In the sixty-seventh minute, a sweeping counter-attack that started with our goalkeeper, Ryan Fletcher, ended with Semenyo, who had come on as a substitute, whipping in a vicious, inswinging cross that Connor Blake met with a thunderous, unstoppable header.

2-0.

The game was over. The final twenty minutes were a masterclass in game management, the players keeping the ball with a confidence and a maturity that belied their age.

The third goal, in the eighty-fifth minute, was the icing on the cake, another brilliant piece of individual skill from Eze, who danced past two defenders before squaring the ball for Connor to tap into an empty net, completing his hat-trick.

3-0.

At the final whistle, I didn't feel the elation I had expected. Instead, as I watched my players celebrate with the small group of travelling fans, a different emotion took hold of me. It was a deep, bone-weary relief, so profound that it brought tears to my eyes.

I turned away, not wanting anyone to see, but it was too late. Emma, who had been watching from the small, temporary stand, had seen everything. And in her eyes, I saw not pity, but a deep, unwavering understanding.

In the car on the way home, the adrenaline of the match having finally worn off, the silence between us was a heavy, unspoken thing. Emma drove, her hands steady on the wheel, her eyes occasionally flicking over to me, a silent question in their depths.

I stared out at the blur of the London streetlights, the victory feeling more like a burden than a triumph. The system's notification had been a simple, clinical confirmation of the result: "First Competitive Win - Reputation +5."

But it was the thought that followed that was eating away at me, a corrosive, insidious doubt that was poisoning the victory. I didn't win this. The system did. The players did. Did I?

My half-time speech, the words that had seemed to turn the tide, had they been mine?

Or had they been a calculated, system-driven response to a critical drop in squad morale?

Was I a manager, or was I just a puppet, my strings being pulled by an invisible, omniscient force?

The doubt was a cancer, and I could feel it metastasizing, spreading through me, threatening to consume everything I had built. I couldn't hold it in any longer. The words came out in a choked, broken whisper. "I don't know if I'm good enough, Em."

She didn't say anything at first, just reached over and took my hand, her touch a small, warm anchor in the swirling chaos of my thoughts.

"You are," she said finally, her voice soft but firm, infused with a certainty that I was a million miles from feeling.

"You are good enough, Danny. But you need to believe it." I wanted to.

God, I wanted to. But as I looked at my reflection in the darkened car window, at the face of a man who was a stranger to himself, I didn't know how. Just as I was about to spiral further into the abyss of my self-doubt, my phone buzzed, a text message from Gary lighting up the screen.

My heart sank. It was never good news. I opened it, my hands trembling slightly. "Tyler Webb cleared. Back Monday. Need to talk about squad selection." The words hit me like a physical blow. Tyler. Of course.

In the euphoria of the win, I had forgotten. Tyler Webb, our best defender, was coming back. And his return meant that someone, someone who had fought and bled for the team today, was about to lose their spot.

The relief of the victory was gone, replaced by a familiar, sickening dread. The weight of expectations had been lifted, only to be replaced by the weight of an impossible choice. The game, it seemed, was determined to never let me rest. The win over Fulham was already a distant memory. A new, more painful battle was just beginning.

My mind, a relentless engine of anxiety, was already playing out a thousand different scenarios, a thousand different ways this could all go wrong. What if Fulham had scouted us? What if they knew about our press, about Eze's tendency to drift, about Connor's reliance on his right foot?

The system gave me probabilities, percentages, and a cold, hard statistical analysis of the future. But it couldn't account for the human element, for the unpredictable, chaotic nature of the game itself.

It couldn't account for a lucky bounce, a bad refereeing decision, a moment of individual brilliance or a catastrophic individual error. It was a safety net full of holes, and I was walking a tightrope a thousand feet in the air.

The run was usually a release, a way to burn off the nervous energy, to find a semblance of clarity in the physical exertion. But today, every step was a reminder of the stakes, every beat of my heart a drum counting down to kick-off. I was running, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I was just moving in circles, trapped in the labyrinth of my own fear.

The pre-match tension was a physical thing, a palpable force that seemed to suck the air out of the room. The usual boisterous energy of the dressing room was gone, replaced by a heavy, nervous silence.

The players, usually so full of life, so quick with a joke or a sarcastic comment, were quiet, withdrawn, lost in their own private worlds of hope and fear. They were just kids, I reminded myself, eighteen-year-old boys on the cusp of their adult lives, carrying the weight of their own dreams and the expectations of their families on their young shoulders.

And I, their manager, their leader, was failing them. My own fear was a poison, and I had let it seep into the atmosphere, contaminating the very air they were breathing. When Sarah spoke, her voice a quiet, steady presence in the storm of my self-doubt, it was like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.

Her words, simple and direct, cut through the noise in my head, reminding me of the fundamental truth of leadership. It wasn't about being fearless. It was about acting in spite of the fear. It was about projecting a strength you didn't feel, a confidence you didn't possess, for the sake of those who were looking to you for guidance.

It was a performance, a lie, but it was a necessary one. And as I stood before them, my heart still hammering against my ribs, I found a new voice, a new strength, born not of a genuine belief in myself, but of a desperate, all-consuming love for them.

I would be the leader they needed me to be, even if it was a mask, even if it was a lie. Because they deserved nothing less.

***

Thank you to WolfInBlue for 50 Golden Tickets.

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