1.48 - Passenger

48.

Football glossary: Passenger. A player who sits back while his teammates do all the work. Used unfairly to describe Mesut Özil from 2016-2017. Used fairly to describe Mesut Özil from 2018 to 2022.

Saturday, October 8th

Heavy knocks on the front door. I was ready, sort of. I'd woken up early, got dressed, prepared a little go-bag, then popped some pills and crashed back onto the bed.

More knocks.

"I'm coming, you dick. Kin 'ell." If I'd known this was going to be one of the most important journeys of my entire life, I might have been a little more reverential.

The letterbox built into the front door flapped open and I saw someone trying to bend down to look through. No mean feat! The slot was only just above ground level, approx ankle height. "Come on, Maxy boy! Big day ahead." Jackie, in the best mood of any person since humans developed happy hormones.

"Get fucked," I suggested.

I finally pirate-shipped my way to the door and opened it. "Rise and shine!" he cried, barging past me. "Did you eat brek? I brought you a roast beef butty. Your favourite."

"That's not my favourite," I said.

"Oh, that's right. It's my favourite. So if you don't want it, I'll have it. That was clever of me. Now then. You ready? Where's all your stuff? I'll grab it for you."

"There," I said, pointing to my little bag. It contained a thermos, an apple, and some penguin chocolate bars.

Jackie, invading my privacy as well as my home, opened it. "Fuck! Are you a toddler or what? What's in the thermos? Lemon cordial? Where's your favourite Action Man for when you get disruptive?" Done taunting me, he looked up at the unusually high ceiling and decided to treat himself to a tour of my house. He zoomed around, flew up the stairs in three bounds. Just showing off because he had a functioning pair of legs. Prick. "Well, this place is grim. No wonder you never take girls back here."

I raised an eyebrow at him. How had he worked that out? "You think I'd bring a girl back to Moss Side?"

"I don't know what you'd do, Maxy boy." He grinned at me as he pushed past. "That's what today's all about."

***

Although he was being brash and annoying, he was pretty careful about helping me into his car. He'd already put the front passenger seat back as far as it'd go, and he just generally let me take as much time as I wanted to slide-fall into it, and he supported my arm and whatnot.

He even ran in to get my baseball cap and sunglasses that I'd forgotten on the kitchen table. It didn't occur to me for days after that I'd left my 'Queen's funeral notes' there by the toaster. He could have read it and discovered all my secrets! But he didn't. I think...

Once I was settled, he got in the driver's seat and turned the engine on.

"What are we - " I started.

He raised a finger. "Ah ah! We must respect the traditions."

He pressed play on his media player and we drove off. He turned onto Princess Parkway, heading south. And for three minutes there was no sound in the universe except the aggravatingly tedious strains of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' by Gerry and the Pacemakers. The anthem of Liverpool FC.

***

Jackie was delighted with himself. "Did you enjoy that?"

"Did I endure that? Yes, I did. Very much."

He smiled. Good comeback. It was one-all. "How did you get on last night?"

I rubbed my nose. "Yeah, it went well. The kids loved my formation and she's going to give Kisi a go. Fuck, I didn't even tell her!" I got my phone out.

"I meant the Met Heads not… whatever the fuck you’re talking about."

"Oh. Won 7-0. Five up at the break and they agreed to take it easy in the second half. They only really scored those last two goals out of boredom. Give me one second?" I’d also got a ‘win 2 in a row’ achievement. Woop. The phone had connected to my client. "Kisi? Are you awake? Well, how am I supposed to know what time you wake up? Just shush your mouth a minute. You ready? I got you a trial at City." The scream filled the car and brought a big smile to Jackie's face. "Yeah, yeah," I said, trying to pretend to be serious. "Ho Chi Minh City," I said. She replied. I laughed and passed her response on to Jackie. "She says: when's the flight? This girl, seriously." Back to Kisi: "All right, listen. The coach is called Sandra. She's got your mum's number. They can work everything out. When you get there, ask yourself: what would Max do?" Jackie mumbled something. I laughed. "Jackie says: and do the opposite. If you have any problems, let me know." Jackie mumbled something else. "Right. Don't sign any papers if I'm not there. Got that? Good. Right, go and celebrate. Bye."

I relaxed back into the seat. With my frequent lapses in concentration, I'd only earned 96 XP the night before even though I had my eyes pointed at one full game and coaching the second gave me double XP. But it had been a big day. Maybe wearing a suit wasn't my ticket to becoming a successful agent - maybe hopping around on crutches with a smashed-to-bits face was the thing.

XP balance: 1409

"So it was Kisi," he mused.

"What?"

"When you were dancing around kissing Beth and generally acting the maggot, I thought it was because James was a prospect. But it was Kisi. And you think she's good enough for City?"

"Yeah," I said.

"And you've got the Met Heads crushing their league."

"The Met Heads are crushing their league. My input was minimal."

He laughed, but with almost no humour. "Ah, it's going to be one of those days, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are times when you tell the truth. We've got a long ride ahead. I was hoping to hear from the real Max today."

We lapsed into silence.

***

Around Northenden, the meds started to kick in and the pain became a little bit less overwhelming. After the golf course there would be some red lights, a bit of traffic, and at some point we'd hit the ring road and head... where? A long ride ahead, he said. How did I want to spend that time? In surly silence?

"Go on, then."

He glanced at me. "What?"

"What do you want to know?" I said. A peace offering.

That got his attention. He shifted in his seat like an F1 race was about to start. His excitement exhausted me. "I looked at the Met Heads results. This season and last. That game last night, it's always been close. Now they're walking it. I want you to admit that's because of you."

I shook my head. "I put the ladies in the right positions. Beth and Nobby in defence. You've seen it. Left-foot, right-foot. Hard to beat. It's solid. Great base."

"So if you managed a struggling team, you'd start by fixing the defence?"

"What?"

"FC United, for example. You're the new manager. You start by making sure the defence is watertight?"

"No, I'd get the best striker I could."

He rolled his eyes. "You don't need to give me the Ziggy sales pitch," he said, driving absurdly close to the car in front.

Beyond annoying! "You wanted honesty! I'd start at the top. Goals. I want a dominant goal-scorer."

"Why? Coz goals win games? The striker's hattrick is no good if you lose 4-3."

Jackie tapped the brakes and I grabbed the handle above my head. While I let out thousands of miniature swear words, Jackie let a little distance build up between the cars. I relaxed an equivalent amount. "I want a star striker... to sell. Guy's scoring 30 goals a season. Sell him for 500 grand. Buy a new striker for 250, a new whatever for 250. Left-back. New striker's just as good as the last one. Scores 30 goals. Sell him for double what we paid. Rinse and repeat. Soon, you've got an entire team of players who are the best in their positions in the league."

"Squad building," he said. "You're into that."

"I love a bargain," I said.

"Squad building is a big process. Need to scout a lot of players," he said. "It’s a lot of resources. And how can you be sure the new striker will be as good as the one you've sold?" He shook his head. "It's not easy. Every transfer is a risk."

"So don't pay. Get them in on a free. Like Ziggy. Like Raffi."

He tapped the steering wheel. Tapped the beat to some tune only he could hear. "Yeah. Like Ziggy." He was thoughtful for a moment. "Raffi I get. It's not hard to imagine him taking what he did on Thursday and doing it on a bigger pitch. A player like that, you'd want to test."

He was practically offering me a trial for Raffi! Now I was the one squirming like the race was about to start. "Are we going to talk about that?"

"All in good time, Maxy boy. We're still talking about Ziggy."

"We weren't, but okay."

Jackie glanced at me. I pointed straight ahead. Where his eyes should have been pointing. He tutted and pulled a face, but turned to keep his gaze on the road. "Early September. Broadhurst Park. You turned up that day with the worst player ever to grace the pitch of FC United. The guy had none of the qualities of a good player. None. He was slow, physically and mentally. He looked like Bambi on ice, in headlights, except Bambi would have a better first touch. When you said he was a striker my appendix nearly exploded I was trying that hard not to laugh. Well, I'm not laughing now."

The road in front of us was suddenly clear. "He's doing well in training, is he?"

Jackie nodded. "He's coming along. See, football isn't just about no-look backheel nutmegs and rainbow passes with a pot of gold at the end. It's about professionalism. Conscious living, conscious eating, conscious practising. Doing things to help the team win, whether that's chatting to an injured goalie to keep his mood up or making sure your absent-minded buddy gets to training on time. Or yeah, winding up an opponent or playing hurt. It's thousands of little things that separate football as fun from football as a profession. Hence, professional. Now, turns out Ziggy's got that mentality. He's learning and he's willing to learn. No-one is asking why he's still turning up to training. Some of the strikers are starting to look over their shoulders at him. In the words of one Max Best: it's happening."

I felt a little surge of pride. "Ziggy, mate." We were still heading south. Towards the airport. Towards Birmingham. London?

"Yeah, yeah. But listen. Day one Ziggy, what've we got? We've got a guy with no visible skills. Nothing technical, nothing physical. And day one Ziggy is not a dominant personality. He's a nice lad, trying to fit in, a bit overawed, doing things he can't do because he's been asked. He doesn't have that Max Best fuck you I'm not doing that attitude. He's a puppy dog. So there's an obvious question, isn't there?"

"No."

"Question is, what did you see in him?"

I turned my head and stared at Jackie. He wanted me to confess to having Super Scout or what? The road surface was suddenly that bumpy one they use near the airport to give drivers a sympathetic dose of turbulence. "I'll tell you if you tell me what you're plotting."

"Plotting?"

"With Ziggy. There's something going on there. You've had chats with him about contracts."

"You're paranoid."

"So you haven't spoken to him about contracts?"

Jackie smiled. "I have. But you're still paranoid."

"It's not paranoia if it's really going on! Tell me what you discussed."

"That's between me and the lad. It doesn't go against your interests, I can tell you that much."

I was fuming. "You're not planning to ease me out of the way and become his agent?"

Jackie laughed. He lost his shit. He hadn't been expecting that. "What!" He laughed some more. "Ahhh. Max, I can't think of anyone less suited to being an agent than me."

The most absurd aspect of the situation was that because I was mad at him I had to praise him. How did that happen? "You'd be good at it. You've got contacts. You're good with people. You could even train clients up in your spare time before trials. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that if I dicked Man City 4-0 I wouldn't have the fucking nerve to say by the way have you met my client. I wouldn't walk into a full church on a Sunday morning and come out with - what did you say? - an ebullient attacking midfielder. Jesus, Max, if I listed all the mad shit I've seen you do and asked a hundred people how many’d be willing to do that for their clients... Fuck that. Big fat zero. Including me."

Well, he wasn't planning to steal Ziggy. That much was certain. Or he was the best actor ever.

So now it was time to explain how I could see potential in players. I'd been mentally workshopping this for quite a while. Ideally, it would have been delivered alongside stirring Hollywood music.

"Right," I said. "You're not going to steal my clients. Fine. I believe you. But you're up to something and I don't like it." The road was smooth again, and we'd passed a long haul truck to find it was the last one for ages. Plain sailing. A good omen for the test drive of my big lie. One based on a foundation of truth. "When it comes to how I find a player, do you want the long version or the short version?"

"Short."

"I watch them and see who they remind me of."

He chewed his lip for a while. He wasn't convinced. "Give me the long version."

I sighed. "I bet you were always first pick in school. I was always last." The daily playground ritual, carried out tens of thousands of times a day all across the nation. Two captains choosing teammates one by one. The last choices in my playground? Paul, a chubby goalhanger wearing glasses. Max Best. A footballing void. 'I'll take Paul,' was something I heard hundreds of times.

"You?" he said, incredulous.

"Yes."

"Most lads who make it as a pro were first picks. It's hard to think that a pro player was ever last pick."

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "I agree!" Anything that would shut him up about me having potential was most welcome. It was a pointless distraction from the real prospects: my clients. "Anyway, I liked footy but only as a thing to do instead of Maths. Cricket was just as good."

"Tennis ball cricket in the playground?"

"Yep. Hand for a bat. Or Tickey-It. What Time Is It Mr Wolf? Obstacle courses. I suppose I just liked running around and if there were rules, so much the better. So then came the 2006 World Cup."

"That was your first, was it?"

"Yep. Italy won. Do you remember who their best player was?"

"I do. Cannavaro. Centre back. Like me."

"Everyone was raving about him but I couldn't see the difference between him and the next guy. How long's a World Cup? Five weeks? I thought about it all the time for 5 weeks. And I didn't think of it in those terms then, but I started to suspect the difference between him and another defender was their quality of movement. His general balance, his control over his body, the self-control to only do the things he's mastered."

Jackie looked doubtful. "Okay."

"I'm not saying I was good at it when I was 6! I'm just saying I started to watch sport with that thought in the front of my head. I built a mental image of Cannavaro and every centre back I see gets compared to him. And Vidic. And van Dijk. I'm really interested in Lisandro Martinez now, because if he can succeed as a short centre back then he opens the door to thousands more players. I found that because I was studying players so intently, it made me a better player. I could copy some of their moves. My problem was putting it all together - in the exact right conditions I might be able to flick a looping header into the corner of the goal, but then I'd miss the 13 other headers in the game. So it's not just the movements but the consistency of it. I wasn't the worst player any more, but I was still picked last. Isn't that crazy? People are shit at spotting talent. Me being me, I decided I wanted to be good at it. I never thought oh I should be a scout. I just wanted to be able to pick a player. Comparison. That's the key to it all." I tapped the dashboard. "When I saw Ziggy I instantly thought - oh! He's Chicharito."

"Chicharito!" This blew Jackie's tiny little mind. Chicharito was a Mexican striker who played for Man United for a while. He didn't do much for the team - he couldn't dribble, tackle, cross, or hold the ball up. All he could do was score goals. Jackie's amused contempt for the idea pushed his face out in all directions, but it soon started to settle back. There was even a tiny frown developing. "Chicharito... Oh my god... I think you're right. I see it!" He went silent and moved into the slow lane so he could concentrate more. "If Ziggy keeps developing the way he is, he could end up as a sort of Chicharito comp. Sure. But you didn't see that the first time you scouted him."

"I did," I said. "Not consciously maybe. But the patterns. The movements. The way he addresses the ball. The way he hides then pops up. His scampering little run. A thousand tiny factors. I've been training myself to compare players against each other since I was little."

Jackie took ten seconds to chew this over. I saw him swallow some question, then he indicated, accelerated, and brought us back into the fast lane.

We must have swung to the west, because the motorway signs suggested destinations like Warrington (why?), Wrexham (maybe I'd meet Ryan Reynolds!), or... and it seemed inevitable... Liverpool.

...

Thanks for your supporrrrrrrrrrt!