Chapter 118: The Year of the Year is Not Good

Germany's unexpected defeat hurt Don En, but it made the media excited as if they were injected with chicken blood.

Originally, after England and Germany defeated their respective opponents with absolute advantage, everyone felt that the pattern of this group had been established. England and Germany were the two strongest teams. The two teams that had qualified before were probably them. The only suspense was just who was first and who was second.

As supporters of England and Germany, this is a good thing. But as media who are afraid of chaos in the world, this is the worst situation. They all lamented on their respective positions that the "Death Group" is not worthy of its name.

Now, there is no situation where the name is not true. The Death Group suddenly becomes true and interesting.

Both teams that lost the game in the first round won the game, while the two teams that won the game before lost the game. After the two rounds of group matches, all four teams scored three points, which is really rare in international competitions.

The current situation is that Germany is ranked first in the group because of the advantage of goal difference. They scored four goals, conceded two goals, and had two goals. England scored four goals, conceded three goals, and one goal difference ranked second. Portugal scored four goals, conceded five goals, and lost one goal difference ranked third. Finally, Wales, they scored one goal, conced three goals, and the goal difference was lost two.

In the last round, England and Germany fought against each other, while Portugal had to fight against Wales. Any team could qualify, and any team could be eliminated.

"It is really worthy of being the most dying 'death group' in this competition!" The invited guests sighed in the European Cup special program of Sky TV. "Such a complex qualifying situation is the best among all six groups. We don't need to analyze the situation of their four teams for you. Just look at this score ranking and you can guess what will happen next - a mess!"

"Before the second round of the game, the probability of losing at the first and second in the group was one-nine. When the Englishman saw the loss to Wales at the Camp Nou, the Germans probably began to look forward to their prospects after qualifying early. Who would have thought that after a wonderful offensive battle, the Germans also lost!" Spanish National Television concluded.

"For the England team, Germany's loss is definitely not good news. Although we have a feud with them for forty years. Because Tony Donn's team will fight against the German team in the last round. Only by winning Germany can we ensure a certain qualifying. Losing or drawing is to leave fate to others." In the special plan of bbc TV, experts are analyzing the situation of England's qualifying overnight. "But the England team lacks George Wood, and the German team is a very strong opponent..."

"Facts have proved one thing - without George Wood, England is second-rate in Europe. They can't even win Wales. Without Wood's dispatch and defense in the midfield, England simply don't know how to operate. The 4-2 victory over Portugal was just an accident, and we should also note that Portugal has the advantage in the whole game. "This is a program of German TV No. 2. They are cheering the worried German fans through this program. "We lost to Portugal just because we were not lucky. England lost to Wales was a complete failure. Although their shots were twice as many as Wales, most of them missed the goal, and they were all blind long shots... From the team's situation, we are better than England."

"Welsh defeated England and Portugal defeated Germany. This is the result that we neutral fans most hope to see. Because the last round of the group stage will be very, very exciting!" China Central Television Channel 5 belongs to the neutral party, but German fans and English fans account for a large proportion of Chinese fans. They "schadenfreshed" in the show, and there will definitely be no less curses on the Internet.

In fact, the evaluations of these media are fair and objective. Don Eun is under tremendous pressure now - he won beautifully in the first game of the game, which raised the expectations of the English people. As a result, he lost in the second game and threw the English fans flying in the clouds into the mud pond. This huge psychological gap made many people unable to accept it. Those print media and online media directed such anger to Don Eun. Someone must be responsible for this, right?

Countless tabloids do not care about objective conditions and subjective factors. Anyway, it is the most convenient to blame the head coach for the loss. Who asked Tang En to leave a handle for them? After the game, he said in an interview, "I underestimated the enemy." This sentence became the biggest reason why many tabloids attacked him.

"Tony Don't finally paid the price for his pride and arrogance, but he also brought the fate of the whole of England to bury him! This is simply a scandal!"

"...I really can't understand England like this, and it's completely different from the one that defeated Portugal 4:2. What's the reason?"

"Simply underestimating the enemy cannot explain the reason for losing. I think England has major tactical flaws. The facts prove that relying on defensive counterattacks alone is not good! He wanted to move the Nottingham Forest's set to England, but found that the environment was not suitable..."

"I think the defeat in this game fully demonstrates the importance of George Wood. It certainly makes sense for Donn to insist on taking Wood to Spain, but if we go home in the group stage, what's the point of taking him there? Now there is the last game left, what's the solution?"

"Tony Donn is stubborn. If we choose to continue to trust him, one day the entire English football will suffer a loss!"

...

Too many attacks like this, and rarely did the reporters interviewing England have not had any conflicts with Tony Don. This time they finally seized the opportunity to take revenge.

They attacked Donn, and the more the fans felt that England was difficult to qualify. So before the game against Germany, the fans' expectations and media criticism were gathering from all sides to Valencia City, forming huge invisible pressure. The entire England team was shrouded.

Tang En obviously noticed these pressures. So he did something against the media again - canceling the routine press conference, unless it was before the competition. The media would not want to dig out any valuable news from him. The public shooting time was open for fifteen minutes every day, except warming up or warming up. There was nothing. He did not ask the security guards in the hotel where he stayed to clean up the reporters who were wandering nearby, and reporters who were not allowed to enter the hotel lobby.

This openly opposed the media obviously made the media even more dissatisfied, and I wonder how much more they said to him.

The England team also felt this tense atmosphere. After the game against Portugal, there were many laughter and joy in the training, and many game-interesting events were arranged to relax everyone. However, after the game against Wales, all of these games were cancelled. Everyone could clearly feel the training volume, although the head still had a smile on his face. But everyone knew that it was just made for them to show. In terms of pressure, there would be no one here to be bigger than the head.

There is only three days between the second round of the group stage and the last round, which makes the tension worse. What can three days change?

After losing to Wales, England seemed to have run out of luck overnight.

Just the day after they arrived in Valencia, they started training less than ten minutes and were still in the free filming of the media. During the warm-up, David Bentley was suddenly injured.

The scene was in chaos at that time, and the reporters tried their best to squeeze in. They wanted to take photos of Bentley's injury. The security guards at the scene were busy intercepting the reporters under Tang En's loud scolding. While Tang En was guarding against the reporters, he also had to see what Bentley was injured. The scene was very noisy and his head was almost dizzy.

"What's going on?" Tang En finally squeezed into the crowd and saw Derek White, the team leader of the national team, performing a preliminary examination of Bentley.

"Thigh muscle strain." White replied. "It's a recurrence of the old injury."

Tang En frowned.  This is not a day or two to heal the injury.

Bentley, who was sitting on the ground, also seemed very frustrated. He had not started this European Cup yet. He wanted to fight for opportunities in the next game, but now his thigh muscle is strained. He almost certainly can't play in the last game of the group stage. Will there be any games in England after the match against Germany?

Tang En casually pointed to the two players: "You guys help David down."

White followed Bentley to the sidelines. He asked him to sit on the ground and massage his thighs.

The reporters outside the venue were still arguing and wanted to come in for an interview and film. They even had a conflict with the security guards. Even swearing came out.

Tang En felt upset when he heard this voice. He turned around and walked to the group of reporters, pointing at the watch on his wrist: "Time is up, free shooting time is over! Please go back, ladies and gentlemen!" Then he said to the security guards: "Turn them all out!"

"Mr. Doneen! Is Bentley injured?"

"Mr. Doneen, is Bentley's injury serious?"

"Mr. Tony Donne...will he miss the match against Germany?"

"Bentley was injured, will this affect the morale of the team?"

The reporters who were unwilling to be kicked out like this all threw their problems at Tang En. Tang En ignored them and turned around and walked back to the training ground, shouting to the players who were stunned and a little overwhelmed: "Continue to train!"

The reporters finally dispersed and the training ground returned to peace. Bentley's injury did not affect the quality of the team's training. The amount should be put on is not small, and the players' attention was also focused on training. After all, injury is a very common thing, and Bentley is not a main player. Even if he is injured, he cannot catch up with the German team. It has little impact on the team's strength.

But Tang Endi's brows became tighter and tighter.

George Wood finished his own training program and walked to the sidelines to rest. He sat next to Bentley.

"Hey, George..." Bentley was a little depressed.  He helped the ice packs on his thighs, filled with ice.                                             

Wood glanced at his thigh. "It's just a muscle strain, it will be healed soon." He comforted his teammates in Nottingham Forest.

"No matter how fast I can't play in the game against Germany..." Bentley rubbed his right thigh and was better if his left thigh was strained, he could grit his teeth and persevere. If his right thigh was strained, he wouldn't be able to do anything. "At that time, let's cheer them on the bench together."

Unexpectedly, Wood shook his head: "No, I want to play."

Bentley thought he had heard it wrong, so he turned his head to look at Wood, his eyes wide open. “If I remember correctly, the doctors said you would miss all three group games…”

"I feel no problem."

Bentley stared at Wood's big toe and asked, "Does it hurt?"

Wood shook his head: "No, not at all."

Bentley looked at Tony Donn, who was standing in the distance: "I don't think the boss will let you play."

"If you can't win Germany, you will."

"Are you kidding your career, George?"

"I'm serious." Wood finished his rest and walked back to the court to continue his solo training.

Bentley looked at his back and curled his lips.

"You haven't practiced with us, how could you get on the court? Don't be foolish, George..." he murmured.

"I just lost to Wales, David Bentley was injured again. The England team's year-round is not good, it's really worrying..." The news they just received is being broadcast in the European Cup report of bbc5. The TV was a chaotic scene on the training ground at that time. If you listen carefully, you can still hear Tony Don't say anything - "What the hell is going on... Hell, drive them out! Stop shooting!"

"Although Tony Donn canceled the regular press conference, Drag White accepted our interview. He told us that Bentley's right thigh muscle strain will miss the game against Germany... As far as we know, this is not the first time Bentley's right thigh muscle strain. With George Wood absent due to injury, Bentley also made it to the injury list. Luck seems to be not on our side..."

It is probably not appropriate to describe the mood of England fans as a bleak cloud. Could it be that this "strongest England team in history" cannot even qualify for the group stage?

"It's not hurting the main force, look at the arguments of the media... So I hate the media. They always send ice when you need charcoal to keep warm, and when you need clean water to quench your thirst, they hand it dry bread - in short, it will only cause trouble." Don't be very dissatisfied with the media's exaggeration that Bentley was injured and created tension. These English tabloids are so annoying!

"There's no way, Tony. After we lost to Wales, pessimism prevailed... A little accident would be infinitely amplified." Walker put down the newspapers in England, and there were almost all reports that made people feel bad.

The two were chatting, and there was a knock on the door.

"Please come in."

The person who pushed the door in was George Wood. This surprised both Donn and Walker.

Wood didn't expect that there was someone else in Donn's room. He glanced at his assistant coach Des Walker, standing at the door without saying a word.

Walker knew that Wood must have something to say to Done, but he did not want outsiders to be present. It must be a conversation that belonged only to the two of them.

"Then... I'll leave first." Walker stood up tactfully and planned to leave.

"Goodbye, Des. Call me at dinner time." Tang En waved his hand at him.

"Goodbye, Mr. Walker." Wood watched Walker leave at the door.

"Goodbye, George."

After Walker left, Don said, "Close the door, George. Is there anything you have to do with me?"

Wood obediently closed the door, but he still stood at the door and said to Donn: "Tomorrow's game against the German team...I hope you can get me on the court."
Chapter completed!