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His hands were shaking like a little boy’s as he held the phone to his ear. In his anxiety-induced pacing, he had somehow managed to find himself going up and down the flight of stairs in his house. They had been going at it for the past hour, no resolve in sight.
‘For the hundredth time, Pep,’ said Laporta, tiredly, ‘it’s out of the question.’
‘But you’re not listening. Look, I know I’m new and all. I know you don’t trust me—no, wait. Hear me out. I know all about the rumours circling around up there. I’m inexperienced, young. Fresh blood, or whatever. But this is my team and you have to let me do my job. It’s why you appointed me.’
‘As you said, inexperienced. You have no idea what you’re doing. You haven’t exactly got the track record to prove otherwise. I stayed out of your hair in the beginning, I gave you the reins, I let you get rid of the biggest superstars on the team; and you know why? Because you told me the exact same thing a few months ago. To trust you. Look where that has gotten us.’
‘It’s different this time,’ Pep said, hating how deflated he sounded, like he was trying to convince his parents to let him go to a house party, ‘I’m thinking long-term here.’
‘You’re not thinking anything. You’ve got a crush. You can’t expect stellar results by building a team around a kid. You can’t expect me, to move mountains for a kid.’
‘He’s not just some kid.’
‘Yeah, well I’ve heard that about every single rising star that has come out of La Masia. All of them have yet to make a mark.’
‘Just… look at his stats, watch a game. You know full well he’s not like the rest.’
‘And what, he gets treated like a princess, because he can dribble? This is Barcelona, Pep, open a history book. We have Maradona, Cruyff, Zubizarreta, we would’ve still had Ronaldinho, if it weren’t for your great master plan… you can’t put the future of the club in the hands of what might be a one-season wonder. It’s not good for anyone. Not good for him, may I add. He’ll come to expect this sort of thing,’ he paused for a second, ‘and besides, if he is so wonderful, magnificent, one-of-a-kind, et cetera, et cetera, tell me why it’s a good idea to not have him on the pitch.’
‘I told you. I’m thinking long term here,’ they were going around in circles, ‘if I keep him from going, he’s not gonna play at his best and he’s not going to warm up to me.’
‘I don’t exactly care if he warms up to you, are you even listening to yourself? You’re his manager, not his fucking boyfriend.’
‘I… I know that, that’s not what I meant. I’m convinced him going would change things. If I let him, he’s going to feel indebted, grateful. And if they win, and let’s face it, they will win, he’ll also be riding on a victory high. I’m willing to sacrifice two games.’
‘You may be, but I’m no—‘
‘Listen!’ He shouted. ‘You have to trust me.’
‘And why is that?’
He didn’t really know. The hunch was stronger than any logic. ‘Because… because Johan trusts me,’ yeah, that’ll do, ‘I know you two aren’t on the best of terms, but you can’t deny his expertise. He trusts me.’
There was a silence. There was some incoherent mumbling away from the phone. There was a sigh. Then, ‘fine.’ And Pep almost kissed the phone.
‘Oh my god, thank you, you—‘
‘But,’ Laporta interrupted, ‘this is the last time I’m doing something like this for you. It’s not just your head on the line, it’s mine too. It better work, or we’ll both be jobless come next season.’
‘I promise you, you won’t regret this.’
Laporta hummed apprehensively on the other line and then hung up. The excitement made Pep jump around like an idiot in the empty house, only stopping when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Nevertheless, the smile remained plastered on his face all the rest of the day.
He sent a text message to Leo: “Come to my house now. We need to talk.”
***
Pep thought the Argentine had perhaps made a point to be late. It wasn’t like he had given a specific hour for their meeting, but the urgency of the message suggested its immediacy. It wasn’t until almost six hours later, a few minutes after midnight, that he heard the bell ring.
He was met with a sight he should’ve expected. Leo, arms crossed in front of his chest, hair messed up, eyes burning with a cold fire. ‘What?’ He asked in a flat voice.
‘Come in, come in,’ Pep said, ushering the younger man inside the house by the shoulders quickly, almost shoving him to the living room. Leo stood awkwardly in the middle of it all. The facade was starting to crumble, and the previous cold determination of playing angry and tough was slowly melting away with the fidgeting of his hands, the hunch of his shoulders, and the refusal to meet Pep’s eyes.
Pep didn’t know how someone could look so young and so old at the same time. He was like the thousandth reincarnation of some sort of mythological hero. He could see the glimpses of the greatness every so often, of the wisdom; in the determination in his eyes, in the confidence on the pitch; but accompanying that was reluctance. Shyness. Self-doubt. Fear. The manager didn’t know where that came from, Leo had had so many important people tell him how he’s a generational talent, a prodigy, a superstar. Still so young, and already so many achievements under his belt. Yet, the little line that had engraved itself in the middle of his eyebrows showed that the Argentine thought otherwise. Sometimes Pep wondered if maybe Leo could see into the future. That he had a premonition that certain things had to go a certain way. Or perhaps, that he’d fail. That there was going to be a lot of struggle ahead.
‘You can sit,’ Pep said, finally.
‘I’m okay.’ Another silence. ‘If you called me here for a lecture, get it over with, please. I’m tired, we have training tomorrow.’
‘Oh, there’s going to be a lecture. But that’s not the reason. I talked to Laporta today.’
Leo scoffed and looked to the side. His eyes were a bit glassy. Pep continued, ‘he was completely opposed to you going to the Olympics. Said it’s a bad decision both sporting-wise and business-wise. That there was no logic behind it.’
‘Okay,’ Leo said in a tight voice, swiping a hand at his eyes, and moving towards Pep to get to the door, ‘thanks for trying, I guess.’
Pep stopped him, placing a hand on his collarbone and pushing him back into the room gently. ‘You didn’t let me finish,’ he said, ‘now, there’s going to be a few things you need to promise me. Whatever ends up happening, you come back twice as motivated. You don’t go on any suicidal solo-runs and risk getting injured. I’ll be watching to make sure of that,’ Leo was looking up at him now, wide-eyed, and so close, Pep’s breath moved the strands of hair on his forehead, ‘you’ll look over any new strategies I email you. And the second your foot steps back on Spanish soil, your heart and head will only be at Barcelona for the rest of the season. No sulking, no tantrums, no fighting. What I say, goes. You understand?’
Leo didn’t say anything, his expression still frozen. ‘I… what? What are you saying?’
Pep couldn’t hold back his grin any longer. ‘You better bring back that gold medal.’
‘I… Pep, what? How? Are they really?’
‘Yes. It only took a few hours of me screaming on the phone. Pretty sure I threw Cruyff under the bus with me as well, but…’ and he waved in dismissal, ‘that’s not important now.’
He expected Leo to thank him. He expected him to agree to all the terms enthusiastically. He expected him to run out of the house excitedly to pack his bags. He even expected him to cry.
What he didn’t expect was for the smaller man to throw his arms around Pep, and bury his face in the latter’s neck. He stood motionless for a second. Then, he hugged back.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ Leo repeated over and over. Pep laughed quietly.
‘That’s okay. You earned it.’
‘You… I… thank you!’
Before he could say that he didn’t have to thank him, that he only needed to enjoy himself and come back to him, Pep felt his chin being dragged and pulled downwards, and then three sloppy, quick kisses being planted on his cheek. Then another, for good measure. His knees felt a bit weak and his brain was short-circuiting. ‘Thank you.’ Leo said again and pulled backwards. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued quietly, his face red, ‘I’m just excited.’
‘It’s okay,’ Pep said, smiling, ‘I can see that. Now go and pack. I don’t want you missing your flight after what I had to do to get you on that plane.’
Leo’s face dropped. ‘What?’ Pep asked.
‘Nothing… just… you didn’t have to do this for me.’
‘I’m doing it for the team, Leo. I built my entire project around you, I can’t have you sulking and underperforming.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
Pep sighed. Leo was looking at the ground again. Every time he got close to him, he would slip away somehow. Maybe he had to dig his teeth in, leave some claw marks. Maybe he had to bear himself.
‘Agh, who am I kidding?’ He said finally, placing his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead, ‘of course I did it for you.’ This time, he was the one looking away. ‘And, well, it might come back to bite me in the ass, but…’ he put his hands in the air, sighing, ‘would be worth it.’
‘Why?’
Pep laughed. ‘I don’t know, because… you’re you. And I need you happy. Otherwise this whole thing won’t work.’
‘What if I don’t deliver?’ Leo asked quietly. Pep looked at him. He looked sad and small again. How could he flip the switch so quickly?
‘Of course you will.’
‘But what if I don’t?’
‘Well, then I’m kind of screwed,’ he chuckled, ‘I told Laporta that this would win us everything. You going to the Olympics.’ Leo hummed.
‘So if I come back and disappoint… you’ll be fired.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘You could lose it all.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Pep started, ‘if this is what it takes. I’m willing to lose everything so long as I can keep you.’
He heard himself say the words. He hadn’t thought about them. It wasn’t him speaking, not his conscious self, at least. It felt like all the confusion, stress, and fear that had made their home inside every atom of his body over the past few months had been balled up into one singular waft of air, and released upon utterance. He closed his eyes; he heard Leo’s slow footsteps approach him, and when he opened them again, Leo was stood directly in front of him, looking up. The Argentine embraced him once more, but this time less frantically—he didn’t squeeze him, he didn’t go up on his tip-toes to reach his neck, only rested his head on Pep’s chest and sighed, his warm breath leaving a burn mark between the fourth and fifth ribs. Pep kissed his head and stroked his hair. They stood like that for what seemed like forever and one second, simultaneously.
At the time, he’d been afraid it was going to be the last moment of vulnerability they’d ever get to share. He had begun grieving it the second it started. He hadn’t known it wouldn’t get any easier over the years. That they had been destined for these fleeting seconds, bleeding into each other’s arms, then walking away, each one licking his own wounds. He hadn’t known that these things would always happen on a proverbial cliff’s edge. Always at the start or end of something new, always bittersweet. Never with the promise of it lasting.
‘You need a haircut,’ Pep said finally, and Leo laughed. And that was the moment he knew he was screwed. That he’d be seeking that laugh everywhere, in everyone. That all the pain would be worth it, because what is the point of being here if not to get your heart broken. That he couldn’t care less if he were fired, if he’d never get a job again. That was it.
Cruyff always said that Pep would find one eventually, that every manager did. He never told him who his was, but he did insist that nothing would ever compare. That that was when you knew you’d made it as a coach. Pep felt he was too young to have made it already. He accepted it, nonetheless.
***
He was a little drunk. Okay, perhaps he was very drunk. He couldn’t worry about himself, though, his players were in a worse shape. He was very close to dragging Grealish to the toxicology, to forcing Juli to go home and rest up for the friendlies, to pulling Kevin and Phil away from the railing of the double-decker before they toppled over into the stormy blue ocean of a crowd below. Again, that feeling from years ago found him. What now?, he thought. What else is there to do?
He heard Haaland’s booming laugh as an entire bottle of champagne was being poured all over him. Pep couldn’t help but smile. He couldn’t help but think how lucky they were, and how they wouldn’t realise it until it were too late (he kind of hoped that they wouldn’t realise it—not like him, spending his entire career grieving something before it even ended. That it’d slipped away in the middle of the grief, unnoticed). His phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and his heart stopped for a second. It really did, he could swear it. He even placed his hand between the fourth and fifth ribs to check. Still burned.
He almost dropped the phone in the rush to pick up.
There was an immediate congratulatory shout from the other line, so loud and excited, that Pep had to pull his ear away from the phone.
‘Hey, fancy hearing from you. Only call for occasions nowadays?’ Pep asked.
‘Dumbass,’ Leo said, ‘I’ve been busy, you know that.’
‘Yeah. I can imagine. How are you?’
‘Oh, don’t mind me, that’s not important. You won it!’
‘Leo, of course it’s impor—‘
‘Wait! Turn your head to the left.’
‘What?’
‘Just do it.’
And Pep did, slowly. ‘Other left, dummy. There we go! I can see you on TV! Wave at me, old man!’
Pep grinned. He waved at first. Then he sent a kiss. He heard Leo groan.
‘You’re such a sap.’
‘Yeah, well…’
Somehow, despite the deafening noise around him, the only thing he could hear was Leo’s breath.
‘You won,’ he repeated, ‘how’s it feel? Mission completed?’
Pep chuckled. Always could read his mind, that little one, ‘I guess you could say that. Feels weird.’
‘Tell me about it. I know exactly what you mean. You should be happy, though! They were fantastic.’
‘They weren’t that great. We got lucky.’
‘Oh, come on, baldy. You’re such a perfectionist. I command you to hug and kiss each of them and never let them go, because you’ve got a fucking goldmine on your hands. Before you know it, you’ll be celebrating next year’s.’
‘I know, I know. Juli was great, wasn’t he?’
‘Yeah, of course he was. I taught him well.’
‘It just doesn’t feel right.’
‘What doesn’t?’
Then he tried the trick from all those years ago. He balled it all up and forced it at the back of his throat, to be expelled. ‘Because you’re not here.’
There was a silence. Then a sigh. ‘Pep…’
‘You know how I told you that time, before Beijing I think it was, that I was willing to lose everything—‘
‘Yeah, as long as you had me, or something along those lines. You don’t have to keep that promise, you know? We were both young. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.’
‘We won so many times. But my career was over by the first Champions League.’
Leo chuckled, ‘what are you on about? Did you have a bit too much to drink?’
‘That day, when I told you you were going to the Olympics. That’s where it ended. That’s when I accomplished everything. All else sort of… pales.’
Pep didn’t know what else to say. The silence wasn’t awkward. He looked at the direction of the supposed broadcasting camera again. It felt like they were holding each other.
‘Don’t get all sentimental now,’ Leo said, his voice a bit pinched, ‘go, get drunk. Drunker. Contemplate the meaning of your existence tomorrow.’
Pep laughed dryly, ‘yeah, you’re probably right. Maybe I did end up having a bit too much.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Okay,’ the manager said, waving once again, ‘you rest up too, hell of a season you’ve had.’
‘You and me both. Don’t wallow in self-pity, or I’ll have Kun beat your ass. Bye-bye.’
‘Wait! Leo…’ Pep started, ‘I love you, you know that?’
Leo chuckled, ‘of course. Love you too, Pep.’
‘More than anything.’
‘Pep, you’re doing it again. I’m calling Kun.’
‘I love you more than anything in the world. But… I must tell you something that has been bothering me.’
‘…yes?’
‘When I told you to get a haircut, I didn’t mean this. It looks horrible.’
Perhaps he had been manipulative. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to make Leo happy just for the sake of Leo being happy, he had had an ulterior motive. A selfish one.
Leo laughed.
All of Pep’s misery disappeared in an instant.
‘Let’s not start on the hairstyle subject, because you don’t stand a chance.’
‘Alright, alright,’ Pep said, ‘well, I’ll leave you now. Try to prevent my players from jumping off the bus.’
‘Yeah, you do that. Congratulations again, Pep. I always knew you’d do it. Have fun, or else…’
‘Bye, Leo.’
He hung up, and the loud ambience overwhelmed him instantly. He found Kun and asked him to get him a drink. The latter grumbled something about always celebrating with his former teams. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” They talked until the early hours of the morning, until eventually Pep passed out on someone else’s couch, Leo’s laugh ringing in his head.
Yeah, perhaps it wasn’t all over. Now he was a little older, a little wiser. Perhaps they could make it work somehow. He wasn’t going to leave it to chance this time. Even if he failed, even if his career faded into obscurity, forgotten amidst him chasing Leo all over, then it would be okay, because he was willing to lose it all. So long as he had him.