False Nine

by Philip Kerr

  ‘It’s only a game,’ said Midge. ‘That’s what these bloody people forget sometimes. It’s only a game.’

  ‘But it’s the only bloody game as far as they’re concerned.’

  I went back to the hotel to watch MOTD but it hardly seemed worth it since the matches were all Scottish ones. Not that there would have been any English Premier League matches anyway because of international duties, which meant I was at least spared watching Arsenal throw away a three goal lead, as they’d recently done against Anderlecht in the Champions League. That had grieved me a lot less than it might have done. The fact is that since I started to watch football with the eyes of an ordinary fan I’ve come to appreciate something genuinely beautiful about the beautiful game. It’s this: learning how to lose is an important part of being a fan. Losing teaches you – in the words of Mick Jagger – that you can’t always get what you want. This is an important part of being a human being – perhaps the most important part of all. Learning to cope with disappointment is what we call character. Rudyard Kipling had it almost right, I think. In life it helps to treat triumph and disaster with equal sangfroid. The ancient Greeks knew the importance that the gods placed on our ability to suck it up. They even had a word for it when we didn’t: hubris. Learning how to suck it up is what makes you a mensch. It’s only fascists who will tell you anything else. I prefer to think that this is the true meaning of Bill Shankly’s oft-quoted remark about life and death. I think that what he really meant was this: that it’s character and sand that are more important than mere victory and defeat. Of course you couldn’t ever say as much while you’re the manager of a club. There’s only so much philosophy that anyone can take in the dressing room. That kind of shit might work on centre court at Wimbledon but it won’t wash at Anfield or Old Trafford. It’s hard enough to get eleven men to play as one without telling them that sometimes it’s all right to lose.

  2

  Tempest O’Brien was one of only three female football agents in the game. The other was Rachel Anderson who’d famously – and successfully – sued the Professional Footballer’s Association when she’d been forbidden entry to the PFA dinner in 1997, despite being a FIFA-registered football agent. It was Rachel who’d broken down barriers in the game for people like Tempest who I’d appointed as my agent just before I went to work with Zarco at London City. Before becoming a football agent, Tempest had worked for Brunswick PR and the International Management Group. She was clever, very good-looking and made everyone she met feel as though they were as smart as she was. Football might be less racist than it used to be but as the likes of Andy Gray and Richard Keys demonstrated in 2011, it’s still a bastion of sexism. I should know; sometimes I’m a bit of a sexist myself, but as a black man in football management I felt it was my duty to help break down some barriers by giving Tempest the chance to represent me. I’ve regretted it only once. We were at the Ballon d’Or awards party in Zurich a couple of years ago, both staying at the Baur au Lac, and we almost went to bed together. She wanted to, and I wanted to, but somehow good sense prevailed and we managed to finish the evening alone and in our own rooms. She looks a bit like Cameron Diaz so you’ll have a pretty good idea of why – at the time, anyway – I regretted not going to bed with her as any man might have done. Tempest’s second idea was a job at OGC Nice. .

  ‘Actually,’ she admitted, ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure that there is a job and maybe they’re not sure themselves. They’re French and they play their cards pretty close to their chests. Besides, my French isn’t that good so I can’t read between the lines of what’s been said. Your French is much better than mine so I expect you’ll suss out what the true state of play is there. But it is Nice and they’re a league one side so it won’t do you any harm to meet them and for them to register that you’re tailor-made for a job there. If not now then perhaps in the future. I can’t imagine a more beautiful place to work. They’re suggesting they meet you in Paris because they’re playing PSG this Saturday. It ought to be a good game. Anyway, take Louise. Stay somewhere nice. Have lots of sex in an expensive hotel. ’

  It was all good advice and my girlfriend, Louise Considine, didn’t need much persuading. A detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police, she had plenty of leave due to her and so it was that we caught the Eurostar to Paris early one Saturday morning in November.

  ‘You don’t have to come to the game, you know,’ I told her. ‘If I were you I’d go shopping at Galeries Lafayette, or go and see the new Picasso Museum.’

  ‘Well at least you didn’t tell me to go and buy myself some expensive lingerie,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Or to go and get my hair done. I suppose I should feel glad about that.’

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘What kind of girlfriend would I be if I left your side for one minute this weekend? I want us to sleep together, bathe together, and go to the football together. But I have only one condition. And it’s this. That you leave your awful pyjamas at home.’

  ‘They’re silk,’ I protested.

  ‘I don’t care if they once belonged to Louis XIV. I like to feel your bare skin against me in bed. Clear?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  The train was full of people heading to Paris for some early Christmas shopping and these included some boisterous football fans who spotted me in the international departure hall at St Pancras and struck up with a chorus of,

  ‘You left ‘cos you’re shit, You left ‘cos you’re shiiiit, Scott Manson, You left ‘cos you’re shit.’

  Which wasn’t so bad, all things considered. I’ve heard a lot worse about myself than that. Besides, I was the one who was travelling to Gare du Nord with a beautiful blonde on my arm, even if she was a copper.

  ‘Does that bother you?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Good. Because these days I’m only empowered to arrest people who are on Twitter. Going after real thugs and criminals is no longer a proper and efficient use of police time.’

  ‘I can almost believe that.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  On arrival we checked into our hotel and went straight out again to have some lunch. Even in Paris there are times when food has to come before anything, although that wasn’t quite the way Louise saw it.

  ‘Soupe à l’oignon is just the thing to have inside you before a match,’ I said. ‘Not to mention a cassoulet and a good bottle of Riesling.’

  ‘I can think of something else I’d like inside me,’ said Louise. ‘As soon as we’ve finished lunch I’d like you to take me back to the room and fuck the arse off me.’

  And so after an excellent lunch we went back to the hotel; there was just time to fuck the arse off her before catching the Metro from Alma Marceau to Porte de St-Cloud.

  I liked going to a football match on the Metro. No one recognised me and it was like being an ordinary fan again – even in Edinburgh I’d had a few smart remarks on the way down Leith Walk to Easter Road. The PSG fans in the Metro carriage certainly smelled real enough; it was like a bar in there. But they were well behaved and I saw no sign of the hooligan element that was supposed to exist at PSG and which, in 2006, had resulted in one fan being shot dead by the Paris police following a racist attack on a supporter of Hapoel Tel Aviv. Millwall might get off on the fact that no one likes them but it has to be said that no one dislikes them enough to shoot them dead. Not yet, anyway.

  Outside the Parc des Princes there were more cops on the streets than there were lovers’ padlocks on the Pont des Arts. They looked like they meant business, too. Most of them were armed and dressed for a riot which seemed less than likely: it wasn’t Nice but Marseille – currently topping Ligue 1 – who were PSG’s most bitter rivals.

  ‘They’re not taking any chances,’ said Louise, ‘are they?’

  ‘Every time I come to Paris it seems there are more coppers than there were before. I think if you’re looking for a job in France the gendarmerie is probably the best place to
start. It seems the French government doesn’t trust the people.’

  ‘Can you blame them?’ It was just like Louise to speak up for another country’s police force. ‘Between 1789 and 1871 they had five revolutions in this city. Sometimes it seems that there’s a demonstration every other weekend. The French are an obstreperous lot.’

  ‘In an English-speaking world there’s a lot to feel obstreperous about. I admire their determination to hold on to what makes them French. We could do with a bit more of that in England. Maybe learn a lesson from the Scots. Have a referendum about whether we want to kick them out of Great Britain. Something like that.’

  ‘Have you thought about joining UKIP?’ she said.

  Olympique Gymnaste Club Nice Côte d’Azur was eleventh out of twenty in Ligue 1, and Paris Saint-Germain was second. Nice, founded in 1904, was the older club by seven decades and doing rather better than the fire sale of players in the summer might have led us to expect. Paris had not lost a football match since the beginning of the season and while I’d come to France looking forward to seeing Thiago Silva, David Luiz and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in action for PSG, it was the Parisian number nine, Jérôme Dumas, who impressed me the most. He was as quick as greased lightning and just as unpredictable, with a left foot that was as sweet as any I’d seen; the player he reminded me of most was Lionel Messi. It seemed strange that there was a rumour he was for sale. He was full of running and might have scored had there been more of an understanding between him and Edinson Cavani, nicknamed ‘the matador’ on account of his flamboyant style on the pitch. Zlatan might have scored the only goal – from a penalty – but the Parisians did not convince and, after the goal in the seventeenth minute, unaccountably PSG took their foot off the gas which left the initiative with the Niçois, who looked unlucky not to come away with a point.

  We went back to the Plaza and had a quick shower before going out for dinner.

  *

  The following morning I left Louise in bed and went down to breakfast with Gerard Danton, who was one of the directors at OSG Nice. He was a handsome, well-dressed man in his forties and I was glad I’d decided to take Louise’s advice and wear a blue blazer, a shirt and a new tie from Charvet that she had bought me the day before. We spoke in French. It’s a language I love to speak although my Spanish and German are better.

  ‘This is a nice hotel,’ said Danton. ‘I’ve not stayed here myself. I usually stay at the Meurice. But I think I prefer this.’

  ‘My girlfriend would probably agree with you. And of course it’s very handy for the Metro.’

  He frowned, as if he didn’t quite understand why someone staying at the Plaza could think the Metro to be at all important.

  ‘I took the Metro to the match,’ I added.

  ‘You took the Metro to Parc des Princes?’ He sounded surprised as if he’d never considered doing this himself.

  ‘Quicker than the car. It took me no time at all. Besides, I like going to a match on the Metro. In London I can’t do it. Not for the present, anyway. I’d get too much stick.’

  He glanced out of the window into the hotel courtyard. ‘What’s that they’re building out there?’

  ‘It appears to be an ice rink.’

  Danton shivered. ‘Paris is too cold for me,’ he said. ‘I prefer the south. I take it you’ve been to Nice.’

  ‘Many times. I love the Riviera. Especially Nice. It’s the only part of the Côte d’Azur that feels like a proper city.’

  ‘With all the problems that brings.’

  ‘Not all. You’ve got the nicest climate in Europe. Spain and Italy are too hot. Nice is Goldilocks. Just right.’

  ‘Tell me. Why on earth did you leave City? You were doing so well there.’

  ‘I loved the club, it’s true and I miss it more and more. I suppose I was an idealist. You might say I believed in a certain style of football. And perhaps I was not pragmatic enough.’

  ‘That’s a very diplomatic answer.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s the only one you’re going to get. Really, it’s best I don’t say any more. Since Tony Blair and George Bush diplomacy has a habit of sounding like a lie.’

  ‘Very well. What did you think of our football?’

  ‘The first half an hour was difficult for you. They wouldn’t have got that penalty anywhere but the Parc des Princes. But Grégoire Puel organised his players very well and you endured the storm, which was mercifully brief. Frankly, they allowed you back into the game when they should have closed it down. If you play with the same intensity you showed in the second half you’ve a good season ahead of you, Mr Danton. Given that you were missing some key players I thought you made a very good game of it. They were lucky to get three points.’

  ‘And yet, we’ve had just one point in our last four matches. How can we put things right? What is the best way forward for Nice? What’s going wrong?’

  ‘In my opinion, nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just that you don’t have Qatari money to throw around like confetti on the likes of Cavani, Ibrahimovic, Luiz, Silva, or Dumas. PSG have bought their second place, just like Manchester City have bought theirs. If you had any one of those players things might be very different for you. Do you have a spare thirty-five million to buy Jérôme Dumas? Because I hear PSG might be looking to offload him in January.‘

  Danton shook his head. ‘We’ve had a difficult summer. We had to reduce our wage bill quite substantially. We couldn’t afford that price.’ He shrugged. ‘Nobody can, unless they have an Arab or Russian daddy to buy them all the cakes they want.’

  ‘Oil money distorts everything. Not just football. Take a look around this hotel. There are people staying here who spend money like it has no real meaning.’

  ‘True. But it’s the same at the Meurice.’

  I shrugged. ‘You’re punching above your weight, Mr Danton. Puel is doing a good job. I’m sure I couldn’t do any better than him. Not with your resources. Your goalkeeper, Mouez Hassen, made an excellent save. He kept you in the game. And if Eysseric had scored we might be having a very different conversation. In the first half the ball burned your feet. In the second you started to enjoy yourselves. I don’t see much that needs to change. Except maybe that you should tell your players to free themselves a little more, and to enjoy the game. All of which makes me wonder why you wanted this meeting.’

  ‘Window shopping. Like everyone else in Paris. Who can afford to do anything else in this city? Apart from the Russians and the Arabs.’

  ‘Don’t forget the Chinese. They may have slightly less money than the Russians and the Arabs but there seem to be more of them spending it in Paris.’

  ‘It’s not everyone who would be straight enough to say what you’ve said, Mr Manson. Especially when he’s unemployed. That kind of honesty speaks volumes about a man’s character. For the same reason I admire a man who’s not too proud to take the Metro. So, I hope you’ll allow me to pay for your weekend. The fact is, you’ve probably saved me quite a bit of money this morning. And I appreciate that most of all. Especially in Paris.’

  3

  The best way to see Shanghai is at night when the huge, neon-lit city looks like a fabulous, black velvet-lined jewel box full of shiny red rubies, glittering diamonds and bright blue sapphires. Tempest was right. It was just like Skyfall, except that I wasn’t planning to kill anyone. Not that anyone would have noticed, probably. I’d never seen so many people. Shanghai has a population of twenty million and it’s hard to imagine that the individual has any real significance. Equally, it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on. Everything looks like a major metropolis but when you can’t read anything very much it’s easy to feel lost and out of your depth. There’s that and the fact that I had a hard time telling Chinese people apart, which isn’t racist so long as you recognise that they probably have the same problem with people in the West.

  My host was the Chinese billionaire, Jack Kong Jia, who had contacted Tempest with an invitation for me to come and manage his
football club, Shanghai Xuhui Nine Dragons, on a rolling six month contract. JKJ, as he was popularly known, owned the Nine Dragons Mining Company and was reportedly worth six billion dollars, which explained why I’d been installed in an eight thousand pound a night Chairman’s Suite on the eighty-eighth floor of the Park Hyatt, one of the highest hotels in the world.

  ‘Jack Kong Jia is supposedly in the market to buy an English football club,’ Tempest had explained back in London. ‘He’s not just looking for a manager in Shanghai but someone who knows English football and can help advise him about that, so it would be a good thing if you and he got along.’

  ‘Which one? Any idea?’

  ‘Reading. Leeds. Fulham. Take your pick. Owning a football club is not for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure. You might need nine dragons to give yourself the courage to do it.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to work with another foreign billionaire,’ I said. ‘I worked for one before, remember? And I didn’t like it.’

  ‘Which is exactly why a six month contract in Shanghai would be a good idea. That way you can decide if you take to each other or not. Look, Scott, this guy might be the next Roman Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour and let’s be realistic, it’s not as if there are any other offers right now.’

  ‘True. But it’s not like I need the money. I can afford to wait for the right offer to come along. And I’m not sure this is right for me. It’s not as if I can even speak Chinese.’

  ‘I’ve only spoken to him on the telephone but Mr Jia speaks perfect English, so that’s not a problem. And half the team are from Europe.’

  I grunted. ‘I keep thinking there’s a club in Germany I could manage. I speak fluent German, after all. I like it there.’

  ‘You’ve not been to Shanghai, have you?’ she asked.