777 Coming from A Thousand Miles Away for Revenge

Being drawn against Inter Milan gave Twain a great sense of satisfaction. The better news had nothing to do with football—Shania was finally back.

When Twain was still a bachelor, he thought he only had football in his life, and he did not care about anything else. He was crazy about football, no less than one of the most hardcore fans. So, after he became the Nottingham Forest manager, he was really no different from Dunn, other than he went to the pub to have a drink. When he did not go for a drink, he could lock himself up at home for an entire day. He would draw the curtains to watch the video of the latest match and study the various notes left by Dunn. He would be unaware of the passing of time and was not even aware when he got hungry.

However, once he got married, his love of football was divided in half and half of it was given to his family and his wife. Now he felt that there was something that was as important as football in his life.

He was happy that Shania was back. He would no longer find an empty and lifeless house waiting for him when he came home after a day's work. Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting.

Twain had worked hard before he got married because he liked football and he loved his job. After his marriage, he had another reason to work hard. He now had a different responsibility on his shoulders: a man needed to support his family. Although Shania earned as much money as Twain, Twain still had the traditional beliefs of a Chinese man. He was an authentic Chinese man down to his bones. He thought that men should support their families and believed that that was the purpose of work.

When he thought about his parents, his lovely wife, and his future children, he knew it was worth all the hard work.

Shania would not leave again until May. They had four months to enjoy their time together. Twain wanted to make up all the time he was previously owed. One of the important things on the agenda was, of course, to make a baby.

Twain and Shania had been married for almost two years, and both had worked hard. However, Shania had no given him no response to the most important question yet. The revolution had not yet succeeded, so the comrade still needed to work hard...

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The first game since the return from the draw ceremony was in the FA Cup. Before the match, the media asked about the outcome of the draw, wondering if such a terrible draw would affect the performance of the Forest team. Twain denied that it was a "terrible" result. Then, he led his team to victory against West Bromwich Albion with a 2:0 home win in the fourth round of the FA Cup. It proved that the media's unfounded speculation was not justified.

In February's league matches, Nottingham Forest remained unbeaten with two wins and two draws to remain in third place in the league tournament. The point gap between the top five teams in the league was not big. It looked like it would not be a surprise if any of the five teams were to win the title by the end of the season.

The reason for the two wins and two draws was that Twain's new tactics still needed time to adjust and adapt, so the team's performance fluctuated.

Twain did not take the league tournament particularly seriously. He even voluntarily gave up in the fifth round of the FA Cup. As the Champions League game drew nearer, he began to hold back in the league tournament.

After all, he had already talked big in front of the media. So, if he lost to Inter Milan, it would be a big loss of face...

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March 1st was the day of the away game against Inter Milan. It was a big day for Tony Twain.

The team left Nottingham three days early and arrived in Milan by plane. Twain was no stranger to the city, but it was still unfamiliar to many of the current Forest players.

When Twain first brought the team here to play against Inter Milan, he went to great lengths to explain to Shania that there was nothing between him and Gloria. Now that he thought about it, he wondered if that was when he realized that he really cared about Shania.

When it came to changing the structure of the Forest team, the changes in midfield were the greatest. Tiago, Şahin, Cohen, Bentley, and Fernández had not experienced the last big game against Inter Milan.

The media were not optimistic about Nottingham Forest's Champions League prospects this season because Nottingham Forest's strength had dropped so much in the midfield area. In the past, the Forest team's midfield could definitely be described as world-class, with George Wood, van der Vaart, Ribéry, and other famous star players. The current Forest midfield lacked the star power and was more ordinary. Much of this was due to Tony Twain's use of two defensive midfielders and the 4-2-3-1 formation. Even if they increased the number of midfielders, they still could not get rid of the "blue-collar worker midfield" appraisal.

By contrast, Inter Milan's midfield was grander. The fame of Cambiasso, Vieira, Muntari, Stanković, Montolivo, Mancini, Quaresma, Mario Balotelli, and the others was much greater than that of the Forest players.

The comparison of the two forward lines made Forest look even more pathetic. Nottingham Forest did not even have a publicly recognized world-class striker. Van Nistelrooy was considered world-class, but he was not on the Forest team's Champions League squad list and could not be available for comparison. Eastwood's reputation was limited to the United Kingdom. Even if he had won the Premier League's golden boot, it did not mean anything. Ibišević was just a slightly brighter meteor. Agbonlahor was a typical coarse player who had speed but no footwork skills, while Eastwood's frequent injuries had affected his progress toward being world-class.

They seemed inferior to the Inter Milan side, which had Ibrahimović, Adriano, and Giuseppe Rossi, who had transferred from Villarreal for a fee of 15.25 million pounds this season. In addition, they had Cruz as a substitute who could be brought on to score.

Inter Milan were even stronger than Forest when it came to Twain's proud defensive lineup. Inter had the Argentine "The Wall" Samuel, Nicolás Burdisso, Iván Córdoba, Cristian Chivu, Maicon and Maxwell. They also had Javier Zanetti, the Inter Milan team captain who was now thirty-eight years old but who was still in good form. Which of these players were not famous figures in international football?

In comparison, Nottingham Forest only had Pepe and Kompany to show for themselves. Woodgate and Baines were only well-known in England. Rafinha had always been a fringe figure in the Brazilian national team, having been selected and then ruled out several times. Ultimately, in the right-back positions, up against the better options like Dunga and Maicon, Chimbonda was not worth a mention. Joe Mattock and Nkoulou were currently the most promising stars and would need to continuously prove their abilities at a high-level competition before they could be recognized.

No wonder no one was optimistic about Nottingham Forest's chances.

The only possible advantage that Nottingham Forest had over Inter Milan was that their players were younger.

The foreign media were generally not positive about Nottingham Forest, but the local media in Nottingham was confident in Tony Twain's team. Their confidence came from the events of the past few seasons.

During Nottingham Forest's successful past two seasons, their lineup was basically the same as it was now. They did not seem to be in the same league as any of the big teams, but if they were not, how had they won the Champions League title in the end rather than AC Milan or Chelsea? Forest had beaten Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Arsenal, and other strong teams. It could not be the case that the other teams had deliberately thrown those games.

The Nottingham Forest fans were like fanatical religious believers and had complete faith that nothing could hold Tony down. The person who could make him surrender had not yet been born. As long as the man sitting in the Nottingham Forest technical area was Tony Twain, Nottingham Forest would not lose no matter how powerful an opponent they faced.

With two days to go before the match, the media in Nottingham had started to hype up the concept of revenge in a big way.

No Nottingham Forest fan would forget the game two seasons ago when Tony Twain was forced to leave his coaching post due to a heart attack, and Nottingham Forest were suddenly left without a figurehead. As the acting manager, Dunn had already exhausted all his energy just to secure the team's place in the league tournament and had no energy at all to consider the team's future in the Champions League.

Nottingham Forest lost those two games to Mourinho's Inter Milan in terms of both the results and performances.

Mourinho was like an infatuated man who had waited long and hard to marry his bride, only to remove her veil to find that the bride sitting by the bed was not the beauty in his heart, but someone else. As a result, his surprise turned into humiliation, his humiliation turned into anger, and he took out this anger on the unfortunate Dunn.

Most Forest fans were still unwilling to mention those two games because they had been completely defeated and felt ashamed. Their spirit had been completely broken, and the players' performance on the pitch made the fans think that they must have been waiting for the final whistle to sound right from the first second.

If Twain had been there, he would have completed lambasted his team in the locker room. He would have told them that they were acting like a woman who had been stripped of all her clothes, pinned under and then raped by an evildoer but had still pandered to his pleasure. Then maybe he would have had another heart attack and been finished off straight away.

Fortunately, he was being carefully cared for by Shania and had no time to pay attention to the team's mistakes.

But afterward, in order to test the extent of his heart's recovery, Twain located the videos of the two games. After watching them, he was truly furious even though physically he was fine. Mourinho really did not give the team any chance to save face. With a 2:0 scoreline in one match and a 3:0 score in the other, he had utterly wiped out the defending champions 5:0. Twain suffered the biggest defeat in terms of the final score he had ever faced in his career at Mourinho's hands.

How could he act like this kind of humiliation had never happened? How could he allow the feud to end with a smile when they met? That was not Tony Twain's style. He was more likely to think, "Even if you turn to ash, I'll still recognize you!"

So, this time Twain did not mind the media hype of the "revenge" concept. He was not afraid to bring psychological pressure to bear on his players. He was eager for the players to feel the pressure. They could not play the game without it.

At the first press conference in Milan, Twain explicitly agreed with the local media in Nottingham about "revenge" and said, "Yes, we are here to seek revenge. The Italian media, please tell Mourinho this! Tony Twain, whom he couldn't defeat, is here again!"

He had a smile full of confidence, and his attitude was very arrogant. He wanted to let the Italians, who had been tormented and hard-pressed by Mourinho, to know that the English boss was not easily beaten!

At the press conference, Twain waged a war of words against the reporters. He dismissed every single comment that was negative, trying to prove that his team was the best team of the week bar none.

If the media did not believe it, he spread his hands and said, "You'll find out after the game if I'm talking big or telling the truth."

※※※

After the big truth was released, Twain was naturally prepared.

This time, Twain planned to continue using the 4-2-3-1 formation, but in a different way from before. The two midfielders became two defensive midfielders. The three players were not merely a parallel line on the thirty meters line. The one player in the middle would be an attacking midfielder, but the two attacking wingers on the sides retreated to become the side midfielders so that the formation was more layered. The different lines were not too far apart because, otherwise, the strategy might fail.

Although this adjustment meant that the attack was not as strong as before, the defense was certainly a lot more stable. There had been a problem with the previous 4-2-3-1 formation: the gap behind George Wood and Tiago was too big, and their opponents would always seize the opportunity to directly face the rear defensive line, resulting in the ball being lost. Inter Milan's midfield strength was not to be underestimated. The fewer such gaps, the better.

Wood and Tiago were back in the defensive midfielder line and were closer to their own rear defensive line. The formation was still unified with two wingers in the middle even though they were far from the attacking midfielder. They could truly press for the attack and retreat for the defense.

As Wood and Tiago focused more on defense, the task of organizing the offense fell to the attacking midfielder. This time, Twain chose not to let Fernández, who was more capable of scoring, play as the attacking midfielder but decided to let Şahin play. Fernández was moved to the left as a winger, but compared to Bentley on the right, he had slightly more freedom. He was a little like Ribéry, who had previously been the FIFA World Player of the Year at Nottingham Forest. After all, Fernández and Ribéry were fairly similar in their style of play. It was a waste to leave him on the wing. Having played brilliantly in recent rounds of competition, Fernández had been called "Ribéry the second" by the British media.

Unlike Fernández, who could break through, pass and shoot on the left, Bentley on the right was more of a player who passed the ball. He was tasked to retreat and support as well as pass the ball forward to send it to the front of the opponent's goal.

Spearheading the formation was Ibišević, who had been in good form recently and had no physical problems. He was a very able striker with a wide range of ability skills and could be relied on to play a key role up front. He was most suitable to be the front man because he would not be easily blocked by the opposing defenders.

The team was in good shape. There were no major injuries, and the morale of the players was high too. Although they were up against Inter Milan, who had thrashed them 5:0, they had the boss there this time. There was nothing to worry about!

This time, we're standing with the media. That's right! We're here to smash the place up and seek revenge!