False Nine

by Philip Kerr

  ‘Understood, Mr Manson.’ John grinned back at me. ‘But I still can’t believe we’re here.’

  ‘Nor can I,’ I said, hardly wanting to explain to the fifteen-year-old just why I felt so ambivalent about being there, in Madrid. It would hardly have been fair to have told him that for me it was like changing sides in a war, or becoming a Roman Catholic after years of worshipping in a Protestant church. Not that I was changing sides – just trying to do something that was in John’s best interests rather than my own.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll meet Martin Ødegaard,’ said John.

  ‘Don’t you want to meet Cristiano Ronaldo?’ I said. ‘Or Toni Kroos?’

  ‘Oh, sure, but Martin is who I dream of becoming, you know? He’s only sixteen. The youngest guy ever to play for his country. He just signed for Real. And now he’s in the reserves, and being managed by Zinedine Zidane, and making fifty thousand euros a week. I mean, that’s any kid’s dream, isn’t it?’

  I had to admit all this did sound pretty good and helped to persuade me that maybe Madrid was still the best choice in spite of my reservations about what I was doing.

  We parked in front of the entrance hall, which was like the lobby of a very modern hotel, where we were met by some people from the youth academy who led us to ‘the white house’ – the area reserved for the youth teams. Here were several dressing rooms, and seven pitches each with their own stand and the very same natural grass as that used on the pitch in the Santiago Bernabéu, which comes from Holland. Or so we were informed.

  I wished the boy luck and then left him to get changed while Raul Serrano Quevedo from the club’s public relations department gave Madame Zakkai and me a tour of the main building.

  This giant, T-shaped building is huge and contains dressing rooms, gymnasiums, classrooms, conference rooms, offices, a hydrotherapy pool and medical centre, press area, etc. on both sides of the complex. There are ten grass and AstroTurf football pitches surrounded by stands with a capacity for more than 11,000 spectators.

  After our tour, Raul took us to the café-restaurant called La Cantera. He was a handsome, good-humoured man wearing a blue shirt and tie, and a blue quilted jacket, and his English was impeccable. Through the enormous windows the players’ friends and families could watch training sessions on the nearby pitches; members of the public were forbidden to watch however. Everything was brushed steel and white wood. A waiter brought us coffee, fresh orange juice and some delicious, sugar-free carrot cake.

  ‘Frankly, this is the most amazing training facility I’ve ever seen,’ I told Raul Quevedo. ‘I’ve stayed in some five star hotels that weren’t as good as this place. In fact, I think I just did.’

  Raul nodded. ‘It’s taken a long time to get here, but we like it,’ he said, modestly.

  ‘You must like coming to work here.’

  ‘I love it. Every day I arrive I tell myself I’m the luckiest guy in the world.’

  For obvious reasons my arrival had been scheduled so that I wouldn’t see an actual training session. Just in case. We were watching the kitman collecting each player’s boots from where they had left them beside the door to the dressing room a little earlier.

  ‘But then everyone who works here thinks the same,’ said Raul. ‘Even him. The kitman. He’d probably do the job for nothing if we asked him.’ He shook his head. ‘Actually, he’d probably pay us to do the job. Lots of guys would. That’s what this team means to people.’

  I nodded. ‘I get that.’

  ‘It’s hard to see this place and not believe that you’re not going to win an eleventh Champions League title this year.’

  ‘Coming from a man with your Barcelona connections that’s high praise indeed, Mr Manson.’

  We went to watch the game – Real Madrid’s Cadete A team versus the Cadete B team. John played for the Bs, which is as stern a test of a fifteen-year-old there is. I was nervous for him, as I wanted him to do well. John didn’t try to showboat, which is what happens to a lot of kids, but he was very strong and creative on the ball and when he chipped the goalkeeper from outside the box to score a goal, I knew he’d probably earned his golden ticket.

  Almost as soon as the ball was in the back of the net Santiago Solari from Cadete A came to find us. Jokingly nicknamed the little Indian, Santiago was a tall, powerful-looking Argentine who was probably the same age as me. Back in the early years of the century Solari had been an effective midfielder for Atlético and then Real Madrid, before ending his playing career at Inter Milan. But like Zidane with whom he’d played – Solari had passed the ball to Zidane when he scored that famous wonder goal in Real’s 2–1 defeat of Bayer Leverkusen – he’d chosen to come and coach at Real. And when you saw the secret city it was easy to see why.

  ‘Where the hell did you find this kid?’ Santiago had been educated at Stockton University in New Jersey, USA, and his English was as good as my Spanish. ‘He’s excellent.’

  ‘So you will take him?’ I said.

  ‘Are you crazy? Of course we’ll take him. He’s the best kid I’ve laid eyes on since the first time I saw Lionel Messi play for your cadets at FCB. I’ve never seen a boy with better control of the ball than him. Balance, agility, confidence, and a ferocious shot. And what’s more he’s strong. Very strong. He can mix it with the best of them. With a physique like that he could be playing for the first team within two years. Like Martin Ødegaard. I just don’t understand how he’s not been on anyone’s horizon. There were thirty different clubs vying for Martin’s signature.’

  ‘He’s a Jew, that’s why,’ I said. ‘Since Charlie Hebdo it’s not so easy to be a Jew in Paris right now. Most of France’s Jews are keeping their heads down, or even leaving. And who can blame them?’

  ‘Jewish, huh? Then he could be the best Jewish player since José Pékerman.’ Santiago wagged his finger as I looked blank. ‘Argentine player. Coached the national side in the 2006 World Cup.’

  John’s mother, Sarah, began to weep when I told her the good news. I took her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘All of this means you can get away from the banlieues,’ I said. ‘That you and John can come and live here in Madrid. You’ll like it here. What’s not to like?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Santiago. ‘You’ll love Madrid.’

  ‘Thank God,’ she said.

  ‘Come with me, please,’ said Raul. ‘I’ll have someone show you around the place where the families live.’

  They got up and went away to get someone from the accommodation wing to show Madame Zakkai where it seemed she was now going to be living.

  ‘But I don’t get it,’ said Santiago. ‘You’re a Barca man, Scott. At least you were before you went to London City. Why would you bring him to us and not to the Catalans? They’ve got an excellent youth academy of their own. You know, I’m still half-convinced that this is some kind of cruel joke. That you’re going to take him to FCB after all.’

  ‘You can sign him this afternoon, if you like,’ I said. ‘His mum’s here. And me to give him advice. So go ahead and draw up a contract. In fact I insist on it. But I’m not his agent. He doesn’t have an agent. Yet. But he soon will. As soon as you’ve signed him I’m going to call Tempest O’Brien in London and have her look after his interests from now on. However, just so as you know, I’m not making any money from being here. And I don’t intend to, so please don’t spoil it for me by offering. Perhaps you can cover my expenses and we’ll call it quits.’

  Santiago nodded.

  ‘But you’ve still not explained why you brought him here to us. Does this mean you’ve fallen out with Barcelona? Please. I’d like to know.’

  ‘No, I haven’t fallen out with them. And if you don’t mind I’d like to keep it that way. My bringing John Ben Zakkai here to Madrid must remain confidential.’

  ‘Now I’m more puzzled than ever. No money. No kudos. I don’t get it.’

  ‘Oh, I thought about taking him to Camp Nou. Believe me, this wasn’t easy for me. I suppose I wanted
to make sure that what I was doing was right for the boy and not me. I couldn’t have been sure of that if I’d obeyed my first instinct, which was to take him to my friends in Barcelona. It would have bothered me, you know? We’re born selfish and the game of football encourages us to be that way. To be tribal. To win at all costs. I’m surrounded by it. Infected by it. And that’s all very well but it’s not what makes us human. I guess I wanted to see if it was still in me, to perform an act of pure altruism.’

  ‘I see. At least I think I see.’

  ‘You might say that the pleasure of helping this kid get into football is sufficient reward for me. There’s not much room for religion in my life, Santiago. Maybe doing something like this is all the religion one really needs.’

  ‘Paying back. I get that.’

  ‘No, it’s not about paying back. It’s about paying forward, I suppose. I think the game needs a bit of that right now. Don’t you? If it’s going to continue to be the game we know and love? I was lecturing the poor kid in the car about the importance of recognising the game’s past, but the future’s even more important. This is going to sound bogus coming from someone as well-off as me, but when we think about the people who are investing in the game – the Qataris, the Emirates, the Glazers, the John Henrys, the Ortegas, the Pinaults, the Abramoviches – it just seems to be about money and nothing else. That’s all people seem to understand by the word “investment”. But there has to be a different kind of investment – an investment in the future. We have to do something for how we want football to be, not for how it is. As soon as I saw this boy I realised that my greatest fear was that somehow he’d slip through the net, and remain undiscovered. Which would have been a tremendous loss to the game. After all, you don’t have to be a Manchester United fan to appreciate George Best; or a cul to appreciate the skill of Lionel Messi. Who knows? Maybe one day John Ben Zakkai will do something similar for a promising boy he talent spots. I’d like to think so.’

  Santiago nodded.

  ‘There’s all of that,’ I said, ‘and then there’s this: lately I’ve been behaving like a shit. You know? With women? Well, you might excuse it and say that I’m a man and sometimes I behave like any other man. But I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it or even to admit it – at least, not without hurting someone. So. You might say that bringing John Ben Zakkai here, to you guys – that this is my penance. This is how I get to look at my face in the mirror again. This is how I manage to live with myself. Does that make any sense at all?’

  ‘Scott. I’m a Roman Catholic. I’m named after St James the Great. The first disciple and the patron saint of Spain. What you say makes perfect sense to me.’

  ‘Of course, now that I’ve been here I know that I was right to come to Madrid after all. This place is amazing.’

  We shook hands because in football – especially in Spain – I’m happy to say it’s still important.

  34

  London was cold and grey and wet which was fine by me. I’d had enough of living out of suitcases for a while. I just wanted to draw the curtains, switch on the telly and stay home for a week. Chelsea were top of the Premier League – José was on his most brilliantly provocative form ever – Arsenal were third and London City were in the drop zone. In spite of City’s desperate travails it felt good to be back home, even if that meant a trip to an FA independent regulatory commission hearing into my alleged misconduct.

  The FA headquarters used to be at Soho Square and before that in Lancaster Gate but, since August 2009, it’s been at Wembley. It cost the FA £5 million to leave the eight-floor building at Lancaster Gate, a not insignificant sum given the £10 million it had already cost to relocate, and at a time when the FA was struggling to find a sponsor. But then the FA has always been very good at wasting money and ripping off football fans. Why else are the FA Cup semi-finals now played at Wembley? To make money for the FA, of course, and to hell with the cost and inconvenience for the fans. But they can’t even find a sponsor for the FA Cup since the Budweiser deal ended. For all the good these bastards do, the home of English football might as well still be the Freemasons Arms in Covent Garden. Very little seems to have changed since 1863 in the way these goons think. About the only way they’re better than FIFA is that they’re probably too dumb to be corrupt.

  Wembley. Whenever I think of it now I think of Matt Drennan, who hanged himself on Wembley Way because he couldn’t bear to be out of the game. That and a whole lot of other things – booze, pills, depression, divorce. The trouble is that when we play football professionally we’re too young to know how lucky we are. Unfortunately by the time we know how lucky we are, it’s too late and we’re on the cusp of retirement. Football is the cruellest sport. I watched a telly programme about bees, and the way drones are kicked out of the hives at the end of the season reminded me of the way we treat footballers who are similarly considered to be past it. The drones fly off and try to figure out what to do with themselves but in the end the result is always the same; they die. Football is almost as bad as that.

  I drove to Wembley in my Range Rover. You know what the outside of the place looks like: it’s a big, modern, overpriced stadium with a carrying handle like a shopping basket at your local Tesco. You’ve seen it often enough when England are scraping a 2–2 draw with Switzerland or 1–1 with the fucking Ukraine. Thank God for Frank Lampard. Not so much three lions that night as three pussies.

  That’s not a joke I’d make on Twitter. I was glad I’d closed my Twitter account. I wish I’d done it sooner.

  I nudged my way through the waiting newsmen and into the car park. It was a Friday and there wasn’t much to write about, obviously. A few die-hard feminists had rolled out the red carpet for me. Literally. On the carpet was written: This is what a real period looks like. And there were banners which I slowed down to read. It seemed the least I could do. MENstruation: as usual the problem begins with a Man. And You’d think a big c**t would understand about periods. I kind of liked that banner. I even winked at the cute girl holding it in front of my windscreen.

  Wembley. Inside the offices of the Football Association, things are a mess – some wanker architect’s idea of what the future looks like, with the kind of brightly coloured, essentially uncomfortable furniture you might have expected to find in a Stanley Kubrick film of the early 1970s. Whenever I’m there I half expect to see Malcolm McDowell strolling around with a blackthorn stick in one hand and a bowler hat on his head. And without doubt I was expecting a solid kick in the balls. Not to mention a hefty fine.

  Wembley. As if the place wasn’t already hopelessly opaque, all of the windows have ‘privacy panels’ made of frosted vinyl, presumably to stop disgruntled England fans with sniper rifles getting a bead on any of the cunts who work there; meanwhile the carpets in the so-called ‘breakout areas’ – I think I know what that is on a football pitch, I’m not so sure what one looks like in a suite of offices – are grey, red and green like some hideous piece of abstract art that’s been entered for the Turner Prize. And why not? A fucking carpet is no worse than any of the crap that wins the prize, year on year. Everything about the interior of the FA at Wembley jars like a bad LSD trip and seems to confirm exactly why England football is in such a parlous state; as you walk from one eyesore office to another, you tell yourself that if they can’t get something as simple as the interior decor right, how can they possibly expect to be any better with the management of English football?

  Wembley. The wall in the tiny room where my barrister and I were asked to wait until the actual hearing began had a full-length picture of the England Ladies’ football number 10, Jodie Taylor. A nice-enough-looking girl if you like women in football kit but it was as if someone was trying to remind me that women play football too, and that a tasteless Twitter joke about a man who couldn’t stay on the pitch and finish the game because it was his period was not going to be tolerated. I pointed this out to Miss Shields, my brief.

  ‘I’m sorry some women were offe
nded by my joke,’ I said. ‘In defence I should say that my social media offence was committed in Barcelona, where people have a sense of humour, and not in England, where apparently they don’t. But at least now I know why having a period is sometimes called the curse.’

  ‘An offence allegedly committed on social media renders all such national borders meaningless, I’m afraid,’ said Miss Shields, who’d been selected by my solicitors. ‘The fact remains that lots of women in the UK were offended. And that’s the substance of the FA’s charge against you, Mr Manson. You might almost say that it’s an offence of strict liability. You said something. Lots of people were offended by it. Therefore the comment brings the game into disrepute. It’s really that simple.’

  ‘They said they were offended. That’s not quite the same thing as being offended. Sometimes I think there’s a special Twitter feed that’s there to round up the kind of people who have a pitchfork handy so that they can go straight round to Frankenstein’s castle and burn it to the ground. There ought to be a special equation used to compute the speed with which people in Britain now take offence at almost anything. Like the hedge funders have, to calculate shit about financial futures. The Clarkson Ratio. Or the Rio Ferdinand Formula. Or the Ashley Cole Calculation.’

  Miss Shields nodded patiently. ‘It’s best you get it all off your chest while you’re in here with me now, and not in there where you’ll only talk up the fine.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘Now then. You’ve been charged under the terms laid down in relation to media comments and social network in FA Rule E 3(1). In that you made a comment which was improper, which brings the game into disrepute, and which is insulting.’

  ‘I deleted the tweet,’ I said. ‘And closed my account. Doesn’t that count for anything?’