Godfather Of Champions

Twain might have acted confident before Xia Yang earlier, but the truth was that he was on tenterhooks. Chen Jian did express his desire to play for Forest in the past, but it has been four years since then. Why would he return to Forest when he has been performing so well in Espanyol?

Twain had given Chen Jian a call previously, but it was hard to tell what Chen Jian really thought from his voice alone. What if he did not fancy a return to Nottingham Forest? What if he found Nottingham Forest to be not good enough for him? It was not impossible for him to think that way. After all, the current Nottingham Forest team was truly in a bad state.

Most people in England believed that Nottingham Forest’s goal for the season was to avoid relegation, but even that might be a challenge for them now. Something needed to change at the club soon, or else relegation might very well be in the cards. The possibility of George Wood’s retirement also loomed ominously above the club like a dark cloud, and many people at the club were left feeling restless as a result.

Not only that, very few players who have transferred to Forest over the past few seasons have performed well. In contrast, there were several players who went on to perform very well at other clubs after leaving Forest, and this has led many people to view Forest as a ‘black hole’ for footballers. How could a player be willing to go towards this black hole when everyone else was running away from it?

Another issue in this whole situation lay with Chen Jian’s calculating agent. Twain might have promised to offer him a higher bonus if Chen Jian signed for Forest, but he did not seem to intend to cooperate with Twain just yet. He was still trying to make sure that he got the most money out of the deal.

All these various conditions made it difficult for Twain to sign Chen Jian…

Any player with a brain would most likely not sign for Forest. However, Twain still decided to make a trip over to Spain because he wanted to try his luck. After all, he was a world-renowned manager. Perhaps his fame and influence could affect the final outcome?

Weren’t there many players who craved to play under Wenger? If that was the case, why couldn’t there also be players who craved to play under Twain?

And it was this thought that prompted Twain to travel to Spain alone.

A while later, he received a call from Xia Yang.

“Congratulations, Mr. Twain.” The voice on the other end did not sound reluctant. It seemed like this was a decision that Xia Yang concurred with from the bottom of his heart. “I have discussed the matter with Chen Jian, and we both think that joining Nottingham Forest would be a good idea. Chen Jian has always wanted to play for Forest, and I respect his decision. I’d definitely work to help both Forest and Espanyol reach an agreement over this deal.”

It did not matter if the agent truly meant what he said. His words had lifted a weight off Twain, and he finally heaved a sigh of relief. The next step would be for both clubs to negotiate a deal. Allan Adams had been fired, but there would definitely be other people at the club who would be able to work on transfers. In addition, Evan Doughty would definitely step in and help to close the deal when necessary. After all, he was the person begging Twain to come back now. He would definitely satisfy Twain’s every demand, and Twain was going to take full advantage of that.

Now that Chen Jian’s issue has been settled, Twain could finally sit back and enjoy the Barcelona derby.

※※※

The day before the match, Chen Jian received a call from his manager, Xia Yang, who told him that he had already reached an agreement with Twain with regards to the transfer and that all that was left to do was to speak with Espanyol after the Barcelona derby was over.

Chen Jian heaved a long sigh of relief after hearing his agent’s words. He could finally focus all his attention on the upcoming match now.

“Hey, Chen. You’d definitely be tightly marked by the Barcelona’s midfield in the match tomorrow. Our attack and defense would both be in jeopardy if you were kept out of the match since you are the core of our team. What do you intend to do about it?” Chen Jian’s teammate, Gavrilovič, asked him about his plans for the upcoming match during their idle chat before the team’s tactical meeting.

The Serbian center-back’s question piqued the interest of the other Espanyol players in the room, and they all crowded around to hear what Chen Jian had to say. In truth, this was actually a kind of game for the Espanyol players. They all knew that Chen Jian was a player with a clear mind, and he also seemed to possess a naturally keen insight into matters related to football. The Espanyol players enjoyed getting Chen Jian to speak about what he would do if a particular situation arose in a match. They would then keep his comments in mind and compare them with the manager’s tactics or how the match actually unfolded to see if he was correct.

Of course, they would also place small bets among themselves as to whether Chen Jian was right or not, and the loser had to pay a bit of money or treat the others to a meal.

Chen Jian won the bets most of the time, and it was to be expected. After all, how could a Chinese player like him ever become the core of a Spanish football team if he did not have the brains? It went without saying that he had only earned his position in the team by winning over his teammates and the manager with his performance. Talent was everything here. One would be respected if he had talent. Chen Jian’s intelligence was what helped him gain the trust of his teammates.

“If they mark me tightly, I’d just retreat backward,” Chen Jian smiled. “I’d move from a midfielder’s position to a defensive midfielder’s position. Barcelona’s defensive midfielder can’t possibly rush all the way to the front of our penalty box just to mark me, right?”

“But they can just get someone else to mark you, right? Maybe their forward or their attacking midfielder.” The person who asked this question was another of Chen Jian’s teammates. He was an Israeli defender by the name of Jofo Fogelman.

Chen Jian thought about his question for a moment. “The possibility of that happening is very small. Barcelona’s forwards are all quite lazy… But it’s not impossible. If that really happened, I’d make my passes quickly and pass the ball to all of you more. I need you to be careful, Jofo. I don’t want you to miss out on my back pass.”

He pointed at Fogelman who had asked him the question.

His teammates around him all burst out laughing.

Chen Jian was well-liked by his teammates. He had a good temper and rarely blew his top. Not only that, he would always smile at his teammates whenever he interacted with them as well, and they found that part of his personality to be very endearing. No one liked to play with someone who always had a long face after all.

During the tactical meeting, Espanyol’s manager, Gregorio Manzano, told Chen Jian to shift backward and move from his midfielder’s position to a defensive midfielder’s position in the event that he was tightly marked by the Barcelona players. It was just as Chen Jian had said.

After hearing the manager’s words, several of his teammates could not help but cry out internally, “There goes our money!”

Chen Jian smiled happily. However, it soon dawned on him that he would be leaving this team and his teammates in the coming winter, and his smile vanished from his face instantly. He had no choice but to forsake everything that he has gained so far to achieve his dream. However, would his sacrifices be worth it in the end?

※※※

The Barcelona derby that was due to take place in a day’s time would become the highlight of La Liga for the week. Espanyol has consistently been ranked in the middle of the table for the past three seasons, and they were no longer a team that had to fight to survive relegation. The current Espanyol team definitely had what it took to create problems for the Barcelona side, and it would not be an easy match for Barcelona. The results that Barcelona has managed to achieve at Espanyol’s home ground for the past three seasons were two draws and one loss.

Conversely, they were yet to lose against Espanyol at home. The results that they have achieved at the Camp Nou stadium were two wins and one draw.

Today’s derby match would be played at the Camp Nou stadium.

Twain was invited by Xia Yang to watch the match with him at the stands. Since it has been decided that Chen Jian would be transferring to Nottingham Forest in the upcoming transfer window, both Xia Yang and Twain could be regarded as being on the same team now, and it was not awkward for the two to sit together.

Just as many had predicted, Barcelona marked Chen Jian tightly in the match. Chen Jian was wearing the number 10 shirt, and this spoke of his importance and status in the team. Espanyol was a small team. They did not have many outstanding players, and they did not have depth in the team either. This inevitably made their tactics one-dimensional, and the task of organizing the team’s midfield has always fallen on the shoulders of Chen Jian for the past few seasons. Chen Jian was the core of the team’s tactics, and the team’s performance as a whole would be negatively affected if he were kept out of the game.

Chen Jian could not be regarded to be a world-class superstar player just yet, and he probably could not be considered a first-class player in the whole of Europe either. If he were truly on the same level as the other first-class players in Europe, then surely Espanyol would not just be a mid-table club now. However, the players’ individual abilities did not matter in a derby match. No one really knew how a derby match would play out or what the results would be until the very last minute. Both Barcelona and Espanyol were on the same starting line at the start of the match. How many football stars Barcelona had on its team, how powerful they were as a team, how many trophies they have lifted over the years, or how well they have performed recently… None of these mattered before the start of the match.

Ability would not decide who won the match in the end. The two factors that would decide the match would be the players’ fight and spirit.

The players from both teams went at each other the moment the match kicked off. They kept intercepting and tackling the ball away from one another’s feet.

It was the first time that Twain witnessed such a fiery side of Chen Jian.

Chen Jian received the ball in the midfield five minutes into the match, and he was quickly tripped over by Barcelona’s defensive midfielder, Sergio Busquets. A minute later, Chen Jian found his chance to exact revenge on Busquets. Busquets had intended to run forward and make his way past Espanyol’s defenders after receiving the ball from his teammates, but Chen Jian stretched a leg out and clipped his heel from behind, which caused Busquets to lose his balance and fall onto the pitch.

Busquets was furious with Chen Jian’s action, and he picked a fight with the latter after climbing back to his feet. Chen Jian did not take Busquets’ behavior lying down, and he went up to Busquets and butted heads with him at once. Chen Jian might be shorter than Busquets, but the expression on his face was extremely fierce, and it made him seem much taller and more imposing than he really was.

Twain broke into a laugh at the stands. “Dear me! This lad’s starting to resemble George a little now… No wonder the press describes him as a small-sized George Wood.”

“Jian is usually not like that.” Xia Yang did not appear to like such a fierce Chen Jian. “The image that he gives others is one that is sunny and positive, and he’s very popular with the sponsors as a result.”

No wonder he looks so displeased, Twain thought to himself and smiled. He did not say anything else and simply continued watching the match.

Barcelona was the stronger team between the two in terms of abilities, but they were the ones who were forced to defend for the majority of the first half. The Espanyol players did not seem to care about conserving their energy for the second half. They went all out in the match since the start, and they chased after and intercepted the ball from the Barcelona players relentlessly. They also went on the attack numerous times after intercepting the ball in Barcelona’s half of the pitch. The Barcelona players had to deal with their constant interceptions and attacks, and they were left extremely worn out.

Espanyol’s tactics for the match were spot on. The momentum of the match would have definitely shifted in their favor if they had one or two strikers who could find the back of the net when given the chance. Sadly, they were just a small football club and did not have such talented strikers on their team…

As the saying went, ‘one cannot make bricks without straw’. It did not matter how good a tactic the manager came up with, or capable he was. Even the best manager in the world would need a team that was capable of executing his tactics in order for them to work.

Twain might not have met Manzano before today, but that did not stop him from being impressed with the latter. He thought that it was a remarkable achievement for Manzano to have managed to keep Espanyol as a mid-table team for the past few seasons. Not only that, Chen Jian was only able to perform as a player because he gave him the chance to. It would not be wrong to describe Manzano as both his and Chen Jian’s benefactor.

※※※

Just as everyone had predicted, the team who scored first in the match was the team who has showed more fight and determination thus far – Espanyol. On the 31st minute of the match, the Espanyol players wore out the Barcelona defenders with a series of furious attacks. Just as Barcelona’s defense tried to regroup itself, Chen Jian, who received the ball near the center circle, suddenly performed a long driven pass to the front of the pitch. The ball made its way past three of Barcelona’s players before landing at the feet of his teammate Emilio, who was running towards the penalty box from the flank with pinpoint accuracy. Emilio then proceeded to make his way into Barcelona’s penalty box with the ball, and he performed a lob after seeing that the Barcelona’s goalkeeper, Roberto, had run out to intercept him.

The ball flew into the back of the net, and the Camp Nou stadium that had been like a pot of boiling water just a second ago instantly quietened down. The only people who made noise amidst the silence were a group of Espanyol fans. They flailed their arms about in the air wildly and shouted the name of the goal scorer, Emilio, at the top of their lungs.

Twain stood to his feet and applauded Espanyol’s goal. However, his applause was not meant for Emilio. Rather, he was applauding the number 10 player who made the 35-meter driven pass to Emilio that led to the goal.

Chen Jian has really matured a lot in these four years…

The pass that he just made was incredibly difficult to achieve. Not only did he need to find the right moment and trajectory to make the pass, but he also needed to determine whether his teammate would be able to run towards the space that he intended to pass to. His pass had to be timed to perfection. If he were too fast, his teammate would not be able to receive his pass. If he were too slow, his teammate would be deemed offside by the time he received the pass. In addition, it was a shot that required a superb technique as well. There was only one route that the ball could take to reach Emilio, and its width was not more than three meters. Chen Jian had to ensure that the ball was able to travel in that narrow space and he also needed to make sure that his pass would not be intercepted or blocked by the opponent along the way. All in all, the pass that Chen Jian made was definitely one that required a combination of technique, power and precision, and it was not something that any player would easily be able to achieve.

The only thing that the good-for-nothing Xia Yang did after Espanyol’s goal was to praise Chen Jian’s performance. His voice was extremely loud and he seemed to be hoping that Twain would hear his praises and thereby increase Chen Jian’s salary in the contract. Twain did not care what his intentions were. He was able to understand a myriad of things from Chen Jian’s pass, and it made him all the more certain that he had to bring Chen Jian over to Nottingham Forest.

There was no need to worry about whether Wood and Chen Jian’s roles would overlap in a match since they were players with very different styles. In fact, it would be more advantageous to play both of them at the same time as it would help to prevent the opposition from marking either one of them out of the game, and this would prevent the team from being immobilized during the offense. Both Wood and Chen Jian were good at offense and defense. It did not matter which one of them went forward to attack and which stayed back to defend. Both would do an equally great job either way. Wood was physically stronger and he was a threat down the middle when the team attacked. In contrast, Chen Jian was a player who relied on passes more during offense. The two players could complement each other and make the team’s attacks much stronger than they were now.

Twain spent the next few minutes envisaging how Forest would offend and defend with those two players on the pitch.

※※※

A while later, Barcelona showed everyone what it meant to be a powerhouse team.

The Espanyol players looked visibly worn out in the second half and they could not keep up with Barcelona’s tempo. Barcelona capitalized on that weakness and scored two goals against them in 10 minutes.

Chen Jian was one of the few Espanyol players who still had quite a bit of stamina left in him in the second half because he did not need to run about the pitch as much as his teammates did. Unlike the wingers who constantly had to make runs forward, Chen Jian only had to make a few sprints from time to time. His teammates began passing the ball over to him a lot more after noticing that he still had the energy left in him to run forward. However, Barcelona saw through their plan soon, and they focused on marking Chen Jian every time Espanyol tried to go on the attack. The fact that it was a derby match caused the players from both sides to be more fired up than usual, and the Barcelona players certainly did not go easy on Chen Jian when they defended against him. Chen Jian was fouled three times in the second half, and a Barcelona player picked up a yellow card for fouling him.

Twain was quite worried that Chen Jian would pick up an injury in the match and he hoped that Manzano would take him off the pitch soon. However, Manzano did not share Twain’s worries. He continued to let Chen Jian play in the match, and his only instruction to him was to shift his position forward. He wanted him to play in the attacking midfielder’s position instead of his current defensive midfielder’s position.

Thereafter, Manzano made a substitution for his team. He substituted the exhausted goal scorer Emilio for a defensive midfielder by the name of Benjamin. It was clearly a substitution that aimed to strengthen the team’s defense.

The way in which the match unfolded following the substitution left Twain feeling extremely impressed with Manzano and his tactics. The only issue he had with them was that they felt a little… desperate.

As the core of the team, Chen Jian could not help but be shoved and kicked at a lot more than his teammates. It was not rare to see him fall to the ground during the match either. The fact that it was a derby match made the referee blow his whistle much more than he might otherwise. He was worried that he might commit a mistake that would lead to a brawl between the players from both teams, and thus he chose to blow his whistle at every foul.

As a result, Espanyol was awarded numerous free kicks at the front of the pitch.

The substitute Benjamin appeared to be a player who was evidently good at taking free kicks because he took over that role for the team the moment he stepped onto the pitch.

It did not take long for Twain to figure out what Manzano’s plan was.

On the 77th minute of the match, Espanyol earned yet another free-kick from a foul on Chen Jian in a position that was about 25 meters to the front of the fans behind Barcelona’s goalpost. Benjamin took the free-kick without hesitation. The ball went past the row of Barcelona players who stood before him and ended up at the back of the net.

The Camp Nou Stadium went silent for the second time of the day.

Twain, on the other hand, laughed and clapped as he stood up. Manzano’s plan had worked!

The derby match ultimately ended in a 2:2 draw. Barcelona might not have lost, but as the home side for the match, not winning was tantamount to losing for them. Similarly, Espanyol felt infuriated that they were not able to defeat Barcelona.

There was bound to be much discussion and squabble after a football match, but Twain did not care about any of that.

The moment the match ended, Twain asked Xia Yang to send Chen Jian a message and tell him that he wanted to meet with him.