All Football Abilities Are Mine! Chapter 347 348: Death at the Santiago Bernabéu (5)

The ho dressing room was filled with sighs.

"Ha..."

"This really makes no sense. How? Just how?"

They were so exhausted they felt completely drained.

They had poured everything into the first half, but they still could not win.

Pepe let out a deep sigh.

"In the end, it turned out exactly the way everyone said it would."

Before the match started, everyone, every last one of them, had said the sa thing.

That no matter what Real Madrid did, they could not beat Manchester City.

That even if the world collapsed, Ho-young could not be stopped.

He had wanted to crush all those words in spectacular fashion, but the result had gone exactly as everyone expected.

To be honest, he had felt a trace of confidence.

This was Santiago Bernabéu, the holy ground of Real Madrid.

And they had prepared that hard for it.

It would not have been an exaggeration to say they had poured in everything they could as human beings.

But the result was 2-1.

In fact, even that was close to a miracle.

"Right. Sothing was off."

Pepe tilted his head.

The fact that they had predicted Manchester City's strategy in advance and responded to it.

Now that he thought about it, it was definitely strange.

"That was just luck."

Luck.

Logically, that was the only way to think about it.

And the other players were thinking the sa thing.

But there was one exception.

Manager Pellegrini was thinking sothing else.

"Could it really be what I think it is...?"

The so-called wiretapping incident.

A few years ago, there had been a major uproar when it beca public that Manchester United had been wiretapped at their ho ground, Old Trafford.

"There is no other explanation..."

Pellegrini felt it in his bones.

Because it made no sense from the start that they had been able to target every one of Manchester City's tactical changes.

This was how it had happened.

Before kickoff, President Calderón had co to the manager's office.

That in itself was not strange, since it had happened more than once before, but for so reason, Calderón had been unusually talkative today.

From ti to ti he had directly interfered by telling him to start certain players, but he had never interfered in tactics like he had today.

But today he had overstepped the manager's authority and issued instructions forcefully.

"According to the information we obtained, Manchester City are using Ho-young as an attacking midfielder."

And that was not all.

President Calderón had gone into detail as though he knew Manchester City's tactics inside out.

But now that he thought about it, it was definitely strange.

The state of the pitch was the sa.

They had trained for 30 milliters, but when match day ca, it was as long as 40 milliters.

Every aspect had been designed to favor Real Madrid.

"Of course, it is only suspicion..."

But if it was true, then as a manager, it was sothing he could never tolerate.

Because he valued sportsmanship more than winning matches.

"I cannot let this pass."

That did not an he intended to expose the president's wrongdoing to the dia.

There was not even any physical evidence.

Pellegrini simply wanted to play the real match he wanted.

It was right then.

Bang!

A loud crash erupted from the corner of the dressing room.

It was Cristiano Ronaldo kicking the dressing room wall.

And his fury did not stop there.

He threw water bottles one after another, erupting in blazing anger.

It was anger directed at no one but himself.

Because he felt humiliated that he had produced such a poor display against the rival he considered Ho-young to be.

"Hmm."

Seeing that, Pellegrini seed to make up his mind and gathered the players together.

Then he spoke solemnly.

"Lift your heads. We have nothing to be ashad of. Are you going to go back out there looking defeated? We are Madridistas. We cannot let sothing like this break us."

It was not that these obvious words were going to change everything.

If he could change the mood and provide even the minimum spark of motivation, that would already be half the battle.

And the other half was this.

"We are done with this tireso battle of wits."

"What?"

"From now on, we do what we do best. The football we love most. From now on, we play a real match."

Football they could play with their heads held high.

He ant they should play the football they were most confident in.

At that mont, the players' hands ca together.

The faces that had lost all drive were gone.

All that remained was burning desire for victory.

"¡Vamos!"

"Madrid!"

The dressing room was soon filled with fierce voices.

By contrast, the away dressing room was completely calm.

All the players were keeping quiet and focusing only on their ntality.

Even when they spoke, it was all aningless chatter, and they did not say a single thing related to the match.

That was because of Guardiola's instruction just monts earlier.

"If what Young said is right..."

Right after the first half ended, Guardiola had heard sothing significant from Ho-young.

It was the opinion that there might be so kind of listening device in the away dressing room.

"It is more than believable."

Ho-young was the kind of person with sharp instincts not only on the pitch, but off it as well.

But even if there really was a listening device, there was no way they could find it imdiately without evidence.

More than that, he did not want to throw the situation into chaos.

"The flow of the match is with us. There is no reason to disturb it right now."

Guardiola gathered the players together.

Then he spoke firmly.

"What we need to do is the sa as before. Play well. That is all."

After that, he kept his words to a minimum.

Normally he would have passionately explained the tactics, but today he did not open his mouth about tactics at all.

Instead, he wrote sothing on the tactics board and showed it to the players.