retired_confal2

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Martin Buchan:
A very interesting turn of events Dave.

You should be a writer for 24 as this is very dramatic and now...

Hopefully you will be as crap as you are with Blackburn <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks a lot Martin that's very kind. What's '24'? The Blackburn bit it would be beneath me to answer, given that I am about eight places higher than your Liverpool in our EuroPrem, with lesser means in the game and crap equipment to play with... :p

And now for something a little more constructive (who, me? Conceited? ...)

retired_confal2

right Martin, I get the '24' I think -you mean full-time?...If only that were true...A superb compliment in any case, and you are now my friend for life Alex can tell you all about this dubious privilege...He hates the Divine Being for lumping him in the same nest as me...



Diary entry (Source: David Le Spliff’s personal diary), dated 14th June 2003.

It’s a little painful to write, despite the painkillers both prescribed and self-administered, but it’s been a very long day, and I need this to get my head around all the stuff that happened…

It couldn’t really have started any worse. I stopped at this cheap hotel just off the autoroute, one of those concrete-box things people use when they’re too tired to drive on or too skint to afford anything else. I’d just got my bag out of the car when these two guys built like NFL linebackers came up to me for a light. And before I knew what had happened they were dragging me into some bushes, on the edge of the parking lot that was furthest from the hotel. After that I don’t remember much –at the hospital they told me I had received only five or six powerful blows, and that probably it was a kick to the side of my head which had caused me to lose consciousness. But I’m jumping ahead already, and I think it’s important I should try and recall events in the order they happened, if only to convince myself of their reality…

I’m almost certain the two goons were Slavs –Russians perhaps, but I wouldn’t really be able to tell. They asked me for a light in English, with a heavy Slavic accent, and then as they dragged me away they exchanged a few short bursts of hushed conversation, which sounded a little like Serbian but weren’t –I’ve lived in Kosovo for close to two years, and that I can tell…What’s weird about this –well weirder- is that they never said what they wanted, and that nothing was missing from my rucksack, which was still lying next to me when I came to. That’s also what frightens me most about the episode, because since then I can’t seem to get rid of the idea that some very dangerous people have just given me a clear warning –however paranoid this might seem, given that I don’t own or do anything which might interest a group of criminals.

Anyway, it was the night receptionist at the hotel who found me. Around three a.m. he went out for a smoke, and as he was about to go back in he heard a rustling noise from the bushes at the far end of the lot. He went in to get a baseball bat he always kept behind the desk –prudent man! How I wish I’d showed as much sense when the two guys came up to me, I might even have been able to leg it, though perhaps I’m just kidding myself here…When he saw me lying there the first thing he did was check my pulse, and luckily for me he knew what he was doing. He saw it wasn’t too serious, called a friend of his to stand in for him an hour or so, and drove me to the nearest hospital. He signed me in and left, and after a couple of hours’ wait I was led to a cubicle, where a doctor and a nurse soon joined me and began to examine the damage. The verdict was two broken ribs, mild cranial trauma and several contusion wounds that had swollen and turned a brownish, ugly shade of purple already. I asked for something to dull the considerable pain I was feeling, but all the ******* said was: “We’ll come to that in a moment.”…However, the nurse flashed me a quick smile that did the job better than a barrel-load of Xanax, and I decided from now on to ignore the petty physician entirely, and concentrate exclusively on the long dark hair and hazel eyes of this enchanting Circea. In a strange and somewhat pathetic sort of way, I was almost glad those two rottweilers had given me a chance to be seen as a man for once, briefly and conveniently forgetting all about the reality of the situation. Which was that they had lifted me the way an angry parent forces a child, and a single hand over my mouth was enough to stifle my attempted shouts. Further, I had gone down with the first blow, and lain there prone until another blow put all the lights out…So much for being a brave man. But then there’s no accounting for the way a man can feel when a beautiful woman smiles in his general direction…

Eventually the arrogant Esculapes deigned to inquire as to whether I’d like something to feel better, raising a cynical eyebrow when I asked whether they had any codeine. Not that I gave a to** about his conceited posturing, at this stage –the nurse had left to attend to some other winner in the Hospital Attendant Random Deputation lottery, and it was high time for a more pragmatic approach to the war on pain…Besides, this yuppie git was in such a hurry to get rid of me that before I could say “Jah!” I was out of the main entrance, with my rucksack and a little brown bag containing enough medicine to induce a ten-year hibernation period in the average grizzly bear.

This was when I became aware that daylight was beginning to break, and it all came back to me in a rush –what I was doing here, what I was supposed to be doing in a few hours, and how long it was since I’d had any proper sleep. At first I wasn’t sure what town I was in –the hotel had been close to the motorway exit leading into Cannes, but perhaps this was one of the small satellite towns around it. Further up the street I found a café that was opening, and a middle-aged woman bringing out stacks of chairs to the terrace area told me that I was indeed in Cannes, and that I looked as though I could do with some strong coffee. Which indeed I did…

retired_hardtrucker18

He means '24' the television show that airs on the Fox Network in America. "Known" for it's "cliffhanger" endings almost every episode (though the third/current season is crap, IMO).

Good start to the story, can't wait for some actual, er, football stuff.

retired_confal2

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Carrplos:
He means '24' the television show that airs on the Fox Network in America. "Known" for it's "cliffhanger" endings almost every episode (though the third/current season is crap, IMO).

Good start to the story, can't wait for some actual, er, football stuff. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Right. Seen very little of it as I have an irrational prejudice against most American TV/Film fiction...

I'll get to the football stuff when I can be arsed to play CM on my own again

retired_confal2

Diary entry (Source: David Le Spliff’s personal diary) – continued from previous entry.

Eventually the caffeine, orange juice and croissants revived me somewhat, and it was just as well I hadn’t yet touched the little brown bag, now snug within the confines of the rucksack. I wanted to –badly. But there were a few things to do first, and I wasn’t keen on finding out what Oncle Bébert’s reaction would be if I turned up at the club stoned to the gills…The prospect of a longer stay in hospital was a sobering one indeed, so instead I spent some time wondering what time I would be likely to get hold of someone at the club if I phoned.

By eight o’clock I was getting too tired to wait any longer, and the third coffee wasn’t much help at all, bringing on instead a wave of mild nausea. I asked the woman behind the counter whether she had a phonebook, found the club’s number and rang them. To my surprise, the phone was picked up at the other end on the second, and a cheerful female voice made itself heard:

- “A.S. Cannes here, good morning; how can I help you?”
- “Uhh….Hello….my name is David Le Spliff and…”
- “Oh, you're the team’s new manager! How nice to speak to you sir, Mr Salerno will be so glad you called! Let me put you on to him right away –and my name is Bernadette, by the way, pleased to meet you sir.”
- “My pleasure...and please don’t call me sir, my name’s David…”
- “Right then! Bye for now, David.”
- “Bye…”

(…)

- “Hello, David! Bright and early like the rest of us achievers, eh? Good on you son! Where are you? Bébert told me you were coming this morning..”
- “Ermm…Good morning, Mr Salerno…”
- “Michel, please! Your uncle and I are practically family, after all!”
- “Right. Michel…Well, perhaps I should get to the point straight away –I was attacked last night on a parking lot, and came out of the hospital only a couple of hours ago…"
- “You poor boy! Attacked! How awful! And you probably haven’t slept at all, have you –were you badly hurt?”
- “No, no…It looks ugly right now but it’s mostly superficial…But you’re right, I haven’t had any sleep…”
- “Listen, my boy, here’s what you’re going to do: go to the Hotel Saint-Martin, on the Croisette –take a taxi, we’ll take care of everything at this end, there’ll be a room booked in your name by the time you get there. Obviously you can’t meet the press and the players in this kind of state –trust me, I’ll work something out. I always do...Later on I’ll send Christian over to see you, he’ll bring you the files on the player and all that. But in the meantime just pamper yourself, son, and don’t worry about your uncle, I’ll take care of him too!”

His gruff, booming laugh was contagious, and as we said our goodbyes I realized that an immense weight had been lifted from me –I was already lost in visions of a hot bath, and of the cool crispness of clean sheets…I thanked the woman and paid for my extended breakfast, called a taxi and then sat down to wait for it…I felt faint, and every time I rose my blood pressure plummeted like the final approach of a kamikaze, but otherwise most of my immediate problems seemed to have been solved –well, for the next few hours anyway. It still took a considerable effort to turn my thoughts away from the Slav goons, though…

retired_andrea4175

Never knew the French people were so nice!

Seems that you are on the goodbooks of your chairman so you shouldn't be sacked even if you lose loads of games (REAL POSSIBILITY)

One player you should buy is Dave Kitson! He rocks and you know it

retired_confal2

They're not, Martin, this is fiction remember ;-)
No jumping to hasty conclusions about Big Mike (see below) either...
We'll see about Kitson, but I'll be mostly looking to bring in young French prospects...never know though...


Diary entry (Source: David Le Spliff’s personal diary) – continued from previous entry.

This evening I met Christian Lopez, one of the club’s two Directors of Football. As a kid I’d seen him play for France, a workmanlike midfielder who was part of the unlucky World Cup ’82 squad, but when he approached me at the hotel bar I hardly recognized him. His short hair and trademark moustache were grey, and he looked about thirty pounds heavier, though clearly still physically fit.

I could sense his disapproval, but felt there would be no sense in trying to explain myself just now. I’d spent the whole day drifting in and out of sleep, the codeine giving me those vivid, narrative dreams I so enjoyed under normal circumstances. But right now I was just mildly stupefied, and extremely weary. He gave me the players’ files, told me I’d be expected to show up for the morning’s training session at nine, but that it might be a good idea to show up a little early to have a word with the players. We then talked about the club, and he seemed almost relieved that I knew some of the club’s history at least. I wonder what kind of person he had been expecting. He did not even bat an eyelid when I told him I knew I didn’t have the skills required for the job; he just nodded slowly and gave a slight shrug, as though to say: “well, yes, we all know that, but right now there’s nothing we can do, so we may as well just get on with it”. It was also clear he didn’t feel comfortable discussing the issue, so I didn’t press. Instead I asked him about the club’s ambitions, and the fans’ expectations.

“The board wants us to go up –Big Mike’s been very clear about that” he paused, noticing my expression. “Big Mike is what everyone calls Michel Salerno around here. You’ll get used to it –in fact, he’ll probably insist on it himself…” He smiled wryly at this. “As for the fans, well, if I were you I’d keep a low profile for the first few weeks, and if the team performs then you’ll be fine…Otherwise….Well, you wouldn’t be the first manager chased out of town…” He shook his head in mock compassion. “I really wish you the best, lad, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t ask for any of this, but I don’t understand what’s going on and I’m not sure I want to, even in the unlikely event it might help improve the situation. There are some very dangerous people around here…” -for a brief instant his gaze fell upon the ugly bruise on my forehead- “…and they tend to be the very rich and very powerful kind of dangerous –that’s a bad combination, as I’m sure you realize…” He held out his hand and smiled again, with a little more warmth. “Study those files, David, and then get a good night’s sleep -you’ll need it. I’ll see you at La Bocca tomorrow morning.”

We shook hands and I watched him go, realizing how important it would be to seek out his advice on all aspects of the job. Besides, he was right: the best thing was to lie low, to get the know the players and the other staff, to make it clear to everyone that I didn’t think of myself as ‘The Boss’, and that everyone at the club needed to be heading in the same direction: up.

retired_confal2

Diary entry (Source: David Le Spliff’s personal diary) – continued from previous entry

The first page in the file Christian Lopez had given me contained general information about the club, with some scribbled comments added in a clumsy, childish hand which I was almost certain was the chairman’s. Somehow it seemed to fit his gleeful, flippant tone.

Cannes play at the Stade Pierre-de-Coubertin, which everyone calls ‘La Bocca’ –‘the mouth’- because it lies near the place where the local river throws itself into the Mediterranean. It can hold 12 869 spectators, 9 819 of whom can be seated, and the training facilities are about adequate for the level the club is at. The realities of finance have hit this club hard, and the youth system which was once an example throughout Europe, producing players such as Zinedine Zidane and Patrick Viera, is now largely decrepit as the club has sunk a long way from the Première Division.

Chairman: Michel (‘Big Mike’) Salerno.
Directors of Football: Christian Lopez and Etienne Goiran.
Managing Director: Jérôme Gastaldi.

Assistant Managers: Charly Loubet and Pascal Favre.
Coaches: Francis Tisiot and Nenad Stojkovic.
Physios: Christophe Lopez, Mathieu Sorin and Benoît Grimaud.
Scouts: Jean Varraud, Thierry Plet and Frédéric Stoll.

There are thirty-four players at the club currently, many of whom are semi-professionals between the ages of eighteen and twenty, reared at the club and brought through the age categories. The budget ceiling has been set at nine thousand pounds a week, though right now it stands at six thousand one hundred pounds a week. The board has made 325 000 £ available for transfers, though the club sits on a comfortable 2 500 000 £ at the bank.

There’s a note clipped onto the page, which reads as follows:

“A word of advice from your friend Michel –you’ve not that much money to buy with, but you probably won’t need it that much. There’s busloads of players out of a job in these troubled times, and if you know the right agents a little cash can go a long way, believe you me. As it happens, your uncle knows quite a few –why don’t you give him a ring and have a little chat? Just an idea…

See you tomorrow,

Michel.”

Strange. Why couldn’t he call my uncle himself, if they’re like family?…I set the thought aside, not wanting to go off on a tangent as there were many more pages to read before I could allow myself some sleep...

retired_confal2

AS Cannes squad list (Source: club’s personnel files)

Goalkeepers.

Christophe Mey, 21, French, GK.
Jean-Daniel Padovani, 23, French, GK.
Cyril Carrat, 18, French, GK.

Padovani is an obvious first choice amongst the three. Formed at Martigues and bought from Nice, he shows decent ability in all the main goalkeeping skills, and has much more first-team experience than the other two. Mey is reasonable cover but should soon be supplanted by Carrat, one of the several young players formed at the club.


Defenders.

Grégory Béranger, 21, French, D L.
Wilfried Bertrand, 28, French, D L.
Michaël Cérielo, 18, French, D L/C.
Michel Rodriguez, 24, French, D L/C.
Pierre Goureau, 19, French, D/DM L/C.
Patricio Videira, 26, Portuguese, D/DM L/C.
Nicolas Frey, 19, French, SW/D C.
Christophe Durand, 18, French, D C.
Damien Berger, 18, French, D R/C.
Julien Faubert, 19, French, D R/C.
Laurent De Palmas, 25, D/DM R/C.

Rodriguez was once a rated prospect at Montpellier, but never fulfilled his promise. He and De Palmas should constitute the central pairing in a four-man defence, with Cérielo or Videira at left-back and Faubert on the right. The defensive sector is one in which we should be looking to recruit, as Bertrand is mediocre and the rest of them need to prove themselves with the reserve team before we can really treat them as real players. Frey’s only redeeming feature is that he is goalkeeper Sébastien’s younger brother, and aside from Goureau none of them look likely or able to play in a serious competitive game.


Midfielders.

Manu Nogueira, 34, French, DM C.
Fabien Valéri, 29, French, DM C.
Wilson Sanches-Leal, 18, Portuguese, DM C.
Antoine Maisetti, 19, French, DM R.
Cyril Guyot, 23, French, M L.
Mickaël Marsiglia, 27, French, M C.
Youssef Makhri, 19, French, AM L.
Michel Gafour, 21, French, AM L/C.
Siramana Dembélé, 26, French, AM R/C.
David Bettoni, 31, French, AM R/L.
Romain Testas, 18, French, AM C.
Salah Benhalima, 18, French, AM/F C.
Claude Panariello, 20, French, AM/F C.
Janick Tamazout, 30, French, AM/F R/L.
Kamel Ghillas, 19, French, AM/F R.

More experience in midfield than in defence, with Valéri the most competent in a holding role. On the left young Marseille reject Gafour may start, with another former Marseille player in the playmaking position; Mickaël Marsiglia. Dembélé’s pace and decent technique make him a starter on the right. Nogueira, Guyot, Bettoni and Tamazout don’t look like they’ll be getting much playing time, and may bring in a few funds to invest in younger, better players. The rest are no use to the first team right now, though Sanches-Leal may provide some much-needed backup here if no solutions are found through recruitment.


Forwards.

Bruce Inkango, 19, French, F C.
Youssef Moughfire, 26, French, F C.
Amadou M’Bodji, 18, French, F R/C.
Wilfried Niflore, 22, French, S C.
Gnahaoua Zoko, 25, Ivorian, S C.

A few of the above midfielders can play up front, but Zoko and Inkange look the likely pairing, both pacy and reasonably skilful. M’Bodji and Niflore are on loan from Marseille and Toulouse respectively, but they are being sent back as other options will be explored during pre-season. Moughfire is average bordering on the mediocre, and unless he is still needed as a gap filler at the start of the season, he too could be encouraged to find a new club.

retired_abcd15

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by OMDave:
_Foreword_


A week ago, if anyone had suggested I write a story based on the life of a CM manager, as viewed from within the game, I would have taken this to be a ‘smart alec’-type of remark, the kind of oh-so-subtle ****-take of another person’s habits or opinions that Fergie would be proud of –in short, it would have seemed a student w***er’s way of saying there were more constructive ways to spend one’s time than to sit for hours in front of a machine, apparently stupefied yet prone to sudden and shocking outbursts of psychotic fury, hurling torrents of abuse at an inanimate object that eighty percent of the planet’s population cannot afford…All right, forget the initial premise, _that_ would have been the student w***er’s way of saying it…

But then, a little under a week ago, I joined the Community. The main reason it took me so long is probably the fact that outside of e-mail use, I’ve tended to nurse an unfair prejudice towards the Internet, in that I lived under the delusion that it was a territory best left to geeks and other techno-boffins, a superficial and deliberately esoteric arena, which had little or no chance of resisting the tsunami of mercantilism, conformity and overall mediocrity which eventually ground all other media to the ocean floor –at least, it can be hoped that it is really the floor, and not the edge of another, deeper marine precipice…A word of warning is in order here: there will be many digressions along the way…Anyway, since I’ve become a regular member I’ve found myself spending more and more of my ‘Community time’ reading CMS threads –I mean, who really gives a s*** who the best striker is?- or Clan Game threads. The quality of writing of the average post is very good, and some of the narrative sequences are brilliant –and I’m not just trying to make some new friends here, which I’m told all ‘noobs’ (took me a while to figure _that_ one out…) are supposed to do. My current favourite –of those I’ve read, which is less than I would have liked, but real life has a way of butting in at the most inappropriate moments- is “The Sleeping & The Dead Are But In Pictures”, a great title, hilarious player descriptions and a fine flowing style throughout. Eldritch7, I’m sure I’m not the only one awaiting the next instalment of the Daggers’ odyssey so please don’t let it lie for too long …

And so, at a time when I was finding it all but impossible to muster up any enthusiasm for a ‘solo’ game, I am now readying myself to begin a new one. Not to conquer the world, nor even to grind Paris SG into the dirt at any given opportunity –not this time…But instead for the sole purpose of providing an ‘objective’ context to a story, that of a young(ish) manager called David Le Spliff, a Marseille fan at heart though obviously he is not even close to good enough to manage them. Though I was tempted to take Libourne (in real life my mother, who is Irish, lives just outside this small, provincial town of the South-West), I ended up deciding for Cannes because it was just too good an opportunity to pass over, in terms of the narrative possibilities provided by the location. Anyone who’s ever been there will agree, I think, that the place is beyond ‘weird’, and in a way which anyone retaining an ounce of the quality known as ‘soul’ will find vaguely obscene and disquieting. Except perhaps for the loonies who live there, or the inane muppets who dream of doing so…Ideally it would have been nice to be able to start below ‘National’, the French equivalent of the Second Division, but saying that the game is limited in this respect would be like saying there isn’t that much energy produced in a nuclear fission reaction –if your basic unit of measurement is the amount generated by a solar flare, then no, there isn’t really that much at all…At this point in the text, there will be a CM fan who passed his/her A-level Physics –surely there must be a few- who will suddenly feel it is his/her (well, it is admittedly less likely that a woman should react in this way) mission in life to put up a message in this thread, pointing out the factual inaccuracy of the previous example and exposing me to the Community for being the fraud I never claimed not to be. Desist now! Fight back the prideful urge, and if all else fails simply create your own story, thereby giving yourself plenty of opportunities to show other people how ‘sorted’ and fascinating and hard (errr…sorry, wrong forum..) you really are. Should you find yourself unable to overcome your excessive regard for ‘truth’ (That Rather Unlikely Theoretical Humbug –hands up those who would have spotted it without the capitals…), be prepared for a retaliatory wave of the swiftest and most violent nature. I’m not kidding; I’ve worked for the UN and I know how these things work. First I’ll set Paddy Ashdown loose upon you, and while he distracts you with his special SAS-trained ‘lateral hypnotism’ techniques, I’ll get Kofi Annan to denounce you to the world in the strongest possible terms. In the unlikely event that you still cannot be deterred from your fiendish and malevolent course, I shall apply the ultimate death blow and send in USAid to coordinate the rebuilding of your infrastructure in accordance with sound principles of liberal economic practice –i.e. to subcontract the job to the highest bidders, and/or to the parties from whom the greatest financial or political ‘reciprocities’ might then be elicited without fear of denunciation…If that _still_ doesn’t scare you, please leave me alone –I don’t have much but I’ll pay anything you want, just don’t hurt me!!!

There is even the chance the story might serve as a palliative for my insomnia, though I think it rather more likely it will become an excuse to indulge it instead. Despite what was threatened above, all feedback is of course very welcome and it’ll be nice to have an excuse to exchange banter with people, as the only other members of the Community I ‘know’ are the lively bunch of pirates with whom I’ve been playing online for a few months now. Hi there lads –no doubt you’ll be the brunt of my audience, but the way I see it there’s more reward in getting one person to grin than there is in getting millions to chew…

Hope you enjoy the trip –I know I will!


PS: Don’t listen to anything my brother Alex says about me…It’s all lies! I swear it! I’ve been off the neuroleptics for years now… <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Extra paragraphs never hurt. Interesting read though.