Sunday afternoon. A pub. The 4:30 kick-off. Liverpool beat Man United two-nil — Salah scoring in the ninety-third minute from an Alisson pass — and Anfield went absolutely mad. Eddie's been a Liverpool fan for the best part of fifty years. That kind of afternoon doesn't come around often. It was a good day.
Jay, for his sins, is a Leicester City fan. Two very different styles of football. Two very different people. But between them — sixty-odd years of genuine passion for sport, and a shared understanding of how markets work, where the margin is, and why most people get it completely wrong.
Eddie spent decades in IT — databases, systems, infrastructure — putting those skills to work across more roles than he can easily count. Jay brings something else entirely. He knows football better than most people know their own families. Transfers, injuries, the referee who hasn't booked anyone in six months, the striker carrying a knock nobody's reported yet. Results going back years, just sitting in his head. The kind of football knowledge you genuinely can't get from a spreadsheet.
That afternoon, same as plenty before it, the conversation turned to selections. Eddie'd work the numbers — corners, cards, first-half goals, the winner. Jay'd fill in everything the numbers couldn't see. They were close. Closer than they had any right to be.