In the 38th minute, the inevitable happened. Big Dave rolled the ball out to Jamie, just as we'd practiced. Jamie took a touch, looked up, and tried to play an ambitious pass through the lines to JJ.

But Hyde's defensive midfielder, a cynical veteran who'd been watching Jamie all game, read it perfectly. He intercepted, drove forward, and played a quick one-two with Whitmore. Jamie, caught out of position, tried to recover but was too slow. Whitmore brushed past him, drove into the box, and smashed the ball past Big Dave. 1-0.

The home fans erupted. Our away end fell silent. I felt the air leave my lungs.

Jamie stood in the center circle, hands on his knees, head bowed. I looked at the stands. Mark Crossley had his head in his hands. He knew.

He knew that if he'd been on the pitch, that goal wouldn't have happened. He would have read the danger, stepped in, and cleared the ball. But he wasn't on the pitch. He was in the stands, watching a seventeen-year-old kid struggle with a burden he should never have had to carry.

Big Dave walked over to Jamie, said something I couldn't hear. Jamie nodded, but I could see his confidence was shattered. Our captain tried to rally the defense, but the damage was done. The goal had confirmed Hyde's belief that they could exploit us. And it had confirmed our players' fear that the formation didn't work.

My phone buzzed. Emma: "Salford still 0-0. One goal and we're champions. Don't give up."

Don't give up. Easy to say from the stands. Down here, watching my tactical masterplan collapse in real-time, it felt impossible.

The final seven minutes felt like an eternity. Kev tried to rally the team. "Come on! Forty-five minutes! We can still do this!" But his voice sounded hollow, desperate. Even he didn't believe it. Hyde sensed blood.

They pressed higher, played more direct, went for the kill. In the 42nd minute, Whitmore had another chance, a free header from a corner that Big Dave somehow clawed away. In the 44th minute, their winger cut inside and curled a shot that hit the post. We were hanging on by our fingernails.

I looked at the away end again. Mark Crossley was standing, arms folded, watching with the intensity of a man who desperately wanted to be on the pitch. Our fans around him were silent, stunned. They had travelled so far, believed so much. And we were letting them down.

When the halftime whistle finally blew, I walked toward the tunnel with my head bowed. I could hear scattered boos from our own fans. They had believed in me, trusted me, and I was failing them.

As I passed the opposition dugout, Colin Briggs caught my eye. He didn't gloat, didn't smirk. He just gave me a small, almost sympathetic nod. The nod of one manager to another. The nod that said: You tried something brave. It didn't work. It happens.

But it wasn't supposed to happen. Not today. Not in the biggest game of our lives.

As I walked down the tunnel, I passed the away section. Mark Crossley was standing at the barrier, watching me. Our eyes met. He mouthed something I couldn't quite make out. Maybe "Sorry." Maybe "You can do this." I didn't know. I just nodded and kept walking.

In the dressing room, the atmosphere was funereal. Players sat in silence, heads in hands, faces masks of despair. They weren't just losing a football match; they were losing their dream.

Jamie sat in the corner, face buried in his hands, body shaking with silent sobs. Big Dave sat next to him, hand on his shoulder, saying nothing. Baz stared at the floor. Kev punched his locker, then immediately regretted it, shaking his hand in pain. JJ looked at me, his eyes asking a question I couldn't answer: What now?

I stood in front of them, my mind blank. My imposter syndrome, that constant unwelcome companion, was now a roaring monster. I was a fraud. A convenience store worker who'd gotten lucky with a magical system and had now spectacularly, publicly blown it.

Frankie Morrison stood beside me, waiting for me to speak. But I had nothing. No tactical adjustment. No inspirational speech. No magic solution. I had gambled everything on a formation that didn't work, on a kid who wasn't ready, on my own arrogance.

"Gaffer," Frankie said quietly. "You need to say something."

I looked at him, then at the players. At Jamie, broken in the corner. At Big Dave, our captain, waiting for leadership. At JJ, Kev, Baz, Tommo all of them looking to me for answers I didn't have.

My phone buzzed. Emma: "Salford still 0-0, halftime. You're 45 minutes from the title. Don't you dare give up on them."

I read her message twice. Forty-five minutes. One half of football. We were one goal down, but Salford hadn't scored either. If we could find a way any way to turn this around, the dream was still alive.

But how? The formation was chaos. Jamie was traumatized. The players didn't understand what I was asking them to do. I had created this disaster. How could I possibly fix it?

I looked at the tactics board on the wall, at the magnets representing our players in the 3-4-3 Diamond formation. And then I looked at Jamie, still crying in the corner, and I felt a wave of shame so powerful it nearly knocked me over.

I had done this to him. I had thrown a seventeen-year-old kid into the deep end of the most important match of his life, in a role he'd learned in two days, and I had watched him drown. What kind of manager does that? What kind of person does that?

The silence in the dressing room was suffocating. The players were waiting. Frankie was waiting. The clock was ticking. In ten minutes, we'd have to go back out there and face the second half. Face the end of our dream. Face the consequences of my arrogance.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. I had nothing. I was a manager who had lost control, who had lost his team, who had lost everything. We were forty-five minutes from the end of our season, from the end of our dream, from the end of everything.

And I had no idea what to do.

***

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