Mid-January 2016
The perfect moment with Emma, our first kiss after the Community Day, had been shattered by Frankie's text about JJ. What should have been the start of something beautiful had been interrupted by a crisis that, thankfully, turned out to be a false alarm.
JJ had gotten into a heated argument with another player at training, his volatile temper flaring up again. It had been resolved quickly, but the incident had been a stark reminder of the pressure the young lad was under.
Emma and I had managed to salvage the evening, but the magic of that moment had been lost. We were still finding our way, still figuring out what we were to each other. Our conversations were warm, but careful.
The easy intimacy was there, but tempered by the reality that we were both busy, both exhausted, both consumed by the demands of the club. We were together, but we were taking it slow.
But I didn't have time to dwell on my romantic incompetence. I had a football club to run. And we were about to be plunged into our first real crisis.
It happened in a meaningless, mid-table clash against a team we should have beaten comfortably.
We were 2-0 up, cruising towards another routine victory. JJ had been magnificent, scoring one and assisting the other. He was toying with the opposition, a man playing a different, superior game. And then, in the 80th minute, it happened.
He was on another one of his trademark, mazy runs, gliding past defenders as if they weren't there. He was about to pull the trigger, to score his second of the game, when he was scythed down from behind by a clumsy, desperate tackle. It was a cynical, ugly foul, born of frustration and inadequacy. The referee, who had been lenient all game, finally reached for his pocket and produced a red card.
But I wasn't watching the referee. I was watching JJ. He was lying on the ground, clutching his ankle, his face contorted in a mask of agony. It didn't look good.
Our physio, a well-meaning but hopelessly out-of-his-depth volunteer named Brian, rushed onto the pitch. After a brief, prodding examination, he gave me the dreaded, rotating-hand signal. Substitution. JJ's game was over.
We won the game 2-0, but the victory felt hollow. All I could think about was JJ. In the changing room after the match, his ankle was already swollen to the size of a grapefruit. He was trying to be brave, to put on a stoic, manly front. But I could see the fear in his eyes. He had never had a serious injury before. He didn't know how to deal with it.
I took him to the hospital myself, my heart a cold, heavy lump of dread in my chest. We sat for hours in the sterile, impersonal waiting room of the A&E department, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic and human misery. I tried to be positive, to be reassuring. But we both knew that this could be serious.
The diagnosis, when it finally came, was both a relief and a disaster. It wasn't a break. It was a bad sprain, with some ligament damage. The doctor, a brisk, no-nonsense woman with a weary, seen-it-all expression, told us that he would be out for at least six to eight weeks. Six to eight weeks. In the context of a football season, it was an eternity.
As we drove home in silence, the reality of the situation began to sink in. We had lost our best player. Our match-winner. The focal point of our entire team. The engine of our success. We were a team that had been built around the explosive, game-changing talent of a single, brilliant individual. And now, that individual was gone.
I tried to access the system, to get some clarity, some guidance, some hope. I focused on JJ's profile, and what I saw made my blood run cold. A new attribute, one I had never noticed before, was flashing a bright, angry red. 'Injury Susceptibility: 18'.
It was a hidden flaw, a fatal weakness in my superstar's makeup. He was a finely-tuned, high-performance sports car. But he was a sports car that was built with a faulty engine, a car that was always one sharp turn away from a catastrophic breakdown. The system had known this. The data had been there all along. And I had missed it.
I had been so focused on his PA, on his technical attributes, on his potential, that I had overlooked the most important thing: his physical fragility.
I had been a fool. A naive, star-struck manager who had fallen in love with the beautiful, dazzling talent of his star player, and had failed to see the warning signs. The system had given me the information. But it was up to me to interpret it, to understand it, to act on it. And I had failed.
This was a new, harsh lesson. The system was not a magic wand. It was not a guarantee of success. It was a tool. A powerful, sophisticated tool, but a tool nonetheless. And a tool is only as good as the person who wields it.
The system could provide me with data, with insights, with probabilities. But it couldn't make the decisions for me. It couldn't prevent injuries. It couldn't magically fix a team that was over-reliant on one player. The responsibility, in the end, was all mine.
The next few weeks were a brutal, humbling experience. Without JJ, we were a different team. We were a team without a cutting edge, without a spark of inspiration, without a player who could turn a game on its head with a single, brilliant moment. We were a team of honest, hard-working journeymen. And in the tough, unforgiving world of the County League, that was not enough.
We lost our next game 1-0, a drab, uninspired performance against a team we should have beaten. We created nothing. Our attacks were slow, predictable, and easily dealt with by the opposition's well-organized defence.
The players looked lost, their confidence shattered. They had become so used to JJ bailing them out, to his moments of individual magic rescuing a poor team performance, that they didn't know how to win without him.
We lost the game after that, too. 2-0 this time. Another toothless, insipid display. The fans, who had been so loud and so passionate just a few weeks ago, were now quiet, anxious, their faces etched with a familiar, resigned disappointment.
The Moss Side Mourinho was starting to look like a one-trick pony. A manager who had got lucky with one special player, and who had no idea what to do now that his trump card had been taken away from him.
The dressing room, which had been a place of laughter and camaraderie, was now a tense, quiet, unhappy place. The players were starting to bicker amongst themselves.
The defenders were blaming the attackers for not scoring. The attackers were blaming the midfielders for not creating. The team spirit that I had worked so hard to build was starting to fracture, to crumble under the weight of our sudden, shocking failure.
***
Thank you to nameyelus and ad_toe for the gifts.