Tang En placed his palm on the tactic board’s rack; the tactic board itself, which had become a mess of drawings, had already been relegated to being next to his feet. He gazed at the prepared players, saying resolutely and steadily, “I only have a single request for this match: winning!”
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Nottingham Forest wanted to defeat Manchester United?
If that news had spread half a season ago, anyone who heard about it would end up in stitches laughing. It would have been as nonsensical as Mr. Bean.
But when Nottingham Forest said something like that now, there were not many that dared to doubt their intentions.
Half a season. Tang En had used half a season to change Forest’s image of a “weak team” in the eyes of others. If they were a weak team, how could they possibly still be ranked steadily within the top six of the Premier League by its 34th round and even sit atop Liverpool? If they were a weak team, how could they have maintained no losses until now whenever facing the top four teams in the League? Drawing against Arsenal and beating Chelsea on Forest’s home grounds; drawing with Manchester United when playing away; and against Everton, drawing on the away match and winning on home grounds. This was the result shown by the young Forest Team. It was such a satisfying result, there was no way to ask for even more from them.
Before the match began, Ferguson and Tang En both behaved gallantly, shaking hands on the sidelines before parting.
To be honest, Tang En did not hate the old Scot at all. Even though the other party mocked him, he had done the same to them. In football matches, such occurrences were very common. The taunts between him and Ferguson were not as severe as the ones between Ferguson and Wenger.
But while the absence of hate is one matter, not giving face is another. When there was a need to be merciless, they had to be.
In this match, Tang En’s Forest team had to win, but so must Manchester United.
As with Chelsea, Arsenal was missing a match. In 32 rounds, they had accumulated 67 points. Everton, ranked fourth, was a good 13 points away from Manchester United. It would probably be too difficult for Everton to overtake them. On the other hand, Manchester United’s difference with Arsenal, ranked second, was only a mere three points. If Arsenal was defeated by Chelsea in their away match, Chelsea would practically have won the championship prematurely. Meanwhile, Manchester United would end up having the same points as Arsenal; in the next five rounds of the League, their chances of overtaking them would become very high.
Ferguson cared nothing for the position of runner-up in the Premier League. He did not need such false titles. In fact, there was no real difference between being second or third in the League match to him. If it were now Newcastle in the second position, Ferguson would not give two hoots about it. However, it was not anyone else but Arsenal who sat atop Manchester United. Ferguson would not allow such a scene. No matter how they did it, Manchester United had to drag Arsenal down and sit above them.
With both teams aiming for victory, the two were embroiled in an intense match from the second it began. For this match, Tang En and Ferguson had deployed their strongest formations. Tang En did it for survival; to get into the top four of the League and qualify for the Champions League. Their qualification for it translated to greater monetary rewards and bonuses, which in turn meant they could buy better players to help little Forest Club slowly move towards fulfilling their glorious goal…
On the other hand, Ferguson did it for the honor. He would not allow himself to lose to Wenger.
The match had only been going for 20 minutes, and neither side had scored a goal. Yet, the cumulative scoring attempts were a total of 24, an average of 12 attempts per team. As for foul counts, Nottingham Forest had racked up 14 fouls while Manchester United had 10. Manchester United players also went offside slightly more often than Forest, 3:2. While the data was extremely dry, it clearly reflected the intensity of the match.
On their home grounds against a strong foe, Forest was not at all reserved. They brought out the attitude of offensive-style football with all intentions of suppressing Manchester United. Not to be looked down upon, Manchester refused to budge. Ferguson was not someone who enjoyed pretending to be pitiable. The more his opponents displayed their strength, the more Manchester United would try to utilize an even stronger force to defeat their opponents. Ferguson and Wenger’s conflict with each other stemmed precisely from the unwillingness of Wenger’s Arsenal to submit to Manchester United, and their persistent desire to suppress them and reign over the Premier League.
Both Forest and Manchester United held the stance of one who was unwilling to cede to a strong opponent; both parties desired to be that strong one. They were the types that would become stronger when facing a tough opponent. As a result, the match naturally developed into one of meteoric intensity.
Sky plc’s choice of live broadcast was not this match, but Chelsea’s home match against Arsenal. From the perspective of the end-impact level of the matches, although Forest’s home match against Manchester United was more important, what was between Arsenal and Chelsea was beyond just the field.
Barely a season after Mourinho’s arrival in the Premier League, he had already offended anyone he could offend: Ferguson, Wenger, Benítez, and Tony Twain. Sky plc’s decision to live broadcast the match was made because of the mutual disdain between Mourinho and Wenger. Such a match was assumed to be explosive.
It was a pity that they had guessed wrong.
The actual match between Arsenal and Chelsea turned out extremely boring. While Arsenal was keen on winning, Chelsea only wanted to get a draw. This led to Mourinho’s team choosing a tight defensive formation, allowing Arsenal to launch a tidal wave of attacks from the outside. Even with the storm of attacks, Mourinho refused to come out. A match without mutually attacking parties was devoid of any entertainment value. The commentator, Andy Gray, watched with a yawn. He wrenched off his earphones and mumbled as he covered the microphone, “If I had known, I would have done the commentary for the other match!”
The other match he was referring to was indeed Nottingham Forest’s match with Manchester United.
Based on the match data transmitted to them in sync, it was evident that Forest’s match was highly intense. By a minute before the end of the first half, both teams had already drawn to a score of 2:2. Meanwhile, the score at Stamford Bridge remained at 0:0. It was truly boring…
With the end of the first half, Andy Gray handed Martin Taylor a glass of water after watching him take off his earphones.
“Thanks.”
Gray shook his head. “External factors, external factors… Even if the external factors of this match were enough to fill a wagon, what about it? What are the people at the TV station doing? They can’t even differentiate which match is actually more important…”
Taylor smiled as he put the empty glass back. “Don’t complain. In the next season, I’m afraid you’ll be commentating on his matches until you puke.”
Gray maintained a straight face as he said, “That’s impossible. He’s a pretty interesting fellow.”
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While the commentators were evaluating Tang En in private, City Ground’s match had just ended its first half. The electronic scoreboard displayed a score of 2:2. Forest had Viduka and Crouch scoring a goal each. Manchester United also stepped up; each time Forest Team took the lead, they would swiftly equalize the score. The main credit for Manchester’s success belonged to their mighty combination in the forward line: Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rooney.
Hierro was old. In the face of Rooney’s assaults, Hierro’s abilities evidently fell short of his own wishes. Fortunately, George Wood knew what he had to do. Without needing Tony to shout at him, he took the initiative to assist Hierro in his defense and take some pressure off of him.
When it came to halftime, Tang En showered the players’ performance with praise despite them allowing the opponent to score twice in that duration.
“Well done! Let’s keep playing this way in the second half!”
After the kick-off of the second half, Forest had the home ground advantage. Amid the shouting of nearly 30 thousand fans, Forest launched fiery attacks one after another against Manchester United’s penalty area. Without Edwin van der Sar, the major problem in Manchester’s defense persisted. Ferguson knew that. So he had no intentions of retreating to defend in the second half. Instead, he made an identical decision to Tang En’s – to continue strengthening their strong point; to attack.
Tang En brought in Arteta, continuing to enhance their offensive power, while Ferguson switched in Alan Smith. Both were attack-type players.
A head-on clash. While the fans were greatly delighted, the managers began to frown as they stood on the sidelines, closely supervising the changes taking place in the field.
As the pace of the switch between attack and defense got faster, the mistakes made by both parties also began increasing. Although the scene appeared spectacular, the technical content had decreased.
There was no other good strategy Tang En could use, and he believed Ferguson was in the same boat. In such kinds of clashes, the manager could do very little. What counted for more were the performances of the players on the field.
A single moment of inspiration could decide the result of the match.
Suddenly, Arteta dribbled the ball in a forceful breakthrough from the center. This prompted Roy Keane to advance forward to stop him. Arteta, after seeing Keane move up, abruptly passed the ball outwards instead, to Ribéry, who received the ball. Rather than taking it to the endline and passing center, Ribéry chose to suddenly cut inward despite being pressured by a pincer defense from Cristiano Ronaldo and Gary Neville. He dashed towards the penalty area!
This change took Manchester United by surprise. They hastily shifted heavy manpower to entrap and intercept the ball. Following Ribéry’s successful diversion of three of Manchester’s defenders, he did not continue to breakthrough, but faked a move and passed the ball into the penalty arch.
“Mikel Arteta!”
Without killing the ball, Arteta took a direct long shot!
Keane did not think that Ribéry would so quickly pass the ball back. Even more unexpected was Arteta’s choice not to run into the penalty area, but to stop outside instead to wait for this pass.
Carroll’s reaction was not slow either. He made a furious leap to save the ball and successfully knocked it out. But the ball did not fly outwards away from the goal line, instead rebounding inwards. While the ball flew high, and when everyone could only look up at it, Crouch took a leap. Without any interference, he headed the ball right into the unguarded goal using his usually less-than-stellar skills in heading.
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Stamford Bridge. Andy Gray yawned again. The score was still 0:0. Regardless of how spectacularly the media had stirred up news of this match, it was not in the least bit worth its ticket price. A row of text appeared at the bottom of a small monitoring device in front of him, attracting his attention:
Nottingham Forest 3:2 Manchester United. Scorer: Peter Crouch, 79th minute.
His eyes widened.
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The cheers in City Ground continued from Crouch’s goal until the end of the match. Despite having tried all ways and means, Manchester United failed to break through Forest’s defense again and could only helplessly accept the result.
Ferguson stood before Tang En, his face grim as he put out a hand. “Each time I see such you with your youth, I think… Have I gotten too old?”
“Ah… that’s…” Tang En did not know what to say. Since he had won the match, reason dictated that he should say something pleasant to comfort Ferguson. But he felt that Ferguson was not the kind of person who needed the victor’s comfort after his loss.
“I’m kidding. After seeing you, my plans for retirement have to be delayed again.” The old general heartily gave Tang En’s palm a good smack and turned to lead his managerial team into the players’ corridor.
After seeing him off, Tang En turned and saw his excited players.
“Well done, boys. This was a job well done.”