You’ve heard of total football; well, perhaps this is total management. A lot of the time you have to stop talking to players about football and talk to them about other things instead; and sometimes it all comes down to persuading average men how to behave like gifted ones. In this job I have learned to be a psychologist, a life counsellor, a comedian, a shoulder to cry on, a priest, a friend, a father and, sometimes, a detective.
1
I’d gone on holiday to Berlin with my girlfriend, Louise Considine. She’s a copper, a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police, but we won’t hold that against her. Especially as she’s extremely pretty. The picture on her warrant card makes her look like she’s advertising a new fragrance: Met by Moschino, the Power to Arrest. But hers is a very natural beauty and such is the power of Louise to charm that she always reminds me of one of those royal elves in Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, or Arwen. That does it for me, anyway. I’ve always loved Tolkien. And probably Louise, too.
We did a lot of walking and saw the sights. Most of the time we were there I managed to stay away from the television set and the World Cup. I much preferred to look at our hotel room’s wonderful view of the Brandenburg Gate, which is among the best in the city, or to read a book; but I did sit down to watch the Champions League draw on Al-Jazeera. That was work.
As usual, the draw took place at midday in UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. The club chairman, Phil Hobday, was in the bemused-looking audience and I caught a glimpse of him looking very bored. I certainly didn’t envy him that particular duty. While the moment of the draw drew near, I was Skyping Viktor in his enormous penthouse hotel suite at the Copacabana Palace in Rio. As we waited for our little ball to come out of one of the bowls and be unscrewed by the trophy guest — a laborious and frankly farcical process — Viktor and I discussed our latest signing: Prometheus.
‘He was going to sign for Barcelona but I persuaded him to come to us instead,’ said Viktor. ‘He’s a little headstrong, but that’s only to be expected of a prodigious talent like his.’
‘Let’s hope he’s not such a handful when he comes to London.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt Prometheus’ll need a good player liaison officer to advise him of what’s what and to keep him out of trouble. The boy’s agent, Kojo Ironsi, has a number of suggestions on that front.’
‘I think it’s best that the club appoints someone, not his agent. We want someone who’s going to be responsible to the club, not to the player; otherwise we’ll never be able to control him. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Headstrong kids who think they know it all. Liaison officers who side with the players, who lie for them and cover up their shortcomings.’
‘You’re probably right, Scott. But it could be worse, you know... The boy’s English is actually quite good.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve been reading his tweets ahead of Nigeria’s match in Group F with Argentina.’
I wasn’t entirely in agreement with Viktor about this being a good thing; sometimes it’s actually better for the team if a player with a big ego can’t make himself easily understood. So far I’d resisted the temptation to bring up the fate of the mythological Prometheus. Punished by Zeus for the crime of stealing fire and giving it to men, he was chained to a rock where his liver was eaten daily by an eagle only to be regenerated at night because, of course, Prometheus was an immortal. What a fucking punishment.
‘Look, Viktor, since you’ve met him it might help if you could persuade the boy to stop tweeting about how talented he is. That will keep the British press off his back when he comes to England.’
‘What’s he said?’
‘Something about Lionel Messi. He said that when they meet on the football field it will be like Nadal versus Federer, but that he expects to come off best.’
‘That’s not so bad, is it?’
‘Vik. Messi has earned his chops. The man’s a phenomenon. Prometheus needs to learn a little humility if he’s going to survive life in England.’ I glanced at the TV. ‘Hang on. I think this is us now.’
London City were drawn to meet the Greek side Olympiacos in Piraeus, for the away leg of the play-off round, towards the end of August. I gave Viktor the news.
‘I don’t know, is that good?’ asked Viktor. ‘Us against the Greeks?’
‘Yes, I think so, although of course it will be very hot in Piraeus.’
‘Are they a good team?’
‘I don’t really know much about them,’ I said. ‘Except that Fulham just bought their leading striker for twelve million.’
‘So that’s to our advantage then.’
‘I suppose it is. But I imagine I’ll have to go to Greece sometime soon and check them out. Compile a dossier.’
Louise had kept quiet throughout my conversation with Viktor but when our Skype call was over, she said: ‘You’re on your own for that particular trip, I think, my darling. I’ve been to Athens. There was a general strike and the whole city was in turmoil. Riots on the streets, graffiti everywhere, the rubbish not collected, a vicious right-wing, Molotov cocktails in bookshops. I swore then I wasn’t ever going back.’
‘I think it used to be worse than it is now,’ I said. ‘From what I’ve read in the newspapers it seems to be a little better since the votes in the Greek parliament about the national debt.’
‘Hmm. I’m not convinced. Just remember, the Greeks have a word for it: chaos.’
After the draw was over, Louise and I went to lunch with Bastian Hoehling, an old friend who manages the Berlin side, Hertha BSC. Hertha isn’t yet as successful a club as Dortmund and Bayern Munich, but it’s only a matter of time and money, of which there is plenty in Berlin. The recently renovated stadium was the venue for the 1936 Olympic Games. Seating seventy-five thousand, it is one of the most impressive in Europe. With people moving to Berlin all the time — especially young people — the club itself, recently promoted to the Bundesliga, is well supported. The English Premier League is without peer, and Spain may have the best two clubs in the world, but for anyone who knows anything about football the future looks decidedly German.
We met Bastian and his wife, Jutta, in the ‘restaurant sphere’ at the top of the old TV tower, and when we we’d finished talking about the spectacular view of the city and surrounding Prussian countryside, the excellent weather we’d been enjoying, and the World Cup, the subject turned to the Champions League and City’s draw against Olympiacos.
‘You know, when the World Cup is over, Hertha has a preseason tour of Greece,’ said Bastian. ‘A match against Panathinaikos, Aris Thessaloniki and Olympiacos. The club owners thought it would be good for German — Greek relations. For a while back there, Germany was very unpopular in Greece. It was as if they blamed us for all their economic ills. Our tour is hopefully a way of reminding Greeks of the good things Germany has done for Greece. Hence the name of our peninsular competition: the Schliemann Cup. Heinrich Schliemann was the German who found the famous gold mask of Agamemnon, which you can see in the National Archaeological Museum, in Athens. One of our club sponsors is launching a new product in Greece and this competition will help to oil the wheels. A fakelaki, I think they’d call it. Or maybe a miza.’