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Godfather Of Champions Chapter 235

Chapter 235: Air Battle Part 1

Chapter 235: Air Battle Part 1

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Nicklas Bendtner, six feet two inches and 176 pounds. Currently playing as the main forward in Denmark’s National Under-17 football team. In Denmark, he once held the moniker of ‘Denmark’s Ibrahimović.’ In summer this year, several Premier League teams expressed an interest in him. However, it was Nottingham Forest’s Tony Twain who successfully signed him on. This was allegedly because Twain promised him more opportunities to appear on the field with the First Team. Still, except for a few warm-up matches, this is Bendtner’s first appearance in an official Nottingham match. Tony has substituted Crouch for someone who’s more of a Center forward than Crouch is. He isn’t willing to end on a draw with Chelsea on his home ground.”

After Bendtner was fielded, Nottingham Forest’s tactics became clearer and simpler: to find Bendtner, who outperformed Crouch in headers, for long passes. Albertini also did not advance much by dribbling. Instead, he used his precise placements in long passes to launch attacks; all of his other efforts were expended in dealing with Lampard.

※※※

Seeing a such a childish-looking boy before him, Carvalho underestimated him immediately.

You think you’re handsome because of your long hair?

Kiddo, let me tell you… you’re still an amateur!

With a long pass from Forest’s backfield, Bendtner retreated with the intention of receiving the pass but was caught off guard by Carvalho’s sudden break from his side to jump in front of him, heading the ball away.

When they landed, Carvalho glanced backward at Bendtner. Though he was expressionless, Bendtner could tell that he was being taken too lightly.

This poodle is looking down on me!

Chelsea’s offense stopped at George Wood. Drogba realized that he had met trouble. The lad whom he had defeated in the first half of the match had seemingly found a different method of defending against him. While the Spaniard was disrupting him from behind, Wood went against him from the front, blocking off the pass routes between him and his teammates.

Wood’s improvement with Albertini was apparent. Previously, Wood’s greatest weaknesses were his inability to see the big picture and his predictive reading. However, Wood was slowly beginning to develop his own sense in reading the opponents’ intentions during their offense.

Duff suddenly broke free of Ribéry in the wings. He had planned to pass to Drogba but was intercepted by Wood, who had routed to the front to defend. Wood, with his successful interception, passed the ball to Albertini, who launched another attack via a long pass.

This time, Bendtner did not retreat but stayed in front of Carvalho, boxing out the spot and waiting for the incoming ball.

Carvalho found himself blocked by his opponent and tried to shift around to Bendtner’s front. But he quickly discovered the surprising robustness of the seventeen-year-old in front of him.

He could not budge the boy at all.

The ball was coming. There was no time for Carvalho to reposition himself. He could only jump behind Bendtner instead. One can imagine the results; the Portuguese midfielder, whose favorable position was taken, did not even touch the ball. He could only allow Bendtner to head it away.

Bendtner passed the ball to Eastwood, who had been constantly roving around him. Without hesitation, the Romanian adjusted his position upon receiving the pass and immediately raised his foot to shoot at the goal.

“A long shot… And Čech! A gorgeous save!”

Czech Republic’s national goalkeeper, Čech, took a flying leap with his body outstretched, bumping Eastwood’s attack out of the goal. Forest was awarded a corner ball.

“It looks like Nottingham Forest, who is ranked 13, and Chelsea who is number two in the league, are evenly matched. Taking into consideration factors such as being on their home ground and the number of players, perhaps this is reasonable. But let’s recall how Arsenal “equalized” with Nottingham Forest, and how Nottingham Forest defeated Man City; from those two matches, it’s apparent that Tony Twain’s team is fully able to go head-to-head against strong teams. No, I’m not exaggerating. This Nottingham Forest is already an entirely different team from the one we’ve been familiar with these past few years. Now, at least, they have no fear when facing such strong teams.”

※※※

In all sizes of bars near Stamford Bridge in London, fans of the Blues who had gathered to watch the match hurled curses at the television. “Bullshit! They have more players than us. If they were scared, they might as well go back to the First Division!”

※※※

Nottingham Forest’s corner ball came, not finding Piqué, but going even further back. From the crowd, Bendtner jumped up high and headed the ball towards the goal. Čech had no time to try to save the ball, but it knocked into the side of the net. The spectators’ stand in City Ground again let out a huge sigh.

At that point, there was a small disturbance in front of Chelsea’s goal. After Bendtner headed the ball, there was a conflict between him and Carvalho.

Earlier, when Bendtner was heading the ball, he had pressed down on Carvalho. Carvalho felt that the Forest team had fouled in their offense, and the main referee should give Chelsea a free kick. Originally, he had wanted to appeal to the referee; but upon catching a disdainful look from Bendtner, Carvalho immediately got annoyed. He lunged and stepped in front of Bendtner with an incensed look on his face. They were practically in each other’s faces, with their noses close to touching. Bendtner made no move to back down and stared back at him. Although no one said a thing, everyone could sense the rising winds before a storm.

Their nearby teammates would naturally not allow the storm an opportunity to land; the group of them rushed forward and pulled the two apart. The whistle of the main referee blared as well. He rushed into the crowd and stood between the two players with his right hand raised, blowing bursts of shrill whistles continuously.

“Bastard!” Albertini pushed Bendtner out of the crowd and glared at him. “What are you doing?! Calm down!”

Although Bendtner’s face was still visibly angry, he looked at the team captain before him and seemed to shrink, muttering, “He looked down on me first…”

“Score a goal, and he’ll know how good you are!” Albertini said, smacking his fists together. He then wrapped his arm around Bendtner’s neck. “Don’t let the boss down.”

Hearing this, Bendtner looked up at the technical area. The manager was staring at him.

He fell quiet for a moment, then nodded his head.

“I’ll listen to you, Captain.”

Albertini cracked a smile as he lightly punched Bendtner in his strong chest. “Listen, Nick. The best way to get back at an opponent who looks down on you is to get a goal off them!”

As Albertini was encouraging Bendtner, Carvalho started to argue with the main referee.

“He was the one who pressed down on me!” Carvalho repeatedly told the referee with his somewhat broken English. Poll only shook his head and flashed a yellow card at the Portuguese man.

“Ah, Carvalho gets a yellow card! It looks like Chelsea’s players are somewhat agitated, but Poll is unmoved and stands by his judgment. It looks like a mess of a match for Chelsea today!”

When Mourinho saw the referee flash his yellow card at Carvalho but not pursue Bendtner’s part in it, he got so furious that he simply waved and turned his back on them.

What a preposterous home field!

※※※

“Bendtner is too eager to prove himself,” Assistant manager David Kerslake said to Tang En.

Tang En nodded in agreement. After freezing this boy, whose ambitions were sky high, for a month, he was like a lion crazed from starvation. As Tang En saw Albertini pulling Bendtner to look in his direction and pointing towards him, he immediately put on a face and stared at Bendtner. Only when the boy hung his head did he begin to laugh, murmuring lowly in Chinese, “If you want a hound to run fast, you have to keep his appetite sharp!”

“Hm?” Kerslake answered, thinking that Tang En was speaking to him.

“Ah, nothing.” At times like these, Tang En especially wished that the person next to him was Dunn. At least then it would be someone who could understand him. Plus, he then wouldn’t have to worry about having spies from their opponents eavesdrop on their discussions of tactics on the sidelines. Don’t think that spies on the soccer field are only things of fiction. On the sidelines of a soccer field, anything is possible. Tang En’s opponent in the play-off of the first season, the old schemer Neil Warnock, had previously sent spies to his opponents to listen in on their strategies.

Chelsea’s players, who had surrounded the referee in their appeal, scattered. They knew that they would not be able to change the referee’s decision on this, no matter what they did. Either way, it was just a yellow card, not a red one. Surrounding the referee, making some fuss, or stomping their feet was just a way to vent their grievances.

After the match resumed, Mourinho stood on the sidelines shouting at Carvalho to give up marking Bendtner and to deal with the Romanian from Forest instead. Bendtner was passed to their Captain, John Terry, who had the same tough playstyle.

Tang En made some changes, but Mourinho did not make any substitutions. Due to Ferreira’s red card in the first half, he had unexpectedly lost a count for his substitution quota. With that, so long as the field situation remained within control, he would not make a substitution lightly.

Even if Duff’s performance appeared lacking, he was in no hurry to change him out.

Duff’s performance was indeed very poor. He was completely suppressed by Ribéry, who was less well-known than him. Ribéry branded Tang En’s expectations of him onto his heart: When attacking, you must be able to move forward; when defending, you must be able to return.

He was young, had good stamina, and was fast. So again and again, he sprinted back and forth in the left wings. Duff is a swift Irish horse? When it comes to speed, I fear no one!

Godfather Of Champions

Godfather Of Champions

冠军教父
Score 8.3
Status: Completed Type: Author: , Released: 2007 Native Language: Chinese
This is a story about the pursuit of victory. — “I subscribe only to the theory of victory. I only pursue victory. As long as I am able to obtain victory, I don’t care if it’s total football or counterattack. What is the ultimate goal of professional soccer? In my opinion, it is victory, and the pinnacle of victory is to become the champions. I am a manager. If I don’t wish to lose my job or be forgotten by the people, there’s only one path for me to take, and that is to lead the team in obtaining victories, in obtaining championship titles!” The main character was not well-liked by people. — “⋯We conducted a survey which had been deemed by Manager Tony Twain as extremely meaningless. In a random street survey conducted, ninety-three percent of those surveyed chose the option ‘I hate Tony Twain’, while only seven percent chose the option ‘This person is rather decent, I like him’. It is worth noting that nobody chose the option ‘Who is Tony Twain? I don’t know him’. Mark, do you know why Manager Twain felt that our survey was very meaningless?” Parker, a reporter from laughed loudly and said when he was being interviewed by BBC. But there were also people who were madly in love with him. — When Tony Twain was forced to talk about the survey conducted by during an interview, his reply was : “I am happy, because Nottingham Forest’s fans make up seven percent of England’s population.” And he did not seem to care about how the others saw him. — “What are you all trying to make me say? Admit that I am not popular, and everywhere I go will be filled with jeers and middle fingers. You all think I will be afraid? Wrong! Because I am able to bring victory to my team and its supporters. I don’t care how many people hate me and can’t wait to kill me, and I also won’t change myself to accommodate the mood of these losers. You want to improve your mood? Very simple, come and defeat me.” His love story had garnered widespread attention. — “Our reporters took these pictures at Manager Tony Twain’s doorsteps. It clearly shows that Shania entered his house at 8.34pm and she did not leave the house throughout the night at all. But Manager Tony Twain firmly denies, and insists that that was merely the newest-model inflatable doll which he had ordered. He was the number one star of the team. — “⋯ Became the spokesperson of world-wide famous clothing brands, shot advertisements, frequented the fashion industry’s award ceremonies, endorsed electronic games, has a supermodel girlfriend. His earnings from advertisements exceed his club salary by seventeen times, owns a special column in various print medias, publishing his autobiography (in progress), and is even said that he is planning to shoot an inspirational film based off his own person experiences! Who can tell me which part of his life experiences is worthy of being called ‘inspirational’? Hold on⋯. Are you all thinking that I’m referring to David Beckham? You’re sorely mistaken! I’m talking about Manager Tony Twain⋯.” He was very knowledgeable about Chinese soccer. — “⋯ I’ve heard about it, that Bora gifted four books to his manager Mr. Zhu before your country’s national team’s warm up match. After which, the team lost 1:3 to a nameless American team from Major League Soccer. The new excuse that Mr. Zhu gave for losing the match, was that Bora gifted “books” (‘books’ and ‘lose’ are homophones in the Chinese language). Here, I recommend that you guys find out what that one specific book is. Which book? Of course the one that caused you all to score a goal. After that, tell me the title of the book. Before every match, I will gift ten copies of that same book to you. In that case, won’t you all be able to get a triumphant 10:0 win over your opponents every time?” An excerpt taken from Tony Twain’s special column in a certain famous Chinese sports newspaper. He was loved and hated by the press. — “He has a special column in at least four renowned print media, and he is able to get a considerable amount of remuneration just by scolding people or writing a few hundred words of nonsense weekly. While we have to contemplate hard about our drafts for three days before our boss is pleased with it. In an article inside his special column, he scolded and called all of the media ‘son of a bitch’, announcing that he hated the media the most. But every time he publishes an article, we flock towards him like flies which had spotted butter. Why? Because the readers like to read his news and see him scold people. I dare to bet with you, and Manager Tony Twain knows clearly in his heart as well, that even though he says that he hates us, he knows that the present him cannot do without us. Similarly, we also cannot do without him. Is this ultimately considered a good or a bad thing?” Bruce Pearce, a reporter from said with a face of helplessness when talking about Tony Twain. But no matter the case, his players were his most loyal believers. — Gareth Bale, “No no, we never had any pressure when playing on our home grounds. Because the pressure is all on the manager. As long as we see him standing by the side of the field, all of us will feel that we will be able to win that match. Even the football hooligans are like meek lambs in front of him!” (After saying this, he began to laugh out loudly) The reply from George Wood, the team captain of Nottingham Forest, was the most straightforward. “We follow him because he can bring us victory.” The legendary experience of Tony Twain, the richest, most successful, most controversial manager with the most unique personality! Debuting this summer. Thank you for reading.

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