Godfather Of Champions

Seven rounds had carried on in the league tournament, with Nottingham Forest achieving two draws and five wins to stay in fourth place in the league for now.

The competition in this season had been fierce since the first round. By now, in October, the league tournament’s top six teams’ points were only three points difference. The top two, Manchester United and Arsenal had the same points. They were only one point ahead of Nottingham Forest.

However, the season had only now started for two months. It was too early to say which team would win the title in the end.

Twain’s plan this season was to stay within the top four in the league tournament and secure the qualification for next season’s Champions League. They must at least advance into the final four from the top eight in the Champions League. If they could win the title, then of course they must fight for it at all costs. As for the EFL Cup and FA Cup, they were still used for the team as practice.

The Champions League away game against Atlético Madrid had helped Fernández regained his form. But whether he could show the same form in the league tournament remained a question mark for everyone.

In the eighth round of the league tournament, Nottingham Forest had an away challenge against Sunderland. Tony Twain continued to put Fernández in the starting lineup. He continued his performance from the game against Atlético Madrid. Also because of Bale’s injury and that Baines was not a full back with good attacking abilities, Twain did not ask for Baines to assist with the offense or for Fernández to return to defend on the left flank. The Chilean could single-mindedly deal with the opponent’s defensive players and employ breakthroughs or passes to threaten the other team’s goal.

Fernández’s technique was undoubtedly outstanding in the English Premier League. Sunderland was not the kind of team with fine technique. They were more like a traditional English team with their long balls, rough individual techniques, lots of active errors in passing and receiving the ball. But they had good physical fitness, bold in tackles and like to use physical contact.

However, Fernández showed that he was more able to compete than they did in the game— he completely did not consider whether he would get hurt in a physical collision with his opponent. All he knew was that if he did not try harder, he would not be in the main position for long.

The Chilean’s body was thin, but his technique was good, which somewhat closed the gap between the two sides. He used his superb footwork to protect the ball alone surrounded by three Sunderland players. Under such circumstances, the Sunderland players had only two options—one for Fernández to successfully dribble the ball out and the other was to foul.

The Sunderland manager was no longer Roy Keane. Twain felt that even if Keane was still there, it was expected that the players would be instructed to give Fernández a hard kick without reservations. Well, because he was the kind of manager who would instruct his own players to do so too…

Fernández was given the extra attention and was fouled against five times in the forty-five minutes of the first half. Fortunately, he was not hurt. In return, three of Sunderland’s four defenders received yellow cards due to him.

In the second half, Sunderland finally suffered for their rough tactics. When Fernández dribbled the ball to break through to the penalty area, he was shoveled to the ground by the Sunderland center back, Paul McShane.

The referee did not hesitate to award a penalty kick. Although this caused a collective protest from the home team’s players and fans, the referee did not change the penalty. Not only that, he showed McShane, who already had a yellow card, his second yellow card!

An agitated McShane was almost on the verge of grabbing the red card in the referee’s hand. While on the other side, Fernández who produced the penalty kick and sent down one Sunderland player, was being hugged by his teammates. He felt that he was integrating with the team. He no longer questioned whether transferring to the cold and wet England was right or wrong.

There was no turning back now. He must succeed here no matter what!

The penalty kick was to be executed by Eastwood; the team’s number one penalty shot expert. He fired a powerful shot after a long-distance run and the goalkeeper judged it in the right direction, but the ball was too fast, and the ball had already hit the net behind him as he pounced!

Nottingham Forest took the lead in the away game with a penalty shot.

Sunderland, which had one center back sent off, had to adjust their tactics. They had to bring off the Paraguayan striker, Óscar Cardozo and replaced him with the center back, Anton Ferdinand. This man was the younger brother of Manchester United’s center back, Rio Ferdinand. But he was not as capable as his brother, young and could only play for the mid to lower level teams.

Being forced to change the players this time completely disrupted Sunderland’s deployment.

When Fernández took the ball again, the Sunderland defenders had to hesitate—they were afraid to follow McShane’s footsteps. This made Fernández increasingly aggressive. He was not satisfied with breaking through from the wings. He simply moved to the middle and pushed Şahin to the left.

His excellent long shots, passes and breakthroughs created a big headache for the Sunderland defenders.

In the 87th minute, Sunderland fully pressed to try to equalize the score with a dogged fight. But Fernández’s long distance dribble and strike from the backfield shattered their dream.

Because of his previous active performance, his dribbling this time attracted the marking from two Sunderland players. Instead, he passed the football to the completely unguarded Ibišević.

Super Ibi slightly adjusted the ball under his feet outside the penalty area and then fired a long shot that went straight past the Scotland national team’s main goalkeeper, Gordon’s ten-fingers.

After the goal, Ibišević ran to the camera behind the corner flag once again and then lifted his right hand to give a hard slap.

This was his fifth goal of the season!

It was a goal that locked in the win and a goal that caused the Sunderland team to lose their fighting spirit.

With five or six minutes remaining, Sunderland could no longer organize an effective attack and the game was brought to an end in this way.

Nottingham Forest won the away game by 2:0 against Sunderland with Matías Fernández’s wonderful performance.

After the game, Fernández received the champagne that symbolized the best player on the spot. He smiled happily in the crowd of reporters.

Twain also praised Fernández at the press conference. He now had to do everything he could to make Fernández feel that he had a future at the Forest team and that Nottingham Forest was a team worthy for him to play for.

Anyway, saying good things did not require any costs, so naturally the more the better.

Fernández later spoke about life at the Forest team in an interview with his hometown media.

He said, “… I love this team and I’m getting used to the life here. Everyone is friendly and the boss—they all address the manager here in this way—is a man of unique charm. This team is different from the other teams and I want to win championships here. I enjoy my life here very much.”

“Is the language barrier an obstacle?” The reporter asked him.

He shook his head and said, “Playing relies on the feet, not the mouth. I feel like I’m building the rapport with my teammates.”

He was right. “He is building the rapport.”

Despite winning the game against Sunderland and Twain also praised Fernández for his best performance, in fact his heart was not as happy as he showed.

Fernández found his form but the rapport needed to be developed slowly. To able to defeat Sunderland was due to individual ability and not the overall strength of the team. Fernández more often opted to fight alone, which could be seen from the ten fouls against him in the game.

Twain was positive about Fernández’s brilliant performance in the game. But if that was the case in later games, he would have to criticize the team with a grim expression. Nottingham Forest had never been the type of team that insisted on individualism. He was after overall football. If it must be said that this team had individual heroism, then the hero could only be Tony Twain himself.

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Nottingham Forest once again left the United Kingdom and flew to Italy after they played against Sunderland.

This time, they were up against an old rival, Juventus from two seasons ago.

Before they left, Twain gave an interview to the media, which was unexpected. He did not show his usual style of madness. Instead, he carefully said, “There’s a certain degree of difficulty playing against Juventus in the away game. Of course, I want to win, but it doesn’t make sense to say whether we can win right now. The football is round. Until the last second, who can know the result?”

The media interpreted Twain’s attitude as a deliberate show of weakness and that it was nothing more than a psychological warfare—he wanted Juventus to think that Nottingham Forest was afraid of them and to take them lightly. In actual fact? They wanted to strike them another fatal blow when Juventus underestimated them!

It was simply too in line with the guy, Tony Twain’s style.

Therefore, his words definitely could not be trusted!

※※※

It was miracle that Ranieri had not been dismissed yet as the Juventus manager. Everyone thought he was an overdue manager and he lasted three seasons… He still sat firmly in that position.

Now the white-haired old man was studying their strongest opponent in the Champions League group stage, Nottingham Forest.

Judging by the current points standings, the seeded team, Juventus had one win and one draw, trailing behind Nottingham Forest with two wins.

Tony Twain’s speech before he came naturally did not escape Ranieri’s attention.

He was pondering Tony Twain’s motive behind his sudden display of his stance…

According to Tony Twain’s previous habit of giving outlooks on the game and future, he should brashly expressed, “The three best teams in the world are Nottingham Forest, Nottingham Forest and Nottingham Forest. So, our opponent is us. I don’t care whether the game is played against Juventus or Barcelona because the result is only one—we win!”

Only by saying that would be in keeping with his character.

He was unexpectedly cautious and voluntarily low-key. Such an unusual behavior could not stop Ranieri from being extra careful.

He wants us to take the enemy lightly?

Is Juventus that kind of team?

Does he really think the probability of winning is low playing against Juventus in the away game? So, he’s giving himself a good way to get off the hook ahead of time?

Ranieri felt that this possibility was way too low…

What tricks is Tony Twain hiding up his sleeves? What does he want to do?

If his aim was to trick Juventus into underestimating the opponent, then he must want Juventus to attack aggressively at home and then wait to fight back. But Juventus was not a team that would forget itself. Even at home, Ranieri would not have taken the risk of doing so. At any given time, Juventus always give priority to “stability.” Otherwise they would be called “The Old Lady.” It was a team style that would not change no matter how many managers were changed.

Ranieri believed Twain’s level of intelligence would not be low enough to think Juventus would attack at home and leave plenty of space in the backfield for the Forest team to counterattack.

After all, when Juventus beat Nottingham Forest two seasons ago, it was not based on offense, but on the overall balance. They might not be the best in offense or defense, but their integrated strength was powerful and had no obvious weaknesses.

Football was a game of hiding one’s weaknesses and finding the opponent’s weaknesses to exploit. In this respect, Juventus’ style of play had already established them in an “invincible position.”

Unable to think of exactly why Twain suddenly adopted a low-key manner at this time, Ranieri decided to stop mulling over it. Regardless of what Tony Twain had hiding up his sleeves, as the home team and Serie A’s biggest powerhouse, Juventus, he just needed to stick to their style of play and football.

Juventus’ football was not the kind of football that was adjusted to different opponents. If the football style of Barcelona, currently dominant in the football world, was “aggressive offense”, then Juventus’ style was “immovable.”

Ranieri decided to stick to his style in order to cope with shifting events by sticking to a fundamental principle.

Just like the first time the two teams competed against each other, he did not know much more about Nottingham Forest than the average person, so he stuck to Juventus’ own style of play to eventually defeat Nottingham Forest at home and retreat as a whole in the away match. He felt he did not have to make any changes. Juventus was almost born to subdue Nottingham Forest.

What was a “natural enemy?”

Juventus was the natural enemy of Nottingham Forest!

Tony Twain’s tactical style did not appear to change much from two years ago. If that was the case… Ranieri felt it would not be a problem to get the three points at home without any surprise. As for the away match, he only needed to be more careful.

He did not underestimate his enemy at all.