The God of Football Starts With Passive Skills

"Cristiano, we’ll save you a ticket for Wembley Stadium. Do you want to sit with the Dortmund fans? Or with the Barcelona fans?" Wang Shuo asked.

Messi replied with an agreeable nodding emoji.

Ronaldo shot back angrily, "Stay out of it!"

"You have to be there!" Wang Shuo invited with a cheeky grin.

Messi also sent a message, "I’ll be waiting for you at Wembley Stadium!"

Ronaldo stormed out of the group chat.

...

After the DFB-Pokal final on the 21st, a sudden piece of news arrived on the 22nd.

An Icelandic volcano had erupted again!

Fans familiar with the Champions League would surely remember last year’s semi-final. In the first leg, Barça lost 1-3 away to Inter Milan, and many people blamed it on the Icelandic volcanic ash.

The ash had caused widespread flight cancellations across Europe, forcing Barça to travel to Milan over land—a long and exhausting journey.

And now, the volcanic ash was back!

UEFA and the German Football Association issued emergency notices: the spreading volcanic ash was already affecting air traffic across Europe.

The densest ash cloud was predicted to drift over continental Europe on the 26th and 27th.

When that happened, most flights were expected to be canceled.

The Champions League final was on the 28th.

What was to be done?

Improvise.

Dortmund promptly changed its travel plans.

Driving from Dortmund, Germany, to London, England, would take at least seven or eight hours.

That clearly wasn’t a realistic option.

So, the team decided to travel to London ahead of schedule.

But there was one problem: arriving in London early meant they had to secure a training facility.

They couldn’t just arrive in London and stop training for days. How would they go all out against Barça if they did?

So, Dortmund immediately contacted Arsenal.

With the exception of a few clubs, the training facilities in the Premier League had always been rather subpar.

Back then, there was a famous story about the Blue Army that Abramovich built: superstars like Shevchenko and Drogba were training in a dilapidated warehouse north of Heathrow Airport.

Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground was just as terrible.

But Arsenal was an exception.

There was a story about it, wasn’t there?

In 1999, Wenger used the transfer fee from selling Anelka to acquire both Henry and the Colney Training Base.

And just how good was the Gunners’ training base?

The England national team used the Colney Training Base for their training camps.

When Rosicky transferred from Dortmund to Arsenal, the two clubs had established a decent relationship. So, when Zorc contacted Arsenal this time, it didn’t take long for them to offer their support.

Wenger made the call, agreeing to let Dortmund use the Colney Training Base for their pre-final preparations.

Even more interestingly, right after Arsenal accepted Dortmund’s request, the British Independent broke a story.

It turned out that around the same time Dortmund made its request, Barça had also asked to use Arsenal’s Colney Training Base.

At the time, the two best training facilities in London were Arsenal’s Colney to the north and Chelsea’s Cobham to the south.

Colney was only 35 kilometers from Wembley Stadium.

But the distance from Cobham to Wembley was a full 52 kilometers.

More importantly, the relationship between Barça and Chelsea had always been terrible.

The Independent revealed that the two clubs had contacted Arsenal one right after the other, but Arsenal chose to accommodate Dortmund.

The official reason given was that the German team was arriving earlier.

But the real reason was, "Wenger is fed up with Barça’s attempts to poach Fabregas!"

That same day, Catalonia’s World Sports Daily in Spain reported that Barça had to make an emergency appeal to Chelsea. They even had UEFA intervene to mediate before Chelsea finally agreed to let them use the Cobham training base.

But that created a new problem.

Barcelona had booked a hotel in London’s Chelsea district.

The daily commute would be a major ordeal for the Barça players.

And Dortmund?

The club had spared no expense this time.

The team had originally booked a rather remote hotel: the Grove Hotel, northwest of Watford.

This manor hotel was close to Wembley Stadium and had beautiful surroundings. Most importantly, it was secluded and quiet, ensuring they wouldn’t be disturbed.

As a five-star establishment, the room rates at the Grove Hotel were steep.

Dortmund had really gone all out this time.

The benefit was its proximity to the Colney Training Base.

It was about 17 kilometers from the Grove Hotel to Colney, and about 30 kilometers from the hotel to Wembley Stadium.

No one had expected Dortmund and Barcelona to fight a preliminary skirmish before the Champions League final had even begun.

In this regard, Dortmund had a slight advantage.

With all preparations finalized, on the afternoon of Tuesday the 24th, the entire Dortmund first team finished their training session and began to get ready.

Tonight, they would fly to London for the final showdown!

...

Colney Training Base was bustling with activity again.

Ironically, none of this activity had anything to do with Arsenal.

UEFA officials began to arrive at the training facility.

Since it was being loaned to Dortmund, UEFA had to prepare the site. This involved setting things up for sponsors and preparing the press conference hall, all of which was standard procedure.

Yet as Wenger stood watching from the window of the manager’s office, his expression was frosty.

He had thought he’d be accustomed to this kind of premature quiet by now; after all, it had become the norm for Arsenal.