Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
While Twain had said he wanted to win, football games were not won by words. Without careful preparation and meticulous arrangement, coupled with the right tactics, saying that one wanted to win was nothing but empty talk.
Sunderland was not a strong team. The newly promoted team played like a newly promoted team — the team’s results fluctuated. During the first round of the league tournament, they hosted Tottenham Hotspur. The two teams played a dull game, but Sunderland continued last season’s performance in the English Football League Championship. Based on their tenacious defense, they launched counterattacks. They finally cracked open Tottenham Hotspur’s goal and got off to a great start.
Keane’s debut in the new season appeared to be successful and stunning.
There was even an expert who could not wait to announce that this season, Sunderland was likely to be like the Wigan Athletic of two seasons ago.
However, Keane could not carry through. In the second round of the league tournament, Sunderland tied 2:2 with Birmingham City FC, lost 0:3 to Middlesbrough in the third round during an away game and also lost to Liverpool in the fourth round at home by 0:2.
On September 2nd, Keane returned to Old Trafford, where he bade goodbye to his former Manchester United teammate, the “legendary” Ole Gunnar Solskjær before the game. Solskjær, who previously suffered from injuries, had announced his official retirement. The Manchester United fans gave a standing ovation to Roy Keane, who had returned to Old Trafford with the team he led. Keane also hugged Ferguson in front of a host of media outlets with no hint of any explosiveness in the impending contest.
But after the game began, none of the warm feelings could be seen. The final score was 1:0. Sunderland played tenaciously, but its goal was pierced by the new Manchester United Portuguese young player, Nani, with a world class long shot. On the surface, it looked like Sunderland had some bad luck and Manchester United had scored in the most improbable way to score. In fact, Manchester United would have had plenty of chances during a game, but Rooney was injured, and Manchester United’s frontline could not find their offensive direction immediately.
After Carlos Tevez came on, his coordination with his teammates was not silent enough to form an effective offensive match.
As for Cristiano Ronaldo, he sat in the spectators’ stand with Rooney recovering from his injury.
“King Dong” Dong Fangzhuo, whom the Chinese fans were very concerned about, was put on the main list and sat on the bench. But no matter how much Manchester United’s offense was blocked, he did not get a chance to play. He sat on the substitutes’ bench for ninety minutes.
At the end of that game, Manchester United relied on Nani’s goal to win against Sunderland.
With three consecutive defeats, Sunderland abruptly silenced the experts who were optimistic about them before. Although Wigan Athletic lost to Nottingham Forest in the first game of the new season, they did quite well later. Otherwise, they would not have been seen as a major dark horse. Sunderland’s performance was still far from the image of “black horse.” Just like their nickname, “the Black Cats” were still a cat after all.
In the sixth round of the league tournament, Sunderland finally had their second league win of the season. They beat Fulham at home by 2:1.
The Sunderland fans thought that the previous three defeats were nothing more than a fluke. The team’s losses were because their luck was not as good as their opponents. Besides the team was still slowly adapting to the pace of the Premier League, which could be seen from the changes in their losing scores. At first they conceded three goals to Middlesbrough, next they conceded two goals to Liverpool and then they only conceded just one goal when they came to Manchester United. And now, Sunderland had won in the game against Fulham! What did that show? It showed that the team’s condition was getting better with every game. We have won with one goal against Fulham, so does that mean we will win Nottingham Forest in the next round… with two goals?
The words were laughable. It was almost impossible, given the disparity in strength between Sunderland and the Forest team. But who’s Sunderland’s manager? It’s the fearless Roy Keane. With him around, there will be a miracle. Think about the miserable predicament we were in the EFL Championship last season. Who could have believed that we would finally be promoted? Even we didn’t believe it ourselves, When Roy Keane came, he said at his inaugural press conference, “I’m not here to lead the team to stay in the league.” As a result, he did what he said he would.
It was not impossible to defeat Nottingham Forest in the away game. No team in the world was unbeatable.
But unfortunately, Twain was not going to let the Sunderland fans get what they wanted.
Twain sent the strongest lineup possible against Sunderland. The goalkeeper, Edwin van der Sar, the center-backs, Ayala and Pepe, the left-back, Gareth Bale, the right-back, Rafinha, the defensive midfielders, George Wood and van der Vaart, the left midfielder, Ribéry, the right midfielder, Beckham, and the strikers, van Nistelrooy and Arshavin.
Eastwood had a minor injury and continuously playing in matches were not good for his injury, so he was rotated out of the main list by Twain and ordered to recuperate after the Champions League group stage match against Porto.
The lineup was not quite the same as it was against Porto four days ago. Twain made a few rotations in several positions: Gareth Bale replaced Grosso, Ayala took the place of Piqué and Arshavin replaced Eastwood. Nonetheless, the lineup was still considered a superb strength in England.
Twain did not want people to think he deliberately went easier on his good friend, Roy Keane. That would be the biggest insult to his work ethic.
Roy Keane would not throw a game for his opponent either. He sent his strongest lineup in the hope of obtaining three points.
Sunderland used a steady defensive counterattack tactic against the Forest team. Twain was familiar with and not surprised by the tactics because as the Forest team became increasingly famous, more and more teams used defensive counterattacks to deal with them. Sunderland was just one of them.
Nottingham Forest’s unbeaten record of five wins and one draw in the six rounds of the league tournament was not just luck. Many teams wanted to use defensive counterattack against the Forest team, but what was the end result? They still ended up losing.
The current Nottingham Forest team was not at a loss in the face of the opponent parking the bus. Set pieces, long shots, short passes from the middle to penetrate, both flanks in full force… They had many ways to crack open the opponent’s tight defense. Van der Vaart’s ability to organize attacks at the front of the opponent’s box was much better than Albertini and Arteta. The Forest team’s front field organization had him as the mainstay. Coupled with van Nistelrooy and Bendtner, who were clever center forwards and not afraid of physical confrontation, Twain was not worried even if the opponent laid out a heavy force.
Besides preserving with the defensive counterattack drill during training, the Forest team also focused on how to break the opponent’s parking the bus formation and how to contend with the opponent in positional play. The one advantage they had was that they were experts at playing defensive counterattack. They understood the weakness and psychology and had a clear method of dealing with it.
During the attack, van Nistelrooy was the first to rush up to attract the opponent’s defensive attention and push back the opponent’s defensive line.
But more often than not, the center forward was not the one to deal the fatal blow, but Eastwood, Arshavin, or even van der Vaart who plugged in from behind.
Often, the center forward’s role was not to breach the goal to score, but to carry out tactical tasks. As long as the center forward was up, the opponent’s defensive line would have to retreat to defend. No matter what tactics were used, the center forward was the opposing player closest to the goal and most capable of spearheading an attack on the goal. As to whether there would be the other opposing attacking players plugged in from behind, it was up to the midfield defense and the defenders to coordinate.
Plugging in from behind to attack was one of the mainstream tactics in the football world. The time-tested reason laid in its diversity and uncertainty. No one knew when the opponent or which player would plug in from behind, let alone whether the opponent would actually want to plug in, which gave the attacker the foundation to carry out the tactic. All warfare was based on deception. To put it bluntly, the football tactics were also the same. It was all deception and counter-deception.
The Sunderland defenders tightened their defense when they saw van Nistelrooy aggressively squeeze into the box. They focused the defensive strength in the box, so the defensive in front of the box weakened. Van der Vaart took the ball at the front of the box, and for a moment, Sunderland’s defensive players did not rush to intercept. Instead, they worried that they would leave a void behind them that the opponent could seize to do a straight pass.
The Dutchman seized the opportunity for a powerful long shot.
The football was shot within the goalpost range but knocked out by Sunderland’s main goalkeeper, Craig Gordon, and flew out of the end line. Gordon was the main Scotland goalkeeper that Keane spent nine million pounds to purchase before the season. In his first game, Sunderland scored a small victory of one goal against Tottenham Hotspur who was blocked from scoring. His performance was unanimously acclaimed. After that, his performance became uneven. He conceded six goals in a three-game losing streak. He only received positive reviews in the previous game against Manchester United. The pundits’ opinion was “if it wasn’t for Gordon, Sunderland would have conceded five goals.”
Twain had never thought highly of Gordon because the goalkeeper lacked one of the most essential factors — stability. He was sometimes able to perform in a game like he was divinely gifted, but more often than not, he would concede three goals during a game, which was of no use to the team as a whole.
Would Gordon play as if he had the help of God? Or would he concede three goals?
Bale took the corner kick for the Forest Team. He was a left-footed player and he was about to take the corner kick on the right side. The ball had to spin to the front of the goal. Suddenly the defending and attacking players all squeezed to the front of the goal, ready to fight for the header. Beckham suddenly ran over from the far end. Was he coming to kick?
No, Bale had kicked the football out and Beckham did not stop the ball. He kicked to pass!
Usually a curveball whirled toward the inside, but the football spun outward. Sunderland’s initial defensive layout failed. Pepe and van Nistelrooy also proved to be just a cover. Their role was to attract the opponent’s defensive attention and create opportunities for their teammates to plug in from the back.
Ayala, who had wandered on the outside, suddenly charged out, and got in front of everyone to hit a header.
“The ball’s in!! No one saw it coming! Ayala was the recipient of the header… Just look at Beckham’s corner ball, it was just aimed at the Argentine defender! 1:0! Nottingham Forest is in the lead at home!”
A set piece was the best way to break the opponent’s compact defense.
When he saw the goal concede, Keane unhappily rushed from the technical area to the sidelines to express his anger at the defender’s leak.
Twain sat in the technical area and annoyingly crossed his legs, looking complacent.
With the two key set piece experts, Bale and Beckham, around, the Forest team placed tactical drills for set pieces in a very important category. The sudden change from a long corner shot to a short corner kick was just one of them.
※※※
The leading Forest team quickly adopted the stance of a strong team and gave up the method of positional play to besiege the opponent. Instead, they withdrew symmetrically and contended with Sunderland in the midfield. Twain knew that, given Keane’s character, he would surely instruct the team to press up to score since they were one goal behind and to turn the tables. The Forest team did not withdraw to the back field and just waited in the midfield for Sunderland to come up. In terms of the midfield strength, Sunderland could not compare to Nottingham Forest.
George Wood was currently the best defensive midfielder in the English Premier League and even in European football. It was not known how Keane felt as he saw the kid he gave pointers to now vigorously intercepting his players on the field.
Sunderland’s offense appeared too monotonous up against the Forest team and was at a complete disadvantage when it came to personal skills. The current Sunderland team played a typical English-style football — it referred to “a long ball” tactics. They valued the body and will, but lacked the technical characteristics. Transformed by Twain and the foreign players, the Forest team was already considered outstanding in the Premier League. They rarely had instances where the ball was more than five meters away when stopped, which was important. The Sunderland players frequently executed low-level stops under the Forest team’s tackles. If they could not stop the ball well, how could they organize the offense?
Twain was not worried about Sunderland’s countermeasures because he had studied Keane’s team carefully for a long time. Keane had not been in charge of the team for long. No matter how many grand plans he had in mind, there was no time for him to achieve them one by one. The current Sunderland team also retained the style of playing in the English Football League Championship, placing the body and willpower first and skills second. This worked very well for the English Football League Championship, but it did not work well in the higher-level Premier League. If a team wanted to develop well, it was essential to focus on skills. Whether it was a team like Arsenal which focused on the art of football, or the comprehensive Manchester United, or the other Premier League teams’”pseudo-skills,” the technical aspects had to be taken seriously.
The differences in the individual players’ skills accumulated to become a disparity between the two teams. This disparity let the Forest team’s frontline to take control of the pace of the game, and Sunderland could only think about wanting to equalize the score but could not do anything about it, which made them feel powerless.
The teams switched sides and played again in the second half. Keane unhappily tweaked his offense, trying to rip apart the Forest team’s entire defense by stepping up the offense. Whether it was due to helplessness, or because the accumulation of the individual gaps to form the disparity between the team as a whole, he lacked the strength to reverse the situation.
After the Forest team firmly took control of the pace of the game and unhurriedly contended with Sunderland while they looked for a chance to deal a fatal blow.
In the 17th and 39th minutes of the second half, the Forest team scored two more goals.
In the end, the score was 3:0, and Nottingham Forest won. The poor Craig Gordon conceded three goals again. The goalkeeper, who was favored by Keane, was dejected after the game.
Twain went to Roy Keane first after the final whistle and shook his hand. “I want to say it’s a shame, Roy.”
Keane’s lips curled. “Come on, Tony. Put away your hypocritical smile. We have lost and you have won. There’s nothing else to say.”
Twain spread his hands, looking innocent. “But we always have to keep up with appearances in front of the press, don’t we?”
Keane was in a bad mood but could not help laughing when he saw Twain like that. “Let’s have a drink together tonight.” He extended his hand and the two men shook hands.
