Back home, Cao Baiming placed the heavy golden football trophy on a specially prepared oversized display cabinet.
The display cabinet, so far, didn't hold many awards. It only contained a single row, including the league golden boot, Champions League golden boot, Champions League Ballon d'Or, the Puskas Award, and the Best Newcomer award. Among these, the Ballon d'Or was the most prestigious, hence it was placed prominently in the center.
Anyone who saw this magnificent display cabinet would surely mistake it for the lifetime accumulation of honors of an outstanding player.
In reality, Cao Baiming had only taken less than two years to win all these awards.
Looking at the entire history of football, very few individuals could achieve this!
The Ballon d'Or award ceremony had finally concluded. While this was good news, it didn't have much impact on Cao Baiming, as his expectations had already been fully met beforehand.
The truly important matters were the results accumulated during these past two months, primarily the construction of the Manchester United team.
Currently, the team looked vastly different from its initial state.
The players they intended to sign would mostly join the team this summer, and a majority of them were free agents whose contracts had expired.
However, aside from players with expiring contracts, there were also special cases, such as Neymar.
Guardiola's arrival was the biggest piece of good news in this entire endeavor. Over the past two weeks, Cao Baiming and Guardiola had exchanged countless ideas regarding player acquisitions and team tactical construction.
As an experienced head coach and widely recognized as the world's foremost tactician, Guardiola's strategic thinking was naturally profound. Even when compared to Cao Baiming, he did not appear clumsy.
Yet, in his conversations with Cao Baiming, Guardiola set aside his usual arrogant demeanor and humbly acted like a student.
Despite this, Cao Baiming still put in a significant effort to convey his entirely new tactical philosophy to Guardiola.
Although Guardiola spent a considerable amount of time and effort to truly grasp the meaning and tactical philosophy behind it, Cao Baiming knew it was already remarkable. Any other coach might never comprehend it in their lifetime.
This tactical approach was not conceived out of thin air. It was the result of extensive system calculations and simulations, having been tested millions of times to derive the most suitable strategy for the upcoming season.
The reason why most teams did not employ this tactic was simply that their head coaches lacked the foresight; in simpler terms, their capabilities were limited.
Even with some doubt in his mind, Guardiola chose to humbly accept, because regardless of the outcome, he was eager to test it and see how it performed in actual matches.
He could not wait to witness the complete vision of the team that Cao Baiming had assembled.
Its level of extravagance was unprecedented. Even Guardiola, in his entire career, had never witnessed such a scenario. Even an All-Star game wouldn't feature such a star-studded lineup, yet it was already visible in this nascent Manchester United.
The squad that Cao Baiming was building was becoming increasingly clear.
The forward line included Neymar, Messi, Ronaldo, Sancho, and Martial, among others. The midfield featured Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, Verratti, Kante, Luis Figo, and McTominay, among others. The defense comprised Alaba, Hakimi, Carlos, Gvardiol, Cancelo, and Luke Shaw, among others.
In terms of goalkeepers, the team currently had two top-tier keepers, Courtois and De Gea, which slightly diminished the overall luxury.
This lineup, from any angle, appeared incredibly luxurious, even flawless.
It was only marginally different from the FIFA FIFPro World 11, and even with the differences, Cao Baiming's assembled squad seemed even more perfect. In fact, the FIFA selected lineup had already lost numerous simulations against Cao Baiming's own meticulously crafted team.
In the new season, the football world would witness a team that was utterly perfect, from head to toe. This team was Manchester United!
For Cao Baiming, this was both an achievement and a challenge.
Because once the new season began, this Manchester United would become an absolute rival to Nottingham Forest. They not only competed in the same league but would also be among the most competitive teams in the upcoming Premier League season!
Nothing could be more exciting than this. Unlike every previous season, Cao Baiming was filled with anticipation for the start of the new season, even wishing the holidays would pass faster.
Even globe-trotting wouldn't bring the same thrill as facing the perfectly assembled Manchester United he had personally built on the football pitch.
Cao Baiming's goal was to personally forge this team into the undisputed world number one, an invincible entity, and then to personally defeat it!
Upon arriving at the team, Guardiola had contributed significantly to the squad's composition and player negotiations. However, one aspect he couldn't quite understand was Cao Baiming's personal situation.
He clearly wanted to build this team into an invincible force, yet he was also joining another team.
At this moment, Guardiola began to doubt whether Cao Baiming's Nottingham Forest would be able to overcome this Manchester United that was currently being assembled in the next season.
He increasingly felt it was unlikely. Even if Cao Baiming were a god, he was still just one god. But in the current team, he saw a legion of gods.
At first glance, the squad's extravagance at Nottingham Forest was incomparable to this Manchester United. There was simply no basis for comparison.
Apart from Cao Baiming, a true superstar, Nottingham Forest lacked any other truly outstanding names in other positions.