Godfather Of Champions

George Wood had been running away. He had good conditions at the club – as long as he did not want to see Twain, Twain would not be able to see him. But now he had no way to escape. He was already in the national team and Twain was his manager and he was Twain’s player. How was he supposed to escape? Just like today, he could at most circle around the training ground which was one to one same size as a stadium.

But the time had come in the end.

“Up your grandfather for running!” Gasping for breath, the tired Twain put his hands on his knees for a while and his ragged breathing finally evened out. The first sentence out of his mouth was a curse word.

Wood could not understand the phrase, but he knew that every time a moment like this happened, Twain would definitely speak in Mandarin. He moved slightly closer by taking a couple of steps and asked, “What did you say?”

“Ah ha, you’re finally ready to talk to me. I was just cursing at you… But don’t worry, it has nothing to do with your mother. It has to do with your grandfather. Hey, have you met your grandfather? Twain responded with gasping breath.

“I don’t know who my grandfather is.”

“Well, forget about your fucking grandfather. I ask you, why did you run just now?”

Twain’s hands left his knees, but his back was still slightly hunched. He was still tired. His mind must have been so muddled that he came up with the idea to race against George Wood.

Wood chewed his lips a few times before he said, “I don’t know…”

“You don’t know why you were running!” When Twain heard the answer, he was furious and said, “It almost killed me… I will say this to you, George. If I had a cardiac arrest, you will have to take full responsibility for it!” Although he was very angry, Twain was secretly sniggering. At least Wood had unknowingly started talking to him. Twain had a lot of confidence in his gift of gab, as long as Wood was willing to talk to him. Then any problem could be resolved.

Wood moved closer forward by another two more steps. It was far away for him to hear what Twain was saying properly.

Twain still felt tired. He had not exercised so vigorous for an extremely long time like just now. His heart in the chest was beating wildly, making him feel exhausted. He simply laid down and did not look at Wood. “I’m the England team’s manager and you’re the England captain. We need to work together. Can you please don’t make the situation akin to an encounter with your father’s murderer?”

Unexpectedly Wood’s answer almost made Twain choke on his words. He said, “My father’s murderer? I’ll be very glad if anyone could kill him.”

“You…” Twain knew he had used the wrong analogy. “Very well, don’t hold a grudge against me, George. I’ll apologize to you. Will it help if I say sorry to you?”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

Twain suddenly turned his body to sit up and looked up at Wood, who was standing in front of him. “Must you really make me spell it out for you?” He gritted his teeth in reply.

Wood did not answer but looked at him quietly.

He stared at Twain like this for a while before Twain gave in and bowed his head as he muttered, “I’m really sorry that I did not say goodbye before I left, George. I… Well, I don’t know how to put it to you. But I hope you will believe me that I was also compelled by circumstances to leave.”

“I’ve coached for eleven years at the Forest team. If I could, I had wanted to coach there always and even watch you retire. Listen to me, you can play at least till you’re forty years old. You still have twelve more years. But that’s the reality – it’s becoming increasingly impossible to coach a team for more than two decades. The current English Premier League is no longer like before. The power of a manager is gradually weakening… I miss the English football world of the last century… Ha, why am I telling you about this?” Twain laughed, “Anyway, I just want you to know I’m sorry.” He looked up at Wood.

Wood, who had not spoken all this time, suddenly asked a question, “Will you still come back to the Forest team?”

“I won’t go back for at least the next two years.” Twain replied frankly.

“In that case, what are we going to do?” Wood continued to ask.

Twain smiled wryly. The question was rather childish.

“You’re not kids anymore, George. You guys have the freedom to choose which path to take. Why are you asking me?”

Wood thought Twain’s words were reasonable. But he did not want to admit it.

“Will you leave the Forest team, George?” Twain asked.

In fact, he felt conflicted inside all along. He wished to see Evan and Allan be taught a lesson, but at the same time, he also did not want the team to broken up and scattered.

“I’m not going to.” Wood replied.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to leave.”

His answer was very idealistic. It would be pointless to investigate the reason. Twain just smiled and said, “I’m going to say something quite selfish, George. I don’t want things at the club to affect your form. I don’t want to see how you were at the World Cup in Brazil again.”

“With…. Without you, I was a little uncomfortable…” Wood suddenly became embarrassed. He scrunched up his face and stammered.

Twain looked at Wood in the twilight. The expression on his face was no longer visible. Only his profile was still very clear. The outlines of his face were as hard as forged in steel.

“How’s your mother, George?” Twain suddenly changed the subject.

Wood paused for a moment before reacting.

“She’s fine … I think.” Wood spoke uncertainly. Twain knew Sophia’s health must be getting worse each day. In fact, his mother’s vitality had been very tenacious. From when he first met her eleven years ago, he had already thought she could leave Wood at any time. He did not expect her to endure for so long.

“Say hello to her for me when you get home. I’m busier than before now that the league tournament has started. I’m traveling all over England. I have very little chance to go back to Nottingham. I’m sorry that I can’t pay her a visit.”

“She knows you’re busy.”

How was this like a conversation between the manager and the new team captain? It was clearly two old friends talking about their ordinary daily lives together.

“How’s the little monkey?”

“Very good.”

“What about the others? I know that my sudden departure must have had a bad effect on them…”

“Everyone’s good after they read your open letter.”

Twain smiled with some pride. The players he had personally developed were still on his side. To have this little bit of support after eleven years, he could not be considered a failure.

“How’s the new manager?”

“He’s okay. He’s a little bit like you. But …” Wood suddenly changed tack and said, “Now that the results are good, everything is good. If…”

“As to the future, you’ll worry it when it happens.” Twain interrupted his speculation.

He got up from the ground and patted his behind. Having sat down for a long time, his buttocks were wet. He had to change his pants when he got back.

“I did not ask you what you thought when I just appointed you as the captain. What did you think?”

Finally, he arrived at the main topic. Twain looked at the sky. The conversation should be over.

Wood shook his head and replied, “A little surprised, but I have no other idea.”

“Well…” Twain mused for a moment, “but you’d better be mentally prepared. Once the results are announced, it’s bound to cause a lot of talk. You’re going to be under a lot of pressure…”

“I know.” Wood’s answer was simple, but Twain heard the determination in his voice.

Twain laughed and said, “Don’t give them a chance. In addition, you need to be more active in the team. Don’t be an invisible person who’s silent all the time. You can act like this in the past but not in the future. There is no invisible team captain here. You have to make everyone understand your existence. The better you perform; the more freedom I have to do what I want to do.”

Wood nodded.

“Okay, better hurry up to take a shower in the locker room and change your clothes. The evening breeze here is really chilly.” Twain stepped forward to pat Wood on the shoulder. This time Wood did not turn around and run away.

Wood listened to him and left.

While Twain continued to stand in the training ground amid the twilight.

It seemed that the misunderstanding between himself and Wood had dissipated. It was a big load off his mind. As long as Wood was still on his side, he had nothing to worry about.

The next day, the new team captain and the media met. As to what those blabbering media wanted to say, he did not care.

※※※

In fact, the media already knew the matter about the national team captain armband’s change of ownership.

What was the English media’s job? With their eyes and ears opened all the time, they were keenly observant and alert. They were lying in wait in the vicinity of the national team training base, so that they could scout out new information anytime and anywhere. The announcement of a new team captain of the national team was not insignificant news. How could they not know?

The Liverpool media cried out against the injustice toward Gerrard. Christopher Beesley, a columnist for the , took the lead to open fire.

“… I can’t understand at all how Mr. Tony Twain made such a decision based on what kind of judgment? Steven’s influence in the England national team cannot be ignored. As the spiritual leader of the Reds, he deserves to continue as the captain in the new national team. But what do we have here? The spiritual leader of the Reds is not even the vice-captain! Is this a provocation against Liverpool by Tony Twain? … I don’t know why Steven would accept such an arrangement. If I were him, I would just quit the national team in protest!”

The pro-Chelsea media were also a little resentful, because Terry from their team had gone from being the captain to the vice-captain. But their anger could not be compared to the anger of the Liverpool crowd by a mile.

That evening, there was a big discussion on Liverpool’s local television and radio stations about England’s new captain. For them, Liverpool had not been awarded the honor for many years and Gerrard was the only ensign they could be proud of. Now the flag flying high over England had also been removed by Twain. When they further recalled how much pain Twain had brought to the club over the years… the new hatred simply mingled together with the old hate and it was absolutely irreconcilable to them!

“Gerrard is the spiritual symbol of English football! He deserves his place in the national team!”

“I don’t hate George Wood, but compared to Gerrard, he’s a little immature!”

“This is a blatant show of nepotism by Tony Twain. I’m not optimistic about the prospects of the national team!”

“His brain must have been misfired for him to make such a decision!”

…

For a while, the listeners called in to the radio station in succession to express their opinions.

The guests on the television program also backed Gerrard as the team captain one by one and opposed to Twain making the England national team to be like “Nottingham Forest.”

The Liverpool fans even planned to attack Twain in the stands, chanting slogans loudly and putting up signs during the England team’s first game. They called it “a war to safeguard Gerrard.”

Unlike the resentment at Stamford Bridge and Liverpool’s wrath, the Nottingham side was full of joy. The Nottingham Forest fans had called in succession to the local radio station hotline to congratulate George Wood on becoming the captain of the new national team.

There were even fans who openly stated, “I knew Tony would favor us more! Because he started from here!” They did not seem to be concerned that Twain would be pushed to the heart of the struggle with the media, because they had a lot of experience with these kinds of matter. Tony would not Tony if he could not even settle on a new captain.

“George deserves to be the team captain. He has been the captain of the Forest team for eight years, and his achievements at the Forest team for the last eight years speak for themselves! As the team captain of the most successful team in English football in recent years, it would be the biggest joke if he was not qualified to be the team captain of the England national team!”

“Ignore whatever the Liverpool people say. Gerrard is good, but he is too old. Can he maintain his form till the UEFA European Championship? He’ll be thirty-six years old in two years’ time!”

“I even think it’s a little late for George to become the captain at twenty-eight years old!”

“In the later period of Capello’s era, George Wood was already the team’s mainstay core. It’s only to be expected for him to be the team captain.”

George Wood’s personal website had also become a battleground. The Liverpool fans went the site to abuse him and Tony, while the Nottingham Forest fans went online to defend their team captain. A fierce battle broke out on the site’s messaging forum, finally culminating in the website server being down to end the fight.

Within one night, the new team captain’s replacement set off a storm in England. Come tomorrow when most newspapers were published, nobody knew what kind of storm this would become…

Billy Woox gave Wood a call. He simply informed him what was going on outside and asked him to get ready.

※※※

At the start of the next day’s training, Twain found that the number of reporters gathered outside was about twice as high as yesterday. He quickly thought about it and he knew what the reason was.

“It’s like a frenzy of sharks behind a slave ship. One tiny drop of blood can lead to a frenzied scramble among them.” Twain gave these reporters the most vivid evaluation. “Maybe we don’t have to officially announce the change in the team captain. They all already know about it.”

It was true. While everyone was eating breakfast, the hot off the press newspapers had already published the news of George Wood becoming England’s new captain in prominent placements. Admonitions and doubts about Twain already appeared in the Liverpool media. The Liverpool media regarded this as a blatant show of nepotism by Twain and a symbol of injustice. This type of behavior must be rectified.

There were even people who suggested that Gerrard should quit the national team in protest like Beesley.

A lot of media rushed forward one after another to ask questions about the choice of team captain when they saw Twain come out.

Before they could open their mouths, Twain shouted, “There will be a regular press conference in the afternoon. You can ask all your question at that time. It’s now time for training. I’m sorry, I have to ask you all to leave here!”

The security guards heard his shouts and coordinated with him to drive the reporters away.

“Just one question, Mr. Twain!”

“I won’t even answer half a question!”

“About the candidate for the team captain…”

“You can ask again in the afternoon.”

“Do you admit that it is nepotism on your part…”

“You only have fifteen minutes of free time to film. I have no problem with it if you’re going to waste all your time to have a glib repartee with me. But you can’t say that I’m blocking the freedom of the press later.”

With the ruckus going on outside the pitch, the attention of the players who were warming up on the pitch were drawn to it.

“What are they arguing about?”

“What else can they argue about? It’s about the new captain…” Someone gave Wood and Gerrard a look when he said this.

Wood was doing his warm-up exercise very seriously and did not notice what was happening off the field at all. Of course, there were those who suspected in their minds that Wood had seen it but deliberately pretended not to see it.

Gerrard just glanced over there and took his eyes off to focus on the warm-up. He had always kept a down-to-earth image. However, he did not expect that at the age of thirty-four years old, he had become a leading character in the national team crisis….

During a break in the training, Twain went to look for Gerrard and hoped that he would attend the afternoon press conference together with him. Initially, he was going to bring the new captain to the press conference to introduce the team captain to the media. But now it looked like it was not necessary to do so.

Apparently, this was to deal with the reporters. Gerrard nodded and agreed. He was not the kind of player who liked to be confrontational with the manager. When the team needed him, he would contribute in strength.

“Have you read all the news reports?” Twain asked.

Gerrard shook his head and replied, “I haven’t read any of them yet, boss.”

“Well… You can take time out at noon to have a look.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary, boss. I know what they’re talking about.”

“That’s good… Go back to training then.”

Twain dismissed Gerrard and stood on the sidelines to continue watching the training. However, in his mind, he was wondering what to do with those sharks during the afternoon press conference.