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VOLUME 4: The Proving Ground
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The press conference room at the Beckenham training ground was a sweatbox. Every seat was taken, the air thick with the smell of stale coffee and the low, expectant hum of a hundred whispered conversations.
There were journalists here who had never set foot in this building before reporters from L'Équipe, from Marca, from Gazzetta dello Sport drawn by the James Rodríguez signing, by the story, by the sheer, improbable spectacle of what Crystal Palace had become.
The cameras were a bank of unblinking eyes, all trained on the empty chair behind the microphone. This was it. The first press conference of the new season. The first since I had signed the permanent contract. The first as the manager, not the interim, not the caretaker, not the kid in the academy tracksuit. The manager.
The System, quiet all morning, offered a brief, almost amused observation.
