Born to be a coach [soccer]

However, for Sunderland's true diehards, they don't care about the image of the new head coach, whether he is a handsome blond guy or a greasy middle-aged man with a hairline that cannot be retreated.

They used to care about when the team could return to the Premier League, but now they only care about how Sunderland can keep their seat in the British Championship.

"The gentleman just said was right. Sunderland is a great club!" Anton took a deep breath and began his speech eloquently.

"Sunderland is one of the oldest football clubs in England. It has won six top league championships and five runner-ups. In all England, there are only five clubs with slightly better results than you..."

The more he said, the better the faces of the Sunderland fans looked—indeed, the Sunderland club has a brilliant team history and has won many trophies.But the problem is that they are just "greater than their ancestors". The last top league championship in team history was in 1936, and the last time they won the FA Cup was in 1973.But whenever this kind of retelling of team history, the fans will all proudly puff up their chests, and they will not mention it very tacitly.

The young man in front of him obviously put a lot of effort into studying Sunderland's situation from beginning to end, at least doing some homework.

This kid! ——Anton immediately looked beautiful in the eyes of the fans: young people who look up to Sunderland are at least young people with vision.

"...and this stadium," Anton turned his head and looked at the Stadium of Light behind him. The logo of the stadium—a miner's lamp symbolizing light was not far behind him. "A city with a total population of only a hundred thousand people A city with 12 seats can have such a stadium. This is unique in the world. I can really feel that you, the team's most important 'No.[-]', have contributed to your home team the power of."

Having said that, the fans were moved.

Indeed, this football team is too important to the city of Sunderland.For the fans, the team is the epitome of the city. The team leads the citizens of the city and unites the community.The performance of the team is almost equal to the success and prosperity of the city.

This is a good start, moving is the first step in acceptance.

"Young man, you are right..." The elder, recalling the glorious past, reached out to wipe the corners of his eyes.His wife beside him stretched out her hand and patted him on the shoulder: "What 'boy', his name is Anton, Anton!"

"But I didn't come here to say good things to make you feel better." Anton suddenly changed the subject, and his tone hardened, "The team has a problem now, and we must find a solution immediately."

Yes, Christmas has passed, but their team only accumulated [-] points in the long half of the season and fell into the relegation zone-the team dug too deep in the first half of the season.

Just yesterday, the team just lost [-]-[-] to Sheffield Wednesday, which made the fans feel: This Christmas holiday is really too sad, although they have long been used to the thrilling relegation every year-maybe it was in the Premier League before. , now it is in the English Championship, the Premier League team fell to the English Championship to avoid relegation, is it embarrassing or not?

"Boy...Anton, tell me, what is your solution?" Even the most stubborn fans changed their words slightly.

"I haven't yet," Anton said frankly, clapping his hands together, "but I know where the problem is."

"Your team only scored 84 points in the first half of the season, so it fell out of the relegation zone, but Sunderland lost fewer games than the teams in the middle. Why is that?" Anton said with a pair of gray Blue eyes looked at everyone from behind the glasses, "You have too many draws. Among the draws, [-]% of the games were tied after the first goal."

The defense is always faltering, and the offense is getting weaker and weaker. This is a common problem in every game that Sunderland is drawn.Old fans who have watched the game for a long time can see it.

"If the team wants to achieve the goal of this season, it must immediately start to make targeted changes from this point. Everyone, I already have several plans, so I have the courage to promise you that if the team's results in the 28th round are still If there is no fundamental change, I will immediately take the blame and resign." Anton said decisively.

—What else is there to say?The game that will be played soon is the home game against Derby County the day after tomorrow, which is the 24th round.The young man in front of him roughly had a plan, and he patted his chest again, saying that if the team's results did not improve significantly within five rounds, he would resign immediately. Then in the remaining 18 rounds, Sander Lan may still be saved.

At best, during these five rounds of competition, the club can still use this time to find a new coach.

"I've always believed that you are a Premier League team," Anton suddenly put his hand on his chest, which happened to stick to the Sunderland team logo embroidered on his scarf, "If you don't believe it yourself, play No football at the Premier League level."

"What else is there to say? Sunderland will always fight for the first place!" A group of fans were excited by Anton and shouted loudly. At this moment, the blood flowing in their veins was boiling hot.

"Anton, show us the win, and we will believe in you!"

"But if you can't win, you have to remember what you said..."

Fans who were aggressive just now and asked Anton "why" as the team's head coach were all excited, and some promised that they would definitely go to the game against Derby County the day after tomorrow - anyway, they are all season tickets holder.There were also some fans who shook their fists at Anton, reiterating that their support was only conditional, based only on the team getting back on track.

Club chairman Ellis Short and CEO Martin Bain watched the conversation from start to finish.They also didn't expect that just after Anton said these few words, the attitude of the fans would turn 180 degrees.It seems that the new head coach's "fooling" Dafa skills are profound.

But in all fairness, Sunderland's diehard fans also chose to temporarily trust Anton for the good of the team.

But, why the 28th round?Not the 27th round, not the 29th round?

The team's new manager, Anton, temporarily stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn on the side of the Stadium of Light before finding his own residence in Sunderland. "Daily Mail" intern Jack McQueen quickly found Anton's room number through his friend who worked in the hotel industry-it was an executive suite.Jack planned to knock on Anton's door directly, and explained his purpose when they met: "Mysterious man, can I interview you?"

He stood at the door of Anton's room, knocked on the door, struggling to think, should he say something like "room service" and trick the door open first.

But there was no response from the house.Jack knocked on the door again, and the door opened suddenly.Jack was stunned, hesitated for a moment, and pushed the door open to go in.

The hotel room has been temporarily remodeled, and there is a huge computer desk in the middle of the living room of the suite, on which the screens of three widescreen monitors are connected into one piece.Jack glanced at it, and saw a piece of greenery displayed on the large screen, and a black and white football quickly changed from small to large, as if flying towards Jack from afar.

A swivel chair in front of the computer desk turned towards Jack at this moment, and the person on the seat got up and stretched out his hand to Jack——

"Lin Andong."

Short black hair, glasses, gray-blue eyes, a simple white shirt, and trousers... are exactly the same as the image Jack found on the Internet.

Jack thought he was dreaming: this was his first face-to-face interview.

"Jack McQueen!" Jack shook Anton's hand excitedly, "I'm from the Daily Mail..."

"You asked me for my room number, so you came directly to me?" Anton said with a smile, "Your friend just hung up on me. You are the first reporter to find me in this way, welcome !"

Jack blushed: This way is really not good, it's rare that the other party didn't care about it.

"Mr. Lin, I'm here this time because I want to ask you a few, um, a few questions..." At the beginning, Jack stuttered, but when he asked about the main point of the interview, Jack became excited. Questions rushed out, "I really want to know how you got the job as Sunderland's head coach..."

Anton interrupted him amusedly, "Mr. McQueen, please sit down. What would you like to drink? Well, I have...sparkling water, pure water...Well, there is only water anyway."

Only then did Jack relax, realizing that he had been too nervous before.He asked for a glass of purified water, thanked Anton, sat down, took out the interview book that he never left with him, tightened his grip on the pencil, and looked up at Anton.The huge computer screen behind Anton is projected on Anton's glasses. From Jack's point of view, there is also a black and white football flying on his pair of glasses.

"Sunderland's head coach?" Anton looked at Jack with interest. "It's just a job. I applied and got the job, that's all."

Is it that simple? —Jack thought to himself, if it's really that simple, I should try it.But in fact, the world is difficult, and until now he is just a newspaper intern who has not been able to become a regular.

"Didn't you spend money to buy the whole club?" Jack recalled the previous rumors that the club might change hands, "Or your family bought the whole club?"

Anton denied, "No, neither I nor my associates hold any shares in Sunderland Club. I have a pure employment relationship with the club."

This rhetoric is so frank and professional.Anton's attitude broke Jack's heart: this is really an ideal interview subject.

"Then what was your previous working experience?" With the pencil in Jack's hand, he quickly wrote down in the interview book.

"My original field of expertise was mathematics." Anton said, he noticed that Jack's pencil was visibly shaking. The British people have been dominated by this subject for many years, and the psychological shadow is very heavy. working in a hedge fund."

Jack wrote down in the interview book: "Student master", "There is a mine at home".

"Then I quit my job and went to a Danish university to jointly develop a new computer language. There I started coaching the university's amateur football team and then took them to the Danish Premier League."

Jack's pencil flickers on the interview book: it's too informative for him to remember.

But Anton's answer confirms one thing: the new head coach does not have professional player experience.Jack remembered what Ruben once said, there are generally three ways to become a top football head coach: the first one, he used to be a professional player, such as Guardiola; the second one, he was promoted all the way from the football academy, such as Bei Nites; the third is to learn from famous coaches, such as Mourinho.

It seems that Anton does not belong to any of the above types of people, he is very special.Can such a person really become a successful head coach?

So Jack raised his head and asked Anton: "Why, I haven't found any of your experiences on the Internet?"

Anton asked back: "Have you looked up the name 'Lin Andong'?"

Jack: "...No!"

Anton: "Go and check!"

Jack thought he should really look it up.But after finally winning such a face-to-face opportunity, he was unwilling to give it up casually.

"Mr. Lin," Jack blushed, tongue tied, "may I invite you to do an exclusive interview with you sometime? I'm very, very very interested in your experience."

Anton frowned at this time, trying to recall: "Wait, you said earlier that you were from..."Daily Mail?"

Jack nodded.Anton turned back to operate his computer, and Jack saw him quickly open the browser and click on the "Daily Mail" website.

"I don't think it's necessary anymore. But thank you for trying to get to know me." Anton said in a friendly and polite way.

Jack opened his mouth and stared at the screen in front of him with wide eyes.A signed article has been published on the Post's website, the author is Ruben Smith, executive editor of the sports column.I saw the abstract of the article written in bold: "This young coach, who can't find any professional player resumes or club coaching experience, is definitely not the right person to help the Black Cats successfully relegation."

"Damn it!" Jack slammed his fist on Anton's table.

The author has something to say: About Sunderland Football Club.

Stadium: Stadium of Light in Sunderland, a seaside city in northeastern England

Nickname: Black Cat (in the middle of the first version of Sunderland's team logo, there was a black cat sitting on a football, so the club's nickname was Black Cat; but the current version of the team logo is not, it is two lions!)

Uniforms: Red and white striped shirts (Sunderland is the last team to win the English league title in the striped shirts so far)

Rivalry: Newcastle United "Magpies" (the match between the two teams is known as the Tyne Derby)

I wrote about this club to a certain extent because I watched a Netflix documentary "Sunderlandtil Idie" (SunderlandtilIdie), and I was really shocked (friendly reminder: watch this film with caution).In addition, the club's home stadium, the Stadium of Light, is the place where the author watched the Premier League live for the first time in his life (tickets are easy to buy, really, there are [-] seats).

It is a pity that Sunderland is still in the League One. This club fell from the Premier League to League One "back-to-back" in the two seasons of 2016-2017 and 2017-18.I hope the Black Cats can cheer up and return to the Championship, and then back to the Premier League - otherwise how lonely the Magpies are.