754 Anyone and Us (2/2)

During intermission, Twain repeated his request to everyone. He analyzed the current situation and asked them not to underestimate the enemy. They should not be taken lightly, and they should not relax. The defensive line was still not allowed to attack. They had to continue defending the opponent's quick counterattacks.

In this game, he had put all the self-confident and conceited players on the bench. From the player's mentality, he was not worried about anything.

Now, he just had to pray that there would not be any inexplicable accidents. At the beginning of the second half of the game, the Celtics intended to attack fiercely the moment the game started to equalize the score while the other party was still not completely focused. However, as Tony Twain had expected, Nottingham Forest was not inattentive at all, so they played against that instead. They made several counterattacks against the Celtics and almost scored.

This time, the Celtics were a lot more honest. They retracted and no longer came out. The second half of the game was quite dull. Nottingham Forest was indiscriminately bombarded by the Celtics' restricted area. Due to lack of luck, it was impossible to score. The Celtics' few counterattack opportunities could not threaten Akinfeev's goal.

Nottingham Forest finally won against the Celtics at 1:0 at home and gave them a good start on the Champions League death group match tour.

At the post-match press conference, Celtics coach Rod Strickland said, with some helplessness, ”This is football. I think a draw was a fair and reasonable result.”

Twain almost laughed out loud. What did he mean ”fair and reasonable?” He responded sarcastically, ”I'm not very satisfied because we only won by one ball.”

A reporter later asked, ”Group C was the recognized group of death, so can the victory on the Celtics explain that Nottingham Forest has taken the lead on the group's exit road?”

”I never thought about that issue,” Twain said. ”As long as we can continue to win, we will definitely be able to qualify. I prefer to focus on the opponents in the quarter-finals.”

Scottish reporters were still a little too unaccustomed to Tony Twain's habitual madness, but the English reporters were accustomed to it. They rephrased their question. ”Which two teams do you think would come out of the group?”

Twain looked at the reporter with a sigh of relief. ”If I said that everyone has the potential to qualify, are you sure you won't be dissatisfied, thinking I am suffocating you guys?”

This sentence was very true. To Tony Twain's character, he almost never said anything that would be satisfying. He went on to give his own answer. ”Nottingham Forest and any other team.”

The three teams of the death team had become his foil. No one was surprised. It would have been more unsettling if Tony Twain were not arrogant. The reporters liked to see this Tony Twain.

A group of people were excited to prepare the titles of the next day's report:

Tony Twain sees nobody but himself

Twain looks down on Juventus!

Twain pre-registers in the form for the team leaving group matches

Twain could be very arrogant in front of the media, but that was a means for him to confuse his opponent. There was a quote from Sun Tzu's ”The Art of War,” All's fair in war. This was also the case for football.

In fact, his real idea was that any opponent in this group was a threat to the team, but there were three or six things in it. The most threatening team was Juventus followed by Atletico Madrid. The third was the Celtics, which he had just defeated.

Twain was not too worried about the team's morale and state of Juventus. The only team that had not won in the European Champions League two years ago must win this time! Everyone must have thought this way.

Playing Atletico Madrid was a challenge for the team. They were an opponent they had never encountered before, not to mention the team's silver boots shooter Aguero in the World Cup in South Africa.

As for the Celtics, returning to play at home was the final round of the group stage. If the forest team's qualifying situation had been fixed, how the results would go was not a concern to Twain. If the Celtics want to qualify or fight for a League Cup entry, they would inevitably launch a storm at home. Nottingham Forest would just deploy their best tactic to defend against counterattacks.

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After the game, the media's attitude toward this game was mixed. The local media in Nottingham unanimously praised the performance of Nottingham Forest, saying they won a key victory and made a good start for the qualifying group. Although the score was not high and the scene was not good, the three points were the most crucial. This game has strengthened their confidence. They could once again smash the team's at the top of Europe.

There was also a lot of media sneering at Tony Twain's habitual arrogance. Just because of this Nottingham Forest team, it was not necessarily possible to qualify from the group stage, let alone things that were further away. Playing the Celtics, which was the weakest team in the group, and only having a 1:0 win at home, made it hard to understand how Twain could say, ”The teams that will qualify will be Nottingham Forest and any other one.”

Public opinion was generally not optimistic about Nottingham Forest qualifying from this group. They were more optimistic about Juventus and Atletico Madrid. As if to cite their ideas, Juventus and Atletico Madrid scored a 0-0 level at the Alpi Stadium. It seemed they were all ready to qualify from the group together and without conflict.