Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Twain substituted players out in the second half of the game. Because this was only a friendly match, the limit to substitution was decided by both parties, unlike in a real match where they were limited to three substitutions. According to the agreement between both parties, the maximum number of substitutions in this match was 11.
Even in England’s third-tier team, only a few of the players who had been released by the club agreed to play full-time, and Twain did not promise the opposing club that any player would only play half a match at most. As a newly elected National team, the international results of this team was like a blank white piece of paper to Twain, so his current attitude was extremely humble. Even on media, he did not have any attention-seeking rumours spreading.
After the half-time break, Twain substituted four men at once:James Milner for Joe Cole, Michael Johnson for Mark Noble, Paul Pepper for Ashley Cole who had just recovered from his injury, and James Vaughn for Darren Bent.
Unlike the huge substitutions from Twain’s side Martin O’Neill’s side did not make any moves in the starting five minutes of the second half. He did not make any substitutions.
“It looks like O’Neill wants to win this game,” Twain mumbled from the coach’s chair.
O’Neill’s thinking was very simple: Nottingham Forest’s strongest squad was sure to stay on the pitch for a while, as his plan was to aggressively attack England’s penalty area at the start of the second half to score. If he made substitutions at the start of the second half, how could they even attack?
So when the score was still 1-0 five minutes after the start of the second half, he was a little nervous. He got up from his seat and paced back and forth on the sidelines. At the same time, the mind was quickly calculating the possibilities and countermeasures for those possibilities.
If England’s goal could not be blasted in another ten minutes, then they would have to replace most of the main players and give them sufficient rest. At the same time they would also have to shrink the formation, switch into defence, and face England. O’Neill had the confidence that it would be almost impossible to break through the goalmouth of his team given the strength of the England team. Even if winning this match on a 1:0 score was below their expectations, at least they would have won.
What if England tied with them? Then replace a small number of key players, maintain relevant amount of potential, and continue to attack. Try to fight for the lead again.
Being different from the overly distracted Martin O’Neill, Tony Twain had been sitting at the platform with a peaceful mindset. He cocked his legs on the leather chair. England pulled back its defensive line like he commanded to compress Nottingham Forest’s space and time in front of their penalty area, which made Nottingham Forest a little uncomfortable. O’Neill wanted the team to look better in their game, so there were a lot of short passes, especially on the midfield. This was not necessary for Twain, but perhaps O’Neill chose to do so in order to deliberately differentiate himself from Twain.
It was the same situation for another ten minutes; Nottingham Forest still failed to find a good chance to get into the England penalty area, relying more on long-range shots to try to score, but this also caused England a bit of trouble. At half-time, Twain asked the team to take advantage of Nottingham Forest’s void which had opened up due to their assisting side flanks, but after 15 minutes into the second half, Nottingham Forest’s two wing-backs did not actively assist the offense, which seemed to be O’Neill’s intention. Bale and Rafinha only crossed the centre line after the whole England team retreated to their 30m zone.
So Twain’s side flank counterattack tactic could not be utilized.
Fifteen minutes later, O’Neill saw that his team could not score, while Twain’s offense was not effective as well, so he decided to make substitutions.
He substituted Cohen for Fernandez, Mok for Bentley, Gago for Shahin and Ibiševićfor Agbonlahor. He also substituted four players at a time, but he did not touch any person who was on the defensive line. He was very careful, not wanting to give Twain any chance at all.
Twain saw O’Neill’s replacement and knew this was his chance.
So he got up from his seat for the first time in the second half and walked to the sidelines.
Jeers erupted from the stands when the audience saw him get up and walk, but it fell on deaf ears. Twain simply shouted the names of the players on the pitch and signalled for them to increase their press on the other team.
O’Neill had George Wood to rely upon, so he wanted to turn the present Nottingham Forest into a team that could play beautiful football, a far cry from the fast passing midfield that Twain has stressed before. His efforts had been slightly effective: today, the midfield performance of Nottingham Forest is a lot better as compared to the team before, there were layers of layers of offence as the whole team was coordinated in taking their respective positions in the offense, allowing Nottingham Forest’s offense to be as smooth as a flowing river.
But this method of his did not have its desired effect in front of England who was heavily emphasizing on defense.
O’Neill also decided to make some adjustments.
Forest’s only goal in the first half was through a pass from the sideline, and now it looked like he needed to restore the coordinated attacks from both wings. He gestured on the sidelines to get Bale and Rafinha to get back into offense.
This was the signal Bale and Rafinha wanted to see to most. Due to their offensive mindsets, only attacking would allow them to get the sense of satisfaction.
After Bale passed the ball to Cohen, he did not wait to see the situation at the back to decide whether to attack. This time, he was very determined to step up, and overtook Cohen.
As a teammate who worked together with him for several seasons, Chris Cohen also knew what Bale meant. Now that the coach had let go the limits on the wing assistance and with his faith in Bale’s attacking ability, Cohen passed the ball forward.
It must be said that the national team that Twain temporarily cobbled together had a big gap in strength with Nottingham Forest. Jack Cook was unable to stop Bale’s strike alone, and Ferdinand did not come up first because of their lack of chemistry. The two men let Bale rush past them just like that.
There was a huge cheer in the stands, cheering on Bale’s breakthrough. They were eager to see Nottingham Forest score another goal because a 1:0 score was really not impressive. Besides, they knew the opponents of Nottingham Forest was a rubbish team —= they were a third tier team!
Seeing Bale break through made Twain a little nervous. He knew Bale was usually like a little monkey that looked harmless to humans and animals, but he was a complete maniac during games and his performance was steady and atypical of players in his age group. This was the reason why Twain valued him initially, but it had also become the reason he was very worried in the moment.
Mitchell could be still waiting in the penalty area, once he passes the ball in…
Twain raised a fist intuitively.
Bale did pass a high ball and this time it was Wheater who saved England and Tony Twain. David, who was 1.9 metres tall, secured the positive, preventing Mitchell from fighting for the header as he actively jumped to head the ball out.
The cheers in the stands immediately devolved into sighs.
Twain fist didn’t let go, because he saw another scene which he had been waiting for for ten minutes.
Wheater’s header did not fall at the feet of Nottingham Forest players but at Delphi’s feet, and it was just nice that Delphi wason the same side as Bale. Because Bale had just went forward to assist the attack, he was not able to get back into defense.
“Counter attack!” Twain screamed from the side lines. For a moment, he forgot that he was at the Crimson Stadium playing against Nottingham Forest, the team he had coached for 11 years. His mind only wanted the jeers in the stands to disappear for a while, as the words in the deep red stadium tunnel would resurface.
Other than victory, it would still be victories. That was what my way of life was, no matter if I changed my team.
Delphi also noticed this gap, but he did not dribble the ball forward by himself, as no matter how fast a person ran, they could not run faster than a ball flying in the air.
He passed the ball to James Vaughan, who only came on in the second half, and Everton’s leading scorer also ran towards the side flank. Although they had previously trained together for a very long time, tactical literacy from his many years as a professional soccer player had at least given him the knowledge of taking advantage of the opposing gap during the attack.
Delphi and he thought of this together. He was just about to read the side flank when Delphi passed the ball over.
The wing-back spot was empty as the full-center back and the defensive midfielder had to run over the cover up that gap.
George Wood was as fierce as ever as he rushed up to break Vaughn’s ball. As a veteran opponent in the Premier League, Vaughan certainly knew what Wood was good at, he did have the arrogance to think he could get away under Wood’s drive, the smartest thing to do was to get the ball out before he pounces…
Wood knocked Vaughan over, but instead of whistling to signal Nottingham Forest’s foul, the head referee raised both hands towards the attacking direction, indicating an advantage given to the current attacking team — continue the match!
Before Wood reached, Vaughan passed the football to his Everton’s team-mate, Joseph Baxter, who just pressed forward from the midfielder.
Nottingham Forest’s centre-back was still keeping an eye on another striker, Fraser Campbell. Including the assistance on the most recent attack, the defensive strength was not sufficient; other than the two center-backs, there was only George Wood.
Baxter was almost completely unguarded.
Pepe and Tiago Silva made another mistake in the coordination at this moment – by reason, one of them should have gone up to defend Baxter while the other stayed behind to watch Campbell, but both of them ran forward instinctively when they saw Baxter received the ball.
In that moment, Baxter passed the ball. He passed the ball to Campbell, who was in front but still not offside.
When Campbell received the ball, he was behind Nottingham Forest’s entire back line, with no one around.
Silva raised his hand to signal Campbell’s offside, but the head and line referees were unresponsive.
Only Pepe turned and lunged at Campbell.
He was too late. Campbell had already broken into the penalty area, as Pepe could only trip Campbell in the penalty area when he reached.
This time, the head referee and the line referee finally had a reaction, the side judge raised the flag and kept shaking, while the main referee whistled as he ran to the penalty spot in the penalty area!
“A penalty!” The announcer shouted.
O’Neill glared at this scene on the sidelines as he could hardly believe what he had seen.
The narrator continued narrating about Pepe who fouled, “In the Champions League final he also given such a penalty to Real Madrid, in this match he gave another big gift yet again. Was Pepe trying to give Tony Twain a hand? Thinking back to the hug he had with Tony Twain before the match, what were they talking about during the hug?”
The surprised fans at the stands were expressing their dissatisfaction towards this decision by the referee by boo-ing. Perhaps some were even thinking this was Pepe’s hidden agenda.
In any case, England got a “lucky” penalty just like this. Vaughan’s penalty was clean as it turned the score into a 1:1 draw.
Looking at his team’s goal, Twain did not make the exaggerated celebratory moves on the sidelines like he used to in the past to provoke his opponents. He did not even applaud and simply stood at the side lines like a huge marble statue.
Taking everything into consideration, there was no reason why there was no happy expression on his face or any excited actions, allowing the England players to accept him as the new head coach. But Twain gave up this opportunity to deepen his relationship with his players because, deep down, he could not bring himself to celebrate that was while he was competing against Nottingham Forest.
Even until this moment, Nottingham Forest was still not the enemy to him, and would not ever be even n the future because the England national team would hardly have a chance to play against them. They were supposed to be parallel lines which does not disturb each other at all, but the wronged fate brought them together today.
He was not mentally prepared to revisit Nottingham Forest so early…
The fans could jeer at him because they had a reason to hate him. He could also lead the team to victory over Nottingham Forest here because he could not go against his work ethic. But at least he could choose not to celebrate after the team’s goal, which might make him and the fans feel a lot better emotionally.
But he could not make the reason why he chose not to celebrate obvious for the outsiders, so he could only act cool with a straight face, as if he was disappointed in the team taking so long to even out the score. At the very least, he successfully deceived the narrator.
“Tony Twain doesn’t seem to be satisfied with the even score, he was still keeping a straight face after the team scored. He was really a strict head coach, I can almost see the days of those pitiful England stars being under him, haha!”
Skinny Bill was still next to him as the die-hard fans were jeering to express their displeasure at the loss of goal, and Fat John did not care about the outcome of the game. He came here to see Twain but all he saw was the main standing stock-still in the same spot, not even lifting his hands or changing his posture, and John thought back to the past when Nottingham Forest scored. Tony Twain had been a lot more more attention-seeking compared to the players who scored. He would do a backflip, slide on his knees or even buried under the players’ embraces.
Such a scene was probably impossible to witness again, huh?
John sighed softly, then turned and left his seat while he headed for the exit.
“John? Not watching anymore?” Someone questioned him as he saw his unusual behaviour.
John shook his head, “Don’t want to watch anymore. ” He slowly moved his fat body and disappeared at the exit.
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Fatty John left the stadium early so he did not watch the scene during the 80th minute, 20 minutes after Vaughan seized an error from the passing in the backlines of Nottingham Forest.
The stadium was dead silent, as if they had just lost the European championship. Those waiting to see Twain make a fool of himself and those wanting to overpower Twain were all frightened still, as their minds were blank and they did not know what to say. Even Bill did not know that such a powerful team like Nottingham Forest could be behind on their own home field against a third-tier England team.
England’s players on the pitch were excited as they embraced, celebrating their goal that put them ahead. But Twain was sitting at the coach seat this time with no expressions on his face at all. He was stubbornly respecting his internal principles of not making any celebratory moves for his team in a contest against Nottingham Forest.
But of the 50,000 people in the stands, how many of them could understand his ridiculous “principles”?
This Tony Twain! This abominable traitor! This incorruptible, shameless Judas! You betrayed us! You betrayed Nottingham Forest! To think you can still look so proud of yourself and act like nothing happened when you are ahead of us, that is simply unforgivable! How do you feel about beating your past favoured Nottingham Forest? Do you feel happy?
But we do not!
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PS, Today ended a little later – regular updating will be restored tomorrow. There is not choice, not saving drafts is very painful… it will be painful for you guys and me as well.(To be continued, if you want to know what happens next, please log in to www.qidian.com where there would be more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading! )
