Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

I shrugged. ”We are what we are.”

Briggy looked away and bit her bottom lip. ”You’re so annoying. I hate this gig.”

***

Time crawled. This wriggling worm resented going back down the tunnel. I wanted to stay up there, in the arena, wanted the fight to start, wanted to get stuck in.

I had Elversberg’s lineup on my tactics screens. 4-4-2, average CA 122 (gold star for Bayern’s iPad army!), no surprises.

In the dressing room, I detected that my team and subs bench had caused some anger, some resentment, some disbelief. I felt really, really, really sorry for the unhappy millionaire superstars. My heart broke for them, it really did. Especially the ones who drove Lambos and Ferraris to training.

While they went out to do the last warm-up, I stayed behind and wept liberal tears - with my feet up on a desk while flicking through the match programme. They returned.

With twenty minutes to go, I asked the eleven starters to come into the coach’s office. The coaches tried to come in, which was rude. ”Torben,” I said, waving the CA 170 goalie over. ”You come in for this.” He had proven his loyalty was to the team first and he hadn’t leaked that he had been dropped. As far as I was concerned, he was an insider.

I closed the door behind him while in the main dressing room a lot of grown men pulled sour, sulky faces. Elite mentality in action!

”All right,” I said. The room was designed for five or six, so the thirteen of us made it feel crowded and guys were having to lean on tables, get up close and personal. Just like non-league. The thought of shoving these pampered princes into the pea-sized changing rooms at Tamworth or Banbury got me hot and bothered in the best possible way. ”All right,” I repeated, with more of a grin. I had a tactics board and some magnets. That’s all you fucking needed to run a football team. I popped the magnets on as I spoke. ”Elversberg are doing 4-4-2. We’re going to match them to start with. Kaspar in goal. You’ve spent your entire career playing short passes from the back. That’s what the Elves want you to do.” I popped the striker magnet on next. ”Zoran. Six foot five. Shit, you don’t say it like that here. What’s that in metres?”

Zoran Bratko was a Slovenian superstar who was tall, powerful, and fast. His movement was great and he had been working on his technique and all-round game for years. When Bayern paid a hundred million Euros for him, no-one in the world of football batted an eyelid. Zoran was as close to a sure thing as it got in football. Of course, the move had bombed. He had got off to a bad start and hadn’t recovered.

”One point nine seven metres,” said Zoran, in a thick accent.

He got jeered by a few mates. ”Fuck off,” said Adam Adebayo. ”It’s one nine four.”

”One nine seven!” yelled Zoran, which prompted sniggers from the others.

Dumitru, the guy I had picked at right back, said, ”One nine five point five eight.” I was ready to continue but he ploughed on in a tedious monotone. ”I have visited the original metre bar at the Musée des Arts et Métiers and both of the marble metre blocks that were embedded into buildings around the city of Paris. There were sixteen originally. They served their purpose, which was to promote the metric system. Only three countries refuse to use the system. Two are Liberia and Myanmar. You know the third.”

The hell was that? I stared at him but feared that if I left much of a gap, he would start talking again. I wiggled the striker magnet around. ”From goal kicks and deep build-up, I want Zoran to move wide or drop short. Kaspar will ping passes to him and we’ll bypass the oppo press.”

Adam Adebayo’s eyes were popping out. ”You want us to play long ball?”

”Long ball is where you mindlessly hoof the ball as far as you can kick it. This isn’t mindless, is it? This is doing what the oppo doesn’t want you to do. We’ve got one of the world’s most physically gifted guys. Two metres tall he is, if you include his hair.” Zoran grinned and rubbed his trim. I continued. ”Look, I know Basti has his philosophies and that’s why he got the job but my philosophy is you fucking win. My opposite number, Ulf Graber, has come up with all kinds of pressing patterns, triggers, counter-triggers, blah blah blah. Who gives a shit? We’re going over the top. Buh-bye.”

I placed four magnets in a defensive line.