20 - Das Tournament [T1] (Patreon)

20.

The youth team training sessions were almost as good as the first team's. Vimsy had volunteered to take them, with Terry as his assistant, so that Spectrum could rest before the big weekend.

The 16s still lacked quality, with Kian and Vivek the two best players. I was beyond relieved to see that Vivek's CA had finally hit 2. It had taken far too long, but now his own progression fantasy had really begun. While his mini-team were off the pitch during one of the drills, I took him aside.

"Hey, Vivvi," I said, trying to give him a nickname. Football is almost entirely built on nicknames.

"Vivek," he said with a smile.

"V-V."

"Vivek."

I shrugged. We'd find one he liked. "You, er... You seem a bit different today. Bit more switched on. Bit more in it."

"I do?"

"Yeah. It's not a big deal if you don't want to tell me but I'm wondering if there was something that... I don't know. Maybe you liked one of the drills from the last session. I can get them to do more." I looked at Vimsy. Spectrum had told me he thought Vivek was shit. Maybe it was no coincidence that the CA bump arrived with a new coach. "Oh! Or maybe, and it's totally okay to tell me because I need to know these things, maybe you prefer the older coaches or whatever."

While I'd been talking, Vivek had gone internal to the point of surliness. He didn't want to open up. But my last guess provoked him into talking. He fidgeted and left awkward pauses. "Spectrum's quality. I've been having fun. I like it here." Sigh. Big pause. Doe-eyes. "The lads made me feel welcome. You too. And Nisha's been pushing me to keep coming. Kept mum off my back and that." Pause, sigh, stare at shoelaces.

The kid had great eyelashes. Some girl would get lost in his eyes and the lashes would close around her like a Venus Fly Trap. I always wanted a Venus Fly Trap. When I got a permanent place to stay in Chester, I'd finally treat myself to one. When was that going to be? I needed to power through January - when the transfer window was closed, I'd have far, far less time pressure and it'd make sense to start house-hunting. Or should I wait until after the FA hearing? That was a couple of weeks away. It was possible that MD would sack me for breach of contract if I wasn't available to play. I mean, it was vanishingly unlikely, but yeah, I had to consider the possibility. All these thoughts and more happened in the time it took Vivek to form the next words.

He swallowed so loud I heard it. "It was the video. You asked me to be in it and I thought, 'why?' And I was a bit sceptical. Token Indian? But all the kids at school kept watching it and watching it and I was in it and it was such a big deal. Girls were asking to be in selfies with me. And then we played footy in P.E. and I was one of the captains." Guy was close to tears now. "I went from being last pick to first. Pressure. Didn't like it. I'm not as good as you think. So I stayed at centre-back and tried not to make mistakes but then I saw the right-mid out of position and I yelled at him and he jogged to where he was supposed to go."

"And you liked that. Being respected."

"Yes," he said, wiping his eye. "But also, I was surprised that I'd noticed it. I'd never thought that way about football. I realised... it was sinking in."

"I think what you're trying to tell me," I said, nodding slowly, "is that your talent has been unlocked by the power of Harry Styles's voice."

"No!" he laughed.

"You're a massive Stylist."

"Max," he complained.

"Well, mate. I'm fucking psyched about this. About you." I stretched. "But I'm pretty sure you don't do P.E. any more. Check with the coaches later. Maybe there's some form we send your school."

"I don't do P.E.?"

"Vivvo, you're one of the best footballers in Chester! You don't fucking do random shit while your teacher reads fascist newspapers. You're a full-time football kid slash part-time TikTokker. All right?"

So that was top, and it was also top watching the 18s, newly reinforced by James and Pascal. Suddenly, we had the basis of a very decent team, and we had assets. Assets we'd be able to sell for money I'd use to utterly transform the club.

"What's tickling you?" said Vimsy, as the lads put the equipment away.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been grinning for over half an hour. Terry's been timing it."

"Yeah?" I said. "So have you. You can feel it, can't you?"

Terry was shaking his head, face blank, but I knew he was grinning on the inside. He had to be. "Feel what?"

"We've got stars at every level, now. A conveyor belt of talent. It's not just a dream; it's happening. We're on the up." I think I briefly lost my mind, because I suddenly found myself with one arm on Vimsy's shoulder, leaning in, sort of jabbing his chest. "Vimsy, great job today. Love it. Loved every second. That's the standard. That's the standard, yeah?" I eased away, holding my palm out for him to clasp; he did. I pulled him towards me and slapped him on the back, three times, the most slaps permitted by England's unwritten rules of male bonding.

I hugged Terry, strode away, gave a Maxy Two-Thumbs to several players, and left a trail of motivated happiness in my wake.

But no-one was as motivated and happy as me. It had been a hell of a week.

Now to cap it off by winning Das Tournament.

***

The competition was hosted by Crewe Alexandra's famous academy in association with a college that looked like Downton Abbey. They had all-weather pitches, plus immaculate grass ones. The drainage alone probably cost more than Chester's annual budget. I felt my old friend poverty come back to say hello.

While I walked around the pitches, getting a feel for the event, I thought about my short and medium-term goals. Short: win the tournament, blow MD's mind, put myself into contention for the manager's job when Evans sabotaged himself. Medium: catch up to Crewe. If I had a kid and lived in Cheshire, 'Alex' would be my first choice destination. Overtaking Crewe in terms of squad quality and reputation would be huge. Megahuge. The first hill we'd have to climb.

I found our kids sick with nerves, huddled together like disaster survivors. Jackie Reaper once told me I'd infected the Beth Heads with my absolute certainty of winning. Well, that seemed an appropriate tool to take out of the box.

When the lads saw me they were all 'It's Max, Max is here' which did give me a brief 2d6 boost to smugness, though I had just enough awareness to feel sorry for Spectrum. He was the one who had herded these cats onto the team bus and done all the organising and all the preparations. Well, if he wanted adulation he should have tried harder to get chosen by the curse demon, shouldn't he?

"Guys, shut the fuck up you're giving me a headache," I said, and they stopped whispering. A couple grinned nervously. I jabbed my thumb behind me. "We're supposed to play these pricks? They're shit. Winning this isn't even a challenge. I say we hop on the bus and go to Alton Towers. Who's with me?" Alton Towers is a well-known theme park, not all that far from Crewe.

Spectrum had a tiny curl on the edge of his mouth. He had started to understand my sense of humour, even if he rarely laughed. "The boys are very motivated to play football, Max. Even if it's sooo easy."

That got a laugh. The ice was broken. I could almost see the group's nervous energy evaporate off them. "Fine," I said. "We'll whump some chumps. But just so you know, they've got a rollercoaster that they set on fire... while you're riding it. And loads of bees come out and attack you. I can't believe you'd rather play..." I pointed at Spectrum.

"Oh, er... Crewe B."

"You've chosen to play Crewe B instead. What the fuck." I put my hands on my hips, sighed, then clapped once. To business! "Spectrum, what's the deal?"

"So, there's two mini leagues of five teams. We play the other four teams in our group. Three matches today, one in the morning. The top two go into the playoffs. Top from Group A plays second from Group B, vice versa, winners into the final. Third, fourth, fifth placed teams play each other to decide the final ranking. So we'll get at least two matches tomorrow."

"Bonanza," I said. "Who's in our group?"

"Crewe B, Wolves, Wrexham, Nottingham Forest."

"Piece of piss," I said. “It's not even Crewe A. Jesus Christ, don't they know who they're dealing with?” I gave stern looks to all the kids. "Listen up, everyone. This is the most important thing I'm going to say to you today. Do I have your complete attention?" You better believe I did. They were agog. "Top. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to use the word Nottingham today. We are all, and this includes you, coach, going to say Notts Forest. Repeat after me: Notts Forest."

"Notts Forest," chanted my players, while Spectrum rubbed his nose.

"Excellent. They hate that. It will wind them ALL the way up." I laughed.

"Forest is tomorrow," said Spectrum.

"Who?"

"Forest."

"Who?"

The kids were staring from me to him like they had centre court seats at Wimbledon. Spectrum cracked. "Notts Forest," he said. He shuddered. "Ugh! I don't even support them and I hate saying it wrong."

Benny put his hand up. His arm was quivering with the effort of being noticed. I nodded. "Does that mean we're doing mental disintegration?"

"A bit," I said.

Benny went 'woah!' and then started explaining it to his teammates. I tried to avoid spoiling the effect by laughing. I'd only been around for a couple of minutes and I'd turned them from being nervous wrecks into thinking they would be given cheat codes.

I turned away from the kids for a private chat with Spectrum. "Who's up first?"

"Crewe. They've done the fixtures based on their needs. Start with us, the weakest, and get progressively harder fixtures. By the time they play Wolves, they might already be through to the playoffs and can rest players."

"Rest is important, I guess?"

"Yeah. It's vital. It's the difference. Our best players aren't a whole lot worse than the average, but the bigger teams just have way more resources. Wolves could play a different team in their second match if they wanted to rotate, and they wouldn’t be any weaker."

"But they can only make three subs in one game, yeah?"

"Yeah. Matches are 45 minutes on a full-sized pitch. It's tiring. It's good we have more subs this year."

I gave him a long, hard look, wondering if I should say what I wanted to say. Since he'd had his talk with Jackie and come back to work, he'd done what I told him with no friction. There wasn't any point in trying to persuade him to stay - that ship had sailed - but maybe he could learn a lesson that would help him in the future. "Everyone comes to every training sesh because it's fun. Everyone's here today because it's not Toxic FC." There wasn't any point in continuing the lecture. The serious moment was over. I smiled. "Haven't you heard? It's Snowflake FC, now."

Spectrum gave me a strange look as he said, "Teamwork FC."

I couldn't work out what emotion he was transmitting, whether it was a joke. I didn't want to get bogged down in personal drama. "So Crewe think we're the weakest team? That pisses me off. Let's go bulldoze their little tournament, yeah?"

***

Ten minutes before kickoff, my screens kicked in. I was offered Bench Boost and Triple Captain. More old friends! Based on what Spectrum had said, I'd need those for the next match, against Premier League Wolves. I thought of saving them for the final, but we had to get to the final, first.

So, Crewe B. They had a squad whose PA varied much more than ours. They had a surprising number of what I'd started to call 'Fool's Gold' players. They were tall, fast, or great athletes who didn't have high PA. To normal people, even to experienced scouts, they looked like great prospects. I knew better, but that didn't stop them being good performers at this level.

The tactics screens told me that Crewe would line up in a 4-2-4. Very ambitious, very attacking. Good tactic against a team of no-hopers who would spend the whole 45 minutes defending.

"Spectrum," I said, as the kids waited to be told our formation and starting line-up. "Do you normally park the bus in these games?"

He looked away. "We try to play. But... yeah. We get pressed back."

I raised a palm. "No shade, man. I beat Man City with a bus the size of Pep's bald spot. So guys, Crewe are going to do 4-2-4. Lots of fast attacks down the wings. Captain, Bomber, they'll try to get crosses in. Deal with them, thank you very much. Right," I said, rubbing my chin. We had a medium-sized whiteboard. In a small section of the top, I moved the red magnets into a 4-2-4 formation. Then I started putting out blue ones. I talked out loud as I went. "How mental do I want to go? Pretty mental, I think. Two centre-backs, obvs. Future as DM. Yes, please! How about... five across midfield. Yeah. Our five against their two. Lol! Enjoy building attacks with a fucking zombie horde attacking you! Guys, you're the zombie horde. In case that wasn't clear. Two strikers? Nah. Tyson, you'll play CAM. Benny. You're up top. Wow. I love this."

I stepped back, luxuriating in the magnificence of my creation.

Spectrum's mouth had dropped open. He closed it in time to say, "You want us to play... two... one, five, one, one?"

"Yes, please."

"You do realise," he said, coming close to me and hissing so that the kids wouldn't hear his disloyalty, "that when they attack it'll be four on two?"

My tongue swept across my bottom lip as I tried not to grin too hard. "Better not let them have any attacks then, right? Set that up while I go pee. Thanks."

He couldn't help it - the next statement burst out of him, completely audible to all the kids. "But we haven't practised this!"

"Yes, we have," I said, stroking an imaginary kung-fu grandmaster beard. "Yes, we have."

***

I wandered off and found myself at the Wolves match. Based on league position - they were about 120 places above us in the pyramid - they should have been our hardest opponents, but they had their fair share of Fool's Gold and players out of position. They did have a handful of guys with very high PA - in a couple of years this group would be far, far better than ours. But for a one-off match taking place today, I rated our chances. Our average CA was about 4, with Tyson leading the way on CA 7. Wolves had an average CA of 6 with their best player having CA 11.

The manager spotted me and nudged his assistant. I knew exactly what he was saying. "Look! There's the greatest living Englishman, Max Best! Let's pluck up the courage to ask for a selfie." They were fucking drowning in equipment. Laptops, tablets, bags, cases, match balls, enough water bottles to put out a house fire. A kid was pulling on a yellow shirt; he was wearing a GPS performance tracker. Three hundred pounds, per player. These little yobs were better equipped than Chester's first team.

I gave the men a little wave, then went back to the pitch where my kids were playing Crewe. Their CA was much closer to ours, but they had confidence. They had experience. They got to play in Fuckingham Palace twice a month. Their best players were their forwards, and their entire system was based around bringing that firepower to bear. My plan was the equivalent of piling a few sandbags in front of a thundering tank.

Spectrum's back was stiff. He had obeyed me, but he didn't like the tactics. He thought I was deliberately setting the team up to lose. Maybe he thought I wanted to make him look bad. When I retook my position on the touchline, he bent to pick up a water bottle, took a swig, and put it down again. This process left him very slightly angled away from me.

I checked out my subs. There were the two guys with PA in the twenties I'd promoted from the younger group, but they were CA 2, and they were eleven years old. I also had Nine as a half-decent backup for Benny. But basically, all my good players were on the pitch. Changing the team would mean diluting our ability to win, but I wanted to stick to my principles as much as possible. "Coach," I said. "Help me make sure everyone plays at least a few minutes in at least two games."

"Everyone plays every game," he mumbled, repeating a phrase I'd learned when I managed the Beth Heads.

"Yeah. We can't do that in this tournament, but we can always use the three subs and we can rotate the starters."

"Right." He said, somehow with minus a hundred percent enthusiasm. Such an annoying man!

The match kicked off and Spectrum sucked in some air. I realised he was holding his breath, waiting for the onslaught to arrive.

One minute later, his anxiety had turned to confusion. Crewe hadn't been in our half. Where was the invasion?

Two minutes in, his frown was so deep not even Botox would have smoothed it. The match was chaotic, but those plucky underdogs, those cannon fodder, those no-hopers from Chester were in the ascendency.

By five minutes in, the match had fallen into a predictable pattern. Predictable to me, anyway. Spectrum sometimes pointed and said, 'but'.

Crewe would have a goal kick or a throw-in, and they would move the ball around their defensive third, as they'd been trained. My guys would react by doing absolutely nothing. A couple of times, Benny tried to press, but I yelled at him not to. So Crewe would pass the ball from side to side. At first, they were quite happy to do that, and indeed their manager was pleased with their approach.

But every time they played the ball forward, our five midfielders would swarm. They surrounded the ball carrier, they put pressure on him, they made interceptions, they forced mistakes. Crewe’s talented attackers barely got a kick. They were beautiful, gleaming tanks - and I'd stolen their petrol.

When we turned over the ball, we'd push it to Tyson who'd dribble and try to find a pass to Benny. Benny was on his own against, in theory, four defenders, so he was going to find it tough to get shots away. That was fine. He'd probably be a lone striker for most of his career. It didn't hurt him to do it in tournament conditions.

Spectrum's back was much less turned away, now. Crewe's possessions still stressed him out, but in his mind the worst case scenario had come down from ten-nil to something much more acceptable. The four-nil and five-nil defeats Chester were used to in these games.

At the fourth time of asking, Crewe finally got through our midfield and Spectrum's anxiety showed with his hands partially covering his eyes. He couldn't watch! I was annoyed by our bad luck - it was really way too much of a random ricochet in Crewe's favour that led to a striker dropping to get the ball, bursting past Future, and playing it wide to the right. The right-mid, unopposed, moved forwards and crossed. Captain headed it behind for a corner.

Spectrum said, "Okay, we got away with that. How about we go more defensive for a few minutes?"

I pulled a face - er... no - and instructed four players to ATTACK from this defensive corner. "Spread out," I said, gesturing manically. "All across the half-way line!"

Spectrum was right back to hating me, but my move caused pandemonium on the Crewe bench as they struggled to get players to drop back. By the time the corner was taken, Crewe only had four players in the box! I'd frazzled their tiny minds. Bomber won the header, we cleared, and things went back to normal.

"Captain and Bomber are unusually good in the air, it seems," I mused.

"They're proper defenders," said Spectrum, talking on autopilot. "They actually love it. Oh."

"What?"

"Future's gone."

I snapped my head around to check out the pint-sized prospect. He was holding a finger, forming a kind of protective barrier over his head. He was taking tell-tale gasps of air.

"Captain," I called. Our main centre-back heard me. I pointed to Future. "Send him over here."

Captain put his hands on Future's shoulders, pointed him at me, and cajoled him into jogging to the touchline. I gave Captain a thumbs up and he jogged back into position, fists clenched, ready for the next battle.

"Hey, Future," I said to the tiny, teary mess, noting his performance was currently rated four out of ten. "Whatchya doing?"

"They're too fast!" he blubbed. "Too big and too fast. I can't... I can't..."

"Ah, I see." Our subs were inching closer. Both to find out what was happening and to offer support. But also to see if Future would be subbed off and one of them would get to play most of this match. None of them could fill in at DM, so nah. "I don't want to alarm you, mate," I said, which normally got people's attention. "But what you're doing is called catastrophising. What happens is your negative thoughts create a little vortex in the brain. It looks sort of like a tornado. Have you ever seen a tornado?"

Through his tears, he nodded.

"Yeah, you probably watch Twister every Christmas morning. I know I do, before I open my presents. So what it is, is, imagine a tornado but it's round. It's small and it's round. And your negative thoughts are actually making a tiny spherical tornado in your brain. And the dangerous thing is, if you do it long enough, it makes a hole." He blinked. "Yeah. An actual hole. And when there's a hole in your brain, you know what it fills with?"

He thought he knew where this was going, and it didn't help with his tears. "Bad feelings."

"No," I said. "It fills with orange juice."

The crying stopped. "What?"

"When you drink orange juice, it goes round your body, yeah, on the way to the stomach. And if there's a hole in your brain it goes there. It loves it. It happened to me. Every time I moved my head I could hear like one cubic centimetre of orange juice sloshing around. It was really fucking weird."

He kind of did one more cry while rolling his eyes at me. "I should stop having bad thoughts."

"No, do what you want. It was cool hearing stuff in my head. I got used to it. And I found a cure."

"Cure?"

"Plasticine. You put a tiny bit of plasticine in your orange juice and it starts to fill the hole. Ten glasses and you're good."

"My gran told me not to eat Play-Doh."

"Does she let you drink orange juice?"

"Yes."

"That's weird. Something doesn't add up, there." I'd been squatting, leaning my head towards him. I stood, now, and rolled my head around. "Thing is, bro, we've been chatting here for about an hour, right? And look." I pointed at the match going on behind him. He turned. "We're doing fine. We don't need you." Spectrum gave me a sharp glance that triggered a burst of anger. I glared at him until Future looked back at me. He saw the calm, relaxed, almost angelic face of Max Actual Best. "The other kids are tall. Pffft. No-one asked you to win any headers. We've got Captain and Bomber for that. The other kids are fast. You're fast, too. It's okay if a guy dribbles you today. That's why we've got goalies. Don't stress about it. Now, it'd be super helpful if you did an interception or two and it's important that you get into the positions your coaches taught you so that lot can't do easy passes. Yeah? But your main job is getting the ball from Captain and Bomber and passing it to midfield. We can do it without you but it's slow. When you do it, we move up the pitch really fast and we put pressure on these chumps. What happens then is they buckle. And I go mwahahaHAhaaa and all the orange juice in my head sloshes around and it feels good."

"You're crazy!"

"Yeah. Just go be a connector, please. And later I'll tell you about my trial at Chester and how I had a big freakout for twenty minutes and then when I calmed down I took the piss so much Ian Evans ended the game early."

"What!"

"Actually, now that I think about it, that's the whole story. Never mind. Okay, off you pop."

Future trotted back into his position.

Spectrum stared straight ahead as he said, "We don't conventionally encourage twelve-year-olds to eat plasticine."

I shrugged. "There's a cure for plasticine."

"Apple juice?"

"Close. Cider."

That got a tiny, reluctant grin. "That was one of the most mental interactions I've ever seen." His attention was focused on the rear of midfield, where Future and Captain were discussing something. "But it worked."

Another thing that worked was my tactic. We stifled Crewe, strangled them, and their rare breaks were ruthlessly ended by Captain - an eight out of ten performance that would have been higher if he'd been any busier. With Future back in the game, doing his linking work, Crewe didn't get any breathers. We attacked, we attacked, and we turned their attacks into more attacks. Spectrum went from a state of constant anxiety to being almost zen. If we lost this, it would be because of random chance. I could almost see the moment he realised my strategy was right. He sort of popped out of himself, and instead of being an insect crawling into its shell for protection, he became the team's coach, running up and down the touchline, clapping, cajoling, yelling out praise and encouraging players to adhere to their tasks. The switch from pessimist to optimist cost him - he started to sweat, his hair got frazzled, he got his glasses dirty and felt he couldn't spare the few seconds needed to clean them.

For now at least, Spectrum was in.

The bottleneck for us was Benny. He'd had a couple of half-chances and one that was a quarter-chance at best. None had turned into anything close to a goal, and he'd started to wind himself up. I wanted to call out to him, but I made myself wait.

Two guys from Wolves appeared in their pristine tracksuits and big coats. They stared in astonishment at the patterns of play, bickering with each other about what the formation was, then began furiously scribbling on notepads. One of them ran back to base while the other stayed to watch the end.

After twenty minutes of seeing their tactics backfire, Crewe buckled.

The move started on the left, where one of the players I'd stolen from Hope Farm was stationed. I'd nicknamed him Hope, proof that the orange juice in my head was ruining my imagination.

Hope collects a loose ball. He turns inside and passes to Boyce.

Boyce plays it back to Future, who hits a first-time pass to Nugent.

Nugent lays it back to Future, who hits a first-time pass to Sevenoaks.

He feints to dribble on the outside, but cuts a perfectly-weighted diagonal pass into the stride of Tyson.

Tyson chips a ball over the defenders.

Benny latches onto it. He shrugs off a challenge, approaches the keeper.

It looks like he has taken it too wide...

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

He slots it home!

The goalie got a touch but couldn't keep it out.

The goal had been coming. It's a fitting reward for Chester's performance so far.

While the kids celebrated wildly - a bit too close to Crewe's goalie, I'd have to talk to them about that - Spectrum ran up and down the touchline, not knowing what to do. I waited, amused, until he calmed down. He seemed surprised that I wasn't bouncing. I wondered if his teams had ever taken the lead in one of these tournaments. It seemed not! I waited a bit more, and when I felt he was ready to listen, said, "I can't coach much, but I can show Benny a better way to finish those chances."

"What do you mean? It was perfect."

"Nah. Those two touches made the angle worse. I'll show him a better way. Can you make a note of the time? Is all this being recorded?"

He gestured to a camera on a tall pole and some sort of robotic one on the other side of the pitch. "Yeah. No close-ups or anything, and sometimes robocam loses the ball."

"If you don't mind, clip out that move. Any different angles and that. I'll demo, like, three better options."

"Three?"

I misread what he meant. "Yeah, two's better. I'll show him a Hugo Sanchez first-timer and a Max Best fake-out."

"You know Hugo Sanchez?" said Spectrum, eyes wide.

I was too pensive to engage. "There's the chip option, but he might snatch at it. Or... or practising that might help with his new Iceman persona. Let's think about it. So there's footage from this. Have we got a club tablet we can bring to sessions? Show the videos then work on it, that kinda thing?"

"No."

I scratched my chin. "I'll see if I can get us a few. Beg Wolves for their hand-me-downs. This haves and have-nots shit is winding me up big time."

The match continued. We were straight back onto the front foot. So much so that the Crewe manager was almost literally tearing his hair out. There were no breaks where he could make tactical changes, so all he could do was beg his players to move into new slots, one by one. It looked like he was trying to get his team into a formation the players were comfortable with.

"Max!" said Spectrum, practically yipping himself into a one-eighty like those tiny dogs. "They're going 4-4-2!"

"I know," I said, unable to stop my annoyance reaching my voice. A tiny sliver of professionalism kicked in. "Thanks, though."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Do? Nothing. 4-4-2 doesn't help him." I scoffed at the very idea.

Spectrum put his hand in his mouth and when he took it out, all his fingernails were gone. If I'd liked him, I would have done a Darth Vader voice. "I find your lack of faith... unimaginative." But I didn't, so I didn't.

Then came a moment that really got my juices flowing, almost for the first time in the match.

One of our midfield swarm, Clive, PA 1, played a nice, simple pass to Tyson. He looked up, saw the keeper off his line, and shaped to shoot. My anger rose to preposterous levels, but while the keeper scrambled backwards, Tyson did a little foot shuffle, a hip wiggle, and played a dreamy pass out to the right for Seven to run onto. It was really gorgeous, Teddy Sheringham-esque, and the final flourish was Tyson wagging his finger at the goalie. That was a warning.

"Yes, Tyson!" I yelled, and both Spectrum and I clapped enthusiastically. No filters, no agendas. Just appreciation for a move of rare quality. He seemed stunned by the attention and retreated into his shell for a minute.

But then he came back with a vengeance.

It's Tyson again. Crewe must be sick of his dribbling.

He shapes to shoot and a defender slides in to block it.

Tyson cuts back onto his left, pushes the ball forward.

Benny holds it up. Plays a neat reverse flick.

Tyson is through on goal! He rounds the keeper. He has an open net!

He pauses. What is he doing?

He passes backwards - Benny applies the finish.

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

A wonderful move!

A strange thing happened, then. The players celebrated in a big huddle, as was becoming their thing, and when it broke apart and they started the long journey back to our half, someone on the touchline shouted something to Tyson. He looked surprised, replied, and then looked over to me. He looked away. Guilty as fuck!

"Spectrum, would you please find out who those men are?"

"Are you serious?" He was eyeing the pitch like if he left, everything would fall apart. The prick!

"Yeah," I said. My voice must have conveyed my worry, because he walked away without another word. He came back a few minutes later.

"They're scouts. They wouldn't say who for. They only asked what his name was, they said. I think I believe them."

"It's a bit shit, messing with his head mid-game."

"Yeah." After he'd agreed with me, he thought it through and realised he really agreed with me. He began yelling at the players in a much deeper voice. Super committed, now. Come on, lads! Head up, Tyson! Roar!

But the next five minutes proved I was right to worry. Tyson's rating dropped from nine to seven. I subbed him off, replacing him with Nine, the other guy we'd poached from Hope Farm. I switched to 4-4-2. Matched the other team, who would spend the next five minutes bewildered at our sudden change. Five minutes closer to an impressive win.

While Spectrum returned to pointing at the pitch going 'wut?' I turned to focus on my newest problem.

"Tyson. Nicely played. What was that little weirdness at the end?"

He swallowed and looked at Spectrum. I jerked my head away and he followed me to a more private location. I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I checked it out and was surprised to find it was labeled 'fear'. I'd invested so much time and energy into this little brat and now that my work was paying off the idea of some bigger club swooping in to take him from me the way I'd taken the kids from Hope Farm was... was painful. It would be a setback. A step backwards. Number goes down.

"What's up?" I said.

He looked a bit shifty for a while, typical teenager, but then his time at his posh school showed its worth. He had the confidence to put his feelings into words. "There's scouts here."

"Yep."

"They're interested in me."

"Yep."

"I could move to a different club, like you said. A Premier League club."

I blinked. "Wolves?"

"Forest."

"Excuse me?"

"Forest."

"Excuse me?"

He made an exasperated little movement. "Notts Forest," he said, but saying it made him grin.

"Okay. And do you want to go to Nottssssss Foressssst?"

"I don't know. Maybe?"

I inhaled. "Thing is, if you want to go, fine. I'll wish you the best of luck and everything. Like I said. But let me know, because if you're off to Notts or wherever, it's not fair that I give you minutes instead of people who want to play for Chester. Do you know what I mean? I'm doing a project, here. Pathway to the first team."

"Well, yeah, but..."

"Spit it out. Jesus."

"You don't like me."

That was surprising. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"You coach Benny. And Future. And Captain. But you never tell me anything. You never coach me. You only tell me what not to do."

"That's not true. I also told you to get a proper haircut."

He frowned, and his hand instinctively went to his hair. "No, you didn't."

"I wanted to. Not with this one. The last one. This one's good. Suits you. Well, you want coaching, you've got coaches. You want something from me, I can't promise that. But I can promise you won't get private chats with the manager of Notts. Or their DoF if they have one. Or their star player. Or anyone except one little Spectrum type guy. Not a single one of those other guys will know your name. And right now, you don't need coaching. You need to be told what not to do. And that's what you're getting."

"I don't like it."

"I wouldn't, either. I'd think, I'm better than you, you old hack. You don't know what I need." I smiled. "But you don't get that choice. Because I'm me. And I know best."

"Other teams would let me shoot."

I was 99% certain that the scouts had shown interest in Tyson because he'd created two goals. Because under my cruel thumb he was the ultimate team player, to a fault. Because the fake long shot showed he had imagination and restraint. Because it hinted at superior decision-making that Tyson didn't actually possess. Yet.

But the thought of explaining all that repulsed me. Saying it would feel like begging. The guy had talent. The guy could make it. But only with my help. If he wanted to fuck off, he could fuck off.

"If selected in the next match," I said, becoming distant. Patrician. "I expect you to give a hundred percent and ignore outside distractions."

"Yeah, course."

"I have you in mind for an important tactical role," I said. "You'll think it's a punishment. It's not. It's for the team. If you don't want to do it, you can go off to pitch 5 to meet your new mates."

"What is it?"

I ignored the question and strode back towards our technical area. "Mitchell, get warmed up. You're on for Benny, soon. Adam, you too. You'll go for Boyce." Adam was one of the under 12s I'd promoted. He was eleven, and only slightly bigger than Future.

"Max," said Spectrum. "That'll be a very small team out there. They'll get overrun."

I nodded. "Adam, you'll replace Future. All good? Great."

"Replace Benny? Are you sure? They could get two quick goals."

I was sick of his doubts. "We're here to win," I said. I left all the rest unspoken. That we were rotating our squad assuming we'd reach the final. That Benny was our most important player and we couldn't grind him into dust. That I didn't want to hear any more negative shit. He didn't believe the way I did, but Spectrum got the message. He shut his fucking gob, and I was thankful for it.

That was all I had to do. The rest of the match was quite dull, for me at least. Spectrum reacted to every incident like Gemma had at the World Cup final - reactions turned up to eleven. But if I wasn't getting 2 XP per minute, I might have gone round and scouted all the other players. I needed to scan everyone so that I could trigger Playdar. I'd decided not to use it on Friday in case Crewe was bursting with players like Dani. But I could still grind like in the old days. I saw the match out. Easy two-nil win. Yawn.

Spectrum and I crossed the pitch and shook hands with the guys from Crewe. They looked shellshocked. I had a sudden idea. It was absolute genius. "Guys, you've got loads of subs. After the matches today, can I borrow a few? I want to do a tiny, tiny demo match. It'll be fun. Chill. Short. Nice end to the day."

They mumbled some confused maybes, and we walked back. Spectrum didn't comment on the demo match thing. He was still fixated on a match I'd mentally consigned to the dustbin of history. "I don't get it," he said. "That was... that was comfortable." I let him keep talking. "I mean, we rested our best players! We won and Benny only played half the match. Tyson got a break. Even Future. It's... What the fuck was that formation?"

"Language," I said.

"How did you know what formation they'd play?"

"They did it in the warm-up," I said. "How long till the next game? About an hour? While you were setting the lads up, I had a look at Wolves. Looks like they've focused on technical players. Could be hard. We might have to get weird. Just saying."

I gathered the kids around for a quick debrief. "Good job, lads. You've beat the hosts in their weird Harry Potter Forbidden Forest. Yeah? Didn't expect that, did they? Guess what? Chester's in town. Deal with it. Man of the Match goes to... me. Second place, Benny. Great composure on your goals. Ice Cold in Alex, yeah? Shit, that's a great line. Wasted on you lot. Also second place, Captain and Bomber. Also second place, everyone else. Third place, goalie. Did you even have a save to make? No? You took a great goal kick, though." Lots of laughs. "Seriously, though. Everyone chipped in. That's it. It's that simple. All right? Try to stay calm. What we did isn't unusual. That's what we do now. We give teams headaches. Save your energy. Do some sunbathing or whatever." We all looked up at the sky. "Or cloudbathing."

My phone rang. It was MD, saying that a reporter was at the tournament and wanted to talk to me. I said I was busy. He begged. I said no. While I was talking, I saw something. Something miraculous and unexpected.

A man, a woman, and their child. Dani!

I punched the air and in a foolish rush of blood to the head, told MD I'd spare a few minutes for the reporter. "Send him over," I said.

I jogged to Dani, and stood in front of her, smiling just as goofily as James Yalley often did. She smiled back. I opened my mouth to speak, but remembered I couldn't. And she'd deleted herself from the chat. How did I do this? I ended up looking at the clouds for help. They were useless.

Dani pointed to her phone.

"You left the chat," I said.

"Invite her back," said the dad. So I did, and then the four of us stood close by, texting each other.

Me: Emma. Guess who's got two thumbs and is back?

Emma: What! Wow! Daniiiiiii

Me: Dani, point two thumbs at yourself so I can take a photo of you and surprise Emma.

Dani: She knows.

Me: Yeah but if we don't close that conversational loop it'll bother me. What has two thumbs and is back... this girl. Come on. Thumbs.

Mr Smith: Dani liked your video.

Me: Is it top ten viral in Crewe now? My IT dude said the numbers didn't really count as viral. Said it needed more cats.

Mrs Smithe: Our coach got it from your coach.

Me: Oh.

Dani: You're a good dancer.

Me: Emma said I'm better than Harry.

Emma: Don't listen to him, Dani, I would never.

Dani: I know! I liked when you signed, Max.

Emma: That was my fave too.

Dani: You did ASL though.

Me: What does that mean?

Dani: You did American sign language.

Me: Wait. Do I have an American accent?

This delighted me no end, for some reason.

But then it was time to take the next step. I hadn't prepared for this moment. I kind of thought I'd get some warning. There was an awkward silence. Different from the previous silence. I wanted to ask Dani what her intentions were but there was no way without involving everyone, which was quite inhibiting. Maybe when her parents started to trust me I'd be allowed to chat one-on-one.

Me: Sooooooo

Still no-one so much as twitched their thumbs.

Me: SO WHAT BRINGS YOU TO CREWE

Dani: Duh. We live here.

Me: Are you going to make me say it?

Dani: Say what? Also: yes.

Me: Would you please pretty please with a cherry on top sign for my football team please thanks

The family turned away and started signing to each other. I was worried at first, but the mum was a terrible actor. They were teasing me.

Finally:

Dani: I want to try.

I nodded, calmly, and calmly gave the three of them firm but polite handshakes. "Yes, that will do tremendously well," I believe I said.

***

Emma: What's happening?

Dani: Max ran away. I think he was shouting.

Mr Smith: He was screaming 'f***ing come on yes mate' and similar things

Mrs Smithe: He's very fast. He went quite a long way. Is he coming back do you think?

***

I ran back and waved at Dani. Come on. Follow me.

I introduced her to the boys. They knew she was my white whale, the star I'd discovered from the previous Crewe tournament, the one who'd made me embrace social media and do tekkers. And here she was! They treated her like a celebrity. Tyson, the little shit, annoyed me by being super extra nice. Ooh teach me to sign my name. Ugh. He didn't fool me. A bunch of the bolder boys coaxed Dani into a skills circle, doing kick ups and boinging the ball around to the next person.

The dad gave me a quick lesson in deaf culture and pointed out a big mistake I'd made in the video. I thanked him, and he said they knew it'd be hard for everyone but we'd get through it. He and his wife went for a coffee.

Future looked from them to Dani. "How do we talk to her?" he said, amazed at the existence of deaf people.

"You learn sign language, but not the American one, because that's totally different and apparently Dani only understood what I was doing from context. Ugh. I spent ages learning that, and it was like learning Portuguese to talk to a Brazilian."

"You're joking, aren't you?"

"Yes, actually."

"But really, how do you talk to her?"

"Chat group."

"Can we do one? Just for us?" He meant the boys and her.

"I don't know. Ask the dad." Future raced away in the direction of the cafe. Super speed! His tears were long forgotten.

So soon the boys who had phones were doing chats with Dani, supervised (remotely) by her parents. I wasn't invited in and while I was burning with curiosity, I had to let them get on with it.

And that was the scene when the reporter arrived: me off my head on good vibes; Spectrum watching Dani wondering what I saw in her while being happy for me and for the club; some kids doing skills; Dani joining in when she wasn't texting; the kids laughing, joking, every now and then turning to look at me and then laughing even harder and returning to their phones; kids without mobiles leaning over to see what the latest jape was.

We were an island of unity in a sea of rivals, reefs, and sharks. Dani looked at me. I smiled and gestured in a biiig circle. Look at this mess. Then I signed: in this world, it's just us. But the us wasn't the 'me and you' gesture I'd used in the video. It was us, Chester FC. This little circle. She smiled and looked down at the grass.

Spectrum said he wanted a coffee, too, and fucked off in the same direction Dani's parents had gone. I felt a presence behind me. The reporter. "Bizarre tactics. Improbable wins. Disruptive newcomers. Looks like I stumbled into another Max Best masterclass."

I didn't turn around. I didn't need to; I knew the voice. "If you're looking for a great story, you've found one. But why should I give you the inside scoop?"

"Because you owe me fifty quid."

My snort turned into a cheeky grin. "Fine. Get your notepad out, Beth. Things are about to get intense."