Scene: pizza restaurant, Ceadir Lunga, Moldova.
Time: Saturday evening, Spring, following the final match of the Moldovan National Division season.
Dramatis personae:
The host: Eugeniu Merciu, Chairman of FC Saxan (also the founder of a successful agricultural machinery business)
The guests: Anthony Haynes and Karen Haynes, directors of an engineering consultancy
MERCIU: It seems to me that we are in agreement. In principle, we have worked out a way in which we can approach the problem of football management the way that engineers approach other problems.
ANTHONY: But, though it’s interesting to think this way, how could it ever be done? Would your manager really take counsel from engineers? Or, worse, engineering consultants?
MERCIU: Oleg Fistican? Oh, no, he wouldn’t take kindly to that at all.
KAREN: But where would you find someone suitable? There can’t be many football managers who are also engineers.
MERCIU: No, I am sure you are right. But I am thinking that, if we can’t do that, we should dispense with football managers and appoint instead an engineer. After all, he – or she – can always appoint a real football type as their assistant.
[Pause]
MERCIU: It is a radical suggestion – one that I suggest we should sleep on. Perhaps we could meet again, after church tomorrow (I like to attend the Eucharist at the Church of Theotokos of Kazan) to see whether it seems as good an idea when we’re sober as it does now?
