2.35 - Do Better

Double chapter, almost a treble! This chapter is best served with a small bag of Cadbury's Mini Eggs and a big bag of red wine.

35.

We still had a bit of time before Holland vs USA, and I had a moment of inspiration. We put the shopping in the fridge, then got in my car. I checked I was fit to drive - I was, but it was borderline. So Emma drove my Subaru to a stationery shop that Henri seemed to frequent, based on the little paper bags in his office and bookmarks in his chill area.

In an ideal world they'd have sold large, football-themed whiteboard slash flipcharts. I'd need to order that kind of thing online, an assistant told me, but she showed me a plain A3 magnetic whiteboard with lots of little magnets. That'd work as a basic way of mapping out formations. I took it.

I wanted to ask the assistant how often Henri used to go there, but something made me hesitate. It didn't seem right to do it in front of Emma. Why? No clue. I let it go.

***

XP balance: 226

Debt repaid: 202/3000

TINOs: 2829

Matches remaining: 16

48 matches into the tournament and it had been a hell of a slog. But I was optimistic of getting to 3,200 TINOs very soon. That would see me double the amount of XP I’d started with, and everything after that would be pure gravy.

***

With kickoff fast approaching, I took my laptop to the sofa, turned the TV on, and let Emma settle in beside me. Her being around meant doing the whole earphone scam and trying to concentrate enough on my surroundings not to do something inexplicable. But it didn't matter. I felt so calm, so relaxed, so at peace with the universe that I was thinking of doing the first half and binning the second to be fully present with her.

Fat chance.

Ten minutes before kickoff, my vision was hijacked by two giant, flashing words.

GET READY

"Oh my God," I said.

"What?" said Emma.

"Something's changed."

"What?"

"Er... I think we're not doing the same thing. Oh, fuck. What do I do? Er... Right." I stood up and held my hands out. She extended hers. I helped her up, then put my hands around her waist and moved her. "You're too sexy. I need blood rushing to my brain instead of... other areas. You can sit here," I indicated the armchair to the side of the sofa. "Or there." The cosy reading space.

She gave me that amused lip curl. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," I said. "Fuck no. But I need total focus. Until I know what's going on."

She sat on the armchair and crossed her legs. Her jeans pulled up a bit, revealing her ankles. Victorian men used to obsess over women's ankles, as it was often the only body part they would get a glimpse of. Dudes tried to estimate what the rest of the body would look like, based on that one element. Emma had perfect ankles. I found my eyes wandering up her legs. Goddammit. Stupidly, I allowed eye contact to happen. If she'd given me the slightest provocation, I might have launched myself at her. Luckily, she didn't. She simply waited for my next outburst.

I mentally took a cold shower. I scratched my chin. "The post-its," I said. I grabbed my store of notes - three inches of the things haphazardly stuck together, and put them on the coffee table. "What else?" I wibbled my bottom lip.

"What do you think is going to happen?"

"The next level," I said. "I've done all the scouting and been spotting formation changes. The course has... what's it done? It's made me think about tactics and players and I've assessed the managers. So now... The obvious next step is..." I bit a nail. "I don't really know. But something a level higher. Do you know what I mean?"

"Not in the slightest. But this is fun. You're really stressed. MYSTERY WINGER FLOUNDERS. Are you always this nervous at exams?"

"I never get nervous at exams. It's a genuine superpower. This isn't like that." I calmed down a bit. "I'm probably overreacting. It's probably going to be more of the same but even harder. TINO!"

"What?"

I didn't reply. I found myself on the floor, for some reason, between the sofa and the coffee table. Staring at the TV, wobbling back and forth. The Dutch and American players had warmed up, done the anthems, and the match would start very soon. "The US are playing 4-3-3," I said, trying to distract myself. "That's interesting."

"Why?"

Talking would help pass the time until kickoff. My heart was pounding. "Where's that magnetic board?"

"Here," she said, dashing to get it. She knelt to the right of the coffee table.

"Turn it so it's oriented like a football pitch. Put one magnet for the goalie. Can you do a back four?" I stripped my eyes from the screen and checked her work. I adjusted the magnets, but she'd got them basically right. "Now 3 in the midfield, and 3 at the top." Eyes back to the screen.

"Like this?"

She'd got it close, but in her version, the magnets were spread wide so that there were players covering the whole width of the pitch. "Ah! Interesting. You've made a Rorschach test." I adjusted them so that they were more central.

"So you can see the way they're doing it is quite narrow. The midfielders and attackers are all central. No width. So you get a lot of control in the middle, and give up the sides of the pitch. Oh, shit. Fuck. Hang on. Sorry."

Another hijack. Tiny trumpet sounds - real, this time. Real in my head, anyway.

NETHERLANDS VERSUS USA

YOUR TEAM: NETHERLANDS

YOUR MISSION: DO BETTER

That stayed up for a few seconds. My mouth dropped open. Then:

MONTE CARLO SIMULATION BEGINS IN 10

9

8

"Whaaaa. What's a Monte Carlo simulation? Can you find out, please? Oh, Christ! Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!"

When the countdown hit 7, just before the action on the TV got underway, I suddenly had access to a Match Overview. At the top, it said, as you can guess, Netherlands vs USA.

The match commentary flashed up, orange and white:

The referee has finished counting the players. He looks at his linesmen. He brings his whistle to his mouth, checks his watch...

I froze. I was absolutely stunned by what was happening.

3

2

1

...and the match begins! Netherlands are playing from left to right. They try a long ball down the left of the pitch.

But it comes to nothing.

"The fuck?"

I had the wherewithal to check the action on the TV. That wasn't what happened at kickoff!

I dipped into the tactics screens. The virtual Netherlands were set up the same as in the real match, and both USAs were doing 4-3-3. The match ratings screen showed everyone on 6 out of 10, the number players always started on. There was something different about the font that was being used. The player names looked... how can I put it? Clickable? I chose a player and his whole player profile popped up. More on that later.

"Got it," said Emma, gripping her phone two-handed. "Do you want me to tell you now?"

What the hell was she talking about? It was an epic struggle, but I eventually remembered I'd asked her to tell me what a Monte Carlo sim was. "No," I said. I closed my eyes. It was suddenly deeply frustrating that she was there. I rubbed my temples. "No, thanks," I said.

Back in the interface, I raced through the USA's tactics. They'd set Christian Pulisic as their playmaker. They were on hard tackling. The team's passing mentality was mixed, but some had been given personalised instructions. They were playing the offside trap, like every other professional team ever. I switched my attention to the TV, hoping to see confirmation of all that. The sample size was too small. I needed to watch ten, fifteen minutes to see such things.

Then I went to the Dutch tactics. It was a weird formation. 3-4-1-2. Three centre-backs, four across midfield, a central attacking midfielder, and two strikers. Quite unusual. There was something about it that I instinctively didn't like, but the Dutch manager was Louis van Gaal, a very, very experienced dude. A legend, to be honest. He knew a lot more than me, that was for sure.

I think I stared gormlessly into space for about two minutes.

There were no best jumping/fastest player type questions. No questions of any sort. There was just this interface. It all felt incredibly familiar, and not just because I'd been using these screens since I'd met Old Nick.

So. This was a challenge of some sort. Not trivia. Not player analysis. What, then?

What had it said? Do better? Better than what?

Right on cue, the camera cut to Louis van Gaal.

"What!" I spluttered.

"What?" said Emma, quietly. Worried.

I turned to her, and beamed. One of those big smiles of disbelief. "I have to manage this match better than the real manager!"

"But - " she started, then closed her mouth and looked down.

I was back in the screens. So did that mean...? In the tactics area, I took the CAM and moved him back into midfield. He clicked into place! No restrictions! We were now playing 3-5-2! I looked at the TV and didn't notice a change. Of course, you wouldn't necessarily see a change that small. So I swapped the left and right sided midfielders, then stared at the TV screen for 45 seconds.

"So I'm not controlling the actual match," I said, out loud, like a prize chump.

Emma boggled at me. I patted her on the hand. I swapped the players back to their original positions, including the CAM.

So I had a decision to make, here. I knew already that this was going to be intense. Concentration would be key. My instinct was to send Emma home, or upstairs, or whatever, so I could focus to the max. But what had I told myself recently? Having someone to talk to led to better outcomes? I had wanted the chance to put my principles into practice. Well, here was that chance.

"Emma. How would you like to be my assistant manager?"

"What's the pay?"

"You get paid in kind."

Her expression showed she didn't know that phrase, but she said, "Okay then. What do I do?"

"See these post-its? Can you go through and find all the ones that say Ned on the top?"

"Ned? Like Ned Flanders?"

"No. Ned like Ned Stark. And all the USA ones, too."

She started sorting the notes. "I see the assistant gets all the fun jobs. So what's the plan, Mr Best?"

I thought about that. It seemed obvious I shouldn't make any big changes just yet. I didn't know why van Gaal had chosen this weird formation, and I didn't know why it rubbed me up the wrong way. I needed to let it play out for a while.

Also, to be honest, I suddenly had doubts.

I didn't think I was being arrogant when I said I'd do well as a manager in the 6th tier. Most opposing managers were predictable, most played 4-4-2, most were defensive as hell. Merely switching tactics a couple of times a game would see me as the outstanding tactical thinker in the division!

But this was the World Cup! And van Gaal had been the manager of Ajax, Barcelona, Manchester United, and most impressively had turned a small Dutch team into league winners. Asking me to do better than him was genuinely preposterous. I felt I was learning fast, but even with the curse, even with constant grinding, it'd be ten years before I could challenge managers like him.

And that's when doubt turned to fear.

Because let me tell you, I'd only been playing this virtual game for a few minutes, but I was into it. I was deeply addicted already. The full player profiles, a complete overview of the match situation, the complete power to change things - this was everything I'd ever dreamed of.

"The cheeky fuck!"

Emma blinked at me, but didn't respond.

It had suddenly hit me. This is what I'd told Old Nick I wanted. To see football the way top managers saw it. Well, now I was seeing it like Louis van Gaal!

It was a cosmic joke. All the grinding, experiences, training, had led me to this - playing a virtual match. In my head.

Anger rose up in me, but didn't get very far. No. Deep breaths, Max. Control your anger before it controls you.

This was not a cosmic joke. This was the MUNDIAL mini game, nothing more. Out in the real world, I still saw player profiles. When I was a manager, I could do all the formation and individual instruction tweaks. So what was happening now was both an evaluation of what I'd been covering in the MUNDIAL 'course', and a taste of things to come if I kept grinding. In short, this was a good thing.

I relaxed enough to realise it was not sensible to sit on the floor for 90 minutes. I pushed myself up onto the sofa.

So.

The fear.

My fear was simple - what if I lost this game? What if I won, but van Gaal won bigger?

Would I simply lose some TINOs, or would I be out of the World Cup?

I shook my head. Managing one game out of the remaining 16 wasn't an option. I needed this. I'd earned this.

***

A quick aside on the player profiles. I know that I saw the complete profiles for every player, including information I didn't have access to in the real world. For example, I could see a player's aggression, creativity, and influence. But when the match was over, the curse blurred those memories. So while I may have switched the captaincy mid-game to someone with higher influence, or moved a highly creative player somewhere he could do more damage, I can't remember any of that stuff. What I can say is that around 95% of my decisions were based on factors I already knew and was comfortable with - formations, player positions, pace, passing, heading - all the basics.

***

Excitement and fear simmered inside me, so I didn't change anything for the first ten minutes. Either van Gaal's 3-4-1-2 was too complicated for me to understand, or I was just too stunned by this whole turn of events to grasp it; I'd been expecting ten weird questions, as per.

Another reason I didn't change anything was the complexity of watching my match (via the text commentary, match ratings, and some other information that got memory-wiped) while watching the real match on the TV. I was hoping for clues, there. Now that I knew the endpoint of the MUNDIAL training, I knew what I was supposed to have been looking for - players that could make a difference.

Emma was laying out the post-its. They reminded me that in the group stages, I'd made special note of the Dutch right-back Denzel Dumfries - he was incredible. Cody Gakpo seemed to be their main threat. I had mixed feelings about Memphis Depay, because although he was highly rated in the world of football, he'd been at Man United for a while and had a terrible time there that soured my view of him. Even with his real player profile telling me exactly how good he was, I couldn't shift the feeling that he was over-rated.

On the USA side, everything revolved around Christian Pulisic. He was the one the others looked to. If he didn't play well, neither would the team. His teammates were no mugs, though. They had more players than ever playing in major European teams, and as a group they were extremely physical - fast, willing, great stamina. If I can oversimplify for a moment, they were athletes who'd been taught to play, while the Dutch were players trained to be athletes.

Disaster struck on the tenth minute, just as I had fallen into a mental rut.

The Dutch had the ball deep in their half. The Americans were pressing. With a series of unbelievably slick passes on the left of midfield, the Dutch moved the ball forward, back, central, then out to the right where Dumfries was having a 10 out of 10 match. He whizzed ahead, rolled it sideways, and Depay passed the ball into the net. Easy as pie, and beautiful.

"Oh, shit," I said.

"Do you want the US to win?"

"No. I mean, I don't care. That goal makes my job harder. I have to do better than the Dutch manager."

"Do better? In what sense?" She leaned forward to peek at my laptop.

I grabbed it away from her and opened several browsers and apps and resized them so that five resized tabs filled the screen. One tab had some random formation graphics. One was a text box where I could type gibberish. One was full of flashing, swirling green letters like in the movie The Matrix. Basically, I tried to make it seem like there was some kind of interface there. It was all a bit rude, but better than the alternative. I tried to make up for it with a friendly tone. "Yeah, basically, in this simulation I'm Holland. I've got to do better than the real guy. Oh, maybe now's a good time. What's Monte Carlo?"

She picked up her phone and swiped a few times. "A Monte Carlo simulation is a model used to predict the probability of a variety of outcomes when the potential for random variables is present. Monte Carlo simulations help to explain the impact of risk and uncertainty in prediction and forecasting models."

I groaned. Typically baffling curse shit. "Not your fault but that's not helpful," I said. "Can I read it?" She handed it over. I skimmed the page. It was gibberish to the same degree as when I tried to look at Champion Manager images. "Holy Christ." I handed the phone back. "Never mind." I rubbed the back of my head and then let out a huge groan.

"Can I help?"

I exhaled. "Well," I said. "Er... The Dutch are using this system." I showed her with the magnets. "And I don't get it. It feels rubbish to me. It's crazy. He's got 3 defenders and the USA have 3 strikers. So that seems extremely aggressive. Very bold. But when you look at the TV, it's very dour. Seems defensive. It's a contradiction. I don't get it at all. I feel stupid. And that goal looked planned to me. Like that specific set of passes was the point of the formation. But how? I'm a bit out of my league here. It's like you said, I'm National League North."

She clambered up and sat next to me. Gave me a bit of a hug and a squeeze. "That was just me being playful. I know you're top class. Why would I choose you if you weren't?"

Tiny smile. "Wait a second. I chose you. I'm the protagonist."

"Sure. Now, this..." She looked at the magnets and counted. "This 3-5-2 formation the Dutch are using..." She didn't get it exactly right, but it was close enough to double the size of my smile. "It's messing with your tiny head, right?"

Fair statement. "Yep."

"But you don’t have to use it. You can change it?"

I went to the formation selector and saw every formation you could ever think of. "Yep."

"What would you do if you hadn't seen this?"

"Oh. If I had to choose the formation from scratch?" I hadn't thought about it. I'd been trying to tweak van Gaal's system. "Er... Against 4-3-3? I haven't used that one myself yet. That's my next one. I think when I use the formations I get a deeper understanding of them. Does that make sense? Like with chess you can learn some of the openings and strategies but until you've used them wrong and seen some dude take your queen, you don't really really feel it in your bones. But let's see. I mean, just visually, you'd say it has to be weak down the wings."

"So attack the wings."

"Absolutely."

"Great. What are wings?"

I laughed, but she wasn't joking. "Wow, yeah. So much jargon. Sorry. Please always ask. The wings are the sides. Like a bird's wings."

"Oh. That's clear. Sometimes the jargon sounds like it is. Sometimes it doesn't."

"Yeah. So let me think. 4-2-4. That's a formation with lots of emphasis on wingers. But look at the TV - do you see there's always loads of Americans in the box?"

"Which box?"

"Either box. Er... the box where the goalkeeper lives. There are two, right? The one you're attacking and the one you're defending. The Americans are running between the boxes like their lives fucking depend on it. It's exhausting to watch. Last night I did a fraction of what they're doing and it wrecked me. So we do need some numbers back. Some defensive bodies."

"You promised me fearless football," she said, in a mock whine. Like I'd promised to buy her a pony.

I put my arm around her and pulled her into me. "Yeah. Fearless. Not stupid. You know what, I want a DM." I tried to slide back down onto the floor, but she stopped me.

"Max," she said. "Was I helpful?"

"Yes!" I said. I felt energised. Ready to attack the task. Have a go.

"Payment in kind," she said.

"Oh, you know what it means?"

"I looked it up." She closed her eyes and tilted her head. When she sensed I wasn't leaning in, she pursed her lips and pointed to them.

"Don't make me laugh," I said. "I can't kiss when I'm laughing."

"Good point," she said, and poked me in the ribs. Annoying, but it worked.

One kiss later, I was back on the floor, shuffling the magnets around. The Dutch team was super weird. It had two guys who could play left-back and two who could play right-back. I wasn't that familiar with three of the team, but I had their profiles. I also had subs. There was nothing to stop me making an early substitution, right? To get things the way I wanted. I decided to use the players van Gaal had chosen. It wasn't exactly fearless football, but if things went tits-up playing the Max Best way, I could always switch back to the van Gaal way and hope to understand it better in the second half.

I started with the defence. Flat back four. I was comfortable with it. Then a DM to secure things. I mentally yelled at myself to 'keep things tight!'  Emma caught me smiling and raised her eyebrows at me. I blushed. Caught red-handed being an absolute weirdo.

Then two central midfielders in central midfield so we weren't overrun. What else? One striker - Gakpo. And then the thing that the entire theory was based around - making Dumfries the heart of the team. Not a playmaker, because he was over on the right. The platonic playmaker played centrally. I actually left Dumfries where van Gaal had him, but gave him a big arrow all the way to the goalline - he would attack!

That left me with Depay. Looking at the formation, there was a big weakness on our left. I needed to put him over there, somewhere. But I wanted my attackers to attack! I wasn't going to do what Ian Evans had done when he used Aff to mark me. So I placed Depay as a left-sided forward. He'd give the Americans something to think about. They'd have to limit their attacks down that side or Depay would crush them on the break.

I took a long, hard look at my work. I didn't like it. It wasn't symmetrical. It felt stitched together like a real Frankenstein's monster of a tactic. But that was okay. I'd seen a lot of similar things in the World Cup. One thing the MUNDIAL training had made me realise was the extent to which good managers tried to shoehorn their good players into good positions. The rest of the team often looked as lumpy and misshapen as a comedy turnip. National teams weren't like club sides where you could buy and sell players to fit your favourite formations. You had to work with what the population had produced.

"Well," I said, with a sigh. "Until I make subs, this is the best I can do."

"You're not convinced?"

"No."

"Do it! What have you got to lose?"

I grinned at her. "Fine. Weapons hot! Go for launch!" I mentally made all the changes, said "Boom!" while miming an explosion, and started biting my thumb nail. Emma frowned. "Oh," I said, and then went through the whole rigmarole of mumbling into my earphone and typing on the textpad window and all that shit. After a while, I said, "Done!" Emma smiled, and went over to the cosy chair. Giving me a break. Five stars, girlfriend material.

***

Five minutes later, after my virtual Dutch boys had created 3 good chances, the in-curse American manager reacted to my tweaks. Went a bit more defensive. Amazing! I took it as validation of my ideas. I couldn't go more attacking because the American team had a lot of threat, so the next five mins were a bit of a stalemate. But they were a stalemate on my terms. The Dutch had the ball in the American half pretty much non-stop. Now we just needed a moment of magic to pick the lock, to carve out that one magical goal that would force the US to attack. At which point we'd murder them on counters.

I left my tactics unchanged. This was going well. I stood and moved around the room a little bit. Stretched my back. Touched my toes. I sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies; every time I flexed a muscle there were dozens of tiny cracks and pops.

Emma looked up from her phone. "I think I understand Monte Carlo simulations, now."

"Oh, top," I said. "Let me have it."

"It's basically, you get a computer, and you run a simulation. Like for example, a football match. And the first result is zero zero."

"Nil nil."

"But anything can happen in one game, right? So they do it again. And again. A million times. And then you get sort of averages. Useful data, maybe. After a million simulations, you can categorically say the most likely result is two-zero. Two-nil. Does that make sense? Is that what you're doing?"

I nodded. I thought I knew the concept but with a different name. "Yeah. Some kind of computer modelling. Probability thingies. That's definitely it. When I make a change to my team, the course organisers are using a computer to simulate what the likely outcome is. Yeah."

"But all this stuff I'm reading, it's all economics. Models about interest rates and that sort of thing. How would you do it with football?"

"You mean, which program would you use to model the results?"

"Exactly."

I shook my head and pushed my lips flat. "Champion Manager."

"What's that?"

"It's a game."

She tapped away and came and showed me her screen. Obviously, it was full of pictures of horrific space alien demons coming to slurp up my innards and use my bones as toothpicks. "Is this it?"

"Yes," I said, with a slight shudder.

"This is a game?" she said.

I scoffed. "I know, right?" But then I paused. Sudden clarity. I was literally playing that game right as I said it. And it was unbelievably good! I started to feel like I kind of remembered it. Not the specifics, but the generality. "Actually," I said, speaking from past and present experience, "I know it doesn't look like much from the outside, but when you're in it, it takes you over."

"No kidding," she said, scrolling. "There's a book called Champion Manager Ruined My Life."

That was a heart-stopping moment. I froze. Terror sweat burst out of me onto my neck. "Could you, ah, read the synopsis maybe?"

She gave me a curious look. Caught something in my tone. She had a bit of a read while I waited, fearfully. Eventually, she said, "Seems to be a collection of anecdotes about this so-called game. Stories about boys spending all their time up in their rooms pretending to be managers of football teams. Taking it way too seriously. Is that right? So it's like you, but in the least sexy way." She let out a gentle little laugh.

I had stopped tensing - the book wasn't about someone who had been cursed. But it opened a new set of problems. I could ignore what she'd said, or I could try being honest. "Oh, Emma," I said. "It's probably fair to tell you now - I was one of those boys."

She looked at me with amazement. "No way!"

"Yeah. I don't remember much of it," I said, carefully, "but I know the game gives you a sense of control you can't get anywhere else in your life. A sense of purpose."

"Purpose!"

"Yeah. Getting Chester promoted. Keeping Carlisle in the first division. Trying to build a small Scottish team into a third powerhouse." Where had all that come from? I listened to the words coming out of my mouth with deep interest and increasing emotion. "Everyone used to tell me to go out and get a girlfriend. That I was wasting my life. But I think... I think that was the only part of my life I didn't waste. It was an escape into a world where I could make things better. Where I wasn't angry and frustrated all the time. It was very important to me to have something like that." Some tiny shift in the clouds let a single beam of light in, illuminated one very specific memory. "Oh God, I remember it now. That feeling! My biggest fear. My biggest fear of all time was that a girl like you would laugh at me because I loved it so much."

She dropped her phone onto the sofa and came over. Put her arms around me, and pressed her cheek against my chest. "I'm sorry, Max. I'm not laughing at you and I'm not laughing at the game. I don't know what it is. It’s simply that it doesn't look like anything."

"I know. You're allowed to laugh at me. And the game. But it's fair that you know. I'm not the quarterback, best kid in school type. I'm the weird loner kid. I don't want to start anything under false pretences."

"You didn't."

"What?"

"In that restaurant in - what was it called? - Tisbury? With Ziggy and Gems. Where we met. I didn't know you were a player or a manager. I just thought you were a cool guy with an interesting way of thinking. I knew you had ambition. I knew you weren't intimidated by us. You were passionate and weren't afraid to show it or explain it. And then you didn't chase me. Almost at all. Do you know how often that happens to me? I had to find some excuse to call you, and then you hung up on me."

I tried to recall the incident. "A guy broke his leg."

"I know. You told me. About a week later." She smiled at the memory.

"You seem to like that I forget to call you."

"I like that I'm not the centre of your world. Right. So you see, I wouldn't have guessed you played weird games in darkened rooms, but I knew who I was pursuing. The, ah, athletic ability stuff is just a bonus." Lip smirk.

I cleared my throat. "I hope you aren't trying to get me hot right now."

"Why would you say that?" she said, making me hot. She detached from me. "Why don't you sit down and I'll make us both a cup of tea?"

For various reasons, including the restoration of proper blood flow to stiffened areas, I did some slow squats in front of the sofa. It had a calming effect. I checked what had happened in the last few minutes. My virtual opponent hadn't made any more changes, and the game was still 0-0. The real one was still 1-0. I sighed. I was losing, but there was no need to panic. There was a long way left to go.

Emma was behind me, filling the kettle. The sound of the water masked what she said.

"What?"

She finished pouring. "I was asking about this simulated match you're playing. If you're controlling Holland, does that mean there's another person somewhere in the world who's controlling the USA?"

That would mean another person in the world had met Old Nick and ended up as a football manager. I scoffed. Two people with the same curse. What were the odds? Hmm. I picked up Emma's phone and brought it over to her. "Emma, can you find out how popular Champion Manager is?" She had a look on her face that meant, oh no, you don't hand off small admin tasks to me. I am not your personal assistant. "Please," I said.

She shook off her first reaction and tapped away. "Champion Manager 2022 has sold one million copies."

I closed my eyes. Had a very tiny dizzy spell. It was not completely crazy that someone else would have the same exact wish as me. I stumbled back to the sofa and watched. Half-time was imminent.

I twisted my neck left and right, then paused. My opponent had changed his formation. Having weathered the storm of my attacking moves, he took a tentative step back towards his initial 4-3-3. It felt exceedingly... human. "Oh, my God," I said.

"What?" called Emma. She came forward to look at the TV, thinking I'd reacted to something in the match. Holland had a harmless throw-in. They took it, played a couple of passes, and then that man Dumfries was pushing to the right touchline. He pulled the ball back across goal and Holland scored again! Virtually identical in its essence to the first goal!

van Gaal was smashing me. Teaching me a lesson in football management.

"Oh, my God!" I said again.

...

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