Annihilation
It's Okay to Lose | Football Manager 2023
1860 München
I actually don’t want to talk about the match. It was that bad.
We weren’t just beaten. We were pulverized.
We lost 7-0. Nothing we tried worked. We had no offensive attack, no answer on defense, and I wanted to leave the stadium by the 60th minute.
I know that we haven’t had a good season so far, but the truth is that we were closer to even on paper, even given our young squad. Nobody showed up, nobody felt like trying, and on we went to the worst defeat I’ve seen yet.
It was painful.
The End
I knew that was the end for me.
I didn’t even respond when Peter asked for a meeting to discuss my future. I deserved the sack, and knew that I couldn’t convince the boys to win after all that.
Or is it?
There was a chill in the air that early October evening in southern Germany. The wind felt cold and foreboding, as if a storm were brewing.
I didn’t know what to do. Should we stay and look for another job? Should we kick out our renters back in Virginia and move back? Should we look for something elsewhere?
I had been moping around the house for a few days, driving Charlotte absolutely nuts. “You men with your silly games,” she would scold me for a while before engrossing herself in her cell phone.
That night was different, however.
“I just wish…” I began after dinner, as we sat in the living room, pondering the unknown. “I just wish I had a new beginning, that’s all.”
Charlotte laughed.
It wasn’t a sarcastic laugh or a cruel laugh. It was an ironic laugh, a sort of “why didn’t you ask me sooner” response.
“I think I can arrange that,” she began, and twitched her nose.
And then… Then something happened that simply defied reality.
(To be continued)