The train to Hungerford was mostly empty and uneventful enough for me to start fiddling with the system again. I could’ve just driven there, but driving wouldn’t have given me time to mess around like this. Following Stella’s advice last night, I willed the command: Access Reputation.

  Sure enough, by simply adding ‘Access’ before my command, the system allowed me to access my reputation level.

  Now, reputation. It didn’t have to be my player reputation, but my managerial reputation should also count. From my understanding of FMSim, the reputation level should be as follows, from worst to best: Obscure; Local; Regional; National; Continental; Global.

  This would be a very long grind . . .

  I saw yet another of Stella’s texts. This one said, “Try near electronics, see if the overlay jitters. Maybe EM noise interacts.”

  Another one of her bright ideas. Last night she’d already told me to ride the Underground to see if the system ‘lost signal,’ and to take a shower under full bathroom lighting to check if it was photoreactive. Like any of that mattered. She just wanted to test it out on me anyway, like this was one big walking debug session, collecting data for a build that only existed in my skull.

  I thumbed a reply.

  Me: Doesn’t matter, Stell. I just wanna trigger the quest.

  She sent back a text a minute later.

  Stella: So far, every quest ties to a football-adjacent verb. You coached → quest popped. See what else triggers one. Try planning, analysing, recruiting, motivating. The system might be keyword-based.

  I jabbed at it again, this time thinking the phrase Stella suggested sounded more managerial than coachy: Access Recruitment.

  The pane split into neat little tiles.

  Blank as a clean whiteboard. The submenus were all there like rooms in a house with the lights off. Scouting had a faded map icon and a tiny tooltip that said ‘Scout networks required to populate.’ Trial Invitations promised a template for offering trials and scheduling sessions. Agent Inbox was literally empty.

  But at least I knew I had access to managerial stuff, and not just coaching drills. I’d never cared for all the boring scaffolding that made a club run before my ban, but FMSim did teach me a few things I’d never thought I needed. Like the time I’d scouted thirty-seven-year-old álvaro Morata for Accrington Stanley. Thought I was cheeky backloading all the performance bonuses until man started scoring fifteen out of fifteen, led the kids in warm-ups, and did media duties without once whining about the cold changing rooms. We won promotion that year and sold out every home match so I didn’t bankrupt my team.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  This thing could make me a proper manager.

  But first thing first, I’d got to be a proper coach.

  I arrived at 3G half an hour before the evening session and got to the bossman’s office, which looked like a glorified cupboard with a desk shoved in. The budget had clearly been spent on laminated motivational posters as there were at least five of them plastered on the walls, with the most prominent being ‘Winners Don’t Wait; They Work’.

  The boss didn’t bother with pleasantries. He tapped his pen against the desk and said, “Harrington, right? Listen up. Our goals conceded per game is too high. Currently 2.3. I want it down to 1 by the end of the season. Training intensity? Up. Defensive positioning? Corrected. Midfield discipline? Tightened. And don’t even get me started on set pieces.”

  He swiveled his chair halfway around to face me. “You’re only here because Mitch swore we needed a defensive coach. That’s it. You screw up, Harrington, it’s on your head. Capisce?”

  Capisce? Really? This guy paid the bills, sure, but he’d clearly never coached a day in his life. Goal conceded stats? You want me to rewrite football history and get England a trophy while I’m at it too, mate? The head coach decides how hard the team trains and how it’s periodized, not a defensive coach. He’d need to pay me a few more quids. Either way, the man wasn’t even remotely likeable, and I hadn’t even learned his name.

  I left the cupboard—office, whatever—and made my way to the training ground. I spotted Mitch Thompson pacing near the halfway line, whistle in hand, juggling a clipboard and a bag of cones like some kind of footballing octopus.

  Turns out, Mitch wasn’t just the youth coach. He was also the head coach, and had only been appointed two weeks ago. And probably the kit manager, the tea boy, and the part-time groundsman if you asked the way he carried himself. No wonder he needed someone else.

  Mitch was in the middle of one of his speeches when I got there. The lads huddled in mismatched jackets against the cold, half were still zipping up shin pads. None looked prepared.

  “Right, boys,” Mitch clapped his gloves once. “You ever heard of Jethro Tull? Because you’re about to hear about them now.”

  The lads’ faces looked as blank as they could.

  He pressed on anyway, pacing like he was on the Old Trafford touchline. “Back in the seventies, they released Thick as a Brick. The whole album was one continuous song, no breaks. Mad stuff. They took risks and didn’t follow trends. Everyone said they were mental. But they won a Grammy, lads. Beat Metallica for Best Hard Rock Performance!”

  One of the centre-backs whispered something to his mate about Metallica, and they both snorted.

  Mitch jabbed a finger toward them. “That’s the point! Nobody thought they’d win. But they did, because they believed in the system. They trusted the process. And that’s what we’re doing here at Hungerford, yeah? We’re building our own prog-rock defence! Structured chaos! Discipline through madness!”

  One of the shorter lads started clapping. The others joined in, half-hearted at first, then louder, until it became this shambolic ripple of applause. Nobody seemed to know why they were clapping, only that it seemed safer than not.

  I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t about to point out that no one under thirty-five had ever willingly listened to Jethro Tull. Whatever got the team through the session was his business. I was just the new defensive coach, not the prophet of prog-rock football.

  Mitch spotted me at the touchline and waved me over. “Lads, this here’s Jamie Harrington, our new defensive coach. He’s the one who’s going to make sure we don’t leak goals like a sieve this year.”

  All eyes swung my way. Half the squad looked curious, the other half looked like they’d just been told to write an essay.

  “C’mon, Jamie.” Mitch nudged me in the elbow. “Where’s your speech?”

  I gave a quick nod. “Boys, I’m Jamie. You can call me Jamie. I handle defense.” After a pause, I finished, “That’s about it.”

  Nobody clapped, which was probably fair.

  “Right, Jamie here is more of an action guy,” Mitch said with a cough. “Right, first session, defenders only. We’ve got a couple of new lads in to replace the old ones who’ve buggered off. You’re going to have to properly assess them. Keep them in a diamond shape when we do the shadow pressing. I’ll run the ball through the midfielders so you can see how they react. Make them shift laterally, close gaps, step up, drop back; basic defensive footwork.”

  Hungerford had a total of eight registered defenders, but only seven were present for this session. All of them, including the two new lads, were half-star players, with the only full 1-star being a 34-year-old centre-back named Luke Kowalski. All of them had a reputation level of Obscure, one level below me, yet the stats were all locked anyway.

  I squatted by the sideline, letting the defenders line up in the diamond. All eight—well, seven today—were milling about, stretching or jabbing at imaginary balls. I tapped the interface and toggled the “Unlock Attributes” menu. I had two slots.

  I could read tackling, marking, stamina, and positioning with my eyes. Anticipation? I’d see it in the way they moved in the drill. What was more muddy would be how they process the chaos. I didn’t have time for all the scenario drills just to get that data.

  Maybe if I unlocked the right stats first, I could immediately see who might naturally take charge. Then I’d show them I knew what I was looking at, maybe earn a bit of respect before the whistle even blew. Would they notice I noticed? They would. I’d make sure of it.

  I clicked.

  It immediately felt like the right choice.