After the match against Bolton Wanderers, the team only stayed in England for a day before flying to Spain.
On August 25th, at Villarreal's home ground, Estadio América, the Forest team would challenge their Champions League qualifying opponent. This was a crucial match. Even if the Forest team defeated Villarreal 2: 0 at home in the first leg, there was no guarantee that nothing would happen in this match.
Tang En could imagine that this match would be very difficult, so he reminded his players more than once to think of the match as difficult and not to think that they could rest easy with a 2: 0 win.
Tang En reflected this cautiousness in the tactical arrangements and lineup arrangements. The strongest lineup, defensive counterattack.
Anelka was still in the starting lineup. In this match, his speed was the weapon that Tang En relied on the most.
There was Anelka in the middle, Franck Ribéry on the left, and Ashley Young on the right. This was the trident of the Forest team's counterattack. Tang En only had one request for them: to send the football into the opponent's penalty area as quickly as possible.
Riquelme's performance in this match was much better than in the first leg, Pellegrini did not make the mistake of wavering, and Villarreal's overall performance was outstanding, scoring two goals in the match.
But in the second half, the Forest team still firmly grasped their fate in their own hands.
After a beautiful breakthrough, Anelka's shot was blocked. The Villarreal goalkeeper pounced on the ball and let it go. Arteta followed up with a follow-up shot, and the ball went into the net!
This goal occurred four minutes before the end of the match. The Spaniards were originally looking forward to playing overtime. They did not expect Arteta, who was also a Spaniard, to send his compatriot out of the Champions League proper match.
An away goal and a score of 3: 2 meant that if Villarreal wanted to drag the match into overtime, they would have to score two goals in the remaining four minutes!
But for the yellow submarine, whose morale had suffered a heavy blow, this was an impossible task.
The fourth official on the sidelines raised the injury stoppage sign. The time limit was three minutes. But from a minute and a half onwards, the Forest team's substitutes gathered on the sidelines. They were only waiting for the referee to blow the whistle before rushing into the field to celebrate. Now, every Nottingham Forest player felt that three minutes of stoppage time was too long. Every second seemed as long as a year. There were even people who were afraid to complicate matters at the last moment. Wasn't it said that the football was round? Could anything happen?
Finally …
"The match is over! After twenty-four years, Nottingham Forest is back in the UEFA Champions League! "
Of course, it was no longer called the "Champions League". It was now called the "Champions League".
The ecstatic Forest team members did not stay on the field for too long. After all, it was not good to be too ostentatious in someone else's territory. Their celebration was moved to the locker room.
The club chairman, Evan Doughty, and marketing manager, Allan Adams, were also at the game. After the game, they came to the locker room to congratulate the team on their achievements.
Of course, the most important person in the locker room was still the manager. Twain waved his hands to quiet everyone down, and then loudly announced, "You've done a good job. Now … Let's go to the Champions League and fight it out!"
※ ※ ※
The team returned to England with glory. At London's Heathrow Airport, they were greeted by not only the die-hard Forest fans singing loudly, but also many media outlets.
Because before the Forest team's expedition to Spain, there was good news from Liverpool.
As the defending champion of the Champions League, the "Red Army" Liverpool, who had been granted a special dispensation by the UEFA from the first qualifying round, overcame all the obstacles and finally defeated Bulgaria's CSKA Sofia with a total score of 3: 2 in the third round to advance into the main competition of the Champions League.
After the Forest team eliminated the Spanish team, Villarreal, they set a record — as many as five English teams appeared in the Champions League this season!
Although it was a special situation due to special reasons, because as the UEFA Champions League champion, they could not participate in the new season's Champions League because of the league ranking, which was seen as a mockery of the Champions League — it was the first time in the Champions League's 50-year history that the defending champion could not participate in the next season's Champions League. Because the previous Champions League was a cup competition that only the champions of the various leagues could participate in, and at the same time, the champions of the previous Champions League were automatically nominated. That was why Nottingham Forest could participate in the Champions League and successfully defend their title even though they did not win the league title. They automatically participated by virtue of being the previous champions.
Later, after the Champions League was reformed and became the Champions League, the number of teams that could participate in the Champions League increased, and the automatic shortlisting of the defending champion was abolished.
Liverpool's situation was special. At the time, the UEFA discussed for a long time and even involved whether to sacrifice Nottingham Forest in exchange for Liverpool's qualification to participate in the Champions League. If this resolution was passed, then the Forest team would be out of luck. Fortunately, this seemingly absurd decision was overruled. The UEFA licensed Liverpool to participate in the new season's Champions League, but it had to start from the first qualifying round. And it was said that this was a special case and would not happen again in the future.
But who cared what would happen in the future?
The Liverpool people benefited, and the English people also benefited. From the moment the news was announced, the English people looked forward to the day: five English teams gathered in Europe's highest level club league — the UEFA Champions League.
Now that the day had finally arrived, it could be seen as a major victory for English football. It was only natural that the returning Forest team would receive such attention from the media.
"It would be better if they could bring flowers …" Twain said indifferently as he looked at the scene. What did the victory of English football have to do with him? He only cared about his own team.
"No matter what you think, you have to go down for the interview," Kerslake said with a smile as they waited to get off the plane.
"Once again, I think Anelka's two brothers are too smart. I should set a price of 100,000 pounds for an interview for myself. That way, I don't have to deal with this kind of situation."
"Then why don't you pay 100,000 pounds for a word?" George Wood suddenly said as he walked past Tang En. The other players immediately burst into laughter.
"Hey!" Twain rolled up his sleeves and laughed even louder.
Then, amidst the laughter, Wood walked past Twain and said, "My mother will treat you to dinner tonight."
Twain froze.
(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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