Diary on tour part 2
Brendan Rodgers woke up with his head resting on his personalised, ergonomic pillow, with his sheets made from the finest Egyptian cotton. The sheets had over 800 thread count, but Brendan was still looking for a higher count, knowing that he needed to treat himself as well as possible, to be at the top of his game.
He reached over to stick on the Nespresso machine, and put in a bespoke cartridge, with the finest bean blend he felt he could design. He felt like he'd missed out on a gap year to Africa when he was a professional footballer, so in the summer he'd visited Ethiopia. He thought back to the summer, when he was teaching the coffee farms how best to manage their staff, and just how grateful they'd been when he'd left at the end of his visit, no doubt because of all the inspiring messages he'd given to them. The coffee, to him, tasted of a time when he had helped those who were not quite as excellent at achieving excellence at he was, and he felt that was important metaphor for the day's team talk.
He flicked on his customised iPad, with a Latin inscription of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' lasered onto the back of the tablet, and made a note of it for later. He then reached across into his bedside table drawer, and took out a Moleskin notebook, and also wrote – in Mont Blanc ballpoint – the same note. He was aware that he wanted to make the job as easy as possible when it came to whoever edited his diaries, and didn't want to risk losing all his aphorisms and tactical observations through a virus or technical mishap. He also looked up each word in Spanish on Google Translate, and made another copy for those abroad who followed his work. Although he was fluent, obviously, he didn't want to take chances. He knew that he had to respect his fans as much as they clearly respected – some might say admired – him. He made his way to his chrome-laden en suite bathroom.
Brendan lived in the Liver Gardens Buildings in Cheshire. He said to himself: "My name is Brendan Rodgers. I'm 41 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel
