The victory against the odds, the ugly, beautiful, 1-0 win that broke our losing streak, was a turning point. It was the moment we stopped feeling sorry for ourselves, the moment we stopped waiting for our injured superstar to come back and save us, and the moment we started believing in ourselves as a collective, as a team.
The 'Team Cohesion' passive ability I had unlocked was a tangible force, a kind of invisible glue that bound the players together, making them fight harder, run further, and believe more deeply in each other.
We went on another unbeaten run. It wasn't as spectacular as our first one. There were no 4-0 thrashings, no dazzling displays of attacking football. These were tight, nervy, attritional affairs.
We won games 1-0, we ground out 0-0 draws, we became masters of the dark arts of defensive football.
We were horrible to play against. We were organized, we were disciplined, and we were relentlessly, brutally effective. I had, in my desperation, turned my team of romantic underdogs into a pragmatic, cynical, winning machine. And I loved it.
JJ was still on the sidelines, his frustration growing with every passing week. But he was also learning. He was at every game, watching, analyzing, seeing the game from a different perspective.
He was seeing the importance of defensive organization, of tactical discipline, of the unglamorous, off-the-ball work that he had always disdained. It was a painful, enforced education, but I knew that it would make him a better, more complete player in the long run.
We were climbing the table. We were in the top four, a position that had seemed impossible just a few weeks ago.
The dream of promotion, which had been fading into the distance, was now a real, tangible possibility again. The mood at the club was buoyant, optimistic. We had faced our first major crisis, and we had come through it, stronger and more united than ever before.
And then, he returned.
I first heard the rumours on a Tuesday night, in the clubhouse after training. A couple of the older players, the ones who had been around the local football scene for years, were talking in hushed, anxious tones.
They were talking about a team called Salford City Amateurs. A team that had been a solid, mid-table County League outfit for years, a team that was suddenly, inexplicably, top of the league.
"It's mental, Gaffer," one of them said to me, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and suspicion. "They were rubbish last season. Now, they're beating everyone. They signed a whole new team over the summer. Lads who've played in the Conference, in League Two. Proper, proper players. Someone's bankrolling them. Someone with a lot of money."
Tommo chimed in, looking at his phone.
"Mate, it gets weirder. I know a lad who plays for them. He says their new chairman is obsessed with us. Like, properly obsessed. He's got a photo of our team on his office wall with a big red X through it. He makes them watch videos of our matches before every training session. He's offering bonuses, actual cash bonuses if they beat us. Five hundred quid per player if they win. A thousand if they keep a clean sheet."
"You're having a laugh," Baz said, but his face had gone pale.
"I'm not, mate. Swear down. The lad says the chairman talks about Danny more than he talks about his own team. It's like we're living rent-free in his head."
I felt a cold, familiar sense of dread creep over me. I knew, with a sickening, gut-wrenching certainty, who that 'someone' was.
I went home and I did my research. I used the system's 'Scouting Network' feature, a new, powerful tool I had unlocked after completing the 'Youth Project' quest. It allowed me to access detailed information on any club, any player, in any league in the country. I typed in 'Salford City Amateurs'. And there it was. In black and white. The confirmation of my worst fears.
Chairman: Marcus Chen.
He had done it. The man I had humiliated, the man I had out-thought, the man whose ego I had so publicly and so comprehensively crushed, was back. And he was back with a vengeance.
He hadn't just taken over a club. He had bought one. And not just any club he'd specifically chosen Salford City Amateurs because they were in the same league as us.
He'd poured his vast, inherited fortune into creating a non-league super-team, a collection of mercenaries, of over-the-hill semi-pros and talented young players who had been lured by the promise of wages that were far beyond anything else on offer at this level. He had bought the league. And he had done it for one reason, and one reason only: to destroy me.
The system's scouting report revealed something even more disturbing. Under 'Club Notes,' there was a section labeled 'Manager's Focus.' I clicked on it, and my blood ran cold.
Manager's Primary Objective: Finish above Moss Side Athletic in the league table.
Secondary Objective: Win the league.
He'd literally programmed his entire season around beating me. Promotion was secondary. Winning the league was secondary. His sole obsession was making sure he finished above us. It was pathological.
His obsession, which had once been a source of amusement, of a kind of flattering, ego-boosting validation, was now something much darker, much more dangerous. He was no longer just an arrogant, condescending rival. He was a genuine threat. A threat to my team, to my club, to my ambitions, to everything I was trying to build.
I scrolled through his squad list, a feeling of despair washing over me. The quality was staggering. His striker was a 32-year-old who had scored goals in League One. His centre-back was a former Manchester United youth team captain.
His central midfielder was a classy, elegant playmaker who had been on the books of a Championship club just a few years ago. Their average CA was a full fifteen points higher than ours. On paper, they were unbeatable.
This was no longer a fair fight. This was no longer a battle of tactics, of wits, of man-management. This was a war of resources.
A war of ideology. It was my team of unpaid, local lads, my team of misfits and journeymen and second-chancers, against his team of expensive, hired guns. It was passion versus money. It was community versus capitalism. It was everything I loved about football against everything I hated.
And we were scheduled to play them in two weeks' time.