Godfather Of Champions

“A beautiful counterattack! George Wood’s brilliant performance scored a goal!” The Nottingham Forest players hugged each other tightly. It was their first goal at the Stadio delle Alpi venue!

Twain could not stay in his chair. He kept jumping up and down, waving his hands excitedly. He acted as if he had won the game already. “George is acting more and more like the core of the midfield!” Kerslake was also excited and shouted elatedly beside him. “The breakaway and pass were gorgeous!”

Ranieri shook his head in disappointment and turned to walk back. He was still jabbering nonstop. “How could he pass the ball to the opponent’s feet? I really don’t know what he was thinking!”

The loss of the ball started with Giovinco’s passing error in the front. It was frustrating to lose the ball like this. By the time Sebastian Giovinco ran back towards the penalty area, the ball was already in the goal. He looked at the football despondently.

Giovinco felt like his performance today was like a pile of crap. After a moment of silence, the booing started in the Stadio delle Alpi Stadium again. It was obviously targeted at Nottingham Forest. But to Giovinco, it sounded like all of the cries were focused upon him alone.

The booing continued until the end of the first half. Nottingham Forest entered the locker room with a one-goal lead, while the Juventus players looked a little lost—they thought the last five minutes should have belonged to them. Ranieri had already turned to leave the technical area to walk toward the tunnel the moment the whistle sounded. He was quite unhappy and had much to say during the halftime interval.

Tony Twain, on the other hand, was in no hurry to get back into the locker room. He stood on the sidelines, patting every Forest player who came off the field on the head as he shook hands with them to congratulate and encourage them. Twain was the last person to enter the visiting team’s locker room.

“Well done, guys!” Twain was in an excellent mood. His voice was loud, and his movements were energetic. It looked like he was also quite satisfied with the result of the first half. “The game has been going as we planned. But we have to keep working hard in the second half. A one-goal lead…”

“Is the most precarious situation!” Eastwood helped finish the sentence. Twain pointed at him, and everyone laughed. Twain has always treated this valued player with the most leniency. No one else would have dared to interject while Twain spoke, yet Eastwood would do so frequently without any backlash.

“Freddy, I think you can be a manager in the future.” The guys laughed again. Eastwood chuckled. “How could I, chief?”

“I bet Ranieri is upset right now.” Twain stopped paying attention to Eastwood and continued. “His plan should be the same as the last time he beat us, which is to use the opening period or the period before the end of the first half to score since he felt that we would only relax at those times. But he didn’t expect to be tricked by us.” Twain laughed deviously.

“In the second half, they will definitely keep attacking for a while because they won’t accept losing to us during a home game. That’s our chance. Seize it!” Twain made a grip with his hands.

Meanwhile, in the Juventus locker room…

Ranieri was livid. The man he faced sat silently in front of his locker-room cabinet with his head bowed. The player held a sports towel in his hand, but he was motionless. Ranieri did not scold Giovinco, who had made the crucial mistake. He just stared hard for a moment, turned around, and sighed.

“Let’s see how we can reverse the situation in the second half…” He looked at the tactical board with the formations of the two teams. In his view, the Nottingham Forest’s formation had already retreated into a defensive stance, or began “parking the bus.”

Since he coached Juventus, he had not allowed himself to make mistakes. He wanted to capitalize on the faults of others, yet he was immensely unhappy when others do the same. But now their flaw had been caught by Nottingham Forest in the first half. Tony Twain was also quite observant of other teams…

The situation was currently not in their favor. With Nottingham Forest in the lead and Ranieri’s knowledge of Juventus, he could understand what Nottingham Forest would do.

Defensive counterattack! If it were me, I would do the same…”We have to attack…” He spoke somewhat dispiritedly. “But we can’t fully press up. We have to guard against their counterattack at the same time. In the second half, we will concentrate our attacking forces on the two wings…” He said as he pointed to the other team’s formation on the tactical board.

Looking at the formation, Nottingham Forest’s middle was sturdy. Generally, an offense would encounter a strong resistance here. But the wings were relatively empty. Attacks on the wings would be far more effective.

Ranieri figured it out! Twain must have taken control of the midfield for a midfield advantage. Ranieri was not going to play by his book. They will use a quick pass from the wings to shoot straight for the goal.

“In the second half, Alessandro, you go up and replace Giovinco.” While he did not criticize Giovinco’s performance in the first half, the replacement showed everyone his attitude towards the rising midfield star. Del Piero nodded. Giovinco bowed his head lower.

※※※

“I guess Ranieri will step up the attack in the second half, but he’s not a fool. Looking at our midfield configuration, it would be a pipe dream if he wanted to win by attacking the middle. So, he’s definitely going to focus on the wings.” Twain drew two lines on the tactical board and added. “It looks like our wings are empty. Therefore, in the second half, we have to make a little adjustment…”

“The two wingers will reduce the number of assists up the line, and we will adjust the formation to a 4-4-2 parallel position. George, you and Tiago continue to take charge of the defense in the middle. Matías, you will go back to the left side and Şahin, you rest in the second half. Lennon will go on.”

Şahin nodded in acceptance of Twain’s arrangement. Both had changed players during the halftime interval, but Twain and Ranieri had completely different goals. So, the moods of the two players who were replaced were completely different.”In the second half, we will return to our offensive tactics in the wings and surprise Juventus again!”

※※※

Before the start of the second half, both sides got ready to make the substitutions near the sidelines. Juventus used Del Piero to replace Giovinco, who made a fatal error in the first half, while Nottingham Forest replaced Şahin with Lennon.

“It’s easy to understand why Giovinco was brought off. After all, he played terribly in the first half. But replacing Şahin with Lennon… What is the meaning of this? Şahin’s performance in the first half was remarkable…..” The commentator was still wondering about it, but Ranieri was keenly aware that something was wrong.

Lennon was purely a winger, and Şahin was a true midfielder. What did the adjustment mean? Nottingham Forest is going back to the wings! He had just gotten his players focused on offense in the wings, and now they were directly up against the Forest team…

He believed it must have been Twain’s plot—in the first half, he thought Nottingham Forest would stick to their play in the wings, so he focused on the wings to trap Nottingham Forest. He had not predicted that would Tony Twain uncharacteristically chose to play in the middle. Finally, the Forest team managed to attack and gain one goal. At the halftime interval, he made his own countermeasure to deal with this situation, but he did not expect Twain to change again!

Twain instructed the team to focus on their offense in the wings for the second half. It was not just for their offense, but also for their defense—when the Forest team stepped up the offense in the wings, Juventus’ offense in the wings would inevitably be affected. It was Twain’s idea to fight fire with fire in the wings.

The effect was still considerable… After the game resumed, Juventus had wanted to besiege the Forest team’s goal but were dragged into a quagmire in the midfield by Nottingham Forest. Del Piero could control the ball after he came on, but George Wood’s close marking on him made it very hard for him. To counter the Italian Golden Player with excellent ball control but a weaker physique, George Wood used his remarkable frame to tire Del Piero out, even risking fouls a couple of times.

Wood and Tiago were simultaneously on offense and defense in the first half. But by the second half, they were almost entirely focused on defense. Like two meat grinders in the midfield, they dragged in all of Juventus’ attacks to grind and crush them. The midfield defense caused a lot of trouble for Juventus’ offense.

No matter where the Juventus players passed the ball, Nottingham Forest would have the upper hand in numbers. They seemed to be everywhere. The Forest players were in excellent shape and ran around to intercept Juventus’ ball.

The game entered a deadlock. The two teams kept making mistakes—Nottingham Forest used their Premier League pace to drag Juventus, the graceful and elegant team into a frenzied dash without any regard for their image. After a while, The Old Lady could stand it no longer… Active mistakes began to increase.

While the Forest team’s mistakes were also on the rise, it was still within the extent that Tony Twain could bear. They now had the lead, and if they drag Juventus into disarray, there would be plenty of chances for the Forest team. Twain returned to his seat in the technical area, sat down and crossed his legs. He was not in a hurry.

As time went on, Juventus was the one getting more and more anxious. It was as if the manager’s seat in the Juventus technical area had nails on it. Ranieri seemed to wince as he sat restlessly. He paced around the sidelines, anxious as he stared helplessly at the pitch.

He could only hope now that Amauri could break out with the energy he had in the league tournament and break into Nottingham Forest’s goal. Unfortunately, Pepe kept a close watch on Amauri and stuck close to him. The talented center forward met a fierce rival. Furthermore, Nottingham Forest cut the link between Juventus’ midfield and forwards. Neither Amauri nor Iaquinta could receive support from the midfielders. More often than not, they struggled alone and had to continually retreated to receive the ball.

All in all, Juventus’ offensive system was messed up by Nottingham Forest. Ranieri was at his wits’ end—he was always slower than Twain by a step and made adjustments that were aimed at Twain’s previous deployments, causing the players to be at a loss over what to do.

※※※

The second half was a hundred times more frustrating than the first half. It was not until the game was about to be over that Juventus set off a wave of counterattacks. They seized the last moments and began a siege on Nottingham Forest’s goal. On the other hand, Nottingham Forest seemed reluctant to attack again. All of them retreated to defend and huddled in their own penalty area.

Twain was so unhappy with the situation that he stood on the sidelines and roared at the team to fight back. But his voice was drowned out by the deafening cheers of the home fans at Stadio delle Alpi.

“This is Juventus’ last chance! If they don’t hurry up, they will lose at home!”

Ranieri replaced Sissoko, who did not contribute to the attack at the last minute, and brought on Iago, the excellent midfielder from the La Masia Youth Camp, hoping to step up the offense, equalize the score in the final minute and create a miracle.

“Amauri attacks with a header shot!”

“Ah – Akinfeev! A beautiful save! That’s awesome!”

“Iaquinta fell inside the penalty area, and the referee whistled! But it is only a free-kick outside the penalty area. Kompany’s foul was timely. Any later, it would have been a penalty kick!”

“Del Piero takes the free-kick… and it hits the human wall! The Juventus players protested to the referee that the Forest team’s human wall was too close, but the referee only signaled to them to throw the out of bounds ball.”

…

The game only became thrilling in the last ten minutes. Juventus pressed on the edges of the Forest team with threatening shots coming in quick succession. The hearts of the Forest fans almost jumped out of their throats. The goal guarded by Akinfeev tottered under the rain of attacks as if it would fall at any moment.

Twain was also nervous. If Juventus had scored the equalizer in the final minute and he was to see them hug and celebrate in a frenzy, Twain really did not know if his nuclear-powered heart could withstand the agitation…

“Tony!” Dunn shouted from the back. He was also worried about Twain’s heart. “I’m fine, Dunn.” Twain waved his hands and rushed to the sidelines to yell. “What are you doing shrinking at the back? Are you tortoises? Your heads do not f**king belong to tortoises!!”

Nottingham Forest finally made two counterattacks, one of which came close to scoring, thanks to Twain’s frenzied yelling and body signals. Juventus was not disturbed by Nottingham Forest’s two counterattacks and continued to fully press on, wanting to score a goal before the final whistle. The always gentle and graceful Old Lady also finally took off its veil, rolled up the sleeves, and pulled up its skirt to fight with Nottingham Forest. Unfortunately, they were too late… Del Piero kicked the ball into the stands behind the Forest team’s goal when the referee blew the final whistle to end the game.

As the Juventus team captain, he was not unhappy with anyone. He was just upset about losing like this—they were completely ground to death by Nottingham Forest’s defense… The post-match statistics showed that their shots on goal were almost a third more than Nottingham Forest, but they did not score at all. At the end of the game, the Nottingham Forest players repeated what Juventus did two years ago at the Stadio delle Alpi—a frenzied celebration of the victory.

But Twain seemed calm. He did not even celebrate as he got up to shake Ranieri’s hand. “It was a great game…” Twain said in English, regardless of whether Ranieri could understand. In fact, the language barrier was not an obstacle for Twain to express his meaning, because, at the moment, the smile on his face was as bright as a flower.

Ranieri knew what kind of man Tony Twain was. Although he could not understand what he said, he knew it was definitely unpleasant. He ignored the opponent who genuinely wanted to show off in front of him. He shook hands with Twain and turned to leave.

As soon as Ranieri left, the reporters swarmed up and surrounded Twain, wanting to hear his thoughts on winning the game. “Three consecutive wins.” Twain extended three fingers and said. “We’re definitely advancing to the next stage!”

“Mr. Twain, aren’t you being a little overconfident?”

“You’re wrong, Mr. Reporter. It’s not overconfidence, I’m just telling the truth.”

“Are you dissatisfied that you only won against Juventus with one goal?”

“No, I only care about the three points.”

“Two seasons ago, your team lost to Juventus in the away match in the Champions League group stage. How does it feel to successfully avenge that game?”

“I don’t feel anything right now. We still have to face them at our home stadium. When that game is over, you can ask me this question again.”

“Can you talk about Nottingham Forest’s goal in the Champions League this season?” In this rare instance, Twain was modest. He smiled and said. “We will do our best and see how far we can go.”

As a result, the day after the game, his modest smile was interpreted as “Tony Twain is back in the Champions League for the title.” In the photograph, Tony Twain smiled mysteriously, and the pair of narrowed eyes seemed to be calculating how far his team was from the UEFA Champions League title. Twain shrugged innocently. “That was just a professional smile…” Dunn snorted. “Don’t be modest, you’ve been stereotyped, Madman.”