Godfather Of Champions

The media still made various connections about the clash between Chimbonda and Bendtner during training. They hoped to obtain a live recording because everyone was aware that the Forest team had the habit of recording during training.

Sometimes, they could acquire some training videos through insiders they had a close relationship with. However, this time, they all hit a wall. Those who had a close relationship with the media told them that after the fight happened, Twain got his hands on the tape and would not hand it over to anyone, and no one knew where he kept the tape.

Twain did not want the media to continue to hype up a past incident. The team’s mood had returned to normal after much difficulty, so the situation had to be maintained. Subsequently, he ignored the voices of speculation among the English media and left Britain with the team to travel to Turkey.

Nottingham Forest was about to face a very important game. This game would determine if his team could take the first step out of the group stage and if they could shut the mouths of the reporters. If the results were not excellent, any conflicts, however deep, would be dug up by the paparazzi. But as long as they won the game, any problem would become a non-issue.

That was the only truth in competitive sports — victory concealed everything.

After having said so many nice things, the game was not easy to play. In fact, it was fairly hard to play.

Beşiktaş was not a weak team that could be easily dealt with. The crazy atmosphere of Turkey’s home ground was world famous. Britain and Turkey already had a feud in football. A few years ago, a couple of the Leeds United fans were stabbed to death in Istanbul by Turkish football fans. When the England national team and the Turkey national team played against each other, David Beckham missed his penalty shot due to a taunt by the Turkish player Alpay Özalan. After the game, it led to a brawl between the two teams in the locker room tunnel. Alpay, who started the incident, even lost his job for it. He was kicked out of Aston Villa, who he played for.

The media wrote out an old account of the Forest team’s successive lack of victories, as well as the news of the recent fight between Chimbonda and Bendtner, to prove that the Forest team was filled with internal contradictions, everyone was in a panic, and how the trip to Turkey pointed to disaster.

Twain did not care. It did not matter what the outside world said as long as it did not affect his team. And from another perspective, he was eager for the English media to hype like that because it would confuse their opponents for the game, the Turks.

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Beşiktaş was an elite team in Süper Lig and a team that regularly participated in the UEFA Europa League. In Turkey, they were one of the strong teams that stood alongside Galatasaray S.K. and Fenerbahçe S.K. to represent the strength of Turkish football. Their home stadium, BJK İnönü Stadium, was often used by the Turkey national team and was renowned in the European football world as the “devil’s home ground.”

Istanbul spanned two continents and used to be l called “Constantinople.” It had been the capital of the Turkish Ottoman empire. The country once brought blood and war to the European continent, and at its height, it used to treat the Mediterranean Sea as its own lake.

The country’s predecessors planted the seeds of fear in the hearts of the Westerners, and football atmosphere did so as well. In England, football hooligans sometimes changed when they had too much to drink, but in Turkey, the fans were fanatical enough without any drink. Within football circles, the “devil’s home ground” was generally used to describe the atmosphere of a feverish stadium. But for the stadiums in Turkey, “Hell’s home ground” was be more accurate.

From the moment Nottingham Forest landed, they felt the enthusiasm of the Turkish fans.

“Cry and go home, you English bastards!”

That was a banner that appeared every few miles alongside the freeway from the airport to the hotel. There was no worry that the Forest players would not see them. The radical fans in Turkey firmly believed that doing that could put the English team under a lot of psychological pressure, which would cause them to play erratically against their team.

The Forest team players did see the banners, but it was unknown whether they thought the way the Turkish fans had hoped.

Before they set off, the British television station, BBC, specifically produced a feature to introduce the style of the Turkish fans and issue a serious warning to the Nottingham Forest fans who wanted to follow the Forest team to Istanbul. They were advised not go out alone at night or even in groups. It was best to avoid crowded places during usual times, as well as stay away from the bars. Finally, they should follow the group organized by the Forest Club and travel together.

The Nottingham Forest Football Club’s schedule for the fans went like this:

They would fly from London to Istanbul on the morning of the day of the game. They would have their meals together and travel as a group. They would watch the game in the evening, and immediately fly back to London after.

It did not give the fans time to stay overnight in Turkey, which greatly improved their safety. However, it made a lot of fans, who liked to have free time between activities and travel abroad to watch a game as part of a vacation, felt that it was a restriction of personal freedom. They could not do anything other than watch the game.

The Nottingham Forest Football Club was not the only club that did it. All the other football clubs in England did it, too. There were cost-saving considerations, and it was for the safety of the football fans. English fans had become a target abroad. Repeated conflicts and riots between the fans caused many football clubs to consider the lives of their supporters.

It was a common contradiction. The fans wanted more freedom, and no one wanted to spend their time on the planes and buses when they had the chance to go abroad. But the football clubs were not willing to bring any trouble to themselves due to any negative events. In addition, such arrangements could really save the clubs a lot of money.

Given the peculiarities of countries like Turkey, Twain published an open letter to the fans on the club’s official website before they set off, advising the fans who wanted to travel to Turkey on their own to dismiss the idea and follow the club’s cheering group on the trip.

“I fully understand your feelings, but your life is obviously more important than a football game or a holiday. Neither I, nor the players, want to hear any bad news about a fan’s accident after we have won the game. Gavin Bernard’s incident should not be repeated with a Nottingham Forest fan. Therefore, I sincerely hope that fans will be able to travel with the cheering group organized by the club to Turkey. You do not have to worry about the team arriving in Istanbul without support of our own people. I would like to tell everyone that our players are completely unaffected by nonsense… So please pay attention to your safety when you arrive at Istanbul!”

His words were quite sincere, so many people eventually gave up their plans to travel to Turkey on their own and chose to follow the club’s cheering group to go to Istanbul only on the day of the game. After all, Gavin Bernard’s incident was a well-known tragedy in Nottingham. No one wanted their children or themselves to be the next tragedy.

As a result, the Nottingham Forest team did not see any Britons other than the reporters who came to cover the game and a handful of Forest fans after their arrival in Istanbul a day and a half ago.

Nonetheless, they fully appreciated the “host’s passion.”

The hotel they had planned to stay in was in the downtown district of Istanbul, where Turkish fans could be heard partying through the night. It was clearly done to provoke the Forest team and disturb their rest. Everything was done to ensure that the team they supported would be able to win the next day’s game.

Kerslake sought out the person in charge of the hotel, but they just spread his hands. “Our hotel would like to help, but we cannot control the personal conduct of the fans. They are outside the hotel. We can’t do anything about it even if we wanted to.”

The team wrote up a police report about the men causing a ruckus. As a result, the gang ran off before the police arrived. When the police came, they pretended to make their rounds and then said to the Forest team, “I don’t see the people you’re talking about.” After that, they left. It did not take long for the group to return and sing Turkish songs at the top of their lungs. It sounded like a fan song cheering on Beşiktaş. Of course, it was naturally interspersed with abuse of the Forest team and middle fingers.

Twain laid in bed, unable to sleep due to the singing. He got up and walked to the window. He pulled back the curtains and looked down.

The glass windows were completely closed, but they still could not stop the noise deliberately made by the lunatics.

The group lit fireworks, waved the black and white striped flag representing Beşiktaş, and sang loudly. They yelled when they got tired of singing and continuously pointed their middle fingers toward the hotel. Whenever they saw a light come on in any of the windows, the fans would cry a victory cheer, followed by a more energetic ruckus. Under the light of the streetlights and the fireworks in their hands, Twain clearly saw the beer bottles scattered all over the place.

This truly is Turkey.

He turned his head sideways, but could not see the situation in the next room. He knew that level of noise would have some impact on the team. Some people, by nature, were able to sleep through thunder, whereas some would be awoken from their sleep by a little rattle.

The Forest team had both kinds of people.

Twain felt that there was really nothing he could do. It would be of no use even if he knocked on every room one by one to ask the players to ignore the noise and sleep in peace. Those who could not sleep would still remain awake. Those who were initially asleep might be awakened by him. What if he gave them sleeping pills? That would not do, in case a urine check came back drug positive. Would people listen if he were to tell them that they had to take some kind of tranquilizer due to lack of sleep?

Not only was the Turkish fans’ trick was really obnoxious, but also rendered the opponents powerless.

Twain stood in front of the window for a while. He remained expressionless throughout the entire process. No one could tell if he was angry or helpless based on his expression alone.

The Turkish fans were still tormenting them when Twain decided not to play with them. Their aim was to keep the Forest team awake. He would have fallen for the evil scheme if he were to stand there and waste time.

Twain returned to bed and stuck iPod earphones into his ears to listen to the music as he fell asleep.

He was somewhere between being apathetic and nervous.

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The next day at breakfast, Twain observed the players’ mental condition. Incessant yawns did not mean that they did not rest. Perhaps they had just gotten up and were not fully awake yet. The people who did not sleep well looked more haggard and had dark circles under their eyes. Twain noticed several people and wondered if he was going to let those people start in the game.

Gareth Bale was clearly one of those people. He had his head down while eating his breakfast. He looked listless and appeared to have no appetite. He mechanically pushed the fruit salad around the plate with a fork.

There were several the others like him, including the team’s assistant manager, David Kerslake.

“Good morning, Tony…” David Kerslake carried a plate as he dispiritedly sat down at the coaching staff table.

“You didn’t sleep well at night either.” Twain glanced at his plate, which held very little food. It appeared Kerslake had no appetite.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I slept all right.” Twain shrugged. “I listened to music and fell asleep.”

When he heard Twain, Kerslake sighed. “You can still sleep with sound in your ear. I can’t have other noise, otherwise I’m like this.” He pried open his eyelids and let Twain look at his bloodshot eye.

“You poor thing.” Twain smacked his lips. “What are our plans for the morning?”

“Go to the stadium and do one last adaptive training to get used to the venue.” Dunn answered from next to him.

“Cancel it.” Twain waved the fork in his hand. “Let the entire team go to bed. That bunch of idiots isn’t going to come and make noise during the day, are they?”

“It’s pretty noisy during daytime, since this is the downtown area.” Dunn reminded him.

“But our players must get plenty of sleep. Otherwise, they will have no energy for the game tonight. Besides, I think it sounded noisy because those idiots made a lot of noise on purpose. The voices were clear, but during the day… Everyone is used to this level of noise and may not feel how noisy it is now. People who did not sleep well do not have enough energy. I think they will fall asleep as soon as they fall into bed and will not care about how noisy it was outside. Those who feel like they cannot fall asleep must be people like me, who had a good night’s sleep.” Twain winked at Kerslake as if to show off his ability to fall asleep in such a noisy environment. “You’re going to bed too.”

“But… we’ve arranged with Beşiktaş club people to open the stadium in the morning for us to have our adaptive training…”

Twain waved his hand. “Then let them open the stadium and wait. My team is the important thing. As for them… Well, I don’t care.”

He made the decision rashly. It would have been wrong to say that he was not annoyed after being tormented all night. Twain was naturally annoyed, and it was not mild. He did not want to act too agitatedly in front of his own people, or he would throw his team in a disarray. He did not care when they had a chance to retaliate against the Turks. Although last night’s events might not have anything to do with the Beşiktaş club and even less so with the poor stadium attendant, Twain viewed all the Turks the same.

Therefore, when the reporters gathered at İnönü Stadium, ready to film the Forest team carrying out their adaptive training on the field, the Forest players slept soundly in their hotel rooms. The poor reporters waited for half an hour in vain for Nottingham Forest to arrive.

Dozens of reporters were left hanging by Twain. The sun shone brightly that surprisingly warm day in late October.