Chapter 348: The Gambles II
He signed the following morning. Six million pounds to Villarreal. A fraction of what China had offered. But it was not about the money. It had never been about the money. It was about the story. And Pato had decided that his story was not over yet.
While I was in Spain, Freedman was at the bet365 Stadium in Stoke. The Bojan deal had been in the works since that sa morning in my office, the morning of the Island of Misfit Toys, the morning I had told Marcus about two fallen angels in two different countries, both written off.
Marcus had grinned and said I was building sothing mad. I had told him there was a difference between mad and brilliant. Now Freedman was closing it. Two million pounds. For a player whose technical ability was still, by any serious asure, elite. Bojan Krkic beca a Crystal Palace player before my flight ho had even landed.
I landed back in England on the evening of June 24th. I did not go to the training ground. I did not call Freedman to debrief. I did not check the transfer forums or the fan reaction or the press. I went ho. To the penthouse. To Emma.
She was there when I opened the door. She was sitting on the sofa with a book in her lap and a glass of wine on the table beside her, and she looked up when I ca in with the particular expression she reserved for the monts when I had been away too long and she was not going to say so directly. She looked at
for a mont, taking in the suit, the bag, the look on my face.
"You’ve been in Spain," she said.
"I have," I said.
"Did it work?"
"It worked," I said.
She nodded, as if this was entirely expected. "Good. Sit down. I’ll get you sothing to eat."
I sat down on the sofa and let the exhaustion of the last three days settle over
like a weight. The flights. The hotels. The conversations. The waiting. The quiet, high-stakes chess of it all. I was tired in a way that went deeper than sleep could fix. But I was also, underneath the tiredness, sothing that I had not felt in a long ti. Light. Genuinely, properly light.
Emma ca back from the kitchen with a plate of pasta and another glass of wine and sat down beside . She did not ask about the signings. She did not ask about the transfer fees or the contract details or what the dia were saying. She just sat beside
and let
eat in peace, the television on low in the background, the city lights visible through the penthouse windows.
After a while, she looked at . "You look different," she said. "Lighter. Like sothing has been lifted."
"I’ve just done sothing either very clever or very stupid," I said. "I’m genuinely not sure which yet."
She laughed. A soft, warm, real laugh. "It’s probably both," she said.
"Probably," I agreed.
We sat there for another hour, talking about nothing important. Her work. A book she was reading. A film she wanted to see. Normal things. Human things. Things that had nothing to do with transfer windows or tactical systems or the Europa League qualifying rounds. For a few hours, the football world did not exist. I was not the gaffer. I was not the boy wonder. I was not the reckless one. I was just Danny. And it was enough.
The next morning, June 25th, I drove back up to St. George’s Park for the afternoon session of the course. I sat down in my usual seat. My phone was on the desk, face-down. At five o’clock, the club’s social dia team began the announcents.
Navas first. Then Pato. Then Bojan.
Three signings in the space of an hour. Three forr world-class players, each at a different stage of their story, each carrying the weight of what they used to be and the question of what they still could be.
The internet did not know what to do with it.
My phone began to vibrate. Once. Twice. Then, continuously, a steady, insistent buzzing against the desk. I turned it face-up and left it there. The notifications were coming in faster than I could read them. Twitter. Instagram. WhatsApp. Missed calls from numbers I did not recognise.
The Navas announcent went up first. The Palace social dia team had done it properly. A short video. Navas in a Palace shirt, the badge on his chest, a quiet smile on his face. The caption was simple.
Jesús Navas. Welco to Crystal Palace. The comnts section exploded within thirty seconds. Most of them were variations of the sa thing. No way. No way. NO WAY. The Palace fan forums crashed within two minutes of the post going live. The club’s website went down shortly after.
Freedman texted
a single word. Website.
I texted back. I know.
Then the Pato announcent. Another video. Another Palace shirt. Another badge. Alexandre Pato, the Brazilian prodigy, the fallen angel, the man everyone had written off, standing in a Crystal Palace kit and looking like a man who had sothing to prove.
The reaction was different to the Navas one. The Navas reaction had been pure shock. The Pato reaction was sothing more complicated. The football world had an opinion about Pato.
Everyone had an opinion about Pato. Half the comnts were variations of absolute steal. The other half were variations of this is a joke, right? Gary Lineker tweeted a single question mark.
Jamie Carragher went on Sky Sports News and said, with genuine bewildernt in his voice, that he had no idea what Danny Walsh was building at Crystal Palace but he was starting to think it might be either genius or catastrophe and he genuinely could not tell which.
Then Bojan. And that was when the internet truly lost its mind.
Bojan Krkic.
The boy who was supposed to be the next ssi. The Barcelona prodigy who had never reached the heights everyone had predicted.
The player who had drifted through loan spells and short contracts and quiet disappointnts and ended up at Stoke City, of all places, playing Championship football on loan in Spain.
Two million pounds. Crystal Palace had signed Bojan Krkic for two million pounds. The hashtag #WhatIsDannyBuilding hit the trending list within minutes of the announcent going up. It was not just in England.
It was worldwide. Football Twitter, which had been watching the Palace sumr with a mixture of amusent and curiosity, had now fully committed to the story. This was not a transfer window anymore. This was a television series.
In the classroom, the afternoon session had long since abandoned any pretence of continuing. The instructor had given up trying to hold the room’s attention around the ti the Pato announcent went up.
My course-mates, n in their forties and fifties, forr professionals, experienced coaches who had spent their careers in the lower leagues and the academies and the backroom staff of clubs that never made the headlines, were all on their phones.
Every single one of them. So were reading. So were watching the announcent videos. So were just staring at their screens with the particular expression of people who have encountered sothing they do not have the vocabulary to describe.
A man nad Terry, who had played over three hundred gas in the Championship and was now coaching at a League Two club, leaned across the aisle and looked at
with wide eyes. "Pato," he said. Just the one word. Like it explained everything and nothing at the sa ti.
"Pato," I confird.
He sat back in his chair. Stared at the ceiling. "Right," he said slowly. "Right."
Another man, a forr goalkeeper who had spent fifteen years as a number two at various clubs and had the quiet, philosophical manner of soone who had spent a lot of ti standing in the cold watching other people make mistakes, leaned forward from the row behind .
"Can I ask you sothing?" he said.
"Go ahead," I said.
"What is the plan?" he said. "Like, genuinely. What is the actual plan?"
"Win football matches," I said.
He looked at
for a long mont. "With Navas, Pato, and Bojan," he said.
"Among others," I said.
He sat back. He looked at the man beside him. The man beside him shrugged. Neither of them said anything else.
Dave had turned around in his seat and was watching
with the expression of a man who had been wrong about sothing and was trying to work out exactly when and how it had happened.
He had warned
about recklessness two days ago. He had told
the Premier League was unforgiving. He had told
that potential was not enough. All of that was still true. None of it had changed. But sothing else had changed.
The conversation had shifted. The narrative had shifted. Two days ago, the question was whether Danny Walsh had lost his mind.
Tonight, the question was sothing more interesting. Sothing that the whole football world was now asking, from the pundits on Sky Sports to the fans on the forums to the forr professionals sitting in a lecture hall at St. George’s Park.
Dave leaned forward. He looked at
for a long mont. Then he said, simply and quietly, "I have absolutely no idea what you are doing."
I smiled. Picked up my coffee. Went back to my notes.
The gambles had been made. The dice had been rolled. And now the whole world was watching to see how they would land.
***
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