364 A Dedication to Eastwood Part 1 (1/2)

When Forest equalized the score, Mourinho sat unmoving on his seat without any expression while the broadcast television gave him a close-up. Mourinho knew that there was going to be a camera turning his way to join in the fuss, so he kept his facial expression unchanged, not giving the TV station or commentators anything to talk about.

Even so, John Motson and Lineker, watching the scene from the broadcasting seats, could not stop laughing.

Tang En's celebration at the sidelines was highly exaggerated. Mourinho, who was nearby, simply treated him like he was invisible, looking straight ahead without giving him a glance.

More than ten minutes ago, the two were in the exact same situation but with reversed roles.

Because of that, the scene seemed irrepressibly funny no matter how one looked at it.

With the restart of the match, both parties resumed some sort of balance. A stalemate in the field. Neither side was able to break through; in fact, neither side was willing to try and break through. They were only left with a few minutes before halftime. Neither intended to waste their energy on these last few minutes. Compared to their usual matches, this was much tougher.

Neither of the two managers said anything about making use of the last moments in the first half to go at their opponents. Tang En, who had celebrated the goal, continued standing by the sidelines while Mourinho stayed on the manager's seat, not getting up.

The match time proceeded to its 45th minute, and the referee blew the ending whistle for its first half.

”1:1! It's a very fair score. In the first half, both teams had their chances and took them. The performances of all the players were excellent. This matches our predictions from before the match. It is indeed turning out to be an exciting and intense match.”

”John, I think we can regard this as a rule. As long it's Mourinho and Tony Twain's teams clashing, it's hard for it not to be this exhilarating.”

※※※

The members of Forest swarmed into the locker room. Ribéry started shouting, ”Clothes off! Clothes off!”

With half the match past, it was a common occurrence for players to take off their sweat-sodden jerseys and change into their spare, fresh ones; but Ribéry's purpose for shouting was certainly not that.

”Singlet, singlet… Wes, marker.”

Ribéry took the marker from Morgan and bent over the players' bench, writing a line of words on the singlets, starting with his own.

The others gathered behind him, watching as he wrote on every one of their singlets.

Anelka made no motion to stop them, even when he saw them writing and drawing on his.

Their captain, George Wood, handed over a white singlet when it came to his turn, stumping Ribéry momentarily.

”George? I thought you didn't ever wear this?”

”If I don't wear it, where will you write?” Wood asked with furrowed brows.

Ribéry chuckled. ”What a pity. We planned to write on your stomach.”

Laughter rippled through the locker room.

Tang En was met with that scene as he pushed the door open and entered the locker room. The players were all huddled in a circle. George Wood was standing in the middle while Ribéry was half sprawled on the floor. Everyone other than George Wood, including Albertini and Anelka who rarely laughed, was chuckling in delight.

”What's going on?” Tang En was interested too.

Hearing his words, the group turned to look at him. Ribéry stood up from the ground.

”Boss, this is your fault.”

”My fault?” Tang En was completely confused.

”You knew that the Romani was coming to watch this match, right?” Ribéry asked.

”Yeah, but I wanted to give you guys a surprise, so I only told you before the match.”

”Look,” Ribéry said, opening his hands up. ”We're utterly unprepared. If you had told us a day earlier, we wouldn't need to be writing on our singlets right now…”

The crowd parted, and Tang En finally saw what they were busy with. Their white singlets all had ”Recover soon, we're waiting for you, Freddy!” written on them with a marker.

He rubbed his nose, feeling a little abashed.

”If I could have lifted up my jersey up like this when I scored earlier!” Ribéry said, making the motion of flipping up his jersey, ”Freddy would have seen it! Alas…”

”Eh… it's not like we won't be scoring in the second half. At that point, you can lift it!” Tang En said, also following-up with the motion to flip up his shirt.

”He's just above us, and he'll still be there in the second half. He won't be leaving before the match ends.” Tang En pointed at the ceiling. ”So, until the whistle signals the end of the match, you will all have the chance to let him see the words.”

Everyone agreed with Tang En and nodded.

”You're right, Boss.” Ribéry stooped again and wrote the same line on Wood's singlet. Regardless of if they were on the field or sitting on the substitutes' bench, everyone had the same line written on their clothes.

Wood stood beside Ribéry, peering down quietly as Ribéry worked through their singlets.

Tang En was more curious about the other aspect of the matter. He asked, ”Franck, which one of you came up with this idea?”