2.

Football glossary: top bins. The upper left or right corner of a goal. "He put it top bins; the keeper had no chance."

***

To: Emma

Heyyyy,

Guess what? Your boy Max acquired through much diligence and careful negotiation* a plastic wrapper containing TEN postcards featuring scenic Sao Paulo. Yes! You think I'm not thinking about you but I AM. So there! I bet you'll get these all out of order. This is number 1 in case that wasn't clear.

Max x

Footnote: I paid full price and they were kinda pissed that I tried to haggle. Oops! My first negotiation in Brazil and yeah, not my best work.

***

After the derby ended (nil-nil, honours even) I went back to my hotel for my twentieth shower of the day. I chilled for a while before taking a taxi to the Sheraton, where a lot of the out-of-town football VIPs were staying. There, in a crazily nondescript building next to one that looked like a vegan hot dog, I did a lot of networking at Chelli's agency's party.

I say networking, but it was more like getting lightly sozzled in the corner where the cool younger people hung out while the serious older guys tried to look important. I didn't drink much - only two beers and a cocktail - because I wanted to be fresh for the Transfer Room the next day.

At the party were directors of football or heads of recruitment from FC Dallas, LA Galaxy, Vancouver Whitecaps, Deportivo Cali from Colombia, Grêmio, the only Brazilian team at the party, and a few others I didn't get the chance to meet. I did some quick speed dating but quickly realised the futility of my approach.

Since I needed to see players in the flesh and wasn't much interested in all the data and heat maps and passing charts these guys relied on, I couldn't get too far into even the broadest negotiation. The clubs with whom I would be able to get specific were the ones based in Sao Paulo, since I would be able to scout their players in the next few days and potentially try to get some kind of deal done. To be honest I felt slightly at sea. In all my previous deals I had found a player I liked first and then gone to find a decision-maker. Doing it the other way round was hard because it bordered on pointless. Did FC Dallas have players I would want? Certainly. Did they have them at a price I would be able to afford? Dubious. Would those players want to leave Texas to join the worst team in the English football league? Erm, don't answer that.

There was something else bugging me, though I didn't want to admit it. While my talents were off the scale compared to anyone in the room, I was representing Chester FC. Dallas had revenues more than five times ours. Deportivo Cali had a stadium ten times the size of the Deva. Grêmio had won the Copa Libertadores three times. There were teams I'd never heard of in South America with literally millions of fans. I was tiny. I was an ant.

So I pivoted and instead of focusing on deals I tried to simply be charming. I wanted to get myself on the radars of these guys so that if I was ever in their cities I would be able to get into their training grounds or at least be invited in the executive suite. I laid it on thickest with the Americans because I planned to go to the World Cup in 2026.

There were loads of agents, too, but since we weren't at a football match or a training session, the curse wasn't giving me any data. I was naked and groping in the dark - a bad combination.

If the person I was talking to claimed to represent player X, how could I know that was true? Some of the dudes gave me very sketchy vibes and I realised that was the genius of the Transfer Room. Sure, there would be plenty of sharks in the lobby, but everyone in the Room itself represented a football club. They were real decision-makers; I would be meeting people just like me. It filtered out the amateurs, the tyre kickers, the villains.

On a perhaps related note, I met Chelli's bosses. There was an older guy with silver hair who had sunglasses instead of eyes. I mean, I supposed he would have taken them off to meet the King but other than that - nah. He rocked those 24/7. I got the sense he was the money man and he liked the prestige and the cachet that came with having meetings with club presidents and meeting famous players and whatnot, but the actual management work was done by a much younger dude called Afonso. He had heard from Chelli about me and clarified that I wanted to tour Sampa to see the agency's clients at training and I wanted to sign between two and six players. I said yes and we made some dates for the rest of the week. I would be able to see most of the guys by Sunday - amazing. Very organised, very professional, good start.

***

To: Ems

Okay so I just realised this ten-pack isn't, as expected, ten different postcards but ten identical postcards. I cannot fathom the mind of the person who thought that was a valid product. I mean, ugh! Why would anyone - ? I have decided not to think about it.

Last night I went for drinks with loads of agents and a few directors of football. I kinda don't know what I'm doing and I don't like that feeling. I felt like people were watching me going 'wait that's a non-league club' and I was sort of inflating myself like that puffy fish to sort of justify my being there. That's dumb. I hate it. I'm awesome and if they want to burn bridges while I'm small, good, let them. It's a test of character like how players respond to the Duchess. Right?

But even though I sort of worked that out pretty early, I couldn't help but get all puffy. I'm Max fucking Beeeessssst and we are Chesterrrrr. Know what I mean? I'm really not impressed with myself so far. I am going to approach today with a deep sense of gratitude and humility.

Max xx

***

Wednesday, April 30

Chelli came to my hotel to get me, which was incredibly kind of him. I had very little grasp of Sampa's geography but I was pretty sure he had done half an hour through traffic to pick me up only to do 45 minutes going the other way.

We talked about him for a change. I got the sense he wasn't entirely happy in his job even though he loved the work itself. He had the skills - he had done most of the legwork on the twenty-million Euro international transfer, though Afonso had swooped in at the end to sign the forms and to claim the credit.

Chelli, I realised, was in the imp role and Afonso was his Old Nick. Nick, by the way, had vanished. Now that I was elbow-to-elbow with the city's great and good Nick didn't need to watch over me. I was obviously happy he was gone, but I also felt a sense of loss. I mean, having a supernatural bodyguard was pretty sweet and I think his absence was contributing to the doubts I was feeling, to the insecurity.

We parked at the Morumbi stadium and walked along miles of concrete until we reached a statue of a dude holding two golden trophies. The plinth said Telê Santana but Chelli didn't think to explain who he was. Maybe if I'd been showing him around Goodison Park I wouldn't have pointed out the Dixie Dean statue. Everyone knows him, right? I mean, duh.

The entrance we went through said 'Morumbi Concept Hall'. Chelli told me that the stadium tour would take us through one huge expanse of the concourse and that we would never be far from the back row of seats.

We waited for a while with Chelli tapping away on WhatsApp. Apparently, word of our little excursion had got around and a few of the guys at the party had invited themselves. All good fun, and because a bunch of football VIPs were in attendance, someone from the club had sent down a hospitality manager. After a quarter of an hour of idle chit chat and jokes about who got the most wasted at the party, our guide gibbered into his headset and we set off. We were getting the same tour the club ran for normos. Almost immediately, I started to think what a future tour of the Deva would look like.

We walked past glass-fronted offices (seemed like a hundred tourists gawking at you would be bad for productivity), a long mural of famous players and coaches (famous to Chelli anyway), a big club store with views of the pitch (that would boost sales!), another mural, views of the middle tier (with quite a low ceiling - all concrete of course, must have been deafening in there on match days), a simple but effective VIP section (we're behind glass; we're better than you), and a Walk of Fame with the faces of former players appearing inside stars (I thought Bayern Munich was Hollywood FC).

Chelli stopped his constant stream of excited explanation to kneel and rub a face with the label 'Rogerio Ceni'. Chelli spent the next five minutes describing the player as a goalie who took wicked free kicks. I joked that I would pay extra for one of those and he sighed and said there were none. I wondered about that. I wanted goals from all over the pitch, right? Why not go all-in on the concept and create a goalscoring keeper? If I found a goalie with PA 200 I could give him intensive free kick training and use my God Save the King perk to give him plus one Set Pieces per year. By the end of his career he would be an absolute menace.

The epic tour continued with museum-style exhibits, more murals, photos of all the presidents in the club's history (Presidents? Who gives a shit?), replica trophies - none of it was very surprising but the sheer quantity of stuff had a quality of its own. This club was historic. It was massive. They had done things, won things, famous players had worn the shirt.

The newly-rebuilt Deva Stadium could have this. Not to the same scale, of course, but conveying the same sense of history. This was a club that competed, that fought, that won sometimes and lost sometimes but was always the heart of the community.

Instead of the presidents, I'd have a section devoted to the fans. Photos of them celebrating goals and witnessing defeats. Capturing the drama and the sense of theatre that came with watching your team play a mid-table side on a Tuesday night. Photos of the staff, too. The groundsman mowing a pitch early on a Friday morning, not another human within a mile. A steward joking with a fan. Secretary Joe putting some paper in a printer, Inga on the phone, Physio Dean disinfecting a massage table before the arrival of the walking wounded.

Yes! That's what I wanted. Showcase the people who mattered.

The tour was good. I was getting into it - and it only got better.

We went to what in the Morumbi was a bog-standard exit from the concourse that led out into the seats but in any other stadium would have been Instagrammed to death. It was like a viewing area overlooking a beauty spot, but this beauty spot was a simple roofless bowl-shaped stadium, more like a Roman amphitheatre than a four-sided English ground. The scale was really something, and while I didn't like all the details - cooling fans at the side of the pitch? If you need those it's too hot to play, mate - some of the ideas went straight into the 'yes, bagsy' file in my head.

For example, instead of the entrances to the stands being called A1, B2, and so on like you got in England, here they were named after famous players. We stood at the mouth of the Zetti entrance. Across was a Müller and a T Cerezo. What would it be like at Chester? Hey, did you get a season ticket? Yeah! Third time lucky. Where are you sat? Oh I'm in the Smasho section. It's next to the Junior Agogo.

"Chelli. Do you think I'm too young to have a stadium named after me?"

"Ah... no?"

"You think I should wait till I'm 30, don't you?"

"Perhaps start with a mural?"

I grabbed him by the shoulders and went into match commentary mode. "Max Best shoots! Max Best scores! Chester have won the Premier League! The Max Best stadium erupts! The Max Best Dancers frolic behind the goal!"

"Is too much."

"Yeah," I said, releasing him. "Maybe you're right."

Next was the media room, where you could stand in front of a two-metre high wavy electronic wall of sponsors and pretend to be doing a press conference. In my day job I resented being forced to talk to the media after matches but for some reason this was great fun. We had to have one of these at Chester so that the fans could unleash their inner football manager. They could play it straight or they could do comedy bits. They could look serious while a news chyron flashed at the bottom of the image with some funny text. We would get tons of free engagement and sponsor mentions if we made it easy for people.

"Chelli, ask me a question." I got into football manager pose, which came pretty easily, to be fair.

Chelli held his phone out like a reporter. "Max, what do you think is the best football club in South America?"

"Sorry, who do you work for?"

He paused while he tried to think of a media agency we both knew. "Daily Mail."

"No comment," I said, pushing his phone away.

He laughed, though he wasn't sure why, and tried again. "BBC."

"You cancelled Holby City. Emma loved that show. No comment."

Chelli gave me a sad look. "You should be good to the media. You need them."

"All right. Show me how it's done." We swapped places. "Chelli, you lost to local rivals Corinthians again. When will you resign?"

He gave me his best steely look. "We train very hard. We analyse the mistakes. We go again. The city is behind us. We are Sao Paulo and we never give up. We fight to the end. I thank the fans for their support and we reward them in the next round. I cannot resign because I love the club too much. It is in my heart, in my blood. My blood is red, white, and black. I resign never, never until my dying day. Thank you so much. Next question, please."

I put my phone away so I could applaud. "Very good. Nine out of ten."

"Only nine why?"

"You didn't mention Glendale Logistics. That's a joke," I added. "Yeah, that's the best way. It doesn't come easy to me, though. The reporters never ask anything interesting and the narratives they want to promote make us all stupider, one click at a time. Max, Ryan Reynolds said blaah, what's your response?" Something occurred to me and I started to prowl around the space looking for something.

"What are you thinking?" said Chelli.

I halted and rested my hand on one of the high tables at the back of the room. "It's a good tour, isn't it? But there's no mention of other clubs. It's like, we are Sao Paulo and this is what we did. But football is a sport about rivalries and grudges and comparison. I have no clue if you're the number one team in Brazil or number twenty."

"Number one."

I laughed. "Yeah but if you were number one you'd have a big chart showing that. Do you know what I mean? Man United won the most leagues in England. Arsenal the most FA Cups. That's your benchmark. Maybe you're smaller, like Notts Forest but you won the European Cup twice. Aston Villa won the league seven times, the FA Cup seven times, and the European Cup. That's pretty huge but you think of them as sort of bottom half of the Premier League, top of the Championship. Numbers need context. There's no context here." I tapped my lips for a while. "Chester aren't going to be number one by any normal metric. I'm thinking one of our displays could start with the National League North table from my first season."

I stooped to a spare piece of wall and sketched the edges of a rectangle.

"We'll put it about here. Six league tables on top of each other, the Prem is near the ceiling. Maybe we'll blur everything out because it's not important who came tenth in League One - I want people to focus on the name Chester. So in the first column we're right down there. Slide across one column and we've won the National League North." I moved my hands up and sketched the rectangle a couple of feet higher. "Slide across and now tier five's in focus and guess what? We've won that one, too. League Two's next. Win that? Playoffs maybe? Whatever. We keep going up up up and we show that all the way across the wall. That's our thing. A Liverpool fan might be dragged on the tour by his wife or his kid and he'll get to this point and think 'wait, what?' Because what we're doing is unbelievable. We need to show it."

Chelli was nodding along as though he had been listening but in fact he had only been waiting to show me a league table of his own. "We are top of the all-time Serie A standings. Look. Every match since 1959. Sao Paulo first. Palmeiras fourth. That's a true fact."

I looked. "You've played a hundred more games, though. Sort the table by points per game."

He put his phone away. "Data not available," he said, shiftily. He knew what the numbers would show and he didn't want to admit it. He walked off and pretended to be looking at one of the wall displays.

Football fans are very logical and numerate, when it suits them. All I could do was smile - Chelli had been the same during the match. Every foul by his team was simulation from their opponents. Every foul the other way round was a clear red. I think he was mildly annoyed I refused to see that Sao Paulo were by far the greatest team the world has ever seen, but he wasn't going to hold that against me. Probably.

The next part of the tour was maybe the best part of any walk in the history of human culture. It was a tiny football pitch! Well, not quite. There was a goal and some green carpet in front of the goal, but the idea was clear - you could score inside the stadium!

"Oh, wow," I said, walking up to the goalposts. They had added a stanchion like on old-fashioned football goals, but instead of putting it behind the post to hold up the nets, they had put it on the same plane as the goal line. Why? To make a target! Scoring a goal was too easy. To really impress your date, you needed to score top bins! Slot it home in a square gap barely bigger than the ball.

"Bagsy first," I said, knocking the ball out of the tour guide's hands.

The other directors of football jeered. "Here comes the Englishman to teach us how to play!" "Lock up your goalkeepers!" "Get ready for the biggest choke since Greg Norman!"

I treated them to some tekkers - felt good to kick a ball again - then went through an elaborate free kick routine. "Lads," I proclaimed. "If I make this shot, football's coming home."

I concentrated, bent my knees, and mis-kicked the ball sideways against a wall.

The laughs were very loud, very intense, and very pleasing.

I stepped forward to get on the end of my 1-2 and casually side-footed the returning ball through the little square, proclaiming that the score was "ONE-nil!"

The laughter followed by the quick realisation that I'd increased the degree of difficulty and scored anyway lifted the energy to Copa America levels - me and colleagues slash rivals jumped around doing a ring-a-ring-of-roses.

"Fuck that was satisfying," I told Chelli, as I watched the others try and fail to hit top bins. "I've got to put some of these in the Deva. As much of the tour as poss should involve kicking a ball or doing something a player or manager does. Something that feels real. Like you could stand next to a waxwork assistant referee who's holding up your number like you're about to go on the pitch. Fans never get anywhere near the pitch except for invasions. Yeah, we need to go hard on that sort of angle. Maybe there's a wax Max holding his hands up offering a high ten and there's a space where your dad stands and holds his camera to take a photo at the right angle. Don't make it hard for people to get the right shot. No, better, we do it ourselves and offer the print nice and cheap. Imagine you're seven and you have a poster up on your wall of you about to replace Max Best. The backdrop's exactly how it looks in real life. The whole thing is just like your dreams. Instant Chester fan for life, isn't it?" Chelli, I realised, was grinning at me, almost as goofy as Youngster. "What?"

"You can really play!"

I let out a soft tut and he shoulder-bumped me. "Come on."

"I want to see you play for real."

"It's not that impressive. There are at least six players better. What's next?"

Next was the dressing room, which would have been a massive highlight a couple of years ago but I'd been in lots of professional dressing rooms and would soon have been in all ninety-two clubs in the football league - plus tons of non-league ones.

One interesting design point was that this one had posters of the players on their parts of the bench. My players would prefer mirrors, the narcissistic bastards, but posters made the tour better. Obviously if we copied this idea, my part of the bench would need to be extra wide to accommodate all the fans who wanted to take selfies there. I couldn't wait to suggest that while Henri was listening.

It seemed the tour was over and I was more than okay with that - it really didn't need to be as long as it was, although that was probably as much to do with the size and layout of the stadium than anything. The Deva tour would inevitably be smaller. Smaller and more juicy.

We were in a large space, not really a room, just like a waiting area in an airport. It felt a bit more confined than most of the other spaces. It felt a bit darker. Everything in my body said that we would push open a pair of double doors and emerge into the streets of Sao Paulo. Thanks for coming, see you on Saturday, come on you Seals or whatever animal they had here.

Chelli had his phone out and was showing me pics of his girlfriend. Why now? I liked him so I made an effort to suffer through the slideshow. "At work," he said. "In the park. With her friends. On her scooter."

A prickling sensation crept up my neck. Was I reacting to the scooter?

Music played from behind and Chelli whipped his phone away.

I looked at him - he was beaming - and the prickling on the back of my neck increased in intensity by a factor of six thousand. Surely we weren't going to... My throat dried up but I forced down a swallow - it hurt.

We gathered at the bottom of some stairs - the stairs Chelli had been hiding from me with his distraction - and the tour guide yelled in Portuguese. Chelli yelled something back and we went up.

My knees were weak. The music was upbeat. Some sort of olden days marching song, maybe. Halfway up I saw a huge expanse of blue sky, some wispy clouds. I'll claim it was the transition from darkness to light that brought a film of tears to my eyes.

I was at the top of the stairs, at the edge of the pitch. This was the tunnel through which the Sao Paulo players entered the arena and this was the club's song. I was at the centre, the heart of it all, the beating heart of the city. The green of the grass, the white of the goalposts, the terracotta seats - it was unreal and overwhelming. It was entirely possible my football career would bring me to this stadium as a player or as a manager or just as a gobby Manc twat doing commentary, but this was the closest a fan would ever get to the pitch and that's how I experienced it. For five seconds I was transported into the body of a lifelong Tricolour fan and this was the highest dream of my fandom.

"Fuck me," I croaked.

Chelli put his hand on my back and I grabbed him and squeezed him into me without tearing my eyes away from the amphitheatre. I wanted to play here. I wanted it of all things. The Tricolour were number one. Number one by any metric!

"Will you do this on your Chester stadium tour?"

The word Chester was like anti-magic; it broke the enchantment. I exhaled and shook my head. "Abso-fucking-lutely. That was awesome. But, er..." I smiled. "I think we might need a roof."

***

To: Emmajesty

So it's lunch after the tour and before the big event. The tour was really impressive and moving. I really like Chelli even though he is completely blinkered about his football club. I mean, I look at all the big clubs here and there's something different to like about each of them but he's like no, the others are shit. He's completely professional around other people, don't get me wrong, but he's a true football fan. A few times at the party an agent said something about a rival club and I said yeah but I like them because X Y Z and the agent pivoted and was like oh yeah I agree fully as though he hadn't said the opposite ten seconds before. I prefer Chelli's approach. He's more honest.

In a minute it's the Transfer Room. I think they will let me in. If they don't it will be extremely cringe. FOR THEM.

Max xxx

***

The Transfer Room

After lunch, we went back to the Sheraton - I would have fucking stayed there if I'd known what was coming - and it was time to see if Nick had done his thang.

The hall was decked in Transfer Room branding and a huge space had been given over to tables. I'd been on the Transfer Room website and in Europe the meetings were one-to-one but here the tables were two-by-two. I guessed it was so that guys with shit English could bring a translator. A radical way of thinking was that guys with shit Portuguese could bring one, but being English the thought never occurred to me.

"Hi," I said to the woman manning the information point. "I'm Max Best, superstar football star. I'm on holiday in Sampa and would like to fill in the slot left by the club who couldn't make it. I know. You're welcome."

She looked baffled, to say the least, and was about to either politely let me down or call security - I couldn't tell. Nick being a theatrical prick had timed things so that another organiser guy hurried to this woman looking flustered. They spoke Portuguese but I am 101% sure this is an accurate translation:

Man: Mamma mia! Inter just cancelled! Their director of football caught bubonic plague from room service!

Woman: Wait what.

Man: It's a scheduling disaster! We had a perfect number of delegates and the schedule is all fixed. This ruins everything.

Woman: Oh but hang on. This guy claims to be Max Best, the greatest living Englishman.

Man: Oh, thank fuck.

While that was going on, I tried to look helpful but it's possible I got quite smug about the whole thing. The man finally turned to me and said, "Sorry, who are you?"

"Max Best. Back-to-back champions Chester FC. League Two. Star of the award-winning documentary Chesterness. I'm the world's only twenty-goal-a-season director of football. I mean, technically I only scored 13 for Chester the season before this one but I spent January playing for Tranmere - Player of the Month, by the way - and the last month of the season I was doing my Fireman Sam impression. Yeah, I was sacked by Grimsby Town, which increasingly feels like a sentence you type into a chatbot to try to break it."

He tapped away on a tablet. "You're not registered with us."

"No, but I will be by the end of the summer. This is amazing. I only just found out about it. How much is it?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

I think I kept a straight face but I've seen a lot of movies where someone poor is told how much rich people spend on art or whatever and there's a chance I turned to the camera and broke the fourth wall. "Per event?"

"Per year."

"Oh," I said, relaxing quite a lot. There were four events a year, plus useful tools on the website. I mean, if you could do a deal club-to-club without an agent getting involved you could save millions. Doing one deal easier and quicker than normal would save huge amounts of money, plus you'd save on travel by being in a room with a hundred clubs instead of doing a hundred trips. And there were bound to be deals you never would have thought possible. Ten thousand a year was cheap. Seriously cheap. The organisers of this thing were absolute geniuses and they were bound to jack up the price in a few years, once they had got a solid monopoly going on. I couldn't really blame them. "That's actually reasonable. Yeah, I want in. This is my tempo, if you know what I mean. Should I do it as Chester or as a private person? Because I basically own three other clubs."

The dude did a breaking-the-fourth-wall face. "Pardon me?"

"Let's say I'm doing the multi-club model. I'm here and I'll step into Inter's slot and everyone will be very happy to meet me. I don't have ten grand cash on me but why don't you let me do the first speed date and in the meantime you can look me up. You could try 'world's youngest director of football'. Then, ah, 'non-league transfer whizzkid banks first million in sales' followed by 'Chester manager buys club in Wales' followed by 'Dieter Bauer visits non-league English team' followed by 'Slovakian national team confirm pre-season friendly date with lowly Chester FC'. Really not happy with the word lowly in that one. Then do 'outsiders stun favourites on wild final day'. Then you can do 'Megan Fox tattoos' just for a palette cleanser. I only have one request - I heard some conversations that sounded like the guys worked for big six clubs in England. Don't put me with those guys; it'll be a total waste of time."

"The meetings are pretty much randomised. It's better that way."

I clicked my tongue. "I suppose you know better than me. Okay, good chat. What number table do I start at?"

***

Corinthians (Sao Paulo)

A bell chimed and I followed my little card to table 6 and hovered around it, wondering which of the gorgeous people I would be spending the next ten minutes of my life flirting with. Another chime. I eased into my chair and a third chime signalled that the countdown had started. Ten minutes.

The guy's triangular nameplate told me he was called Nono and he was the sporting director at Corinthians, one of the big clubs based in Sao Paulo.

He was either brown or incredibly tanned and his white hair was a striking contrast. He was tall and wiry and reminded me of an earthy fisherman, a guy who had been beaten to the brink of death by the sun but had triumphed and was now indestructible. But he was also sophisticated and his watch cost more than every penny I had ever made.

He was by far the person in the room I most wanted to meet.

He leaned forward and read from my hastily scratched nameplate.

"So, Mack Best. The clock is ticking. Seduce me."

"Let's talk about me. Then let's talk about you. Then let's talk about us."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"I am putty in your hands."

I laughed. It wasn't going to be that easy. I found my pulse was suddenly racing, my thoughts clear, my injuries fully healed. "I fucking love Brasil," I said. I slapped the table, all doubts and insecurities temporarily gone. "I'm Max Best. I run Chester FC and we slap all the way home." I grabbed a piece of paper and pencil and sketched six lines. It sort of looked like I was writing music. "England. Premier League at the top." Below the lowest line, on the left of the page, I drew a star. "Chester at the bottom. This was the story two years ago. I took over and saved the club from relegation. Next season, league winners. We go up. Next season, league winners." I put the pencil down to show him a photo of the open top bus parade. "Fourth tier now. TV money. We win again. We win again." I drew stars at the top of every line, rising up like a crescendo. "We'll probably need a consolidation season in the Championship, but that's fine. We get to the Premier League. Ooh, it's hard." I drew a star near the bottom. "But we survive. Next season, mid-table. Then?" I drew loads of exclamation points that increased in size. "Absolute fucking carnage. Mayhem. Hello! Chester are here."

Nono smiled, but I didn't get the impression he was laughing at me. "Ambitious."

I shrugged. "That's easy. You know what's hard?"

"What is hard?"

I showed him the bus parade again. "That was hard. Everything else?" I made a scoffing noise. "Easy. So that's me."

"That is not you."

I smiled as I turned to the countdown timer. "That's the one-minute version. You? You're Corinthians. You're the club I most wanted to meet here."

"Yes?"

"Yes. Don't tell my new friends at Tricolour," I added, looking around in conspiratorial fashion.

"We are not having a good season."

I waved that away. "Outcomes. Psh. I care about processes. I love your process."

"What is our process, do you think?"

"First, you've got a kick-ass name. I mean, seriously. Then you're based on a club from England - I know it's ethnocentric of me but I love that. Like when Notts County gave some kits to Juventus so that's why they play in black and white and when Notts open a new ground, Juventus are the first team to play there. I go weak at the knees for that shit and I don't care who knows it. Then you're fan-owned, or the Brazilian version of that, and when the board go too far the fans go fucking bonkers. And best of all, you take the women's team seriously. Most big clubs in England started a women's team because everyone else was doing it or because the sponsors were like dude where's the women? Most clubs don't actually give a shit but you do. You've got 6 starters in the Brazil team. To me that means you're in this for the glory, same as me."

"What sort of glory do you seek?"

I shook my head. "We're about to have the hardest season in twenty years but I'm going to put young players in the first team squad so I can win the Youth Cup. There is no prize money and no-one gives a shit except me. But glory is the point of football. It's the point of sport. You've got to play fair and do all that Corinthian spirit stuff, but you've got to try to win otherwise there's no point. I don't want to finish fourth and get in the Champions League. I want to win. All or nothing. So we're going hard at the Youth Cup this year and I get the feeling you're one of the only people in football who would understand what the fuck I'm talking about."

Nono glanced at the timer. With an apologetic sort of smile he said, "Would you like to buy one of our women's team?"

"Oh, almost certainly. I could afford one too, probably, but there's no chance to get the work permit. Not for a few years." I tapped my drawing. "They are on the up, too, same as this. No, I'm looking for men this time."

"Ah," he said, pleased. "What do you need?"

image [https://ted-steel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/11-2-speed-dating.png]

I sketched a football pitch and drew exclamations as I described my needs. "Amazing goalkeeper or scintillating prospect. Physical centre back, though I hardly want to go to Brazil to get one of those. Right back - that's more like it. A Cafu regen, please. Goalscoring central midfielder. Goalscoring wide forwards. Striker, ideally a goalscoring one."

Nono laughed. "What don't you need?"

"Left back. Got three of those."

He laughed again. "What is your budget?"

"One million English pounds."

I thought he might laugh harder than ever, but he didn't. He opened a soft folder thing and extracted a printout. He licked his lips, eased it back whence it had come, and flipped to the next divider. From there, he pulled out another page and pushed it between us. I leaned to peer at it. He said, "Our under twenty-three team." He produced a pencil and pointed out a few names. A good goalkeeper who didn't have much pathway. A right back who was reliable but not quite as dynamic as Cafu. A striker who perhaps wouldn't make the first team but could thrive in the English League Two.

I read the names hungrily. Yes yes yes so good yessss. "I need to see them play or train."

"That can be arranged."

I held the paper a while longer, heart pounding. And then - it was over! I don't mean the time ran out. I mean, what more was there to say? I had to scout these guys as a next step. "I've got some trips arranged the next few mornings. Can I get your phone number so I can text you about seeing this lot?" He handed over a business card. "Thanks. I, er, don't have anything. I kind of came straight from the last game of the season and I've only got a carry-on case. I didn't know this event was happening."

"That is apparent from your hoodie."

I smiled and looked around. Most people were dressed in a smart-casual way, with many in smart jackets, smart shirts, no tie. I was by far the trampiest-looking. "Yeah okay but I don't need to impress these guys. They need to impress me."

"How do you come to that conclusion, Max?"

"Because I'm the guy everyone wants to be," I said, as I scanned the names, ages, positions, and key data points of the under 23s again. "Erm, great. Amazing. This is like a dream, Nono. Can I see your women, too?"

"I thought you couldn't sign one?"

"So? There's more to life than transfers."

Nono laughed again. "Please tell that to our fans."

"Are they crazy here, too? In England there are fans who are more fans of transfers than the actual matches. It's like, yeah we finished fourteenth but we won the transfer window."

"If you repeat that complaint to the other people you meet today, you will find you have a very positive reception."

"Oh," I said, getting a cheeky grin. "Is that a good ice-breaker?"

"It might be more welcome than 'behold the great Max Best'."

I laughed. "I am great, to be fair." The timer ticked down from five minutes. Loads of time left. "Nono, I'm great but inexperienced. Can I ask your opinion on something?"

He seemed pleased by the idea. "By all means."

I nodded and ran to the organisers to ask if they had any coloured pens. They did. I ran back and started sketching rapidly. When I was near the end, I explained what it was.

image [https://ted-steel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/11-2-bumpers.png]

"Okay, I do have a million pounds but I need to spend most of it on infrastructure. There's no point buying a million-pound player and having shit facilities. I have great coaches and I need to up our training ground, big time. So this is my concept." Nono was frowning. No money? "I still have funds, in theory, but it would be from next year's budget. I have ideas for how that could work in a way my boss would sign off on. If I like one of your players and you are veeeery slightly flexible, we can do business. Maybe in January when your season is over." Nono nodded, mollified. I continued. "Okay from the top right. This is the staff parking area. Normos park outside the fence; there's a decent-sized space there. So you come in and this first building is the reception area."

"Max, to interrupt, what is your question going to be?"

"Oh. Er, is this a good layout?"

"Ah. I see. You haven't yet constructed."

"No, it's all empty."

"Understood."

"So you come in and this first little rectangle is a reception area with a meeting room next to it. This red building is a canteen slash events room slash bar. If you keep walking down by the fence on the right, you get to this first pitch. It's 3G so we'll use it but so will a lot of outsiders. That's why when they go home, they have to pass the bar. A quick pint or a coke after their weekly game and we turn a 70 pound pitch hire into a 140 pound bonanza."

"I like it so far. What are these strange markings?"

"Ah. That 3G thing will be our show pitch so I want to buy two tiny stands to go either side. It can be a dugout for the coaches or your friends and family can come to watch you. Each one has 27 seats and costs ten thousand pounds. It's both the most frivolous part of the whole plan but also the part I'm most dug in on. I won't change that."

"You don't strike me as the stubborn sort."

"Are you rinsing me? Your poker face is next level. All these rectangles down here are spaces for future pitches. I will do two more in the first phase. They're natural grass and they're fucking expensive! I mean, the big one is a hundred thousand pounds! By the way, it's not that hard to grow grass. Where does the money go? The worms? The little one is the standard size for under 16s."

"97 x 61."

"Yeah, right. Exactly. I knew you'd be all over this when I smelled your hair."

"Pardon me?"

"The purple square in the middle of these pitches is the medical area. I thought that would be a good place to minimise how far injured players have to move. The front of that will be my office. I want to be in the middle so I can see every pitch. Sort of a panopticon. Behind it's another meeting room, dressing rooms, toilets, showers. Oh, and the boot room and laundry machines. Over here, far away from the normos, are the club's gyms, more toilets, and a chill room."

"Max, the layout seems good to me. It seems sensible."

"Does it?"

"Yes. What is it you're worried about? It is not the layout. Talk to me."

I rubbed my temples and saw the timer was under two minutes. Stupid speed dating. I didn't have time to dissemble or bullshit. I got my phone out and looked for some photos I'd saved. "Okay the problem is all this stuff will cost weeeell over half a million and it's all dogshit."

"Dogshit?"

"I mean, not the pitches. The 3G will be top quality. The grass ones will be as good as they can be without mega drainage and stitching. We will do that eventually but in the meantime we'll have something flat and well-maintained. The pitches will be good and players will develop. No problem there. But to put up a basic clubhouse thing with four changing rooms is half a million. That would wipe me out so I've been looking at portacabins." I looked at him.

"I know what they are," he said.

I showed him a photo of one of the toilets. It was like something you'd get at a music festival or at a construction site. "I can put all this together this summer but it's going to look like this. Think of the word premium and then go all the way to the other end of the spectrum and you get this. Look at these showers. It looks like a prison."

"Will the water be hot?"

"Yes."

"Then who cares? These buildings are not permanent, I take it?"

"No. I'll replace them one by one if the layout is a success. And I'll get some of the money back, like 80% of it or whatever. There's always demand for this stuff. This reception unit is 25,000 pounds. Can you believe it? For this?" I showed him a photo of a rectangular space.

"I've seen worse."

"Have you?"

He smiled. "No. I was being polite." His smile vanished. "In the 1980s we had two satellite television companies here in Brazil. One was well-financed. They bought nice offices and large pot plants and hired consultants to design their logo. The other worked from cabins like these and offered a low price and good service. Which do you think won the battle?"

"I'm kinda hoping you'll say the one that had a gym made from an old ship container."

Nono slapped the table and let out a big laugh. "That's right, Max. Your players will complain on day one and when the time comes to replace the cabins with shiny new buildings, they will complain again. They have good pitches, good coaches, and they have you, the great Max Best."

"Would you let one of your players come and train here?"

He fixed me with a stern look. "Of course not, it would be a scandal." He cracked a smile. "We should play poker. You can't read me. I will tell you something about me. I liked this side of you - " he gestured towards my sketch of Bumpers. "You started by drawing the pitches. The bar was next. Money for the club! Then your players. Last was your own office. Good. You have the right priorities. Then when you described it, you started at the car park and led me through. You are able to see this project from the point of view of someone arriving for the first time. You have empathy. You will do well... if you survive long enough." The countdown ended. He got to his feet and extended his hand. I copied him. "Max, that was utterly unproductive and the most fun I've had in a long time."

***

Club Alianza Lima (Peru)

Bassco was in his late thirties, very slightly chubby in his face, wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt. He looked quite bored.

"Lima?" I said, accepting a gift bag from him, which was a thing these directors of football did. Good to know for next time. "This is amazing. You're the club I most wanted to meet."

"Why is that?"

"I read that you won the 1934 Peruvian league but your FA says you didn't."

He nodded and he looked down at the table with a bored expression. "It was a stolen league," he said. "Stolen. Shame upon shame." He paused and I thought he was going to sigh and say 'can we get this over with please?' But instead he embarked upon a minutes-long rant about what happened in 1934. His club had won the league by a quarter of a point. Everyone else agreed that winning by a quarter of a point was ludicrous, so it was decided that there should be a one-off decider but Lima said 'yeah but that's just for funsies we won the league mate get over it'. They lost the title decider so history says their main rivals were the winners. I cooed and made supportive noises as he told the tale. I was perfectly happy with the situation, by the way. There was no chance I would see his players anytime soon so this was a pure networking opportunity. Finally, he looked in my eyes and said, "I never met anyone outside Peru who knew this story."

"I'm a football romantic," I said. "I love the old stories. They made us who we are."

"What is a story from - " His eyes flickered down to my nameplate. "Chester?"

"Bad owners," I said. "Mismanagement. When I tell the fans we're going to win they don't believe me. There has been too much pain."

"Pain and football go like my mother-in-law and a box of twenty." He looked around and seemed to remember he was in the Transfer Room. "You are English. You have the big broadcasting money. Peruvian players do well in England. What are you in the market for?"

"Hot young talent, basically. I'm here scouting Sao Paulo and in a couple of weeks I'll do Rio. It's a way to see thousands of players in a short time. I need to see players live, you see. And I want to learn about Relationism. I won't have time to go to Peru."

"Relationism is not a valid strategy; I advise you to give it up. But I have several players in the under 20 team. There will be many English teams watching. I invite you to join them."

It took me a second to get my bearings but I did know what he was talking about. "Oh, you mean the under 20 World Cup in Chile? Peru qualified, did they?"

"We were the hosts of the qualifying tournament. We finished fourth. A very good performance from the young men but no real surprise. They are a talented bunch."

"I've got a player going to Chile."

Bassco looked surprised. "Really? For which team?"

"Ghana." I leaned back. "I wasn't really planning on going but maybe I should. Emma would love it." I sat up. "Okay. Let's say I go and fall head over heels for one of your players. How flexible are you with the payments?"

His eyes narrowed very slightly. "That depends."

I smiled. He was right to be suspicious in a room full of sharks. They could have renamed this Shark Tank. No-one's using that brand, are they? "I've spent most of my broadcast money this season but I get another pile next summer, right? So let's say I like a striker. We agree a fee. Half a million, let's say. I take him on loan with an option to buy. I get the player in my team, I get to develop him the way I want. You get the money next summer."

"The striker you want has a very ambitious agent."

"I didn't mean a particular guy, Bassco. But if the player is good enough to move straight on, we can put a release clause in his deal. Check this out. I loan him and pay his wages for a season. He's a big hit. I trigger the option. You get half a million. The release clause is one point five. The agent has been negotiating hard and has a buyer lined up. Everyone gets paid at the same time. I mean, shit. That's better for me - I can focus on my team instead of looking for a buyer."

"You make it sound simple but there are risks at every step of the process."

"Yeah. But we choose the right player, the right talent, the right personality, it's not that risky, right?"

"I would want a loan fee. Up front."

Bassco was trying to be tough, but I was delighted. It meant he had accepted the general principle. If I could sign a player without having to pay a fee up front I would be laughing. I could spend a million on infrastructure AND get my two ESC slots filled. "That is more than fair. You know what, Bassco? I'm going to Chile. Will I see you there?"

He looked slightly less bored than his default. Maybe he had a secret girlfriend there. "Yes."

I peeked inside my goodie bag. It was the usual fare - branded pens, a fridge magnet, that sort of thing. "I'll bring you a gift. Would you like a brand new Grindhog-made Chester top?" He looked even less bored. A fellow football kit fan! I said, "What size are you?"

"Medium," he lied.

I made myself a note to bring a large Chester kit with Bassco on the back. "What's your shirt number?"

He did the biggest smile of his whole summer. "Diecinueve."

"I hope that means nineteen because that's what I've written down. Bassco, it was an absolute pleasure."

***

To: Emmohmygod

Babes we're on a break. I'm in the Troom and it's going GREAT! I'm by far the tiniest person here. Some of these clubs are like maybe five hundred times bigger than Chester but so far everyone has been polite. I mean, I've been thinking I'm totally irrelevant to clubs this size but even if they sell me a player for half a mill they can go to their board (THEIR BOARD) and say yo I offloaded that loser for eight billion reais or whatever the exchange rate is. I feel like a bit of a curiosity but I have to get over myself.

There are some English clubs here. Man City, Chelsea, Brentford, at least. I hope I don't have to talk to them. Brentford would be okay but I don't need to go to Brazil to talk to Brentford, right?

Max xxxx

***

Palmeiras (Sao Paulo)

"I really wanted to meet you. I love your logo and someone once told me: when Palmeiras are strong, Brazil is strong."

I got invited to their training ground.

Envigado F.C. (Colombia)

This was a team I didn't have a 'I really wanted to meet you' spiel prepared for because I barely knew they existed. They seemed to be quite small even in the Colombian league, but Jesús, their rep, was a dude with loads of energy and passion and most of what he said resonated with me.

Jesús talked of his club's famous youth system. Amongst many others, it had produced James Rodríguez, the most expensive Colombian player ever and the winner of the 2014 World Cup Golden Boot award.

I learned that Colombia's under 20s would be at the tournament in Chile and Envigado had players in that squad.

Yeah, I had to be there.

***

To: Emsybabes

Okay wow that was very Latin! I just finished two more speed dates.

I've got good news and bad news.

The bad news is: A Colombian sporting director thinks my dream girl is Shakira. I panicked, okay? Don't hold it against me. I couldn't say you, could I? You've never had a hit single.

The good news is: WE GOIN' CHILE.

Yep. Tell yer dad you ain't going to work in June. Yee-haw!

(Actually I might drop him an email because Christ knows how long the post takes from here to Newcastle.)

Max xxxxx

***

FC Dallas (Dallas)

I was getting used to the format now and was doing much less justifying my existence. I got the under 20 World Cup questions out of the way - yes, the USA had qualified and yes, Dallas would have players in that squad.

I did some schmoozing with the intention of trying to get Brooke access to their head office so she could learn about soccer marketing and such things. I didn't know if Brooke would want to go to Dallas, but it would be good to get her the option, since she was going to LA over the summer. I planned to buttonhole the guy from Orlando when the one-on-one meetings were over. Brooke could do LA, Dallas, Orlando back to back. Two short flights, right?

What was interesting about FC Dallas was that they were the only club at the event who were interested in my players. When I thought about it, the MLS was probably about the same level as the Championship with maybe a few League One teams thrown in, and they had the finances to easily buy players from League Two. Dallas would probably want guys with CA 130.

"Huh. None right now but why don't you keep an eye on Zach Green? I need him for a couple more seasons but he could play MLS and get back closer to his dad. And Pascal Bochum. He's a German forward. Very fast, very clever. I could imagine him doing a great job for you, but you might have to convince him. I think he's got his mind set on going back to Germany and proving people wrong."

I spent the rest of our time describing the players, how I used them, and the ways I was planning to develop them in the next two seasons. All the time I was thinking: Am I getting buyers in place for deals two years from now? Because that would be pretty impressive, even for me.

***

Manchester City (Death Star)

Can you believe this shit?

***

To: Emmazing

I'm getting tired now. I'm doing that swan thing where they look serene but under the table their legs are flapping a mile a minute. Or is that ducks? I'm sort of taking the jargon I learned in the first meeting and using it in the second. Making myself seem like a real boy! At least the last two chats were with near-native level speakers.

This Transfer Room concept is good. Time runs out if you talk too much shit so I was pretty open and honest with this last pair and some good opportunities came out of it. I'm no closer to finding my dream Brazilian but I think it's not good for me to treat this trip as one thing when it seems so clearly to be a different thing. I've got to keep an open mind and be nimble and all that stuff. They keep giving me gift bags and I don't have anything for them but it seems to be all right. Most of these guys scrapped their way from the bottom. If you look past the badge they are good guys. I sort of feel at home, tbh.

Max xxxxxx

***

Talleres de Córdoba (Argentina)

This guy was called Horacio. His English wasn't as good as the others but we scraped by. Argentina had qualified for the u20 World Cup but Talleres didn't have any players in the squad. We talked in general about what kinds of players we liked, but it was only when I said I was in Brazil to study Relationism that things got really interesting.

He didn't know the word so I tried the other name for it, named after its creator - Dinizismo.

"Pah!" said Horacio, batting the word away. "Diniz is one of many. We do it better. La Nuestra. Our ball. Dribbling. You build a house, you leave the house."

I remembered the first article about Relationism had talked about a variant that was played in Argentina but I hadn't thought about it much. Brazil was big enough for a year of research, and I only had two months. But if I couldn't find any Relationism being played in Brazil...

"Horacio. Your home city, Córdoba. Is it on the way from here to Chile?"

***

To: Emmazarino

I had my last one-to-one with a guy from Argentina. Um, spoiler alert - we're going to Argentina. I know you like travel but this summer might cure you of that. I think the whole event was awesome, a big success. I want to go to the ones in Europe (next one's in Paris) but I made the mistake of maximising my networking time by talking to the agents in the lobby. I mean, any one of them might have the next Ronaldo on their books, right?

But it's so draining to meet so many people in so short a time and I got the feeling these agents were looking at me like I was their next meal. I mean, stupid boy from England, just got promoted, got some cash, thinks he's the Great I Am. I mean, I get it, and maybe my air of arrogance doesn't do me any favours there. They don't realise how careful I am being with Chester's money. How could they? But it does make me resent them that they're so patently avaricious.

I'm running out of space. Why do I write so big?

Max xxxxxxx

***

To: Emmennohpee

Straight onto a new card in tiny letters. Yes!

I think I have a choice. I do what I came for, which is find two players, maybe four, and leave. In, out, bye. But that doesn't feel right. I have this talent. Why is it only the people of Cheshire and North Wales who should benefit? Answer: because doing it my way is a ton of work and I already have enough commitments. I just can't shake the feeling that one big summer here could have effects for ten years. Brazil is the biggest exporter of football players in the world. Why wouldn't I get stuck in? All the way in?

One big summer in the south. Sao Paulo, Rio, Argentina, Chile. With you here it won't feel like work.

I've just had a big ol' chuckle looking at all these tote bags I collected. It's such a load of tat but I love it. I'll burn the Man City crap, obvs, but I can't stomach chucking the rest. I'm gonna buy a suitcase and bring it all home. Reckon it'll cost a hundred pounds at least! Ludicrous.

I fell asleep on the bed after writing that last part. I am zonked! I was daydreaming about a Peruvian striker blasting 25 goals and shooting us to the League Two title.

SEND HELP!

Max xxxxxxxx

***

The next morning I started my tour of Sampa in earnest, now with a few contacts to make the process easier, and, of course, with my new superfriend.

Chelli drove me to the Corinthians training ground where I checked out the first team and pottered around the training ground. The drills were familiar, as was the equipment, the banter, the gear. Football was pretty homogenous, it seemed.

Chelli's agency had a player in the reserves and he was decent but not worth an ESC slot. Chelli pushed back, showing me charts and data that made the guy sound like he had been grown in a lab by football-loving aliens. "Yeah but he's slow and can't pass, mate."

Many of the other players were tasty, though half were too old to have the kind of resale value I wanted. I texted Nono about a few of the younger ones and he replied with seven and eight-figure numbers, prices quoted in US dollars. Ah. I'll come back in five years.

Setbacks were something of a theme in the next few days. Those of Chelli's clients who would have seriously improved our team were too expensive. The ones who had potential didn't have enough potential for me. There was even some fool's gold - players who looked the part but the curse rated badly. I told Chelli to tell his bosses because they were wasting their time on those guys. Chelli said yes, thanks, but it was clear he was afraid of Afonso and would never go to him with bad news.

By Monday, we had visited all the major clubs in the city and some of the smaller ones. I had hundreds of new entries into my database, and I got an achievement for scouting five hundred players in South America. This turned out to be the last achievement I ever got. More on that later.

While scouting I got contract info and saw who a player's agent was. With Chelli's help I was building a picture of the salary landscape and what it meant. The curse listed everything in pounds, and 1,400 a week was in the region of 10,000 reais - enough for a very good lifestyle in Sampa but not enough to buy a Range Rover and live in a swanky area.

"Would you be happy with 10,000 reais a month?" I asked.

Chelli spluttered in a way that meant, 'ah, yes, please.'

If I started at a lower base, a CA 1 wonderkid, a wage of 2,000 pounds a week would be mind-blowing enough to get them over to England. Would they like it, though? I spent a long time talking to Chelli about if he would move abroad. He said he would like to travel, if he could, but that moving elsewhere permanently was not something he dreamed of. Why would he? He lived in the best city on earth!

I gave him an affectionate arm dig when he said that. He had been to two cities and decided one of them was as good as it gets. People are wild.

By Tuesday, more than halfway through my trip, I hadn't done any serious business. I hadn't made a single bid for a player.

So when I went to meet Chelli at the Serie C club Portuguesa, I was not entirely surprised to find he had been joined by Afonso, his boss. My impression was that he thought perhaps I had been using his agency as a luxury taxi service and/or that Chelli wasn't pushing his clients hard enough.

As luck would have it, that morning I found the first player who got my pulse racing.

His first name was Gabriel, but everything else was really interesting. He was 21, a striker with good heading and finishing, CA 73, PA 161. I mean, he was as good as Henri and had the potential to get to the Prem. If I could grab him for 200,000 pounds or so...

I tried to keep it cool but when I opened my mouth to ask about Gabriel, no sound came out. I took a swig from a bottle of water as I tried to appear like everything in the area was beneath me.

"Okay," said Chelli, fussing with a little tablet he always carried around with him. He tapped the screen a couple of times. "In this group we have - "

"Milton," said Afonso. "Do not start like that." He did an internal sigh and looked at me. He decided the last week was less me wasting his time and more the incompetence of his employee. "Senhor Max, is there a player here you like?"

"Obviously we only just got here," I said, "but there are three decent ones. The one there with the knee protector on, I'd love him if there were no work permit restrictions. Looks like a midfielder who could play at a much higher level than this. The guy there, I suppose he's a winger, he's got a trick or two up his sleeve. But the one that interests me most is that guy there. I think I heard someone call him Gabriel."

"Oh, that's excellent news," said Afonso. "He's our client!"

I glanced at Chelli, whose mouth had dropped open. I suppose, in a way, he was a bad employee. But I knew Afonso was lying anyway, because the curse told me who Gabriel's agent was and it wasn't these guys. I couldn't tell what Afonso's plan was. Maybe he wanted to see if I was just a tyre kicker and if I didn't start flashing some cash he was going to tell Chelli to stop driving me around. More likely - in fact, I was virtually certain - was that if I pursued Gabriel, Afonso would insert himself into the deal, acting as the agent and either muscling out the current guy or negotiating some split of the profits. Either way, it stank. I wouldn't be able to keep my hands clean for my entire career, but there was no need to wade into murky waters when I had a whole continent of other options.

"Chelli," I said, smiling broadly. "Why didn't you tell me you had a player like this? This is exactly what I've been describing to you!"

Chelli looked from me to Afonso. "It's a surprise," he said, which I thought was very clever.

So now what? I wasn't going to get myself embroiled with one of these agent-infested horror transfers I often read about. Confronting Afonso would achieve nothing. I could get contact details for the agency that did represent Gabriel and attempt to do the deal on the quiet without Afonso sticking his oar in. Or I could walk away and do nothing, then go back to my original plan of scouting the hell out of Sampa and following up on players I liked the way I always had.

I decided to give Afonso a chance to do better than I feared and suggested that I would pay one hundred thousand pounds in cash for Gabriel if we could get a quick transfer arranged. Afonso's aura sharpened. What salary conditions? I could go up to two thousand pounds a week, I said, but if he could get me a better deal that would be ideal. (I knew that was stupid, by the way. An agent would never go below a number you had suggested, but I was fairly happy for him to think of me as a shockingly green noob.)

We drove back to the city centre. I got out and made my way back to the hotel.

It was a dangerous place, all right. Nick had been right about that.

***

To: Ehmmmmmahhhh

I'm eating lunch near the hotel. Yes, it's sandwiches again. They fucking love sandwiches here. Any sort of bread product with cheese inside sends your average Brazilian into fits of ecstasy.

I'm struggling babes. I found a player but I think I'm not experienced enough to get involved with that sort of shenanigans. The thing I'm best at is finding nobodies and turning them into somebodies. Maybe I should lean into that. But I can't just pick someone up off the street, can I?

It's obvious there are good players here but how do I refine them before bringing them back to England? The work permit situation makes it all so hard. Can I sign a player and keep him here for two years? No-one does that because... why? Because it's stupid? It's not stupid the way I would do it. Is there another reason? A legal reason? They only need a work permit to play in England. If I find a raw talent they can stay here, right? Until they're more ready?

I'm thinking... I don't know what I'm thinking. It's chaotic. My thoughts are like the traffic here - jammed and jammed and jammed.

Soz for this.

Max xxxxxxxxx

***

To: Emma

Oh wow! Wow oh wow oh wow! I had a long shower and went for a walk around the hotel's corridors and rushed back here to write this. Let me see if this makes sense written down:

* There has to be SO much untapped talent.

* Developing that talent remotely is going to be hard so I need local allies. I need superb relationships with sporting directors and those relationships will decay if I don't put the time in.

* Networking in Brazil is too big to tackle on my own, part-time. Never mind the whole of South America. Plus I already have enough to do in England, Wales, and Gib.

* Ten thousand reais a month is the basis of a good lifestyle but isn't a lot in pounds.

* It's almost exactly my current share of R.E.M's income.

* I like Chelli but his boss is a dick.

* There IS an opportunity here. Perhaps not the one I was expecting. It's the long way round but that's what I do!

Babes, it makes complete sense to me. I'm going to text Chelli and get him on his girlfriend's scooter. Let's see him in action with a rando high-value footballer. If he can handle it, I'm going full Max. I'm leaving it in the hands of the universe!

Max x

***

I texted Chelli asking to meet him later near where he lived. He gave me the address of a cafe I could hang out in until he got off work. I asked him to give me a scooter tour of Sampa, claiming every red-blooded Englishman dreamed of whizzing around the streets of Brazil on a moped.

With a great deal of uncertainty, he handed me a helmet and we got on his girlfriend's little bike. We went to the end of his street and he called, 'Where to?'

For the first time in South America, I smashed Playdar and pointed in the direction of the yellow beam.

***

Thomazella

Age 18

Centre Back

CA 4, PA 178

We were standing at the wire fence outside what looked like a school playground. A scruffy five-a-side game was going on and it was hectic. Lots of ankles being hacked at, lots of attempts at skills, not much in the way of structure or teamwork.

Tomzilla, as I was already calling him, looked no better or worse than the others. He was about 6'3", though he was lean. It would take him a couple of years of eating well and doing weights to fill out. It would take him a couple of years to get to National League level. But by the time he was, say, 25, he would be a fifty million pound defender with good positioning, great physical attributes, and a good technical level.

There was a strong case for scooping him up and bringing him back to Chester with me - but that wouldn't get me the fast cash I needed to rebuild the Deva.

No. I could sign him and register him to Chester, but he would have to stay here and develop for a couple of years under the expert guidance of his agent.

"Chelli, let's talk seriously."

"Yes."

"Your boss lied to me."

"How do you know?"

"For a start, you're a bad actor."

"Desculpe, Max. He is my boss."

"I know. I don't blame you. But he lied to me and I can't trust him. You don't like him and you don't like your firma. Would you like to be your own boss?"

"Of course."

"Okay. I am a consultant for an agency in England. It is small but all the clients are very talented so it is growing fast. One of my goals for this coming season is to grow that agency. I get a cut of the profits. Guess how much my cut is right now?"

"One million."

"Ten thousand reais a month. Enough to start a branch in Brazil. That's your salary plus expenses. You'll have to fly to Rio sometimes and maybe a couple of times a year I'll need you to go to Peru or Colombia."

"With which clients?"

"With that guy there, for a start. He is top fucking bins. You might need some start up capital to set up a business and all that. No problem. Remember Gabriel? I know who his real agent is. When you have quit your job that will be your first mission. You'll talk to that agent and explain that a team in England wants to sign Gabriel but that everything must be done correctly. No third agents, no Afonso, no bullshit."

"Chester will sign him?"

"No, not Chester. Another team. That team’s owner will give me some money. That money will be more than enough to do the paperwork and get you some business cards. You will run the Brazilian branch of R.E.M. Add a B for Brazil. Maybe we can call it Rembrandt. Or REMSA. We can discuss all the little details but you'll be your own boss."

Chelli squinted. "You give me your money?"

"No, it's an investment, isn't it? I want to buy Brazilian players but it's complicated. Lots of messing about, lots of Afonsos. So why not have the players in my own agency? You take care of them, make sure they're progressing - I'll tell you how - and when the time is right I bring them across to my clubs. Quit your job and we'll spend the rest of my holiday scouting players.” I looked at the scrawny teen who was haring around the pitch. “Here's one and he's a monster. We'll go hard at Sampa and in a couple of weeks I'll find loads in Rio, too. And I'm going to Chile for the World Cup. You can handle the South American lads I find, if there are good ones who don't have agents. Maybe that's optimistic, I don't know. Youngster said most of the Ghanaian lads don't have agents so anything's possible. I'm not gonna lie; it's not easy being your own boss. It'll be tough for a while but five years from now you'll be one of the only agents inside the Transfer Room and you'll be the guy everyone wants to sit opposite."

"But what are the details? Who is in head office? What is the structure? I can't quit my job like that." He clicked his fingers.

"If you are even half interested I will call my colleagues and we will do a video chat later. You can meet one of them in Rio in a few weeks. She's our legal expert, draws up all the contracts and everything. But the first step is to go onto that pitch and talk to that guy there. Ask him if he had a trial somewhere. I think he played for a serious team at one point. Why didn't it work out? Talk to him and get his story."

"You think he is good?" Chelli didn't see it.

"I think he's the missing piece of the puzzle."

"Which puzzle?"

I laughed. "Every puzzle. Who doesn't need a world-class centre back? I'm going to sign him. I don't need a work permit if he stays in Brazil! I'll pay him like 300 pounds a week. That's decent money round here, right, and you'll find a coach to give him private lessons five days a week and I'll pay one of the big clubs to use one of their training grounds. It's free money for them; they won't mind. It won't be long until one of the coaches goes shit, this boy can play. You'll get him on loan at a Serie D club; he'll get game time. Then Serie C. In a couple of years I'll be able to bring him over. Bosh. His life begins. Repeat times ten."

"Repeat? Ten?"

"Five here, five in Rio. You'll be in charge of whoever I find at the under 20 World Cup, too. You won't be overloaded but you'll be busy. It'll be a great job. I'll come back in three years to find the next batch."

He was grinning nervously. I wondered if his blood was pumping as fast as mine. "Max, this is crazy."

I pointed at Tomzilla. "Tell him I want to sign him. If you can bag him, you're hired."

Chelli licked his lips and got very still. Eventually, his eyes left the floor and verrrry slowly turned towards Tomzilla. With a sudden burst of decision, Chelli flung the gate open and walked right up to the teenager. The match continued like nothing had happened - these kids were used to mad shit happening.

Chelli did a sales pitch while I drifted around the playground. It wasn't quite the favela of my imagination, but it was not a rich area and the space was extremely basic. Two goalposts (no net), some markings (faded), and a hard concrete surface (crushed shards of glass). The ball was on its last legs.

The more Chelli and Tomzilla talked, the more of the other players drifted away from the game until there were only two guys taking long shots at each other.

I went over to see how my potential new business partner was getting on. "Max," he said, his head dropping a little. "It isn't going well."

"What's the problem?"

"They don't believe you're a football manager."

"That right?" I said. I found that the words triggered something in me. I felt the old electricity in the air. Almost since landing in Brazil I’d been trying to pretend I wasn’t lost but now I’d finally emerged from my wanderings to find a landmark so familiar I knew exactly where I was and what I had to do. I didn’t need a map for this part. I eyed the teenagers before backing away. I jerked my head. "Come on, then."

"What?" said Chelli. "What does that mean?"

I pulled my hamstring up and cracked my neck left and right. There had been far too much talk on this trip. Not nearly enough action. I was in Brazil. You don't go to Brazil to chit chat. You go to move your body. "Tell them they're right. I'm not a manager." I extended my arms in the form of a challenge. "I'm a player-manager." Chelli's face lit up as he realised what was about to happen. I pointed. "I'm with Tom's team. The other mob can play with six. All right? Chelli, you're referee. How do you say let's fucking go in Sampanese?"