False Nine Read Free Page A

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.

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    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