Godfather Of Champions

After he was finished busy with the sales and purchases, Twain’s work was finally a little easier. The training that followed would mainly be taken care of by the whole coaching unit. He did not have to attend to everything personally.

When he had more free time, he would notice some things he had not noticed before.

For example:

“Strange, the preparations before the start of the season is in full swing and the media from around the world are gathering in Nottingham … How come I don’t see your secret lover?” Twain asked Dunn the question in a joking manner.

Dunn did not refute this point. He was not that kind of person. He simply said, “She has resigned from the newspapers, so she won’t be here.”

Twain was a little surprised and said, “I thought that was just one of her tricks—she always likes to pull this…”

“It’s for real this time.” Dunn said casually, “Do you know what would happen if those remarks that you made were to appear intact in any of China’s regular media?”

Twain nodded reply, “I am also an authentic Chinese man.”

“In order to be able to publish smoothly, and not to get her father in trouble, she chose to resign, and then published alone. You saw…the consequences.”

“I more than saw it, and I had even experienced it firsthand…” muttered Twain.

In fact, Tang Jing’s actions somewhat threw him under the bus. But both of them were well aware that the effects and impact on Twain could be completely ignored. As an “Englishman”, he could speak freely without any scruples for the consequences, because he did not live in that circle and did not have to rely on that circle to survive.

Tang Jing did this only in hopes to get Twain to help her share the enormous pressure at the time. He succeeded in doing so and bawled the Chinese media out at the press conference. Almost no one paid attention to the instigator, Tang Jing. Then there was the World Cup. Now that the World Cup was over, it was time to settle the scores.

Tang Jing and Twain were completely different. Although she resigned, she still wanted to continue to be in that line of work. It would perhaps be somewhat difficult…it was expected that she would shut out.

He touched his nose and said, “Hey, I kind of miss her all of a sudden…Uhm, you’d better not get me wrong. I just feel that it’s too quiet without that noisy woman around …”

Dunn did not respond to him. He just quietly finished his own business, and then walked away.

Twain pulled a face at him in the back.

As for Tang Jing’s matter, he really did not think she would actually resign. Now that he thought of it, he felt that it was a shame for the woman who would put on a tough stance at any time in order to make it in the men’s world…

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With less than half a month to go until the start of the new season, Twain had announced the end of Nottingham Forest’s transfer campaign this season.

“I’m happy with every pound that I’ve spent this summer and I think the four players are worth it. They have met my requirements and I personally decided to buy them. I’m optimistic about everything they have here. I made some requests to the club before the season on the transfer funds and I am delighted to have those requests satisfied. I have no other requests after spending the money. Now I’m just waiting for the new season to start. I can assure you that Nottingham Forest will remain a force to be reckoned with in the new season. Of course, given that the media always describe me as an untrustworthy rascal, so you can disbelieve my words. We’ll just have to see when the time comes.”

He wrote these words in his column,. The hint of hubris was utterly obvious—and he did not want to hide anything.

The whole world knew what Tony Twain wanted.

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Since betting with Twain at the press conference, Carl Spicer always kept the bet on the lips. Now all of England knew he and Tony Twain had a bet with his own hair as the wager.

Spicer was confident that Ibišević was incapable on the one hand and unable to adapt to the style of the English Premier League and Nottingham Forest on the other hand.

One must know that to score twenty goals a season was not a target that could be achieved easily.

Conversely, Tony Twain did not mention the bet again after he determined the wager. But he could tell that his bet with Spicer, and what he said to Ibišević afterwards, was indeed effective.

Ibišević was trying his best to integrate with the new environment. He was not at all as reticent as the Bundesliga player everyone thought. On the contrary, he was very lively.

He would use his fluent American English and joke with his British teammates. He could also chat in French with the Frenchman, Chimbonda, Nkoulou and the Belgian, Kompany. At the same time, he also used his fluent German and chatted with Şahin who used to play in Dortmund, lived in Germany for many years, and had a German passport, about life in Germany. In addition, Bosnia and Serbia were once part of the former Yugoslavia, so he was able to communicate with Žigić in his native language.

Besides, he was a real linguistic genius, and it did not take long for him to say hello in the still unfamiliar Portuguese language to his teammates from Brazil and Portugal.

Having no problems in terms of languages, he was very quick to integrate into the team. The best thing about coming to Nottingham Forest was that no one here was interested in his poor figures last season and did not make things awkward for him as the reporters did.

Tony Twain trusted him and had the intention of developing him to be the main force during training. He paid back with his good performance in the friendly matches. He scored two goals in three friendlies and had a selfless assist.

But it did not prove anything no matter how well he performed in the friendlies. To get England’s harsh media to change their minds about him, he must score goals in the official tournament, and a lot of goals at that.

He learnt a lesson from the mistakes of his predecessor, Žigić. Although Twain highly regarded this tall man and he played a big role on-field whenever the team needed to attack by storm and cling fast to defense, he was always termed by the media readily as “inferior parallel import.”

The only measure of a striker’s qualification was his goalscoring rate. Žigić had eleven assists last season. Once he played, the Forest team’s creation of header shots in the front field would not be sidelined, but they only resulted in nine goals, which were naturally not enough for the picky media. There were also media which protested unfairness for Žigić and thought that Twain had used the tall man wrongly. But as long as the tall man did not object, Twain would continue to use him in this way.

Ibišević desperately tried to fit into the team. He was aware that no position needed more support from his teammates than the striker. Moreover, he was not the kind of striker who could dribble the ball across more than half the pitch alone and then bypass the opposing goalkeeper to take the ball into the empty goal.

Bentley’s integration into the team was the fastest. First of all, he was English, and had no problems with the food, weather or language. Secondly, he was the player that Twain brought in based on the tactical needs of the team. Such a player often did not have any adaptation period in terms of the tactics. Twain understood Bentley’s characteristics. Since he decided to buy him, he was certainly in line with the team’s tactical needs.

The only thing that worried Twain was the “World Cup Syndrome.” Bentley had done well since his transfer to the Forest team. But Twain believed he was only carrying on his performance in South Africa from this summer. The better he played in the friendlies; the more worried Twain was about his form after the league tournament officially began.

As the fourth player the team had signed this summer, Nkoulou conformed with the norms of the team. In the right back position, he would face competition from Rafinha and Chimbonda. Although Chimbonda was old, he was experienced and defensively stable. His defense on the right was reassuring as long as he was not required to plug in to assist. Rafinha’s strength was plugging in from the back to attack on the side. In Twain’s tactics of the two wingers in full strength, a full back who could assist, had always been heavily used by him. Rafinha was on the right and Gareth Bale was on the left.

The young Nkoulou might still have to work his way up from the substitutes’ bench. Twain had promised the Cameroonian youngster him that he would have a great future if he continued to persist and integrate with the team.

Fernández was now the slowest to integrate out of the four players signed to the team this summer. As a South American player, the differences in languages and the totally different styles in the Spanish football and English football were still considered fine. The most painful things for him were the weather and food in England.

Most of the time, the skies would be as gloomy as it was in today’s training, and then it would start to drizzle. He finally understood why the opening line of the English conversation was always about the weather. Then there was the terrible local cuisine, which he was not used to eating.

These two points affected his performance on the training field and the friendly matches. He was still staying in a hotel room since he had not found a suitable place to live in. How could he focus on playing football, living like this? Unfortunately, his compatriot, Nicolás Millán had been loaned out. Otherwise he could have helped his senior from Colo-Colo adjust to life in England. As the only Chilean in the team right now, Fernández was indeed a little lonely…

The fans might have to wait a while to see Fernández, who was once awarded the South American Footballer of the Year.

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Whether or not these players managed to fit in with the team, time was passing day by day and getting closer to the start of the new season.

Nottingham Forest, who finished fourth in the league tournament last season before the start of the new season, had a life-and-death battle to cope with even though they did not have a FA Community Shield game to play.

It was the Champions League qualifier.

Nottingham Forest was not eligible to go straight into the official competition since they finished fourth in the league tournament. They must play in the Champions League qualifying round first and pass the test to be one of the official thirty-two teams in the Champions League.

Nottingham Forest’s qualifying opponent had been confirmed as the Red Star Belgrade team from Serbia.

There were two games, home and away. Only by eliminating Red Star Belgrade, would Tony Twain be qualified to say his team was really back in Europe.

On August 11th, the Champions League qualifying rounds kicked off.

Nottingham Forest would play Red Star at home.

Despite being a qualifying event, the City Ground stadium, which could only hold up to thirty thousand spectators was full. As the rare team in English football’s history that had fewer league titles than the Champions League championship titles, the Forest fans seemed to have a tradition of thinking that the Champions League was the most important title. The tradition was similar to that of Real Madrid. Between the league tournament and the Champions League, both teams would simultaneously choose the Champions League.

But Real Madrid’s reason for this choice was probably because the league title was so common for them. Whereas the Nottingham Forest fans made this choice only because they thought they had a tradition of winning the Champions League title as compared to the league tournament…

The City Ground stadium was small, but the fervent fans caused a lot of trouble for the Red Star team here.

The Forest fans found an emotional outlet after bottling it up for a year. They gave vent to their frustrations suppressed for a year. There was the constant singing and shouting in the stands. They did not stop at all from the start to the end of the game.

The Red Star team was very unaccustomed to the away atmosphere and Tony Twain’s team was like a fish back in the water here.

Nine minutes into the game that just started, Eastwood, who was in the starting lineup, helped the team scored an opening record with a long shot from outside the penalty area.

Following which, in the 32nd minute, Žigić’s header sent the City Ground stadium into a frenzy.

The first half was entirely controlled by Nottingham Forest and the Red Star team was powerless.

In the second half, Twain began to give the new players who joined the team in the summer a chance to make their debuts.

In the 55th minute, he brought Matías Fernández on to replace Chris Cohen. Fernández won the applause of the fans with a beautiful bypass as soon as he made his appearance.

But it was only one of the few flashpoints for him in the game.

Then, in the 69th minute, Twain replaced Lennon with Bentley.

Less than four minutes into Bentley’s play, he used a pass from the side and accurately sent the ball to the feet of Şahin, who plugged in from the back.

The Turkish talented midfielder faced the Red Star goalkeeper and fired calmly into the top corner. The football flew into the Red Star goal for the third time.

The goal completely snuffed out the Red Star players’ desire to win.

Next, amid the home fans’ thunderous singing, Gareth Bale locked in the score at 4:0 with a free kick!

Nottingham Forest won big at home. After the game, the English media stated that Tony Twain had set foot in Europe about three-quarters of the way.

“Just like the Invasion of Normandy sixty-six years ago. Tony Twain’s troops successfully seized the beachhead as they aimed for Berlin (this season’s UEFA Champions League final was held in Berlin)!”

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Appendix:

Nottingham Forest First Team squad list for the 2010-2011 season (26 players):

Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeev (1), Dale Roberts (12), Shane Redmond (25).

Defenders: Leighton Baines (22), Gareth Bale (2), Pascal Chimbonda (3), Jonathan Woodgate (5), Vincent Kompany (4), Pepe (6), Wes Morgan (30), Rafinha (14), Joe Mattock (33), Nicolas Nkoulou (21).

Midfielders: George Wood (13), John Bostock (23), Aaron Lennon (17), Tiago Mendes (31), Nuri Şahin (15), Chris Cohen (20), David Bentley (7), Matías Fernández (8).

Strikers: Freddy Eastwood (11), Nikola Žigić (9), Ruud van Nistelrooy (10), Gabriel Agbonlahor (18), Vedad Ibišević (19).