"…Chelsea's condition is good, and so is Nottingham Forest's… Even though it's a little too early, I still want to say- Ladies and gentlemen, wele to the 11th round of the English Premier League: On their home ground, Nottingham Forest weles Chelsea! I'm John Motson. Today, our mentator for the match is Gary Lineker. Gary, what do you think about today's match?"
"Mourinho doesn't pursue an artistic way of playing football. He once declared himself a worshipper of Capello; from that, we can know what kind of manager he is. He puts more value on the results than how things appear; he puts more emphasis on the end than the means. So, despite Chelsea having a sharp offensive formation, they play with prudence. I believe the '1:0 philosophy' is the best interpretation of him. But, but in this match, on the away field, I don't believe Mourinho would insist on his 1:0 philosophy."
"Because his opponent is Tony Twain?"
"Yes. This is the only manager he did not manage to beat in the previous season. We don't know what relationship the two of them have in private; Mourinho once attended a work permit hearing for Forest's player, Pepe. And before UEFA's lot-drawing ceremony, Mourinho took the initiative to chat with Tony. But, on the field, the two of them are enemies. Neither Mourinho nor Tony would allow themselves to lose to the other. And, with both managers focused on the results, they would certainly use the most effective method of scoring to attack. With that, this match will doubtless be an extremely intense and fabulous watch."
An hour before the match was to begin, the two in the broadcasting stands had already gotten busy.
In truth, much earlier before the start of the match—half a day before—various English media outlets had already started gathering in Nottingham. Despite the Northern London Derby ongoing today between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, the match held at Nottingham was the true highlight that attracted the attention of the entire nation.
Exactly like it was played up by the media, the people closely watching the match were neither Chelsea nor Forest's fans. Instead, there were many neutral fans. According to the count after the match, there were even quite a few female spectators in the audience. Perhaps they did not care so much about which team would win, but rather hoped to see who it would be left laughing in the end. Was it going to be Mourinho or Tony Twain?
The Sun described it perfectly; it was "The war between two men."
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45 minutes before the start of the match, the spectators' stands in City Ground were basically filled up. They were also prominently split into two parts: the clearly dominant red phalanx and the blue square congregated in the away stands.
Red and Blue were traditional colors in the English football scene. Most team's home team attire was one of them. Although there is no conclusive evidence, the earliest suggestion for teams to wear different colored attires in matches first appeared in the "Handbook of Football," published by Routledge, which listed red and blue as two colors of choice. "If it could be pre-arranged, one party could wear a certain jersey color, such as red, while the other could wear another, like blue. That way, it could prevent confusion among players and abrupt, ill-intentioned steals. Such a sight was monly seen, and I often hear such an apology: 'I'm sorry, I thought you were one of them…'"
That could be the earliest reason accounting for why scores of football teams in the current English football scene wear either red or blue jerseys. As a result, there emerged a tradition of the "Red Blue Battle
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