Twain substituted players in the second half of the game. After all, this was just a friendly match. The number of substitutions in such a match was not the three players in a regular match. It was decided by the two sides. According to the previous agreement between the two sides, a maximum of 11 players could be substituted in this game.
Even in England's Third Team, few of the players who were allowed to play the entire game by the club. Twain would promise the opposing club that the player would only play half of the game at most whenever he called up a player. As someone who had just taken charge of the national team, Tang En's current attitude was very humble for someone whose achievements in the national team were like a blank piece of paper. Even in the media, there were no provocative remarks.
After the halftime interval, Twain substituted four players in one go. James Milner replaced Joe Cole, Michael Johnson replaced Mark Noble, Paul Pepper replaced Ashley Cole, who had just recovered from his injury, and James Vaughan replaced Darren Bent.
Unlike Twain's large-scale substitutions, five minutes into the second half of the game, Martin O 'Neill did not make a move. He did not substitute players.
"It looks like O 'Neill wants to win this game." Twain muttered to himself in the manager's seat.
O 'Neill's idea was actually very simple. The Forest team's strongest lineup would definitely stay on the field for a while because his plan was to attack England's penalty area at the start of the second half and strive for a goal. If he substituted players at the start of the second half, how could they attack?
So when the score was still 1: 0 five minutes into the second half, he appeared a little nervous. He got up from his seat and paced back and forth on the sidelines. At the same time, his mind was quickly calculating the various possibilities and countermeasures after that.
If they could not blast open England's goal in another ten minutes, then he would have to substitute most of the main players to give them sufficient rest. At the same time, he would shrink the formation and switch to defense to confront England. O 'Neill had such confidence — with the strength of the England team, it would not be easy to break his team's goal. Even if they won this game 1: 0, it would be considered that he could report back. At least he had won.
What if England equalized the score? Then he would substitute a small number of the main players, maintain enough strength, and continue to attack. Strive to take the lead again.
Unlike the somewhat restless Martin O 'Neill, Tony Twain had been sitting on the fishing platform. He crossed his legs in the leather chair. The England team withdrew their defensive line as he said and reduced Nottingham Forest's space and time in front of their penalty area, which made Nottingham Forest a little uncomfortable. O 'Neill wanted the team to play better, so there were a lot of short passes, especially in the middle.
From Tang En's point of view, this was unnecessary. However, perhaps O 'Neill chose to do so to deliberately differentiate himself from Tang En.
After attacking for another ten minutes, Nottingham Forest still could not find a good chance to enter England's penalty area. They could only rely more on long shots to try to score goals. However, this also caused a little trouble for the England team. During the halftime interval, Tang En asked the team to take advantage of the empty spaces left by the Forest team's two wingers. However, 15 minutes into the second half, the Forest team's two full backs did not actively assist. This seemed to be O 'Neill's intentional arrangement. Bale and Rafinha only crossed the halfway line after the entire England team had retreated to the 30-meter zone.
In this way, Tang En's counterattack from the flank could not be carried out.
After 15 minutes, O 'Neill saw that his side did not score, and Tang En's attack was not very sharp, so he decided to make a substitution.
He replaced Fernández with Cohen, Moke replaced Bentley, Gago replaced Şahin, and Ibišević replaced Agbonlahor. He also changed four players, but no one in the rear defensive line moved. He was still very careful and did not want to give Tang En the slightest chance.
When Tang En saw O 'Neill make a substitution, he knew his chance had come.
So, for the first time in the second half, he got up from his seat and walked to the sidelines.
Seeing him get up and walk out, there was a burst of boos directed at him from the stands. Tang En turned a deaf ear to them. He just shouted the names of the players on the field and waved to them to press out a little.
O 'Neill had George Wood to rely on, so he hoped to build the current Nottingham Forest team into a team that could play beautiful football. This was a world of difference from Tang En's previous emphasis on passing through the midfield quickly. His efforts were slightly effective. The current Forest team's performance in the midfield was indeed much more beautiful than the previous team. The layers of advancing play and the team's coordination in passing and cutting allowed the Forest team's offense to be as smooth as flowing water.
But his strategy did not play its intended role against the previous England team, who had to defend to the death.
O 'Neill also decided to make some adjustments.
The Forest team's only goal in the first half was scored through a pass from the flank. It looked like they still had to return to the two wings flying together. He gestured on the sidelines for Bale and Rafinha to get back into the offense.
This was the signal that Bale and Rafinha wanted to see the most. For them, who were stronger in offense than defense, only offense could give them a sense of accomplishment.
After Bale passed the football to Cohen, he did not wait to see the situation from behind before deciding whether to plug in like he did the previous few times. This time, he was very determined to plug forward and overtook Cohen.
As a teammate who had cooperated with him for a few seasons, Chris Cohen also knew what Bale meant. Since the manager had loosened the restrictions on the full backs' assists, coupled with his trust in Bale's offensive ability, Cohen passed the football over.
It must be said that the strength of the national team that Tang En had temporarily pieced together was much weaker than that of Nottingham Forest. Jack Cook could not stop Bale's attack alone, and because of the lack of tacit understanding, Ferdinand did not come up to fill the position at the first instance. Just like that, the two men let Bale rush past them.
Loud cheers rang out in the stands, cheering for Bale's breakthrough. They were eager to see the Forest team score another goal. The score of 1: 0 was really not enough. One must know what kind of team the Forest team's opponent was — England's third-tier team!
Seeing Bale's breakthrough, Tang En became a little nervous. He knew Bale. The little monkey usually looked harmless, but when it came to the game, he would not recognize anyone and showed a calmness that did not match his age. This was what Tang En valued in the beginning, but now it had become the thing that worried Tang En the most.
Mitchell was still waiting inside. As long as he passed the ball in …
Tang En involuntarily clenched his fists.
Bale did indeed pass a high ball. This time, it was Whit who saved England and Tang En. David Whit, who was 1.96 meters tall, blocked his position, making it impossible for Mitchell to fight for the header. Then, he struggled to jump up and head the ball out.
The cheers in the stands suddenly dispersed into sighs.
Tang En's fists did not loosen, because he saw the scene that he had been waiting bitterly for more than ten minutes.
The ball that Whit headed out did not fall at the feet of the Forest players, but at Delph's feet. And Delph happened to be on Bale's side. Bale had just gone up to assist and had not had time to return to defend …
"Counterattack!" Tang En could not help but roar off the field. For a moment, he forgot that he was at the Crimson Stadium, and that his opponent was Nottingham Forest, the team he had coached for 11 years. His mind only wanted the boos in the stands to disappear for a moment. The words in the tunnel of the Crimson Stadium came to mind again.
Other than victory, it was still victory.
That's how I, Tony Twain, have been in my coaching career. Even if I change teams, it's still the same …
Delph also noticed this gap. He did not run forward with the ball himself. After all, no matter how fast a person ran, he could not compare to a flying football in the air.
He passed the ball to James Vaughan, who came on in the second half. At this moment, Everton's leading striker had already pulled to the side. Even though they had not trained together for long before, as a professional player, so many years of tactical literacy had at least made him know to look for the opponent's gap when attacking.
This point, he and Delph thought of the same thing.
Just as he pulled to the side, Delph's ball came over.
The full back was empty, and the center back and defensive midfielder had to come over to fill the position.
George Wood was as fierce as ever. He rushed up to try to intercept Vaughan's ball. As an old opponent in the Premier League, Vaughan certainly knew how good Wood was. He was not arrogant enough to think that he could escape unscathed under Wood's pressing. The smartest thing to do was to hurry and pass the ball out before he pounced on him …
Wood knocked down Vaughan, but the referee did not whistle to signal the Forest team for a foul. Instead, he held his hands flat in the direction of the attack — the attack was advantageous, the game continued!
Vaughan beat Wood to Everton's teammate, his junior, Joseph Baxter, who had plugged in from the midfield before Wood could.
Nottingham Forest's center back was still paying attention to the other striker, Fraizer Campbell. In addition to the fact that they had just committed an attack, their defensive strength was insufficient. Other than the two center backs, there was only George Wood.
Baxter was equivalent to a completely defenseless person.
At this time, Pepe and Thiago Silva made a mistake in their coordination — it was reasonable to say that one of them should go up to defend against Baxter, and the other stay behind to watch Campbell. In the end, the two of them rushed up at the same time when they saw Baxter get the ball.
At this moment, Baxter passed the ball. He sent the ball to Campbell, who waited in front and was not offside.
When Campbell received the ball, he was behind the entire Forest team's defensive line, and there was no one around him.
Silva raised his hand to signal that Campbell was offside, but the referee and assistant referee did not react.
Only Pepe turned around and tried to pounce on Campbell.
He was too late. Campbell broke into the penalty area, and Pepe rushed over but only tripped Campbell there.
This time, the referee and assistant referee finally reacted. The assistant referee raised the flag and kept waving it, while the referee whistled and ran to the penalty spot in the penalty area!
"Penalty!" The commentator shouted.
O 'Neill's eyes widened on the sidelines, and he could hardly believe what he saw.
The commentator then followed to ridicule Pepe for the foul, "In the Champions League final, he also gave Real Madrid a penalty with a push like this. In this game, he gave a big gift again. Could it be that Pepe really wants to help Tony Twain? Think about the hug he had with Tony before the start of the game. What did the two of them say when they hugged each other? "
The surprised fans in the stands expressed their dissatisfaction with the decision with boos. Perhaps some people would even think that it was Pepe who did it on purpose …
In any case, England was awarded a "lucky" penalty just like that. Vaughan took the penalty, and in one move, the score was tied at 1: 1.
Looking at his team's goal, Twain was not as excited as before to deliberately make those celebratory moves to provoke his opponents on the sidelines. He did not even clap his hands. He stood motionless on the sidelines like a marble statue.
Logically speaking, it was best for him to make an excited expression and action at this time to let the England players acknowledge him as their new manager. But Twain gave up such an opportunity to close the relationship between himself and the players, just because deep in his heart, he still could not bring himself to do such actions in the game against the Forest team.
To him, Nottingham Forest was not an enemy until now … and it would not be in the future. Because the England national team would almost never have a chance to play against Nottingham Forest in the future. They were supposed to be two parallel lines that did not interfere with each other, but by a freak combination of factors, they crossed today.
He was not mentally prepared to see Nottingham Forest again so soon …
The fans could boo him because they had a reason to hate him. He could also lead the team to defeat Nottingham Forest here, because he could not go against his professional ethics. But he could at least choose not to make any celebratory moves after his team scored, which might make him and the fans feel better.
But, he could not let outsiders see that the reason why he did not celebrate was because of this. So, he could only put on a straight face and pretend to be cool, as if he was not satisfied that the team took so long to get back to the score. At least he succeeded in deceiving the commentator.
"Tony Twain doesn't seem to be very satisfied with the draw. He still has a straight face after the team scored. What a strict manager. I can almost see the days of those big England star players under him, ah ha! "
Skinny Bill was still leading his diehard fans to express their dissatisfaction with the goal concede by booing, and Fat John did not care about the result of the game at all. He came here to see Twain. Seeing Twain standing in the same spot without even raising his hand or changing his posture, John thought of the Tony Twain who attracted more attention than the goalscorer every time the Forest team scored a goal. He did a somersault, he slid on his knees, he was pressed under the bodies of the players who swarmed over …
Such a scene would probably never be seen again, would it?
John sighed softly, then turned away from his position and walked towards the exit.
"John? Not going to watch anymore? "Someone beside him noticed his abnormal behavior.
John shook his head. "Not going to watch anymore." He slowly moved his fat body and disappeared at the exit.
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Fat John left the game early, so he did not see the scene 20 minutes later in the 80th minute, when Nottingham Forest made a mistake in passing in the backfield and Vaughan seized the opportunity to score another goal.
Instead, the huge Crimson Stadium was dead silent, as if they had just lost the UEFA Champions League. Those who were waiting to see Twain make a fool of himself and wanted to teach him a lesson were all dumbfounded. Their minds were blank and they did not know what to say. Even someone like Bill did not expect the powerful Nottingham Forest to fall behind to a third-tier England team on their own home ground …
The England players on the field hugged each other excitedly, celebrating their goal to overtake. And this time, Twain sat in the manager's seat and still did not say anything. He stubbornly adhered to his inner "principle" — not to cheer and celebrate any of his team's goals in the game against the Forest team.
But how many of the 50,000 people in the stands understood his laughable "principle"?
This Tony Twain! This repulsive traitor! This shameless Judas!
You betrayed us! You betrayed Nottingham Forest!
Now that you're ahead of us, you still put on such an arrogant and nonchalant look. It's simply unforgivable! How do you feel about defeating the Nottingham Forest team that you once loved the most? Do you feel happy?
But we don't!
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