Episode 4: Average Points and Arrecifes

I wont pretend that I wasn’t cataclysmically angry after the Rafaela result. I shut myself in my office as soon as we get back to the ground. I tell Linton to stock up on supplies and spend 3 days analysing the last few performances to try and work out what is going wrong. It’s a wholly unpleasant experience as I rewatch each game and create a map akin to a murder board on my wall, complete with polaroids of my useless players and red string leading to phrases like ‘Couldn’t tackle a fish supper’ and ‘His Mum could man-mark him out the kitchen’. In hindsight — I regret sending the picture of it to the team WhatsApp group. I do not regret the comments.

I decide to shore up the DM region. It seemed to work in the last game and whilst Pico isn’t the ideal candidate for this, I can shoehorn someone else in there. I could really do with Mario perking up as well. He’s been doing the paperwork on the vineyard and he’s sourced a pleasant house on the outskirts of the city for me to move into, but he’s been very very average so far out on the left.

Luckily, our next opponents El Porvenir are 18th in the table and have scored 11 goals in 10 games. After another stupidly long away trip we arrive at The Future and armed with a tactical change and some fresh blood we are ready to get back on top. The players go through the motions in the warm-up and I look at the opposition. I apologise for the WhatsApp stuation and its all water under the bridge, but I stress the importance of a good performance here. We can’t afford too many more blips.

We concede in the second minute in our traditional slow start. I make a mental note to Milton to reduce the amount of Ketamine in the pre-match drinks. We toil away for the remainder of the half, with Demichelis hitting the bar, but we are 1–0 down again and looking toothless. We make various tactical changes and adjustments,which are immediately derailed when Colusso gets injured and Bressan gets sent off for a two-footed lunge 10 minutes later. To add insult, the free-kick sails past Navarro and we are headed for another defeat. 20 free kicks and all of them wasted.

I slump dejectedly into my office chair 24 hours later and call for Linton to bring in some more supplies. However, he turns up in tow with Mario, Mancuso and the Gigolo and we visit the local steakhouse. Whilst I expect a hostile reception, the owner brings us dinner on the house and I talk to the local fans around us. They don’t seem too upset despite our indifferent form. It cheers me, but as soon as I leave the restaurant, I forget all that and send out a text to all players with two words.

Hell day.

I run the players into the ground, demanding better possession and skills work and focus on the basics. We need to play better, in particular away from home. But for now we have the league leaders, Los Andes, visiting the Jose Fierro and I’m fizzing to get a result and turn the recent tide. Mancuso is back, and I tell him that if he can get us through the first 5 minutes without conceding a goal — I’ll give him a bottle of Mezcal.

It’s a helluva game. Both sides have a number of chances in the first half and we are indebted to Navarro for a change. He appears to have changed gloves, boots and personality, and though he occasionally still parries into no man’s land he’s a big part of why its 0–0 at the break. It could have been even better had Rodriguez’ shot from distance not bounced off the woodwork in the last minute of the half.

Not even a minute of the second had passed and we are 1–0 down. Silva dribbles past our entire defence and eventually the ball is bundled in by Romero. His anagram Moreno is injured during this as well and Mario comes on. He has a steely look in his eyes and immediately helps me shuffle the players. Guillermo goes up top, the Gigolo pulls back into the 10 position and Rodriguez goes to the right meaning Pico and Cabrol play centrally. And wouldn’t you know it — it only bloody works! Pico firing in 2 minutes later after build up play by Guillermo. Pisonero gets so excited that he actually kills German Denis with a kung-fu kick tackle and gets his marching orders 1 minute later.

I reach for the cigarettes and Mezcal. With 40 minutes left I don’t see this ending well. And within 3 minutes German bloody Denis has scored after recovering from his own death.But remarkably this spurs us on. We batter them for 20 minutes creating chance after chance and we force an error as Grelak knocks a cross past his own keeper and it’s 2–2 with 20 minutes left. Its end to end stuff as Navarro and his opposite number Lema make 19 saves between them, and despite our best efforts we can’t force a winner. In spite of the draw, the Ultras cheer and sing as we go across to applaud them. I turn and smile at Mario and Mancuso — we still might have something here.

I’m encouraged by the fight we are showing at the moment, if not the outcome. I call Consuela and tell her to bring some friends as me and the team (excluding Pisonero — who I definitely think is not a good idea for a night out) head out to El Agujero Sucio to dance and drink the night away. Well we would, if I didn’t bump into German Denis and cause the mother of all brawls by hitting on his sister and then glassing him after he looks at me funny.

After some vague legal proceeding nonsense and a dressing down by the board the following day, we strategise for our upcoming game against Tigre. It’s a blessed relief to be at home for the 2nd game running, and if we play the way we did against Los Andes we will get a result, there’s no doubt about that. So come gameday I’m calm, staring through my sunglasses at the Tigre team (I double check its them first). They look scared and lost. I look at mine and they look ready. And whilst I’ve said this a lot of late this time I mean it. I go to the ultras and as we enter the pitch the cries of ‘VIVA. LOS. CHAMPU’ rings around the Jose Fierro.

We look up for this today, and yet another heroic goalkeeping performance by an opposition keeper is the only blemish on the half as it finishes 0–0. We could do with a touch more cutting edge, and I ship Cabrol in behind Guillermo and drop Pico back. Milton and Beavis are deep in conversation in a corner and I ask them if they have any ideas. Milton drops back and enters a mostly Spanish diatribe about 4–4–2, complete with whiteboard and Guardiola-esque gesturing. I usher the players out the room and lock it with him inside, with strict instructions to security not to let the mad Ecuadorian bastard out at any costs.

The second half begins and within 5 minutes we’ve hit the bar after a shot from Guillermo. We keep knocking but with no answer and I go to two up top with 20 minutes left. Tigre allegedly still have 11 men on the pitch but I see very little evidence of anyone other than their keeper, who must have more arms than Vishnu and the physical dexterity of a Chinese gymnast judging by the sheer number of saves he’s making. Lobo, Oliva, Guillermo and finally Barretto all have chances but all are repelled as we drop points yet again.

I phone Consuela and we leave hours after the match ahead of Tuesday’s game against Almirante Brown de Arrecifes — who are based in a small partido in the north east of Buenos Aries. I send various whatsapp messages to the players with motivational music — Navarro gets a video of Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma, Lobo gets Johnny Cash singing Hurt, Pinosero gets Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit. I spend the next two days in a small apartment, wandering the local streets and sitting outside cafes drinking miniature coffees like an Italian Film star. Albeit one with a tattoo of a Dolphin getting punched in the face prominently on one forearm.

Feeling refreshed, on Tuesday Evening I meet up with the team at ground, which has a stand that looks like a 19th century cricket pavilion built in an oil refinery. It’s a little surreal. But we need to remain in the real world and win this game against the 24th placed team in the league. I tell the players as much before the game and steal Linton’s lighter. I’m hoping I don’t need it.

I keep the faith with my home formation, and my faith is rewarded as we don’t concede in the opening 5 minutes and we take the lead through a Pico volley with only 7 minutes on the clock. It gets better in the 12th minute as Barretto nips in at the front post to meet a corner and flicks the ball home and suddenly we look like the animals I had been hoping for. We rampage through the Brown defense time and time again, playing some of the greatest football ever seen in a Victorian steampunk nightmare ground, and add two more before half-time through Mancuso and Guillermo.

I take advantage of the scoreline to leave the squad to the insane rantings of Hans — who had just watched the boxset of ‘The Wire’ and wanted to discuss it in painstaking detail. I spend the second half in the stands with around 80 away supporters, drinking and singing and generally having a far better time than I should. We add a fifth goal through Bressan with another goal from a set piece and the game finishes 5–0.

I get a phonecall after the game from the board. They tell me that they are putting us up in Arrecifes for the night, and that our fight against relegation is going well. I sit at the top of the pavilion and look at the table on my phone. We’re in 10th. On 21 points. I shout to Beavis to come over and he looks it over. He disappears to make a phonecall and comes back 10 minutes later, holding a printout that appears to be from the mid-70s. He hands it over and runs away from me leaving me alone at the top of the pavilion. I glance at the paper.

Fuck.