569 New and Former Owners (1/2)

Despite the fact that it was only July, Nottingham Forest slowly closed its doors on the transfer market. Twain decided to keep his team away from the distracting rumors in the transfer market and single-mindedly prepare for the new season. Last season's Champions League title was not the end point for them. In the face of the achievement, there were higher achievements waiting for them to pursue.

While the Forest team was still training in Moscow, Allan had flown back to Nottingham to assist Evan in dealing with various aspects in the construction of the new stadium.

The Nottingham municipal government and the Nottingham Forest Club had unveiled a real estate development program in Clifton. A large residential and business districts were to be built in the small town of Clifton, southwest of Nottingham, as well as a modernized new stadium that could accommodate up to 60,000 people.

This was followed by a tentitive exercise opened for the whole of Europe.

Just as the Russian Railways Cup was about to begin, the Nottingham Forest Football Club's official website announced the tentative results for the construction of the new stadium.

In the end, Wilson Bowden, the fifth-largest housing developer in the United Kingdom, won the bid and would be responsible for the construction and development of the new stadium and residential areas. One of the most attractive factors in their bidding proposal was to save money. By adopting new technologies and working with the city government on the development of a new transport infrastructure, they could reduce the costs by about eight percent. In addition, the residential areas and a football theme park around the stadium could also yield substantial returns to the club after the completion — according to the plans. When the time came, the new Nottingham Forest Stadium would be more than just a football stadium. It would also be a theme park and a satellite city collective of dining, entertainment, residential and leisure.

The early stage funding for the new stadium came from a bank loan and new televised broadcast revenue, as well as the Champions League bonus and the funds provided by sponsors used to maintain the team's daily operations. Therefore, Allan also sought wealthier investors for the huge plan to ease the club's financial constraints over the next few years. Twain, who had always been more hands-off with the club's operations, was also particularly concerned this time. How many hard years did Wenger have to tighten his belt while Arsenal repaired the Emirates stadium? Twain did not want to be a second Wenger. His savings in the transfer market this time made Allan happy, but Twain could not make himself save so much every year. If he had no money to buy good players after he had seen them, Twain would be boiling mad.

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Before the Russian Railways Cup, Twain's team played two friendlies in eastern Germany. One of which was a friendly held in Cottbus against the local Bundesliga team, FC Energie Cottbus. Twain deployed all his reserves, First Team substitutes and young players in the starting lineup.

There was one player in Energie Cottbus that Twain somewhat cared about, and that was the Chinese player, Shao Jiayi, Sun Jihai's national team teammate. Since they were all Chinese, he naturally showed more consideration during the selection of their friendlies' opponents. Therefore, the Forest team chose the Energie Cottbus team, who had kept its status in the Bundesliga every year.

Energie Cottbus used the entire main force, but Shao Jiayi was not in the starting lineup. He was on the bench.

Energie Cottbus, who used all its main players in the first half, led the European champion, Nottingham Forest's ”Second Team” by two goals.

The Energie Cottbus team was greatly boosted by this result. It also stirred up the Energie Cottbus fans who came to watch the game live, and the stadium atmosphere heated up. It did not look like a friendly match. It was more like a knockout game in the Champions League group stage game.

During the halftime interval, Twain made several adjustments and changed five players to van Nistelrooy, Arshavin, Petrov, Lennon and Kompany in one go.

After the main force was brought on, the situation changed immediately. The Energie Cottbus players planned to continue to expand on their gains in the second half during the halftime interval. Their success made them forget who their opponents were. The cheers of the Energie Cottbus fans also made them think they were omnipotent at their home ground.

Just thirty-eight seconds into the second half, van Nistelrooy breached the goal after he received a header pass from Arshavin's side on the flank and narrowed the score to 1:2.

Twain did not stand up and wave his fists in celebration. It was just too easy to him to get a goal into a team like Energie Cottbus.

Energie Cottbus wanted to continue to fight. Ten minutes later, the Forest team scored another goal by Petrov which equalized the score.

This goal thoroughly sobered Energie Cottbus up — this was a friendly. There was no need to strive to win this game, and there was no need to be upset about the defeat of this game. They started to change players.

Energie Cottbus changed more players than the Forest team. They switched a total of nine players in one breath and Shao Jiayi was one of them.

Then it was the Forest team's turn to change. Twain also did not care about winning or losing. He mainly chose the games to assess if the new players had integrated into the team after so many days of training. Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.

In the end, both sides changed eleven players each, which switched all the starting players. Nottingham Forest defeated Energie Cottbus by 4:2 which proved that their European champion's strength was genuine.

Next, the team found a local amateur team to hold a friendly. It was a fully closed-door warm-up match. In fact, calling it an internal team match might have been more appropriate. It was played in the training ground with no spectators or media present. Under Twain's constant adjustments, the Forest team eventually crushed its opponent by 9:1. Twain was not quite satisfied because his team had conceded a goal. At the end of the game, he roundly criticized the defensive players on the bus back to the hotel.

After the two friendlies, the Forest team flew back to Moscow and began to prepare for the Russian Railways Cup.

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The draw ceremony was simple because it was just an ordinary pre-season invitation tournament. Everyone knew the purpose of such games. Other than the media from the countries where the four teams were located, it did not attract much attention.

The final outcome was quite interesting.

The managers of the four teams sat side by side on the stage. Twain sat together with Real Madrid's new manager, the German ”madman” Bernd Schuster, AC Milan's manager, Carlo Ancelotti, and FC Lokomotiv Moscow's manager, Yuri Pavlovich Semin.

After the host drew lots, the results were released to the media and the managers on stage.

Everyone who watched the Forest team and Real Madrid drawn together laughed knowingly. It was not the first time these two teams had played together. The Forest team's first encounter with Real Madrid in the Champions League led to the dismissal of the former Real Madrid coach, Luxemburgo and the resignation of the former club chairman, Florentino Perez.

In the last few years, there had been talk of Real Madrid's interest in George Wood. Just that summer, Twain had turned down Real Madrid's 20 million euro offer for Ribéry.

At the same time, David Beckham chose to join Nottingham Forest on a free transfer after ending a four-year contract with Real Madrid. No one anticipated that he would meet his former team so soon on the field.

Twain was also a little surprised by the result. He even thought that it was a stunt arranged by the organizers to capture the attention of the media and public and to attract interest.

He glanced at Schuster seated next to him. Everyone knew that the media wanted to watch a good show, but they were not going to give the people below what they wanted.

At the press conference of the draw ceremony, Twain was asked about his opponent in the first round. He did not directly answer the question. Instead, he praised Real Madrid and congratulated them for winning La Liga. The perfunctory answers did not satisfy the media. They asked Schuster, too. As the manager of a powerhouse club, Schuster appeared to be circumspect as well. His answer was the same as Twain's: he congratulated the Forest team for winning the Champions League title and stated that the Forest team was a worthy opponent.

The media was disappointed. Perhaps there might have been more to talk about if the Forest team and AC Milan had been put together.

If the Forest team could advance into the final, then such a scenario would not be too far fetched — no one thought that AC Milan would lose to FC Lokomotiv Moscow, except for their manager, Yuri Pavlovich Semin.

In the face of the three powerful teams, the host was more like a supporting character and of little interest to anyone.

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On July 26th and 27th, the first round of the two Railways Cup games officially launched. The first game was the much talked about highlight — Nottingham Forest versus Real Madrid.

One team was the upstart who had just become the Champions League winner, and the other was the traditional powerhouse club who had won the most Champions League trophies in the fifty-two-year history of the Champions League. Both sides were filled with dazzling star players. Furthermore, with a player like Beckham on the tip of everyone's tongues, the game attracted all the attention. Although the organizing committee scheduled the second game in tomorrow, compared to this, the match between AC Milan and FC Lokomotiv Moscow was doomed be relegated to the background.

It was supposed to be an ordinary invitation tournament. However, due to Beckham's presence, the situation became different. Beckham was shockingly not on the starting lineup list when both teams publicly announced them before the game, which made the media and many fans unhappy.

Therefore, the media took great pains to ask both managers questions about Beckham. They asked the Real Madrid manager, Schuster, ”was it a mistake to sell Beckham?”, ”did Beckham not contribute to the team at all?”, ”what do you think of Beckham as a player? Is he good?”, and ”was he treated fairly last season?” The question for Twain was simpler: ”why is David Beckham not on the starting list?”

It bothered Schuster because he had nothing to do with the matter regarding Beckham. He had never coached the Englishman. This newly appointed manager had nothing to do with bringing him to Real Madrid or clearing him out. He was a little upset that just because he was now the Real Madrid manager, he had to accept such harassment.

Twain was like Schuster. He did not want the media to focus only on Beckham, which would arouse some people's adverse reactions in the locker room. Consequently, he refused to answer any questions about Beckham after he replied that the reason Beckham was not on the starting list was due to injuries. If a reporter mentioned Beckham, Twain would turn away and pretend not to hear the question until someone asked ”how is Nottingham Forest...” Then, he would smile and answer the question.

Because of Beckham, both the managers and the media were a little unhappy before the game.

Many of the people who came to watch the game live came for the star players. Most were female fans who came specifically for David Beckham. As Beckham was not on the starting list, hisses greeted Nottingham Forest when they came out.

A large number of female fans even held large posters of Beckham and screamed Beckham's name to demonstrate to Twain. Although the Forest team did not lack superstar players, it appeared David Beckham was the only player with that influence.

Twain did not pay attention to those fans. He was not here to serve those people.

This was not a typical friendly match. This was a competition with an award for the champion. He could not deal with Real Madrid like he did against Energie Cottbus. Twain basically sent out the main squad from the last season in the starting lineup except for the striker's position. As Eastwood had a minor injury, Twain let Arshavin take Eastwood's place out of caution. At the same time, he had Bendtner and Arshavin start.

Van Nistelrooy sat on the bench with his good friend Beckham.

Real Madrid did not deploy its main squad that won the title. The new manager had a new lineup. Their captain, Raúl González, was not on the starting list and was replaced by his young teammate, Soldado.

The game entered a fierce pace right from the start. Compared to Real Madrid, who had just finished their physical training, the Forest team's offensive was more ferocious since they had trained together for nearly half a month. Arshavin was particularly motivated because he was playing in front of Russian fans.

Just three minutes into the opening, the Forest team used a corner kick to break through the goal guarded by Jerzy Dudek.

Arshavin's corner shot accurately landed on Pepe's head, and all the center-back, with his outstanding header skills and jumps, had to do was to jump and move his head. The football continued into the net.

Once they led over Real Madrid, the Nottingham Forest fans who had traveled all the way there were very excited. They were few in numbers, but their voices were loud. They were the group of extremely hardcore fans who would follow and cheer for them live at the scene, no matter where the Forest team played. Their leader used to Michael Bernard. Now John and Bill, a fat guy and a skinny man, were their leaders.