Coach Conte wasn't in a good mood after the game. He shook hands with Coach Johansen before immediately marching towards the tunnel. He walked quickly and, before long, arrived at the area designated for the press.
"Antonio," the reporter said right after the Italian tactician stepped before the cameras. "Quite simply, how does this Europa League result leave you feeling?"
"Disappointed, of course," Conte replied. "We're out of the Europa League in the round of sixteen. For a big team like Juventus, such a result is unacceptable."
"What's your assessment of Juventus' performance over the two legs?" The same reporter asked.
Coach Conte shook his head as a rueful smile outlined his face. "We underestimated a dangerous player and allowed him to punish us during the two legs. Starting from the moment when he forced a penalty out of Buffon during the first leg, I knew that things would be very complicated. I tried to do damage control during the first leg, but we still lost 3:1 due to the numerical disadvantage."
"During the second leg," the coach continued, his English heavily tinged with an Italian accent, "We started slow. But we recovered quickly and picked up the tempo after a few minutes. Our efforts paid off, and we scored two goals during the 10th and the 79th minutes of the game."
"But very quickly, we grew confident and forgot about the immense threat that was Zachary Bemba, the Rosenborg number-8. He successfully hit us on a counter the first time, and we replied with a goal of our own, forcing the game into extra time."
"During extra time, we attacked and pressured the opponents as we searched for the goal. Rosenborg defended well and neutralized our momentum with tactical discipline and determination. As for us, we again grew arrogant and sloppy — and forgot about Zachary, and he hit us on a counter in the final minute of overtime."
"To sum it up," the coach said, shaking his head. "We didn't lose to the Rosenborg team or its tactics over the two legs. Instead, we lost to one player - Zachary Bemba."
**** ****
The following day, Coach Conte's interview was trending on most European sports blogs and even YouTube. During the morning hours, it was even more popular than the Juventus versus Rosenborg official UEFA match highlight video.
Over time, the netizens got curious about the Zachary Bemba mentioned by Coach Antonio Conte during the interview. They soon started browsing the web for information about the player in question. And, of course, the first and foremost result of their searches was the YouTube match highlight video showing Zachary destroying Juventus during the two legs of the Europa League's round of sixteen.
A relatively unknown YouTuber named 'True-BallMagnet' had edited the match highlight video into a ten-minute clip. He had even added visual and sound effects to make the highlights more entertaining.
When the netizens watched the video, they would hear catchy phrases like 'Oh, wow! Look. Look at this!' at the moment when Zachary sidestepped past Arturo Vidal or any other Juventus players. There were even clips of Sir Alex Ferguson dropping his chewing gum and Pep Guardiola holding his head in stunned surprise when Zachary forced the penalty out of Buffon.
The ten-minute video captured the attention of netizens around the world, who even became more curious about Zachary. They searched for more information about him, and soon his name became a trending topic.
Zachary's past match-highlight videos quickly hiked by 10,000s of views as netizens from all around the world continued watching them repeatedly. His social media accounts also experienced a surge of activity.
Kristin was seated on the kitchen table in her apartment located in Stjørdalsveien as she looked at the surging activity on Zachary's Twitter account. The afternoon sun rays constantly seeped into the room through the window to illuminate her pretty face, outlined by an expression of stunned surprise.
As Zachary's publicity secretary, her roles included managing his social media accounts. She monitored them on a daily basis and occasionally posted videos, pictures, and any other info that could boost his public image.
Early in the morning, when she'd just woken up that day, she'd checked on the social media accounts like usual. She'd soon noticed Zachary's Twitter and Instagram followers exploding in numbers. From the 500,000s, the digits soared all the way to 800,000s in a few hours.
And when the clock hand had just pointed to the two o'clock mark in the afternoon, Zachary's Twitter followers had bypassed the one million mark. As for his Instagram account, it had already achieved a following of 850,000. He was already the number-one trending person in Norway, and his Twitter popularity had long overtaken that of famous names, such as Magnus Carlsen and Vicky Vette.
Kristin was excited as she studied the numbers on her laptop. She hurriedly called Emily, Zachary's agent, to give her the good news.
"Hello, Kristin," Emily's vibrant voice sounded from the other side of the line when the call connected. "What's up?"
"Hi, Emily," she replied, breathing in deeply. "Have you noticed how Zachary's popularity has exploded on the web after yesterday's game?"
"I was in a meeting the whole morning and didn't check the web," Emily replied. "But I'm guessing that he should be the trending topic in Norway. With the way he played during yesterday's game, I wouldn't be surprised."
"Bingo!" Kristin said excitedly. "There's a person who posted a well-edited video of his highlights against Juventus on YouTube yesterday night. The video has already gained 100,000s of views within less than a day. Additionally, his followers on Twitter have already bypassed the one million mark."
"What!" Emily sounded surprised from the other end of the line. "His Twitter followers have already bypassed the one-million mark?"
"Yes," Kristin confirmed, glancing at her laptop screen. "To be specific, he now has 1,000,078 followers. Moreover, they continue to increase as we speak now."
"Damn it!" Emily mumbled from the other end of the line. "The Nike people pulled one over me."
"Sorry!" Kristin said. "Could you repeat that?"
"Don't mind my rumblings," Emily hurriedly replied. "I'm just regretting a deal I recently concluded. Anyways! You said that there's a person who edited Zachary's video well and posted it on YouTube."
"That's correct," Kristin confirmed.
"Is there a way to contact the person?" Emily inquired.
"Why?"
"I want to put together a team of professionals to manage miscellaneous issues for Zachary in the future," Emily replied. "One such professional will be a videographer/photographer who will work with you - the publicity secretary. That's why I'm thinking of contacting the YouTuber who posted the video to see if he fits the role and whether he's interested in working with us."
"I see," Kristin said. "I'll check for Instagram and Facebook links on the channel page. If there are any links, I'll message the person through the two platforms."
"Good," Emily said. "If you manage to get in touch with the YouTuber, contact me immediately. Then, we can assess him together and see if he fits the role."
"Okay," Kristin readily agreed. "What about Zachary? Should I inform him about his surging web popularity?"
"I don't think there's a need for now." Emily sighed audibly. "Zachary might not care for such issues at the moment. He traveled straight to Zurich to see his grandma today morning. We can wait until he returns to Trondheim before giving him the news."
"Okay, then."
**** ****
After a hectic day of bureaucratic meetings with the club management, Coach Johansen finally returned to his office to catch up with his work. He couldn't relax as he had to put together training plans and tactics for Rosenborg's upcoming matches.
His next opponent in the two legs of the Europa League's quarter-final stage was Olympique Lyon. His team, Rosenborg, would first play at an away ground against the famous French club thirteen days later, on April 3rd, 2014.
Aside from that, there was also the upcoming new season of Norwegian football commencing nine days later. Rosenborg would face off against Viking FK at home on March 29th as an opener for their 2014 Tippeligaen season.
The two matches that were only four days apart were already giving Coach Johansen pressure. His priority was, of course, the Europa League match. But he still wanted to win both games by relying on the depth of his squad.
He planned to use mostly the second team for the game against Viking and reserve the first team players for the match against Lyon in France. Thus, to achieve results from both fixtures, he needed to pull out all the stops and put together appropriate tactics and game plans that suited the two groups of players.
So, even though he'd just eliminated Juventus the previous day, he couldn't relax. He had to spend his evenings in the office, making the best preparations to enable his team to achieve the desired results from the two games.
"What's in the news today?"
Coach Johansen settled in his office chair and opened his laptop. Out of habit, he chose to first browse the sports news before starting his work. When he finished watching Coach Conte's post-match interview a few minutes later, he couldn't help but smile.
The Italian tactician was only half right during the interview. He seemed to have forgotten that the win over the two legs couldn't have been possible without the contribution of all the Rosenborg players. By maintaining tactical discipline and defending as a team, they managed to survive the onslaughts of Juventus during the second leg.
Coach Johansen shook his head and continued browsing the news. He continued reading the articles for the next few minutes until a catchy headline attracted his attention. His eyes narrowed as he started reading the article.
"As the saying goes," the article read, "If you can't defeat an opponent, bring him over to your side. According to a reliable source within the club, Juventus are just about to take the first step toward signing Zachary Bemba during the upcoming summer transfer window. After the 19-year-old demolished them and forced them to bow out of the Europa League, they have set into motion major plans to acquire his services before the start of the next Serie A season..."
Coach Johansen didn't continue reading. He sighed and leaned back into his chair before mumbling, "We've finally got to this."
Since Zachary was a phenomenal talent, he understood that he would leave the club sooner or later. As the academy coach, who witnessed his growth from the very start, he was obviously happy for him. But as a Rosenborg manager, he, of course, wanted to keep him at the club for a little longer.
"Let's wait and see," he thought. "I'll go with whatever top management decides."
**** ****
