It was a gamble. A huge and insane and potentially career-ending gamble. I was about to play a 17-year-old kid, who had never played a senior game, in the most important game of the season, in a complex and demanding tactical role, in a formation that we had never used before. It was a gamble that was based on a hunch, on a feeling, on a desperate leap of faith.
I called Jamie at six in the morning. "Get to the training ground. Now. We have work to do."
He arrived twenty minutes later, bleary-eyed and confused. I sat him down in the tactics room and pulled up tactical videos on the big screen. "Jamie," I said, "I'm going to teach you a role that could change your life. And mine. And this entire club's. You have twenty-four hours to learn it."
His eyes widened. "What role, Gaffer?"
"Libero."
"What's a Libero?"
I smiled. "Let me show you."
