Chapter 417: A Pivot and A Long Ball Part 1

“After how well Albertini has performed so far, Adriano Galliani and Carlo Ancelotti must be kicking themselves! Demetrio is fully in command of Nottingham Forest’s rhythm. He’s like the conductor of a marching band. The Forest team’s offense and defense all revolve around him for execution.”

“I disagree with you, Malachi. Galliani and Ancelotti won’t come to watch Inter Milan’s game. I’m afraid they won’t even watch the television broadcast.”

“That’s a pity. At present, Albertini can totally play on AC Milan as the main force.”

The two Italian commentators praised Albertini for organizing the offense at that moment.

After Inter Milan’s bombardment in the first few minutes, Albertini pulled back the pace of the game to the benefit of Nottingham Forest.

The best move that Twain had made was letting Albertini be in the starting lineup because Albertini was familiar with Inter Milan. He knew how to deal with them. If it were Arteta, the Spanish kid would have been overwhelmed by the Italian-style defense.

The Italian-born Albertini, who had played in Italy for sixteen years, did not have that problem. He played the game skillfully and with ease, and performed gracefully and calmly.

Watching from his seat, Twain wanted to exclaim that this might have been Albertini’s best performance this season.

Cambiasso finally managed to intercept Albertini’s ball, but it was immediately intercepted by George Wood in return.

Now, when Albertini had the ball, there was no hissing sound in Meazza. However, Wood drew all the Inter Milan fans’ firepower. When he used his body to squeeze past Cambiasso and intercept the football, the shrill jeers started again.

Roberto Mancini finally stood up from his seat in the technical area.

Fifteen minutes had passed. Inter Milan’s attacks appeared to have increased and surged. However, the really threatening attacks were only a handful. On the contrary, Nottingham Forest made several counterattacks which were impressive and created a lot of trouble for Inter Milan’s defensive line. It looked like the Englishman Tony Twain was as good at defensive counterattacks as an Italian.

If they wanted to deal with defensive counterattacks, they could not leave too many empty gaps in their own backfield for the opponents to take advantage of. But if they wanted to ensure that their rear defensive line formation was stable enough to defend, it would affect the offensive strength in the front. Without sufficient force, they could not break through the opponent’s “defense” component of the “defensive counterattack.”

It was quite a dilemma.

Mancini could see that Nottingham Forest’s counterattack depended on the two flanks. Whether it was Ribéry on the left flank or Ashley Young on the right, they were both very fast and skillful. Many times, even without the support of their teammates, they could still dribble the ball and attack alone. And when assisted by Albertini’s accurate long balls, they could easily rip apart Inter Milan’s line of defense. By comparison, the Forest team’s two strikers, Viduka and Anelka, seemed to be less threatening.

So how should he solve this now?

Step up the defense in the flanks?

No, that’s not what should be done in this game.

Mancini whistled on the sidelines and extended two fingers. Then he pointed towards the Nottingham Forest’s goal. What he meant was to let the team step up the offense on both flanks and to suppress Nottingham Forest’s attack with Inter Milan’s offense.

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Mancini did not believe that Inter Milan’s offense could not compete with Nottingham Forest’s. Moreover, this was their home ground. With more than eighty thousand fans cheering for them, there was no reason not to beat Nottingham Forest!

In this game, Mancini had deployed Dejan Stanković and Luís Figo on the left and right flanks. Adriano and Obafemi Martins were the strikers.

During the summer, Twain was interested in Martins. But now that he had Anelka, who was a more well-rounded than Martins, he no longer missed the Nigerian kid.

As a true powerhouse club, Inter Milan’s players seemed to be more popular than Nottingham Forest’s. Almost every player was an established star player or even a superstar. In contrast to Nottingham Forest, save for Albertini, Anelka, Edwin van der Sar, and Viduka, the others were recognized by the public in the wake the Forest team’s ascent over the past two years. It seemed that their strength could not be compared. However, in reality?

Inter Milan was ranked third in Serie A, while Nottingham Forest ranked second in the Premier League.

Twain did not want to fill his team with superstars, like Real Madrid, where a manager’s dignity was buried by the brilliance of the superstars. He was the kind of manager who needed to control every single player and aspect of the team. He could not tolerate having any players be placed above him. Consequently, he was very satisfied with the current team structure because he had personally hand-picked every single one except Anelka. And he was also satisfied with the French striker’s performance since his arrival, so he was no longer hung up on it.

Only a team like this could become whole and be united in the fight. Working together as one for a common goal would give them strength. Therefore, even though the Nottingham Forest players were not very well-known, they could rank second in the league tournament and reach the quarter-finals in the Champions League.

If there were people who still could not understand that, then they were the ones who would lose out. Take, for example, Benfica; the poor Primeira Liga champion team that underestimated Twain’s Forest team did not even make it past the group stage.

Another example was Inter Milan, which had suffered continuous internal strife this season. The clash between the “King” of Meazza, Adriano, and the Argentine midfielder, Juan Sebastián Verón, was already widely publicized. In this game, Juan was still in the starting lineup. But due to the conflict between him and Adriano, even if Mancini favored him, he would decisively abandon Juan and choose to stand on “King” Adriano’s side at the crucial moment for the sake of his managerial position.

Twain could only sigh on that point. The powerhouses needed superstars so they would buy a superstar at all costs. Therefore, when all brilliant names appeared on the game’s starting lineup at the same time, they felt that they looked good too. And because the locker room was full of star players, no one gave in to anyone and the dark side of struggles between cliques and factions was, intentionally or otherwise, ignored by the club’s decision-makers. Until the day when poor performance resulted in an eruption and exposed all the contradictions, the “purge” would be held off. However, the team’s fighting strength and honor would have inevitably been affected. In the end, who would be the ones hurt by this? It would be those fans who showed unconditional support without complaints.

Both Evan and Allan wanted Nottingham Forest to become a powerhouse club like Real Madrid, Inter Milan, or AC Milan. But sometimes Twain thought that it was nice as it was. There were no big-name stars, but a group of valiant and strong players, united in their struggle.

It was just that Twain was also well aware that if the team could continue to win more and more championships, they would not be too far away from the expectations of Evan and Allan. At that time, there would be more and more big-name stars on the team. As the manager of the team, in addition to racking his brains to deal with the opponents, perhaps he would also have to worry about dealing with his own people.

That was truly a worrying future.

Sitting in the technical area, Tang En shook his head, tossed aside that future, and went on to watch the game. Speaking of Adriano, he recalled what had happened later in his memory. He’s a king now but after two seasons… Trash.

Do I want to poach him at that time? Tang En frowned as he pondered the question. But soon he gave up on the idea. The discipline of Brazilian players was a headache for him. Even though they were all brilliant, they could also become a time bomb for the team’s locker room. Moreover, he knew what Adriano’s future would be like. Perhaps his arrival would make Allan beam in delight. But it would cause a headache for Twain, so it was better to forget about it.

Getting back to the present moment, Twain saw Edwin van der Sar dauntlessly push Adriano’s header out of the goal beam. The Brazilian striker seemed to use his own performance to remonstrate Tang En’s evaluation of him.

“Inter Milan has stepped up its offense on the flanks,” said Kerslake next to him. It was Figo who crossed the ball for Adriano’s header.

“We do not need to adjust our defense. The current situation is still good. As for our offense…” Twain touched his chin and said, “Let’s use Anelka on this point.”

Kerslake nodded in understanding. He stood up and walked towards the sidelines. He conveyed the tactical adjustment on behalf of Twain. It was to shift the offense direction from the two flanks to the middle.

It was almost impossible for the team to truly achieve the principle of, “Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.” That would be too demanding. However, through their usual repeated training, a similar situation could be achieved. And that was to prepare a number of programs to be run as repeated drills during the usual training. When the time came for the need, they could be adjusted at any time.

In most cases, everyone knew that the Nottingham Forest team was strong in the flanks. Many goals came from coordination in the flanks. The middle seemed more like a relay station to provide ammunition for the flanks. This admittedly had to do with the Forest team not having a genuine attacking midfielder. But this was not to say that the Forest team could not attack from the middle.