long live football

When the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, Goodison Park had become a sea of ​​Manchester United fans celebrating the victory.

The Everton fans in blue clenched their fists and looked unwilling. The victory was so close to them, but in an instant, everything disappeared.

The Everton coach turned around and left the coaching bench just after the game ended. He avoided the siege of reporters in the mixed zone, pretending that he would not accept an interview, but reporters with sensitive ears still caught him A cursing sentence: "...the brat who disturbed the situation."

Undoubtedly, the Everton coach is personally attacking Carl in his heart.

But these days, being cursed and not dying, Karl didn't even yawn.

Instead, he was rosy and looking great, hugging the players who were running towards him, and praised them for "doing a good job!".

Smith walked down from the fans stands: "You are the biggest contributor to this game, Carl." He said sincerely: "A very amazing performance, you really do have the talent to be a coach."

Carl was flattered by this sentence, and Smith’s sincere attitude also loosened a certain string in his heart: “It’s our collective contribution, Mr. Smith.” He curled his mouth and smiled: “Now we can collectively Went to the hospital to visit his lord."

"Should be." Smith said: "In the past whole month, I only dared to contact him on the phone. Now, I don't have to worry about being thrown out by pillows or ashtrays when I step into his ward door. "

Carl smiled brighter, such a happy expression is rare for him, and in his memory, he has rarely smiled so happily and so clearly in the past few years.

Smith looked like he wanted to say something to Carl when his cell phone rang.

"Ah, my lord!" Smith gestured to Karl for a later date, turned and walked away.

Carl stood in the mixed area, surrounded by a few reporters holding microphones who wanted to interview him. He waved his hand, refused with a smile, and then walked into the player tunnel.

On the bus back to Manchester later, some players were still immersed in the atmosphere of victory. They loudly joked with their teammates, discussed which bar had the hottest beer lady, and said that the next round of the league Opponents "simply not worth mentioning!".

In this fiery atmosphere, someone's sullenness seemed very abrupt.

Carl sits next to Cristiano Ronaldo and finds a poor topic: "How's the weather today?"

"It's completely dark now, and you can't see a single star."

Carl coughed lightly: "Uh..."

"You are the coach, and you won the game. Both Solskjaer and Scholes have proved their value on the field. Your substitutions are really timely and correct." Ronaldo finished in a voice that could not hear the emotion These words, and then put on the earphones in front of Carl.

A perfectly flattering word, but why does it sound so much like sarcasm?

Carl has no obligation to make the players happy, but his duty prevents him from misunderstanding with the players, which will be detrimental to future work, so he just listened to Ronaldo's complaints and said lightly: "If you and Ruud van Nistelrooy As well as he and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, you're already in Mr Smith's starting line-up."

Although Ronaldo's earphones were still on his ears, his fingertips moved unconsciously.

After finishing what he had to say, Carl rested his head on the back of the chair, closed his eyes and rested.

……

Although in this Manchester United VS Everton game, Carl took over the coaching power as a substitute head coach, but many years later, when people began to summarize all of Carl's brilliant records, this game is recognized "Auston debut".

Because it was through this game that the entire European continent recognized this Manchester United assistant coach.

The British media industry is very developed, and there are too many tabloids to count. Although they criticize almost every celebrity, when a new generation of talented stars rises in the country, they are never stingy with compliments.

Some players in football are less famous than their strength, and some players are more famous than their strength. Why is it that the world football recognizes that English stars have a lot of water?That's because if they were talented when they debuted, they would be hyped as geniuses by the media. If they were geniuses themselves, the media would hype the players into future superstars, and it wouldn't be a problem if their net worth increased dozens of times overnight.

Look at Wayne Rooney, who is only 18 years old this year. He has become a household name in England and a well-known star in world football. The Everton transfer manager even released news that there is no tens of millions of pounds. Take Wayne Rooney away from Goodison Park - not many top stars are worth that much now.

Before the game between Manchester United and Everton, Carl was only reported by the "Manchester Evening News" and had a certain popularity among Manchester United fans, but now, "The Times", "Daily Telegraph", "The Sun" "all introduced Carl in great detail when reporting the game. Although most of them borrowed information from the "Manchester Evening News", it really pushed Carl Oston's name to the British football world and even Europe. football.

The role of the collective efforts of the British media cannot be underestimated. At least those who are interested in Manchester United in football or non-football now know that the young assistant coach of Manchester United reversed a game in just 10 minutes. , has "extraordinary" coaching ability, "suspected" to be carefully cultivated by Ferguson, maybe the future of Manchester United will be handed over to him?

It might be too early to talk about becoming famous overnight, but when Carl was not satisfied with his little fame, many, many people had already set their sights on him carefully and cautiously.

Interestingly, when the "Independent" and other British media called Carl, they unanimously chose the adjective "a young coach trained in England."But on the second day, when "Bild" reproduced the British media news intact, it called Karl Oston in the article "a new generation of German coaches, currently working for Manchester United."

Is it German or British?The British and German media may not be arguing about it now, but in the future...

When the Premier League's No. 20 five rounds came and Manchester United played against Middlesbrough at Old Trafford, Smith deliberately found Carl an hour before the game to consult his opinion on the starting lineup.

"Everything is perfect..." Carl hesitated, and finally, under Smith's encouraging eyes, he gritted his teeth and said his suggestion calmly: "Why not let Scholes and Solskjaer start?"

"Uh... don't you think they are a bit old? Scholes is 30, Solskjaer is 31, and he doesn't always have the state and luck to score goals every time he comes off the bench." Smith's own starting lineup is 4231, but in the use of players, he pays more attention to defense just like his style. The only striker who can be called lethal in the frontcourt is Ruud van Nistelrooy.

"Then let Scholes start, his body is very strong, believe me, I think he can play until the age of 40." Carl said slowly: "And Solskjaer, although he can't play the whole game, But there is no problem at all for a few 10 minutes off the bench. The reason why I recommend them is not because the blind cat encountered a dead mouse in the last game, and this time I continue to hope that the god of luck will take care of me, but I saw The two of them have worked so hard in training these days, and speaking of partnering with Ruud van Nistelrooy... I don't know what Manchester United's front line was like when David Beckham was there, but Scholes is totally capable. With the strength of Nidang's shadow striker, I believe that the two of them can also form an amazing striker."

Smith showed a thoughtful expression.

"Putting out an all-offensive formation at the beginning, and then adjusting tactics to play a defensive counterattack after the score is ahead, isn't it better than always putting hope on those super substitutes after falling into a passive position? And the old players play a more important role than the coaches on the court. They are great, they can help stabilize people’s hearts, even if a bad situation like last time happens again, with the leadership of these old players who occupy an absolute position in the locker room, the rhythm of the game will not be disrupted.”

Seeing Smith's expression loosen, Carl added the last sentence: "This is Old Trafford, our home stadium."

If you play defensive tactics at home, wouldn't you be more like a tortoise when you play away?In that case, who will be in charge of the offense?Without offense, how can there be goals, where can there be victories?Even if Smith's tactics are successful and Manchester United has been tied with their opponents, it is impossible to become the league champion if they accumulate points one by one.A draw is at best a little better than a loss, and the three-point temptation given by a win is the greatest.

Smith nodded and left without saying anything.

Carl thought he was just trying to get his own opinion on the game, and then forgot about it.But when the big screen over Old Trafford displayed the starting lineups of both teams, he was surprised to find that Scholes was actually in the starting lineup!Even Solskjaer was sitting on the bench in good spirits, wearing knee pads for himself. Obviously, someone had told him before the game that he was likely to be sent to play in this game.

Although in the game, Manchester United's older starting lineup caused them to have physical problems in the second half of the game, and Middlesbrough took the opportunity to score two goals, but relying on Manchester United's 3:0 absolute advantage in the first half, The Red Devils finally defeated their opponents with a total score of 3:2 to win.

In the Premier League standings, Manchester United climbed one place further, ranking fourth with 13 wins, 6 draws, 6 losses and 45 points. The top three are Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.

After the game, Smith approached Karl as soon as he was out of his postgame press conference.

"The next game against Middlesbrough, don't sit next to those substitutes," Smith told him. "I want you to sit with me."

Sit together on the head coach's seat?Carl thought about it for a while, and immediately understood what the other party meant: Is Smith inviting him to co-coach?

Perhaps Carl's expression showed his surprise, Smith immediately added: "This is what Sir Alex meant."

It was indeed Ferguson's idea.Not for anything else, just because Ferguson felt that Smith's conservativeness and Carl's aggressiveness could form a perfect complement, and after two games verified that it had indeed brought Manchester United a good record, then before he can return , why not continue to use this combination?

Karl felt that he had touched a door leading to a whole new world, and the world behind the door made him want to move.

"I will help you well." Carl said firmly.

Smith nodded: "I also hope that you can share some of the pressure for me. After all, apart from the FA Cup, there are also league games, and the Champions League is about to restart."

The full name of the UEFA Champions League is the UEFA Champions League. The champions and runners-up teams of the major European leagues are selected to compete together (due to the different levels of competitions, the five major leagues have more entries than leagues in remote areas such as the Russian Super League and the Eredivisie League). The group stage will be completed around December, and the knockout round will start in February the next year. Because a country may only have one or two teams to qualify for the Champions League, the Champions League is currently recognized as the most valuable club competition in world football.

The draw for the 2003-04 UEFA Champions League knockout round had already been carried out years ago. Carl calculated the time and found that the quarter-finals would start just half a month later. Porto in the Portuguese Super League.

Karl remembered that he read some information about this Portuguese Super League team a while ago. The head coach of Porto seems to be called-Jose Mourinho?