Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Although Tony Twain did not really take off his pants, he did get a check-up by the two inspectors. His entire body was rummaged through to prove that he did not have any communication devices on him. The battery in his cell phone was removed in front of his face. As the battery was taken out, a thought flashed in Twain’s mind. He wanted to simply entrust someone in China to buy him a knockoff cell phone so that even if the battery was removed, the cell phone could still be used. It would throw those ignorant guys off their guard!
Twain was amused by his idea.
The two inspectors next to him looked grim instead.
“Looks like you’re in a good mood, Mr. Twain. Aren’t you worried about the game at all?” One of them beat about the bush to try and provoke Twain.
“I don’t need to worry about the winner.” Twain shrugged and asked, “Are you done with the inspection?”
“Yes, there’s no problem. You can go to the stands.” The two men made a gesture. They would not follow Twain to the stands. They were seated in the box. The Nottingham Forest club treated them well.
Twain turned around and walked away. He did not even say “goodbye.”
The two inspectors were still indignant about the treatment they received.
“We’ll see if you’re still so cocky after the game!”
They said viciously to Twain’s back.
※※※
There were more and more fans in the stands, and all kinds of songs and chants reverberated through the air in the City Ground stadium.
Tony Twain walked up the steps to the grandstand.
“Hey, guys!” He stood in front of his fans with their backs toward him and shouted out a greeting.
“Forest, Forest! Nottingham Forest!!” The group of people only turned back after the last phrase. The fat leader laughed and announced, “Look who’s here, guys! The poor man who is punished to the stands—Tony! Welcome to the Robin Hood grandstand!”
Fat John gave Tony Twain a warm bear hug. He was so enthusiastic with his hug that Twain was almost breathless.
After John had hugged him, the others came up to hug and welcome him here.
Taking off his suit, he wore a red Forest jersey with a scarf around his neck which made him looked no different from the average fan. It was not easy to find him among the fans.
“Tony, what’s going on with the stadium?” Skinny Bill pointed to the pitch under the grandstand.
Twain gave a glance and immediately laughed. Isaksson did a good job. It looked exactly visually the same as Wilford’s number three training ground.
“Are our turf maintenance workers asleep on their jobs? How can we play on such a field?”
Someone in the crowd echoed.
Twain chuckled and said, “Doesn’t it look shocking? It’s going to an exciting game!”
“Ah — you did it on purpose!” Bill reacted and pointed to Twain to say, “You badass!”
“Badass! Badass! Tony’s a badass!” The fans next to them immediately shouted the slogan, like how they cheered the team on during the game.
“I prepared a little gift for Barcelona. I hope they like it.”
The crowd laughed.
“But for a venue like this, our guys can’t adapt as well…” Some people were still doubtful.
“Ha! What do you think we have been doing during the week of closed-door training?” Without Twain clearing up the confusion this time, John laughed first. He already understood it.
Twain looked at the group of fans looking excited and stood at the side, laughing without saying a word. To be honest, it was a shame not to be able to stand on the sidelines and watch Mr. Guardiola’s expression when he saw the pitch…
When everyone was done laughing, he asked, “The club did not tell me where my seat is. They only said to just to sit with you guys. So… Where’s my seat?”
John pointed to the middle, “Right in the center! Between us.”
“Very good!”
※※※
Kerslake’s loud voice rang in the home team’s locker room, “Warm up! Warm! Fully warm-up! Keeping in mind the conditions of the field, you have to warm up more seriously than in any other games! You can be shoveled by your opponent on the pitch, but I don’t want you to run and hurt your ankle! Think about what you’ve been doing all week. How can that kind of thing still happen to you?”
Kerslake paced back and forth in the locker room, but everyone treated him like he was the background music. Someone even asked Dunn, “Where will the boss be during the game is?”
“In the north grandstand.” Dunn replied.
The north grandstand, or as Fat John called it the “Robin Hood Grandstand”, was the area where Nottingham Forest’s most hardcore and most ardent fans gathered. Every football club’s home stadium had such a grandstand, with some in the north stands and some in the south stands. The north stands of the City Ground stadium were next to the Trent River, with the home stadium, Meadow Lane of their same city archrival, Notts County across the river.
“The boss must be like a fish to the water there.”
“Heh heh, that’s right. He’s Nottingham Forest’s number one big diehard fan!”
Dunn had a feeling that the atmosphere that had just been a little on edge because of Kerslake’s constant clamor slowly eased after they knew of Tony’s position. The manager was indeed the backbone of a team. No matter how well the assistant manager did, he could not steal the manager’s light …
※※※
The first team to warm up was Barcelona. Twain was able to tell the difference from the level of the boos that rang out in the stadium. So, he got up and left his seat to stand up and look down.
He very much wanted to see the marvelous looks on the Barcelona players when they saw the pitch. It was a bit of a cheap thrill for him…
The Barcelona players ran out of the tunnel in succession and then stopped without fail the moment they first stepped on the pitch. Then they looked at the field in front of them in disbelief. Some of them even wanted to turn back.
“What’s going on in their minds now? I bet they must be thinking—strange, we’re on the wrong field!” Sitting in the corner of the grandstand, a fifty-year-old man and a sixty-something-year-old man rocked with laughter and said, “The field was not like this yesterday when they did their adaptive training! Hahahaha—”
Glenn Shelvey slapped Thompson Isaksson’s thigh and almost fell to the ground. Isaksson was also overjoyed as he admired their masterpiece after a night of hard work.
Guardiola and the members of the coaching staff followed the players out, only to find them standing on the sidelines and not warming up on the pitch.
Vilanova, Guardiola’s assistant and his assistant manager at Barça’s second team, thought it was strange and asked, “What are you doing? Why aren’t you warming up?”
“Coach, this ground…” Puyol stood up as the team captain to bring it up to the coaches on behalf of the team.
“What happened to the field?”
“It doesn’t feel like how it was yesterday…” The professional players were very sensitive to the pitch. Although the training ground was bad yesterday, it was not quite the same as today’s.
Guardiola did not listen to them continue. Instead, he personally stepped on the field to get a first-hand experience to have a say.
He had only walked a few steps when he knitted his brows.
“Scumbag!” He swore under his breath.
“Josep, what’s going on?” The second assistant manager, Eusebio (an assistant to the former manager, Rijkaard and not the Portuguese named “Black Panther” Eusébio) noticed his strange look and asked.
“They changed the turf and the pitch was specially treated.” Guardiola looked up toward the technical area and found it empty, which he then recalled that Tony Twain was banned from the game. He should look toward the stands if he were to look for him.
Eusebio was a little taken aback. He said, “Is there such a thing? Wasn’t it still normal when we came to adapt to the field yesterday?”
“Maybe they changed it after we warmed up…they must have done it overnight.”
Eusebio was shocked by Tony Twain’s despicable action. “How could he do this!”
Just at this time, Nottingham Forest also came out to warm up. Eusebio immediately saw Dunn, who was always inseparable from Twain. He rushed up to personally asked, “Mr. Coach, would you care to explain what is going on with your pitch?”
Dunn looked confused and said, “Is that Catalan? Or Spanish? Please speak English.”
Eusebio only realized that he had not spoken the lingua franca and came out with his hometown language in a moment of excitement after he saw Dunn’s reaction. He had to readjust his mood and angrily pointed to the different colors of the turf on the pitch again in English to demand, “Such terrible turf. It’s very bumpy when our team stepped on it. How is this field suitable for a match? Don’t you have anything to say?”
Dunn suddenly realized, “Oh, the City Ground stadium recently maintained the previous used turf, so it was replaced…”
“Did they replace it with such patchy turf?” Eusebio was infuriated when he heard Dunn say that.
“We’re a small club and financially tight, so we did not have any good turf to spare. I’m really sorry.” Dunn bowed slightly and looked sheepish. It made it impossible for the Barcelona people to lose their temper…
In fact, all that he had said to answer to Barcelona’s questioning were prepared by Twain who anticipated that the big difference in the before and after situation with this kind of turf would cause some people to take notice. So, he prepared the corresponding answer in advance so that it was naturally foolproof.
Moreover, the Nottingham Forest club did inform the UEFA a few days in advance that they were going to maintain the turf. It was normal to change the turf, so the UEFA did not take it seriously either. They just nodded in agreement and said, “You can change it!”
The end result was a field which stunned Barcelona and the most powerful stadium in history, which was unforeseen by the UEFA.
The two UEFA inspectors, who were accustomed to the ways of the world, were also in shock for a long while when they saw the field. They thought they had gone to Meadow Lane on the other side of the river—for a Premier League football club that had competed in the UEFA Champions League for a long time, won two Champions Leagues titles and one Premier League title in the past few years, to be so terrible to this extent…it rendered them speechless.
Eusebio had wanted to say more but was stopped by Guardiola.
“We have been screwed by them. There’s nothing more to say. It’s impossible to change the ground back. Since they’re insisted that it is to maintain the turf, it means they’ve taken everything into account.”
Eusebio was upset and said, “We can report to the UEFA…”
Dunn suddenly pricked his ears next to him and piped up, “The UEFA?”
It was a sensitive moment. A week before the game, the English media seized on the close relationship between Barcelona and the UEFA and repeatedly speculated to insist on proving that the UEFA had dark secrets and that Barcelona’s home victory was given by the UEFA. Anyway, it was not a day or two that the UEFA was not happy with English football and the English media, which would not even give face to their own people, would definitely not give face to the UEFA. Therefore, “The UEFA” was almost a prohibited word at this time. Whenever Barcelona mentioned the UEFA, it would lead to other people to associate the two…
Eusebio turned back to him and said unkindly, “I thought you didn’t understand Catalan?!”
Dunn just put on the kind of fake smile that East Asians gave and said nothing.
Eusebio was completely at a loss as to what to do with these shameless scoundrels that he could only be pulled away by Guardiola and walked away from Dunn.
“It’s no use complaining to the UEFA. The game is about to start. Will the UEFA change the game date due to a small matter like the turf? Furthermore, the field can still be played in—We just need to tell our players to be careful. But after the game, we will report the state of the City Ground’s pitch to the fourth official.” Guardiola looked helpless. He had been thinking about Tony Twain for the past week and what kind of tactics he was going to come up with since he could not direct the game. But he did not think Tony Twain did not play by the rules and played such a hand.
He carried out such an operation on the pitch and meticulously set up the plan from beginning to end with no oversight. It was truly “obtaining the victory by fair means or foul” …
But with such a rotten field, my team cannot play, don’t tell me your team play on it?
Just when he thought that the game might not be as bad as people had thought, Guardiola suddenly remembered that Nottingham Forest had been in closed-door training the past week before the game. They even canceled a routine press conference with the local media without fear of offending them, so that no one knew what they were practicing…
Maybe, perhaps… They were training on a training ground that was similar to this one?
When Guardiola stirred suddenly, he realized that his back was sweaty and breaking out in cold sweat.
That Tony Twain!
He unconsciously clenched his fists.
※※※
While the assistant coach was arguing with Dunn, the Barcelona players at the side huddled around in whispers. Someone even ran to ask Piqué because he was the only one of these people present who had the experience of playing for Tony Twain.
Piqué could only speak honestly, “He is such a person … In order to achieve his purpose, he can use all means available …”
“Wow, didn’t it feel awful to play for him?” Someone gave a gasp of surprise.
When Piqué heard what they said about Tony Twain, he muttered with a wry smile, “It’s okay…”
He then looked at the empty Nottingham Forest technical area. He could imagine how the Nottingham Forest players would feel—it must have been great!
Because when he was at Nottingham Forest, every time the boss pulled such a stunt against an enemy, it would always drew approving responses.
“We will do everything that makes our opponents uncomfortable, and that’s going to benefit us.”
This was what the boss had said before. At this moment, it was somewhat awkward to recall such a scene because he had become the “opponent” in that remark.
※※※
“Warm up!” Vilanova shouted from the sidelines, urging the players to warm up. “But be careful, don’t get hurt. The pitch is in a terrible condition. Do not get hurt!”
The moment he shouted that all the Barcelona players who were warming up on the pitch became constrained. Because no one wanted to leave the game because of an injury during the warm-up before the game started, especially the star players who had been placed on the starting lineup…
On the contrary, when the Nottingham Forest players stepped onto the pitch, there was a hint of pleasant surprise on their faces at the same time.
They thought it felt familiar, too familiar… Because the stadium’s field felt exactly the same as the number three training ground!
“Did they move number three here?” Akinfeev even removed his gloves and bent down to touch the turf to get a real feel.
“After training there for a week, this suddenly feels familiar… Hey, look at the Barcelona players. Haha!” Pepe suddenly pointed to the opposite side and laughed.
Everyone followed his hand to look over and laughed as well. The Barcelona players did their warm-up as if they were in a minefield. Every one of them stood on tip toes as if they could not wait to fly and not to suffer from using such a terrible pitch.
“Look at them. I feel like we are going to win the game!” Lennon exclaimed excitedly beside him.
George Wood poured cold water on him instead and said, “Don’t underestimate the opponent.”
“Well, guys! Chat time is over!” Kerslake’s loud voice chased them down from the locker room to the field. The group of people ran up one by one, as if to deliberately provoke Barcelona. Unlike the opponent’s overcautious movements, their pace was strong, they moved nimbly, and were in high spirits. They moved on the bumpy pitch like they were on an even field.
It was the result of a twice daily drills for a week at the cost of three injured players.
This was the real home ground—no one in the world could adapt to the turf on the City Ground stadium now except them.
A philosopher liked to say: No two leaves are alike in the world.
The Nottingham Forest players would argue against him this evening in this way: No, there are two identical leaves in the world, one at Wilford and one at the City Ground stadium.
