Glory Of The Football Manager System

Chapter 83: The Underdog’s Gambit III

By the time we finished, it was evening. I sent Jamie home to rest. "Get some sleep," I said. "Tomorrow is the biggest day of your life."

He nodded and left. I stayed at the training ground, staring at the pitch, at the cones and markers still scattered across the grass. I was about to play a 17-year-old kid, who had learned a role in a single day, in the most important game of the season. It was insane. It was reckless. It was either genius or madness.

Frankie Morrison found me there. He sat down next to me on the bench. "You really going to do this, Gaffer?"

"Yes."

"You know it’s crazy, right?"

"Yes."

"You know if it goes wrong, you’ll be finished, right? Terry will sack you. The fans will turn on you. You’ll be a laughing stock."

"Yes."

He was silent for a moment. Then he smiled. "Good. Because if you’re going to go down, you might as well go down swinging. And this, Gaffer, this is one hell of a swing."

I smiled back. "Thanks, Frankie."

"Don’t thank me yet. Thank me if it works."

of the away team dressing room, I announced the starting lineup. The players knew what was

named the eleventh. "And playing as our Libero," I said, my voice calm and

The silence of understanding what this meant. We were playing a 17-year-old kid, in the biggest game of the season, in a role that most of them had never

silence. "Gaffer,

"Yes."

"He’s seventeen."

"I know."

in a formation we

"I know."

forward. "And if it goes wrong? If he makes a mistake?

We

looked at each other. Then, one by one, they looked

put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. "We’ve got your back, Jamie. Just like in training. You do

one, the other players nodded. They had seen Jamie in training. They had seen his composure, his passing, his intelligence. They had seen

face. "You’re either a genius, Gaffer," he said, his voice a low and gravelly whisper. "Or you’re a madman. And I honestly, for the life of me, have no idea which

season, of our dream, of our very existence, was now resting on a tactical gamble of a lifetime, and on the

stood up and addressed

trained for this. He knows the role. He knows the formation. And he’s ready. We are going to play a brand of football that our opponents

room. I saw the fear, the anxiety, the doubt. But I also saw something else. I saw a flicker of defiance. A spark of anger. A glimmer