Chapter 373: The Pre-Season Trophy

The final whistle had barely faded when a small, efficient man in a blazer appeared at my elbow. He had a laminated lanyard around his neck and the brisk, pleasant manner of someone who had done this many times before.

The trophy presentation would take place in fifteen minutes. Centre circle. Could I ensure the squad were assembled and presentable?

I thanked him and looked out at the pitch. The squad were scattered in the loose, easy way of men who had just won a game some flat on their backs in the grass, some still jogging it out, some already on their phones before they had even left the field of play. I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled.

“Listen up,” I said, when they had gathered around me. “Trophy presentation in fifteen minutes. Centre circle.”

There was a beat of silence.

“A trophy?” Zaha said, his face entirely deadpan. “For this?”

“For this,” I confirmed.

“We played two games,” McArthur said.

“We did.”

“Against Atlético and Milan,” Neves said, in the careful, measured tone of a man making sure he had the facts straight.

“Correct.”

Another beat.

“I’ll try to contain my excitement,” Zaha said.

The laughter that followed was genuine and easy, the laughter of a group of men who were comfortable with each other, who understood exactly what this was and what it was not. I let it run for a moment, then raised a hand.

“Be professional. Be grateful. The people who organised this tournament have put a lot of work in and they deserve our respect. But keep it in perspective. We played two pre-season friendlies. The real work starts when we get back to Beckenham.” I looked around the group. “Understood?”

A chorus of nods and quiet affirmations. Blake, standing at the back, was nodding with the earnest seriousness of a man who had never been in this situation before and was determined to get it right.

I was about to turn away when I saw him crossing the pitch towards us Mr. Tan Wei Liang, immaculate as ever in a dark suit despite the Singapore heat, accompanied by a small group of tournament sponsors and officials.

He moved with the easy, unhurried confidence of a man who was entirely comfortable in any room, any situation. He had been the first person to greet us when we landed, and now he was among the last to see us off.

He reached me first and extended his hand. His grip was firm and warm. “Congratulations, Danny,” he said. “A very impressive tournament. Your team has made a wonderful impression on Singapore.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tan,” I said. “We have loved every minute of it.”

He smiled a genuine smile, not a corporate one and then turned to the squad. He did not treat them as a collective. He moved through them individually, shaking hands, making eye contact, saying something specific to each one.

He told Zaha that his performance in the first match had been the talk of the city. He told Neves that his control of the tempo in both games had been a masterclass.

He found James and switched effortlessly into Spanish, which made James’s eyebrows rise in pleasant surprise. He shook Pato’s hand last, and held it for a moment longer than the others. “What you did tonight,” he said quietly, “was very special. I think everyone in that stadium understood what it meant.”

Pato nodded, his jaw tight. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for having us.”

Mr. Tan turned back to me as the MC’s voice crackled over the stadium speakers, beginning the presentation ceremony. “I hope this is the beginning of a long relationship between Crystal Palace and Singapore,” he said. “You are always welcome here.”

“We will be back,” I said. And I meant it.

The MC was working through the tournament highlights with the polished enthusiasm of a man who genuinely loved his job. He talked about the goals, the saves, and the atmosphere. He mentioned Donnarumma by name, and the crowd gave the young Milan goalkeeper a warm round of applause, which felt entirely right.

He announced Pato as the Player of the Tournament and the stadium responded with a roar that was completely disproportionate to a pre-season friendly and entirely appropriate for the story Pato had told across two matches. Pato received his individual award with a small, quiet bow, his hands clasped in front of him.

Then the MC announced Crystal Palace as the tournament winners.

The crowd applauded. It was warm and generous and genuine. A tournament official carried the trophy to the centre circle: a modest, elegant piece of silverware, clean lines, nothing ostentatious, the kind of trophy that knew exactly what it was. I took it with both hands and turned to find Dann beside me. He was the captain. This was his moment as much as mine.

“Together,” I said.

We raised it together, briefly, above our heads. The squad stood in a line behind us and applauded. The fans and I looked out at them as I held that trophy, really looked at them, the rows of faces in the Singapore night rose to their feet.

All of them. Not just the Palace supporters in their corner with their banner and their scarves, but all 50,000 of them, rising in a slow, spontaneous wave that had nothing to do with the result and everything to do with the football they had witnessed over the past two evenings. It was an ovation for the game itself. For what the game could be when it was played properly.

I lowered the trophy and handed it to Dann, who passed it along the line. It reached Zaha, who held it for approximately four seconds before turning to Blake and saying, with complete seriousness, “Here. You can have it. It’s yours.”

Blake took it with both hands. He stared at it. He turned it over, read the inscription, turned it back. He had never won anything in his professional career.

He had come through the Palace academy, worked his way up through the development squads, and this was the first piece of silverware he had ever held as a professional footballer after the FA Youth Cup and the U18 PL Nationals.

It was a pre-season friendly trophy. It meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. And yet the way he held it with that careful, reverent attention made it feel, just for a moment, like something more.

McArthur, standing beside him, pulled out his phone and took a photograph. “That’s going in the group chat,” he said.

“Don’t you dare,” Blake said, without looking up from the trophy.

McArthur sent it immediately.

The notification sounds from various pockets and bags around the squad were instantaneous. Laughter rippled down the line. Pato was the last to hold it. The laughter around him continued, but he was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the trophy.

I watched him. I knew what he was thinking the trophies he should have won at Milan, the years that injuries had taken from him, the long road back to this pitch, this night, this moment. Then he passed it on and looked up and smiled, and it was the smile of a man who had made peace with something.

James, by this point, had already moved on. He was standing slightly apart from the group, deep in conversation with one of the tournament officials, gesturing with his hands in the animated way of a man who was explaining something he found genuinely interesting. He had not even held the trophy. I made a mental note to ask him about it later, then decided it was entirely on brand and let it go.

When the squad had filtered off the pitch and the stadium lights began their slow dimming, I stood alone for a moment at the centre circle. The last of the fans were still in their seats, reluctant to leave.

The Singapore night was warm and thick and smelled of cut grass and something floral that I could not name. I looked up at the sky, a sky full of light pollution and heat haze, nothing like the sky over Moss Side and I thought about where I was and how I had got here.

Two years ago, I had been managing Railway Arms on a Sunday morning. A pub team that no longer existed. Then Moss Side Athletic. Then the Palace U18s. Then five games as interim with everything on the line.

And now I was standing at the centre circle of the Singapore National Stadium, having just won a pre-season tournament against Atlético Madrid and AC Milan, with James Rodríguez and Alexandre Pato in my squad, with a UEFA A Licence course waiting for me back in England, and a Premier League season that was twenty-three days away.

The System pinged.

> System Notification: [Pre-Season Tour Complete]

> Results: W2, L0 | Penalty Shootout: W1, L1

> Squad Cohesion: +25% (Significant Improvement)

> Tactical Cohesion: +30% | Pressing Efficiency (Tour Average): 68%

> Transfer Targets Active: Left Back (Priority 1) | Left Winger (Priority 2) and others

> UEFA A Licence: Residential Block 3 continues, St. George’s Park

> Next Fixture: Premier League Season Opener August 12th, 2017

> Note: Pre-season objectives met. Squad integration ahead of schedule. Significant work remains.

I read it twice. Nodded to myself. Then I walked off the pitch.

The team bus to the airport was quiet in the way that only a group of exhausted, satisfied professionals can be quiet. Pato was asleep against the window before we had even left the stadium car park, his head tilted back, his mouth slightly open, looking nothing like a man who had just been named Player of the Tournament.

Blake was still on his phone, showing Kirby the trophy photograph, the two of them talking in the hushed, conspiratorial way of young players who still could not quite believe they were here. James had his eyes closed and his headphones on, his expression one of complete, undisturbed peace.

Neves was reading a paperback, something in Portuguese, held at a careful angle to catch the light from the window. Zaha was somewhere at the back of the bus telling a story that I could not fully hear but which was generating a sustained, rolling laughter that had been going for the better part of ten minutes.

Sarah was in the seat across the aisle from me, her notebook open on her knee, already working through her debrief notes for the session back at Beckenham. She glanced up and caught my eye. “Good tour,” she said simply.

“Good tour,” I agreed.

I turned back to the window. Singapore was sliding past in the dark the expressway lights, the tower blocks, the distant glitter of the harbour. I thought about Emma. I thought about calling her from the airport, hearing her voice before the long flight home.

I thought about the season ahead, about Kolarov, Baines and Grimaldo and the left back position, about the left winger we still needed to find, about the penalty routine that still needed work, about thirty-eight Premier League matches and everything that could go right and everything that could go wrong.

The trophy was in a bag in the overhead compartment. A pre-season friendly tournament. Two games. It was the first piece of silverware the senior team had won under my management, and it meant precisely nothing. It was a starting point, not a destination.

The real trophies: the ones that mattered, the ones I had promised myself and promised this club were still out there, waiting.

The bus pulled onto the expressway and Singapore began to disappear behind us.

I was already thinking about what came next.

***

Thank you for the 200 Power Stones.

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