Godfather Of Champions

Ahead of the match against Nottingham Forest and Norwich City, the media rushed to report this piece of news:

The host of Sky TV’s <Football Matters>, Carl Spicer appeared with a shaved head on last night’s show. It had been confirmed that Spicer had been wiling to concede that he lost his wager with Tony Twain and shaved his hair. Mr. Carl Spicer became the second public figure to have lost a bet with Tony Twain. The first public figure to lose his beard was Mark Lawrenson. His beard has not grown back to date…

It was certainly a scandal for Spicer, but a good thing to Sky TV. Because they could make use of this opportunity to further drum up publicity for the show. Therefore, they went around promoting Carl Spicer would appear with “a brand-new look” in the upcoming show before the program was aired. The show set a new high in the ratings on that day.

Twain also did not forget to add salt to the wound and mocked Spicer in his column, “He should thank me for insisting on this bet at the time. I heard that their ratings have skyrocketed and that is all to my credit. I think Sky should seriously consider giving me a bonus.”

In the visiting team’s locker room, the Forest players marked Ibišević’s twentieth goal of the season. But he was not in the starting lineup for this game.

The media were aware of the starting lineup a day before. Tony Twain had rotated the team and had nothing to hide.

The striker who replaced Ibišević to start in the game was not Eastwood, nor Agbonlahor, but the young player, Aaron Mitchell. It was his first appearance for Nottingham Forest in an official tournament.

Such an arrangement was not surprising. After all, Nottingham Forest would face the strong rival, Barcelona at home next week. There was really no need to send the strongest lineup to play against an opponent like Norwich City.

Aaron Mitchell might see this day as the most memorable day of his career, because when he was still a center back, he never thought he could make his league debut so quickly as a member of Nottingham Forest.

But Twain did not take any special care of the lucky kid. What he said to the whole team was also what he had to say to the kid.

“I don’t know if you’ll feel the uneven ground under your feet when you walk onto the pitch later.”

The players laughed. They had been training on that terrible training ground for the last half of the week, with three players injured on the first day. Eastwood was one of them, but luckily he did enough warm-up and was not seriously injured. In order to seize the time, Twain even got here to play the away game on the morning of the game itself. For the sake of the Champions League, he was ready to give up the preparations for this league game.

“Norwich City’s turf quality and pitch are certainly not as good as Camp Nou, but it must be a lot better than that training ground of ours. Don’t forget your body’s memories because of this venue. To be honest, I won’t give you any pressure for this game. It does not matter if you win or lose. You just take it that you’re training in that rotten field. Keeping your bodies’ memories is your only task in this game.”

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After the game began, the Nottingham Forest players played a state that was surprising to the outsiders. It was not a matter of them being slow to warm up. The Forest players played as if they did not know how to play football collectively and acted clumsily.

From the simplest action of running, when the football that was obviously closer to the Forest players, the Forest team would certainly have gotten it under general conditions.

But during this game, the Nottingham Forest players appeared as if they could not run. They looked like they did not have the energy to start running and completely could not catch up with the Norwich City players mid-run. In this way, they just watched the football being taken away by the opponent first.

“I really suspect that the Forest players went out last night and got prostitutes. Otherwise, how else to explain the weakness in their legs?” The commentator also thought the Forest team’s playing was really ugly like this.

“The desire to win is not strong and their bodies are not right. What did Tony Twain train for those three days of closed-door training?”

“Only God knows…”

Aaron Mitchell was brought off after sixty-five minutes of his debut. His own personal play was not ideal due to the team’s inexplicable “poor state” on the pitch. He could not perform the headers and footwork skills which he was good at. On the contrary, because his body was slightly thin, he was also at a disadvantage in the confrontation against the opposing center back.

Ibišević, who was brought on, did not see any improvement in his form too. The commentators found it even more difficult to understand—“Why is Nottingham Forest’s entire team, from its starting lineup to its substitutes, in such a bad form? Are they voodooed?”

In the end, everyone was in a poor form and unable to find their competitive form on the pitch from start to finish. Unexpectedly, Nottingham Forest, which acted as if it could not play football, lost 1:0 to Norwich City in the away game, causing the biggest upset in the current round of the league tournament. One must know that beforehand, Norwich City was at the bottom of the rankings and almost certain to be relegated.

After the game in the mixed zone, the Nottingham Forest players who lost were the targets of the media’s pursuit instead. All the reporters wanted to ask the Forest players one question, “Can you explain your poor performance in this game?”

Most players might refuse to answer the questions because they were in a bad mood from losing the game. The few people who answered, would not really say anything of value such as, “A thing like a player’s form cannot be pinpointed. We feel that there’s no problem, but problems may crop up during a game, so we do not know what went wrong.”

Well, these players were clearly reluctant to cooperate with the reporters. Perhaps they felt that their performances were terrible, and they were too ashamed to answer such questions. So, the reporters turned to their attention to the post-match press conference, planning to hear what Twain had to say. According to precedent, Tony Twain must be furious that his team played such a bad game.

But what did they see at the scene?

Tony Twain sat smiling in front of a row of microphones, speak frankly with assurance about the just-concluded game.

“Football is like this, you can never say that just because we are strong, we deserve to win. You can’t celebrate victory in advance before the game starts. No one knows what the outcome is till the last second. I’m really sorry about the result of this match.”

Could anyone see the slightest expression of “sorry” on his face?

“The team was not in form and I’m angry.”

Was he really angry? “Angry with a smile?”

“Finally, I would like to congratulate Mr. Glen Roeder. His team played a beautiful game.” Twain stood up and shook hands with a beaming Roeder next to him. The two men were also quite connected—Twain’s debut match against West Ham United was led by this man. At the time, he showed off his “big mouth” for the first time at the press conference. He not only successfully cursed West Ham United’s relegation, but also found out for the first time where the English Football Association’s front door was.

Now, eight years later, Mr. Roeder appeared before Twain again after he had suffered a heart attack and a cerebral thrombosis. This time, though, he was neither the West Ham United manager nor Newcastle United’s acting manager, but the manager of the newly promoted team, Norwich City. He led the team to promotion last season but was likely to lead the team back to the English Football League Championship this season. At this crucial time, to be able to beat a strong enemy like Nottingham Forest, it was naturally help provided in the hour of need.

Unfortunately, even so, he could not be the leading character at the press conference. Instead, it was the defeated Twain who became the focus of attention. Had it not been for Twain’s initiative to stand up and shake his hand to congratulate him, he did not know how long he would have to wait for the reporters to turn their attention to him.

Norwich City’s victory over Nottingham Forest was an upset after the game, but the articles which appeared in the important placements were the media analysis on why Nottingham Forest had suddenly been unable to find its form. Poor Mr. Glen Roeder…

Some people said it was due to the rotation that Twain did to prepare for the game against Barcelona. But with the Forest team’s strength, even if with a full rotation, it should not be defeated by a low-level team like Norwich City, should it?

Other people said it was the away loss to Barcelona that had a profound impact on Nottingham Forest. Cracks had appeared in their originally invulnerable locker room and Tony Twain, who only knew how to be hopping mad and scold people, could no longer control his star players. Today’s Nottingham Forest was like a sheet of loose sand, with its morale at rock bottom after two consecutive losses. Barcelona’s chance was here.

Moreover, Twain’s unusual performance in the post-match press conference suggested that he had a falling out with the club’s top brass after he lost control of the team. He had sent the helve after the hatchet. There had been rumors that once he lost to Barcelona, Tony Twain would be out of Wilford. And the Manchester United club had signed a deal with Twain in private. He would immediately go to Manchester United after he left Nottingham Forest.

These rumors were half-truths. Some of which simply did not hold up while some seemed to contain some truth. The real and fake news mingled together. The readers could not discern the truth and could only be led by the nose by the media.

Twain chose to remain silent over these media reports. Nottingham Forest also chose silence. It was like a nuclear submarine diving into the deep sea and lying in the dark, so that the enemy could not figure out where they were going or what they were planning to do.

The only trouble was that some people among Nottingham Forest’s fan base also believed the rumors. After all, the game was really ugly to watch. It was almost on par with their home loss to Bolton Wanderers in that year. And Tony Twain unexpectedly did not lose his temper. No wonder some of the Forest fans had the wrong idea.

But based on this point, Nottingham Forest did well in its secrecy.

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While the rumors continued to spread about Tony Twain’s imminent departure outside, the Nottingham Forest players continued to train on the rotten ground. After these few days of “trampling”, the site became even worse.

But it did not have much impact on the training, as Nottingham Forest did not do much ground coordination training. The focus of the team’s training this week was in the air—long balls.

The attacking players in the front field were asked to simply manage the ball after they had taken the ball. The simpler the better, the faster the better. They did not need to think about brilliant ground coordination—in fact a lot of players did think so at the beginning, but when they saw that the passes they were sending could not roll to where they wanted the ball to go on such a field, they gave up the unrealistic idea.

To put it bluntly, the only trick to playing on such an uneven ground with patchy grass was to minimize the contact between the football and the ground, so a high ball was the way to go.

When the defenders were marked as they took the ball, they must stride forward; when the two defensive midfielders switch between offense and defense, they did not use a short pass, but a long pass; the wingers frequently used cross passes at a forty-five-degree angle, rather than crossed from the byline. Then they would place a tall center forward who was outstanding at header shots in the forefront. The football would go where the tall center forward was. In addition to practicing extra set piece plays, the set pieces, whether offensive or defensive, would become the game’s top priority. Because Twain was well aware that his tactics might not get more direct shooting opportunities, so he needed other means to score. A set piece was the best option.

The Nottingham Forest players would not be too unfamiliar with the style of play, nor would they think it was a new thing to do from the boss’ moment of impulse. Because even when the Forest team played most beautifully, they could see this “efficiency football” or “ugly football” in their tactics. Otherwise, why did the media always criticize them?

The Nottingham Forest coaches were also not surprised. Because Tony Twain’s initial success at the Forest team was based on efficiency football and “useless possession.” It was only later that he revised his tactics a little to make the Forest team’s style of play richer and better. Only this time Twain took the “useless possession” to the extreme and used a famous extreme—POMO (“Positions of Maximum Opportunity”), meaning “the areas of the field from where goals were most often scored. It was the famous “English style long ball.”

Almost all England coaches knew and were familiar with this theory, because the theory was founded by Charles Hughes, who had the greatest influence on English football in the last century. He also used his position as the Director of Coaching for The English Football Association in the 1960s till 1990s to greatly promote the idea. It was the culprit in why the English football technical style had not progressed or even regressed.

It was a classic example of “an armchair strategist” in football. The theory was invulnerable, but the actual situation acted in a way that defeated one’s purpose. It was not the same thing at all. Even so, why did Twain suddenly decide to use this extreme tactic?

Since POMO had been popularized in England for thirty years and had far-reaching influence, there must be some merit to it. Even if it was small, George Graham’s Arsenal achieved success with it in the early 1990s. Although they played rough football that made the Arsenal fans tired of them too, they won the championship title, and that was the redeeming quality.

The terrible pitch was clearly well suited to the use of long balls. Twain said he would do whatever it took to win, so it would be no big deal to briefly resurrected the “notorious” POMO once in Nottingham Forest.

Every winner would still smile even if he was scolded by people, while the loser would not be happy even if he received more praise.

There was always one reason for the Catalan media to attack Twain—he played extremely ugly football which was full of the utilitarian stench, and he was England’s biggest football hooligan.

Then Twain would tell them: since you talk so much about ugly utilitarian football, have you ever seen the ugliest and most utilitarian football? It doesn’t matter if you have never seen it. I shall open your eyes soon!