Chapter 640: The Older the Ginger, the Spicier the Ginger

According to the principle of defensive positions, George Wood’s defensive target was supposed to be the Manchester United midfielder, Paul Scholes. The player opposite him was exactly the “Ginger Prince.”

But Wood eyed Cristiano Ronaldo.

Twain did not ask Wood to mark and defend against Ronaldo. He just placed Wood towards the right side. Once Ronaldo took the ball, Wood could go over to support the defense. After he studied Ronaldo’s performance this season, he found it impractical to have the only defensive midfielder dedicated to defending against Ronaldo, since he was not fixed on any side. Ronaldo’s position was flexible. To be able to score so many goals was not based on playing on a certain side.

He was in the wing when they lined up in the formation before the game. His position was much more flexible as soon as the game was started. He could be on the left, on the right, or even properly become the center forward!

Ronaldo did score a lot of goals this season, but he scored as a midfielder. He had not played as a center forward yet. Not only that, Wayne Rooney, who was supposed to be Manchester United’s official center forward in the game, appeared on the wing.

Scholes had no choice but to fight to the death with George Wood. When Wood entered the England national team, he had announced his withdrawal from it. However, he was well aware of the ability of the younger player. He passed the football to Wayne Rooney on the side.

Usually the striker for Manchester United, Rooney played as side midfielder for the game, which nobody could comprehend.

Even the commentator animatedly questioned, “what is Ferguson thinking? He pulled Rooney, who is suited to be a center forward, out of the box, far away from the Nottingham Forest goal. Then he put Ronaldo, who is normally the winger, to play as the center forward, which would cause him to be caught in the middle among the Forest team’s tall defenders. He can’t play to his strengths.”

Manchester United had never had such a change of formation. Maybe they did during training, but it had never appeared in a game.

Seeing Rooney take the ball, Twain moved his eyes off the field to Ferguson. Sir Alex was directing the game on the sidelines. There was no need to command, so he just put his hands in his pockets as he stood on the sidelines to watch.

What did he have in mind with these player adjustments?

Twain mulled it over.

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Nottingham Forest used the 4-2-2 formation they were best at for the game. The goalkeeper was Edwin van der Sar. Gareth Bale, Pepe, Piqué, and Rafinha were on the rear defensive line, from left to right, while Ribéry, van der Vaart, George Wood and Beckham were in the midfield, from left to right. On the front line were van Nistelrooy and Arshavin as partners.

It could almost be considered the strongest squad.

On the other side, Manchester United used a 4-5-1 formation.

The goalkeeper was the young Ben Foster. Evra, Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, and Brown were the rear defensive line. There was something different about the midfield formation.

The left side of the midfield, which should have belonged to Giggs or Park Ji-sung, was occupied by Wayne Rooney. Giggs and Park Ji-sung did not receive the opportunity to start. Park Ji-sung did not even make it on the squad list.

Carrick and Scholes were in parallel positions, but O’Shea, the extra defensive midfielder, was behind them. O’Shea was supposed to play as a full-back, but he was stronger in defensive than Carrick and Scholes. For Ferguson to place him behind the pair and in front of the center-back, his meaning could not have been more obvious — he was to help defend and block the Forest team’s offense.

Hargreaves appeared on the right flank. He was strong in every area and capable of any positions in the midfield. The most important thing was he had a certain defensive ability, and his offensive ability was not weak either.

The striker was the well-deserved Cristiano Ronaldo.

It was a strange formation for the spectators. The person who was supposed to play as the center forward was not playing as the center forward, while the player who was supposed to play as the side midfielder was not playing as the side midfielder. And the defender who was supposed to play as a full-back was not playing as a full-back… Was Ferguson’s brains muddled by the stress?

Twain obviously did not think so.

Who was Alex Ferguson? He shouldered through the thrilling scene of the 1999 Champions League final. How could he be befuddled by a league tournament final showdown?

Therefore, Ferguson had to have his reasons for the arrangement.

It made sense for a center-back like O’Shea to play as the defensive midfielder, as Ferguson hoped to increase the defensive strength in the midfield to prevent the Forest team’s counterattacks. Ever since Roy Keane’s departure, Ferguson could no longer find a world-class midfielder who was good in defense and offense like the Irishman. Carrick originally joined the team as “Keane’s successor,” but he was better at controlling the pace and managing the dispatch in the midfield. His defense was far worse as compared to it.

In that case, what was exactly going on with the exchange of positions between Rooney and Ronaldo?

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While Twain was pondering to himself, Rooney had begun to dribble and break through with the ball in the wing.

Rafinha’s defense was not as good as his offense, so he struggled to face up to Rooney. Beckham ran back from the front and tackled Rooney down from behind.

There was a flurry of boos in the stands. The only gratifying thing was that it had not yet reached an earthshattering point. It showed that although there were people who hated Beckham, not everyone did. It was the one time that Beckham had ruined Manchester United’s attack. Even the Manchester United fans who did not hate him could not stand and applaud the player who ruined their attack.

The boos reached Beckham’s ears, and he heard them, but he did not even cast his eyes at the stands.

The referee ruled that Nottingham Forest had fouled, and Rafinha returned to form the human wall. Beckham stood in front of the ball and Rooney, blocking him from sending out a swift free kick. He also took time to turn around and signal to his teammates to speed up the formation of the defense within the box.

Rooney got up from the ground and looked at Beckham, who was standing in front of him. When Beckham left Manchester United, Rooney was still making his mark at Everton. He transferred to Manchester United after the 2004 UEFA European Championship in Portugal and had never been teammates with Beckham. He had experience playing football with him on the England national team, and he had a small contradiction with Beckham during the competition.

He had a variety of impressions of the man. He was England’s captain, the star player of Real Madrid, the superstar spanning across the world of commercial football, and so on. The impressions did not include him wearing a Manchester United jersey.

Ronaldo ran over to replace Wayne Rooney for the free kick. Beckham still did not step aside, so Manchester United’s No. 7 motioned to the referee. Was Beckham’s action a violation?

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The referee came up and made Beckham move away. Only then did Beckham slowly move back to Rafinha to form a double human wall with him.

When Ronaldo ran up to pass the ball, the football quickly streaked across the front of goal. No one touched the ball.

The football sailed over the penalty area where most people were and landed on the other side.

Hargreaves appeared at the football’s point of fall and stopped the ball. The Forest defenders, who had wanted to press out collectively, saw Hargreaves get the ball and could only stay in front of the goal to defend against Manchester United’s second attack.

They could not let Hargreaves get the ball so easily. Someone had to rush up. The left-back, Gareth Bale rushed out and threw himself straight at Hargreaves.

Hargreaves did not get entangled with Bale. He passed the ball to Scholes, who pulled out to assist him. After Scholes dribbled across, he shot decisively toward the goal, and Edwin van der Sar did not have time to confiscate the football, but it was blocked out in the crowded penalty area.

Unfortunately, the man who fended off the shot was Manchester United’s own player, Carrick.

The Manchester United fans could only hold their heads in their hands and lament the bad luck of the attack.

The football popped out and was grabbed by Forest players. Nottingham Forest took the opportunity to launch a counter-offensive, but their ball was stopped by O’Shea just after it went half of the field. Meanwhile, both Rio Ferdinand and Vidic retreated to defend at a high speed. Ferguson did not have to worry about the Forest team’s quick counterattack because O’Shea’s performance was a testament to his ingenuity in arranging such a figure in the midfield.

Nottingham Forest’s quick counterattack did not happen, and they could only helplessly continue to withdraw to defend.

The more the game progressed, the more difficult the Nottingham Forest players felt the game was.

The tactic arranged before the game was that Ronaldo was a dangerous player and needed to be heavily marked. As a result, the Forest team’s two sides became heavily guarded places. Rooney was the second most dangerous player. Moreover, because as a center forward, Rooney liked to retreat to get the ball, George Wood and the center-backs also needed to take care of the middle.

But now that Rooney and Ronaldo had switched positions, they were a little at a loss.

Furthermore, the pressure did not just come from the two dangerous players. Ferguson’s team adopted a full-attack stance at home! Even O’Shea had to press past half the field. Manchester United was not a nobody team. If they went on full offensive, it would put a lot of pressure on the defense.

Twain did not expect the second point.

He thought that in such a crucial game, Ferguson would be steadier and more cautious. He would first firmly stabilize the defense and then contend with the Forest team.

He did not expect that the old man had no intention of doing so. He boldly instructed the team to go an all-out attack to crush Nottingham Forest at home.

As to guard against the Forest team’s counterattack, O’Shea was the brake, but it was more important to suppress the Forest team’s attack with their offense.

Twain thought to let the Forest team use defensive counterattack in the away game first to test the ground. He did not think they would face with such tremendous pressure the moment the game started.

He could not sit still.

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Although Ronaldo was the center forward, he did not stay in front of the goal. His position was flexible. He was just closer to the goal than when he played in the midfield. In his current form where he continued to score goals, being closer to the goal meant he was closer to scoring a goal.

Ronaldo had outstanding footwork skills and, at 1.89 meters tall, his header skills were not bad either.

Twain knew that, so he decided to pay no attention to Rooney at first, and squeeze Cristiano Ronaldo out of the penalty area instead.

He walked to the sidelines and indicated aloud to the defenders not to let Ronaldo enter the penalty area.

Ronaldo did not enter. After he received a pass outside the box, he kicked a direct long shot, which brushed the post to fly out. The close call made everyone on the Nottingham Forest team break out in a cold sweat.

Twain realized that his attempt was futile. Ronaldo did not have to be fixed in the box either. Ferguson arranged that because he liked his form and feel for his successive goals and thought that he might score in the game. Therefore, he put him in the forward position, which led him to be a little closer to the goal. A good player had a lot of methods to score goals. He could not be stopped by just keeping him out of the box. Moreover, Ronaldo used to be a midfielder, and a lot of those thirty odd goals were scored outside the box. In any case, he definitely had a way to score a goal.

Twain scowled. How could he prevent Ronaldo? Let Wood deal with him one-on-one? It was not in the wings but in the middle, in front of the box. It was impossible for Wood to check Ronaldo and not foul once for ninety minutes.

Ronaldo had scored six free kicks in various competitions this season. Almost every goal was brilliant and beautiful. Twain was deeply impressed by the free kick he scored in the game against Portsmouth.

Even if they relied on fouls to stop Ronaldo’s breakthrough in the middle, he could still make use of a free kick to breach the goal to score. If it had been two seasons ago, no one would be concerned about his free kicks. Now, he could not disregard him. If not, they would concede the goal…

Twain bit his lip in silence.

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Impacted by Manchester United, the Forest players’ performance on the field was unsatisfactory. Pressed under Manchester United’s powerful offensive, they could only stay in full defensive stance, too occupied to fight back.

On the other hand, Manchester United launched a tidal wave of attack on the Forest team’s hinterland amid the cheers from the home fans, wave after wave and each wave higher than the last.

Ferguson’s objective was clear — use the home-field advantage to try to lock in the win in the first half with a tactic that Twain did not expect, while bringing the game io the pace that Manchester United was best at. Providing that enough leading advantage was established, and the players were in form again, how could Manchester United not be in charge of the game? Coupled with the deafening cheers in the Old Trafford stadium, the home-field advantage was not to be trifled with.

Ferguson watched on the sidelines for a while and found that the game was still within his control, so he turned and walked back.

As he turned around, he discovered that Tony Twain looked vexed as he stood at the other end. An indiscernible smile emerged on his face.