Part 216: Chapter the Second: That damned glass mansion again.

Chapter the Second: That damned glass mansion again.
August 12, 2027-September 10, 2027

It's time to get this show on the road and kick off the season. For a couple weeks, at least, since the least popular international break in existence comes up at the start of September.



That's a smaller boost than I'd have expected, perhaps things were thrown off by this being the first year in our new stadium? Regardless, season tickets earn us £18m. Our balance at the start of the year is £66.4m.

vs Bolton Wanderers, August 14, 2027
Premier League


A home match against a newly promoted side that three years ago was in League One? And it's the televised opening kickoff of the Premier League season? Why yes, that does sound like the perfect opportunity to debut the Pyramid.

Starting Formation: The Pyramid
Starting 11: Minami Tounkara Quiboulaz, Laux, Shirra, Zouaghi, Moctezuma, Stringel, Rickard, Thiago, Mujkic (c).
Subs: Kocsis, Hammatt, Bailey, Allan, Damgaard, Pickee, Rouissi.

Bolton sees none of the ball while the home team patiently chips away at their turtle shell. It leads to Stringel's first goal of the season, set up by a decoy run from Rodrigo Moctezuma. Stringel adds a second just before halftime, and it's all his own work. He pilfers the ball from the left back, and sprints towards the goal, and no one is near fast enough to stop him before he puts it right past the keeper. It takes only two minutes more for him to find his hat trick, and the full house of 39,500 roars with delight. Before the day is out Stringel picks up a fourth goal, and we've won our first competitive match at our new stadium and with our new formation.

Man of the Match: Isaac Stringel




Wrexham 4-0 Bolton



If we can pull 39,500 a game we're going to make a lot of money. 17,000 tickets multiplied by an average price of 39 pounds is over £650,000 per match day.



I'm trying to give you a chance to fight for a spot on the first team, you dummy.



: Why can't you kids just- wait. What did you just say?

: I'll prove to you that I deserve more playing time.

: Oh. Well, good. Uh. See you at training.




How is this supposed to end? Will I realize my tragic error and fall to my knees weeping for the cruelty I've imposed upon you? Will I put you in the first team just in time for you to lead us to a triple? Please, enlighten me. Because all you're doing is convincing me to never let you near the pitch again.

vs West Ham United, August 18, 2027
Premier League


I would like to play the Pyramid every game, but unfortunately we don't have the defensive midfielders for it and I don't like letting Loseille and Reed sit on the bench too long. So it's back to the boring 4-2-3-1 for our tilt with the Hammers.

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Minami, Reed, Hammatt, Quiboulaz, Loseille, Bailey (c), Allan, Pickee, Bouzid, Damgaard, Thiago.
Subs: Kocsis, Leandro, Tounkara, Zouaghi, Bale, Rouissi, Stringel.

The crowd watches us spend the first twenty minutes playing ping pong with the crossbar. It's not very enlightening, unless you find wisdom in disappointment. We catch a break when West Ham have their right back sent right off for going in two-footed on Damgaard despite getting the ball, and we have seventy minutes with which to enjoy our man advantage. It takes us only a moment to score, and while it's only one-nil it might as well be one-hundred to nil for how little hope remains for West Ham. We tally three more times before the close of business, with strikes from Thiago, Ali Bouzid, and Kais Rouissi.

Man of the Match: Jonathan Quiboulaz




Wrexham 4-0 West Ham

At Crystal Palace, August 21, 2027
Premier League


We travel to the den of the one club that claimed the pelt of a dragon last season.



I've been looking forward to meeting you again. Face my wrath, and my five man forward line.

Starting Formation: The Pyramid
Starting 11: Minami, Tounkara, Hammatt, Laux, Shirra, Zouaghi, Moctezuma, Stringel, Rickard, Thiago, Mujkic (c).
Subs: Kocsis, Quiboulaz, Bailey, Allan, Damgaard, Bale, van Leeuwen.

We play obnoxiously, scorning opportunity after opportunity, and allow an easy goal due to complacency. You can hear my rage vibrating throughout the stands at the half. It doesn't help that the Palace keeper is playing out of his mind, and certain to win Man of the Match if he keeps his clean sheet. It also doesn't help that Palace is playing a hack and slash defensive style, happy to trade yellow cards for slowing down our offense. That pays off in a big way when Thiago is forced from the pitch after yet another horror tackle that the referee ignores. We concede a second goal off a corner in the final ten minutes, and for the second time in a row Crystal Palace walks away with three points despite being outplayed by every standard but the scoreline.




Palace 2-0 Wrexham



The Palace player undercut him on the header, it was a clear foul in the box... not that the referee cared.



If he heals quickly he'll be available for our match against Arsenal, but I doubt he'll be able to recover in time for our Manchester City fixture on September 11.



Colwyn Bay's head coach put the play that took down Thiago on repeat for his players, saying “That's a hip check, buddy!”



Our new feeder club made it to the group stage of the Champions League. Maybe we'll get to play them.



Or not. Our group is nothing special, but we certainly didn't get the simplest draw. It looks like there could be some surprises coming out of Groups A, C, and perhaps F.



We played Blackburn just last year in this same competition. I'd have much rather drawn any number of other clubs, my familiarity with a club that we've beaten 10 out of 12 times is breeding contempt.

vs FC Twente, August 27, 2027
UEFA Super Cup


I will not be halted by any loss. I will not bow to the champions of Europa. Let them face the full might of our ancient scheme and see if they have the mettle to match us.

Starting Formation: The Pyramid
Starting 11: Minami, Tounkara, Hammatt, Laux, Shirra, Zouaghi, Moctezuma, van Leeuwen, Rickard, Stringel, Mujkic (c).
Subs: Kocsis, Quiboulaz, Bailey, Allan, Damgaard, Bale, Rouissi.

I pump my fist when Stringel scores early on the rebound from a Mujkic free kick, but it's waved off as the referee judges that he passed the final man before the ball had left Mujkic's foot. That's our best opportunity in the opening minutes as once again our players are hitting the posts as if woodwork was worth bonus points, and I'm really starting to wonder how we could be so bad at finishing. Stringel puts us ahead in the 18th minute, just to see Twente respond in the 20th. After taking seventeen shots in the first half, creating two clear-cut and four half chances, I have to wait until the 45th minute for Ellis Rickard to bring us back into the lead.

An hour into the match each team's supporters has a moment with their heart in their throat. First Twente tear upfield to equalize on a counter attack, but a late whistle wipes it off the board. Then Wrexham fans get to experience the same feeling as we finally get some daylight to work in, but Ellis Rickard sees his second goal called off as well. It's our fans who end up going home happy, though, when substitute Callum Allan launches a rocket through the back of the net with ten minutes to play.

Man of the Match: Callum Allan




Wrexham 3-1 FC Twente




My 20th cup win triggers an achievement that I didn't know existed.



The current ownership of Leeds has created a club that's firmly entrenched in the middle class of the Premier League, finishing between seventh and fourteenth the last five years. I'm not sure their fans are going to do any better than this.



Ah crud. We won't be using the Pyramid for a bit.



It's like PSG is only trying to anger me. At least increase your offer, you wankers.



Dang, Collignon's only been in power for a couple months and already £100m has flown out the door at New Old Trafford.

With the window closed I want to take a mosey through our depth chart, as we have a lot of young players trying to make a name for themselves.



The Keeper position remains static, with Koji Minami and Lajos Kocsis holding down the fort and Malte Landgraf in the youth squad.



Right fullback sees Johnny Q backing up Steve Reed. Teenagers Leandro and Rene Mattuschka are liable to get some playing time over the course of the season in our easier matches.



Our centerback quartet remains the envy of the world, with Laux as first among equals. We also have several kids who can contribute, of them Leandro is most likely to get into matches as he's no longer eligible for our youth squad.



Left fullback is Loseille's domain, and we could be in trouble if both he and Quiboulaz go down at the same time. It's one position where we don't have a young prospect waiting in the wings, academy graduate Connor Laidlaw-Wilson notwithstanding.



The defensive-oriented central midfielder slot is a spot of relative weakness, which is troublesome when trying to play a tactic like the Pyramid that requires two of them. Zouaghi is still a teenager and a budding star and Laux is capable of handling the job, but we need players like Gary Lewis to blossom to provide depth.



On top of having two high quality players in Callum Allan and Scott Shirra, we have a wealth of prospects who could one day take their place. The two young players who've been subject to the most hype are Ferdi van Leeuwen and the Batman, while Claus Damgaard also makes for a solid offensive-minded center midfielder.



With the departures of Shahed Parr and Matias Mercado we're left with beardless youth out on the right. Moctezuma and Bale's combined age is 36, or one year older than Mercado. Meanwhile Pickee makes for a mediocre emergency option, while Jeremy Hubert is 17 and has a long ways to go before making an impact with the senior team.



Our cup runneth over with attacking midfielders. Beyond having three world class players at our disposal, there's another eight under the age of twenty-four that could reach similar peaks. It's lucky that most of them can play another position, or they'd never get on the pitch.



Meteor has had this position locked down since his arrival lo' those many years ago. He's backed up capably by Claus Damgaard, and we have four more players who could turn out to be quality players.



It's a good thing that the Pyramid requires a lot of strikers, because we've got a passel of them who need opportunities to prove what they can do. The strike corps is naturally lead by Stringel and Thiago, but Pickee, Rickard, Moctezuma, van Leeuwen, and Rouissi would all challenge for a starting role on most Premier League clubs.



The international break is well timed, considering both of our best strikers are injured. I head back to the Western Hemisphere to sport with Ecuador and Brazil. We should be able to beat Ecuador. I don't expect to come close to Brazil, who have been on the warpath after a disastrous qualifying campaign left them out of the 2026 World Cup.



The USMNT did their level best to imitate Wrexham, hitting the post and crossbar three times throughout the match. We may have been dicked over by a penalty in the final minute of stoppage time, but if we'd done our job we wouldn't have been clinging to a one goal lead.



... Glad to see that optimism.



The USMNT played Brazil dead even, but our visitors found a goal and we didn't. A 1-0 loss to Brazil is not something I'm going to be too concerned about, but a win would have been sweet.



The team doesn't seem that concerned about our performances either, and as we part ways we're just one international break from the start of World Cup qualification.



Other than a disappointing lack of goals from the Pyramid things are going about as expected. I might have to go back and dig through my files to see how rarely we convert our chances as compared to our opponents, though. It seems like we do an exceptionally poor job of it regardless of the type of chance. It doesn't even seem to be about getting our shots on target, we've had games with a dozen balls put on net and few if any goals to show for it.

We're also entering the toughest patch of our schedule, with away matches against Manchester City and Arsenal coming up with both Thiago and Stringel sidelined by injury. I may be confident, but I'm not insane, and the Pyramid will have to wait for an opponent like West Brom to make it's next appearance.



Prediction Contest

Predict: How many matches will we play with Pyramid across all competitions (partial games count).
Tiebreaker 1: What will be our goal differential those matches?
Tiebreaker 2: How many goals will we score per game while in the Pyramid?

Predictions will be open until 12pm EST on Wednesday.

Also, we still need a name for the stadium, right now the following suggestions have been submitted:
Dragon's Den
Castell Coch
The Red Keep (2 votes)
The God King's Playground/Court (2 votes)

Regardless of what we pick you can expect me to append "at the Racecourse Ground" on the end of it.