Part Two: World Cup Qualifying (Asia) Second Round Group Stage
Fleming and I blinked a couple times and then looked at each other.
“What?” I finally splurted.
“They’re crazy!” said Fleming.
One of the pin-striped suits cocked an eyebrow, and said, “I would ask you to refrain from saying such things. Your employers certainly have considered the matter carefully. Consider it from their point of view.”
I did. Fleming just looked shocked that the pin-striped fellow spoke perfect English. I said, thinking aloud, “So the QFA sends out to find recruits. We do that. Fair enough, we’re the one risking ourselves. Same strategy for the team then? We try and manage the squad… but if we fail, they bring in a higher standard of coach and they look brilliant? Whatever we do, that gives the young players time to settle and get accustomed to being Qatari. We’re the ones in the spotlight? We’re the ones who take the blame, not them. I can see that.”
Fleming nodded, “Yeah, sounds about right. Now what?” He added, directing the question to the man who had spoken.
The man just gestured to the door, which led to the car, which led to the jet, which we had to assume led to Qatar.
On board we found a new set of clothes, matching coaching outfits with the QFA logo on the back, and an assorted set of managerial tools, books, charts, and reports.
“..but no schedule that I can find,” said Fleming. “I wish I knew how soon we were going to be asked to take charge.”
“Well, we are going to have to estimate it being soon. I can’t imagine they’d be in such a rush to bring us back to the country otherwise.”
“Any idea what the format of… what was the competition again?” said Fleming.
“World Cup… though probably not the finals,” I said, leafing through the books on the table next to my seat. “Qualifying of some sort?”
“I suppose.” Fleming thought for a moment, “Er… do you have any idea which one of us is supposed to be the main guy and which the assistant?”
“Nope.” I looked at him. He nodded, and we rock, paper, scissored for it. I went rock, he went paper. “Blast!” I shouted.
“Congratulations!” he laughed, “you’re the man now! Mind your head! That next cool breeze might just be the axe!”
We passed about an hour trying to find anything valuable within our new set of information. Fleming looked for the recent reports about our recruits. I tried to understand a little bit about tactics.
“What you got?” Fleming asked after he had sorted the reports into some fashion. The fashion being: floor, chair, table, in his lap, and some crumpled up and tossed in a basket in the corner.
“Er… I think we’re going to play a 4-4-2 formation. Seems to be the most commonly used,” I said.
“4-4-2?” he paused, “that’s only 10 players isn’t it?”
I pointed at the diagram in the book I was holding. “Well, it’s called a 4-4-2 but really I guess it’s a 1-4-4-2. The goalkeeper doesn’t seem to make a difference in the tactics.”
“Oh. All right,” he said coolly.
“Um,” I flipped through a couple of pages of a different book, “this one says many teams play with an attacking central midfielder and with a defensive central midfielder.”
“And?”
“That makes it a diamond.”
Fleming just gave me an indescribable look.
“So at least we have a formation. How are the players looking?”
He pointed at the trash. “Those players aren’t much. Some of them have played for the Qatari team in the previous games, but I figure we’d better only use them in emergency situations otherwise we’d make ourselves look bad.”
He pointed at the floor. “Forwards.”
“Or strikers.” I added.
He gave me the look again, before continuing, “We apparently found four kids who can play there. Which is good so we can have all four play together.”
I showed him the diagram again, this time turning it right side up.
“Or…” he continued after a pause, “we have players who can provide cover at the position. At any rate, they are Papad… Georgi… forget it,
Gigi Papa who got picked up by Barnsley.” He consulted one of the pages on the floor. “They play in England according to this report. Which, by the way, reminds me, did you know we have a support scouting staff now? To report on our players? The memo is around here somewhere.”
He continued, “the second player we have is
David Lucas, who got signed by Guincamp, which is in France, appropriately. The third is
Max Power,” he rolled his eyes, “that German space cadet, who was signed by a German club called Mannheim.”
“And the fourth?”
“Well, to my surprise, it’s that
Vadim Golubev fellow… we really need to come up with a nickname for him… apparently, he’s actually not a bad player after all…”
“Thank god for that…”
“… and he was signed by French club Monaco. Errrr… this report says that the coaches there think he might be useful as a utility player, since he’s able to play in central midfield too. All the other Qatari forwards I’ve got reports on are only vaguely talented according to our scouts… ‘our scouts’… that is so odd.”
“Yup.” Once again I pondered how exactly I got myself into this. Oh yeah, right. “And midfielders?”
“Well, we certainly have a lot of back-up players. Unfortunately, one of our hopeful signings
Kerkhof is not quite as good as we wanted. This report,” he waved it, “says he was signed by Telstar in Holland, but the coaches there aren’t real impressed. Add in a batch of so-so Qatari locals, and we are really left with 5 true midfielder.
Xenão a defensive type… probably good for that formation…
Tony Landstrom who plays left, right, or center,
Carlos Fernandez who plays left, right, or center, and
Walter Milito who plays, left or right, but not center.
Golubev provides a bit of depth, as does
Gigi Papa, though only in the offensive midfielder role.”
“And have any of them signed club contracts?”
“Let me check…
Xenão signed for a German side, Magdeburg. Don’t know anything about them.
Landstrom signed for Le Mans. The other two don’t have contracts yet.”
“Well, can we see what we can do for them?”
Fleming nodded, “Oh yes, that’s on another memo somewhere. ‘Unofficial representatives for club negotiations’ or something. Guess we can help our players get better contracts on occasion.”
“Good.” I made a few more notes on the paper I was using.
“Defenders:
Alessandro di Chiara, signed by Sturm Graz. Which is good.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is it good?”
“They are one of the best teams in Austria.”
“Ah… really?”
“No idea, but that’s what this report says.” He continued, “and
Jon Ortiz signed by Hercules… Spain,
David Watson, signed by Brentford… England, and um,
Patrick Vergeylen signed by Vitesse…” he pushed some papers around in the chair… “that’s Holland.”
“My they do get around don’t they.” Something struck me. “Wait… didn’t we recruit an American player too?
Rob Watkins?”
“Ah yes,” he picked up another paper, “‘Has not been sighted since initial contact.’ He appears to have disappeared.”
“Oh, dear. That could be bad.”
“Yes… particularly since we’ll be relying on some questionable back-up players, with
Al Kherboush looking like the best of the few young options.”
“Goalkeepers?”
“Well,
Henrique Fernandes might be a waste. He was signed by French club Creteil… but this scout report says he’s not going to be worth much without serious improvement.
Jim Heald seems like our man, and he was signed by Lyon… another French club. If anything happens to him, we’ll be looking for back-ups among the nationals of Qatar.
Mohina Al-Dosary might be useful. He’s actually moved off to Japan to play for a team there.”
I scribbled a few more notes. “Is that it then?”
“Basically.”
“So,” I said gingerly, “is anybody actually, you know, playing?”
“
Xenão” is, though we’ve got no information about that.
di Chiara made his debut and played very well in a game against… Olympiakos Nicosia.”
“Sounds Greek,” I said.
“Um… it is. Some sort of continental competition. And the only other player to play so far is
Patrick Vergeylen.”
“Him?”
“Yeah, I’m surprised to. He even was credited with an assist in a 4-1 win for Vitesse over a team called Nac.”
“Nac?”
“That’s what it says. N… A… C… Er, it looks like he picked up an injury in the last few games too.”
I scratched out
Vergeylen’s name, and wrote down a different one. I showed Fleming a new diagram, with some names in certain positions. He made some suggestions.
We may not have any idea when the next game was, or who were playing, or what the format of the competition was, but we had an almost complete starting line-up:
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> HealdWatson ? di Chiara Ortiz XenãoLandstrom Milito Fernandez Power G P</pre>
It was a start.
At least.
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