Glory Of The Football Manager System

Chapter 78: The Final Push III

After the match, Terry handed me another hundred pounds. "Four wins," he said. "Keep it up, Danny. Keep it up." I nodded. I was exhausted. I had not slept more than four hours a night in two weeks. My body ached. My eyes burned. But we were winning. That was all that mattered.

That night at the store, I fell asleep standing up. I woke up when a customer asked for lottery tickets. I had been asleep for maybe thirty seconds, leaning against the cigarette display. The customer did not seem to notice. Or maybe he did and was just being polite. I served him, then went to the back room and splashed cold water on my face. Two more games. Just two more games. I could do this.

The fifth game was on Saturday, March 6th, away to Glossop North End, who were already relegated and had nothing to play for. The system’s analysis showed a team that had given up, a team that was already on its summer holidays.

I expected an easy game. I was wrong. Glossop played with freedom, with abandon, with nothing to lose. They pressed high, they took risks, they played with a joy that we, weighed down by the pressure of the promotion race, could not match. And in the fifty-sixth minute, they scored. A long-range shot that took a wicked deflection and looped over our goalkeeper’s head. 1-0 down. The dream was dying.

I made changes. I brought on fresh legs. I pushed everyone forward. I told the team to forget about tactics, forget about shape, just go and win the game. "Throw everything at them," I said.

"Everything." In the seventy-third minute, JJ picked up the ball on the edge of the box. He was surrounded by three defenders.

He somehow wriggled through them, creating just enough space to get a shot away. The ball flew into the bottom corner. 1-1. In the eighty-eighth minute, we won a free kick thirty yards from goal.

JJ stood over it. I had seen him practice these a thousand times in training. He hit it perfectly. The ball curled over the wall, dipped at the last second, and nestled into the top corner. The goalkeeper was rooted to the spot. 2-1. When the final whistle blew, I sank to my knees. JJ had saved us. Again.

convenience store that night. I could not. I was physically and emotionally spent. I called in sick for the first

into bed, and slept for fourteen hours straight. When I woke up, I had six missed calls from Terry

was on Tuesday, March 9th, away to Curzon Ashton, a team we respected, a team we had battled with all

honest football. No cynicism. No gamesmanship. Just two teams giving everything for the love of the game. We were the better team. We

twenty-eighth minute a counter-attack finished by JJ. We scored again in the sixty-first minute a long-range effort from Marcus

I sat alone in the away changing room, staring at my phone. The

too. We were still three points behind them. It all came down to the final day. Saturday, March 13th. We were playing away against a mid-table team

After a long silence, she spoke. "You’ve done everything right," she said. "The tactics. The man-management. The

be

doesn’t mean it wasn’t right. That doesn’t mean

"What if we lose? What if JJ turned down

for, even if you don’t

right.

said. "Ninety minutes.