direct the ball to a teammate.

There was a scrappy bit of play in midfield: Raffi competing with his man. The ball broke loose and I was on it like a flash. Topps sprinted towards me, but I'd already played a soft toe-poked pass ten yards forward to Henri.

A long pass to Aff and the Irishman was driving at Magnus. The hippie kept retreating, kept retreating, didn't make it easy. I sprinted over to help. Aff tried a smart cut-back move that would have taken two of us out of the game. But I read it. I jabbed the ball away from him straight to Magnus. He played it back to me first time, and, adding some distance between us, I played it to him - again, first time. Boop boop boooop. This little pinball move enraged Sam Topps, who hadn't laid a finger on me since I'd returned. He sprinted as Magnus played yet another first time pass to me.

I started my passing motion - another pass to Magnus! Topps was on me, ready to intercept, to tackle, to do something. But I chose none of the above. I let the ball go through my legs, turned, and sprinted. Topps was gone-zo, and now we had the numbers. We had the momentum. I played the ball to Raffi and kept running. He threatened to shoot - had I forgotten to stop him taking long shots? - and a couple of defenders moved to block the shot. Instead, he passed to me and I played an instant pass into Henri's path.

But he hadn't anticipated it. He was out of practice and we hadn't come close to such a moment of quality yet in the game. He raised a hand in apology. As the goalie collected the ball, I checked the match ratings. Raffi and I were both on 6. Aff had dipped from an 8 to a 7.

This was working. I smelled blood, mate.

I strode around the pitch. When I moved out of my defined area, the formation graphic changed. I wasn't limited to the formation, then. I could play as a third striker. I could be a DM or a CAM. I could set a formation and then tweak it - as long as I was on the pitch. It was a lot easier than asking a player's grandmother to shout at them like I'd done with Future.

Future. Now there was a thought... He'd made a big step up in difficulty and breezed through it by playing as a defensive midfielder.

While I was out of position in the DM slot, the ball came to me. I did a crazy angled pass into Raffi, then burst forward. He held the ball and waited for me to get level with him. The return pass was slightly overhit, so I took it on my left foot. A bit annoying to break the One Touch streak, but I called "Henri, go!" and shaped to hit a left-footed cross. A defender threw his leg at the space where the ball would travel. Really, these guys never learn! I breezed past him and was dribbling now. Forward, forward, waiting for someone to try to stop me. The plan was to attract another defender and then offload the ball to the guy on the left.

But the defenders kept backing off. Backing away. And there I was, feeling fresh, feeling whole, with the ball as pretty as a picture. So why not? I cocked my left leg and twatted the ball towards the right of the goal. It flew straight as an arrow... left chemtrails... past the goalie's despairing leap... and crashed against the crossbar. There was a smattering of applause. Not from Evans, I assumed. I didn't look, though. I'd gone internal.

I checked the match clock. 24 minutes. Nearly half-time. We could win this. I subbed Henri off and took his position as striker. For the second half, he'd have the Bench Boost bonus. That was interesting - so did I, presumably. Huh. Thanks to the tips from the legends and the boost from the Boost, I'd done all right. Do what you can and nothing else. Don't overreach. Keep it simple. Take what help is on offer. Yes, mate.

While I waited for half-time I thought about my brain. What evidence was there that the degeneration had already started? None, really. I'd talk to one of the specialists at my mum's care home. See about getting myself checked out. But I was moving normally. I was competing with players in the 6th tier and Ian Evans. Yes, it was hard. Yes, I had a lot to learn.

But fuck. If I didn't give this match everything I had, how would I be able to look Benny in the eye and demand it from him? If I couldn't walk the walk, why should any player listen to me?

Vimsy blew for half-time.

As I walked towards our side of the pitch, I changed the formation to 4-4-2 diamond.

Yeah, a big headache for me coming up.

And a fucking migraine for Ian Evans and his minions.

By the time I crossed the half-way line I was grinning like a maniac.

...

Happy New Year! I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the Player Manager journey so far. I wrote something like 150,000 words in three months, which is really unusually fast for me. And it's been so much fun! Thanks again. Lots more to come. I just came up with one storyline that will take 3 in-world seasons to pay off. So... I have to keep writing this until 2026 I guess?