The Football Agent System

Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Win the First Trust Window I

Garcia arrived eight minutes early and stayed in the parked car until there was one minute left.

Arriving exactly on time would look rehearsed. Arriving late would give Alan Holt a reason to judge the small things before Garcia had even reached the bigger ones.

At one minute to the hour, he got out with the folder under his arm and his phone in his jacket pocket.

The house sat on a terrace street two roads back from the main road, one of those streets where every building looked almost the same until you noticed the front doors, the bins, and the small choices people made with the little space they had. Alan’s door was dark blue. The front garden had one empty pot near the path, and the recycling bin had been folded flat after collection.

Garcia checked the folder once more before he knocked.

Inside were his handwritten notes from the trial, marked and annotated rather than printed clean, along with the August 3rd trial programme and a rough two-week preparation plan. The plan ran only two pages and had no glossy formatting, because a polished brochure from a company with no clients would have looked like exactly what it was.

He knocked.

Footsteps came from inside, and the door opened.

Alan Holt looked Garcia over once, then stepped back without smiling.

"Mr. Garcia."

"Mr. Holt. Thank you for the time."

Alan let him in.

The sitting room had a sofa, two chairs, and a television that was off. Jamie sat in one of the chairs, still in trainers and a plain sweatshirt, his hands locked loosely around one knee while his eyes moved between Garcia and the folder.

Garcia sat where Alan indicated and placed the folder on the low table in front of him.

The system appeared before Alan had even sat down fully.

[SIDE MISSION GENERATED]

Mission: Win the First Trust Window.

Objective: Convince Alan Holt to allow G11 Sports Management to oversee Jamie Holt’s two-week preparation period.

Reward:

— Skill Points +1000

— All Current Stats +1 SP

— Negotiation SP +10

— Client Management SP +10

Failure Penalty: None.

Garcia took the mission in without letting it reach his face.

This is not a signing meeting. Push too hard and Alan closes the door before he opens it.

Alan sat down and looked at him.

"I checked your company and your licence."

"Right," Garcia said.

"G11 Sports Management is registered. Your agent licence is active." Alan paused. "Your name also brings up some other things."

"Yes," Garcia said. "It will."

"You want to tell me about that?"

"My exit from my last agency ended badly," Garcia said. "I lost my temper with a senior partner. No football authority sanctioned me, and my licence was never suspended, but it cost me my position, and I won’t tell you it didn’t."

Alan waited for more.

Garcia let the silence answer.

"Right," Alan said after a moment.

"I’m not going to sit here and say my last agency was the problem and I was only the victim," Garcia said. "What matters for this conversation is that I left, I started G11, and your son is the first prospect I’ve approached."

Jamie glanced at his father, then back at Garcia.

"So Jamie is your starting point," Alan said.

"He is," Garcia said. "That is a reason to look harder at what I say, not a reason to stop listening."

"I’m not Jamie’s opportunity to give someone a second chance," Alan said. "I want to be direct about that."

"I know," Garcia said. "And if that was what this was, you’d be right to end it here. I’m not asking Jamie to carry my career. I’m asking for two weeks of his time because I think I’m right about what I saw yesterday, and two weeks is cheap enough that if I’m wrong, neither of you loses much."

Alan said nothing for a moment.

Jamie looked down at the folder on the table.

"Why Jamie?" Alan asked.

"Because his game is easy to miss," Garcia said. "His best actions happen before anyone else notices there was a problem. He stops danger before it becomes a cross, a shot, or a scramble. That doesn’t make noise at a trial. Goals make noise. Dribbles make noise. A big tackle makes noise." He paused. "Jamie’s better moments are quieter."

Jamie shifted slightly in the chair but kept quiet.

"The scouts and agents there yesterday were tracking the obvious players," Garcia said. "They were right to. Some of those players are going to get signed. But nobody spent yesterday watching right-back. Nobody watched what happened in the space before the ball arrived. That is where Jamie’s game is."

Alan folded his arms. "Everyone else got it wrong, then."

"No," Garcia said, without softening it. "Some of them got the weakness right. Jamie plays too safe when he’s under pressure on the ball. He avoids the forward pass. He protects himself with the backward option when the space to go forward is there."

Garcia glanced briefly at Jamie.

"That criticism is accurate."

Jamie’s jaw set, but he held Garcia’s gaze.

"What they didn’t do," Garcia said, turning back to Alan, "was look past the weakness at what sits underneath it. The recovery speed. The reading. The timing. They saw the confidence problem and stopped. I didn’t."

Alan held that for a second. "And you think the confidence problem is fixable."

"Yes."

"At sixteen."

"Especially at sixteen," Garcia said. "At twenty-three, it gets harder."

Garcia opened the folder and placed the two-page plan on the table without pushing it forward yet.

"I’m not asking for a contract today," he said. "I’m asking for two weeks."

Alan looked at the pages without touching them.

"In those two weeks, Jamie trains with a private coach I’ll arrange. The focus is specific: first touch under pressure, receiving while being closed down, opening his body before the pass comes, forward passing instead of automatic recycling, and playing through contact without rushing backward."

Jamie’s hand moved off his knee, and he leaned closer to the table.

"This is not general fitness or some vague development session," Garcia said. "It is built around the exact things that made him look scared yesterday."

Jamie’s mouth tightened, but he did not look away.

"At the end of the two weeks," Garcia said, "there’s a trial programme running on August 3rd. Five days, training sessions first, then a trial match at the end."

He reached into the folder and placed the programme sheet beside the plan.

"I have information that scouts from five mid-table League One clubs are expected to be there."

Alan looked at the programme sheet, then at Garcia.

"Expected."

"Yes," Garcia said. "Not guaranteed. I’m not going to sit here and promise you scouts will turn up until they’re standing by the pitch. But the source is solid."

"Who is the source?"