After Forest lost to Middlesbrough and Twain's abnormal performance was announced by the media, the first person to react was Moyes.
He found the Forest team's schedule for the UEFA Europa League and had a look, and then it dawned on him.
The UEFA Cup title was obviously more attractive.
Moyes did not heave a sigh of relief when he understood this point. Instead, he stepped up his team's training. He wanted to take advantage of this period of time to pull apart the points between the two teams to a point where Tony Twain could not catch up even if he wanted to.
Since Everton lost to Manchester United in the FA Cup at the end of February, they only had one goal left for the season: the Premier League. While the Forest team had to deal with two fronts, they could get ample rest and be in the best physical condition to welcome the end of the league tournament.
Moyes, who was staring at Forest's schedule, shook his head and sighed. He really did not expect that the young man he saw at the coach's reception a year ago, who was at a loss for the future, had already become such a powerful character. Thinking back to when he asked him to coach a team in the English Football League and wanted to arrange a job for him, it was really funny …
At that cocktail party, he had even said that he was looking forward to the duel with Tony Twain. Now, Moyes believed that he would not have to wait too long for that day to come. It would be on April 3rd — Nottingham Forest's home game against Everton in the 31st round of the league tournament. If they still could not shake off the Forest team, this game was likely to be the decisive battle that would determine the final ranking of their two teams.
※ ※ ※
Speaking of Sporting Club de Portugal, Twain was no stranger to them. Of course, he was only familiar with the team's name and not all of the Sporting Club's players.
Tang En was not worried about Sporting Lisbon because he knew that the current Sporting Lisbon was no longer the Sporting Lisbon of the past. They were declining day by day in Portugal, and the number of domestic championships they had won was surpassed by Porto. In the European arena, they had only won one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, and that was already 40 years ago.
Sporting Lisbon was no longer as brave as it was in the past. At present, they were ranked fourth in the domestic league. There were no big-name stars in the team. It seemed to be just an ordinary Portuguese team.
The dream of the highest honor in Europe made Tang En's blood boil and he was fearless.
He did not feel that the current Sporting Lisbon team could pose any threat to him. The only teams that could pose a threat to him in Portugal were Porto, who still had Mourinho at the bottom, and Benfica.
However, if Tang En's understanding of the UEFA Europa League was half of what he knew about the Champions League, he would know what Sporting Lisbon's final result in this season's UEFA Europa League was: runner-up.
According to the UEFA Europa League schedule, the first leg of the round of 16 match between Nottingham Forest and Sporting Lisbon was placed in Nottingham. The Forest team would play first at home and then away.
This kind of competition schedule was the only thing Tang En was worried about. In this kind of home-and-away turn-based game, where the away goal advantage was calculated, Tang En always felt that it was not very safe to play an away game in the end. He was more used to putting the worst case scenario first. If they played the away game first, even if something went wrong, there would be room for maneuver at home. There was no way to play the home game first …
When he wanted to devote himself to preparing for the match against Sporting Lisbon, he was annoyed by another matter. Ever since the media discovered the "story" between George Wood and Eastwood, they began to incessantly hype up the relationship between the two men. Were they enemies or friends?
In fact, attentive people would always find that the optimistic Eastwood, who usually smiled at everyone during training and was very kind and easy to get along with, had a slightly cold expression on his face when he was face to face with Wood.
After this discovery was magnified and handled by the media, the effect was completely different. Digging up the internal conflicts within a team's locker room was something that excited countless reporters. Such gossip was always more eye-catching than the unchanging reports on the Forest team's results.
Would Freddy Eastwood bear a grudge because George Wood broke his leg with a tackle?
Would George Wood feel guilty because he broke Eastwood's leg with a tackle? Or would he be smug like Roy Keane when he crippled Harland? Weren't many people saying that George Wood was the player who most resembled Roy Keane in recent years?
But did no one think that it was a little inconceivable that the two of them could coexist peacefully in the same team for a year?
It was common knowledge that it was impossible for everyone in a team to have a very good relationship. There would always be some people who did not fit in. So who was the unsociable one, George Wood or Eastwood?
No matter how one looked at it, Eastwood was more popular, but now it was clear that George Wood was more favored by the club and the manager, Tony Twain. Was there a need to say which was more advantageous, the popularity among the players or the popularity among the higher-ups?
Therefore, after the "locker room disturbance" before the game against Manchester United, the Forest team had another "locker room disturbance" after a lapse of three months. Some media outlets vowed that they had received insider information from a Forest player that George Wood and Freddy Eastwood did not see eye to eye with each other in the locker room. They never spoke, never joked, and tried to avoid facing each other during training. It could be seen that the relationship between the two was terrible, and it was only one step away from the point of falling out and not recognizing each other.
In fact, this time it was not the media making things up. Those things could be checked, and attentive people with a discerning eye would certainly be able to see it. Just as there would be one or two players in every team who did not have a good relationship with each other, no one took it to heart before. Now that the media had exposed the story behind it — George Wood's shovel that broke Eastwood's leg — everyone connected the dots and thought about it, and felt that things were not as simple as they thought.
They thought it was as unbelievable as Roy Keane and Harland playing in the same team. Harland once mocked Roy Keane for diving during the Manchester Derby and was an out-and-out liar. As a result, Keane bore a grudge and finally caught a chance to retaliate in another Manchester Derby: when Harland received the ball, Roy Keane stomped on his knee from the side. The kick was so vicious that Harland flew up and flipped in the air before falling down. Harland announced his retirement because of the serious injury.
The hatred between the two of them was well known throughout the United Kingdom.
Eastwood also almost retired from football after being shoveled by George Wood. Although Wood had never said on any occasion that he had done it on purpose, no one could rule out the possibility that George Wood would write an autobiography years later after he became famous and then proudly announce that he had done it on purpose. After all, Roy Keane's example was erected in front of him. One must know that the power of an example was infinite.
From the above, it could be seen that the media was definitely not shooting at random this time. But Tang En just could not maintain the slightest good impression of the English paparazzi, because the timing of their sensationalization of this news was too f * cked up.
Just as the Forest team was about to face the challenge of Sporting Lisbon, the news media was keen to hype up the internal conflict in the Forest team's locker room. Was this not adding to Tang En's troubles?
It was as if the English national team was preparing for the World Cup qualifiers, yet the English tabloids were hyping up Eriksson's "Sheikdom" incident. This bunch of media had no journalistic ethics or quality to speak of. They would do anything in pursuit of profit.
In some ways, Tang En felt that the English media had a lot in common with many of the media in China. In order to attract the readers' attention, they did not hesitate to exaggerate, sensationalize, make up stories, and even touch on the edge of pornography. Tang En thought of Sina Sports' King Kong Sect Leader. He was truly a man of God that needed to be worshipped. Even though he had been in England for two years, he had never seen any English editor, reporter, or columnist as talented as Lord King Kong.
Anyway, when the media broke the news of "George Wood and Eastwood becoming enemies" before the UEFA Europa League Round of 16, Tang En was very upset. But for the sake of the team's current stability, he had been suppressing his anger. He did not want to affect the players' preparation mood.
It was just that at the end of the regular press conference, Tang En said in an unfriendly tone to the group of reporters who wanted to find out some "explosive inside information," "I'm very disappointed because you didn't come up with anything that made my eyes light up. Three months ago, you guys hyped up the tense relationship between George Wood and his teammates. Three months later, you guys are still doing the same. I hope that in another three months, you guys can come up with something new. Otherwise, I'll get sick of it. People have to learn to improve, don't they? "
Although he had taught the reporters a lesson verbally, the problem was not solved.
Tang En also knew that George Wood and Eastwood did not have a good relationship. He had expected this when Eastwood first joined the team. The media was right about one thing: if it was not handled well, it would indeed threaten the Forest team's own stability and results.
(To be continued. If you want to know what happened next, please log on to WWW. CMFU. com. More chapters. Support the author. Support original reading!)
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