Glory Of The Football Manager System-Chapter 353: The Bleep Test III

I took them into the video room. I walked them through the tactical blueprint. The 4-2-3-1. The gegenpress. The five-second rule. The pressing triggers. The new Bojan role. The shadow finisher. I gave them the language. The framework. The rules of the new world they had just entered. They listened in silence. They were tired. They were sore. But they were paying attention. They were starting to understand.

I left them with Marcus for a more detailed breakdown and then took them outside.

We had forty minutes before I had to leave for the drive back up to St. George’s Park. Forty minutes was not enough to teach them anything. But it was enough to show them something. I grabbed a ball from the equipment room and walked them back out onto the main pitch. The sun was high now. The grass was warm. Kevin Bray had set up a small grid, twenty yards by twenty yards, with a cone in the centre.

I put the ball down in the middle of the grid. "Simple drill," I said.

"Seven versus one. The one man in the middle presses. Everyone else keeps the ball. The rule is simple. If the man in the middle wins the ball, the player who lost it goes in the middle. If the ball goes out of the grid, the last man to touch it goes in the middle. Two touches maximum. Any more and you go in the middle."

I looked around. "Pato. You’re in first."

He looked at me. "Me?"

"You," I said. "You’re the shadow finisher. You need to learn how to press without burning your legs. This is the drill for that. Curved runs. Block the passing lane. Force the mistake. Do not chase the ball. Hunt the space."

He nodded slowly. He walked into the centre of the grid. The other six arranged themselves around the outside. Neves. Konaté. Chilwell. Tarkowski. Navas. Bojan.

I blew the whistle.

The ball started moving. Neves to Chilwell. Chilwell to Navas. Navas to Bojan. Pato was moving, but he was moving wrong. He was chasing the ball. He was sprinting after it like a dog chasing a car. He was burning energy he did not have on runs that were going nowhere.

"Pato," I called. "Stop chasing. Watch the ball. Block the lane."

He stopped. He looked at me. He looked at the ball. He looked at the space between Bojan and Neves. He took two steps to his left. Bojan looked up. The lane was blocked. He had to go back to Chilwell. Pato read it. He shifted. He was in the right place. Chilwell’s pass was a fraction slower than it needed to be. Pato got a toe on it. The ball rolled out of the grid.

Chilwell went in the middle.

Nobody said anything. But I saw it. The flicker. The moment Pato understood. He had not sprinted. He had not burned his hamstrings. He had thought. And it had worked. He looked at me. I said nothing. I just nodded.

The drill ran for twenty minutes. It was not a serious session. It was barely even a warm-up. But it told me everything I needed to know. Neves was already playing the game at a different speed than everyone else. His two touches were always the right two touches. He never seemed to be in a hurry, but the ball always went exactly where it needed to go.

Konaté was a disaster in the drill, which was exactly what I expected. He was a centre back. He had no business being in a rondo. He was enormous and powerful and completely unable to control a ball in a small space. He went in the middle four times in twenty minutes and won the ball twice by sheer physical intimidation. I made a note to keep him away from rondos in the future.

Bojan was the one who caught my eye. He was not the best player in the drill. Neves was better. Navas was more composed. But Bojan was different. He was pressing with his whole body. He was not just running at the ball carrier.

He was cutting off angles. He was reading the next pass before it happened. He was doing, instinctively, exactly what I had described on the phone two days ago. He was being a trigger. He was being a hunter. He was being the new Bojan.

I blew the whistle. Twenty minutes. Time to go.

"Kevin Bray takes over," I said. "Rondo for another twenty, then a light possession session. No contact. No intensity. They’ve done enough for today."

I picked up my bag. I looked at the seven of them, standing on the pitch in the afternoon sun, sweating and breathing hard and already starting to look like a group. Not a team yet. Not even close. But a group.

"Good start," I said. And I meant it.

I walked back to my office. Freedman was waiting for me. He had a list of names in his hand. Candidates for the new backroom staff positions. "Two of them agreed to the fitness test," he said. "An analyst from the Championship and a youth coach from League One. They both passed. Barely. But they passed."

"Hire them," I said. "I don’t care about their CVs. I care about their attitude. If they are willing to do the work, they belong here."

Freedman nodded. He understood. The message was for everyone at the club, not just the players. The culture was changing. The standards were rising. The island of misfit toys was becoming an army.

The day was over. The new boys had been tested. The blueprint had been laid. The first day of the new era was complete. I drove back to my hotel in Burton-on-Trent that evening, the motorway a blur of red and white lights in the darkness.

I was exhausted. But I was also something else. I was hopeful. The gambles were still gambles. The risks were still risks. But for the first time, I had seen them all together. The talent. The hunger. The desperation. The professionalism. The raw, untapped potential. And I had a feeling, a deep, quiet, unshakeable feeling, that this was going to be special.

But we were not done. Not even close. The transfer window was still open. Freedman had three more names on his shortlist. I had two more calls to make. The squad was taking shape, but there were still gaps. Still positions to fill. Still pieces missing from the puzzle. The work was not over. It had barely begun.

***

Thank you for 300 Power Stones.