My Football Manager 16 Story #5: Frost/Nixon
If I had to choose one element that decides, whether a players achieve success or fail miserably, I would pick strong mentality. Without it, even ones with great skills, won’t stand a chance in this brutal football world, where fans abuse you constantly, you need to be perfect every week and there are so many temptations. Even in the third Spanish league, players were able to learn this quickly, because fans demanded a lot of them and didn’t use fancy words when it came to expressing their dissatisfaction. Working at Pena Sports FC surely wasn’t a stroll in the park.
My young squad struggled to collect points and keep its place in the middle of the table. What’s worse, it lacked support and understanding of the fans. My new, inexperienced players, like Nacho Huertas, Valerio Giordano, Alvaro Bernabeu or Bernardes Saraiva, still had trouble stabilizing their form and soon let good performances be overshadowed by the bad ones. Fans didn’t appreciate that, nor there were keen to forgive anything. They soon took aim on me, reviewing and criticizing my transfers. I tried to explain and ask them to look at the whole situation in a wider and longer perspective. Unsuccessfully.
Fans weren’t my only problems. Young talents loaned at the beginning of the season from Osasuna gave us some boost, but at the same time, created the illusion that Pena Sports FC is strong enough to compete at a right level with every side in the league. I couldn’t complain about my loanees, but they were too irregular on the field.
Even so, we slowly sailed in the right direction. Pena Sports FC remained in the middle of the table with a safe ten points advantage over the relegation zone. Team was playing decent football, enough to make myself a good advertisement on Spanish football market. Name Brucevsky popped up once or twice on some websites – just exactly as I wanted. Now my clever chairman won’t have the possibility to waste me up quietly. Someone may become suspicious about my sudden disappearance. I felt a little safer.
For a few days. My boss had some strange gift or exceptionally well-informed friends. He easily sensed the momentum to quell me and my growing confidence. He invited me to his office and assumed a discreet attack that drowned my sailing ship. I’ve heard that Albacete is interested in your services Brucevsky – he started – of course you know it’s impossible for you to leave. You are too precious and so I would be very happy to hear that you are not going anywhere anytime soon. In public, so the whole world would know how well you feel at Pena Sports. None of his words sounded like a threat, yet all felt that way.
A few hours later some local reporter arrived at my residence to conduct a “set” interview. My boss planned that better than back-office of president Nixon in times of his interviews with journalist Frost. They were surely prepared to keep me close for a very long time…
What will happen next? Don’t miss another episode of my Football Manager 16 Story on Gralingrad.pl!