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Sea-foam green, Arne Slot knew, was a colour right in the middle of green and blue. It was soothing like blue yet as lively as green. It was the oceans and the earth; it was the planet if the planet decided to unite itself as one.
Most of all, sea-foam green was the colour of change. And this summer, Slot knew, would have the most drastic change that the Merseyside has seen in nine years.
He'd heard of Kirkby, of course. One of the brightest young players in the Dutch league had moved there in 2022, and an ex-Liverpudlian had moved to Ajax that January. Yet, Slot had never been to England, and he'd never known anything about Kirkby other than that it had been constructed very recently, with the previous coaching staff having a big say in the design.
Slot usually considered himself a very easygoing person. He went with the flow and would only intervene if something was wrong. Yet, as he, Sipke Hulshoff, and Ruben Peeters walked up the driveway towards the Kirkby doors, he felt a spark of anxiety growing within him. Questions that had brewed since he'd gotten that fateful call six weeks ago swirled in his mind.
What will I do?
These are giant shoes to fill. What if I’m not enough?
What if the players hate me?
The last one especially gave Slot a headache. Slot had watched Klopp's farewell ceremony in an attempt to gauge the emotional state of his new squad. Klopp had encouraged the players and fans to embrace the coming changes and welcome them warmly, but Slot had seen how pained the players were to bid farewell to most of the staff. The Liverpudlians loved Klopp like a father, and a father figure was always hard to measure against, let alone act in lieu of.
"Well, well, well, look what we have here! Arend Slot, overthinking!" Hulshoff elbowed Slot, then laid his arm around his shoulders. Hulshoff's bright blue eyes sparkled in the July sunlight, and the slight breeze caught the ends of his short, blonde hair. "You excited?"
“Or…” Peeters grinned, leaning against a streetlamp and nearly falling over. “Are you ready for it?!”
Hulshoff stared at Peeters, unamused at the lame pun. “The Eras Tour concert was almost three weeks ago.”
“And I still feel the fever!” Peeters turned towards Slot. “So, are you and your bald head ready for England?”
“Uh, nope.” Slot shook his head, briefly smiling at the wildflowers dotting the front lawn like craft pompoms. “I’ve been looking forward to this for ages, but I don’t know how to present myself. I mean, if the players see me being unsure and reserved, they might feel that way. But if they see me all confident as if nothing ever happened…”
“Then they might think you’re replacing everyone that left.” Hulshoff nodded in understanding, pulling Slot closer to him. “Just be yourself, Arne. It’s easier to adjust yourself than a false personality you put up to please everyone. That means no wig and Freddie Mercury moustache!”
“Oh, I don’t even want to know about that.” Milner appeared out of nowhere, an ominous lightning bolt accompanying his entrance. Slot knew about Milner, of course, but he hadn’t expected him to be at Kirkby on his first day. “Okay, which one of you is who? I know Bald Guy is Slot, but which one is Hulshoff and which one’s Pete—no, I meant Parson—ARGH! You can be Blue Jon Bon Jovi WHALE for all I care, I don’t have all day!”
So THAT’s why he’s SarcasticMilner in the group chats. Slot extended his hand to shake Milner’s. “The blonde one’s Sipke, and the…other blonde one is Ruben, but we just call him Rubes.”
“How specific. I’ll remember him as the one who looks like Hendo.” Milner opened the Kirkby doors, shooing them inside. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s start the tour!”
Slot stepped through the glass door and looked around. The foyer went on for about six metres before it diverged into two paths: a large hall and a staircase. There was a window on the ceiling that let the sunlight in, and another door led from the foyer to somewhere else. When he turned around and looked up, he saw a line of trophies upon podiums placed near a window on the second floor.
“You put your trophies near a window?” Peeters squawked, his eyes wide. “But what about thieves?”
Hulshoff burst into laughter, while Slot pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered why he’d brought Peeters along instead of somebody with more brain mass.
“They’re replicas, you moron. The actual trophies are stored somewhere else.” Milner pointed to the staircase, then to the hall. “The staircase leads to the second floor, as I hope you guessed. I would say beware of tripping down the stairs, but Klopp only did that because he had the balance of an oiled whale on an ice-skating rink. That thing is the hall, and it leads to the cafeteria and outside. Pick your poison, witch hazels.”
Slot tried not to chuckle at the thought of an actual oiled whale on an ice-skating rink. For some reason, it had the head of Nathan Chen, but he wasn’t going to say that on his first day. “The stairs, I guess. I want to know where I’ll sleep.”
Peeters gasped. “We’ll sleep here?!”
Hulshoff rolled his eyes, swatting Peeters on the back of the head. “You’d have known that if you read the map.”
*
Milner led Slot, Peeters, and Hulshoff through the halls of the first floor. As they passed the individual bedrooms, he pointed them out and discussed them in brief, sarcastic detail.
“This one here in the corner is the gaffer’s suite. Kloppo almost never slept in it, so feel free to personalise to your heart’s desire. The crazy Scottish gremlin who loves cookies is Robbo, he’s the third-captain and he sleeps with Trentski. It’s not like that, I swear. Trentski’s the vice-captain and original team baby and we all love him. If you hurt him, we will all punch you. Kostas and Thiago share a room, too, only they are a couple, so stay out when the door is locked. Trust me, it’ll save you a lot of headaches. That big room there belongs to Cody, Ryan, and Virgil, but Jarell goes there sometimes. Let’s see, who else? Ali and Marcinho share a room…Darwin, Lexi, and Lucho share a room…there’s Stefan and Curtis, Harvey and Fabio, Wataru and Ibra, they all share rooms. Diogo sleeps by himself for personal space reasons, Caoimh is by himself now that Adrian's leaving, Mo sleeps by himself because he ‘needs his yoga room and personal sauna’, I have no idea where the heck Sepp is going to sleep and I don’t care, Joe and Nat share a room, Domi sleeps by himself because he’s a miserable worm, Rhys sleeps in the pool, and all the youngsters sleep in one big room.”
Milner stopped in the middle of the hall, facing the three. “What else do you want to know?”
Slot’s brain was in overdrive just from hearing all that information. Why do so many people share a room when there are rooms that have only one person? There’s nobody called Marcinho on the roster. Why does Mo have a sauna in his bedroom, and WHY does Rhys sleep in the pool?!
Peeters spoke first. “Who’s straight here and who’s not?”
Hulshoff laughed. Slot facepalmed, because, of course, Peeters had to choose the worst way to ask that question.
Thankfully, Milner didn’t seem too bothered by that. “They’ll all tell you in their own time. Kostas and Thiago are an engaged couple, Alexis has a boyfriend who plays in London, and Domi and Trent are on and off. The general bet around here is that Conor and Jarell will be together by December, while White Shadow and Black Light have some interesting tension between them that can be interpreted in multiple ways.”
They walked towards the cafeteria. Sepp van de Berg, Carvalho, Quansah, and Bradley were eating breakfast, but then they all spotted Slot walking into the room. Van den Berg dropped everything and ran to the door, pouncing onto Slot like a baby tiger.
“You’re bald. You’re tall. Your eyes are grey, what sneakers are you wearing? Your head is very shiny and round like an egg—”
“Get off him.” Milner dragged Van den Berg off Slot. “Let’s restart introductions, and this time in a manner that displays that we are a civilised institution.”
Slot felt a finger tap his shoulder. It was Kelleher, who extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Caoimh.”
“What’s with all this hand-shaking?” Slot pulled Kelleher into a hug. “I thought you guys usually hugged around here.”
“We—we do,” Kelleher stuttered, surprised by the hug. “I just thought that maybe you’d want to do things…differently than the boss did.”
“Uh, Caoimh…” Van den Berg whispered. “Slot is the boss now.”
Kelleher pouted at the Dutchman. “You know what I meant.”
Quansah introduced himself in a similar way to Kelleher, and Carvalho shyly mumbled a hello before going directly for the hug. Bradley, however, stayed at the table, trying to keep his head down.
Hulshoff stopped ruffling Carvalho’s hair and glanced towards the table. "Who's that?"
"Oh, that's Conor. He's the greatest." Quansah grinned as if he were dreaming before his expression fell. “He's not had an easy time of things in the past few months. Today’s not been a good day for him so far, so...go easy on him, okay?”
Peeters raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Did he drop his favourite mug or something? We can get him a new one!"
Slot didn't even stick around to hear Hulshoff chuckle at the Belgian's antics. He made his way over to the table, gently tapping it to get Bradley's attention. Bradley looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and weary, but he stiffened at the sight of Slot, sitting up straight and extending his hand.
"Welcome, I'm Conor."
"Milner and Jarell told me about you." Slot shook Bradley's hand, ruffling his ginger-brown hair. He made a mental note to privately converse with Bradley later. "And you play..."
"Right-back. Well, at least when Trev's not playing there." Bradley smiled, although it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm guessing Milly gave you the tour?"
"It was...definitely something." Slot looked around the building, noticing how quiet it was. "I thought there were more people here."
"Yeah, everybody's either busy or on vacation now," Kelleher supplied, sitting at the table again. "The only staff members here now are the Nemmers and the Powers, and all the players above 25 are busy except Kostas and I."
Milner nodded, sitting next to Kelleher. "Mona Nemmer is the team nutritionist, and Jonathan Power is the head doctor. Their families live here with them."
Slot nodded thoughtfully, absorbing the information. "Sounds like I'll have a lot of introductions to make," he said with a small smile.
"Oh, you will!" Elliott popped out of nowhere, grabbing a roll from Kelleher's plate and noisily munching it. "You'll meet Mo and Robbo, and there's Virgil and Waru and Ibou and Diogo and Darwin and Lucho and Ali and--"
"We get it, motormouth. Did you inherit that from Robbo or something?" Milner swatted Elliott on the back of his head, turning to Slot. "That's Harvey, by the way. He causes ten per cent of all the noise here."
"--and Joey G and Lexi and Trent! And Eder comes here sometimes, and Bobby comes back to visit, and Adam and Flaco and Naby-lad and Ox and Masterius Phi and Lijnders..."
The other youngsters groaned in dismay. "Harvey, be quiet!"
As the players talked, Hulshoff quietly sat next to Slot, flashing him a smile. "So, do you feel better now?"
"I think it's too early to tell." Slot winced as Elliott screamed for absolutely no reason for the millionth time. "But remind me to buy some earmuffs for the office."