The Greatest Manager of All time

On the evening before Swansea set off for Hounslow, Lynn and Emlyn Hughes walked along the edge of the training ground.

The sun was sinking westward. There was no sunset glow, only the bleak chill of deep winter.

Hughes was uneasy.

He had already stood on the touchline and commanded the team for four matches, recording two wins, one draw, and one loss. On paper, the results looked decent.

But in his mind, people would only remember that he had led the team to a 3–0 defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Even when Lynn had taken the team to Anfield, they had not lost that badly to the Reds.

At least they had scored a goal that lifted morale.

On top of that, there was still the pressure of being three points behind Brighton in the league. It had already left him tossing and turning at night, unable to sleep. Now Swansea were facing a Football League Trophy semi-final as well, so naturally his mind was unsettled.

"Boss, I'm really worried about tomorrow's match."

Emlyn Hughes looked at Lynn, who had both hands in his pockets and seemed completely relaxed. He found it hard to imagine how Lynn could remain so calm.

Lynn turned and smiled at him.

Hughes did not know whether Lynn's looks would be considered handsome or ordinary in Chinese eyes, but he felt that when Lynn smiled sincerely, he was very pleasant to look at. The charm of youth showed itself fully in that moment.

Lynn said to him, "Don't overthink it. Even I'm not worried, so what do you have to worry about?"

Emlyn Hughes said, "Why wouldn't I be worried? We've reached the semi-finals. Even if the Football League Trophy isn't an important trophy, it would still be brilliant if we could make the final and win it."

Lynn shook his head slightly and smiled.

"That's not practical. The Football League Trophy can't compare with the league title in terms of appeal. Besides, the Football League Trophy is basically a showcase for lower-division clubs' second-string players. Even if we win it, there won't be much real value in the trophy."

Hearing Lynn say this eased some of Emlyn Hughes's pressure.

He poured out many of his recent feelings to Lynn, most of them things outsiders would never know from the matches he had commanded on the touchline.

For example, at Stamford Bridge, he had actually needed to pee badly in the first half, but he held it in until the half-time break before finally going to the toilet.

"Boss, how can you withstand such enormous pressure at such a young age?"

Emlyn Hughes was truly curious about this.

Hearing that, Lynn laughed loudly. Then, slowly, his smile faded.

He stopped walking.

Hughes stood beside him.

Lynn stamped his foot, lowered his head, pointed at the grass beneath them, and said, "Look. Everyone thinks my place is down here. No one has any expectations of me, so what do I have to fear? No matter how bad I am, I can't fall much lower. But as long as I rise even a little, everyone will be surprised. In that case, naturally there's no pressure."

After listening to Lynn's words, Emlyn Hughes felt a mixture of emotions in his heart.

Every now and then, from some casual sentence Lynn said, he could vaguely hear a kind of helplessness that sounded as if it had weathered years of hardship.

Suddenly, Hughes put on an extremely serious expression.

He looked toward the sky in the southeast, his gaze hazy, and said, "Boss, not everyone has no expectations of you. That's not true. I do. Ernie does. William, Eric, Thomas, John, Aneurin, Tony, Mo Yuan, Oliver, David, James... and tens of thousands of Swansea supporters all have expectations of you."

"You are not beneath the feet of the world. You should be there, at the end of the sky, in the place where you can look down over all of England and Wales."

"Mount Snowdon!"

Lynn followed his gaze and looked over.

There was only a clear sky, grey-white clouds, and a distant, drifting emptiness.

But somehow, that made him even more full of anticipation and fighting spirit for the future.

He smiled, unusually pure and innocent.

...

When he drove away from the club, Lynn noticed many reporters waiting outside. The moment they saw him, they began complaining.

Walter Raleigh shouted toward Lynn inside the car, "Young Coach of the Swans! You're suspended, not banned by the media! Give us a few words!"

Liam Hans of the South Wales Evening Post also complained to Lynn, "You were bullied by Fleet Street. You can't take it out on us!"

Louis Russell from Golden Radio and William Randall from Swansea Voice chimed in together.

"Exactly, exactly! We're on your side!"

Cath Carter and Roy Wood from ITV Wales stood to the side, smiling silently as they looked at Lynn in the car.

For reporters who waited around for news like them, the work was actually quite hard.

Sometimes they could spend an entire day waiting and get nothing.

Lynn would not exactly say he sympathized with them.

After all, the nature and content of their work meant they had to endure these hardships.

However, Lynn thought about the fact that the team would head into the Football League Trophy semi-final tomorrow. It was about time to add fuel to the fire through the media.

He lowered the car window and smiled outward.

"I'm about to open fire on Brentford. Who wants to help me deliver the challenge?"

"Hahaha, now this is the Lynn we love, isn't it, Carter?"

Walter Raleigh laughed as he walked up to the car window. Behind him, Carter gave Lynn a charming roll of her eyes.

In any case, her relationship with Lynn had long since been exposed by the media. Lynn had never directly responded, leaving the entertainment tabloids and paparazzi to speculate however they liked.

After the reporters all prepared to record Lynn's words, Lynn put away his smile and spoke.

"I don't like Brentford. What Cliff Boya did damaged the relationship between clubs. Fortunately, Swansea will have a direct confrontation with Brentford tomorrow. The first leg is at their home ground, but Brentford had better not think that means they can relax."

"The Red-and-White Army wants to swallow the Swans from Wales in one bite. I'm afraid they'll be very disappointed. The Football League Trophy semi-final will prove one fact: Swansea's players will absolutely never go to Brentford, because compared with Swansea, they are far, far behind!"

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow's match. I'll be in the stands with the fans, cheering the lads on."

"All right, everyone, I'm going home first. You should all head back early too. And one more thing, Liam. Next time you publish a photo of me in the paper, remember to use a side-profile shot. I think my side profile looks more handsome. Thank you!"

"Hahaha, if you're too handsome, Carter will be unhappy. Or do you have a new target? In that case, I'll inform the entertainment reporters at our newspaper and have them follow you closely to see who your new love is."

As soon as Liam Hans finished speaking, Cath Carter pushed him lightly from the side and said angrily, "Hans, do you want to be followed by BBC Wales reporters too?"

Lynn ignored the reporters joking and bickering among themselves.

Although they seemed harmonious right now, he knew that when truly big news appeared, reporters would also fight one another brutally.

Anyone trying to dig up information would be treated as an enemy and shut out.

He drove home, ready to rest properly for the night.

...

The next day, the Welsh media carried Lynn's words to Hounslow, where Brentford were based.

Naturally, Fleet Street also played its part.

Ban Lynn?

After the "club chairman farce," quite a few Fleet Street outlets began paying attention to Lynn, because they knew this man was never short of news.

It was just that most of the media would not report on Lynn in a positive way.

The Daily Express, where Rona Whelan worked, was fairly neutral and moderate.

But a paper like The Sun, with Ian Clark personally writing the article, was filled with malicious mockery.

"Lynn Boasts He Will Cut Down the Red-and-White Army? April Fools' Day Is Still Far Away!"

...

On January 16, Lynn once again joined the supporters as they traveled to Hounslow, an outer borough of Greater London.

Brentford's nicknames were the Bees and the Red-and-White Army.

Their home ground, Griffin Park, was even smaller than Liberty Stadium and could only hold a little over twelve thousand people.

Before the match began, the television broadcast camera captured chairman Cliff Boya sitting in the VIP seats. His face was expressionless, like a lofty king looking down over the entire stadium.

In reality, Cliff Boya was suppressing his anger.

But he was not someone who liked appearing in front of cameras, so he made no comments before the match.

The home fans' protests against him had also temporarily died down with the arrival of this game.

The Red-and-White Army's supporters could not accept that their chairman had held a grand press conference just to express respect and apology toward a Chinese man.

They were based near London. The sense of superiority of city people was naturally stronger than that of country folk.

Even if they were not aggressively arrogant, their pride was no less than that of London's so-called "nobles."

Cliff Boya knew he had been humiliated by Lynn.

Even though he and Lynn had previously had nothing to do with each other, it now looked as if he had stupidly stretched his face out and let Lynn slap it hard.

And today, while sitting in the VIP seats, he saw an even more painful sight.

In the away supporters' stand, among the roughly fifteen hundred Swansea fans, Lynn was standing there.

Of course, Cliff Boya could not see Lynn himself, but he could see the banner they had raised.

"Cliff Boya, Lynn is right here! Come and kneel!"

Cliff Boya wished he could immediately call security over to tear the banner down and throw the fans holding it out of the stadium.

He looked away, doing his best to avoid seeing it.

The television cameras could not capture his hands.

At that moment, his hands had already clenched into fists, even though on the surface he still looked perfectly calm.

This match had to be won!

He had gone to the dressing room before the match, encouraged the players, and given them an order: they had to win.

Head coach Dean Smith was rather unhappy about the chairman interfering with how he managed the team, but on the surface, he could only obey.

The Red-and-White Army players also knew that today they had to win back face for the chairman on the pitch.

So every man was ready to fight.

Before walking out, they had already sharpened their focus and filled themselves with fighting spirit, preparing to crush the Swans into dust at Griffin Park.

Before the two teams came out, inside the players' tunnel, Ibrahimović, now free from suspension, looked more energetic than ever. He could not wait to get onto the pitch.

He glanced at the Brentford starting eleven standing in line beside him, all of them looking murderous, and asked curiously, "Did your chairman really hold a press conference just to suck up to my Boss? And then try to sign James Cook from us?"

As soon as Ibrahimović said that, all eleven Brentford starters glared at him fiercely.

No one answered his question.

Ibrahimović ignored their hostile looks entirely.

After sizing up their players, he said, "Makes sense. If James went to your team, he could replace any one of you as a starter, couldn't he, James?"

James Cook was not very used to this kind of provocation, especially since he wanted nothing to do with Brentford at all.

He shouted, "Zlatan, don't drag me into this!"

"All right, all right. I know you're shy."

Ibrahimović shook his head and turned back to face forward.

The Swansea players all wore confident expressions, while the Brentford players were already furious, practically wanting to drag Ibrahimović out and beat him up.

At that moment, the referee team signaled for both teams to enter the pitch.

The players followed the officials out together.

Because this was the semi-final of the Football League Trophy, the match had received more attention than usual. Although, in truth, that attention was still limited, the broadcast ratings would certainly be slightly higher.

In the stands, Lynn cheered Swansea on together with the fans.

They all raised the commemorative scarves the club had started selling at Christmas, printed with the English words declaring the rebirth of the Swan Sea.

"Welcome to Griffin Park, where the first leg of the Football League Trophy semi-final will be played. The four teams to reach the semi-finals this year are Swansea, Brentford, Bristol City, and Port Vale. Swansea are the only side from the Third Division, while the other three teams are all from the Second Division."

"Brentford were seen by the media as having received a favorable draw. They will face Swansea over two legs in the semi-final, competing for a place in the final."

"Due to the impact of the brawl at Ninian Park in late December, Swansea manager Lynn remains suspended. This is the final match of his suspension, and he will miss today's semi-final. Swansea's defensive pillar Friedrich is also suspended. This is his fifth match out."

"The good news for Swansea is that their powerful forward Ibrahimović has returned from suspension. Today, he will partner Villa in attack."

"Brentford have home advantage. Originally, the Football League Trophy was not taken seriously. It is a stage for Third Division and Second Division teams to test the strength of their second-string squads. But because the two clubs have had an unpleasant recent dispute and relations between them are tense, this match is full of hostility."

"That can be seen from the banners displayed by both sets of fans. Brentford supporters are holding up signs such as 'Crush the Swan Sea' and 'Swans, surrender, or you're dead.' Meanwhile, Swansea supporters have unfurled a banner in the away stand mocking Brentford chairman Cliff Boya. All of this suggests that this match will not be ordinary."

"All right, let's take a look at the starting lineups."

"Brentford, playing at home, start in a 4-4-2."

"Goalkeeper: Alan Julian."

"Defenders: Danny Allampage, Danny Thomas, Matt Small, Andrew Frampton."

"Midfielders: Robert Terrell, Kevin O'Connor, Eddie Hutchinson, Stephen Hughes."

"Forwards: Mark Peters, Lloyd Blackman."

"Brentford have basically sent out their strongest available lineup, deploying all their key players."

"Swansea are not inferior either. They have also put out their strongest side."

"Swansea are also using a 4-4-2 formation."

"Goalkeeper: Owen Glendower."

"Defenders: Hanno Balitsch, Danny Gabbidon, Brunel, Tobias Rau."

"Midfielders: James Cook, Pedretti, Cromwell, Fabio Grosso."

"Forwards: Zlatan Ibrahimović, David Villa."

"The match is about to begin. Brentford, playing at home, will attack from left to right on your screen. Let us enjoy the first leg of the Football League Trophy semi-final together!"

When the referee blew the whistle to start the match, Cliff Boya's expression shifted slightly in the stands.

A ruthless look appeared on his face, and his eyes darkened as he stared at the pitch.

Red-and-White Army, crush the Swans for me!

Meanwhile, in the away supporters' stand, after carefully observing the fighting spirit of Brentford's starting players, Lynn smiled slightly.

It seemed the provocation had worked.

Today, would the Red-and-White Army slay the Swans?

Or would the Swans devour the Red-and-White Army?