Chapter 515: Thirty-Two Seconds of Heaven and Hell

This situation in this game was very simple for Rijkaard or Tony Twain.

Without too many calculated and ever-changing complicated tactics, the situation was clear — Barcelona needed to attack and score in the away game and they had to make sure they won the game. Only then could they qualify to advance.

By all accounts, if Nottingham Forest lost to Barcelona 0:1, they would also be guaranteed access to the top eight, but this clearly would not sit well Twain’s character. A team with this kind of mentality would surely perish in the end. He used to be a Chinese football fan. That kind of thing had happened so many times to the China football team that it had become a cliché. Therefore, Nottingham Forest’s mission was simple: win the game at all costs and advance to the top eight.

This was Barcelona’s away game and Rijkaard did not choose to use defensive counterattack. He knew that Twain would play conservatively at his own home ground and use the defensive counterattack which he was best at, to deal with him. They would lure Barcelona out for the offense and then wait for a sneak attack. The problem was clear, but what could the solution be? The option to choose was out of his hands. The home defeat in the first leg had pushed him to the brink. Damned if they attacked and damned if they did not.

Amid the endless boos and abuse in the City Ground stadium, Barcelona tragically launched a frenetic attack on the Forest team’s goal.

Nottingham Forest had the upper hand. Twain kept the team firmly in defense and then took the opportunity to fight back. Over the years, no matter what, he had not given up on establishing the requirement of “defense first” for the team. This instilled requirement had saved his team and him in many critical moments.

He used to like to watch offensive football, with the teams attacking each other and explosive matches, but that was because he was a fan. Now that he was the manager, he needed to take responsibility for his team and for the fans who supported him. He did not have Professor Wenger’s talent to let the footballers play beautiful partnerships and still be able to win. Therefore, he chose the most utilitarian way to win. He did not care what kind of blackened name he had to bear. He had never been the type that cared what other people said.

The defensive counterattack, stabilization of the defense first and defense were the basis of offense, like laying a foundation to build a house. Without defense, there could be no offense. The logic was actually very simple. Why were there so many people in the world who could not understand it? It was understandable that the fans did not comprehend it. But surely, a manager would understand, wouldn’t he?

After Barcelona’s re-emergence due to their offense over the past few years, Rijkaard seemed to forget about defense. Most of the time, there was not a defensive player in Barcelona’s midfield. When they competed, their tactics always relied on their own strong offense to score a few goals and make their opponents quickly lose their fighting spirit. Then the game would fall into their orbit.

Their powerful offense and gorgeous star player lineup could make most teams lose their fighting spirit when they went up against them. However, once Rijkaard’s strategy became familiar and was studied by a growing number of rivals, he found it harder to play as the season progressed. Why was that? Because his tactics lacked change. Once the opponent studied them through, Barcelona would face great danger. Everyone realized that Barcelona was not the incarnation of the invincible battle god. Even though they had many star players, it did not guarantee they would always emerge victorious. They also had their weaknesses that could not be overcome. What was even more lethal was that their defense was not much better than Real Madrid’s. As long as their tactics were on the right track, they could beat Barcelona.

After La Liga had entered the second half of this season’s tournament, Barcelona faced growing resistance, and their previously time-tested offensive tactics had become increasingly useless in the face of their old rivals. However, Rijkaard was unaware of the crisis was slowly approaching him and his team. He believed that Barcelona was currently progressing at a high speed on the right track. He was the only one. The Barcelona players, fans, and out-of-touch directors thought so, too.

The saying “life springs from sorrow and calamity; death comes from ease and pleasure” was a perfect match for the future Barcelona. No — the saying applied to all successful teams in the world.

Twain did not have to worry about this as the Forest team was still not in what was considered an “easy” environment.

As mentioned earlier, Barcelona’s biggest weakness was defense, and Twain intended to make the most of that during this game.

Nottingham Forest’s most powerful ability was defense. Their kind of defense did not depend on one player or a defensive line made up of four defenders. The Forest team’s defense was the entire team. On the contrary, Barcelona’s defense comprised only of four defenders and one goalkeeper. The others were not responsible for any defensive tasks.

Currently on their home ground, Twain’s strategy was to get the team to compact the defense and lure the Barcelona attacking players out, and then take the opportunity to counterattack, which was to pinpoint against Barcelona’s weak defense. Thuram was already old. Even though Zambrotta was an all-rounder, he had not adapted to Barcelona and Spanish football since he went to Barcelona. Valdés’ performance had many ups and downs. Sometimes his inexplicably low-level mistakes would ruin the team’s ninety minutes of effort. Puyol, the only player on the defensive line who could undertake the task, was helplessly alone and found it difficult to achieve anything without support.

Twain took aim at that, and the frontline deployed Anelka, a striker who played rapid counterattacks and worked as van Nistelrooy’s partner. He hoped to use his speed and skills to deal a fatal blow to Barcelona.

For the game, van der Vaart replaced Arteta in the starting lineup. Twain needed his long shots and organizational ability on the offense. Franck Ribéry was still on the left flank while Aaron Lennon replaced Ashley Young on the right flank.

For the defense, the left-back, Gareth Bale, was replaced by Leighton Baines who was better at defense. The players remained the same for the rest of the positions.

Barcelona repeatedly launched fierce offensives against the Forest team’s ground, but Nottingham Forest held fast with the support from its overall defensive tactics.

Barcelona dominated the game most of the time, but it was all bark and no bite. They only had a handful of shots that threatened the goal. Although the Forest team was shown to be at a disadvantage in all the technical statistics except for fouls, a few of their counterattacks were quite threatening, and they made the Barcelona people break out in a cold sweat each time.

Rijkaard certainly knew that it was dangerous for his goal area to be struck like that. But what could he do? Learn to be solid in defense like the Forest team and then strike when the opportunity arose? In that case, Tony Twain would be happy because he could hold the game up with no worries and waste game time. A draw would be considered a failure for Barcelona.

Rijkaard did not have the upper hand. He had no alternative but to attack desperately in hope of scoring a goal soon and breaking the deadlock. Our defense is terrible? Well, if we concede a few goals, the frontline will just score more goals to beat that number!

※※※

Before coming to Nottingham, Rijkaard and the entire Barcelona team did a careful study on how to deal with George Wood’s defense. They envisioned several plans of action in response to someone being completely frozen by George Wood.

But this time, Twain did not ask George Wood to specifically mark a certain player. His mission was… freedom in his movements.

He could go wherever he was needed, and he would provide support wherever the situation was dangerous.

Wood’s stamina was good, and he could run quickly. He could run back and forth in the backfield, and there was no worry that he would suffer physically and collapse because of muscle cramps.

Rijkaard originally wanted the trio of strikers to get rid of George Wood with frequent changes of positions, but he did not expect Twain to let Wood play defense in the backfield with no fixed position, rendering Rijkaard’s strategy completely ineffective.

Barcelona was up against an immovable defense, which would not change due to their frequent switch in positions. The defensive power they faced on the flanks and in the middle were the same, which was frustrating.

To put it bluntly, the purpose of offense was to use one’s positional play to find the holes in the opponent’s defense, and then to take advantage of these holes to create an opportunity for an attack. The current situation was that no matter how Barcelona passed, cut, or positioned, the Forest team’s defense stood as if it were a mountain and could not be moved.

The first half came to an end. The 0:0 score did not satisfy the neutral fans, but it made the Forest fans happy.

During the halftime interval, Twain gave high praise to the team’s defense, but he also asked the team’s offense to be stronger and to not let a single chance for a counterattack to slip. As long as they had another chance, they could eliminate Barcelona!

Meanwhile over on Barcelona’s side, Rijkaard was not satisfied with the team’s offense. There had been many chances within the last forty-five minutes, but they did not score, which was letting down the name of Barcelona. They had to step up their offense in the second half and not slack off on their offense. The reason Forest had not scored until now was because Barcelona’s offense had put a lot of pressure on them and prevented them from taking care of their offense. Once Barcelona could no longer sustain that kind of pressure on its offense, the Forest team would have a chance.

Anyway, it was impossible for Barcelona to stop now.

After the start of the second half, the Forest team still held fast to their ground to challenge Barcelona. Barcelona also did not change its intent to attack.

As time went on, Rijkaard rose from his seat and walked to the sidelines. The players could hardly hear his shouts in the noisy stadium. He tried to remind the players to keep pressing. As a result, he was immediately inundated with boos. He could not even hear himself, let alone the players. He could only wave the players over and brief them close to the technical area whenever there was a dead ball.

※※※

If Barcelona’s bombardment and Forest’s tight defense could be counted as a sort of balance, then in the 68th minute of the game, the balance was finally broken.

Barcelona organized an effective attack, which, through a series of passes, finally ripped the Forest team’s impenetrable defensive line open and exposed a gaping hole.

Ronaldinho once again created a diversion, pretending to break through, but unexpectedly passed the ball through that crack. Eto’o moved quickly and received the ball behind the Forest team’s defensive line. The Forest players thought Eto’o was offside, but the assistant referee did not raise the flag.

“How can that not be an offside, you bastard!” Twain bristled and jumped off the field.

George Wood chased him with all his might, trying to stop this goal.

He was still too late in the end. Eto’o kicked his foot to shoot before Wood could intercept the ball.

At that moment, Twain’s heart almost stopped beating. He was not the only one. The boos in the City Ground stadium seemed to stop as everyone held their breath and stared at the football flying through the air.

Even the Barcelona fans, whether at the stadium or in Barcelona, were afraid to take their eyes off the ball.

The football flew from Eto’o’s foot and evaded George Wood’s feet which came to tackle and tore past van der Sar’s incoming hands to fly straight into the goal behind him.

Was it going to score?

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There was a crash and the football hit the goal beam, only to smash towards the ground, bounce up again, and fly back out. Edwin van der Sar’s reacted quickly the second time. He jumped up and plucked the football from the air.

Did the ball go in or not?

The Barcelona players jumped with their arms raised high at the first instance to celebrate the goal. Even Eto’o ran to the corner flag with open arms, Ronaldinho, Messi and the others close behind.

The Catalan commentators also did not wait to roar “GOOOOOOOOOOAL—!”

The televised broadcast also showed captions that Barcelona was at 1:0 against Nottingham Forest. It looked like this ball went in.

But… but!

The ecstatic expression on Eto’o’s face suddenly froze on the television camera. He pushed Ronaldinho aside and looked at the assistant referee standing next to them in puzzlement.

After the goal, the assistant referee was supposed to run to the center line, while the referee would whistle and point to the center circle to show that the goal was valid.

However, this time, the assistant referee did not run. What about the referee? The Barcelona people turned their heads to look at the referee, only to see a heart-stopping scene—

The Nottingham Forest players had already taken the football to the center circle and were clearly playing their customary quick counterattack…

The referee did not stop this act, but ran along with it. What did this mean? It meant that the Forest team did not foul, and Barcelona did not score a goal!

Puyol had wanted to run up to celebrate, but halfway through, he saw Edwin van der Sar throw the football forward and van der Vaart launch a quick counterattack immediately after he received the ball.

The Barcelona captain ran halfway before he hurriedly withdrew and shouted at his teammates to return to defend. Unfortunately, the field was so noisy that his teammates, far away in front of the corner flag, could not hear it at all.

The more responsive Barcelona players began to turn away from the confused Eto’o to return to defend.

Van der Vaart knew he was slow at dribbling and it was bad for times like this, so instead of dribbling more than necessary, he passed the football to Anelka, who could run faster.

“Ah… This is a surprising turn of events. Eto’o’s shot did not result in a goal. Instead, it gave Nottingham Forest a chance to fight back! Because the football wasn’t out of bounds, it is not a dead ball. Barcelona is in big trouble!”

The commentator was right about that Barcelona was now in big trouble.

Because they had been busy celebrating the goal, most of the Barcelona players were not in their positions. The Forest team’s counterattack was also very swift. They completely did not give Barcelona the opportunity to regroup for their attack. With two or three passes, the ball reached Anelka’s feet. Once the French striker got the ball, he immediately sped up and dashed towards Barcelona’s goal.

After he forced a breakthrough by speeding by Puyol, Anelka was in the penalty area. Valdés could only abandon the goal area to strike, which eased the way for what happened next.

Anelka made to look like he was going to pass the ball in order to fool Valdés into leaving the goal. Once he opened up the angle, he did not hesitate to shoot, and the football unsurprisingly flew into the net.

The City Ground stadium finally stopped booing and cheered instead.

This time, the whistle finally rang as the referee confirmed that the goal was valid.

From the moment the Barcelona players thought they had scored to the moment Nottingham Forest really scored a goal, only thirty-two seconds had passed. Everything happened too fast. Many people had not fully reacted yet.

Rijkaard, who had wanted to jump with open arms to celebrate the goal, now looked on disbelievingly at everything that happened on the field with his head in his hands.

Twain would have been upset, but he was now jumping up and down, cheering endlessly.

The “before and after” in the two managers was a clear illustration of the two team’s situations.

“This… is so dramatic. Who would have thought that Barcelona would be so happy with the goal that no one even confirmed if the ball had gone in. Nottingham Forest was also really cunning and did not give Barcelona any chances. Their quick counterattack was so well-played that everyone was left speechless.”

The people of Barcelona snapped back to attention and surrounded the referee to protest. They were convinced that Eto’o’s shot must have been a goal.

In that case, did it really go in? Thanks to modern technology, the audience could watch the replay clearly.

The slow motion of Eto’o’s kick began to play repeatedly on the television screen: The football hit the crossbar and rebounded. The next scene was the key: was the football inside the goal line when it landed?

The slow-motion scene played over and over again, from many different angles, so that everyone could see more clearly. This was not the unresolved case in the 1966 World Cup final; the slow-motion frames were clear. The football landed outside the goal line, so it was not a goal.

No matter how unwilling they were, Barcelona could only accept the result. They were deceived by their own ideas, and they suffered a big loss.

“It only took thirty-two seconds for Barcelona to go from heaven to hell. Judging from the lost look in their eyes, this huge drop was really unacceptable.”

The blow from this goal was not as simple as being behind by a point. They had thought they were in the lead and, instead, it became their opponent taking the lead in a flash. They could have equalized the total score and now they were two goals behind. In order to reverse the game, they had to score at least two goals to equalize the total score so that both teams had the same number of goals going into overtime.

However, with the Barcelona players in their current state of mind, could they really achieve that?

As for Nottingham Forest, Twain “graciously accepted” the advantage that the Forest team had gotten without ceremony. After taking the lead, the Forest team’s tactics remained the same. They still adhered to playing defensive counterattack. The trailing Barcelona’s attack would naturally become more frenetic, and the Forest team’s defensive counterattack could be employed more easily.

※※※

The rest of the game continued as such. Overly eager to equalize the score, the Barcelona offense became unruly. The star players all intended to rely on their personal skills to save the losing battle. As a result nothing was gained except time wasted.

On the contrary, the Forest team’s counterattack was sharp, which kept Valdés busy.

In the 85th minute, the Forest team once again scored a goal via van Nistelrooy through a quick counterattack into Barcelona’s goal, which declared the end of the game.

“The game’s over! After one hundred and eighty minutes of heavy fighting in two games, Barcelona, the winner of the last season’s Champions League, was defeated by the last runner-up, Nottingham Forest. To be honest, the result was not at all surprising after watching the first game. Only the first goal of this game came in a dramatic fashion.”

“Tony Twain completed his vengeance, and Nottingham Forest not only eliminated Barcelona, but also dominated in both games!”

On the television camera, Twain was seen standing on the sidelines, holding up his arms to wave to the Forest fans in the stands, thanking them for their support. A bright smile bloomed on his face like a flower in the sun, and this time he did not rush to shake hands with Rijkaard first. Compared to shaking hands to show respect to his opponent, Twain felt it was more important to thank his supporters.

George Wood walked over and saw Twain, who was thanking the fans. He had intended to directly walk past to go back to the locker room, only to be stopped by Twain who said, “George, how did you feel about the final?”

“Unfortunately, there’s no trophy to be won,” Wood said.

Twain chuckled happily, “We’ll soon have that.” He extended his hands and counted. “There will be two games for the top eight to become top four and another two game for the top four to become the final two. And then, the final. With five more games to play, you will be able to pick up the trophy with your own hands.”

Wood looked at Twain’s outstretched five fingers and said nothing. He just turned to walk into the tunnel. Twain raised his hands to continue to thank the fans who called out the name of Nottingham Forest in the stands.

He clenched his fists and pumped them hard in front of the fans.

Those fans who were unwilling to leave the stadium shouted along with Twain’s gesture.

Looking at the fans’ faces contorted with excitement, Twain smiled contentedly.