“How do you do it?” Someone said next to me.

I was enjoying my first smoke of the day. Sitting on the balcony of my daughter’s apartment. Watching the sunrise through the other apartment buildings. It was one of the better parts of getting old. Getting up early went from absolute torture to something normal. Six o’clock in the morning and already showered and enjoying a cigarette while not feeling tired at all. Only sore from lying around all day. If teenage me could see me now.

I looked over my shoulder, hurting my neck, and saw Norma staring at the sunrise behind me. “Keeping my skin this white and tender? I pray to God each night before I go to bed and I smoked all my life. You are doing at least one of those two. So I’m not sure where those wrinkles are coming from. You should ask George. His face looks like a babes bottom.”

I sucked on my cigarette, let the smoke rest in my lungs for a little and blew it out through my nose. I could hardly contain myself from laughing at my own joke but that would ruin the magic.

“Heh, I get how Riley seems to be angry with you all the time. But why she likes you so much is beyond me. Let’s be honest here, you’re not very likable.” She said as she put a hand on my shoulder. It was a small token that at least she seemed to like me.

I put the cigarette in my mouth, rolled my wheelchair around and got it back out again.

“She likes me because I do not show her pity and we are on the same wavelength. Hates me because she is a teenager and I don’t take her crap and make fun of her. She likes you because you are a kind person. Hates you because you are replacing someone who was very important to her. She is a teenager things are black and white. Don’t worry too much, don’t do weird shit to her and stay consistent. Then, eventually, she will grow out of it.“ I said to the worried foster mom.

Norma stayed silent.

“You know, she had this whole meltdown in T.E.A.M. because I kept calling her my assistant? She stormed off, then came back, cried her eyes out while bear hugging me and then felt grossed out after I made a joke. She gave me the bird before leaving again. Teenagers are not rational people. Scarred teenagers have their own separate category.” I added.

Norma sighed. Then she pinched my shoulder and said, “At least I now know you are on the same wavelength as a thirteen-year-old girl. Explains a lot. Thanks for being here dad, stay as long as you like.” and with that, she left. Leaving me wishing she had taken something else out of all that wisdom I spewed.

I threw my cigarette over the railing of the fifteenth-floor balcony and rolled myself back towards my room. Banging on our subjects door while shouting, “You better be in T.E.A.M. before I finish selecting our squad or you join them for a week of torture.”

I waited for a moment and heard a grumbling, whispered, almost not noticeable “Fuck off.” Before it went quiet again. Suit yourself.

I rolled into my bedroom and got onto the bed, put the helmet on and reappeared in the dressing room. It was quiet, damp and cold. Should have installed a heater, but the thing was five hundred bucks.

I decided to wait it out and go look for my key player on the midfield. The creative. The artist. The visionary. My maestro on the pitch.

I had by now gone through the pile at least three times on separate occasions so I knew there was only one good option. Audrey Palamon. An absolute gorgeous blond, with long flowing hair. A girl who thought of sideways passing as the absolute scourge of the earth. She had the absolute will to win over everyone’s heart by playing elegant and beautiful football. Or at least that was what I read on her paper. As there were no pictures delivered with the paper I had to assume she was pretty for a sixteen-year-old. Something that could distract the Meza brothers. Something to put on the list of things to beat out of them.

But photo or no photo, Audrey Palamon looked stunning on paper. They made her for the role of an advanced playmaker. Someone who roamed the field looking for gaps between enemy lines. Got the ball at the right time and passed the ball at the right time. A creator and a facilitator. She had a ten for Off the ball which was the attacking equivalent of Positioning. This meant that she knew how to walk already, felt where the opportunities were. With nine’s in Technique, Anticipation, Teamwork, Vision, Creativity and Passing she was everything I wanted her to be. That and her well rounded other attributes brought her to another three-point nine team member.

I didn’t know why, but in the hundreds, I looked through, I couldn’t find a three or above. But now I felt like Bernart wasn’t all that special. There was also no player above a four so I assumed three point nine was the max. Another point of intrigue was that almost all my players sucked balls in physical attributes. Was this because they were all young? Shouldn’t be this much of a difference right? I was leaning towards the more obvious reason. They didn’t try hard enough.

That would soon change. I laughed as I brought my arms up and hoped for thunder in the background. No such luck this time.

Done entertaining myself I put Audrey on the yes please pile. Then returned to the sheets on the ground. What did I want my strikers to do… Score goals, easy. I didn’t think we would be in front of the enemy goal all that often so they needed a decent amount in finishing. Let’s say ten. Everything else was a bonus. At the moment, of the whole group, Andrew Rubio had the highest finishing attribute. A massive four. Our keeper.

I scratched my head but couldn’t remember if the leftovers had a player with finishing above ten. Let alone two. It was weird that I could pick out Audrey but didn't remember one single attribute. Probably didn't want to remember...The thought made some sweat glistered on my forehead. The simple suggestion of needing to play anguishing goalless draws for a whole season made me weak in the knees.

I didn’t want to go through them all again. Not when I knew how easy Little human could solve it for me. At this stage, I wanted to finish more than I wanted to do it the old way. So I called Little Human and ordered, “Please bring me all the papers that have an attribute of ten or above for finishing.” Little human nodded. This time not disappearing, but walking towards the sheets on the ground and picked one up.

Thank god. At least one fucker that can score a goal. Little human picked up two more sheets before coming back and handing them over. I frowned, took them and asked, “That was very… Human-like, why not do your magic tricks again?”

It looked at me for a moment and then responded in its chiming way, “I observed that Old Bastard likes the inefficient way of doing things. Based on this, I adjusted a few parameters. You can switch these automatic adjustments off in the menu. Would you like me to switch them off for you?”

I scratched my head and shook it before mumbling, “That’s all right.” To be honest, I hadn’t heard what the computer brain was saying. I had scanned the first two papers in my hand and they were dubious and that was giving them a lot of credit.

Larry Hynkel was a striker that had a twelve in finishing. His long shots and heading were both a ten. He was fast and worked hard, with acceleration and work rate both a nine. He even had a decent leadership attribute with an eight. So far so good right? It was when I read his description that my nose wrinkled, my eyebrows creased and my smile turned into a hard line. He was a neo-Nazi. Well, it didn’t say it like that. But when your will to win comes from your will to show that whites are the superior race of the species then something was fucky. I crumpled the paper and threw it in a corner.

The next candidate, Don Vikander, thought there was no room for women and homosexuals in football. His will to win came from his dad beating the crap out of him every time he lost. I didn’t even bother to read his attributes and threw him next to Larry.

I stared at the back of the last paper. Scared to turn it around and find out what kind of weirdo I would find next.

As fast as possible I turned it around and read the name, Dogberry Edmund. Weird. Then I went to his description. Reading out loud in a low voice without noticing, “Dogberry ‘Wildman’ Edmund. Has lived big stints of his life on the streets and still sports a big unkempt beard. not a big talker and when he talks, it is in short sentences. Nobody knows where he came from, but his will to win comes from his hardships and the grand wish to never return… Jesus."

Put off guard by the description, I looked at his Attributes and sighed in relief. I had found my target man.