After winning the award, Dong Fangzhuo hurried back.

Before boarding, he received a piece of bad news - on November 25, 2005 local time in the United Kingdom, British football legend and former Manchester United star George Best stopped breathing.

Hailed as one of the greatest stars of all time, he died at the age of 59.

After Cromwell Hospital's attending physician Roger Williams reluctantly announced the bad news, the British media and fans were saddened. This morning, local time in London, Best's fans rushed to give him his No. 7 shirt in Manchester United, a Manchester United scarf with "George, you are a legend", letters and so on to express their love for him.

Due to his long-term alcoholism as an adult, this took a serious toll on his body. And since 2002, after an excessive drink, Best had to undergo a liver transplant. In early October this year, Best had to be hospitalized due to a liver condition. After more than a month of battling death, the legendary star finally passed away at the age of 59.

Dong Fangzhuo has been with Manchester United for a year and a half and has never been alone with Best, but this does not prevent him from respecting the senior.

And this senior once supported Dong Fangzhuo in front of the media, believing that Dong Fangzhuo can carry the tradition of Manchester United and become a great Manchester United captain.

In the eyes of the British, Best was the best footballer in post-war Britain, even in Europe and the world, alongside the likes of Pele, Maradona, Stefano and Cruyff. But as a 35-year veteran, his death can trigger widespread remembrance from the prime minister to millions of civilians, on a scale close to Diana's, and more than just football can play.

The conventional wisdom of Best's premature demise was due to a weakness in his personality, which is abundantly illustrated in his life after retirement: in order to fill the emptiness, he indulged in alcohol and women. He is considered a model of "prematurely dying genius", led to self-destruction by the same forces that drove him to success.

While these beliefs are valid, Best's life cannot be attributed entirely to internal causes. As the first entertainment superstar in the history of modern football, Best and every aspect of his life have been amplified by modern media that would have been unthinkable before his time, but since then, the inquiry into the private lives of athletes has become commonplace.

His name is remembered throughout Manchester, even the lady serving tea.

Best was born on May 22, 1946 in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, to a shipyard worker and a tobacco mother. As a child, Best was quick to react and attended the local "key" elementary school, but he was not happy because the traditional sport at the school was rugby rather than football. His talent soon became apparent when he moved to a football-focused school, and United's scouts in Northern Ireland quickly sent back a telegram to manager Busby: "I think I've found a talent for you this time. ”

So, at the age of 14, Best crossed the Irish Sea to Old Trafford, just as United were recovering from the 1958 Munich air disaster, and Busby scoured for teenage talent to rebuild his glory. But the teenager Best suffered from homesickness in the first place, and he only stayed for 24 hours before running back to Belfast with his companions. However, his father was not accommodating, and immediately called Busby to inform him that Best had been sent back to Manchester United.

It wasn't long before everyone in Manchester, from the tea lady to the taxi driver, started talking about this special kid.

In 1963, he made his first home game for the first team against West Bromwich Albion, scoring the only goal of the game to help United lead the table.

His legend began.

He used to be the youngest European Footballer of the Year, and for that, he needed women and alcohol......

In 1968, after winning three league titles in a row, Best's popularity reached its peak ———when United became the first English team to win the European Cup at Wembley Stadium by beating Benfica, the dominant side of European football at the time, and Best himself opened the scoring in the game. At just 22 years old, he has become the "European Footballer of the Year...... In the memoirs of his admirers, these are beautiful moments that are talked about repeatedly.

But after that, the young Best and his teammates began to disagree. For Sir Busby and Bobby Charlton who lived through the Munich Air Disaster, they have achieved their goal of rebuilding the Manchester United dynasty, and the motivation to keep going is gone, and they are both old. But Best is different, he is still young, he needs to be constantly successful to consolidate the reputation he has gained, he is depressed by the aging and lack of progress of the team, he is not willing to let it go down with him, he needs to relieve pressure, he needs women and alcohol......

In order to make his body stronger, the thin Best thought of a way to pour beer. When Best signed a trial contract with United in 1961, he was considered too thin to cope with the physical demands of professional football. At the time, the common way to make a young player "strong" was to fill them with a bottle of Guinness every day, as it was rich in yeast and aided digestion. It didn't take long for Bert, a prohibitionist who came out of the Puritan home, to fall in love with this "tradition".

Football has a long tradition of drinking culture, and Manchester United in the 60s was no exception. Best got drunk for the first time when he was 16 years old when he visited Switzerland with the team – he didn't drink much at this time, and he would collapse after just over a liter of beer. Later, he would also mix orange juice with whisky during training, and because his name was getting louder, everyone ignored it.

In 1999, he was found to have cirrhosis; He had a liver transplant in 2002, and a year later, he started drinking again, and his second marriage broke up.

In 2004, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison for drunk driving. On November 25, 2005, he passed away amid the attention of countless people.

Neither football nor alcohol was the root cause of Best's emergence as a social icon in the turbulent 60s. His fashion taste, his romance is the most attractive place.

Bobby Charlton was a hero respected by parents at the time, and his manners, schools, and government promoted his courtesy and generosity. But in the eyes of young people, he is a big stuffy guy with an abominable face, a submissive pug and a dirt bun with bad taste.

Best, on the other hand, was a working-class hero.

Best lived in the '60s, when rebellions, both justified and unprovoked, were applauded, especially by young people. So, while Best's political views are right-leaning and Charlton leaning towards Labour, they are still opposite in the minds of young people.

Some things are commonplace today, but at the time, it was unheard of for a player to dare to be so dismissive of tradition, and the impact went far beyond the pitch. People today seem tired of the swagger and maverick of young stars, but in the '60s, as the first to do so, Best's actions were enough to elevate himself as the face of the budding "counterculture", whether he wanted it or not.

Best once said of Charlton: "I think he's too perfect to be real, I wish he had said 'f××k', even once." Under Charlton's authority, Best spent three years depressed. On the eve of Charlton's farewell game, he threw eggs at the captain's poster in the bar.

Everyone says that without alcohol and women, Best would be imperfect because of perfection.

Opinions on Bester were divided early on, with some believing that he had wasted his genius, while others thanked God for allowing him to see such a beautiful performance. Best himself insisted that he alone had the right to express disappointment that his career did not last, but he himself was not disappointed.

In 2001, he published his autobiography, "The Beloved," and later "Half-Time Score," all about the mavericks of his youth. This year he published his last memoir, Shovel and Shower, a chronicle of football in the sixties and seventies.

Although Best does not necessarily associate contempt for discipline and self-indulgence with the demand for freedom, and his disregard for duty and the pursuit of sensual pleasures cannot be said to be an active rebellion against the social establishment, it is true that his life has always been different from most, which is both the source of his genius and the source of his flattery, envy, and blame.

※※※※

"For George Best, win West Ham."

Ferguson just said that in the away dressing room.

In the league away to West Ham United, players from both sides wrapped their hands in black yarn and observed a 3-minute silence......

The Reds didn't seem to be recovering from the loss of Best at the start of the game, with West Ham breaking the deadlock just 52 seconds after Etherington crossed diagonally from the left and Heywood fired into the near corner from 12 yards out on the left flank of the box.

United equalised in the 47th minute when Repka made a mistake in clearing the ball and Dong Fangzhuo's through ball was met by Wayne Rooney from 12 yards out in the middle before firing a powerful shot into the net. It was Wayne Rooney's seventh league goal of the season.

Ten minutes later, United took the lead when Wayne Rooney headed in a corner from the right and O'Shea headed home from six yards out......

In the end, Manchester United won 2-1 away at West Ham United.

After the game, Dong Fangzhuo flew to Northern Ireland with the large team......