Tuba embarked on the way home, six years of side by side, six years of deep friendship, in the Taishan team legendary coach farewell, I can not help but come to mind the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei's farewell poem: "the mountains to send off, the sun dusk to cover the wood door. The spring grass will be green next year, will the king's grandson return?" Perhaps, Tuba will not come back after this farewell, but my heart is set on seeing him off.
Farewell, always with a little bit of sadness. 2009 November 4, less than nine o'clock in the morning, I rushed from home to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Tuba's residence. The hotel lobby was so cold that there were almost no fans. I walked straight to Tuba's room 1407. The driver, Mr. Zhang, was carrying Touba's luggage downstairs, three big boxes full, as if Touba had made a good plan not to come back. Tuba was wearing a light green T-shirt and hugged me tightly when he saw me. Memories of my first interview with Tuba flooded my mind. He asked me if I still remembered the moment we met, and I answered without hesitation, "Of course I won't forget, on January 7, 2004, when we first met at the Beijing airport, you were the first media friend I met after I arrived in China. Time flies, six years have passed, and today you are going back to China." It seems like yesterday that day, January 7, 2004, a cold winter day, I learned that Touba, the newly appointed head coach of Luneng Taishan Saloon, was coming to China. Since the salon had blocked the news, I had to go through a lot of trouble and make many inquiries to confirm his arrival. My colleague Cui Jian and I took a train to the Beijing airport and waited for Touba for more than three hours. After our meeting, Touba showed the demeanor of a professional coach, warmly embraced me and gave me an exclusive interview in the cafe. On the plane back to Jinan, Tuba ignored the fatigue of the trip and talked with me all the way. Time flies. Tuba sighs that time flies, compared with six years ago, his face has added many wrinkles, added some gray hair. When he first came to our country, Tuba was 51 years old, but now he is an old man who is about to enter his 60s. In the hall on the first floor, the reporters were ready to interview Tuba. The three old managers of Salon, Kang Mengjun, Han Gongzheng and Cui Faqiang, also came to the hotel to say goodbye to Touba. However, very few fans came to see Touba off. At that moment, I remembered the scene when Touba appeared at Jinan Airport on the night of January 7, 2004: many fans rushed to the airport from the city with flowers in their hands to welcome Touba; the whole Salon team came out, and the team captain Li Xiaopeng and the vice-captain Song Lihui went to greet him personally on behalf of the whole team. This time, only Gao Yao and Jiao Zhe of the Taishan team rushed to the hotel to say goodbye to Touba, but due to the traffic jam on the road, they were not able to see their mentor in the end. The final interview was only perfunctory. As Touba was leaving, the journalists of course wanted to interview him one last time, but since his interpreter Yao Jie had already returned to Beijing early, we had to ask Touba's agent Wen Jiaqing to act as a temporary interpreter, and we briefly conducted a group interview with Touba in the cafeteria. Touba seemed to have something to hide, and when it came to sensitive issues, Wen Jiaqing always glossed over them. At 9:20, Touba got into his car and left, and I took Salon Executive Vice General Manager Han Gongzheng's car to the airport. At the airport VIP lounge, many media reporters hoped that Tuba would open up at the last moment, but Tuba still only said some polite words. About the arrangement during his vacation, he said, "I'm going to rest and relax." Because of other activities in the VIP lounge, I and other colleagues who came to see Touba off left in a hurry and hugged him goodbye. Will Tuba ever come back? I had a hunch: it was unlikely that Touba would continue as Luneng's manager. Sure enough, the following year, Croatian coach Ivan Kovic took over the reins of Taishan, and in April 2013, Tuba was hired as head coach of Wuhan Zhuoer as a fire-fighting coach, and led the team to Jinan for a match in July, which was the last time I saw Tuba. Numerous fans rushed to the airport to welcome Touba and laid flowers in his honor. Before the match started, Salon held a unique ceremony, in which Salon's executive vice general manager Han Gongzheng presented a souvenir to thank Touba for his outstanding contribution to Luneng Taishan. In that match, Wuhan lost 1:4 due to the strength difference. Touba was not able to help the team change the downward trend in Wuhan, not because of his lack of ability, but because the team had a lot of problems and it took some time to transform the team. When Touba left again, I couldn't say goodbye to him.
