False Nine

33

After breakfast I went shopping, bought some presents for Louise at Galeries Lafayette — I was feeling guilty, of course — carried them back to the Bristol Hotel and then took the Metro out to Sevran-Beaudottes to meet with the mother of John Ben Zakkai, who was the fifteen-year-old footballing wunderkind I’d first seen playing keepy-uppy on the artificial pitch near the Alain Savary Sports Centre. Since I’d met him I’d been keeping in touch with him on What’sApp and we’d become friends. I was now about to become his patron and benefactor.

I’d been thinking deeply about what Mr Jia had said, how the selfless can be fearless. I’d decided to make this my maxim in all my dealings with Madame Zakkai and her son. The truth was I might have gained something for myself if I’d obeyed my instinct, which was to take the boy and his mother to La Masia — in English, it means ‘the farmhouse’, which is the name often used to describe the youth academy for FC Barcelona — and there to introduce young John to Jordi Roura and Aureli Altimira who would undoubtedly have seen what I had seen in the boy: a prodigious footballing talent.

But there was a small part of me that would have been brokering this introduction in order to make it up to FCB for the disappointment I’d seen in Jacint’s face when I’d told him that Jérôme Dumas would not be coming to the club after all. Because that was what I’d planned to do ever since the moment I’d seen John Ben Zakkai play football and felt my heart skip a beat. Was that what it had been like when Bob Bishop went to Belfast and discovered a fifteen-year-old genius named George Best — a boy whose local club Glentoran had previously rejected as too small and light?

Sometimes the only way you can be sure that you’re doing the right thing is when your actions run against all that you hold most dear; and when you know that there are people you call good friends who might believe that what you’re doing was disloyal and an act of ungrateful treachery.

A couple of days later, and at my own expense, the three of us — Sarah Ben Zakkai, John and I — flew from Paris to Madrid, to keep an appointment I’d made for us with Real Madrid and the manager of Cadete A.

Covering approximately 1,067 hectares of land, and a short distance from Madrid-Barajas Airport, Real Madrid City is probably the most advanced sports training facility in the world. That is no exaggeration. Designed by the architect Carlos Lamela, the Valdebebas Park complex is ten times bigger than the old Real Madrid Sports City and forty times bigger than the Santiago Bernabéu. Small wonder that it cost almost half a billion euros.

From the airport we drove straight to the facility and through three levels of security, which is perhaps why it is better known to locals as the secret city. Groups of fans stood on a roundabout just off the motorway and peered into our car as we approached the main buildings, hoping to catch a glimpse of their footballing heroes. Convinced that we belonged to the club, a few of them even waved at us. John waved back.

‘They’re going to be doing that just for you, before very long,’ I told John. ‘That is if things work out the way I think they’ll work out.’

‘This is fantastic,’ said John. ‘I can’t believe we’re actually here. This place looks amazing — like a temple to football.’

‘That’s fair,’ I said. ‘But don’t ever call this place the spiritual home of football. Nor any other except London. Got that? And specifically the Freemason’s Arms which is a pub in London’s Covent Garden district. Because that’s where the rules of football were laid down by the first football association back in 1863. If there’s one thing that bugs me it’s when ignorant stupid people talk about places like Brazil, or Spain, or Italy, as the spiritual home of football. That’s just bollocks. The game we play today is an English game, and don’t you ever forget it, son.’

‘Understood, Mr Manson.’ John grinned back at me. ‘But I still can’t believe we’re here.’

‘Nor can I,’ I said, hardly wanting to explain to the fifteen-year-old just why I felt so ambivalent about being there, in Madrid. It would hardly have been fair to have told him that for me it was like changing sides in a war, or becoming a Roman Catholic after years of worshipping in a Protestant church. Not that I was changing sides — just trying to do something that was in John’s best interests rather than my own.

‘Perhaps we’ll meet Martin Ødegaard,’ said John.

‘Don’t you want to meet Cristiano Ronaldo?’ I said. ‘Or Toni Kroos?’

‘Oh, sure, but Martin is who I dream of becoming, you know? He’s only sixteen. The youngest guy ever to play for his country. He just signed for Real. And now he’s in the reserves, and being managed by Zinedine Zidane, and making fifty thousand euros a week. I mean, that’s any kid’s dream, isn’t it?’

I had to admit all this did sound pretty good and helped to persuade me that maybe Madrid was still the best choice in spite of my reservations about what I was doing.

We parked in front of the entrance hall, which was like the lobby of a very modern hotel, where we were met by some people from the youth academy who led us to ‘the white house’ — the area reserved for the youth teams. Here were several dressing rooms, and seven pitches each with their own stand and the very same natural grass as that used on the pitch in the Santiago Bernabéu, which comes from Holland. Or so we were informed.

I wished the boy luck and then left him to get changed while Raul Serrano Quevedo from the club’s public relations department gave Madame Zakkai and me a tour of the main building.

This giant, T-shaped building is huge and contains dressing rooms, gymnasiums, classrooms, conference rooms, offices, a hydrotherapy pool and medical centre, press area, etc. on both sides of the complex. There are ten grass and AstroTurf football pitches surrounded by stands with a capacity for more than 11,000 spectators.

After our tour, Raul took us to the café-restaurant called La Cantera. He was a handsome, good-humoured man wearing a blue shirt and tie, and a blue quilted jacket, and his English was impeccable. Through the enormous windows the players’ friends and families could watch training sessions on the nearby pitches; members of the public were forbidden to watch however. Everything was brushed steel and white wood. A waiter brought us coffee, fresh orange juice and some delicious, sugar-free carrot cake.

‘Frankly, this is the most amazing training facility I’ve ever seen,’ I told Raul Quevedo. ‘I’ve stayed in some five star hotels that weren’t as good as this place. In fact, I think I just did.’

Raul nodded. ‘It’s taken a long time to get here, but we like it,’ he said, modestly.

‘You must like coming to work here.’

‘I love it. Every day I arrive I tell myself I’m the luckiest guy in the world.’

For obvious reasons my arrival had been scheduled so that I wouldn’t see an actual training session. Just in case. We were watching the kitman collecting each player’s boots from where they had left them beside the door to the dressing room a little earlier.

‘But then everyone who works here thinks the same,’ said Raul. ‘Even him. The kitman. He’d probably do the job for nothing if we asked him.’ He shook his head. ‘Actually, he’d probably pay us to do the job. Lots of guys would. That’s what this team means to people.’

I nodded. ‘I get that.’

‘It’s hard to see this place and not believe that you’re not going to win an eleventh Champions League title this year.’

‘Coming from a man with your Barcelona connections that’s high praise indeed, Mr Manson.’

We went to watch the game — Real Madrid’s Cadete A team versus the Cadete B team. John played for the Bs, which is as stern a test of a fifteen-year-old there is. I was nervous for him, as I wanted him to do well. John didn’t try to showboat, which is what happens to a lot of kids, but he was very strong and creative on the ball and when he chipped the goalkeeper from outside the box to score a goal, I knew he’d probably earned his golden ticket.

Almost as soon as the ball was in the back of the net Santiago Solari from Cadete A came to find us. Jokingly nicknamed the little Indian, Santiago was a tall, powerful-looking Argentine who was probably the same age as me. Back in the early years of the century Solari had been an effective midfielder for Atlético and then Real Madrid, before ending his playing career at Inter Milan. But like Zidane with whom he’d played — Solari had passed the ball to Zidane when he scored that famous wonder goal in Real’s 2–1 defeat of Bayer Leverkusen — he’d chosen to come and coach at Real. And when you saw the secret city it was easy to see why.

‘Where the hell did you find this kid?’ Santiago had been educated at Stockton University in New Jersey, USA, and his English was as good as my Spanish. ‘He’s excellent.’

‘So you will take him?’ I said.

‘Are you crazy? Of course we’ll take him. He’s the best kid I’ve laid eyes on since the first time I saw Lionel Messi play for your cadets at FCB. I’ve never seen a boy with better control of the ball than him. Balance, agility, confidence, and a ferocious shot. And what’s more he’s strong. Very strong. He can mix it with the best of them. With a physique like that he could be playing for the first team within two years. Like Martin Ødegaard. I just don’t understand how he’s not been on anyone’s horizon. There were thirty different clubs vying for Martin’s signature.’

‘He’s a Jew, that’s why,’ I said. ‘Since Charlie Hebdo it’s not so easy to be a Jew in Paris right now. Most of France’s Jews are keeping their heads down, or even leaving. And who can blame them?’

‘Jewish, huh? Then he could be the best Jewish player since José Pékerman.’ Santiago wagged his finger as I looked blank. ‘Argentine player. Coached the national side in the 2006 World Cup.’

John’s mother, Sarah, began to weep when I told her the good news. I took her hand and squeezed it.

‘All of this means you can get away from the banlieues,’ I said. ‘That you and John can come and live here in Madrid. You’ll like it here. What’s not to like?’

‘Sure,’ said Santiago. ‘You’ll love Madrid.’

‘Thank God,’ she said.

‘Come with me, please,’ said Raul. ‘I’ll have someone show you around the place where the families live.’

They got up and went away to get someone from the accommodation wing to show Madame Zakkai where it seemed she was now going to be living.

‘But I don’t get it,’ said Santiago. ‘You’re a Barca man, Scott. At least you were before you went to London City. Why would you bring him to us and not to the Catalans? They’ve got an excellent youth academy of their own. You know, I’m still half-convinced that this is some kind of cruel joke. That you’re going to take him to FCB after all.’

‘You can sign him this afternoon, if you like,’ I said. ‘His mum’s here. And me to give him advice. So go ahead and draw up a contract. In fact I insist on it. But I’m not his agent. He doesn’t have an agent. Yet. But he soon will. As soon as you’ve signed him I’m going to call Tempest O’Brien in London and have her look after his interests from now on. However, just so as you know, I’m not making any money from being here. And I don’t intend to, so please don’t spoil it for me by offering. Perhaps you can cover my expenses and we’ll call it quits.’

Santiago nodded.

‘But you’ve still not explained why you brought him here to us. Does this mean you’ve fallen out with Barcelona? Please. I’d like to know.’

‘No, I haven’t fallen out with them. And if you don’t mind I’d like to keep it that way. My bringing John Ben Zakkai here to Madrid must remain confidential.’

‘Now I’m more puzzled than ever. No money. No kudos. I don’t get it.’

‘Oh, I thought about taking him to Camp Nou. Believe me, this wasn’t easy for me. I suppose I wanted to make sure that what I was doing was right for the boy and not me. I couldn’t have been sure of that if I’d obeyed my first instinct, which was to take him to my friends in Barcelona. It would have bothered me, you know? We’re born selfish and the game of football encourages us to be that way. To be tribal. To win at all costs. I’m surrounded by it. Infected by it. And that’s all very well but it’s not what makes us human. I guess I wanted to see if it was still in me, to perform an act of pure altruism.’

‘I see. At least I think I see.’

‘You might say that the pleasure of helping this kid get into football is sufficient reward for me. There’s not much room for religion in my life, Santiago. Maybe doing something like this is all the religion one really needs.’

‘Paying back. I get that.’

‘No, it’s not about paying back. It’s about paying forward, I suppose. I think the game needs a bit of that right now. Don’t you? If it’s going to continue to be the game we know and love? I was lecturing the poor kid in the car about the importance of recognising the game’s past, but the future’s even more important. This is going to sound bogus coming from someone as well-off as me, but when we think about the people who are investing in the game — the Qataris, the Emirates, the Glazers, the John Henrys, the Ortegas, the Pinaults, the Abramoviches — it just seems to be about money and nothing else. That’s all people seem to understand by the word “investment”. But there has to be a different kind of investment — an investment in the future. We have to do something for how we want football to be, not for how it is. As soon as I saw this boy I realised that my greatest fear was that somehow he’d slip through the net, and remain undiscovered. Which would have been a tremendous loss to the game. After all, you don’t have to be a Manchester United fan to appreciate George Best; or a cul to appreciate the skill of Lionel Messi. Who knows? Maybe one day John Ben Zakkai will do something similar for a promising boy he talent spots. I’d like to think so.’

Santiago nodded.

‘There’s all of that,’ I said, ‘and then there’s this: lately I’ve been behaving like a shit. You know? With women? Well, you might excuse it and say that I’m a man and sometimes I behave like any other man. But I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it or even to admit it — at least, not without hurting someone. So. You might say that bringing John Ben Zakkai here, to you guys — that this is my penance. This is how I get to look at my face in the mirror again. This is how I manage to live with myself. Does that make any sense at all?’

‘Scott. I’m a Roman Catholic. I’m named after St James the Great. The first disciple and the patron saint of Spain. What you say makes perfect sense to me.’

‘Of course, now that I’ve been here I know that I was right to come to Madrid after all. This place is amazing.’

We shook hands because in football — especially in Spain — I’m happy to say it’s still important.