Chapter 715 Volume 6 Crimson Winter Has Come

The bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment bank had the most direct impact on Nottingham Forest Club is that their new stadium construction project fell into the predicament of shortage of funds.

Nottingham Forest's new stadium has yet to have an official name, but it has become a building project that has attracted much attention in the UK. Because it is not just as simple as building a stadium.

This is a huge real estate development plan. With the new Nottingham Forest Stadium as the center, it radiates outwards to form commercial circles and residential circles, as well as football theme parks, national fitness parks, green spaces and other facilities. As Nottingham Forest's reputation grew. Allen Adams also plans to open it to the world as a tourist attraction in the future. Just like Real Madrid's Bernabeu, Barcelona's Camp Nou, Milan duo's San Siro and Meazza... and other famous European club stadiums, they are not just a stadium. At the same time, they have become holy places that countless tourists and fans yearn for.

The plan is huge and the prospect is wonderful, but the cost is correspondingly much higher than building a stadium alone.

Manchester City's new stadium "Manchester City Stadium" only cost 110 million pounds. If only such a stadium is built, the financial problems of Nottingham Forest Club are not a big problem, and it is enough to live frugally for a year.

But Allen's plan needs to cost at least 600 million pounds, which does not include the part invested by the Nottingham City Government.

If you don't want to spend so much money, the Forest Club can only get the ownership of the stadium in the end, and cannot use other facilities to make money. In order to maximize the basis for the development of the club, Allen and Evan took the risk of occupying a large part of the engineering investment, and the return they got was the stadium, a football theme park, and the ownership and development rights of a commercial area.

At that time, the financial problems in the United States had become prominent, but who would have thought that the self-regulation ability of the market economy was so weak?

In just one year, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, went bankrupt...

Allen has haggarded a lot during this time, flying around the world all day long. Evan Dalgety's business in the United States has completely ended, and now Allen is busy finding follow-up funds for the project of the new stadium. Due to the global financial downturn, many banks refused to lend to Nottingham Forest Club.

In desperation, Evan had to announce that the new stadium and other package construction projects were temporarily suspended. Otherwise, if you continue to invest money in this project, the entire Nottingham Forest Club will be dragged into this bottomless abyss sooner or later.

The news hit the headlines of the British media for the first time. Everyone knows that after the rapid expansion of Nottingham Forest Club in the past few years, they finally encountered trouble, and it was still a big one.

"...I admit that the owner of Nottingham Forest is very ambitious and courageous. But too fast development will inevitably lead to a stall. Nottingham Forest is very popular in Europe, but their economic foundation has not kept up. The pace of the team's progress, the construction of the club does not match their performance. Looking at other giant clubs, no matter in terms of performance or various conditions of the club, they are very in line with their status. Only Nottingham Forest... like a deformed child, He has a pair of fast running feet, but he doesn't have a body that can withstand the impact of this speed..." On the TV, various professionals were analyzing the current predicament of Nottingham Forest. They believe that this is simply a typical negative case of how football clubs should survive and develop in the context of the world's economic downturn.

"I think Nottingham Forest Club should reflect on their strategy of expanding everywhere. China, Japan, Southeast Asia; England, the United States, the whole world... Tony Twain's magic made his boss think that his team and club are useless. Can't. To be honest, when I know that the chairman and marketing manager of Nottingham Forest Club are Americans who have never cared about football before, I am not surprised by the current situation. They ignore very important One point - football clubs are different from ordinary listed companies, in addition to obeying the laws of economics, they must also abide by the laws of football. Tony Twain's magic has brought the team a good foundation for development, but they still need to slowly Come and develop step by step. Evan Dougherty once revealed at a reception held in Nottingham that his goal was to turn Nottingham Forest into a wealthy club. But I have never heard of a wealthy club that relies solely on It can be built in five or six years. Chelsea are rich and doing well, but are they a big club now? I don't think most people would agree that they are a big club."

"Nottingham Forest is one of the longest-established clubs in the history of modern world football, and the only team still competing in the top league. But now this club gives everyone the impression that- Young. From club owners to their team coaches to players, they are all very, very young. Young people will always make some mistakes in judgment and estimate the situation too well..."

"Now they know how bad the situation really is."

※ ※ ※

"There is a whining sound everywhere." Evan sat in the large boss chair in the office, resting his chin on his raised hands. "It seems like winter has come early."

He seemed to be talking to himself, and he seemed to be talking to Tang En who was sitting next to him.

Allen was not in the room. He is on his way to China. Those investment projects in China also encountered financial problems, which he had to solve personally.

Tang En looked down at the sweater inside his suit.

"Winter is indeed not far away..."

After being tied 0-0 by Middlesbrough, the team disbanded again and the national team's game restarted. Players flew to all over the world to compete in the World Cup qualifiers on all continents. Some performed well and some performed poorly. Most of the players who returned to the Forest team after the two national team games were not satisfactory in terms of state and physical strength. Under such circumstances, Nottingham Forest lost an away game to Liverpool, and the league ranking quickly fell to seventh. This is the first time in two years that Nottingham Forest ranked seventh in the league. The last time they ranked seventh in the league was on October 14, 2006. After losing to Manchester City in the eighth round of the league, the team won three rounds and ranked seventh.

2:3. They work hard, but losing is losing. In the post-match press conference, Dunn expressed concern about the fatigue of the Premier League players. He suggested that the Football Association seriously consider setting up a winter break to give the players a breather. But his voice fell into the sea, and he didn't get any reply from the Football Association at all. The setting of the winter break has been arguing for so many years, but it is just wishful thinking of the coaches and players. It is impossible for the Football Association and the League Committee to agree, because it is directly related to their income...

Now, he is about to lead the team to Italy to deal with a strong opponent - Juventus.

Before he left for Italy, Evan tracked him down.

Dunn knew what Evan was looking for him for. Is there anything else going on besides the recent underperformance of the team?

But there is nothing he can do about the current situation. The physical strength of the players has been greatly consumed in the club and national team matches. They have played double matches for a week, leaving them no time to rest and adjust their status. The game against Liverpool was able to play until the last five minutes before Benitez overtook the score. The boys of the Forest team have done a very good job. But this kind of game also consumed a lot of energy, and the whole team was exhausted after the game. He didn't even know how to face Juventus.

It is impossible for him to have money to buy people during the winter transfer period. He must rely on these people to survive a season. But he has not given up yet, he is still instilling in the players the goal of winning at least one championship this season. No matter how unfavorable the situation is for them, the team cannot afford to lose confidence on its own anyway.

"I know what you're going to say, Evan. Against Juventus, the team will win." He stood up, wanting to get out of here as soon as possible.

Evan smiled at him and didn't hold back.

※ ※ ※

The Alpi Stadium in Turin two days later.

Nottingham Forest lost 0:2 away to Juventus, who returned to the Champions League.

Tang En sat on Alpi's visiting team coach's bench without any angry expression on his face. He neither threw his suit nor kicked his water bottle. He just sat there with a helpless expression on his face. In fact, just before the final whistle sounded, he was so angry that he saw the red bull on his head and raged at the team's performance from the sidelines.

He played the strongest lineup he can currently play. But his tactics were completely ineffective against Juventus. After all, his style has many similarities with what Juventus do best, and Ranieri knows how to deal with him.

In terms of defense, Juventus is no worse than Nottingham Forest. The Italian's blood has long been soaked in defensive instinct. No matter how the Forest team dispatches back and forth, and no matter how fast and sudden the Forest team counterattacks, Juventus's defense is not chaotic. And they also used sneak attacks to score a goal each at the beginning of the second half, beating Nottingham Forest.

Twain's tactics were still obtained from Juventus in Capello's era. Juventus football is ugly, but solid, capable of winning and winning titles. Now facing Juventus, which is more stable than himself and full of hunger for victory, he can't take advantage of it at all. On the other hand, the players of the Forest team may have emptied their bodies due to continuous battles, and they were unable to enter the game state on the field, as if they were too full and did not wake up. After Juventus scored the second goal, although there were nearly forty minutes left, there was basically no desire to win-they were too tired. Players are people too, not machines. I will be tired, and of course I will slack off after being tired, and I will have some negative thoughts...

Tang En could do nothing about it. No matter how motivated he is in the locker room, if the players have no energy, they have no energy. It is impossible to generate infinite strength out of thin air just because he yelled a few words "We must win!", and then POWER_MAX bombards the opponent. It can't be thought that he promised Evan Dalgety that he would win this game before coming to Turin, and that this game will really be won.

After winning the game, the Juventus players hugged each other excitedly. Chris Lack, who couldn't stand the scene, snorted disdainfully: "It's not that I won the Champions League, it's just a victory in the group stage. Excited?"

"After all, after they returned to the Champions Cup, what they defeated was the defending champion..." Tang explained. He thinks that the Juventus players are so excited, this should be the reason. Many of these people have experienced the tragedy of falling from Serie A to Serie B, they have also experienced the years of fighting for Serie A in Serie B, and they have also experienced the joy of returning to the Champions League qualification after a successful promotion. .

Many of them have tasted the ups and downs of life, ups and downs, right?

He looked at Juventus captain Del Piero and thought.

While the two of them were talking, Tang En stood up from his seat without saying a word, and walked slowly towards the corridor. He didn't want to see the Juventus players getting a little crazy with excitement, because he felt that this was the winner's showing off to the loser, and it was the loser's humiliation. He didn't want to sit here and be treated like this.

At the post-match press conference, Ranieri seemed very excited, while Twain was reticent, he would not answer if he could, and even if he had to answer questions, he would try to be concise.

"What do you think about losing this crucial game?"

"No opinion."

"Zikic, who started this game in place of the injured Ruud van Nistelrooy, was terrible. Do you think it was a mistake to buy him?"

"No."

"Will the loss to Juventus affect the team's final group qualification?"

"No effect."

"Any comments on Juventus' performance?"

"not my business."

Seeing that he was so uncooperative, the reporters pointed their questions directly at him, not the team or the game.

"Does losing the game make you feel bad?"

"you guess."

"Then why do you seem unwilling to answer the question?"

"do not want to talk."

"Why don't you want to talk?"

"Toothache." Tang En replied with a straight face.

"...well. Is the recent performance of the team related to the financial difficulties encountered by the club?"

"I can assure you that the worldwide financial crisis has nothing to do with our team's performance." This was the longest sentence Tang En said in this press conference.

The press conference broke up in such an indifferent atmosphere.

※ ※ ※

Twain, who had broken his promise, was in a bad mood. He didn't even criticize the players for their poor performance in Turin. After returning to Nottingham, the Forest team defeated Aston Villa, who ranked above them, 1-0 at home. With this hard-won victory, the ranking rose from seventh to fifth.

But in the Champions League, the Forest team encountered big trouble.

After returning to the home court, Nottingham Forest, who vowed to take revenge, was forced to a 1:1 draw by Juventus, who were unable to defend and wait for an opportunity to attack, in the city stadium with their most accustomed method. With one draw and one loss against Juventus, the Forest team is now no longer sure about qualifying for the group. After the situation of the Champions League group group came out, the experts were unanimously optimistic about Nottingham Forest, thinking that it is normal for them to qualify first in the group.

Well now, Tony Twain, who likes to fight against the media, did it right again. But this time it was not what he wanted. If possible, he would like to cater to the predictions of the media this time.

Juventus ranked first with three wins and one draw with ten points; Nottingham Forest ranked second with two wins, one draw and one loss with seven points; third Dynamo Kiev with two wins and two losses with six points; Borisov with four games With all losses and no points, the group has basically been declared out in advance.

If there are no surprises, Juventus will not be a problem in qualifying. Now it's Nottingham Forest and Dynamo Kiev that are in question. The difference in points between the two teams is very small. Until the last moment, no one knows which team will qualify.

The schedule for the last two rounds of the Champions League group stage is as follows: On November 26, Real Madrid played away to the Belarusian team Borisov, and on December 11 they played against Dynamo Kiev at home.

Among them, the away game against Bolisov will be crucial. If they miss in this game, then Nottingham Forest may bid farewell to this season's Champions League ahead of schedule. As for why this game is considered very important, it is not because Borisov has strong strength, but because he went to Belarus at that time, and the impact of the harsh natural climate on the Forest team will be too great to be ignored.

Belarus at the end of November has entered a cold winter. The worst plan is that Nottingham Forest will have to play the same role as the home court in the ice and snow, adapting to this ice and snow weather, in order to take the lead in the competition with Dynamo Kiev.

In that game, they not only had to compete with the Borisov team, but also fought against the cold weather in Belarus. And that time period is often the time when the players are the most fatigued and most prone to injuries.

To win, no one can be injured, and the physical fitness of the players must be guaranteed.

As soon as Tang En remembered this condition, he felt a huge rock pressing on his chest, making him unable to breathe.

Morning in Nottingham, early November. The fog from Sherwood Forest still hung over the city, and the roads were wet and raining. The sun had risen a long time ago, but it was blocked by thick dark clouds, and the sun could not leak in the slightest. The men who went to work huddled their bodies in black-handed overcoats and hurried away. The headlights of the car were still on, passing by on the road, splashing a piece of cold water.

Tang En stood outside Wilford Lane, looking up at the training base in front of him surrounded by trees and white mist. He pulled the collar of the turtleneck sweater outward, and the cold air took advantage of the opportunity to sneak in, making him shiver unsuspectingly. But fortunately, the feeling of shortness of breath just now was finally relieved.

Just as he opened his mouth and took a deep breath, a puff of white air spewed out from his mouth, was torn apart by the cold in front of his eyes, scattered into wisps of white smoke, gradually faded, and finally disappeared, similar to the white smoke of this early winter morning Fog blends into one.

Winter has come.