Van Rental stepped through the door of the manager's office. The room had not been used for months, with dust and cobwebs everywhere. On the wall were a couple of pictures. The first was a team shot of the victorious Amsterdam Brutez cup winning side, a reminder of past glories. Next to it was a picture of a man, with the title "Sir Nelly".
"So that must be the mystery man I spoke to," pondered Van Rental.
A dusty desk was in front of Van Rental. He opened up one of the creaking drawers. Inside was a yellow dog-eared book entitled 'Leftblank's guide to Xpert Eleven". The book look well used. Van Rental flicked through it, it was full of tactics, hints and tips, with hand written notes on certain pages. Van Rental made a mental note to stick it in the bin, as he wasn't sure how useful it would be in today's digital world of blogs and Google.
Van Rental looked up at the picture of Sir Nelly and recalled the telephone call that he had a few days ago. He had recently been sacked as manager of Ultimate League top dogs Shark Utd. Expecting a few days rest over Christmas before deciding on his future, the phone had rang. A man calling himself Sir Nelly had explained that he was a former owner of a team called the Amsterdam Brutez. The team was successful but had fallen on hard times and was deep in the depths on the Ultimate League. Sir Nelly was impressed with the work Van Rental had carried out at Shark Utd, and saw him as the man to reignite and turn around the Brutez fortunes.
Always up for a challenge Van Rental accepted the offer, and now found himself at the most rundown stadium he had every come across. The team certainly had fallen on hard times.
He made his way to the training pitch to meet the squad. 15 players were sat around, playing cards, chatting and not doing much training, apart from one keen player doing shuttle runs. Van Renal sought out the most experienced pro, Aron Viedma. Viedma was the sole survivor from the glory days and the team captain. A player who used to be good, but had been worn down by incompetence and no guidance.
"What are you all doing?" Van Rental asked, "why aren't you training, we have a game in a few hours time!"
"Training, what's that? We haven't had a manager for two months, we have no tactics and play very offensive every game because we all want to score and only won our cup game because the other team were even more useless than us".
"Who is that player out there, doing the shuttle runs?" Van Rental asked.
"That's Caples," came the reply, "he is our only decent player, best stamina in the club but he is so out of form; hasn't improved in three years but says he's worth nine million econs".
"Nine million," spluttered Van Rental, "for that rubbish"; making a mental note to put Caples on the transfer market immediately to try and sell to some newbie manager, so raise much needed funds for the rebuild he clearly needed to do.
A few hours later the team took to the field for Van Rental's first game in charge. Van Rental studied his opponents. They were bottom of the table with an even worse record than the Brutez. Looking at their team warming up, he was hopeful that even with minimal team talk his bunch of no hopers would get a win.
The game started, and the Brutez found themselves four nil up by half time. The small crowd looked stunned as goals rained in, with another veteran, striker Brauwer, scoring a hat trick. Two more goals followed in the second half, to give Van Rental an impressive seven nil victory in his opening game.
The players walked off the pitch estatic with their performance and their first win of the season. Viedma looked at Van Rental, a huge smile on his face.
"That was some start gaffer. I think the players will warm to you now they have some guidance".
Van Rental smiled back, not wanting to dampen the mood by telling Viedma that nearly all the players would be out of a job come the end of the season, once his rebuilding plans took place. But he liked Viedma, and knew that the veteran would be a key asset next season as younger players develop.
"You know the old manager, Leftblank, used to have a saying to gee up his players before games," Viedma shouts, "SAY IT LOUD I'M A BRUTE AND PROUD"..
Van Rental liked that and decided that would be his first change as manager, bringing back the team chant. He immediately felt at home, and looked forward with anticipation to the challenge that would face him in the coming seasons. He wanted the team's proud heritage to be restored. Perhaps he would take a look at that Leftblank's guide in his manager's desk after all.
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