Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

Max: When I go to a random match, sometimes I don’t want to be bothered or hassled or shown on TV so for this one I bought a couple of tickets instead of, you know, taking the freebies. I would have gone with Emma, my fiancée, but she draws attention so I asked Henri instead. He’s got a wonderfully bland, nothingy sort of face, which is perfect for going out in public and being undisturbed. Luckily, Henri was available, otherwise I would have had to go with a cardboard cut-out or a sock puppet.

Henri: Max asked me to come with him not for those reasons but because he wanted me to buy the tickets because he’s so, so famous that using his own name and his own credit card would be like beaming his intentions onto the moon. The whole world would know! Also, he hopes I will forget that I paid for the tickets and that I will forget to ask him to reimburse me. I will not forget. Henri Lyons never forgets a line item.

Max: Why did you say that in such an epic way? It doesn’t fit the content. Ah, content. Great link, Max! Knowing I was going to watch the match, I thought it’d be fun to talk about it on a Luton podcast. The last stop on my apology tour, so to speak. I reckoned that if I asked to come on you’d be ecstatic - you are ecstatic, aren’t you? - but that you’d make a big deal about it. Crowds outside, people sending in questions, all that stuff. How exhausting! Doing it this way, which you call gatecrashing, means the first anyone hears about this will be in a few hours when you upload it. Think of the reaction! It’s going to be legendary. I planned the gatecrash like I’d plan a heist. Fun fact, I’m great at heists! This one was easy. The location of the studio is in your channel description and I found out what time you were going to be here.

John: How did you do that?

Max: I asked someone. Told them I wanted to give you a hamper.

Henri: You are hampering them, it is true.

Max: I’m the twenty-first best manager in the country. Think of the quality of the analysis! And I’m the FA’s Most Wanted. Think of the viewing numbers!

Henri: You are the most wanted?

Max: I like to call myself the ’terrible infant’ of English football, but that’s a phrase that doesn’t translate well into French.

Henri: [Laughs.]

John: I wouldn’t be doing my job as a journalist if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity. Before we talk about last night -

Max: Oh, God, don’t phrase it like that or you’ll wreck the wedding.

John: [Chuckles.] Before we talk about last night’s football match, what’s your side of the story when it comes to the ban?

Max: We played Leeds United in the cup and in the words of one rather hysterical media outlet, I ran amok. I gave a bunch of flowers to a goalie who was pretending to be injured - a scourge on the game that the FA has done fuck all to prevent. When the fake injury - which the FA has done sweet FA to prevent - was going on, my players barricaded and barracked the Leeds technical area, making it hard for the Leeds manager to give new instructions to his players. They call it a tactical time-out; I call it stealing time from the fans.

Henri: They don’t care about the flowers, they care that you replayed a controversial incident on the big screen, which inflamed the fans and could have started a riot.

Max: An incident was put on the big screen. Fans were inflamed. A riot could have been started.

Henri: Max.

Max: Yeah, look, whoever did those things probably went too far in the heat of the moment but one of my players was sent to the hospital and when that happens you look for justice to be meted out and when it isn’t, not every choice you make is sober or rational.

Henri: The FA didn’t like that you lied when you claimed that the preparatory work for the new stand meant the match couldn’t have a video assistant referee. In hindsight, perhaps you wish the VAR had been working, no?

Max: VAR kills the game and there are still mistakes. Bad refs gonna find a way to ref bad.

Henri: The FA didn’t like some of the things you said to the referee. They were described as spicy.

Max: Our conversation was mostly grounded in factual truth, objective reality. To the extent that the words spoken were spicy or otherwise served as a means for the referee to self-reflect. They were a mirror held up before him. I can understand how that would be hard for him but can I really be blamed if he doesn’t like what he sees?

Henri: Don’t forget to tell the viewers that you sent a dozen policemen to surround the thug who injured your player.