Chapter 796: Before A Big Game

Eastwood’s shot became a topic of great relish among the Forest fans after the game. It was even featured on the opening reel of ESPN’s highlights and broadcasted repeatedly. It was a really terrific goal, like a work of art. The commentators joked that it was not humiliating for Mourinho to be wiped out under such a goal.

While Nottingham Forest eliminated Inter Milan with a score of 3:2, Barcelona also easily defeated Eindhoven by 2:0 and advanced to the final eight. The two high-profile teams finally met.

Although it would be almost a month before the two teams actually encounter each other, the media and fans were already eagerly counting down.

So far this season, Nottingham Forest had been hovering between the third and fifth places in the league tournament. It would take a lot of effort on their part to win the league title, while also praying that the top teams in the table would make consecutive mistakes. It was too low a probability. So, those people familiar with Tony Twain thought Twain would focus the strength on the Champions League while retaining a top-four spot in the league tournament.

Barcelona’s situation was slightly better than Nottingham Forest. They currently occupied the top spot in the league tournament, with the second-placed Real Madrid four points away from them. At the same time in the Copa del Rey, they also reached the final. It looked like it was going to be another successful season—they were likely to achieve the great accomplishment of a Treble, even though Real Madrid was eyeing covetously in the league tournament, the Copa del Rey final was against Sevilla, which was recovering and wanted to use the Copa del Rey as a chance to re-emerge, and their Champions League opponent encountered was the toughest…

It was right to say that they had a bright future, and also reasonable to say that their future was uncertain.

With half a month to go before the game, Guardiola was asked by the reporters about the match against Nottingham Forest. He did not want to answer the question, so he said, “I’m only thinking about the next league game and derby against RCD Espanyol now. The Champions League is still half a month away.”

Unlike him, Twain spoke to the media early on about the game, “Who will be the eventual winner? Do you still need to ask the question? It’s obviously us! Barcelona is unlucky. Their competition schedule is not good for them during this period. This is our chance… Want me to comment on the Derbi barceloní the night after tomorrow? I hear it’s a bigger game than El Clásico? I hope a few players in their team will be injured in that game…”

The remark caused a stir in the Catalan media. <Mundo Deportivo> angrily denounced Twain as a “stadium fascist” and he actually said the despicable words of wanting his opponent to have their players injured in the game.

<Sport> derided Twain’s remarks as a “declaration of a coward.” Why? Because “he can only pray that we have injured players in Barcelona so that his team can win. How sad and pathetic it is!”

A number of other tabloids published their own comments about Twain in their articles. In their published caricatures, Twain became a monster with a human face and a bull’s body. He had long horns on his head and a tail behind his buttocks. A strip of a moustache above his lips made him looked like Hitler.

But Twain did not talk nonsense. At least Guardiola had the worry—what if his players were really injured in the Derbi barceloní against RCD Espanyol? What was he going to do? Messi was currently in great form and playing very well. He had scored consecutive goals and assists. He had long been a player who needed the special attention of his opponents in the games. Since it was the Derbi barceloní, it was almost inconceivable that RCD Espanyol would not send anyone to mark Messi. The use of lethal tactics against Messi in the games now seemed to become an “unwritten rule” in La Liga. In any team encounters against Barcelona, Messi would always be the player with the most violations against him after the game.

Cruyff had on more than one occasion called on the Royal Spanish Football Federation to introduce a rule: to protect the players with artistic talent and punish the lethal tactics that targeted a particular player. Although he did not mention Messi by name, anyone with a normal IQ knew he was speaking for Messi.

The Royal Spanish Football Federation could not change the rules for a player, and FIFA had long created a regulation to crack down on the “tackle from behind.” So, nothing could be changed.

Messi had already suffered an injury in the first half of the season and took a month and a half off to rest before returning. In fact, he had been injured for almost every season over the years. As one of the best offensive star players on the planet, he was naturally contradictory to the defenders. All defenders would never feel “tender, protective feelings” when they faced Messi. They would only shovel him to the ground again and again, forcing him to lose the ball and thus bringing Barcelona’s offense to a standstill.

Twain was definitely not cursing the Barcelona players. He was just telling the truth—the current situation was such. One could say that the players who were technically good suffered from others’ jealousy, or that the defensive players were killing the beauty of football. It was an indisputable fact that they were more likely to be injured.

Therefore, Twain’s words caused Guardiola a certain amount of complications… There was no doubt that the match against RCD Espanyol would be intense. Messi would certainly be the core of his team and be heavily marked by the opponent, which would even use lethal tactics. If Messi were to be injured in the game and missed the next few games, would the loss not be even greater?

He mulled over it, and in the Derbi barceloní a day later, Messi’s name was not on the starting list.

Some media exclaimed that Twain’s mouth was really powerful and could actually make the Barcelona manager changed his mind …

It was not as simple as not having Messi. The entire Barcelona team also practiced a little restraint when they played in that game against RCD Espanyol. As they played in the away game, they were clearly not as proactive as the home team, RCD Espanyol. The commentator said that Guardiola had instilled in them the idea of not getting hurt in the game when he touched on this point.

Regardless of how careful Guardiola was, Twain was right in that Barcelona’s competition schedule during this period was against them:

After Derbi barceloní with RCD Espanyol, the next round of the league tournament was against the fourth-placed Valencia, followed by the internationally highly anticipated “war of the century”, the “El Clásico” —Barcelona’s away game against Real Madrid. After they finished playing in the game, it would be time to play in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. They would wait at home for Nottingham Forest to come challenge. Then after playing this game, it was the league’s home game against Sevilla, followed by the away challenge against Nottingham Forest.

It looked like Twain really had a deep understanding of his opponent and even completely knew the other side’s schedule. In the face of such a difficult competition schedule, Barcelona still wanted to break through in all the tournaments. It was indeed difficult. After the league tournament was played till mid-April, everyone would be exhausted and lacked strength to continue by then. But this was the final sprint. A single slip might cause long lasting trouble.

Barcelona would not be willing to lose the Champions League title, nor would they want to give up the league tournament. The four-point gap was not enough for them to keep out Real Madrid, not to mention that they still had a chance to directly play against Real Madrid.

On the other hand, Nottingham Forest’s competition agenda was much easier. They only had one stronger opponent before the game against Barcelona, and that was Chelsea.

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The result of the Derbi barceloní was a 2:2 draw between the two sides. In this game, the referee showed nine yellow cards and one red card. RCD Espanyol’s center back, Sergio Sánchez was sent off with a red card for knocking over Iniesta. The latter lasted for fifteen minutes after he was sent off for a red card and was immediately replaced with Yaya Touré by Guardiola.

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Twain’s jinx became true. After Iniesta was replaced, the center back, Gabriel Milito was forced off the field with a twisted ankle from a scuffle.

The Barcelona fans should be really happy that the game was a 2:2 draw because toward the end, Barcelona only had nine players to play—Milito was injured with eight minutes to go before the end of the game and Guardiola had used up all the substitutions.

The only good news was that Guardiola was right not to arrange for Messi to be in the starting lineup. In fact, by the end of the game, when Barcelona was facing a bad situation, Guardiola also did not let Messi play. After seeing RCD Espanyol’s exuberant fighting spirit and rough actions, only a fool would let Messi go up and take the risk.

After the game, the media went to interview Twain and asked him what he thought of the game. Twain used a tone which set the Catalan’s media teeth on edge, “This result showed that I absolutely did not maliciously curse the team, because I was telling the truth. I don’t believe that no one would get hurt and no one would not be sent off, playing a game like the Derbi barceloní. So similarly, I don’t believe there won’t be any bit of friction in playing in a game like El Clásico…”

The last remark revealed his sinister and despicable nature—RCD Espanyol was not enough. He continued to expect Real Madrid to cause trouble for Barcelona.

Of course, Twain’s comments had caught Barcelona’s attention. Guardiola did not say anything as always, but his players could not sit still.

The big mouth, Eto’o was the first to fire at Tony Twain, “Some people just lack basic respect. I really don’t know how this guy became the manager of a professional football club.”

Xavi also expressed his displeasure, “I don’t think it’s appropriate to promote injuries in players. Quaresma’s injury was a tragedy. Don’t tell me Mr. Twain wants to see such a tragedy unfold every day?”

In fact, the Barcelona players were clever and eloquent… Twain could only choose to shut up with response to Barcelona.

But the person caught in the middle who had it the hardest was Piqué. As a Barcelona player, Piqué’s affection for Nottingham Forest and Twain ran deep. Without his previous boss and Nottingham Forest, Piqué did not know how long he would have to endure before he could be in Barcelona’s First Team squad and become the current center back. He could be considered to “save his country through a roundabout way” …

The war of words with Barcelona was first provoked by Twain. As for Piqué, who had played for his team, he certainly knew what the boss had in mind—it was not that he hated Barcelona. It was completely a necessary means to victory and nothing more. But in the eyes of his Barcelona teammates, this man had a deep hatred of Barcelona.

When the reporters came up to ask him as the man in the Barcelona team who knew Tony Twain the best, Piqué could only use “I refuse to comment” to dodge it.

He did not want to say bad things about his mentor, but he could not help an outsider either, so he chose to be silent.

Twain could afford to pay such attention to Barcelona. Unlike Barcelona, which was struggling to compete and try to win multiple titles, his team played well enough to finish in the top four of the league tournament for now. He long since given up the FA Cup and EFL Cup. Now he had a lot of time to slowly play with Guardiola.

※※※

After a draw with RCD Espanyol and two players injured, the Catalan media could not help but panic. In fact, the media were like this and like to create a ruckus. Knowing that Nottingham Forest’s next league opponent was Chelsea, one by one, they began to trumpet Rijkaard’s great achievements previously at Barcelona. Since they had previously referred to Guardiola’s Barcelona as “the second dream team”, they had to say that Rijkaard was the “founder of the second dream team”, just like AC Milan’s Sacchi and Capello.

They looked back at Rijkaard’s experience in Barcelona and, of course, automatically blocked the bad things, saying nothing but merit. Everyone sang high praises of him and wish him all the best and success at Chelsea.

Looking at these attitudes, it could not be seen that when Rijkaard was in trouble, it was them who threw him under the bus.

Rijkaard was a smart and calm man who reacted coolly to the sudden collective crazy praises from the Catalan media. Everyone who left Barcelona did not seem to have a good impression of the local Catalan media…

When asked about the subject by the reporters, he simply said in a very bland tone, “I am the manager of Chelsea now. Of course, I will try to defeat Nottingham Forest, but it will not be for Barcelona.”

But a defeat of Nottingham Forest would not be beneficial for Barcelona. Twain did not seek to win the league title, so he could afford to lose a game or two. The Catalan media must have hoped that what Twain had “cursed” them with would happen to him—a number of players would leave the field with injuries in a bitter clash with Chelsea.

Twain did not give them that opportunity.

In the previous years when the two teams met, a war of words would inevitably happen, thus inciting explosive scenes during the game. Plus, Twain and Rijkaard had an old feud. The media speculated that the game might not be exciting, but it would certainly be intense. But what happened instead? Twain did not take the initiative to provoke a war of words, and Rijkaard, who was upset by the team’s factional locker room, was not in the mood to argue with outsiders.

Twain swapped the entire starting lineup for the game and rotated all the players expected by the media to be in the Champions League starting lineup to be on the bench and in the stands.

The game eventually ended with a 1:1 draw with Chelsea. Nottingham Forest was still in the fourth place in the league. It had little impact.

Compared to the Derbi barceloní, the game was civilized—there was no red card, only four yellow cards, and no one was injured. The media also guessed only half right. The game was really not exciting, but it was not intense either. It was dull for ninety minutes, with a scored goal for each side. The game, which was highly anticipated to be “an explosive duel” before, ended like it was an errand to be dealt with.

After the game, Twain wrote in four of his media columns mocking the Catalan media for “wasting their energies in vain.” The war of words between the two sides escalated further.

Although there was still more than a week to go before the real match day, the smoke had already spread, blown by the wind from England to Barcelona.