Chapter 15 Away: Coventry City (Part I)
The English press described the FA's punishment for Donne's "bruising" – the name given to the incident by the British media, which Donn described as "unimaginative" because it sounded as if he had really killed someone – and the punishment was like tickling Donn, and it only made Donn more comfortable. The FA didn't care about Donn's curse on West Ham's relegation, Rhodes jumped up and down for a long time, didn't get anything, and angrily accused the FA of not doing a good job, and the FA reacted quite quickly, and they immediately fined the poor West Ham acting manager £5,000.
The other victim, the referee on duty in the FA Cup, Winter, was helpless, but he did not make any statement and refused to be interviewed by any media. In this regard, he is much smarter than Rod.
Don was not heavily punished, which became the focus of the subsequent issue of "Today's Match". host Lineker in and Mark; When Hansen talks about this, Hansen sarcastically speculates whether Don is Palios's brother-in-law. After the episode aired, the BBC received a letter of protest from the FA, but they ignored it.
As a party to the whole incident, Don En has long been out of the way. The media likes to hype it up and it's their business, and Donn is now putting all his mind on training. The team's regular training affairs are still handled by Dees; Walker and Ian; Bowyer presided over that Donne stood on the training ground every day wearing sunglasses, but he could only say a handful of things. He'll have to keep learning. What makes Donn happiest is that Bowyer seems to have given up his old suspicions with him, although he still doesn't communicate much, but he doesn't make things difficult for himself at work, on the contrary, he is very cooperative.
Donn, who had feared that Bowyer would be the last straw that crushed the Forest, now seems to have overthought himself. While drinking at Burns' Forest Bar that day, Walker used to talk about Bowyer. It was then that Donne realized what a brilliant career the fifty-one-year-old man had. He is the main contributor to the Forest's two European Champions League wins!
His experience will surely be the greatest help to himself. Don decided to have a good relationship with this man.
Forest's next game is on the afternoon of January 18, during which League One has already been played, and their 28th round of league games has been postponed to 25 January due to the FA Cup. It also gave them a fourteen-day recuperation period. On the 18th, they will take on Coventry City away and it will be a tough game. First of all, the team's head coach is suspended and will not be able to direct the game from the dugout. Secondly, Coventry are now sixth in the league table, having gone unbeaten in seven league games since their 2-1 defeat at home to Preston North End in the 21st round of the league, and the team is currently in high spirits, plus at home...... Even more of a headache for Donn is the style of this team, a team with a tenacious style and a hard-hitting temperament that has kept them invincible for seven consecutive league games. This record may have been terminated several times, only to be saved by themselves.
Don hates teams like this because he has that style himself. This game is completely different from the FA Cup. West Ham won't let go of their form and fight to the death, but Coventry City will, as it depends on whether they stay in League One or are promoted to the Premier League at the end of the season. He doesn't go to Burns' Forest Bar these days, and it's like he's back to the Puritan life, where he always takes his work home after team training every day. He has to study the team thoroughly before the game and know each of their players. If possible, he would even like to see the full footage of that seven-round unbeaten run. It's a pity that the intelligence work of the forest team did not meet his requirements.
"I'm sorry, Tony. The only video we had of a game for Coventry was when they visited the City Stadium in the first half of the season, where we won 1-0. Looking at the sorry Walker, Donn thought maybe he should find a scout to watch each of the team's opponents in the next game, and put everything he could know about the opponent on his desk for his reference before the game. Just like the FM2007 he played.
However, there are only three full-time scouts in the squad at the moment, two of whom are permanently away, looking for talented youngsters across the UK and then trying to bring them to Wilford's Academy. The other is mainly responsible for the scouting of players in the Nottingham area. It's impossible to help him with that job.
Don rubbed his temples, it seems that there are still many things to change in the team, but unfortunately he doesn't have the energy and doesn't dare to try it now. A manager who doesn't know what his future will hold is naturally afraid to try his plan. Done feels a bit like Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri right now. The difference is that Ranieri is tinkering with the team's tactics, while he is tinkering with the whole team, and he doesn't dare to use any ideas, for fear that he has laid out a plan on the front foot, and the back foot will be fired because of the poor record, so all the efforts will be in vain.
Because he became the head coach, Don now looks at a team's profile, and he will get used to finding out who the team's head coach is first. In a sense, a head coach has a great influence on a team's style, tactics, temperament, and results...... The best way to get to know a team is to start by getting to know the manager at the time. Done looked at the current manager of Coventry...... He saw a somewhat familiar name: Gary'mcallister.
Don looked at the English name for a long time, and then hesitantly translated it into Chinese: Gary; McAllister.
McAllister?!
Don almost jumped out of his chair. Does he remember that this old guy was still in Liverpool last season? The 2000/01 season was the best for Liverpool in 14 years, winning the treble for the first time since 1984, when McAllister scored a penalty in the UEFA Cup final and set up an own goal from Alaves' Gurley in the final minute of extra-time, completing one of the most glorious scenes of Liverpool's Houllier era, and they won five titles in total.
It's only been two years, how did you come to Coventry City, a League One team?
The Scotsman returned to Coventry at the end of the 2001/02 season and is a manager-player.
Donn knows that McAllister is a great player and his free-kicks often help Liverpool score, but he doesn't know anything about manager McAllister.
Don stared at the name for a long time, as if he could tell what he needed from the name. Actually, it was, and he laughed after a few minutes.
"Player-manager?"
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Coventry was once one of the four major cities in the United Kingdom, with a history of 1,000 years, but that was all yesterday. And for Donn, a Chinese, the so-called "big city" in Britain may be the size of a county-level city in China. The city was bombed by the Luftwaffe in World War II and almost completely reduced to rubble. After the war, Coventry became the centre of the British automotive industry, producing cars exclusively for the British crown.
Don knows almost nothing about the city, and he doesn't plan to focus on looking through tourist brochures. For a football coach, knowing the history of a city is far less important and useful than knowing the history of a particular team in the city.
Although the city of Nottingham, where the Forest team is based, is only about thirty miles from Coventry, it can be reached in less than an hour's drive. However, as an away game, the Forest team came to the city a day earlier to prepare for the next day's game.
Sitting on the team bus, Donn looked at the overcast sky outside and the newspaper being blown into the air, turned his head and asked Walker, who was sitting next to him, "What does the weather forecast say?" ”
"It's raining tomorrow and the temperature is very low."
Donn thought of Kenny's description of England, and he couldn't help but curse. He hated playing in the rain, hated all the bad weather, rain, snow, wind, hail and lightning...... If any.
At this time, outside the bus window, a cheese-colored building looks like the rising sun, slowly rising from behind the layers of houses on the street.
"Highfield Road Field." Walker introduced Donn, "Coventry's home field. ”
Hearing Walker say this, Donn couldn't help but take a few more glances at the building where his team will play tomorrow. Most of the courses in the UK are small, unlike those in Italy, Spain or Germany. Four low stands, barely obscuring the roof of the stands, and a green lawn are all there is to a stadium. Forest's home stadium, the City Stadium, has a capacity of 30,000 people and is built on the riverside to look like an annex to a secondary school, as is Coventry's.
Santiago, home of Spanish giants Real Madrid; The stands at the Bernabeu Stadium have six floors, the height of a 20-storey residential building, and are steeply designed. Donn hadn't been there, but he could tell from the telecasts what it was like. When you stand at the top of the stands, you can't see the numbers and movements of the players on the field when you look down, but you have the illusion that you can fall down at any moment. This shocking sense of oppression is rarely experienced in British stadiums, most of which have two or three layers of stands, and Manchester United's home stadium, Old Trafford, is currently the largest professional football stadium in England, and it only accommodates 60,000 people with three levels of stands.
However, there are also great benefits to the design of the England stadium, which allows the fans to be closer to the stadium and is conducive to the development of good relations between fans and players. So playing in an English stadium has two diametrically opposed feelings: the home team will think of it as heaven, they can clearly hear the fans singing songs and slogans in support of them, and they can rush to the sidelines to celebrate with the crowd after a goal; The visitors, on the other hand, will think it's hell, and they will be tormented by the boos and singing of the home fans all the time, and they can clearly hear every word they say and clearly see the middle fingers raised in the air.
Although Don has only experienced one game, he is also deeply touched by this. The FA Cup at the City Stadium was a great experience of both of these feelings, with the first half feeling like he was away and the second half back at home.
I wonder if the fans in Coventry are friendly......
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The game takes place at two o'clock in the afternoon, and the parking lot outside the Highfield Road stadium is already difficult to find an empty space at one o'clock. The drizzle in the gloomy sky didn't dampen the fans, who were drinking and waving Coventry's sky-blue flags and singing songs in praise of Coventry as they gathered at the pitch from all directions, looking from the air like a swarm of ants rushing towards the scented chunks of cheese.
The Forest's players are clearly used to this, doing their own thing in the car, listening to music, closing their eyes and looking around. Don was still a little uncomfortable, and this was his first away game with the team. When he was at the City Stadium eleven days ago, he didn't think there was anything special about the atmosphere. Now he really feels like he's away from home: a completely unfamiliar city, a fan who makes a living, a strange stadium, a strange opponent......
Seeing that Donn's attention was on the fans outside the car, Walker decided to say something to ease the nerves in the acting head coach's mind.
"Don't worry, Tony. Do you know Old Trafford? ”
"Of course, it's famous."
"Old Trafford has a dedicated security system. They will divide the safety level of the away fans based on historical data. Fans in Liverpool and Leeds are rated as Class C and require a high level of security measures and a large number of police; Coventry is a B rating and only a small number of police officers are needed. So there's nothing to be afraid of them. Walker pointed to Coventry City fans passing by the team's bus outside.
Apparently Done was more interested in the security system at Old Trafford: "So where are the fans who are classified as A? ”
"Wimbledon."
Hearing Walker's answer, one of the guy's names flashed through Donn's mind, and then he laughed, "That's funny. owns Pooh; The fans of Jones' 'Berserk' turned out to be the most civilized...... The old Trafford guys aren't going to count the Wimbledon crowd as football spectators into their computers, right? ”
Wimbledon, who beat Liverpool in 1988 to win the FA Cup, are known in English football as the "Crazy Gang", and just by looking at the name, you know the style of this team. Not to mention that they also had two crazy leaders: the gang leader was the famous evil man Winnie in English football; Jones (Vinnie' Jones), the deputy leader is the equally rough and straightforward Dennis; Wise. Ten minutes before kick-off of the FA Cup final that year, the team's captain Vinnie; Jones led his men in the tunnel and yelled at Liverpool's big-name players, and then less than a minute into the game, Jones shoveled Liverpool striker McMahon on a stretcher. In the end, Wimbledon created a legend with a 1-0 victory over Liverpool. Jones and his team have also gone down in history.
Things like this before the FA Cup final are innumerable in the "Crazy Gang". After Liverpool's visit to Ploughlane, Wimbledon's home stadium, the proud Reds almost ran back to the lounge crying when they were just promoted to the top flight, and after the game they told the media: The fans at Wimbledon are horrible, this stadium is hell!
Hell is the impression of other clubs at Wimbledon and the fans.
How could a "hellish demon" fan be a civilized viewer with a security rating? Don thought it was incredible.
"So...... I don't trust the security system at Old Trafford anymore, and I think it's better to experience it for myself than to trust the data that comes out of the computer. At this point, Donn suddenly sensed Walker's intention to say this to him, and he smiled and said to Walker, "Des, thank you for your kindness, but I've never been afraid of anyone. ”
Walker smiled too: "Me too." ”
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