Group Draw for the Finals
Group Draw for the Finals
The result got a huge response at home in Wales, as they hadn't reached the European Cup matches since 1976. They finished in the top eight at that European Cup, and the Welsh media hoped that this time, under the leadership of Bale and Ramsey, they would at least match those results.
On the night they were leaving, Bale called Twain. Although it was extremely noisy on his side, Twain could still hear Bale's hissing roar. "Coach! We are going to Spain! We are going to Spain!"
Next to him, there seemed to be someone echoing loudly, "Spain! Spain!"
Twain knew that they were celebrating this rare victory, so he did not bother Bale much. That, coupled with Bale's current condition, meant that he probably would not listen to anything Twain said. Thus, he just said a simple congratulations and hung up.
Although Wales reaching the series this time around was thanks to the European Cup expansion from 16 slots to 24, the Welsh still had their reasons to celebrate.
Unlike Wales's national revelry, England was fairly calm about being able to leave the group stage. After all, they were regulars at the European Cup and would only be in the headlines if they could not go to Spain. Twain's ability to lead the team out of the group stage counted as his first duty accomplished.
The actual European Cup elimination series was the real test.
At the end of November, the last three qualifying teams were awarded a two-round home-and-away play against the top six teams, to decide which of the last three teams were going to qualify for the European Cup.
Then, in Nyon, Switzerland, the head coaches of the twenty-four teams gathered for a group draw ceremony, organized by Union of European Football Associations.
Twain had participated in several group draw ceremonies. Even if it was for a country team, there was not much difference. At most, he would just need to meet more head coaches for the country teams. However, he himself was still the focal point for the media.
Two days before the draw, a list of European Cup groups was reportedly leaked from within the Union of European Football Associations. Regardless of the authenticity of the list, it quickly attracted the attention of the media, as the internet and the social media news had become the main voice of the mainstream media.
Reporters who came to interview Twain also asked him about it, as England's grouping on the list was not fortunate–they were allocated into an extremely strong group.
The group process in the final stages of the European Cup involved first identifying the seeded teams, then dividing all the teams into four tiers according to the total points of their last World Cup qualifiers, the previous European Cup qualifiers, and the current European Cup qualifiers. The hosts and defending champions would qualify directly for the seeded team, with the rest of the seeded teams coming from the first-tier teams.
In the group list, which was rumored to be an "internal leaked version," England was placed in Group D, as a seeded team, along with Sweden, Germany, and Denmark.
Germany being a second-tier team was not surprising, as they had not performed well in last year's European Cup qualifiers against Poland and Ukraine, so they were only able to qualify for the finals in the final round by virtue of getting extra time. However, as it was rare that there would be teams as strong as Germany at the second seed, it was England's unexpected misfortune that they would still meet Germany.
Reporters were keen to hear what Twain thought about the leaked version of the group list. They had previously interviewed Germany's head coach, Sammer, who thought that the list was made up by journalists and not worth evaluating. Then they went to interview Swedish coach Roland Anderson, whose answer was the same as Sammer.
But it was common sense that they thought this way.
The group draw was an important process, and now that there was a "leaked version" even before the start of the group draw, which head coach would dare to evaluate it? They did not even know if the version was real, so how could they form an opinion about it?
But the reporters knew what kind of person Twain was — his talkative mouth had been dormant for more than a year, and it was time for it to wake up again.
Twain did not disappoint them, either.
He did not seem to doubt the authenticity of the list, as he offered some opinions on his "group opponents."
"Germany is a strong team; I know all about England and Germany's feud ... There is nothing worthy of praise in the matchup results between England and Sweden, either, so we need to be careful in handling that ... Denmark is a very tough team, and I played against them during the selection matches, but I didn't know we would meet again this time. They are a tough team, and you will realize this when you analyze our matchup results during the selection matches, as those ended in a victory and a draw, we need to be careful…"
One reporter finally could not hold back, and he asked bluntly, "Mr. Twain, why are you prepared to express your opinions on this group draw list?"
Twain purposefully acted surprised. "Is there any issue with this list?"
"It is alleged that this is a leaked version ..."
Twain's laughter interrupted the reporter. "Whether it's the European Champions Cup or the European Cup, when is there not a 'leaked version' out before the game? And we always find out after the draw that the leaked version is quite similar to the final official version..."
"Mr. Twain, do you mean that the results of the draw have long been predetermined by the Union of European Football Associations?"
The reporters roared with excitement, and at last, they heard the voice they wanted to hear most.
Twain's face immediately darkened as he stared at the reporter. "I didn't say that, and if you report that I said that on the news, I'll insist on my right to accuse you of slandering me, Mr. Reporter."
The atmosphere immediately cooled down.
Twain took that opportunity to get out of the reporters' circle and walk into the conference.
In there, he met with his boss, the FA's chief executive, Shaun Barclays.
"There are so many reporters surrounding you outside; what are they asking?" He glanced a little warily at the excited reporters outside. He was worried Twain had said all the wrong things again.
"What else, other than the leaked version of the lottery result?" Twain said, as if it was not very important.
"You didn't say anything, did you, Mr. Twain?" Mr. Barclays was clearly nervous.
Twain grinned. "What are you worried about, Mr. Barclays?"
Barclays could not easily say what he was thinking as he frowned and patted Twain on the shoulder. "Let's go, Mr. Twain. The group draw ceremony is about to start."
※※※
Unlike on the leaked list, England was not placed in Group D; instead they were placed in Group C. This made several people more convinced that the leaked version of the team lottery results was fabricated. As there were always several similar rumors before every match, everyone was accustomed to it.
After the team seeding was done, it was time to draw for the second-tier teams.
When it was Group C's turn, the draw guest, former Madrid flag-bearer Raul Gonzalez of Spain, held up the ping-pong ball in his hand. As he pulled out the note from within the ball and read out the name on it, the note appeared on the big screen behind him.
"Germany."
There was a burst of jeers.
The camera swept across the coaches and found Tony Twain, only to find that he had put his finger in his mouth and was happily jeering at the results, too.
If it were not for the image everyone already had ofTony Twain, they might think that he was a passerby who only wanted to join in the crowd, and not one of the parties involved…
"Mr. Twain!" Barclays, who was sitting beside Twain, was glaring at him.
Twain glanced back at him and booed a few times. His sharp boos were clearly heard on the television.
Having done this, he then took his hand out of his mouth and wiped it on his suit without any regard for his image. "What's the matter, Mr. Barclays?"
"Watch your image..." said Barclays weakly.
Twain smiled, "Okay, Mr. Barclays. "
The uproar over the draw lasted a long while before it died down, and when anyone looked back at the English manager's response to the result, he was always seen booing. Who knew if he was actually booing because he was excited or unhappy… but either way, that was alright; the media would always arrange a speech for him to share his views.
The senior Union of European Football Associations officials sitting on the podium must have seen what happened. There was no choice; who wanted Tony Twain to be the main focal point during the ceremony?
The German, Sammer, was unhappy with this result, and he frowned with a darkened face. Maybe he was unhappy about Twain's attitude — the Englishman was too flippant!
The snobbish Englishman sat in his seat and smiled as he watched Beckenbauer, the German football legend, walking up to the draw.
He was going to draw the third-tier team for Group C.
The result he drew was somewhat disappointing for the excited media, as it was not the predicted Sweden but rather Portugal.
Twain smiled for a while from below, as Portugal was stronger than Sweden. If not for their poor performance during the selection matches and not being able to enter the Brazil World Cup, how they could even be allocated as the third-tier team…
The team that appeared in the fourth tier gave Twain his first surprise.
"Wales." The host read this somewhat boring name.
But Twain's eyebrows jumped up.
He did not expect himself to be reunited with the little monkey so soon.
As a result of the expansion of the European Cup, the group stage had been increased from four groups to six, making it much less likely that the "strong" teams would go against each other. Hence, the group that England was in would be labeled the "group of death."
The final draw was a far cry from the previous "leaked version." But at the very least, England and Germany were indeed drawn into the same group.
As soon as the draw ceremony was over, the media surrounded Twain again.
Barclays saw that he was about to be crowded out by the reporters, so he hurriedly whispered in Twain's ear, "Don't speak foolishly, Mr. Twain!"
"I'm not a child..." Twain muttered disgruntledly as he welcomed the media.
Twain knew that England and Germany had always had a bad attitude towards each other in football and that modesty would not get a good response.
"... We are not afraid of Germany. 'The Group of Death'? I'm not worried. It's the European Cup; there will be strong teams everywhere. I don't think there's anything wrong being drawn in the same group with teams like Germany, Portugal, or Wales ... Our goal is to win the championship, and there are no champions who always get lucky in their journey…"
He sounded quite impressive, especially as he publicly stated that his team's goal was to "win the championship." There was a flurry of discussion within the crowd of reporters.
He could already see tomorrow's eye-catching headline: England aiming for the championships from the start, admitted by Tony Twain himself.
However, the reporters still had a lot to ask about the results of the draw.
"Mr. Twain, there were some similarities between the leaked version before the draw and the actual results, and England was also drawn into the same group as Germany; I would like to ask—"
Twain knew what the reporter was trying to ask, as he immediately hardened his face and said, "Isn't that normal? There were only six groups, so the probability of Germany being placed in Group C as a second-tier team is one in six, which I think is normal. There's nothing unusual here."
The reporters were not impressed; they wanted to hear something groundbreaking from his mouth. Twain was not willing to be a scapegoat for others. In moments like this, it was as if he was a Tai Chi master: he beat around the bush for quite some time and refused to give any straight answers.
Reporters blocked Twain for a long while, but as they were not able to get their desired answer, they could only give up and let him go.
Still, the phrase "Our goal is to win the championship" alone was enough to attract tons of attention. Yes, England had always been considered a strong European team, but there were many who looked down on them, many who thought that strong team should only be said in quotation marks or that they should have only been called the pseudo-strong team. What's more, the results of this group draw had only just come out, and there were still six months before the start of the European Cup. Twain had shouted "our goal is to win the championship" so loudly--had he not considered the possible changes in the next six months? What if the core players were not in good form? What if the main players were unable to participate due to injury? Saying this had only created enemies for him…
But those were only troubles for Twain himself, as the media just needed to create eye-catching content to attract attention.
※※※
The next day, the major sports media really began to hype Twain's talkative mouth, as his photograph coupled with that line, "our goal is to become the champions," made headlines.
"If it was someone else saying that, people might have regarded it as a joke, but since it was him, people didn't even dare to laugh."
People who were familiar with Tony Twain would definitely have had the same thought upon reading this headline.
England's fans were also delighted that they could have such a confident manager. Perhaps it would no longer be a dream to lift the La Liga cup in the English capital at next year's European Championships.
Twain was in the headlines, but Shaun Barclays had a headache.
Just as Twain's title-winning manifesto appeared in the papers, Barclays received a call from the Union of European Football Associations president, Michel Platini.
The call was simple. Platini, as a personal friend, reminded Barclays to take care of Tony Twain's talkative mouth. The things Twain said during the draw ceremony to the reporters were widely known. The Union of European Football Associations was not deaf; they did know about this. He hoped that Twain would never say anything to cast doubt on the fairness of the Union of European Football Associations.
Unlike the previous presidents, the new Football Association chief executive was looking for ways to repair the relationship between the English Football Association and Union of European Football Associations, as the Union of European Football Associations was always targeting England. There had been several incidents of sabotage in the past few years.
He naturally did not want Twain's talkative mouth to affect his "friendship" with Platini and damage the relationship between the Football Association and Union of European Football Associations.
A few months ago in Denmark, he had been boasting how successful his control of Twain was, and now he had learned what a terrible headache it is to have such an unruly head coach, one who cannot be disciplined or tamed.
The only one who could humble Tony Twain, make him listen to instructions, make him meek as a sheep, would be God himself.