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Football glossary: Inverting the Pyramid. The seminal tactics book by Jonathan Wilson, in which he tracks the evolution of football formations from the pyramid-shaped 2-3-5 to the modern 5-3-2. Which is also a pyramid, but, you know... inverted. It's the first book Coach Beard reads in Ted Lasso.

***

I was tempted to get stuck in straight away, to start giving orders, start fixing things. Old Max would have done just that. But this tournament was the team's big day out, and the team had a manager, and some of the people in the stands were parents of these players. If I was going to make a big mess, I wanted to do it thoughtfully. New Max. Still a bull in a china shop, but now with front and rear collision detectors, and third-party insurance.

I did a slow lap of the pitch, checking that my tactical plan would work. By the first corner, I was convinced it would. By the second, I was thinking of the consequences of diving in. As I turned the last corner, I knew what to do.

I went back to the bench and spoke to the red team's actual coach. "Alex, I love your formation."

"You do?"

"Yeah. 3-2-1. Very solid. You've got that guy Darnell up front, and he's really good. He's so good you can put an extra body in defence."

That made Alex happy. He very nearly made eye contact with me. "That was what I thought."

I picked up his notes and scanned them. "How are you doing? In the tournament?"

"If we win this, we go top of our group. Group A. First plays first in Group B to decide the overall winner."

"But the most important thing is to improve the players, right? Let them progress along their pathways. Right?"

"Yes, but you do that by winning the tournament. Scouts pay attention to the winners. The winners get more chances."

I took a few breaths. I was a tiny bit impatient - I wanted to get started on my project. I had my emotions under control, though. If Alex didn't want to work with me, I'd wait until he went to pee and then hijack his team. Something like that. The fact I had to wait to get what I wanted was actually making me more excited about the moment when it would happen. I smiled. "Normally you'd be right." I tapped on my phone, and brought up the Team page on the Chester website. Whoever ran the site had finally put my photo there. It wasn't very flattering. "That's me. I'm the Director of Football for Chester Football Club. My friend here is Henri Lyons. Star striker. Oh! And I'm the reigning Player of the Month in the National League North. No big deal. Just saying. So, look. I'm very interested in Dani. She's got the potential to be an absolute star, but she's not in the right place on the pitch to show that."

"She's a midfielder," he said. He was impressive, actually, this Alex guy. He knew his players and he put them in logical positions while having a clear overall playing style. We watched as Dani competed for a pass over on the right of midfield, where she should have been bossing the game. Her opponent was twice her size, a really huge kid with Bravery 20 who rampaged all over the place, heedless of the danger to himself or others. He barged through her and she ended up on the floor, rubbing her shin.

"That guy," I said, annoyed. "He's reckless."

"He injured one of our players. He's in the medical room, now, with his friend. I hope they come back for the second half."

"Yeah." I steamed at the bull for a minute, then returned to the topic. "You're right, of course," I said. "She's a natural midfielder. But right now she's lost. What I'd like to do is move her, give her some tips, get her into the game."

"Move her?"

"Yes. Just a tiny tweak."

"But I'm the manager."

"Alex, mate. You are the manager. You are the manager. But I'm the scout. I'm the Director of Football. I'm the pathway. Your job is to make the players impress me. Imagine a pyramid with this match at the bottom, and players who do well move up to the next level and then the next and the next and if they’re really good and really lucky, they get to meet me. Yeah? But I’m here. I’ve flipped the pyramid."

"You're her pathway?" He blinked a few times. "You want to take her to the Chester Knights? That doesn't make sense. We are much better."

I gave him a friendly pat on the back. "Confidence. Love it. No. I don't want her for the Knights. I want her to play for the Chester Boudicas."

"Max," complained Henri.

"The name is TBC," I admitted. "Chester Women is a bit dry, isn't it? I want a legendary name like the Doncaster Belles. I'm going to let the players decide. I think. Point is, Alex, I'm pretty sure Dani will be our first female professional. I want to pay her hundreds and hundreds of pounds to play football. Think what that would do to your intake!"

I was making lots of good points, but Alex wouldn't hand over the keys to his kingdom so easily. Neither would I, if the roles were reversed. Plus he had to consider the six other players. "What change?"

"Excuse me?"

"What change do you want to make? Tell me and I'll decide."

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my mouth. "The thing is, I do this thing where I get everybody hyped up. I'm great at half-time team talks. What I'll do, yeah, what I'll do is I'll give the team talk, get them all hyped, and that one tiny change I'll just sort of slip it in the middle all nice and gentle."

"Dani can't hear you," said Henri. I think he basically approved of the approach I was taking. Like me, he didn’t want to be making regular trips to Crewe to scout this girl. Two-thirds diplomat, one-third pushy salesman - it was acceptable. There was a problem though. It wasn’t working.

I clicked my fingers. "Right. Hey, when's half-time?"

Alex glanced up at a massive timer on the far wall. "One minute twenty seconds."

"Alex, can you help? Henri has a massive whiteboard in his car. It's incredible. Could you help him bring it in? Then I can sort of show Dani what I want. And tell you what, you can keep the whiteboard for the rest of the day. That's fair, isn't it?"

He frowned. "How big is it?"

"Big! And it comes with three colours of magnet."

"Max," said Henri. "Just to check. You want me to take Alex out to my car. To get the big whiteboard?"

"Yes, please. You'll be back before half-time, Alex. The car's right outside, if I remember right. Oh! And you can check on your injured player. You want to check on your injured player, don't you?"

Henri didn't like that last part. His head flicked up and I saw his lips moving quickly.

There was a brief silence. "Don't worry, Henri. It's not that heavy. Alex will make sure you don't hit the door on your way out."

Alex, understandably confused, was on the verge of refusing, but Henri put his arm around the guy's shoulder and gushed about how kind Alex was for helping and so on and so on. Their first few steps were a bit forced - literally - but then Alex went along on autopilot.

When he was far enough away, I danced up the hard wooden steps to one of the parents. He was wearing a red baseball cap. "Can I borrow that please? It's important. Give it back in five minutes. Thanks!"

Wearing a red cap with a badge I didn't recognise, I bounced on the touchline hoping Henri would distract Alex for long enough, and willing the half-time counter to hit zero.

When it did, I wouldn't have much time.

***

While I bounced, burning some of my manic energy, I checked the player profile that had made all this happen.

Dani Smith-Smithe