He calls himself stupid once, twice, fifty times but the instinct is too strong: he takes the sweater. Then he promptly curses himself, marches back into the away dressing room and puts it back. He can’t. He’s not a thief. He’s just dealing badly with..well, life really. He never thought abandonment issues or heartbreak would come in the form of a national squad list but hey, first time for everything. Maybe it's a pile on effect, first failing to compete with Dortmund, then Robert, now…
How the fuck does Reus do it? - Thomas asks himself. Then he sighs. Marco would probably take the sweater. Call it his due for the world leaving him behind. Only, Thomas is not the one being left behind. He is the one going. Scheiße. He goes back and takes the sweater.
_
The shit thing about international tournaments is that you never know how long you will be away for. A week, a month, a single match? Is the weight in your chest going to lift if you win it all?
Thomas wears the sweater to the last Bayern training - not while actually training, just on his way to the session. The fabric is soft and worn, cozy in the way only beloved clothes can be. It smells like the pine shampoo Thomas has known for a lifetime, its too long sleeves falling down on his hands where they grip the steering wheel.
He is pining, ok? Which isn't a joke on the pine shampoo. It's a statement of truth and one Thomas has realized maybe a bit too late. He wonders if the theft of the sweater has been noticed already or at all. Maybe he could get away with it: not having to explain he woke up one day and realized he's an idiot and he's been in love for 20 years or so.
_
The sweater gets packed into his suitcase then gets moved out of his suitcase and into his carry on and then somehow ends up on his person. The flight to Qatar is 10 hours long and the plane is cold, that's the only reason why. He can get away with it, he thinks. The sweater is plain, no logos or brands, nothing that would give away it doesn't belong to a Bayern player. Sure it's black and way too big but it's not bright yellow and he can always say he nicked it from Manu if somebody asks. He snuggles into it on the plane, warm and comfortable. It’s not the same as getting a hug but it’s the closest he’s going to get now, a continent and a sea away.
_
To others, what he is doing would be cruel. Maybe it is. Thomas is not cruel, he is just an idiot. It’s Marco Reus who opens the door on the second ring, looking about as good as Thomas is feeling. Which is shit. Thomas would have taken him to Qatar over Mario but he can't quite say that and not make it worse so he shuts up.
"Well" - Marco says as a greeting - "That was a shitshow of a World Cup."
"At least you didn't miss much?" - Thomas says because even at 34 it’s too much of an ask for him to have mastered the art of not completely putting his foot in his mouth. If Marco punches him, it would be fair. Instead Marco cheers him with his mug of coffee and yells up the stairs "Mats, it's for you!" before disappearing back inside the house, leaving Thomas to deal with himself.
Thomas is not cruel but he is an idiot. The kindness grates on him, scrapes him raw just that tiny bit more as to make it insufferable, like a carpet burn or a nettle sting. It picks at the scab of something unresolved, darkly jealous and selfish, because Mats is here, Mats didn’t stay. It twists guilt at the bottom of Thomas’ stomach - how can he reproach Marco anything? Thomas is the one who has run here like a child with a broken toy after just one international setback when Marco doesn’t have enough toes and fingers to count the times the Universe hated him.
But Thomas has wound himself tight, so tight, it’s really not about football anymore, it’s…
“Mull?” - Mats asks, shaking him softly. Thomas looks up at him and feels himself wobble. He’s wearing sweatpants and a pj t-shirt in the December cold, his hair sticking up in unruly curls and he looks concerned, like he’s probably called to Thomas already, which it’s totally possible because Thomas has not even heard him come down the stairs, which…. Mats gives really good hugs. He's shorter than Manu, less soft, and God - not that Thomas is complaining about Manu's hugs, mind you - but there's something about being able to sink into Mats, to press his forehead against his chest, into a soft t-shirt that smells like pine that just makes him feel at home. He's always joked that Thomas is like a puppy, a ball of energy with nowhere to go, but here in Mats' arms he can finally still. Thomas slips both arms around Mats’ waist and holds on.
-
Thomas is an idiot but he was blind. First it was Manu, then it was Robert and somehow it all got tangled together and Thomas got lost. Books and songs speak of love like butterflies, fluttering in your belly and upturning your world. But with Mats, it had always been easy, so easy that it had occurred to him only with a 20 years delay that love never needed to be fireworks because it was never meant to explode, it was never meant to burn either of them. It was meant to be the safety of clinging to someone like a koala, the laughs at being dropped on a couch like a sack of potatoes, the thousand kisses it takes to make Mats believe he is not being cruel, he is not going to regret it tomorrow, he is not rebounding from anything. Love was always meant to be the warmth of a well-worn sweater that smells of pine, with the cuffs rolled up so they don’t fall on your hands, and the chance to steal many more, for many years to come.
Make sure to rotate your fields (fandoms) regularly so they can recover. You also need some biodiversity (rarepairs) because monocultures are bad for the environment and if you aren't careful with that your fandom might need to lie idle for a while because all the shipping discourse pulled the minerals (themes and motifs) from the soil
Though of the morning: there are some interesting parallels between what Ibra managed to do at AC Milan and what Cristiano is failing to do at Manchester United 👀
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
"Non può essere così facile, un tabù così grande, ma quando le sue labbra si incontrano con quelle di Paolo il resto del mondo se ne va a farsi fottere."
Ho appena scritto Zlatan/Paolo perché vivo nel 2009? Forse.
He stops Redknapp the tunnel, a firm hand on the Scouser's elbow. The Alpha turns to him with his cheeky, handsome smile and his eyes sparkling. He's still keyed up by the debate; he loves football and Gary has to remind himself of that. It's the reason he's willing to have this as a conversation.
"You use your Alpha voice on me again and I will knock your teeth out live on air."
Jamie's smile drops. Gary has to stop himself from rolling his eyes when he sees the look on the Alpha's face morph into a middle ground between offended and deer caught in the headlights. "I didn't mean…I just wanted to…it just felt like you weren't listening so…"
"So you thought you'd make me."
Jamie's mouth snaps shut. At least he has the decency. Gary watches the way his hands tremble - anger and adrenaline and embarrassment. It's never good form, Gary, to call an Alpha out, didn't you know? Did nobody teach you manners?
"Not that way, Neville. Christ! I'd never do it with another Omega. You can bloody take it, Jesus."
It's infuriating. Blood boiling. Gary really knows better than to give an inch, to be accommodating, to explain. He tells himself Redknapp is not a bad person, none of the Scousers are, nobody on Sky is. But he can't forget the way his eyes snapped up, against his will. A reflex movement no more in his control than the beating of his heart or the flow of blood in his veins. He has never felt in danger around his Sky colleagues; he doesn't want to start now.
"I can "take it" because I got it beaten out of me" - he growls and snaps his fingers when Jamie looks like he wants to interject - "I can take it now because enough Alphas have tried and they had to fail. They didn't always. I can take it but it came at the price of countless migraines, nose bleeds and humiliations every time I strained myself against a command. And it still doesn't always work, especially if I am not expecting it or if I felt comfortable with that person or if emotions are running high, I can't always take it or resist it. So I am telling you: speak to me like that again and you'll be picking up your teeth from the grass."
The silence is uncomfortable. It stretches like rope between them, twisted and gnarled, heavy. It's the part that Gary hates: the wait. What now, Alpha? Want to test the crazy omega's word? See that I won't go through with it?
Then Jamie shakes himself. "I'm sorry." - he says - "I won't do it again."
Inspired by: You deserve to be the love of someone's life
It wasn't a rational response. That was clear from the get go to David, but still, it was there, the sense he was betrayed.
As if he had any right to even feel like that. He was the one who left, didn't look back, chasing dreams, fame and the limits of what he could do and be.
The thing was, Gary had been his North for so long, fixed, like the star who guided him home that he had never thought about even the possibility of his best friend (former lover) having someone else, even as he dated and married, had a family and children.
In his mind's eye, the image was always of Gaz, young and serious and alone, and to find out he wasn't... It was strange, the jealousy, curiously cold and physical, like a revulsion in his stomach.
Whatever he felt, it didn't matter. He had given up that right long ago, so he gulped down the cold, irrational needling feeling, and sent a congratulatory message.
It was the least of what he could do, to someone he had loved for so long, and so badly. Gary deserved better from him, than him.
And he could be happy with it, if the Scouser treated him right.
I’m not saying that Gary having Stevie on The Overlap is the reverse version of Carra having Phil on his podcast but I am saying that Gary having Stevie on The Overlap is the reverse version of Carra having Phil on his podcast. Enough with the foreplay boys srsly.
He hates himself a bit for it, for how he melts into the caress of rough, wide hands. It’s not shame - he doesn’t know the meaning of the word outside a loss on a football pitch - but it shouldn't be like this; it shouldn’t feel like his bones melt every time those hands cup the back of his neck, tilt his face up. Heavy.
Roy is not sure how it happened. He's not sure how friendly hugs turned into bold touches barely hidden away in the dressing room showers and from there into rough tumbles into bed sheets. More than anything he is not sure when those touches, those hands, turned from pushing him up against a wall, bruises forming on his hips and spine, into cradling him like he’s fragile. Like he’s a quivering bird, his bones hollow and delicate. A fledgling like those youngsters they helped raise, sheltered away trembling into a large hand. Roy wants to hate it and when he doesn’t, he hates himself.
_
He finds often that he can’t sleep. Retirement should have brought him peace, the wire of tension that had tightened like a noose and wringed itself inside his chest and around his throat all throughout his career should have snapped. Left him boneless like a puppet without strings. And it has, in a way. But his sleep stays fucked. Roy lays in bed wide awake, the rain patters softly onto the glass of the skylight. His mind flutters, empty and restless.
Sometimes he thinks of Man United, sometimes it’s the aches in his body that keep him up, old ones and new ones. He thinks of the notes he needs to do for Super Sunday.
“Pourquoi es-tu encore éveillé, mon chou?”
I can’t sleep - Roy wants to tell him but he shivers instead. The blankets are soft, too thin. Mon chou. He jerks away and it’s not enough.
_
Roy has never considered himself scrawny. Wiry, yes. Nervy, maybe. Yet those hands pin him down easily, they circle his wrists, thumbs touching the pads of the other fingers. Roy bucks, tries to hide the way his body trembles, the way his soul shatters, warm like honey and melted metal. He strains in the hold, wrapped in soft blankets, trapped under the bulk of a body that weighs twice what he does. Lips find the sweet spot on his neck, a coarse beard scratching the soft skin and God, why has Roy shaved? Why has he let himself…
“Mon rêve, tu ne vas nulle part.”
And where the fuck is Roy meant to go? Where is he meant to go when those hands are the ones that wrapped a captain’s band around his arm for the first time? Where is he meant to go when that voice had been the one calling out to him.
“Roy, have you seen my blue shirt?”
“Which one? The horrid one with the parrots the gaffer banned?”
"They are flamingos."
-
“Eric, hurry up! We will be late.”
“I’m French, I don’t care. It’s not training.”
-
“What the fuck is that?”
“My motorcycle.”
“I’m not getting on it.”
“Roy. Helmet. Catch.”
-
“I should have done what you did.”
“To the boss?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t kung fu kick the boss while I’m in Paris.”
_
Roy’s bones are old, hollow and ancient. Some days he feels like he’s been here since the time of the dinosaurs. His body aches and he limps when it’s wet, his knees hurt when he goes for a walk that’s too long. His mind tricks him sometimes, an old friend. Nostalgia and bitterness, truth and success. He’s human, Roy, and he’s walked alone for too long. So he lays in the soft sheets, his heart fluttering against the outline of his ribs. He lays there and he lets Eric - his Eric, his captain - cradle him like Roy is something precious and fragile. Like something inside Roy didn’t irreparably break years ago.
Unhinged carraville: after Anastasia and the Little Mermaid let me presnt to you Gary singing "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" from Hercules with the CO92 as the muses.
Alternatively titled: How Gary goes from looking at Jamie like he wants to kill him to looking at Jamie like arguing football with him is the highlight of his week (and the greatest honor of his life)
Aka: I somehow started writing an indifferent-coworkers-to-best-friends carraville origin story fic?
--
Gary doesn’t normally make a habit of reading the papers, knows better than most just how much of it is exaggerated nonsense, but he types mnf into the search bar the morning after, ready to skim the results through half-lidded eyes. It’s the negative comments that stick with you, and he wants to close out of the tab quickly if it seems to be going in that direction.
The first one reads: Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, the perfect TV double.
He slams his laptop shut like the words have physically burned his eyes.
It’s been one day. (Well, a few weeks, actually, but only one day that’s been properly aired on TV, only one day that the viewers have actually seen of him and Carragher together). Just one day, and he’s already been reduced to a double act with Carragher? He’s been here for two years, helped bring this show to where it is—just because Carragher doesn’t seem like an outright failure, and has a bit of fire in him that Gary likes, doesn’t mean suddenly they’re going to be some new buddy-buddy double act taking the punditry world by storm.
He is his own damn person, and certainly his own damn pundit—to hell with Carragher.
Only several hours later, after he’s looked through no less than twenty-three inane stories about the transfer window to cleanse his mind, does Gary let himself actually read the rest of the article.
And suddenly, impulsively, finds himself sending it to Carragher before he can think twice. Ridiculous and premature or not, it isn’t every day they’re going to hear positive things about their punditry—most of the time it’s nothing but vitriol on Twitter and a passing mention in the papers. Better to enjoy it while it lasts.
Carragher replies instantly, too fast for him to have read and comprehended the article, unless he already saw it before Gary’s message. Something about that gives Gary pause. He’s been in this business long enough to know how to handle googling himself, but Carragher is new, and the thick skin he’ll have developed as a football player isn’t quite built right for the mud-slinging in punditry.
It’s different, when they’re attacking your words and opinions and beliefs rather than just your performance on the pitch, far more personal, prone to slipping behind your carefully-crafted defenses and hitting you where it hurts. Punditry is a performance, an art, a very delicate balance between revealing enough of yourself to be genuine and not quite so much to leave yourself vulnerable, and Carragher hasn’t learned it yet. Barely even realizes what there is to learn, beyond turning up with his encyclopedic brain (because it is, Gary is man enough to admit that) and saying what he feels about the game he loves.
He looks at Carragher’s message again, equal parts encouraging and damning in its simple honestly. Not a bad way to start, that.
There’s also something very earnest about it, and maybe that’s why some Liverpudlian spirit possesses his fingers and types out Scoring on your debut, seems to be a habit of yours (spiritual possession is the only explanation for that message, Gary decides later, because there’s no way he consciously, in full possession of all his mental faculties, sent that himself)
The response is, of course, a video of said debut goal from all those years ago.
--
The following day, he wakes up to a lengthy message from Carragher on United’s attack, along with a clip he wants to analyze next Monday before the game. Gary’s halfway through typing a retort when he notices the time stamp.
The fuck were you doing awake at 4am? he sends instead.
ASA were playing ABC, is the reply. Immediate, as always.
Gary tries to remember if he’s ever heard of such teams, in or out of football. What sport is that?
Carragher sends back a laughing emoji, and Gary scoffs. He decides it says much more about Carragher that he knows who those teams are, never mind bothers to watch them, than that Gary has never even heard of them before.
Serie B
Italy?
Brazil, lad
Gary is thrown off enough that he nearly doesn’t notice he’s been called lad, like he’s some thirteen-year-old kid from Liverpool.
Thinking of joining the Brazilian league? Might be a little too fast for you
How would you know, you’ve never seen a game
And Gary has to admit, he’s got him there.
--
Despite having gotten a lot better at it over the years, Gary still hates the public speaking appearances with a passion. It’s different sitting in a studio with the cameras, where the audience at home is literally at home, out of sight and therefore mostly out of mind, to sitting on stage and being able to actually see the people spread out in a sea of faces before him.
So Gary thought on it and thought on it—the Edinburgh Television Festival wasn’t something to be sniffed at, he knew it was an honor to be invited—and ended up saying yes when they offered to have Ed be the one interviewing him.
Which is how they’re now here, just three days off the back of the first MNF of the season, talking more football in front of a slightly different set of bright blue screens.
Overall, it isn’t bad. The questions are decent, and football is one of the few things in the world he can talk about forever, especially when it’s with someone he knows and trusts like Ed.
A little over halfway through, they get to the Carragher question. It isn’t a surprise, exactly, but (in what he’ll later accept was probably a bit of an oversight) he didn’t prepare anything of what he was going to say regarding his new co-pundit. Which means he’s caught slightly off-guard when Ed asks, “What’s it like working with Jamie Carragher, you enjoying it?”, and the response is more instinctive than anything else.
“Yeah,” he says instantly, before he has time to think, and knows that it’s true. They’ve only done one full show together, but he did enjoy it, and to say anything else would be unfair to Carragher and to himself. “I think he’s done incredibly well,” he continues, his own first television appearance coming back to him with, as usual, the emotional equivalent of a pained wince. “I think it worked well between the three of us—it’ll get better, of course it will, but it was a good start.”
Not a bad way to start, that, rings in his ears, and yeah, alright, maybe that was the very best way of putting it after all.
He plans to stop there. It’s a good answer, succinct, measured, complimentary and self-critical all at once. But he’s also aware that in all the pundits he’s worked with over his two years at Sky, last Monday was the first time he could fathom seeing one of them sat beside him on MNF long-term. Not because Carragher knew how to talk, like so many of the others who’ve had a go and not been quite right, but because he knew what to say. There isn’t much he or anyone can determine about Carragher as a pundit yet, that’ll take time to develop and time to judge, but one thing is utterly, utterly clear. And it deserves a mention.
So he goes on.
“He’s incredibly knowledgeable about football. I mean, he’s—” Gary pauses, letting out a breath that’s more for emphasis than because Carragher’s intelligence has reduced him to speechlessness.
“He’s an encyclopedia, isn’t he?” Ed chimes in.
“Yeah, he is an encyclopedia about football.”
“He watches everything,” Ed continues.
“He watches ev—I mean, I watch a lot of football. But he watches everything.” There are a few chuckles from the crowd, but Gary doesn’t join in. It is funny, sure, until Carragher pulls out some obscure fact about Pablo Osvaldo from his fucking Huracan days, and it turns out to be true. Then it’s just impressive, and maybe a little scary.
Gary thinks back to their conversation just two days ago. “I mean, Brazil second division at three o’clock in the morning on channel 458, he’ll be there, watching it. I mean, it’s like—unbelievable.”
Ed goes into the Pablo Osvaldo story, tying a nice bow on all things Carragher before moving smoothly into the next question. But Gary finds himself thinking about it later that day, later that week, all the way up to the next MNF—he’s a student of the game, someone said to him before it all began, and it’s looking more and more like they might be right.
--
Watching games with Carragher is different. Ed doesn’t tend to have a lot of opinions during matches, at least not ones that he voices—his job is to remain somewhat neutral throughout the show, guide it along and steer Gary towards opportunities to voice his opinions, and that means Ed very rarely contributes to the in-game atmosphere.
Carragher is decidedly not shy about voicing his opinion. Despite having minimal personal investment in most of the games they watch together, his emotions are always running hot, and he seems to spend more of the game jumping out of his seat or gesticulating at the players or squeaking about something than actually watching. He was fairly quiet, Gary remembers, when they watched Chelsea batter Hull on the opening weekend of the season, and again when City thrashed Newcastle on the first MNF, almost as though scoping out how much of a reaction he was allowed to give.
But it seems the first show loosened his tongue, or maybe just emboldened his nerve, because Carragher doesn’t hold back at all the next week.
He watches the entire United-Chelsea game on their second-ever MNF with a scowl every time United are on the ball, like the fact that they haven’t hit relegation form without Sir Alex is a personal affront. When Gary calls him on it, he merely responds with a bashful grin, but then proceeds to be effusive in his praise of Wazza after the final whistle anyways.
Liverpool sneak a 1-0 win past United the following week, and there’s a series of messages waiting for him after the game, a very biased cold commentary bookended on either side with clips of Anfield belting out that wretched song. Gary’s only saving grace is that at least they aren’t on MNF, meaning he doesn’t have to see Carragher’s reactions live.
When they are back on their next MNF, Carragher’s barely in his seat before he’s out again as Swansea hold Liverpool to their first draw of the season, and Gary forgives it only because he’s equally as honest about Liverpool’s frailty as a team and luck in having been gifted the point.
It’s the honesty that Gary likes most. Carragher is honest about his emotions, honest about his opinions, honest about his roots, honest about the fact that he’s a big fucking Scouser who played for Liverpool his whole career, and it’s refreshing, in an industry built on sanitized answers and double-talk and carefully staged drama, to be around someone as averse to bullshit as he is.
It’s also what scares him most, because it’s the honest ones who get chewed up and spit out first. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is one thing on the pitch, but it’s different in a studio, where you have to be clever with your eyes and your words and your suit, where deflecting is an art form and being interesting can be even more important than being right.
For the moment though, being right is mostly enough to make him interesting.
And doesn’t that just say something about the state of English punditry?
--
The first and last time Carragher asks his permission before an analysis, Gary’s both shocked out of his chair and strangely touched.
Mostly, he just stares at Carragher without knowing what to say. “You don’t need my permission to say something on air, you know,” Gary huffs finally. “Whether complimentary or not.”
They’re the only ones in the briefing room this early, everyone else having enough self-preservation to eke out a few more minutes of sleep before the day gets rolling. Gary doesn’t like to be still for too long, and Carragher seems determined to always get here before he does, so it’s become something of a habit of theirs. Usually, the time is spent exhausting the more uninteresting, juvenile remarks about the weekend’s results they’ve been holding on to, so that the real discussion can begin unimpeded after the rest of the team arrive, but today Carragher’s been worrying over something since the moment Gary walked in.
Apparently, it’s this.
There’s a pinched sort of half-scowl on his face, like the very idea of having to ask something like this tastes sour, but Carragher soldiers forward. “We’ve had some spirited debates—banter, if you like. But this is live TV, it’s not a dressing room, so I want to be sure I’m not crossing the line.”
Gary stares a little bit more. The explanation is as strangely touching as the initial question (Would you be okay with me taking the piss out of you tonight on the show?), because despite their so-far-successful efforts at some light-hearted banter, they aren’t mates, and what starts as a joke can quite easily turn into something a lot sharper. Especially when it’s going out to millions of people who can fashion any little dig into a stick and beat you with it for the rest of your life.
But. There are things he cares about a lot more than a few nasty Twitter mentions, and MNF is right up there.
“I think we’ve had a good energy on the show recently, where we can say what we’re really thinking and not have to worry about always playing nice,” Gary says, raising his eyebrows to turn the statement into a half-question.
“Absolutely,” Carragher agrees. “It’s genuine and free-flowing. No manufacturing.”
“Right. And I care a hell of a lot more about that continuing than I do about looking stupid for a few minutes. So take the piss all you want, as long as it’s constructive, as long as it adds to the show.”
Something seems to relax in the lines of Carragher’s face, and he leans back in his chair. The shift from serious to teasing is subtle, but Gary catches it instantly, and tries not to think about what that says. “Entertainment value adds to the show, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Gary accepts. He really hopes he isn’t going to regret this later.
“Great.” Carragher glances back down at his notes, seemingly content to let the conversation end there, but something about it doesn’t sit right with Gary.
“Listen, we’re equals on this show.” Carragher looks up so fast Gary’s surprised his neck doesn’t crick. “I meant it when I said you don’t have to get my approval to say something on air. Scott, maybe, if it’s something really out on a limb—but certainly not me. Same way I don’t plan to ask you first if I decide to lay into Liverpool tonight. As long as we stick to some ground rules—don’t slag off my family, don’t ever bring my kids into it, basic stuff—we’ll be good.”
It’s strange, seeing Carragher speechless. He doesn’t even react to the Liverpool mention, just sort of stares at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Gary can’t help but feel smug, and equally a tiny bit worried that he’s broken the man. He supposes it not every day your once-hated rival gives you a blank check to insult him on television.
Several long seconds later, Carragher finally blinks. “Okay. Agreed. Same here then—don’t mention me family, but anything else is fair game.” Then the corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “And don’t shit on Stevie.”
Which is how, of course, they end up debating Gerrard, Lampard, and Scholes that evening. (The loyalty isn’t surprising, and if anything it’s nice, looking across the table and seeing his own ferocity reflected right back, knowing there’ll be times when they won’t nail their colors to the mast but this absolutely isn’t one of them. There wasn’t a Scouser’s chance in Manchester that Carragher wouldn’t defend Gerrard to his last breath or that Gary wouldn’t wax lyrical about Scholesy, and it’s as close to a pub debate as they’re willing to get)
But first—
Fifty-three minutes later, as they’re going over topics for the first part of the show, Carragher says casually, “I’m thinking of doing a section on fullbacks. How it’s a makeshift position, and everyone who ends up there is either a failed centreback or a failed winger. After all”—Carragher gestures toward him, that glint in his eye, and Gary has just enough time to think oh here it comes—“no one wants to grow up and be a Gary Neville.”
The room erupts. Gary laughs just as hard as the rest and knows they’re going to keep that no matter what else they get to during the show. He’s absolutely certain that rehearsed and delivered right, that line is going to be iconic one day.
Would you be okay with me taking the piss out of you tonight?
As the laughter tails off, Gary says out loud, “You were worried about that? I’ve heard a lot worse, I guarantee you”, and Carragher spreads his hands as if to say yeah, alright, just wanted to be sure. They play it off, and the discussion moves on.
But Gary also gives him a subtle nod when Carragher meets his eyes, an acknowledgement mixed with a little sliver of gratitude. That Carragher was willing to check where the line was before coming within a yard of it—it’s a sign of respect he wasn’t expecting, especially not from England’s most passionate Scouser.
--
Gary is aware that he has a micromanaging streak a mile wide. He’s also aware that most everybody working on MNF does, too, and the only reason they all manage to make it work is because they micromanage different aspects of the production to make sure the show on Monday night is the best football content out there. Now two years in, Gary can mostly let Scott and Duncan and Ed and all the rest do their jobs without feeling that itch at the bottom of his spine, like it won’t be right unless he checks it over himself first.
Carragher is a new unknown into that mix. He’s not a micromanager by any stretch of the imagination, shows minimal interest in any part of the production that isn’t the actual talking about football bit, but when it does come to the football, he’s as stubborn as anyone Gary’s ever known. Maybe as stubborn as Gary himself.
So it’s with a vague notion of good intentions, but mostly just trying to figure out if Carragher is going to be able to cope with his exacting standards, that Gary finally messages him to arrange a somewhat overdue one-on-one meeting. Nothing too formal, just a pint after we get in on Sunday evening? he writes.
Not even two minutes later, the response comes back: Sure.
Gary picks one of the smaller, more secluded pubs in London, far enough outside of Osterley that there’s very little risk they’ll run into anyone else from Sky. He can’t quite explain why that’s important, but it feels like it is. Neither of them can afford to get anywhere close to pissed with a show tomorrow, so the fact that this particular place serves half-decent food is also a plus.
Carragher comes in a few minutes after he does, and slides neatly into the seat on the opposite side of the table. “Evening, Gary.”
It’s quite possibly the first time Carragher has greeted him with an actual, proper salutation rather than a football question, and it catches him more by surprise than if he’d opened with can’t believe youse lost to West Brom yesterday.
Luckily—“Evening. You alright?” comes out before he really even needs to think about it, those well-drilled manners at work once again.
They each order food, and a drink that’s more water than alcohol, before Carragher broaches the elephant in the room.
“So what’re we doing today, Gary? Right now, it’s looking an awful lot like you’re trying to go steady with me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Gary retorts, but grins. The papers would be tripping over themselves to cover that story, he’s sure. Tale of two reds: the remarkable journey from rivals to lovers. “The missus would probably have something to say about that, to be fair.”
“She’d probably be pleased! I know mine would be. Rid of me at last.” There’s a glint in Carragher’s eye that he’s familiar with now, an edge that says he’s not only expecting a dig but actually hoping for one.
Gary is drawn into the banter despite himself, and it’s another ten minutes, knee-deep into a conversation about their worst-ever haircuts (Gary picks his middle-part floppy mop from back in the day, while Carragher admits, “All of mine were shite, really”), that he remembers they have actual business to discuss.
“Right. Coming back to the point then. How’ve the first few weeks been for you?”
“Good. Yeah. An adjustment, of course, but it’s been good.”
“Great.” Gary pauses, debating how to frame this conversation, and Carragher’s eyes narrow.
“I’ve been in a dressing room long enough to know what this is. Go on, Gary, me skin’s thick enough.”
“Okay.” He takes a breath. What did he wish someone would’ve told him at the start, no coddling, no bullshitting? “Punditry isn’t just about talking football. I think you already know that. It’s as ruthless a business as football, maybe more, because there’s only—what, ten, maybe fifteen pundits on TV regularly? You’re one of them at this moment in time, but they’ll sack you tomorrow if they think there’s someone who could do it better.”
Carragher’s gaze holds his steadily, sharp and attentive, and it emboldens Gary to keep going.
“I can tell you know your football. Your preparation’s good, though I’m sure it’ll get better, and you remember shit most mothers would’ve forgotten about their own kids’ games, which is a nice bonus.”
Carragher smiles. Gary exaggerates rolling his eyes.
“But what I’m trying to say is, just the football isn’t enough. You’re not in the results business anymore. You’re in the entertainment business. The score at the end of a show matters a lot less than how well you played to get there.” It’s not the cleanest way he can think to make the point, but Carragher nods immediately.
“I get that. I’m a football man, not a TV personality.” He runs a hand through his hair, which sits a bit mussed and scraggly on top of his head, as if to illustrate the point. There’ll be product in that tomorrow night, and almost certainly a comb, and Carragher seems to know it. Nobody cared what his hair looked like on the pitch, but a large part of entertainment is all about glamour. “Can’t change who I am, or the way I talk”—there’s the faintest tinge of anger in his voice, and Gary files that away to ask about later—“but I get it.”
“I made sure they didn’t give you a light gray suit, so you should be alright, really,” Gary says lightly, offering him an out, because he knows Carragher watches everything, reads everything, is across everything, and won’t miss the reference.
Sure enough, Carragher laughs. But he then levels Gary with a look far too serious to be about suits and horrible style. “I do know you’ve been looking out for me since I come to Sky. You didn’t have to do that after”—Carragher waves his arms in a way that’s clearly meant to capture their whole twisted history to this point, between United and Liverpool and England—“well, everything.”
“If you’re about to thank me—”
“If that’s what you’re expecting, you’re about to be very disappointed,” Carragher cuts back, but he looks relieved. The unsaid thank you is still in his eyes, in his fiddling hands, in the way he will pick up their tab later that night and put them both in a taxi to the hotel, but it’s better left unsaid.
Gary takes a sip of his drink, groaning when it tastes like slightly-sweetened ice water. He says, “I wanted to make sure you had a smooth start. MNF means a lot to me. To Sky, too, but to me personally. Regardless of who’s on, it needs to be the best show out there week after week.” He takes another sip. The flavor, if it could even be called that, is growing on him. “But moving forward, the training wheels come off. And the expectations are only going to rise. Are you prepared for that?”
“I never moved club, so I haven’t been on the receiving end of this conversation before. But I’ve given it many times. This is one of the biggest football clubs in the world. When you walk through those doors, be willing to work harder than you ever have before. We play to win every game. Don’t ever let your standards drop.” Carragher shakes his head, as if clearing away loose memories. “I know what it means to strive for perfection every week.”
“Sky are my team now,” Carragher says, and Gary takes a minute to parse that.
He thinks of how Carragher played for Liverpool when Liverpool were his team, last-ditch tackles and ceaseless shouting and that final in Istanbul, and simply goes, “Yeah, alright.”
If he brings even half that intensity to this job at Sky, Gary decides, his exacting standards and Carragher will probably get along just fine.
Carragher smiles, and raises his glass. “Cheers, Gary.”
He hesitates for one, two, three heartbeats, then follows suit. “Cheers, Jamie.”
Something flashes across Jamie’s face, there and gone before Gary can figure out exactly what it is, but he knows what it’s in response to.
Jamie still tastes new in his mouth when he isn’t saying it in front of the cameras, but it’s right. A month is long enough to dwell on past conflict, and they’ve now broken bread together in the only way that matters to gruff ex-footballers above thirty—sharing a drink, reaching a tentative understanding, and nearly slipping into a moment of genuine emotional vulnerability. It’s enough.
(He did use to be Jamie before, those few times they were on the pitch bleeding for the same shirt, because Carragher is a real mouthful to shout when you’re running back toward your own goal with an entire forward line breathing down your neck. But they’re relearning each other now, and this is another of the many things Gary finds is easier this second time around)
