Godfather Of Champions

Three players stood side by side in Twain’s office as if they were students who had done something wrong and readied themselves to accept the anger of the man across from them.

On the training ground not far from here, the rest of the team in training appeared to be distracted. They were there physically but their minds were somewhere else. Their thoughts were perhaps in the small manager’s office.

Twain ignored the three men standing in front of him. He looked down as he fiddled with the digital video camera in his hands. This equipment came with a small display screen which showed the video of him being doused with water by Ribéry. The sound of laughter could also be heard in the recording. He even recognized several people from their familiar voices.

He turned his head and looked out the window at the training ground outside.

“It was really lively with everyone out in full force.” He made one remark.

No one could challenge Tony Twain’s authority in Wilford. Even the club chairman, Evan Doughty could not. Now the boss could very well interpret this matter as a provocation to his authority.

Ribéry looked at Twain, who glanced down at the digital video camera he was fiddling with. He did not care what punishment he would receive next. He did not act on a whim, trying to play a prank on the manager. He had his own deeper reason. But would the boss understand?

As always, George Wood had a wooden expression. It was not clear whether he was afraid or unconcerned. By comparison, Eastwood looked the most worried among the three men.

The Romani peeped at Wood and shot glances at Ribéry and found that everyone appeared to be calm, so he did not glance around again. Anyway, he was aware of what the consequences might be. Moreover, there were two other people accompanying him, so he did not have to be afraid of anything. Even if he was assigned to the reserves team, it would be the three of them together. Along with Chimbonda and Bendtner, who were already there, it would actually be quite lively.

Twain had been fiddling with the digital video camera for so long that it made people wonder if he was examining how to delete the video on it.

“Ah, I have scrutinized it for so long and found a problem…” Twain said to the three people standing in front of him as he lifted the digital video camera in his hand. “From the spectator’s point of view, it was really funny.”

Eastwood was surprised, and his expression quickly showed it. Ribéry was all smiles as always. As for George Wood… he still had no expression on his face.

Twain looked at the three men as his eyes scanned across the three faces in succession, and finally stopped at the grinning Ribéry.

“Franck, you came up with this idea, didn’t you?”

Ribéry did not answer immediately. Instead, he asked, “What made you think it was me, boss?”

“A blockhead like George would not come up with such a crazy idea. As for Freddy…” Twain looked sideways at Eastwood and continued, “his expression makes him look like an unwitting accessory. You, Franck, you’re acting too confident.”

Ribéry smiled. “You truly proved yourself to be the boss. It was my idea.” He confidently admitted it.

※※※

Ribéry had no intention of hiding at all. Otherwise, he would not have shown his face when he was up there spilling the water from above. He could have taken advantage of the confusion to evacuate. But not only did he do it, he even poked his head out to let Twain see him before he spilled more water. After the water was spilled, he continued to stick his head out, along with Wood, to look around to let Twain catch them in the act.

Eastwood was responsible for handling the video camera. He was only caught because the onlookers behind him gave a huge cheer and exposed him.

In other words, the Forest First Team, other than the two players who were assigned to the reserves and the seriously injured Pepe who was in recovery, all twenty-three other players were caught in one fell swoop. Twain only called the three ringleaders to the office, and the others were put back on the training ground to continue the training, but everyone felt uneasy. When they were told to come watch the show, there was no mention that they would be caught by the boss. Now they had to face the boss’s wrath at the end of the training. What kind of terrible penalty would the boss issue when the time came?

※※※

After he confirmed that Ribéry was the mastermind, Twain did not continue to lecture. He looked down again at the recording footage on the video camera.

The sounds of laughter came from the speaker. The sound quality was not good, but it was enough to hear clearly.

He could not see the expressions of the people behind Eastwood, but he could imagine from the sounds of laughter.

Such unrestrained wild laughter had not been heard in Wilford for quite some time. Twain thought he could understood Ribéry’s intention in doing it.

He waved the digital video camera in his hand. “I’m going to hang on to this for the time being.”

This decision was not unexpected, and none of the three men was surprised.

“Well, you can go back.” He waved his hand, which baffled the men.

Eastwood could not wait to ask, “You… Uh, you’re not punishing us, chief?”

Twain smiled. “Since you like to be punished so much… of course, I will. But it will be after the next game. We play against Beşiktaş in the next away game for the Champions League group stage. If we lose, the entire team has to be punished.”

“So, how about now…”

“Now?” Twain pointed to the training ground behind him. “You go back and continue your training. As for Franck, with regards to your punishment… we’ll talk about it when you recover from your injury and return.”

Ribéry smiled at Twain and said nothing.

The three men took their leave of Twain and turned to walk away.

Twain continued studying the video. He had to admit that the moment the cold water drenched him, he was instantly furious. His anger was still boiling when he caught the entire team in the act. He had wanted to chew out the mastermind and the two main accomplices in the office when he grabbed them on the way to the office. However, on the way there, he gradually calmed down from his agitated state, and reason led him to think about why the players suddenly did this.

People knew that Tony Twain was the king who stood by his word at Wilford. No one dared to challenge his authority. He did not think there would be a new player on the team who would be so idiotic to believe they could casually challenge him. Not to mention that the senior players were involved in this incident, so he thought it was rather strange and began to contemplate why.

As he watched the video over and over again, he nearly smiled with amusement at his own comical appearance in front of the three players. A “drowned rat” perfectly described his appearance. Consequently, while he was in the mood of wanting to laugh, he suddenly comprehended the true meaning behind the incident.

He further recalled that morning when he came in and how Kerslake put a mirror in front of him to let him first relax his mood. Then it dawned on him.

Franck Ribéry was just trying to make the atmosphere in the team normal again, so he used a slightly more extreme approach. The previous atmosphere of the team was very relaxed and there was constantly cheerful talk and laughter around. It had been too oppressive the past couple days days, which was not normal. Problems emerged in a lot of places, but the actual heart of it was Tony Twain. If he was always looking gloomy, then the atmosphere of the team would be no better.

He felt that he was a little too severe during that period. Although troubled times required a heavy hand, they were not at the extent of troubled times. They only had some ups and downs. There was no need to create such a tense environment. They should go about their usual ways. If he was worried about the media spreading any unpleasant news, then let them spread. Since the re-emergence of Nottingham Forest, they had their fair share of unpleasant news.

Therefore, he did not give the team any punishment. Even though he was pranked by the group, he did not mind and even thought it was a good thing. Because from the laughter of these players, he could hear that everyone’s mood was getting better.

Once the atmosphere of the team became normal again and the team was united, they would be able to overcome enemies in the outside world. In his view, no matter how powerful the enemy was, it was not as terrible as internal strife. That was the most profound way of thinking that Twain had experienced, growing up in China’s socialist system — just like Chairman Mao had said, the fortress was most likely to be breached from the inside. The stability of an empire and a dynasty had to be built on a foundation of internal unity.

In that case, if it could normalize the team’s atmosphere again, then he did not mind being a clown for once at all.

※※※

The players waited in fear until the end of the morning training, but Twain did not announce any punishment, as if nothing had happened.

The three players who returned told everyone that there would be no punishment at the moment. They only said that if they did not defeat Beşiktaş in Champions League group stage game, the boss said he would punish the entire team.

Everyone was relieved.

The players could be carefree without any worries and be a little thoughtless, on the other hand Tony Twain could not be as the manager. The internal conflict had been defused, but the external provocations were still waiting for him.

In the afternoon’s regular press conference, Twain took Eastwood with him to attend. Right from the start, he felt the atmosphere was not right. The reporters all wore faintly discernible smiles on their faces, as if they had discovered something.

After Twain gave a simple outlook for the impending Champions League group stage game, it was the reporters’ turn to ask questions and everyone eagerly raised their hands.

Twain frowned and was even more perplexed. When did this group of reporters behave so enthusiastically?

He casually pointed to a reporter who looked more pleasing to the eye to stand up and ask.

As soon as this reporter opened his mouth, Twain suddenly realized.

“Excuse me, Mr. Twain, we did not see the two players, Chimbonda and Bendtner during this morning’s training. What happened to them?”

Twain was not in a hurry to answer. He carefully observed the others and found that the question that this guy asked should be the same question as the rest of them. Apparently, these reporters had also discovered that the First Team numbers did not add up, so…

Twain did not casually make any excuses to gloss over it and fob them off, because he knew that since the reporters decided to ask this question, they clearly already knew some things.

“Ah, they’re in the reserves. What’s the problem?” Twain still pretended to be clueless.

That reporter continued, “isn’t there a problem? Two First Team players suddenly went to the reserves…”

“They played better than the third team, so I sent them to the second team. Is there a problem?” Twain played the fool and refused to answer the question directly.

This answer moved many people between laughter and tears, but it was clear that the reporters came prepared and would not be easily scared off by Twain playing the fool. Someone else raised their hand and asked, “Mr. Twain, don’t you think this is a strange matter? The two of them are regular players in the First Team. Why are they playing in the reserves without any particular reason? What’s more, Bendtner just had a hat-trick performance…”

Twain knew he could not escape. This bunch of f**king reporters!

He interrupted the question and pretended to have a sudden realization. He said, “Oh, you mean the reason? The reason was that they had some conflict during training, so I asked them to go to the reserves to cool their heads. Is there a problem with that?”

The people below finally heard the answer they most wanted to hear, and there was an excited buzz in the press gallery.

“Since all of you don’t have other questions, we’ll end today’s press conference…” Twain got up and was about to leave. Eastwood was just a prop in the background…

Seeing that he was really going to leave, several reporters ignored the procedure to raise their hands and stand up.

“Mr. Twain, can this conflict be seen as caused… by the impact of the recent results? Also, do you think this kind of conflict will have any adverse effect on the team?” The reporterasked two of his questions in one breath and did not give Twain a chance to interrupt him midway.

Twain shrugged after he heard the question. “How can it be? I don’t think it’s going to cause any adverse impact on the team. My knowledgeable reporter friend, do you dare to say that the other teams do not even have a little friction during their daily training? You’re making a fuss over a normal incident… Hey, gentlemen, aren’t you all college graduates?”

Next to him, Eastwood wanted to laugh as he listened to the chief mocking the media. However, he could not laugh in front of so many reporters and had to stifle it.

“The key issue is that Nottingham Forest flaunts its internal unity…”

Twain once again politely interrupted this reporter’s question to say, “there are no key issues. I’m glad to see the players show their manly side during training, which goes to show that our training content is of quality and competitive. Don’t you reporters have nothing else better to do than like to speculate on the story behind the miraculous rise of Nottingham Forest all day long? That’s the story behind it. Our players treat the daily training like it’s a final game, so we’ll always do better than the rest of the other teams in a real game.”

Eastwood thought of what Twain had told them while he lectured them and listened to what Twain said to the reporters now. He could actually talk about two exact opposite meanings without blushing, and even sounded vindicated. He continued to stifle his laughter.

“Of course, the rules of the team do not allow that to happen, so even though they behaved very manly, they still had to go to the reserves and accept their punishment due to the violation of the team rules. A clear reward and punishment system is one of the reasons a team can move forward. You see, this is a normal thing to do. So, I have no idea what you’re all making a fuss about.”

Some of the reporters did not give up, and raised their hands as they stood up to ask, “so the Forest team currently has a good atmosphere internally?”

Twain glanced at them and did not answer with a long speech. He just used only a word. “Rubbish.”

The reporter did not expect to receive such an answer and stared blankly without knowing what to do. Twain clearly did not intend to continue to explain to the disgruntled reporters. There was a sudden chill in the air.

Fortunately, Eastwood stepped forward to smooth things over. “The atmosphere in the team is normal. We even played a joke on the boss this morning. I do not feel anything out of the ordinary. Oh…” He thought about it and added, “You guys are the ones being abnormal, always thinking about finding some news coverage of the Forest team’s internal conflicts…”

The reporters did not expect Eastwood would make such sharp and unkind remarks and were surprised by it.

The scene became chaotic and Twain hurriedly made the closing statement. “I don’t care what you write in the newspapers tomorrow, that’s your freedom. But if you want to report the facts… Nottingham Forest is a united team and will continue to win. That’s the truth. That’s all for today, thank you. Goodbye.”

He and Eastwood walked out of the hall one after the other.

“Chief, the Turkish team is tough to deal with, not to mention we’re playing at their home ground.” Eastwood spoke his concerns on the way back. “You spoke so confidently. Aren’t you afraid just in case we lose?”

Twain glanced at him. “You’re out of luck if you lose the game.”

“As for the media…”

Twain drew back the corners of his mouth. “I’ll deal with the press. You just think about the game, Freddy. Although I’m very grateful to you for helping me out at the press conference, I hope you will not do that the next time. I’ll do this kind of thing, you’re only responsible for training seriously and playing. Got it?”

Eastwood knew that Twain did it for his own good, which was considered a kind of protection. While Nottingham Forest was always at the heart of the struggle, the players were rarely harassed by the media. That was because of Tony Twain.

He nodded. “All right, chief. We’ll win the game so that you can be justified in your lecture.”

Twain laughed and patted Eastwood on the shoulder. “That’s right, just like that.”