The news of Marcus Chen's return, and the scale of his new project, sent a shockwave through our dressing room. The players were intimidated. They were angry. They were scared. They had seen the stories in the local paper, they had heard the rumours on the grapevine. They knew what we were up against.
"It's a joke, Gaffer," Baz said, his voice a low, angry growl. "He's just bought the league. How are we supposed to compete with that? It's not a level playing field."
He was right. It wasn't a level playing field. It was a steep, almost vertical, uphill battle. And I knew that if I was going to have any chance of winning it, I had to convince my players that it was a battle worth fighting.
I called another team meeting. But this time, I didn't talk about tactics. I didn't talk about formations. I talked about identity. I talked about what it meant to play for Moss Side Athletic. I talked about what it meant to play for each other.
