Godfather Of Champions

No matter where George Wood was on the field, his eyes were fixed on his opponent, Kaka.

The day before the game, as well as the last preparation before the game, Twain stressed that Kaka was his target for this game. In fact, there was no need to stress repeatedly. He was well aware in his own mind who the most threatening player was in a team. He was a defensive midfielder and it was one of his jobs to study the opponents’ ace players. He had no special hobbies. So, outside his training and competition and unless there was a commercial job, he would always quietly watched the video during other times at home.

He studied all the Forest team’s opponents in the league and in the European arena. Albertini had told him a long time ago that it was not sustaining to defend by physical instinct alone, because as he grew older, the body he was now so proud of would always decline. What would he do then when that happened? Would he slowly be forgotten on the bench?

There was currently a readily available example — Chelsea’s Makelele.

The thing preventing Wood from becoming the world’s top defensive midfielder was not the well-known star players nor his physical fitness. It was his awareness. He still had a wide room for improvement in that area.

Playing more games was a good idea, but the game had a time limit. A good player could only play around seventy games a year, at most. As for the rest of his development and experience? He had to depend on watching videos.

Wood knew he was different from the people who had received professional football training when they were young. He had less than ten years of experience and accumulated awareness. Although he had a gratifying innate gift that allowed him to catch up, Wood’s goal was not just to catch up.

He wanted to become the best player in England.

※※※

In addition to following his teammates’ positions closely, Kaka often threw glances at his opponent, Nottingham Forest’s number 13, George Wood, who eyed him not far away.

AC Milan adopted a defensive stance in the game. Ancelotti did not want to take any risks and he would be content as long as he obtained an away point. Therefore, Kaka’s position was also further back. He hung around the front of his own penalty area, waiting for the chance to fight back. Because of his speed, if AC Milan wanted to fight back, it would be initiated by him and Pirlo. Pirlo relied on passes, while Kaka relied on his invincible dribble and acceleration.

Nottingham Forest’s defense was to press up and attack, so George Wood’s position was moved forward. The two players were not far from each other. Consciously or not, they always appeared within each other’s line of sight.

As Kaka expected, he was still one-on-one with George Wood.

It was time for AC Milan to defend and for Nottingham Forest to attack.

George Wood was involved in the offense, but did not have a major role to play. It was van der Vaart’s job to organize the offense.

Wood was responsible for protecting and restricting the opponent. That was why he had time to observe Kaka.

Kaka ignored Wood and ran back to defend.

AC Milan’s defensive formation remained fairly intact. No matter how the Forest team maneuvered and interrupted, they never messed up. It was a headache for the Forest players. Just as Ancelotti had shown, they were an Italian team and he was an Italian manager. Defense was deep within their bones. If they decided to defend, Nottingham Forest was hard-pressed to have a good chance.

The game was deadlocked, but Twain knew AC Milan was hiding great danger.

What kind of opponents was AC Milan most afraid of?

A team like Nottingham Forest, but not the current Nottingham Forest team, because now, Nottingham Forest was attacking at full capacity.

AC Milan’s headache was the type of opponent that clung fast to defense and refused to be lured out. Like Nottingham Forest in the past, no matter how the opponent sieged, they would refuse to come out and give the opponent the space to attack, which AC Milan found tricky.

But now? Even though the scene on the field looked a little ugly, perhaps the advantage was shifting a little to AC Milan.

Twain came out of the technical area and stood on the sidelines. He gestured to instruct the team to press on and shouted at George Wood to go up a little further.

How could Ancelotti turn a blind eye with his loud voice and exaggerated body language?

A smile emerged on the face of the former AC Milan player when he saw Twain’s anxious signal to the team to press on the attack, but the smile quickly hid in the wrinkles of his face.

After he yelled from the sidelines, Twain tooted in a low voice as he walked back. It looked like he was very unhappy with the situation on the field.

This made sense, since it was his home ground, and the team had not been able to break through. If they did not get three points, it would be a failure for the home team. A draw or loss meant that they were dragged halfway out of the Champions League.

Even if they had scored a goal, they still had to try to not let the opponent score. A one goal lead to win was very dangerous. Playing first on his home ground made things difficult for Twain.

Twain had 100 reasons to show his anger here. Even the commentator thought it was reasonable for him to be angry. “Tony Twain can’t sit still. The game is in its twenty-seventh minute and the score is still 0:0. This is not something he wants to see, especially when his own offense does not make any headway on the field.”

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Ancelotti looked at his watch. There was not much time before the end of the first half. He believed that it was time for AC Milan to fight back. Who wanted to tie? Our goal is to win!

Tony Twain was a hot-tempered manager. Would his team be as prone to impatience as their manager? Would they would become impatient and use a simpler, more direct attack, increasing their mistakes, the entire team pressing ahead and leaving the rear defense empty?

These were areas AC Milan could use.

Nottingham Forest still wants to press on? All right, go right ahead and keep pressing on. I was worried that you wouldn’t come up, Tony Twain…

※※※

Ribéry lost the ball when he forced a breakthrough. Pirlo received it from a teammate and transferred it to Kaka. Kaka glimpsed Wood’s possible approach in corner of his eye and hurriedly sent the football back. He was not afraid of Wood without a ball.

Kaka or Pirlo? Wood hesitated for a moment when he saw the two players appear in front of him.

Pirlo had the ball. Should he break Pirlo’s ball or turn around and run with Kaka? He was in a dilemma. The distance between Kaka and Pirlo was so small that George Wood had the impulse to intercept, but it was a little far away. Wood could not guarantee that he would be in time.

Pirlo passed the ball again.

An overhead pass! The football crossed over Wood’s head and fell behind him. Kaka was there to turn around and catch the ball.

“AC Milan’s counterattack!” The Italian television commentator roared until he was hoarse. After being crushed for almost half the game, they finally got a good opportunity.

Because Twain had motioned to the team to press on, the rear defense was empty. As long as Kaka caught the ball, with the speed of his dribbling, he could shake off the Forest players who were desperately returning to defend. He would have wide open space. The first person he needed to shake off was George Wood.

Wood turned faster than people thought he would be able to. Before Kaka received the football, he turned around and pounced on the Brazilian.

Kaka stretched his foot to kick the football forward and used his body to block Wood behind him. The guarding of the football was beautiful, but…

Kaka sighed inwardly. He did not manage to immediately get rid of this trouble.

The brief play between him and Pirlo caused Wood to hesitate, but it was a pity that his physical fitness was just out of this world.

He took control of the football and began to dribble forward. Things were not so bad that he could not progress. He just needed to defend his position and dribble the ball so that George Wood could not easily make a move. Shovel the ball? That would be at least a yellow card. It could even be a red card if he encountered a tough referee. Use his speed to suppress him? It was hard to even take a step, let alone to sprint full speed ahead. If he had to do that, he would stumble on Kaka’s leg, and when Kaka suffered a little and fell to the ground, it would at least be a yellow card.

Kaka leaned back and bumped Wood to rush forward. Wood was startled by his bump, and Kaka had run off by the time he reacted.

Pato and Seedorf helped him rip apart the Forest team’s defenses so that he had a chance to plug straight into the opponent’s heart. AC Milan’s two flanks quickly followed up. They sent in many players in hope of being able to get a hit.

Twain got up from the technical area, seemingly nervous.

Kaka felt Wood chasing him. He looked around for his teammates to see if they had kept up, wanting to get the football out as soon as he had the right chance. He did not want to entangle with Wood even though he did want to beat George Wood one-on-one. The team’s victory was more important.

Pirlo plugged in and he decided to pass the ball. But when his leg swung out, he found himself kicking air.

Kaka was fast, but George Wood was faster. He took advantage of the moment to shovel the football from Kaka’s feet!

The football landed at the feet of Nottingham Forest.

Kaka stumbled and fell. The visiting fans booed, but the referee just waved his hands to signal Kaka to stand up. Wood did not foul.

Nottingham Forest launched a quick counterattack after taking the ball. They did not seek for a hole in AC Milan. As they were good at playing defensive counterattack, finding a defensive hole in the opponent was something done every minute.

Pepe ran up to receive the ball. The AC Milan players thought he was going to pass it to van der Vaart, so they stepped up the guarding of van der Vaart.

They did not expect that after Pepe feinted, he would decide to dribble the ball forward.

AC Milan’s midfield defense was immediately in disarray. Up against the young Pepe, Gattuso, only thirty years old, could not keep up with his pace. He used a foul to stop Pepe, but he only slightly slowed the Brazilian’s dribbling.

The Nottingham Forest players, who had just “hastily retreated,” went into an attack mode in an instant. Van Nistelrooy, Eastwood, Ribéry and Beckham, who were too late to defend before, became nails fastened to AC Milan’s defensive line.

It took Ancelotti almost a second to react, and when he finally realized, he had already fallen into the trap.

If the opponent clung fast to defense and seize the opportunity to sneak attack, what would he do?

He would find a way to lure them out.

Fortunately, not his entire line of defense had moved. Only the offensive players were up there.

It was not good news for Nottingham Forest.

Although Pepe escaped from Gattuso, he was surrounded. Since the situation ahead was not ideal, he could only pass the ball, and van der Vaart was keen to hit it straight from behind and make a straight line. He looked up, only to find that the opponent’s defensive formation did not disperse at all. Although Maldini was old, his experience let him block in the direction van der Vaart wanted to pass the ball.

If he forced the pass, it would either be intercepted, as Maldini had seen through his intentions, or the force of the pass would be too great for his teammates to receive the ball.

The Dutchman sighed and poked the football sideways.

Twain jumped up and turned around to slap his palm on the awning of the technical area.

The chance that they had waited so long for was gone.

“AC Milan is really an old hand.” He said angrily. He did not blame van der Vaart because the opponent was cunning.

Before the game, he told his players that they had to lure the opponent out to get a chance to score. He did not realize that AC Milan was much more experienced than he thought. Even if they seized the opportunity to hit the Forest team’s counterattack, their rear defense line did not move. If the defensive line did not move, the Forest team couldn’t play offense. He had wanted to rip apart the opponent’s defense.

He turned to glance at Ancelotti. The man looked harmless, but he was full of tricks.

※※※

Ancelotti thought the same about Twain. At first, he did not think that Nottingham Forest’s mistake was a trap. He still had some lingering fear, now that he thought about it. Tony Twain was crazy.

While he worked out his opponent, his opponent also analyzed him.

To be able to get a point in the game was the biggest victory.

※※※

AC Milan did not dare to put in more players for a counterattack. Nottingham Forest ran out of ideas up against the Italian-style defense. Sometimes, in the face of such an opponent, they had to count on some luck. Unfortunately, that evening, luck was not on Nottingham Forest’s side.

The Italians clenched their fists and cheered when the whistle finally rang out at the end of the game. They got the results they wanted — 0:0.

Ancelotti’s taut face finally burst into a smile when he shook Twain’s hand.

Twain looked grim and was silent. He shook hands as a formality and turned around to leave the field. He did not want to see the Italians cheer and celebrate on his turf.

The Italian reporters, who waited for the post-match press conference with anticipation, planned to embarrass Twain. However, their wishful thinking came to nothing.

Twain did not go at all. The only person who came to the press conference was the assistant manager, Kerslake. His excuse made the Italians not know whether to laugh or cry. He said, “Tony is sorry that he is not able to join the post-match press conference. He did not mean to be absent. He suddenly felt ill. He entrusted me to attend and apologize to everyone.”

“May I ask what’s wrong with Manager Twain’s health?” an Italian reporter asked with fake concern.

Kerslake spread his hands. “If I knew, I would not be here to answer your questions. I would have become a doctor.”

The Italians had every reason to believe that the words were relayed by Tony Twain. The tone sounded like Tony Twain.

※※※

The Italian media was wrong about Twain this time. Although the words that came out of Kerslake’s mouth were relayed to him by Twain, Twain did feel a little unwell.

His chest felt tight, but it disappeared shortly.

He was already in a bad mood, so he used the excuse to not attend the press conference. He did not care what the world made of his actions. If the matter was blown up, he could go to Dr. Constantine to get a examination and issue a hospital certificate to prove that he was unwell. As to whether the physical problem was big enough for him not to attend the press conference, it did not matter.

Twain faced the dejected players in the locker room. “Hey, have you forgotten what I said? Nottingham Forest’s style of football is the kind of play that never concedes. It’s just a draw. Is there a need to be so dejected? If you are unhappy, wouldn’t it be better to eliminate them on their home turf the next round?”

He spread his hands and shrugged.

“Don’t think about it. Shower and get changed. Go home and rest. Tomorrow is a new day!”

Twain clenched his teeth as he spoke. He was even less accepting of the result than any of the people present.