12 - Challenge [T1] (Patreon)

12.

"Max," said Cutter. "You're interested in our drills, yeah? Do you want to have a go from the inside?"

"Absolutely," I said.

He scanned the pattern of the cones and said the transition drills were over and they were now doing a simple one-touch passing drill. "It's about working as a unit. Scanning for options before the pass comes to you. Variety of passing. It's harder than it looks." Again, everything he said was music to my ears.

Cutter stopped the session and brought me inside. Introduced me to the Darlington players, then went over the rules of the drill. The players weren't overly interested in me, as though randos taking part in their sessions was something that happened all the time. Last week, some lad who does skillz on TikTok. This week, an uppity agent. Next week, Lord Lucan.

The drill involved three players in a coned-off square, with four lined up around the edges. One of the edgers passed it in to player 1, and he touched it to player 2, who touched it to player 3, who passed it to someone at the side. You weren't allowed to pass it to the same edge person twice. There were three wire men in a triangle. They cut out a passing option sometimes, but barely made a difference.

"Sixty seconds, big effort!" called someone.

At first, I was really switched on. Not trying to impress or anything like that. Just that he'd said it was harder than it looked so I was waiting for the challenge to kick in. It never did. It was actually pretty remedial. I think even pre-curse Max would have crushed it.

We did a minute, another group did a minute, then we did a minute, and so on. On our third minute, I lost focus and did my part with a faraway look on my face. Cutter blew his whistle and came over. "You okay, Max?"

"What? Oh, yeah." I scratched my head. How could I say this without being a prick? "You said it was hard."

"Too easy for you? You want it harder?"

I was relieved that he was still smiling. "Yes, please," I said. A few of the Darlington players laughed. I ignored them. "Maybe something that replicates a real match a bit more."

Cutter looked at me sideways. "We do that, too, Max. The initial pass gets fired in harder, higher, with spin, but you still have to lay it off first time."

"Oh," I said. "That sounds top. Can we do that?"

He looked around at his players, then back at me. This had the odd effect of leaving him looking at me sideways, still, but from the other side. I wasn't sure if he'd learned the sideways glance thing from some former manager, but it seemed to be his thing.

"Okay, lads. You heard the agent. Difficulty setting: legendary."

There were some groans, and my two teammates tsked and shot me annoyed looks. I smiled back at them, but their reaction was a warning sign. I didn't want a reputation as a dick. Any of these guys could be a future player, a future client, and any of them might whisper the wrong words in the wrong ears and cost me.

Cutter himself fired the first pass at us. At me. Hard, hip height. I leant back, raised my foot, and cushioned the ball to a teammate. Then I raced forwards and went 'and again!' But he didn't pass back to me. The drill was that he'd pass to the other player. A bit cringe, but this was it! This drill was hard enough to trigger the part of my brain that dealt with challenges. Yes, mate!

I danced around like an energetic puppy. When the ball was fired at me, I had to react with balance and technique and know where my teammates were. When they controlled it - a big when, by the way - I had to be in position to play the short pass or the final long one.

I was having a great time, but as I mentioned, the other two didn't control every 'legendary' incoming pass, and they got more tired and frustrated. And, of course, there was a convenient scapegoat nearby. Could I do something to make them like me? Or at least, resent me less?

Our minute was up and another team had a go. I watched with great interest - the technique attribute really told you a lot about who would control the first pass. The other passes were so simple that anyone with passing 1 would have been able to do them. But instant control of the ball - no-one here could do that reliably. Well... except me.

My unit was back on, and fell into the same pattern. Me controlling the ball in a variety of increasingly outrageous ways, the other two guys turning into brick walls for balls to bounce away from. At least I finally understood the point of the wire men. As well as blocking some angles, the more the players got tired the more they started to stumble into the obstacles or just be hindered in small ways.

At one point, one of my dudes jogged backwards to control a high, looping pass and fell over the circular base of a wire man. I sprinted across.

"What the fuck are you doing, mate?" There was dead silence, so I pressed on. "You fucking do that again, you'll be going home in a fucking ambulance!" More silence. "Oh, yeah? Your mum!"

And I pushed the wire man on both its shoulders. It veered over, but wobbled back to an upright position.

"Fucking prick," I said. After giving the wire man the middle finger, I bent to help my mate up from the ground.

He loved being part of this scene. He grabbed my arm and pulled me away. "Leave it, Max. He's not worth it."

By now, the ice had broken and multiple observers were in hysterics. I played it straight. Acted like I was still steaming at the wire man. Cutter and his main coach were laughing as hard as anyone. It was my turn to receive the ball, and someone kicked it hip-height again. I threw myself into the air and did a violent scissors kick.

The ball exploded from my boot - if it had been allowed to keep going it would have reversed the rotation of the earth. But it traveled about three yards - right onto the face of the wire man who had tripped my buddy. It fell over and in a flash I was looming over it, screaming, "Chat shit get banged!"

That was the end of that drill.

***

When everyone had finished wetting themselves, Cutter looked at his watch. He let out one last puff of laughter-filled breath, and cranked himself back into an upright position. He blew his whistle and gestured for everyone to come in. A few of the guys stood close to me. I was the cool new boy in school. "Max, we normally do a quick 11 v 11 on Fridays. Before the big Saturday game. Have you got time to stick around? Have a kickabout with us?"

I looked at the lads near me. I recognised some of them from the match I'd seen, but while I knew their attributes, I didn't really know who they were. Didn't know if they'd try to kick the shit out of Henri's agent. Or if they'd go easy on me because I was a civilian. "Do you do first team versus the rest?"

"Yeah, normally." I pulled a face. I wiped it away as soon as I realised I'd done it, but it was too late. Cutter had seen it. He said, "Problem?"

Now, I knew I should just shut my mouth and get on with things. Take whatever was on offer with a smile on my face. Go along to get along, as the Americans say. "You're going to ask me to play with the reserves against the first team and honestly, that would normally be the highlight of my year. But I did that last Sunday, in Chester. If I could choose, I'd take ten minutes playing with the first team over 30 minutes with the reserves."

"What happened to wanting legendary difficulty?"

I tried to do a sheepish grin. "If I have the slightest chance of playing for a real team, even for ten minutes, I'd be crazy not to ask."

Cutter rolled his shoulders. I saw his eyes glance over to where I'd taken the free kicks. "What position do you play?"

"Right-mid."

He laughed. "You lucky fucker. Webby has a slight knock. Fine. Ten minutes. I suppose you'd like to take the free kicks?"

"And the corners, please."

"Oh," he said, eyebrows raised as though I'd asked for a second helping of porridge. He checked his watch. Max time was over. "First team, blue bibs," he said. He picked one up and threw it to me. The other lot grabbed yellow ones. I started to move across to the other side of the pitch. Cutter blew his whistle. "Blues attack this way," he said. There was a big rotation of players. I thought back to what Nice One had told me about Ian Evans keeping an eye on Aff. Cutter wanted the blues to attack that way so that I'd be right in front of him.

I didn't have time to get nervous or really think too much about the match. Basically, I'd woken up, driven to Darlington, asked to take a shot against a spare goalie, and now I was... what? Having a trial? It wasn't a trial. It was just a kickabout. He'd said. But... maybe it was?

It was too weird to think about.

All I knew for sure was that I had ten minutes to play with one of the best teams in the division. If I didn't learn anything from the experience, that would be the biggest fail since... the meeting with Ian Evans. Two days ago! Time was flying faster than a tornado that hit a clock factory.

The rest of the players and the coaches zipped around picking up the cones and the wire men. The players showed more urgency doing this than any of the drills. They wanted to play!

While I pottered around waiting for kick-off, I scanned the players I'd be up against. Darlington reserves, in the yellow bibs. My most direct opponent was the reserve left-back. No spoilers, but let's call him Chumpy. He had acceleration 8, pace 7, tackling 8. His stamina was low, but the match wouldn't be long enough for that to matter. Also on my side of the pitch was the reserve left-mid. Let's call him TIM, short for The Invisible Man. The opposing central midfielder nearest me was one of those Sam Topps clones that abound in this league. Fuck it - I'll just call him Sam Topps. Good stamina, tackling, teamwork, low technique. Typical tier 6 player.

The referee was one of the coaches. He brought his whistle to his lips, and so began my second unplanned match in a week.

***

I strode around for a couple of minutes. I wasn't player-manager, but I did have access to the tactics screens and match overview. My match rating was 6 out of 10. I walked around, taking in the pace of the game, watching where our right-back was, trying to keep good distances between me and the players around me.

Chumpy, the reserve left-back, followed me around like a stray dog. I checked the screens but he wasn't marking me. He was just going whereever I went. He wanted to be friends. To ask what I wanted for Christmas. To chat about stonks. When no-one was looking, he barged into me. Oh. Not friends, then.

I wondered if I could drag him out of position. I ambled towards the centre of the pitch until the formation graphic changed. That was the point where Chumpy decided he'd gone far enough, and he left me there. He went back to his starting point - in line with the centre-backs. That was interesting!

I took a few strides to the right, until Chumpy 're-acquired' me. He jogged towards me, so I moved left until I hit the break point. He fucked off again. He was getting mad but didn't know why. I laughed. This alone was worth the fucking months of grinding and suffering! I had access to an all-new, unique-in-the-history-of-the-world way to express my inner prickness. This was peak prick. I stepped right and when he came close, I stepped left.

While I was testing the break points, my team progressed down the left of the pitch. I didn't sprint forward to join the attack. The guys had shown no interest in passing to me, yet. They didn't know me, didn't trust me. The reserve goalie rushed off his line to clear the danger.

No, that's not what happened. Was it? In retrospect it seemed impossible. I had been watching the attackers, not the goalie. How fast was the keeper? I checked his attributes. Pace 4. So he couldn't have rushed off his line. I'd have to keep an eye on him. Work out what he was up to.

Three minutes gone, and I hadn't touched the ball. That was about to change. The goalie booted the goal kick long and to my side of the pitch. Ugh. I wasn't supposed to do headers, but I hadn't told anyone. That was dumb. Fortunately, the ball was going slightly out of my zone. TIM and my team's right-back competed for it. The ball popped up and I played a one-touch pass to a centre-back. He moved it along, and the midfield recycled the ball until it came back to me. I stuck out a foot to control it, but when I did, Chumpy was there to take it away from me.

Huh.

Our right-back shouted at me to get back, and to be fair I was already jogging that way. I sprinted to cover TIM, and when Chumpy passed to him, I was there. He hadn't expected me to track back!

Well, he'd do something different the next time.

Different. The next time. That's how I needed to think. Make a mistake once, sure. But then improve on that.

I strolled back up the pitch, back to my right-midfield slot, waiting for my next chance. Of course, if I didn't do something spectacular in the next 5 or 6 minutes, Cutter might sub me off and put his real right-mid on. But I couldn't think like that. The most important thing for me was to learn. Learn something every time I played. That was the challenge I set myself.

There was soon another little scramble that ended with me one-touch passing back to a teammate. My guys seemed to like it when I calmed things down, and they cycled the ball around until the CM played the exact same pass as before. I felt Chumpy sprinting to take it off me like before, so I started the same motion, only I took a step to the right, planted my feet, let him crash into my right shoulder, and I quickly flicked the ball down the line and sprinted after it. I pushed it another five yards and looked around.

I was looking to see what the strikers were doing. Had they started their runs yet? I expected I'd have one option at the front and one at the far post. I wanted to play quick passes whenever possible. The Chester trial had taught me not to dwell on the ball.

But what I saw was the solution to the goalkeeper mystery - he was on the edge of the penalty area, ready to sprint out! He saw himself as a sweeper-keeper. If the guy wanted to be a defender, he shouldn't have been born wearing gloves.

So I had a choice. I could pass or - you know what? Fuck it. I'd made my choice as soon as I saw how far out the goalie was. I struck the ball nice and hard, aiming slightly to the right of goal knowing that the natural swerve of the ball would take care of the rest.

The ball is passed wide to Best. Chumpy tries to pick his pocket. Best spins and the defender is left on the ground.

Best dribbles down the wing.

He looks up...

... and fires at goal.

It's there!

GOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLL!

From 40 yards out!

Where was the keeper?

I was dimly aware of some noises from the side of the pitch. They didn't seem like instructions or anything I needed to worry about, My match rating went up to 8. I continued strolling around the pitch while the game recommenced.

My team started passing to me more often now, and after one-touching some replies I realised that Chumpy had stopped charging at me. Knowing what I could do to him, he was wary. My piece of strength and skill had bought me a little bit of time and space. Good to know. And after a brief interchange with the CMs, I burst forward and controlled a long pass and looked up. The goalie was way back in his six-yard box. Not so keen to leave his zone anymore! So I'd killed two birds with one goal.

I was delighted with myself. But more delight was to come. I realised that this was the fastest I had ever run in my life. I pushed the ball forwards twenty yards and accelerated. I caught up to it in an instant. I did it again. Faster, legs! Onward! Giddyup! I wasn't thinking about the match. Super speed! Yes, please! Super strength was weird. Becoming a free kick master overnight was unearned. But being inhumanly fast - there was nothing I didn't like about that.

The byline was approaching like a cliff edge. I stopped the ball and put on the brakes, leaving the ball six or seven yards behind me. The goalie started to move towards it but when I smirked at him, he went back to his near post. I strolled back to the ball and waited for a striker to catch up. Both of them did, mixed in with a mob of defenders. The pass needed to be good. I struck a little angled chip that landed at the left foot of the striker furthest away. He leaned back and struck a half-volley that smacked into the roof of the net.

Two-nil!

Interesting.

I trudged back to my half of the pitch, deep in thought. First, that striker. He was Henri's replacement in the first team. His shot had been on his preferred foot. He had finishing 14 and technique 8. Now, that half-volley looked flawless to me. Although he had leaned back, which in most cases resulted in the ball flying miles too high, it never looked like he would miss. So in that situation, was his finishing important, or his technique? It seemed obvious that it would be his finishing. But if you did the same thing anywhere else on the pitch, it'd be your technique that mattered. Right?

I supposed that after watching enough footy at this kind of level I'd start to understand the attributes and what they really, really meant. And if I got a manager gig, I'd be able to set up training sessions that would test such things.

I sighed. Super speed was thrilling. Wonderful. But still not as good as managing. But if I wanted a manager job, the fastest way was through playing.

The game kicked off again. I stood still, arms crossed, still thinking.

What about me?

I was fast. Faster than all these guys. That meant, conservatively, I had pace 14. My technique was better than the best Darlington player. So that gave me at least 13 in that one. I couldn't see the Set Pieces attribute yet, but it seemed like I had a very high score there, too. Jumping and heading I didn't want to test. Dribbling seemed pretty good. I ran as fast with the ball as without it and felt in complete control. And stamina? Even doing the simple versions of the passing drill, the other players had started blowing hard. I could have gone for days.

"Max," came a new voice. I looked around. It was the right-back I was playing in front of. "It's Max, innit? What are you doing?"

"Watching," I said.

"You're supposed to be playing."

"Don't worry about it."

"I've never seen a guy fold his arms during a match. Just saying."

I grinned and uncrossed them. His opinion didn't really matter to me. I trusted the curse's judgement more than his, and the curse said I was playing great. But outside perceptions still mattered. Until I got my feet under a manager's desk, outside perceptions still mattered. Still, I could be active the Max Best way. I jogged sideways to the centre of midfield, had a little look around, then ambled back to the right.

The action was slightly biased to the right, now. I checked the tactics and Cutter hadn't changed anything. It was just that the team was using me more. Trusting me more. Trying to get me involved. But I wasn't making forward runs. Wasn't trying to attack. Two reasons. One, the Sam Topps clone had come over to help Chumpy. So just by standing still I was creating big gaps elsewhere on the pitch. Second, attacking down the right was no challenge. Chumpy couldn't defend against me if I sprinted past him. Whereas if I stayed close to him, he might show me one of the tricks defenders used.

Unfortunately, after I'd destroyed him twice he'd become very conservative, focusing on not being humiliated again. So the only thing I was likely to learn from him was where not to get a haircut in Darlington.

With me being relatively passive on the right, the next big moment came on the left. Our guy over there did a dribble, nice bit of skill, and was hauled down. I checked the tactics screen and saw that I was set to take all the set pieces. (Set pieces are free kicks and corners. The ball is stationary and the other team needs to be a certain distance from the ball. Basically, perfect for me, since I could do whatever I wanted and no-one could stop me. No-one on the other team, anyway.)

I jogged over and placed and re-placed the ball until I was happy with the way it sank into the grass. I waited for our tall defenders to lumber their way up the pitch. The goalie was stood a bit too far to the right, leaving me with a big juicy slice of unguarded net to aim at.

"Is this direct?" I called out, remembering the Chester incident. The referee nodded. The goalie took a big step to my left. I laughed. Lots of people learning lessons today! But not much chance of scoring if I shot from there.

So I stepped up and curled the ball, hard, head height, towards the far post. Basically trying to hit an arc that lots of my team would be able to attack. It was the left-footed striker who got there first - he powered a header just under the crossbar that the goalie did well to tip over the bar. The save drew applause.

But it was a corner, and the Max Best Show continued. I was about to gently clip it into the danger zone but I remembered how much that frustrated me when I saw it on TV. So I took another step back and gave the poor ball another furious smack. It curved wickedly towards the six-yard line, and again one of our guys won the challenge. A defender did just enough to put him off, and the header went a couple of feet over.

The players loved it - they gave me thumbs up and clapped and said 'Yes, Maxy boy'. (How did everyone in the football world come up with the same nicknames?) The curse loved it. My match rating went up to 9.

I wandered back to right-mid. I'd shown some of my abilities. I'd earned the right to start really showing off. What did Max Best want? To dick around doing nutmegs and shit. What would Ian Evans want? For me to stay in my little zone and be disciplined and boring.

I did it for Henri.

Went into my little box.

The match clock said I'd been playing for 14 minutes. So Cutter was happy with what he was seeing. After a couple of minutes of tactical discipline, I turned to him. "Dave," I called out. "When the left goes, can I?"

Cutter nodded. "If you've got the stamina."

"What?"

"You've been... let's say... conserving energy." A few of the coaches around him chuckled.

"Do you want me to score and assist or do you want me to burn calories? Is this WeightWatchers or a football team?"

He laughed. "Keep doing what you're doing. Join the attacks when you can. Overload the far post."

I nodded.

A couple of minutes later, we progressed down the left again, and the winger did his trick again. This time, the defender didn't foul him. What was the point? I'd only send in a deadly free kick. Chumpy looked over his shoulder to check where I was. I was motionless. As soon as he turned away I started my sprint. The winger was about to cross to the middle when he spotted my run. He took a pause and hit it higher and longer, curving beautifully into the area I was approaching. One of the centre-backs moved towards the flight path of the cross. The keeper had spotted my run, too, and rushed out to narrow the angles. I checked my options, leapt higher than the 6 foot 3 CB, and cushioned the ball sideways, onto a striker's head. I'd taken the goalie out of the equation; my guy almost couldn't miss.

Three-nil, and my match rating hit 10.

That was enough for me. I really shouldn't have been heading the ball. I walked over to Cutter. "Can I tap out?" I said. "Is that all right?"

He gave me a quizzical look. "You okay?"

"Yeah. A physio told me to get checked out before I play again. I feel like I've pushed my luck enough today."

He nodded and sent the real right-mid on. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yep. Promise. I'm just being sensible for once in my life. Are the showers open?" I said. "It's a three-hour drive home and all that."

"I'll get someone to unlock it for you. Do you need a towel?"

"No, I brought one. Thanks."

"Why don't you get showered and changed? But don't rush off just yet. I'll buy you lunch. We can talk."

"About Henri?"

"Sure," he said, scratching his nose. "And other things."

...

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