After the match against Manchester City, Ethan travelled south to London with Terry, Mourinho, and the club's press officer.
During the international break, a disciplinary hearing was being held over Terry's missed drug test.
Unlike the Rio Ferdinand case Ethan remembered from his previous life, which dragged on for months, both the FA and New Manchester United wanted this matter resolved as quickly as possible.
Before the hearing, Ethan gave a media interview in which he made the club's position clear.
New Manchester United believed Terry was innocent of deliberately avoiding the test.
What happened had been the result of a series of unfortunate coincidences and communication failures.
Ethan also stressed that the club respected the integrity of UK Sport's anti-doping procedures.
Terry himself strongly opposed doping.
But he should not be made an innocent victim simply because the circumstances looked suspicious.
To help Terry, Ethan used every connection available to him.
He defended the player publicly.
The club released evidence through the media.
Supporters also began gathering information and doing whatever they could to help prove Terry had not deliberately missed the test.
At the hearing, Terry was the first to acknowledge his own mistake.
He had been suffering from a fever that morning and felt lightheaded.
Because of that, he had not returned to the dressing room after training and had never learned that he had been selected for testing.
The sports-science department had given him permission to leave Newton Heath because there was concern that he might pass the illness to other players.
He later went to a hospital near his home for treatment and fell into a deep sleep.
The attending doctor and several nurses were brought to London to testify and confirmed his account.
Ethan had also asked Vodafone to provide Terry's phone records from the relevant period.
Those records showed that his phone had remained switched on throughout the entire incident.
There had been no outgoing calls.
No contact with club staff.
No suspicious communication of any kind.
That evidence was consistent with the testimony from the hospital staff, further supporting Terry's claim that he had simply been asleep and unaware of what was happening.
After more than two hours of testimony, the evidence strongly indicated that Terry had not deliberately avoided the drug test.
But one fact remained unchanged.
He had missed it.
And because Terry was an England international, the case had attracted enormous public attention.
The disciplinary panel also had to consider the wider implications of its decision.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter had personally taken an interest in the case and reportedly wanted the FA to send a strong message about anti-doping enforcement.
The British media were also watching closely.
The authorities could not simply dismiss the incident.
If the punishment was seen as too lenient, it could undermine future testing procedures.
Why would players take mandatory tests seriously if missing one carried no meaningful consequences?
Ethan had already spoken with Mark Palios before the hearing.
His position was firm.
A long suspension was unacceptable.
A two-year worldwide ban was completely out of the question.
Terry had not deliberately avoided the test and should not be punished as though he had.
"Why should my player carry the entire burden of FIFA's anti-doping campaign, the authority of the testing system, and the public pressure surrounding this case?"
Palios had no easy answer.
But that did not mean the FA could simply let Terry walk away without punishment.
After several hours of deliberation, the panel finally reached its decision.
John Terry had missed the drug test through negligence.
The failure had not been deliberate.
Even so, the offence was serious enough to warrant punishment.
Terry received a three-month suspension and a £50,000 fine.
The suspension applied to all domestic football in England.
It did not apply to European competition.
That final distinction had been something Ethan fought hard to secure.
At one point, he lost his temper during discussions with the FA and made it clear that if they refused to compromise, New Manchester United would appeal every possible stage of the process.
That would drag the case out publicly and create an embarrassment for everyone involved.
Given the club's good relationship with the FA, a compromise was eventually reached.
The proposed five-month suspension was reduced to three months.
The scope of the ban was also narrowed to domestic football.
The fine increased.
Ethan did not care about that.
Money was the least important part of the punishment.
The decision meant Terry would miss Premier League, League Cup, FA Cup, and England matches for the next three months.
He would, however, remain eligible to represent New Manchester United in the UEFA Cup.
Considering the alternatives, it was the best outcome the club could realistically have hoped for.
In Ethan's previous life, Rio Ferdinand had received an eight-month suspension over a missed drugs test.
This time, the evidence supporting Terry was much stronger.
Even much of the media accepted that the player had been guilty of carelessness rather than deliberate evasion.
It was still a harsh lesson.
But that was the reality of top-level football.
Immediately after the verdict was announced, New Manchester United held a press conference.
The club confirmed that it would not appeal the FA's decision.
The punishment would be accepted.
At the same time, the club made it clear that Terry remained an important member of the squad and that everyone at Newton Heath looked forward to his return.
When Mourinho faced the media, he looked visibly frustrated.
He still believed Terry should not have been punished so severely.
But the decision had been made.
Football moved on.
Mourinho said the squad would have to work together during Terry's absence and make sure the team remained in touch with the leaders over the next three months.
...
Terry's suspension created a serious tactical problem.
Mourinho now had to decide who would replace him in domestic matches.
The most obvious candidate was Vidić.
Chiellini had performed well since being moved into central defence, but he was still very young.
Inconsistency was natural at that age.
Centre-back was too important a position for Mourinho to hand over permanently without hesitation.
Kolo Touré was another possibility.
But Mourinho increasingly preferred using him at right-back.
Maicon had performed well and was capable of filling that role, but New Manchester United were competing on several fronts.
Relying on Maicon alone would leave the squad too thin.
That made Vidić the most logical solution.
The Serbian was occasionally too aggressive and could rush into challenges, but overall, his profile suited what Mourinho needed.
The bigger adjustment involved Curtis.
With Terry unavailable, the roles of the centre-back pairing had to change.
Vidić would become the more aggressive defender, stepping forward to challenge strikers and attack the first ball.
Curtis would drop slightly deeper and take more responsibility for organising the defensive line.
That change meant Mourinho spent the following training sessions examining every mistake the pair made.
Again and again, he stopped drills.
Again and again, he shouted corrections.
Nobody at Newton Heath misunderstood what that meant.
Being criticised relentlessly by Mourinho usually meant he expected more from you.
The players had long since become accustomed to his intensity.
Curtis and Vidić responded by becoming even more focused.
Vidić in particular saw Terry's suspension as an opportunity.
He wanted to prove that he was capable of becoming a regular starter.
...
After the players returned from international duty, Mourinho placed heavy emphasis on recovery.
The senior players in particular had endured demanding schedules.
And with another run of two matches per week approaching, rotation became essential.
For the second leg of the UEFA Cup first round, Mourinho rested most of his regular starters.
Ishmael started at centre-forward.
Ribéry played on the left.
Lionel Messi started on the right.
Cesc Fàbregas was given responsibility in central midfield.
Behind him, Mourinho selected Yaya Touré and De Rossi as the deeper midfield pair, giving Cesc freedom and protection.
Across the back were Philipp Lahm, Terry, Chiellini, and Maicon.
Almunia started in goal.
New Manchester United had already won the first leg by a huge margin.
Qualification was effectively secure.
Nobody was surprised that Mourinho chose to give so many young players an opportunity, especially with APOEL far from being one of Europe's stronger sides and the return leg being played at home.
What did surprise people was just how young some of those players were.
Ishmael.
Messi.
Fàbregas.
All three had been born in 1987.
Messi was the youngest of them and had already become the youngest starter in New Manchester United's history.
John Obi Mikel, another teenager, was on the bench.
Several of the youngsters had already appeared for the first team.
Most of those appearances, however, had come as substitutes.
Their regular football still came with the reserves.
Ishmael and Messi had been outstanding there.
Fàbregas had also impressed enormously.
Against APOEL, Mourinho gave Cesc a particularly important responsibility.
He was asked to organise the midfield and control the transition from defence into attack.
By the end of the match, the attention surrounding New Manchester United's academy had grown even louder.
Fàbregas looked exceptionally composed.
His distribution was excellent.
His organisation of midfield was mature beyond his age.
And he repeatedly made intelligent late runs into attacking positions.
His passing had a distinctive quality as well.
In the first half, he produced a perfectly weighted through ball that split APOEL's defence and released Messi.
Messi timed his run perfectly, stayed onside, went through one-on-one, and finished brilliantly.
Cesc also struck an excellent long-range effort in the second half, although it narrowly missed the target.
Messi scored twice.
He also provided an assist for Ishmael.
That made him the outstanding player of the match.
Ishmael was dangerous throughout.
Several times, he received with his back to goal, turned sharply, and shot with real power.
Only excellent reactions from the APOEL goalkeeper denied him what could easily have become a hat-trick.
New Manchester United won 4-0.
Messi scored twice.
Ribéry and Ishmael added the other two.
Once again, the quality of the club's young players attracted attention across Europe.
On paper, it had only been a relatively minor UEFA Cup tie.
But the performances of the teenagers were impossible to ignore.
Messi.
Fàbregas.
Ribéry.
Ishmael.
Even Mikel, who later came on for De Rossi, showed obvious quality.
And those were only the players involved that night.
Curtis, already established in the first team, was another product of the same system.
Somebody in the media did the calculation.
New Manchester United had twenty-six players listed in the first-team squad that season.
If Redondo, who was effectively nearing the end of his playing career, was excluded, nine of the remaining twenty-five had come through the club's own academy.
And that did not include players recruited at a young age and developed extensively at Newton Heath, such as Čech, the Touré brothers, and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The descriptions became increasingly extravagant.
A cradle of footballing talent.
A finishing school for future stars.
One newspaper even called Newton Heath the West Point of European football.
Inside the club, however, the reaction was far calmer.
Mourinho refused to praise any individual excessively after the match.
The victory belonged to the team.
Not Messi.
Not Fàbregas.
Not Ishmael.
Not anyone else.
When the squad returned to Newton Heath, Mourinho did acknowledge that the youngsters had played very well.
Then he immediately began pointing out their mistakes.
The biggest problem had come after New Manchester United established a large lead.
Concentration dropped.
Passing became more casual.
Players began taking unnecessary risks.
Mourinho hated that.
The players were young.
Mistakes were expected.
But they still had to learn.
Praise could encourage them.
Too much praise could also make them careless.
Mourinho wanted every youngster at Newton Heath to understand the same thing.
Their potential might be enormous.
Their futures might be bright.
But a place in the first team still had to be earned.
Every day.
...
After completing the UEFA Cup first round, New Manchester United travelled to London to face Fulham.
Fulham were difficult opponents.
Their performances had fluctuated badly throughout the season.
At home, however, they were dangerous.
Coleman's strategy was straightforward.
Fulham would concentrate on taking as many points as possible at Craven Cottage.
Away from home, expectations were lower.
Against New Manchester United, that approach almost worked perfectly.
Fulham attacked aggressively from the opening whistle.
The intensity caught Mourinho's players by surprise.
For much of the first half, New Manchester United looked unsettled.
Fulham scored first.
At half-time, Mourinho made sure his players understood exactly how unhappy he was.
The response after the break was immediate.
New Manchester United played with far greater urgency.
Their movement sharpened.
Their pressing improved.
And their determination returned.
The equaliser came through Beckham.
From deep midfield, he struck one of his trademark diagonal passes into space.
Palacio accelerated onto it during the counter-attack and finished.
1-1.
Then Kaká and Beckham combined through the centre.
A quick exchange released Kaká into space.
The Brazilian drove forward and unleashed a powerful shot from distance.
Goal.
1-2.
New Manchester United had turned the match around.
And they were not finished.
By the 87th minute, the pressure still had not eased.
Cristiano Ronaldo received the ball on the left.
He accelerated past one defender.
Then another.
Then a third.
Three consecutive bursts of pace carried him into the penalty area.
Cristiano kept his composure and slid the ball past the goalkeeper.
1-3.
The comeback was complete.
Elsewhere, Chelsea lost 2-1 away to Arsenal.
Manchester United beat Leeds United 1-0 on the road.
Those results pushed New Manchester United back into the top three.
They were now third in the Premier League.
But there was no time to enjoy it.
Their next match was the postponed fixture from the third round.
Away to Manchester United.
Old Trafford.
The Red Devil Derby.
Again.
(To be continued.)
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Overlord: Max-Level Assassin
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