882 A Change of Manager (1/2)

David Moyes was the first candidate to reject the English Football Association. He stated that he was happy to stay at Everton and did not want to change his working environment. Furthermore, it was too exhausting to be the manager of the England national team. The manager was under watch by the reporters three hundred and sixty-five days a year. There was no idle time twenty-four hours a day. And one also had to guard against the tabloids, such as the fake Sheikh incident and so on.

He did not like that kind of life. Therefore, he publicly rejected the Football Association. Everton later issued a statement on their website to clear up the earlier rumors and confirmed that Moyes would remain at Everton.

The English Football Association had offered an annual salary of up to eight and a half million pounds for the new manager, which made the position appear to be a highly coveted job. But in fact, it was a hot potato. The eight and a half million pounds salary was the annual salary of a manager who led the team to win the UEFA European Championship. In addition to the other incentives, the new England manager could earn more than ten million pounds a year. But all the managers knew how difficult the England manager's position was.

Not only did the manager need to have enough fame and prestige to control the big-name star players who had been spoiled rotten by the media, but he was required to have real ability and solid knowledge to withstand the questions from experts. Moreover, he also needed to have the awareness of an entertainment star, and could not gripe being under the magnifying glass focus of the media all the time.

After mulling over it for some time, Stuart Pearce also decided to decline the well-paid job. He said that he would prefer to continue working with the Under-21 youth team in response to questions from the reporters and that developing young players was the way forward for English football.

The two men's consecutive announcements of their refusal left the Football Association in an awkward position – it was predicted that no one would take over the job within the scope of local managers.

They could only set their sights abroad.

There were a lot of good managers overseas, such as Scolari, Mourinho, Ancelotti, Hiddink and so on...

But the chief executive officer of the Football Association, Shaun Harvey, still wanted to find a good local English manager. He said it was a good thing that Barclay still wanted a good coach from England. Foreign managers were not easy to manage. If there were still no results after not choosing an Englishman, the Football Association would also be criticized that it was because they chose a foreign manager. A local manager was much easier to manage.

However, Moyes and Pearce were not interested. In particular, Pearce, who was specially cultivated by the Football Association, got cold feet at the last minute. He did not have the same drive as he did when he was a player, which disappointed Harvey.

Just as he was becoming worried about the matter, he received a surprise phone call.

”I'm in London now. I think we should talk about it in detail...” The man was Tony Twain.

Twain was tempted. It would be impossible for the Football Association to stop halfway with their efforts this time.

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While the English Football Association was fretting about a new manager, so was Nottingham Forest. They had already made an overture to Mourinho, but Mourinho was not interested in them. It was not that he thought a small club like Nottingham Forest could not support a big shot like him. Mourinho was a manager with a very individualistic character, so he did not want to go to a team with another person's deep imprint. It would be too hard to get off to a good start. He was not interested in being anyone's second generation, and he certainly did not want to live in Tony Twain's shadow.

No one wanted to come to Nottingham Forest after they searched outside for a successful manager. Hiddink had agreed to coach the Forest team, but the terms he gave were unacceptable to Evan Doughty. The legendary Dutch manager still wanted to remain the manager of the Netherlands national team. Evan was not looking for a part-timer, so he would never allow him to have a foot in both teams. As a result, Hiddink's encounter with Nottingham Forest was brief.

The other managers were very interested in the Forest team position and also keen on the annual salary figure, but the Forest team was not interested in them. These people were usually second-rate coaches. Evan did not think they could handle the current championship team.

In the end, after Nottingham Forest went through a lot of hard work in July, they finally poached the Manchester United manager, Martin O'Neill. The former Nottingham Forest manager was, by all accounts, the most suitable for the Forest team. Martin O'Neill had the ability and fame. And the most important thing was that he had a much milder temper than Tony Twain. Such a person was very easy to keep in line.

O'Neill's departure triggered a chain reaction. Manchester United stepped up the momentum in their pursuit of Mourinho after losing O'Neill and eventually persuaded Mourinho to switch teams from Inter Milan to join Manchester United. His arrival was seen by the Manchester United officials as a starting point for the Red Devils to rebuild its glory. This chain reaction was mentioned on the same level as when Liverpool signed Shankly, Manchester United signed Ferguson, and Nottingham Forest signed Tony Twain.

For their part, Inter Milan could not do anything about it other than to express their regret. Manchester United was desperate and even covered the penalty fee for Mourinho's default in the contract. Having not won a title for years in a row made Manchester United, which was accustomed to winning titles during Ferguson's era, a little flustered. They did whatever it took in order to get a good leader at the helm.

At this time, Inter Milan had to find a manager, so they contacted Tony Twain. Unfortunately, Twain had already reached an agreement with the English Football Association – he was going to officially coach the England national team.

He only had to wait now for the Football Association's official announcement.

During the negotiations with Harvey, the two sides had agreed on the terms. Although the English Football Association was similar to the Chinese Football Association in some ways, they would not interfere with the manager's work, which was the point that Twain was most satisfied with. He did not care about the other things. Some people were worried that after becoming the England manager, they would be kept under watch at all times. Twain was not afraid. He felt that fighting against fate and destiny was nothing compared to fighting against people because it was a boundless joy to fight with people.

It was the case at Nottingham Forest, and it would be similar on the England national team. Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.

The Football Association had let the word out that they wanted to find a home-grown English manager this time to lead the England national team. Since Twain offered to take the initiative, they had no reason to turn a blind eye or refuse. As long as everyone could reach an agreement, then they would let Twain be the manager.

The two sides hit it off, and the result was that the candidate whom the media thought of as least likely was the eventual winner and was now with the English Football Association.

Two days later, the English Football Association held a press conference with Tony Twain to officially announce the news. At that time, a lot of people were extremely taken aback by the news.

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Martin O'Neill started his first day of work at Nottingham Forest today. He would meet his team for the first time. It was an ordinary meeting, but O'Neill was nervous and even restless. It was all because the last manager of this team was... so brilliant.

He and Twain were not considered close, but they were still friends. He never publicly said anything bad about Twain, and that was enough to make someone like Twain think of their relationship as a friendship. One must know that there were a lot of people who cursed and abused Twain every day.

Now he had to face the enormous influence of the legacy left behind by his friend. He was also a successful manager and naturally was unwilling to live in the shadow of others.

The difficulty of Martin O'Neill's job could be seen from another point of view.

While waiting for the new manager to arrive, the Forest players were changing their clothes in the locker room. Yet, it was Tony Twain whom they were discussing.

”I read yesterday's news that said a reporter had filmed the boss with that old man, Harvey. Do you think the boss is really going to coach the England team?” Bale asked.

”Who knows, I don't think it's very likely. The Football Association hates the boss...” said Mitchell, frowning.

”Hey, why do you care so much about that... I think we'd better think about how different the newly arrived Mr. Martin O'Neill will be from the boss.”

”How different they are? We could talk about that all day and night. The boss is the most unique of managers, and you can't find another like him in the whole of England... No, no, in the entirety of Europe. Not even Mourinho could be compared to him!”

”Why do you think the boss wanted to leave?” Bale asked again.

All the talk immediately stopped. Some people even sighed lightly. This question troubled a lot of the Forest players. They thought of several reasons, such as the boss' poor health, a problem in the boss's family, the fact that the boss and the club's top administration could not get along, the boss was tired of coaching the same team for eleven years in a row, or the boss had betrayed them...

Twain had never explained the reasoning behind his sudden resignation in the media, so there were a lot of rumors. Some of these rumors were very close to the players' speculation so that they felt confused and did not know whom to trust.

The impact of Tony Twain's sudden resignation was still felt today. Some of them still did not understand why the boss chose to leave so suddenly at that time, but they could clearly feel the boss's absence. It felt as if the team had lost something very important, and the will of the players fell apart. It would not be easy to gather together again.

Kompany had already been sold to Italy by Allan before O'Neill came to the Forest team. Without Twain's obstruction, Allan could sell anyone, as long as the other side could offer the price that would tempt him.

Following immediately was the sale of Leighton Baines. He went to Everton in the Premier League.