long live football

Carl still had a dim memory of the friendship between Ferguson and Laurie Alston.

Ferguson and Lowry both played for the same club when they were young, but neither had much talent, so after a few years on the pitch, Ferguson switched jobs as a coach and Lowry went into business.Later, Ferguson became a world-renowned coach, and Laurie also had a successful career. One of them settled in the UK and the other in Germany. Although they often did not see each other, their friendship when they were young has been maintained and has never been interrupted.

Even the former Karl only saw Ferguson once or twice when he was on vacation in England with his parents, so for the current Karl, he is not worried about what he will do when he sees Ferguson.

Ferguson agreed to let Carl stay at Manchester United, obviously he just couldn't bear to refuse his old friend, because from the first hour when Carl and Smith entered the ward, he was busy asking about various matters about Smith's team, and he just had a bad fight with Carl. It's a warm but polite greeting.

Until Smith said: "The young players in the first team listened to Carl very much, and the famous stars did not cause any trouble." When Ferguson immediately showed a look of surprise on his face, he knew his players very well. , I also know that Smith's personality is sometimes too kind: "I haven't made any mistakes in training? Discipline too?"

Smith smiled and said, "Always the same as when you were here, sir."

"You surprised me, Carl." Ferguson looked at him with a smile and said, "I only know that you participated in youth training for a few years when you were young, but it seems that you gave up because your grades were not good enough? But I never thought, You're probably my kind of guy, you know, the kind of guy who's far better at coaching than playing football."

Carl coughed guiltily: "Perhaps your evaluation came too early, Boss... I can keep the team's training very good. The biggest contribution is Mr. Smith's training materials. The other parts seem to depend on What I'm wearing? Doesn't seem to match the pitch, but it's a bluff."

Smith chimed in: "He's got a pretty intimidating outfit on him, especially with Carl's stern-faced, serious look."

"Image building is also a skill that a qualified coach needs to have, which helps us manage players." After finishing this sentence, Ferguson looked at Carl's clothes again, and couldn't help laughing.

……

The significance of an assistant coach to a team is not limited to managing team discipline and formulating training plans, but also includes participating in the formulation of tactics for any major game.

But Carl knew he was a complete rookie at it, so when Mr Smith asked him to attend a tactical discussion meeting in the Manchester derby next week, he just listened to everyone and took notes frantically.

"Carl, what do you think about the game against Manchester City next week?"

This is the first time that the acting coach Walter Smith asked Carl about tactics during a meeting of the coaching staff, but the first feeling in Carl's heart was not joy, but a little cramped and bewildered.

He took one last look at his notepad, put down his pen, licked his lips and said: "Mr. Kevin Keegan, the manager of Manchester City, was a great striker, there is no doubt about it, but he is in the position of coach. But his performance is bad enough... Uh, I mean, since he coached Manchester City, he has always played with a 352-[-]-[-] formation, and his ability to make decisions on the spot in the game is also somewhat lacking..."

"Carl, did you keep your head down just now, were you distracted?" Mr. Smith frowned dissatisfiedly: "I doubt if you heard my question clearly. What I asked you was about tactics, not about what we just said. A summary of the conversation extended."

Carl knew that Mr. Smith was a little angry. He didn't defend himself, nor did he try to say something, but said apologetically: "I'm sorry, I don't have any new ideas about the Manchester City game." Then He lowered his head.

Fitness coach Di Salvo made a rescue for him: "Walter, your sudden question probably made Karl feel nervous. Aren't we all in the coaching profession when we were in our 30s? Karl is more mature than us at that time. Young, he still has a long way to go in his learning journey."

Smith nodded, and started the next topic according to the meeting plan.

Smith probably saw that Karl did a good job in training the team, so he also placed hope in him in other aspects, but he didn't know that Karl now knows almost nothing about football. The reason why he can do a good job in training is because Manchester United The training is inherently hereditary. Today and tomorrow, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow are almost the same content. As long as Karl memorizes the training manual, carefully records the players' daily status and adjusts the plan accordingly, and can deter the players, he will be able to Can really act like a qualified assistant coach in a short period of time.

But competition requires more information, more experience, and more hard work. It is far from enough to grind your guns before the battle, let alone grind your guns without even a foundation.

No one in the conference room looked at Karl strangely. In fact, they all behaved very normally, as if they had never seen any young man embarrassing in front of them.After all, most of Manchester United's coaching staff are very old, and older people always have a lot of tolerance for young people. Even if they have any thoughts in their hearts, they will not show it at this moment.

Are they disappointed in themselves?Karl thinks there is probably, but he can't do anything about it now.Although there are miracles in the world all the time, they cannot be obtained without paying any price. God opened a back door for him once, but he will not take care of him for the rest of his life.

……

That night, Carl got a call from Laurie.

"Hey, son." Laurie was a rough but careful German man: "I heard from Alex that you performed well in the club."

Alex is Sir Alex Ferguson's name.

"Really? I feel like I've been hovering around the passing line." Carl's German was a little dry at first, because it is a technical job to extract these things from memory and apply them proficiently, but he quickly mastered the essentials : "During the meeting of the coaching staff today, my performance was really bad...Maybe when you contact the boss next time, he will complain to you about me."

After a long time, Laurie's shocked voice came from the other end of the phone: "God, Carl, when did you take your work so seriously?!"

Carl froze for a moment. "I, I don't always..."

"I'm so happy! Carl." Laurie said, both surprised and proud. "When you kept begging me to ask Alex for this position for you, I thought you would take my decades Lost your old face. Because you're a chick and a playboy. I know you. You haven't done anything serious since university. Managing a top Premier League team? Although I know you love watching football , but I never thought that you could really succeed even a little bit, not to mention that you admitted to me before you went to Manchester that you went to Manchester United to chase stars! You don’t know that Alex called me today At that time, I was so afraid that he was going to drive you home..."

The more Karl listened, the more he felt a little dumbfounded.He didn't even know that his predecessor was a man with a bit of a personality and a bit of an incomprehensible job. He studied hard these days, for fear of being seen as empty-hearted, and his emotions were a bit redundant?

Although he has absorbed a lot of memory fragments left in his body, there are actually not many things in them, and they are basically all common-sense knowledge, such as growth experience, study and work experience, and the like.As for the details of life?Emotional experience?What he can know is only a rough idea. For example, he knows that his father's name is Laurie and his mother's name is Sarah. His parents have divorced and remarried respectively. They have always treated him well, but how good is he? So what, I have no impression of these.

Perhaps it is because these subtle life memories and emotional experiences originally belonged to the soul. When the real Karl Oston died, most of the things went to heaven with him, and the things left behind can only guarantee that the successors will continue to live forever. Carl's identity lives on without revealing.

Losing his mind, Carl ignored many of Laurie's next words until he heard the last—

"After you were judged by the scouts that it was difficult to become a professional player, I didn't think you could succeed in this industry. After you graduated from college, you were even more foolish. I don't even think about what you can do in any industry." After a pause, Laurie He said in a low voice: "I'm sorry, son, I shouldn't always have strange eyes on you. Since you love football and want to do it well, then go ahead and do it. I failed to be a good player decades ago. Professional player, that is always the regret of my life, now, I wish you success."

Carl abruptly choked on the words "I'm actually considering changing jobs after working at Manchester United for a few months" that was about to be said. At this moment, he didn't want to interrupt a father's desire for his son to become a talent. .

After a moment of silence, Carl said, "I will work hard, Dad, Dad."

Laurie laughed. "Don't be so polite to me, son, it feels really strange. Didn't you always call me old man?"

"Yes, yes..." Carl laughed dryly: "Okay, Dad, how is the weather in Germany?"

"It's sunny and it hasn't snowed. And I'm having a great time. Clara is planning a Christmas trip and asking me a bunch of questions every day. Son, where do you want to go for Christmas?"

Clara is Laurie's second wife, Carl's biological mother Sarah and Laurie divorced more than ten years ago.Carl smiled and said: "I can't go anywhere, you forgot that the Premier League has a Christmas schedule?"

Among the five top leagues in European football, except for the Premier League, there is a winter break.The reason why there is no Premier League is because it is a British tradition. Most of the stadiums in the Premier League are also very advanced, which can ensure that there is no snow in winter. The second is that the schedule is intensive. If you rush to work during Christmas, the schedule after the next year will become very worrying. The third reason is that Christmas tickets are always sold very well. For the sake of profit, the players can only work harder.

"Oh damn, I forgot about it." Laurie muttered a little unhappy. "Well, Clara and I will send you postcards and Christmas presents when we are on vacation."

Carl smiled and thanked each other, then said goodbye and hung up.

After putting down the phone, Carl didn't leave the living room in a hurry. He sat on the sofa and fell into thinking again.

The phone call with Laurie was a very novel experience for him—before he became Carl, he was actually an orphan.

The adoptive parents were infertile after many years of marriage, so they adopted him. At the beginning, the relationship between each other was quite harmonious, but before he really opened his heart to the adoptive parents, the adoptive mother miraculously became pregnant and gave birth ten months later. a son.When you have a biological child, although you also take care of food and clothing for the adopted child, it is inevitable that you will be left out emotionally.In addition, he had already remembered things before he was adopted, so during the more than ten years of living with his adoptive parents, they were very polite to each other, even overly polite, and seemed alienated.

Laurie and Sarah didn't have much contact with Carl these days, and it was just a few phone calls, but it was just these few short phone calls that made Carl have an infinitely complicated feeling towards them, joyful, Apologetic, but also alienated, apprehensive or even cautious.He decided that after he became Carl, he must treat his parents well, but when Laurie and Sarah returned the same affection to him, he felt particularly at a loss as to what to do.

Perhaps this is because feelings have never been his area of ​​expertise.