Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

10.

Monday, August 14

I prowled around the main pitch at Bumpers Bank, where we were playing an unusually intense training match. The Chester boys were lined up in a cautious 4-2-3-1, while the Saltney set was in its now-customary 3-2-4-1.

That’s right, someone had double-booked the training pitch again! Crazy and unprofessional. One of these days, I was going to find out who was in charge of the scheduling and give him the hairdryer. If a player got injured in such a match, could we make a claim with the insurance company? How could I explain to our fans that Pascal Bochum would miss a few weeks because he had been kicked up the arse by Henry Dunston, a former Wrexham player? I wasn’t quite sure of the legalities and the potential PR effects of mixing all the players together, but I knew it was damned good for CA growth, so until the double bookings stopped we were making the best of a bad situation. Chester, by a crazy coincidence, were playing exactly like Young Boys of Bern would play tomorrow night. And on Wednesday and Thursday, when the pitch would no doubt be double-booked again, Saltney would play an awful lot like Chester’s weekend opponent, Brighton.

The ball came to me on the left of the pitch, five yards in my own half. The Swiss players - sorry, the Chester players - formed up around me, blocking my passing angles but not getting too tight lest I simply dribble past them and open space that way. With the simple options blocked, I looked for something more complex.

I looked to the far flank and yelled, ”Magnus! Get on this! In behind!” I pointed to the gap behind the defence, about ten yards inside the Chester/Young Boys half, and shaped to play a hard-to-execute, impossible-to-defend pass. Then I cracked the ball as hard as I could, straight at goal.

Chester’s goalie, Marek, said, ”Oh, shit,” and scrambled back, but got nowhere near it. The ball slapped into the back of the net. I earned applause; Marek jeers. He slapped his hips. ”Stop doing that!”

I yelled back, ”Young Boys’ keeper doesn’t come out that far! You’re supposed to be doing an impression of him! So we can practise!”

”He is shit,” yelled Marek. ”I can’t pretend to be shit.”

”He might be shit but I’ve never scored on him from 60 yards. Twice,” I added, which was funny if grammatically strange.

Marek muttered to himself as he went to fish the ball out of the goal.

”Come on, guys,” I said. ”Go again, but let’s do the things Young Boys might actually do in the game, yeah?” I spent twenty seconds telling the players to get back to where they were, then said, ”Play!” I took a couple of steps infield, leaned back, and pushed a pass through Chester’s back line.

Magnus ran after it and got to it ahead of Murray Burnett. The Evertonian slid in to make the tackle but after a double deflection, Magnus was able to keep the ball. He played a simple pass to Colin Beckton, who ran at Marek. The giant Slovakian rushed out and spread himself. Colin looked like he was going to pass the ball into the bottom left. He shaped to do just that, but waited a fraction of a second, played the ball square, and Magnus had an easy side-foot finish.

I turned towards Murray Burnett, but Peter was already on it. ”Never dive in as the last man. Always stay on your feet.”

Murray said, ”I thought it was worth the risk. Magnus got lucky, right?”

I said, ”Stay on your feet, give the oppo a decision to make. You did it great against Arsenal. When you made them choose, they chose wrong 9 times out of 10. This one, even if Magnus makes the pass, which isn’t an easy one with you in the way, you track him and Colin has to shoot. Marek’s incredible one-v-one.”

Murray looked from Peter to me then at the place where he had slid in. He glanced at the net, where Marek was once again recovering the ball. Murray’s face scrunched up, he nodded, and his Decisions score increased by 1, turning green as it did so.

Result!

”Time!” yelled Sandra, from the side.

The rest of the lads walked towards the changing rooms. Some took their training tops off to expose their abs to the hot morning sun. Red tops for Saltney, blue for Chester, and plenty of green. The morning had seen five almost instant CA pops amongst the guys who had played against Arsenal, while Saltney’s guys were turning green faster than the Incredible Hulk.