Chapter Three: Not for Sale to Northport

Kovac's failures were public: twelve appearances, three red cards, two dribbling errors that led to goals, a fine for lateness, and a social-media like on a post criticizing an assistant coach. Every conventional report recommended selling. But all three red cards had followed the same event: the holding midfielder being beaten. Kovac had not lost control of an ordinary duel. He had paid the final price for a defense that had already collapsed. Lin opened footage from Kovac's Croatian youth internationals. With a positional midfielder ahead of him, Kovac had led his age group in ball-carrying distance per ninety. His team pressed twelve yards higher when he played. What Seabridge called recklessness had once been another team's starting mechanism.