666 The China Trip

Twain was not from Ningbo or Zhejiang. Before his transmigration, he had only been to three places in China: his hometown, a small town in the south of Sichuan, Beijing, where he went to university, and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, where he worked after he graduated from college.

Although Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou belonged to China, it was like another world to him, where he could not understand the spoken language and the cuisine was not to his taste. The social customs and culture were a world apart. Nor did he think that he would one day travel there.

But now, thanks to his soul attaching to this body, he got the opportunity to use "public money for the tour" and come to a place which was only a name symbol for him — Ningbo of Zhejiang Province.

He did not come on vacation. During the trip to China, the quirky and charming Shania was not here to accompany him. Instead, he was accompanied by a large group of men.

They were all the members of the Nottingham Forest Football Club.

A year ago, the Nottingham Forest Football Club secured a large piece of land in Clifton, south-west of Nottingham, to build a new stadium. The city government strongly supported it and allowed them to buy the land at a lower price. Needless to say, there was no such thing as a free lunch. In return, they had to do something for Nottingham.

Now was the time to give back to the government.

Essentially, Nottingham Forest's trip was purely a gold rush, businessmen seeking profit. But the publicity aspect of it was loftier.

It was the first cultural exchange between England's city of Nottingham and China's city of Ningbo. With full fanfare, the Nottingham Cultural Promotion Week would be held there along with the visit of the UEFA Champions League winner, Nottingham Forest. The Chinese people in Ningbo did not have to travel to England and they could enjoy the most authentic English culture and atmosphere.

The relationship between Nottingham and Ningbo dated back to 2005, when the two cities signed a contract to formally be sister cities. As a gift, the prestigious University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom collaborated with the Ningbo Municipal Government to replicate the university in its entirety and brought it to Ningbo. A completely independent University of Nottingham was established in Ningbo and used the University of Nottingham configuration from qualified teachers to the teaching materials. The students who successfully graduated could receive the University of Nottingham diploma issued by the University of Nottingham.

With the relationship, it was not surprising that Nottingham Forest's visit to China was in Ningbo.

It was the result of the partnership between the club and the city government. Without the relationship, Allan Adams would not care about any relationship with sister cities. He would prefer to visit and set the competition venue in Beijing or Shanghai, but since they bought the land cheaply, they would have to pay the price. The good news was the loss there could be made up elsewhere. Japan's feverish enthusiasm for Beckham was enough to make Allan dream and wake up laughing while Southeast Asia and Hong Kong had long been the English Premier League's biggest audience in Asia. The Premier League's status was unmatched by any other league.

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Nottingham Forest's opponent had already been announced before coming to Ningbo. On the day of the announcement, the name of the opponent surprised Twain. It was Chinese Olympic team.

It was Allan's stroke of genius.

The impact of the game in Ningbo was too small, so he decided to find a sufficiently influential opponent for Nottingham Forest. Now that all of China was crazy about the Beijing Olympic Games in August, what was more convenient than to use the currently trending Olympic Games to promote themselves?

He got in touch with China's Aide Group and the Chinese Football Association, hoping to arrange a friendly match — to the industry insiders, it was called a "friendly." To average fans, it was a "commercial game." The opponent was the Chinese Olympic football team.

Since the national Olympic team was intensely preparing for the Olympics, they needed a high-level opponent to do their warm-up. What team was more suitable other than the Champions League champion?

It was an attractive plan for the Chinese Football Association. Firstly, they did not have to pay the high-level teams from abroad to come play friendlies. Secondly, Nottingham Forest was indeed high and the whole world knew of the team. It was beneficial for the Chinese Olympic team to play against them. Thirdly, it was helpful for the UEFA Champions League winner, Nottingham Forest, and the Olympic host's Olympic team to have a friendly to promote the Olympics. Since the torch relay, opposition from some western countries had not stopped and was increasingly critical. The friendly should be able to convey another opposite voice, as long as it was in the premise of the Olympic Games, everything could be done.

The Chinese Football Association agreed to the proposal, but they also had their own requirements.

The Chinese Football Association wanted to partake in the sharing of the revenue from the competition.

Allan and the head of Aide Group looked at each other when they heard the proposal. Allan did not quite understand the approach, but Adidas was a professional company that often organised foreign teams to play commercial games in China. They told Allan that if they wanted to deal with the Chinese Football Association, they would often come across incidents that made foreigners feel outrageous. And to be honest, the request was not too demanding.

Allan recalled what Twain said about "China's national conditions." He had been traveling back and forth from England to China for half a year and thought he should have similar understanding of China as Twain. He realized that he was still far behind.

Allan Adams agreed to the Chinese Football Association's proposal. After agreeing on the specific splits, the Chinese Football Association, Aide Group ,and Nottingham Forest announced that Nottingham Forest's opponent in the friendly match in China was the Chinese Olympic team.

As soon as the news came out, it garnered the attention of the Chinese media and fans. The press covered the upcoming game extensively. They introduced, promoted, and covered Nottingham Forest. The fans also showed a lot of interest in the game. There were Chinese state-level television stations that had bought the rights to broadcast the game live.

That was what Allan wanted to see most. The Chinese Olympic team's competition plan had been very successful.

Twain had no objection to the opponent. He felt that playing against the Chinese Olympic team might be the best choice. If they played against a local team in Zhejiang, Twain would find it boring. Playing a temporarily cobbled together league team would not be able to train the team, whereas there was some competitive value to compete against an Olympic team that had trained together for a long time.

Allan thought about the economic effects, while Twain cared about the competitive value. The two words were spelled the same in Pinyin, but they were completely unrelated. For professional football clubs, they were almost opposites.

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The Nottingham Forest star players received a very warm welcome when they disembarked. The drizzle did not prevent fans from coming to the airport. Beautiful young ladies lined up below the escalators to offer flowers. The warm and bright Ningbo girls delighted the Nottingham Forest players. Other than a few big star players, who were more reserved to maintain their image, the players were stopped short of hugging the girls for a group photo.

Twain did not mind them, as it showed that his team was in good shape.

Picking up the floral wreaths from the young ladies, the team walked to the airport bus parked outside the terminal. There was no shortage of warm welcome along the way from fans who had hurried there after they saw the news. It could be seen from the fans' posters who the most popular player on the team was.

Before coming to China, the Nottingham Forest players were bored and decided to make a bet — who was the most popular player in China? Of course, the bet excluded Beckham.

Now the answer was revealed. Besides Beckham, the most popular person was George Wood. Van der Vaart was the runner-up by a narrow margin.

"Wood! Wood!" The enthusiastic Chinese fans held up George Wood's posters and caricature, shouting his Chinese nickname.

In front of a crowd that welcomed him so warmly, George Wood remained calm and barely smiled, but it only prompted louder cries and more people's pursuit.

"Look! That's a star player! So suave!"

"Wood is so cool!"

"I think he's cute - ah, Wood! I love you!"

"Incredible, the zombie face can be so popular..." Ribéry said with gritted teeth as he took in the scene.

Fortunately, some people soon comforted by his "injured heart.""Ribéry! Ribéry! Look this way, look this way!" Someone shouted in English.

He happily turned only to see an awkward scene:

A Chinese fan held up a sign and next to them, two fans pointed at the sign, which said in French: "how much money for you to stay in Nottingham?!"

It was clearly meant to mock the news that he had delayed signing the renewal contract with the club for a reported price of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and wanted go to Real Madrid.

He could only pretend that he had not seen and gaze at the grey sky.

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"This is China!" On the way to CITIC Ningbo International Hotel, the Nottingham Forest teammates looked out of the bus window with great wonder.

"Sun! Sun!" The teammates warmly beckoned Sun Jihai, wanting him to be their tour guide, introducing scenery along the way which full of China's Jiangnan flair. "What's that? And that... Ah, this is beautiful!"

It put Sun Jihai in a very difficult spot. Although he was Chinese, he was not from Ningbo or even Jiangnan. He knew nothing about them.

If he wanted to explain to his teammates, he would have to start with the fact that China was a very big country. It was so big that it was beyond the imagination of these foreign teammates. In this way, the topic would expand and could not be clarified with two or three sentences.

"Ha... I do not know anything about Ningbo. I rarely come here..." He could only smile and state his predicament.

His teammates were disappointed. Since they had a Chinese teammate, they thought they could pull him along to go out and have fun after they reached the hotel. A free guide would be great!

Dunn looked at Twain, who hurriedly widened his eyes. "Don't look at me. Although I am... I don't know anything about Ningbo." He almost slipped, but luckily Kerslake was busy taking a video of the scenery along the way and not paying attention.

No one was quiet in the bus. Everyone was holding cameras or video cameras and facing the window. Twain did not. He was not interested in what was going on outside, and he was not there on holiday.

However, he turned and saw a tall billboard on the side of the airport road. The background was red and the dark words were Nottingham Forest and the national Olympic team players. The language on the board was interesting, as it was written in both English and Chinese — A warm welcome to the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League champions, Nottingham Forest Football Club, visiting our city!

He smiled. There was really some "Chinese characteristics" that gave off a cordial feeling.

There were several billboards on the side of the road. In addition to the ones that promoted the Forest team, there were Nottingham Forest-related brand sponsors, as well as Aide Group's advertising. It looked like Allan did a lot of work. Although the game had not yet started, the publicity campaign was executed beautifully. Seeing the billboards, he felt a sense of accomplishment as the Forest team's manager. He was very proud of his achievements.

It was drizzling outside the window, but it did not affect Ningbo's image in the hearts of the foreign guests. The dynamic Jiangnan-style painting in the hazy rain appeared to be more poetic, adding to their impression of a mysterious country like China. It was surreal.

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After they arrived at the CITIC Ningbo International Hotel, a press conference was held in the hotel, where all members of the team changed their clothes and attended. It was a formal introduction of the team to the Chinese community.

Tony Twain became the main character at the press conference because his love of the Chinese culture was not new, even the football fans in China knew.

Throughout the press conference, he communicated with the media and fan representatives in fluent Mandarin, earning applause each time. Everyone applauded his fluency in Mandarin and his familiarity with China.

Twain was a little sorry about it. If he had gone to Sichuan, he could use fluent Sichuanese to say hello to everyone.

"I love China. I love its culture and the friendly people here. I am honored and proud to bring the team to Ningbo. I hope to show the best of China to my players. I believe this trip to Ningbo will be a wonderful experience for them!"

His last remark won him a lot of applause.

Sitting behind him, Evan Doughty smiled and clapped and turned to Allan Adams. "And you were worried that he would get you in trouble. Look at his performance. He acted perfectly!"

Allan nodded. "Yes, I must admit that he did better than I thought. He's a natural public speaker."

After the press conference, the players returned to their rooms to rest, and then gathered to ride to the banquet. The Ningbo municipal government held a welcoming dinner for them.

While some reporters and hardcore fans were still outside the hotel lobby, not wanting to leave, Allan found Twain. "Tony, are you free now?"

Twain knew that Allan had something to discuss with him, but he did not know what it was about. Could it be the matter with Ribéry that happened a while ago?

He nodded. "I have some time. What's the matter, Allan?"

"Come to my room. I have something I want to talk to you about."

Twain looked at Evan Doughty standing behind Allan and nodded..