Godfather Of Champions

Arsenal made an adjustment during halftime interval. Wenger brought off Wilshere and brought on Denílson. It looked like it was to strengthen the defense, but in fact it was to prepare for the counterattack. Unfortunately, the gap of three goals was too wide. If Arsenal wanted to advance to the next level, they had to score four goals in forty-five minutes and ensured that they did not concede another goal.

It was simply an impossible task.

At the start of the second half Arsenal did threaten the Forest team’s goal, but good times were always short-lived. They still could not shake Nottingham Forest’s advantage built in the first half. George Wood is certainly one of England’s most powerful midfielders today. Fàbregas’ errors in his passing began to rise under his close marking and his physical strength was on the decline.

Although he could also send out those incisive passes, the whole team was suppressed by the Forest team. What could he pass the ball to?

The game was a tactical failure for Arsenal and no matter how good Fàbregas was, it was to no avail.

When Arsenal still failed to score halfway through the second half, Wenger had already foreseen his defeat and begun to save his team’s strength for the league tournament.

Fàbregas was still running hard on the pitch, passing the ball or making shots himself. He was not willing to admit defeat at this time.

The Spaniard was a little impetuous on the pitch, while Wood was calmer. The boss instructed him to keep a close watch on Fàbregas, and he meticulously carried it out. As for who Fàbregas would pass the ball to, he did not care. Just as his teammates believed in him as the team captain, he believed in his teammates too.

It was this sort of tacit understanding that allowed the Forest team to play actively in the away game and gain the initiative in the game.

In the second half, Arsenal had very few chances and the Forest team kept threatening Almunia’s goal. The Nottingham Forest fans had not seen such an easy game at Arsenal’s home ground for a long time.

In the 80th minute, some Arsenal fans began to leave the stadium early. They already held no hope for the game and could only comfort themselves with “we still have the league tournament” as they left the stadium unhappily.

Seeing that the overall situation had been determined, Twain also replaced a few players who had been more tired recently. Bale was replaced by Joe Mattock; Bentley was replaced by Moke and Ibišević was replaced by Agbonlahor.

Every player who was brought off hugged Twain and celebrated their victory in jubilation.

Twain did not think there would be a chance of failure with a 2:0 lead and ten minutes left.

He could go back to Nottingham with a relaxed mood. He believed that Shania in the box could breathe a sigh of relief as well.

During the last ten minutes, Arsenal launched a frenzied counterattack on the Forest team’s goal. They had almost given up on the pursuit of victory, but the pride of the strong team made it impossible for them to be so cleanly defeated at home. They wanted to take advantage of the remaining time to score a goal.

Unfortunately, the Forest team did not let them get their way. The entire team retreated to defend and fully block the goal.

Fàbregas finally played a full game and was not replaced early. Unfortunately, his efforts did not help the team win and not even bring a face-saving goal for the team.

When the referee blew the final whistle to end the game, many of the Arsenal players sat immobilized on the pitch, with only their team captain still standing.

On the other side, the Forest players on the bench, led by the assistant manager, cheered as they rushed onto the pitch, hugging their teammates on the field to celebrate.

While Tony Twain tidied his clothes and strode towards Wenger with a smile on his face.

“I’m sorry.” He comforted.

“I wish you good luck now, Tony. I hope you can make it to the final. But I won’t let you have the league title.” Wenger wanted to appear gracious. But he had just lost the Champions League and could not really smile.

Twain smiled and did not speak.

Wenger shook his hand and turned to walk away. Twain looked at his back, and he did not say the words on his mind, “Of course I’m not going to ask you to let me have the championship title, Professor. I’ll take it myself.”

After shaking hands with Wenger, Twain was surrounded by the reporters.

“How does it feel to be in the top four again, Mr. Twain?”

“It feels great!”

“Is the Champions League title your goal this season too?”

“Who doesn’t want to win the championship?”

“Is it a bit of a surprise to beat Arsenal so easily in the away game?”

“No, it’s Arsenal which should be surprised, not me.”

There were reporters wanted to ask questions, but Twain raised his hand to refuse, “You can ask whatever questions you have at the press conference. I have to go be with my team!”

He pushed aside the crowd and walked to the pitch to celebrate the win with the Forest players.

“Acting all self-important…” One of the reporters muttered in a low voice.

“But he’s qualified to act like a big shot.” Someone next to him shrugged, “After all, he’s the victor, isn’t he?”

The defeat of Arsenal and advancement to the semi-finals had given the Nottingham media a few days of enthusiastic publicity. The Wilford training base was full of buzz every day, with hardcore fans coming to support the team and the news media came sniffing.

The Forest team, who reached the semi-finals, met with some good luck. Their semi-final opponent was not strong. It was the France Ligue 1 team, Lyon. In the other match, it was an El Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

The Spanish media were excited about the top four teams because they had two teams in the top four and a team which dominated the top four of the Premier League long-term. All the teams had been utterly defeated this season except the Nottingham Forest team representing the Premier League in the top four.

The foreign media took delight in the misfortune, claiming that the Premier League was finally going to hand over the claim to the top league. The Spanish media proclaimed that they were going to take the top spot and that La Liga was the top league in Europe.

Whereas the Italian and German media, as always, chose silence.

The English media were unanimous in their optimism about Arsenal before the game, cheering Wenger’s team. Now they were turning to Nottingham Forest like opportunists, blowing Twain’s team up as “English football’s only hope”, “a warrior fighting for the dignity of English football” and “the inheritor of English football’s glory.”

Twain did not care about these labels being put on him. He had to return his focus on preparing for the league tournament. He would only think about the Champions League when the time came.

Before the Champions League game, the Forest team had already experienced playing against two strong teams. In the end, neither Chelsea nor Arsenal were able to complete their task of stopping them. Twain’s team successfully advanced and were currently ranked second, one point ahead of the third-placed Liverpool and three points behind the first-placed Arsenal with fewer points and goals than Arsenal. Arsenal was still quite far ahead in winning. The latest odds issued by William Hill for the Premier League title win this season remained bullish on Arsenal.

In an effort to prove that he had the victory in hand in his bet with Twain, Carl Spicer analyzed the Forest team’s disadvantages on his show. In terms of the competition schedule, he stated that the Forest team would face two strong teams and two weaker teams. The Forest team had already played the strong teams. The weak teams were the real test.

Neither of the two teams was out of the relegation zone yet. Worse still, they had not been promoted early. This was a situation that any of their opponents feared—a team in or at the edge of the relegation zone could either relegate to the English Football League Championship before the three rounds of the league tournament or successfully secure a last-minute stay in the Premier League. Heaven and hell were right in between.

No one wanted to go to hell. Everyone wanted to go to heaven. Twain was the same. If he help the others succeed, he would go to hell. He was a saint or Buddha who had altruistic love for the world and willing to sacrifice himself. Therefore, the two games could be expected to be very intense and exciting.

These two games were in the 35th and 38th rounds of the league tournaments respectively.

In the 35th round, the Forest team would play against Portsmouth in away challenge. While in the 38th round, the last game of the league tournament, they would play Sunderland at home.

If Nottingham Forest could beat Portsmouth while Sunderland won, then the final round might not be so bad for either team—Sunderland had already successfully avoided relegation and Nottingham Forest would naturally no longer have to face an opponent who would fight desperately to survive.

It was the ideal situation for the future, but Twain did not think their luck would be so good.

Because in 35th round, Sunderland was up against Manchester United. How could Manchester United let Sunderland win at home in the fight to qualify for the Champions League? Sunderland only had one home game in the final four rounds and with two of the other three away games, they had to face formidable opponent. It was harder for them to avoid relegation than Portsmouth.

As a result, the media had already declared Sunderland’s death sentence ahead of time. In comparison, Portsmouth’s last four rounds only had the Forest team as its strong opponent. They appeared more likely to successfully avoid relegation.

Perhaps only the Sunderland people themselves had not given up. The local media constantly cheered the team on. They thought that they would be able to create a miracle if they were united. It had even been suggested that Sunderland should bring back the former manager, Keane who had performed a similar miracle—taking over the previous team at the bottom rank and leading the team to be successfully promoted to the Premier League after half a season. It was also Keane’s only brilliant performance as manager. His coaching career was not very smooth later on, so such a proposal was entirely a desperate attempt at anything in a crisis. Nor could Keane have promised to step forward and be the fall guy.

There was a seemingly reasonable interpretation.

“… Tony Twain’s team is currently competing in three tournaments. Their physical exertion is extremely high and there is a lot of pressure on the players. I don’t think Sunderland is at the point of surrender. As long as we haven’t dropped out before the final round, we may still have a chance to defeat the exhausted Nottingham Forest team… Think about it, the fatigue from three consecutive tournaments and the immense pressure of having to win the league title, or else their boss will have to eat a table… No team can play at a normal level under such circumstances…”

But any terrible suggestion would seem reasonable before anything bad happened.

In short, Sunderland was still struggling. Twain would not go easy on them just because he had loaned many young players to them on several occasions, as well as had a good personal relationship with their former manager, Keane. Just like he would not show any mercy to Portsmouth. He did not care about any opponents other than himself. As long as they were obstacles in front of him and became a stumbling block to his progress to win the title, he would ruthlessly kick them aside.

Nottingham Forest challenged Portsmouth in an away game on April 19th, the 35th round of the league tournament.

Portsmouth had the vigor of a team looking to avoid relegation. But it seemed to come up with only eighty per cent of strength. Because the news came from Old Trafford that Sunderland trailed Manchester United just three minutes after the start of the game. Sunderland falling behind lessened a lot of the pressure that was on Portsmouth. They wanted to win the game but was not willing to stake it all. After all, there were three rounds left in the league tournament. If they used all they had got against the Forest team, then they would probably watch as their opponent overtake them in the remaining three rounds to escape the depths of despair in hell.

It was dangerous to bring such a contradictory frame of mind to compete against Nottingham Forest, which was determined to win and catch up with Arsenal.

The Forest players did not have that many complicated ideas in their heads—They had to win the game. What about the next game? They played using their best in the game. What about the second half?

It was easy to them—once they won this game, they would continue to win the next game. They played using their best efforts in the game and they would continue to play their best in the second half.

In the 25th minute, Nottingham Forest broke the deadlock with a long shot from Rafinha. They took a 1:0 lead in the away game.

Portsmouth only stepped up their attack once they trailed behind, with their manager roaring from the sidelines to ask the team not to give up. Ten minutes later, Portsmouth used a corner kick to breach Akinfeev’s goal and the score was 1:1.

This time it was Twain’s turn to get angry on the sidelines.

During the halftime interval, Twain replaced the under-performing Tiago with Gago and continued to strengthen the offense.

The Forest team finally scored in the 71st minute. Wood’s long shot deflected off the Portsmouth defender’s body and bounced right to Mitchell’s feet. He swung his leg and shot the football right into the net.

Trailing once again, Portsmouth tried to fight back. But only three minutes later, Matías Fernández blasted the Portsmouth goal with a long shot that completely extinguished Portsmouth’s fighting spirit. The ensuing game was dominated by Nottingham Forest and Twain made substitutions to let more players rest.

The only disgruntled people were the Portsmouth fans watching the game from the stands. They protested by exiting the stadium early.

When the referee blew the final whistle to end the game, the latest news from Old Trafford was that Sunderland had lost to Manchester United. In this way, the situation of the two teams remained unchanged. There was still a risk of relegation and a possibility of a promotion.

As Twain got up to shake hands with the Portsmouth manager, Kerslake, who was next to him, said, “Arsenal won, too.”

Twain nodded and said nothing. With a smile still on his face, he extended his hand to the other manager.

The two teams were still three points apart. Nothing had changed.

Now, Nottingham Forest could only make sure that the team kept winning and then expect Arsenal to make mistakes.

But could Wenger and Arsenal, which had been knocked out of the Champions League and only had the league tournament to contend with for the season, make mistakes and give Twain a big present?