Godfather Of Champions

When England scored a lucky goal to come from behind and lead the game, loud jeering could be heard from the stands of the Crimson Stadium which puzzled the England players. Logically speaking, the national team would never be treated this way when playing in any stadium in its home country, so why were they booed?

They were mistaken as they were not the target of the boos. The boos were targeted at Tony Twain, who was seated in the manager’s seat with his legs crossed, no expressions of his face…no, he seemed to be pulling a long face.

Bill knew why Twain was indifferent to the fact that England was leading. After all, he was the fan who was closest to Twain and he knew a little about Twain’s personality and how he behaved. He understood that Twain did not want to provoke the massive amount of Nottingham Forest fans and their players.

However, that was precisely why Bill was even more furious.

He was angered by Twain’s acting.

You’ve already left us, why are you acting like a good guy in front of us? Why can’t you play a real baddie for once? Let us vent all our anger and dissatisfaction to our hearts’ desire? Since you’re already gone, why are you afraid of offending us? Do you know how much you’ve offended us already? Tony! Are you hoping to come back and become Nottingham Forest’s manager again one of these days? If you’re coming back, why leave us in the first place? Us fans, who’ve been following you, what exactly are we in your eyes…nay, in your heart? A toy that you can discard and pick up again at will?

I’m very sorry, Tony. We’re humans who are very much alive. We have feelings too. You’ve brought us joy previously, but no amount of joy can make up for the hurt that you caused us this time. Did you think about how we felt when you were enjoying yourself in Brazil after you decided not to extend your contract?

The sky collapsed on us!

Bill led his buddies on the stands as they “presented” their wildest jeers to the man whom they used to cheer and worship before.

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Amidst the jeering, Twain lowered his gaze and lost himself watching the tip of his shoes.

Des Walker looked at him with some concern beside him, as if he was afraid that Twain would not be able to take the abuse.

This man was really going against the whole world… There used to be the Nottingham Forest fans who would support him unconditionally but what about in future? If results did not go his way, Walker could imagine the media condemning him through both in speech and writing like a storm. When that happens, who would still be behind him to support him?

“Don’t worry about me, Des. I was just thinking if it’s time for me to change a new pair of shoes,” Twain said suddenly while looking down. His voice was still clear amidst the booing all around them.

Walker turn back and brought his gaze towards the pitch.

“Martin O’Neill will not allow the score to stay this way till the end of the game. He’ll make a series of changes later. Let’s wait and decide on our changes accordingly after looking at his adjustments,” Twain said. Walker nodded in agreement to his plans.

“Before that, ask the team to play on the counter.”

Twain gave the task of giving the latest instructions to the team to Walker instead of shouting it out to his team himself. Apparently, he still had some qualms regarding the booing around him.

After booing wildly for a period of time, the fans grew tired and they decided to place their attention on the match again.

Martin O’Neill was indeed unhappy with this result. He was of the opinion that even the Nottingham Forest reserves would be a stronger team than Twain’s England C team, there was no reason for him to lose to a team like this at home.

At the same time, he also knew very well that Evan Doughty at the VIP box would not want Nottingham Forest to lose in the game that commemorated the use of the new stadium, especially not to Tony Twain. This was a match that he had to win.

Even though the players on the field were better than the substitutes, O’Neill still decided to change them.

The foul by Pepe suddenly planted a thought into his head. Usually he would have laughed off a thought like this, but today, in this match, this situation, facing an opponent like this, he had to give it a serious consideration——The old players in Nottingham Forest, were they loyal to Forest or Tony Twain? If Tony Twain had accepted the invitation by Manchester United, how many of them would follow their respected teacher to Old Trafford?

This thought bit on to his sense of reasoning like a viper, and even though he knew it was absurd, he could not stop its spread.

He decided to bring off the players who were suspected to be “in cahoots with the enemy”, no matter how good they were.

Who could he rely on next?

Those substitute players who were promoted from the youth team, they hardly had any relationship with Twain, and they were hungry to play, hungry to demonstrate their abilities. They had stronger fighting spirit than the first team players, and they had the desire and reasons to fight. This was the kind of Nottingham Forest that Martin O’Neill needed.

Pepe was the first one to be brought off. He was even booed by the fans when he was leaving the pitch, but he still raised his hands to applaud the stand. Twain watched him quietly from the side as he completed his own send-off through such a method. He felt sad inside, but one could tell nothing from his expression.

He was replaced by the Cameroonian Nkoulou. Standing tall at 1.88 meters, he could play as a right-back or a center-back.

Next, Gareth Bale was brought off for Joe Mattock.

A minute later, Aaron Mitchell was brought off too. He was replaced by the Chilean striker, Nicolás Millán.

After that, Rafinha was brought off for John Bostock as O’Neil decided to change his formation from 442 to a more offensive 352 formation.

For those fans wishing to watch the performance of their favorite football players, they were definitely unhappy with these substitutions. However, O’Neill could not care less about what the fans thought at that moment. He did not want to lose to Tony Twain, especially not as the new manager of Nottingham Forest.

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Shortly after O’Neill made his changes, Twain made some changes of their own. O’Neill believed that he lacked players with the will and reasons to fight, but Tony Twain did not. He would pat every player that he brought on on the shoulder and hinted to them that they would have the chance of being included in the next call-up to the national team if they performed well. It would not be just a friendly game then, but it would be the qualifiers for the 2016 European Championship held in Spain.

These players knew what that meant of course, and they had no reasons not to do their best in this match. The league would have only started for a month when the next national squad would be decided. It would be difficult to persuade the national team manager with impressive performance in the league matches then. The fastest and convenient method would be to perform well in this game and demonstrate their capabilities to the national team manager right in front of his eyes.

There might be some players who did not think much about this manager who had many different rumours floating outside. However, as professional players, they were very clear about a fact——No matter what they thought about this manager, he was their boss now and he would decide your fate in the national team. If they wanted to play for their country, they had to make him happy.

O’Neill almost brought off his whole starting line-up, and Twain did the same.

Both sides were full of fighting spirit and they were unable to get the better of each other.

During the last five minutes of the match, O’Neill stood on the sideline and focused on what was happening in the match on the pitch with anxiety. He did not have wild hopes of them “winning” anymore, all he wished for was for his team to equalize so he “would not lose”.

However, his wish was not fulfilled. Twain parked the bus against him. The Nottingham Forest team lacked experience without the first team players, and they could do nothing against this England team. When the referee blew the whistle for full time, it almost served as an announcement of Tony Twain winning his first match in-charge of the national team.

The commentator was not very fired up when announcing the result as the result that he wanted to see the most did not happen——Tony Twain’s humiliation.

Boos rang all around the Crimson Stadium when the referee blew for full time. Amidst the sounds of such jeers, Tony Twain stood up and walked towards O’Neill, the expression of happiness for happiness continued to be absent from his face.

“It’s a pity, you could have won,” Twain said while shaking O’Neill’s hand. If O’Neill had not brought off so many first team players at a go, Forest could really have equalized or even come from behind to win it at the death. At the very least, after Bale was substituted, Forest had no set-piece specialist anymore and England could commit tactical fouls in their danger areas at will without any worry of being pegged back by the Welshman.

O’Neill might have understood what Twain meant, or he might have not. No matter what, he did not reply and merely forced a smile, then let go of Twain’s hand and turned to walk away.

Twain looked up at the stands; there were people leaving the stadium and there were also people still booing him. He did not know what these people booing him would think had they known the truth behind it, but he did not want to give them a vengeful middle finger in return, that would be pointless. A day as husband and wife meant there was a bond for a hundred days, he had been worshipped by these people for a good ten years, being booed today was nothing.

Twain realized that he was feeling more liberal after winning and he did not have to care about those boos as he was in a good mood. Besides, he knew that he had threw a spanner into the works of Evan Doughty’s celebration which fulfilled that bit of vengefulness that he had, so there was no need for him to continue being harsh.

The reporters were very unhappy as Twain did not express his specialty of speaking without thinking in the press conference later. His words flowed like water and there were only good words. The return of the previous Forest manager to Nottingham was supposed to be a very newsworthy lead, but Twain’s uncooperative attitude meant that they were not able to come up with anything interesting.

The reporters did their best but they were unable to trick anything of value out of Twain’s tightly-shut mouth.

There was a reporter who wanted Twain to analyze the performance of his opponents in the match. This was a very normal question, but that reporter planned to make Twain talk about Nottingham Forest.

Twain did not bite, he simply said, “They are a very strong team, they were unlucky not to win.” Immediately after that, he probably felt that this was unjust to the team that he was currently managing, so he added, “Of course, we performed better, and victory should logically go to the team which performed better.”

This was the first time he spoke of Nottingham Forest, and even though it was just to answer a very regular question, the reporters felt encouraged. Another person stood up and asked, “George Wood was in a poor form during the World Cup period and you even defended him then. What do you think about his performance in this game?”

Twain took one look at that reporter, then glanced at Martin O’Neill next to him and laughed, “You should direct that question to Martin O’Neill. George Wood is his player in this match.”

O’Neill felt a little awkward himself. He was the present Nottingham Forest manager yet those reporters would rather direct the questions to Tony Twain, the person who had already left this position.

That reporter took one look at O’Neill and sat back down. This infuriated O’Neill, but he was more cultured than Twain and he forced himself to swallow his anger.

After that, if there were reporters standing to ask Twain about Nottingham Forest, he would push them to O’Neill. O’Neill was really a cultured man and he would always reply those reporters patiently with a smile if they asked him the same question, one could not detect any unhappiness in him at all.

When the press conference ended, Twain stopped O’Neill to shake his hand again. Twain felt bad as he had been using O’Neill as a shield against the reporters throughout the day.

“I’m so sorry, Martin,” Twain apologized to O’Neill.

O’Neill had a rather cordial relationship with Twain, so he could not give a snort and turned to leave like McClaren and the likes of him. He could only laugh and say, “This is you, I knew I would encounter such a situation with you so I was already mentally prepared for it.”

This could be considered as a sort of ridicule.

Twain opened his mouth and laughed mockingly at himself. Then, he looked at O’Neill, his expressions gradually became more serious and said, “Please take care of…Forest… in future…”

After working with Evan Doughty, O’Neill could guess the reason why Twain decided not to renew his contract. He himself was not sure how long he would stay in this team. He laughed and said, “I’ll do my best, Tony. If you can’t get go of it, why don’t you come back and do it yourself?”

Twain laughed heartily this time and patted O’Neill on his shoulders twice, then turned and left without saying anything else.

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Nottingham Forest’s defeat to England was nothing sensational. Other than reaffirming the hatred for Twain of some of the Forest fans, the result of this friendly game was nothing to write home about. What the people were interested in was the treatment that Tony Twain received when he returned to Nottingham. Images and reports of him being jeered in the stadium continued to appear in the media for the next few days, triggering discussions about it. The people who hated Tony Twain were very happy to see that even his most ardent supporters had left him whereas people who liked him felt that he was not treated fairly. However… When even the Nottingham Forest fans turned against him, how many people would really feel aggrieved by his fate?

Twain did not care about all these. After the match, the league would start in half a month’s time. The coaching team was assembled and there would not be any games for the national team for the coming month, Twain could take this chance to have a good rest. When the league begins, he would have to work as hard as a dog, running everywhere to watch the games.

At that moment, he saw a piece of news on The Sun.

Pepe admits that he’s planning to leave Nottingham Forest!

“…Ever since he was brought to Nottingham Forest by Twain from Portugal in the 05-06 season, the Brazilian Pepe became the core and pillar of the team’s defence. It did not matter who his defensive partner was, he was the unmovable starting center-back under Twain. Now, after ten years, Pepe has finally grown tired of everything that’s happening in Nottingham Forest. He admitted during the interview with our reporter that he plans to leave this team… After selling Wes Morgan, Tiago Mendes, Vincent Kompany and Leighton Baines, he’s the first core player that has decided to leave Forest… We do not know what kind of impact his announcement will have on Nottingham Forest Football Club yet, please continue to read our follow-up reports…’

Twain fell silent as he looked at Pepe’s photo on the newspaper.

Players come and go, all good things come to an end…