Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

4.

The following text was posted in the ’short story’ section of the website for Gibraltar Lions, the club owned by Aurélie Fragonard, a few days after the events it discusses. It was not promoted on social media, and no links to the post were created on the home page or anywhere else.

***

My favourite movie is My Best Friend’s Wedding. I haven’t seen it, which is apt, because I shall not be going to my best friend’s wedding.

***

My name is Henri Toussaint Voltaire Mathurin Lyons. My life story is simple. I was born, and then I lived. The end is not written, unless you believe in fate. Me? I believe in Serendip, if not serendipity.

***

The previous section breaks one of Kurt Vonnegut’s rules, the one that implores the writer to give the reader someone to root for. I have repulsed you with my complicated joke and the fact that my name is better than yours. I asked an important question and left it unanswered. You do not root for me. You think I am a pig.

Oink.

***

You must not root for the antagonist, either. I will simply stop writing if you do. His name is Max and he accused me of being unable to communicate in a manner comprehensible to the common man.

What effrontery!

My clarity is as unto the water in a lake in a cave in an untouched jungle.

I can be pithy. I pithy the fool who says I am not comprehensible.

I can write short, sharp sentences like Hemingway: Max got fewer slaps than he deserved.

I can lift my voice in song. Just listen to this: The hills are alive with the sound of music!

Ah! I feel you are starting to root for me. What was it? My singing voice?

Hanya Yanagihara wrote that friendship is watching another’s slow drip of miseries, bouts of boredom, fleeting triumphs, and being present for their most dismal moments.

Max can’t be my friend, for he has not been present at my most dismal moments. He was not there when a young goalkeeper let slip that a date had been set for Max’s wedding. He was not there when I heard that Max was ’considering his options’ for who should be his best man. Best man, remember, means best friend. Who was Max considering for the role of best friend? An actor. An actor with a French name, fluffy hair, and killer cheekbones.

I am an actor with a French name, fluffy hair, and killer cheekbones.

If I am not to be the best man, the best friend, I will be the best enemy.

***

It is Thursday, the 15th of July, in the Year of Our Lord 2027.

We are a football team, a group of strangers bonded by the shirt and the name College 1975. We are competing for the right to play in the Champions League. Perhaps you have heard of it? We have cleared the first hurdle, beating the champions of Armenia both home and away. We have shown that we can play with spirit and togetherness.

Together, we file into our meeting room, our spirits high.

The meeting is to discuss the next obstacle. We will play Saltney Town over two legs, and I will come face-to-face with a person who has spent the past two weeks trying his hardest to ruffle my feathers. When he accused me of not working hard for the team, when he belittled our achievement, he succeeded.

Since receiving his latest message, I have been stewing in a jus of my rawest emotions. I will bring myself to the boil at 7:45 on Tuesday night, but for now I am still in my packaging, in the fridge. Cool next to the cucumbers.

Our head coach is Alby McHugh, who is only 30 years old. He is the real-life embodiment of the phrase, ’it doesn’t jump off the page.’ He has a youthful, soft face, a nice smile, and is very calm. Too calm. Too young. Too wishy-washy. Too milquetoast.

On day one of camp, I saw my fellow professionals giving each other the same looks. This guy? Really? No. Not this guy.

The second day of training did nothing to change hearts or minds. Nor did the third.

McHugh did himself no favours on the fourth day when he announced the team for the first leg. It seemed correct. It seemed right. Perhaps we had misjudged our new manager?

”So that’s the starting eleven,” he said, in a soft voice that retained much of his Liverpool accent. ”And Max has told me how to use the subs, too.”

If he thought to impress us by letting us know how closely he was following orders, he was mistaken.