‘True.’
‘So maybe I’ll bring in my own agent to handle it. Zarco thinks I should.’
‘I thought that’s why we had a sporting director. To help make deals like this.’
‘Trevor John is more of a club ambassador than a deal-maker. He helps promote the club and makes it look good when, thanks to the BBC, I don’t. Between you and me, he couldn’t buy a bag of potato chips without paying too much for it.’
‘I see. Well, it’s your choice who you trust to make a deal, Viktor. Your choice and your money.’
‘For sure. By the way, did you see the programme? Panorama?’
‘Me? Unless it’s football or a decent film I never watch telly. Least of all crap like Panorama.’
‘Just so you know, I’m suing them. There wasn’t a word in that programme which was true. They even got my patronymic wrong. It’s not Sergeyevich, it’s Semyonovich.’
‘All right. I understand. They’re a bunch of cunts. You won’t find me arguing with that. Will you be at Elland Road to see the match against Leeds on Sunday?’
‘Perhaps. I’m not sure. It depends on what the weather is like in the Caribbean.’
4
City’s training ground, at Hangman’s Wood, was the best of its kind in England, with several full-size pitches, an indoor training facility, a medical and rehabilitation area, saunas, steam rooms, gymnasia, physiotherapy and massage rooms, a number of restaurants, an X-ray and MRI clinic, hydrotherapy pools, ice baths, an acupuncture clinic, basketball courts and a velodrome. There was even a TV studio where players and staff could be interviewed for London City Football Television; Hangman’s Wood was, however, strictly off-limits to press and public on a daily basis, something the media hated. High walls and razor-wire fences surrounded our football pitches so that training sessions could not be subject to the attentions of tabloid photographers with tall ladders and long lenses; in this way bust-ups between players, or even between players and managers, which are sometimes inevitable in the highly charged world of modern sport — who can forget the hugely publicised shoving match that took place between Roberto Mancini and Mario Balotelli in 2012? — were kept strictly private.
And in view of what happened on that particular morning at Hangman’s Wood, this was probably just as well.
Not that there was usually much to see, as João Zarco preferred to leave training sessions to me; like many managers, he liked to observe the proceedings from the sidelines or even through binoculars from the window of his office. Matters of match fitness and teaching football skills were my responsibility, which meant I was able to develop a more personal relationship with all the players; I wasn’t one of the lads, but I was perhaps the next best thing.
João Zarco controlled the club philosophy, team selection, match-day motivation, transfers, tactics and all of the hirings and firings. He also got paid a lot more than me — about ten times as much, actually — but then with all his style, charisma and sheer footballing nous, he was probably the best manager in Europe. I loved him like he was my own older brother.
We started at 10 a.m. and as usual we were outside. It was a bitterly cold morning and a hard frost still lay on the ground. Some of the players were wearing scarves and gloves; a few were even wearing women’s tights, which, in my day, would have earned you a hundred press-ups, twice around the field and a funny look from the chairman. Then again, some of these lads turn up with more skins creams and hair product in their Louis Vuitton washbags than my first wife used to have on her dressing table. I’ve even come across footballers who refused to take part in heading practice because they had a Head & Shoulders advert to shoot in the afternoon. It’s that sort of thing that can bring out the sadist in a coach, so it’s just as well that I happen to believe you’ll get further with a kick up the arse and a joke than you will with just a kick up the arse. But training has to be tough, because professional football is tougher.
I’d just done a paarlauf session with the lads, which always produces a lot of lactic acid in the system and is a very quick way of sorting out who is fit and who is not. It’s a two-man relay and a team version of a fartlek session — one man sprints two hundred metres around the track to tag his partner, who has jogged across its diameter and who now sprints again to tag the same partner, and so on — that leaves most men gasping, especially the smokers. I used to smoke, but only when I was in the nick. There’s nothing else to do when you’re in the nick. I followed paarlauf with a heads and tails routine where a player runs with the ball towards the goal as fast as he can and then shoots before immediately turning defender and trying to stop the next guy from doing the same. It sounds simple and it is, but when it’s played at speed and you’re tired it really tests your skills; it’s hard to control the ball when you’re also running flat out and knackered.
Along the way I offered explanations for why we were doing what we were doing. A training session is easier when you know what the thinking is behind it:
‘If we’re fit we can open up the pitch, and create space. Making space is simply a matter of breaking the wind and the spirit of the man trying to mark you. Get eyes in the back your head and learn to see who is in space and pass the ball to him, not to the nearest man. Pass the ball quickly. Leeds will defend deep, and dirty. So above all be patient. Learn to be patient with the ball. It’s impatience that ends up giving the ball away.’
Zarco was more involved with the training session than usual, shouting instructions from the sideline and criticising some of the players for not running quickly enough. It’s bad enough to be on the end of that when you’re out of breath; it’s something else when you’re almost puking up from exertion.
When the drill was over Zarco walked on to the pitch and instinctively the lads gathered round to await his comments. He was a tall, thin man and still looked like the strong, fearless centre back he’d been in the 1990s for Porto, Inter Milan and then Celtic. He was handsome, too, in a rugged, unshaven kind of way, with sleepy eyes and a broken nose as thick as a goalpost. His English was good and he spoke in a weary, dark monotone but when he laughed, his was a light falsetto, almost girlish laugh that most people — myself excluded — found intimidating.
‘Listen to me, gentlemen,’ he said quietly. ‘My own philosophy is simple. You play the best football you can, as hard as you can. Always and forever, amen.’
I started translating for our two Spanish players, Xavier Pepe and Juan-Luis Dominguin; I speak pretty good Spanish — and Italian — although my German is near fluent, thanks to my German mother. I could tell this was going to be a bad bollocking. Zarco’s worst bollockings were always the ones given quietly and in his saddest voice.
‘This kind of thinking won’t ever let you down, not like any of those other guys — Lenin or Marx, Nietzsche, or Tony Blair. But in the whole of life on earth, there is perhaps no philosophical mystery quite as profound and as inexplicable as the one of how you can manage to lose 4–3 when you were 3–0 up at half time. To fucking Newcastle.’
The less wise started to smile at that one; big mistake.
‘At least I thought it was a mystery.’ He smiled a nasty little smile and wagged his finger in the air. ‘Until I saw this morning’s poor excuse for a training session — Scott, no offence to you, my friend, you tried to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as always — and it suddenly occurred to me as if an apple had fallen on my head why this had happened. You’re all a bunch of lazy assholes, that’s why. You know why a lazy asshole is called a lazy asshole? Because it’s not good for shit. And an asshole that’s not good for shit isn’t good for anything.’