Godfather Of Champions

From the start of England’s first game until they were ultimately eliminated by Portugal, Twain had sat on the commentator’s seat and attacked Eriksson nonstop.

And as the World Cup progressed along with the increase in England’s games, more and more people started to feel that Twain’s attacks made a lot of sense. Eriksson’s English team had not played a single convincing and watchable game in this World Cup. It was a fluke if they won any games.

Their 1:0 victory over Paraguay was due to their opponent’s gift of an own goal.

The process of defeating Trinidad And Tobago by 2:0 also was not as smooth and easy as the score.

England played well in the first half of the game with Sweden, which resulted in a 2:2 draw, and even the loss of Owen.

The 1:0 elimination of Ecuador was even more tiresome for the English people. Had it not been for Beckham’s direct free kick and twice helping to defend the goalpost, the English should have gone home after the eighth final.

“This is the most powerful English team in thirty years?” Twain evaluated during the game. “It’s so arduous for them to play against a small South American country. How are they strong? All I see is Beckham playing alone. Lampard? I’m sorry, he’s in a terrible state. If there’s a statistic for the number of shots that missed the goals, his score must be the highest. Of course, I don’t think it’s the player’s problem. They can’t always guarantee they’re at their best condition. Even at their best, they need a manager who knows how to use it to get them to play to their full potential. This is obviously the manager’s issue.”

After all that, Twain had come back to the main point and pointed the finger at Eriksson.

He believed that Eriksson also knew that, regardless of the final outcome of this World Cup, he would certainly be dismissed in the end.

According to the English Football Association’s tradition, they would eventually look for the person in charge for the defeat of the English national team, and then the media would hype it up so that the public would be convinced of it. In short, they were particularly good at giving excuses for their failures.

Like Beckham in 1998, who unfortunately became a leading character in this misfortune. The English always said that if Beckham had not been sent off at that time, they would have been able to beat Argentina. Twain had scoffed at the claim right from the start. If the Argentines were so easy to beat, they could not have been considered a strong team internationally. The English team only said that there was a chance to beat Argentina in ninety minutes, but it was not certain that they would win. Beckham’s red card was a fact, and England’s defeat became a fact too. With these two facts linked together, Beckham had become a sinner in many people’s eyes. They always needed a scapegoat and would not let go once they grabbed hold of one, no matter who they were.

Until 2002, in the game against Greece before the World Cup, Beckham eliminated Greece with a beautiful direct free kick to and sent England to the World Cup finals. Only then was he finally forgiven and respected by the people of all of England and became a god again.

Since there was a precedent, it was unsurprising that Twain ended up getting more support after he slammed Eriksson.

In their last game against Portugal, Eriksson replaced the injured Beckham early and the English captain limped off to the sidelines and returned to the bench, where he sat down beside Wood. Then, Wood saw the popular idol, who was admired by thousands of people, actually cry next to him!

Seeing this, Twain muttered in front of the microphone, “It’s over. Eriksson is starting to bring on new players to allow them to accumulate their competition experience and get the feel of the game.”

Beckham was replaced by the Forest team’s right midfielder, Ashley Young. He played well when he got on the field and did not have stage fright. Twain was deeply gratified. The players who came from Nottingham Forest must be different from everyone else, and that was because their manager was an extraordinary person.

Ashley Young was fortunate that he had played in the World Cup on behalf of England after all, even though he did not play long. As for George Wood, who was also from Nottingham Forest and his team captain, he was not so lucky. He was selected to be in the English national team but did not play even for a minute. Other than playing for twenty-one minutes on behalf of England in the warm-up match before the World Cup, he did not appear in any games.

At this moment, England was engaged in a bitter battle on the field. Wood focused his attention on Beckham next to him. This captain of the national team with thousands of fans and an idol adored or envied by many, cried helplessly. He covered his face with his hands and his tears slipped out of the cracks between his fingers.

The televised footage cut to Beckham several times, and as a teammate sitting next to him, George Wood was caught on film too.

Wood’s attention was focused on Beckham. He had known of this man before he got into the national team. David Beckham was the only star footballer he could name before he had started playing football. He always felt that this man was a symbol of success with his accomplished career, a beautiful wife, and beloved sons. He did not expect that he would have such an awful side.

Watching Beckham cry so heedlessly in front of the public, he suddenly recalled that Champions League final in Paris. He did not cry at that time, but he could understand how Beckham felt at that moment.

He hesitated for a moment before he put his hand on Beckham’s shoulder.

The taste of failure was really hard to bear.

Beckham felt a warm hand on his shoulder and he turned to look at the serious-looking George Wood, sitting behind him.

He wiped away his tears and got up from the ground to sit on the chair. He said nothing as he watched Wood squeeze out a tiny smile.

※※※

In the end, Portugal knocked out England in the game through the penalty shootout. Rooney was even sent off with a red card by the referee because he trampled the crotch area of the Portuguese player, Carvalho. This was the last straw that crushed England. Wayne Rooney’s Manchester United teammate, Cristiano Ronaldo, stood up for his Portuguese team at that sensitive moment, which was viewed as a betrayal by the English. It infuriated them. Of course, during the game commentary, Twain unexpectedly did not comment on this sudden incident. He had not spoken for some time.

He actually thought both sides were right. It was understandable for Cristiano Ronaldo, who currently wore the Portuguese jersey, to ask the referee to give Wayne Rooney a red card. But the outraged English did not care about this, and Twain did not want to waste his breath on such a pointless thing.

He just thought both were similarly sent off with a red card except that Beckham was unluckier than Wayne Rooney in that year.

Wayne Rooney would certainly not be heavily censured by the media. The player that Ferguson needed to carefully protect was not this “purest English kid”, but the traitor, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Certainly, if it did not turn out to be what Twain knew, that Ferguson suddenly lost his mind and wanted to give up Cristiano Ronaldo to save Wayne Rooney, then Nottingham Forest would not mind accepting the public enemy of the entire England.

He could treat it as if he was helping to resolve the difficult predicament Sir Alex Ferguson was in.

※※※

No one felt good that the English team was eliminated. The live broadcast studio fell into silence. Motson and Alan Shearer quietly packed up and finished the broadcast of today’s game.

Twain’s stuff was simple to handle. The information he prepared was in his own head.

He took off his headphones, looked around at the silent and busy crew, and looked at John Motson.

“Is my work done here?” His question broke the silence in the workroom.

Motson looked up at him. “No, Tony. The World Cup isn’t over yet.”

“But I don’t think anyone will be interested in the rest of the tournament anymore, will they?”

“Of course, maybe. But we paid for the broadcast rights to those games and sold the ads. The advertisers will eat us alive if we stop the broadcast.”

Twain nodded.

Alan Shearer suddenly injected between the two of them. “Tony, I think it’s odd. How could a man like you remain silent and say nothing when there was a conflict on the field?” He referred to the incident between Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Twain shook his head. “Because my opinion was not quite the same as yours, so I think it was better not to speak.”

Motson knew what Twain meant, and said he understood. “Well, with your big mouth, you still know when to speak what and when not to. I really thought you were a fearless fool.”

With a very harsh tone, Motson had decried Cristiano Ronaldo as a “liar,” a “traitor,” and “despicable villain” in his commentary. Twain had no intention of going head to head against that.

“I really don’t want to go up against all of England, John. That doesn’t make me any more money.”

“You’re so crass with all your talk about money.” Motson laughed.

※※※

The English team came home early, and English fans were extremely disappointed. After the game, the attack on Cristiano Ronaldo began to raise a tremendous stink. The English media unanimously denounced the young player who had betrayed his teammates. Looking at their attitudes, they seemed intent on driving Ronaldo out of Manchester United and England. Even the media in other countries joined in. Some of the Chinese media adopted the same tone as England and declared that young Ronaldo had “sold out his friends for glory,””betrayed his club,””displayed a betrayal of sportsmanship,””let down his family name,” and so on.

Twain was reluctant to discuss those things in front of the English media because his identity was that of an English man and some words should not be voiced out loud. But he did not have to worry about such things in the Chinese media. In his own article, he rebuked the Chinese media, which followed suit in their criticism of Ronaldo. He thought that those criticisms were just trumping up the charges.

“Young Ronaldo was a player on the Portuguese national team at that time, so he naturally represented the interests of the Portuguese national team on the field. How would that be betraying his club? How did reminding the referee to issue a card to the offending player violate the sportsmanship? That will mean there are more players in the world who violated this sportsmanship than those who haven’t. In the Champions League final, did the Barcelona players who asked the referee to give Edwin van der Sar a red card violate sportsmanship in the eyes of some people? Even though I’d love to hear them say so, I call bulls**t. As for those people who said he let down the family name of ‘Ronaldo,’ they are even more ridiculous. Are you his parents? Are you not embarrassed when you say such corny things?”

His article directly aimed his attack at the Chinese sports media. It set off a huge controversy in the country, but Twain did not care about the consequences when he sent off the article. Its subsequent impact had nothing to do with him. He did not have the free time to write a blog in the Chinese online portals to have a war of words with those tedious people because those words could not become money. It would be equivalent to him helping do free publicity for others.

The dispute within China was almost preposterous. However, what happened in England was not like a farce. Looking at the intentions of the English media and fans, they really wanted to kick Cristiano Ronaldo out of England altogether.

Especially after the media reported that Wayne Rooney abused his Manchester United teammate as scum in the locker room after the match, the matter was coming to a head.

I can never play with him again. I’m going to f**king sort him out.

I will never play football with that kind of scum again.

Those were Wayne Rooney’s words. The “scum” he referred to definitely was Cristiano Ronaldo. He threw aside his foolish actions and pushed the blame for England’s loss to his Manchester United teammate. The effect was clear. The English media glossed over Wayne Rooney’s mistake and relentlessly battered Cristiano Ronaldo on the other hand.

Under such circumstances, when several reporters mentioned this issue to Twain, he finally failed to restrain himself and publicly said that if Manchester United intended to sell the talented player, then Nottingham Forest would be willing to accept him.

“I certainly understand his situation. However, it has nothing to do with my team because Wayne Rooney is not a Forest player. His opinion will not be in my consideration. All I know is that Ronaldo is a talented player and my team definitely needs someone like that. Of course, I’m not trying to poach him. What I mean is if Mr. Ferguson thinks it’s harder for the relationship between Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo to be in the same locker room, I’m willing to be the first to share that pain with him. What? Real Madrid is equally interested in him? Then I want to remind him not to go to Real Madrid. It is not suitable for him there. The best place for him is the English Premier League.”

Twain had not finished speaking and Ferguson had already jumped out to declare that the club had just renewed its contract with Ronaldo before the World Cup and that he would not go anywhere except Manchester United. Sir Alex risked going up against all of England to back Ronaldo. It was like after the 1998 World Cup, he insisted on re-employing Beckham in the face of immense pressure. He always protected the players that he valued at all costs and gave them room to grow up. Just on this point alone, Twain had a lot of respect for this veteran manager. But whenever the two teams crossed each other’s path, this respect would have to be cast aside first.

※※※

With the English team eliminated, the rest of the World Cup held little interest for the English. Only one question was worth it for them to keep an eye on, and that was the titleholder of the World Cup.

Eventually, at the Olympiastadion Berlin, Italy defeated France in the penalty shootout and, for the fourth time, they picked up the World Cup, which symbolized the highest honor in the football world.

That final happened similarly to what Twain knew. Zidane gave France the lead with a Panenka penalty kick. It was followed with a corner kick, headed by Materazzi from the Italian team that equalized the score. During overtime, the grand master of his generation, Zidane bid farewell to the FIFA World Cup and his career as a professional player in a way that no one expected. He head-butted Materazzi and was sent off with a red card. With one player down, the French team was powerless to reverse the situation and was dragged into a penalty shootout by Italy. They ultimately failed.

Twain was relieved by this result. It was not because it happened the same as how he remembered. He no longer cared about those things. He was happy that Italy had used defense to win the title, which was something he liked to see, and it made his Forest team less on their own in this.

Barcelona won the Champions League title, which made people feel that artistic football ruled the world for a time and that defensive football was ugly and impossible to win titles. Now Italy had used their win to slap those people in the face, telling them that defense was still the most important tactic in an important game.

As for Zidane’s fate, Twain could only sigh.

The legendary figure used the most legendary defense method to bid farewell to his legendary career.

Twain had no comment about Materazzi….

And that was how this World Cup ended.

Twain finished his first job as a television pundit perfectly. Afterwards, Motson gave him high praises and thought it was enjoyable to work with him on the game commentary. He even asked him if he was interested in furthering his career in BBC after he quit his position as the manager later. This, of course, was declined by Twain with a smile. He still liked to be a manager. In terms of the sense of accomplishment, how could critiquing others in the stands compare to personally leading the charge to break through enemy lines?

However, Motson’s words did not open a door for Twain, but cracked open a window instead. He was aware that with his talent in this area, he could still be a television commentator when he did step down from his manager position in the future. In other words, he was no longer afraid of losing his job as a manager because he would not starve to death if he lost the game and his job.

Of course, that did not change his quest for victory. Because now the victory that he pursued was not to keep his job, but to declare war and give a slap to the faces of those who looked down on him and gleefully waited to see what would happen to him after he had angered the UEFA.

After the FIFA World Cup had ended, the players took the opportunity to have their vacation since they did not have much time. As one of Europe’s five major leagues to start the earliest, the English Premier League would start the tournament in mid-August. The team’s training time was earlier than the other countries.

This time, in the special topic layout of the British World Soccer magazine’s new season, their review of Nottingham Forest was, this was a strong team.