Chapter 113

Chen Hero could still hear the clamor behind him when he met with Manager Marino and Head Coach Reja. A lot of it was fans shouting abuse at him.

Chen Hero couldn’t understand, but he wasn’t stupid. He could guess that they weren’t saying anything nice.

Even with his thick skin, he still felt a bit awkward in front of his two direct superiors.

“Hehe!” He gave a dry laugh.

Dekura was with him, acting as his translator. The club was in the process of finding him an Italian teacher, and he was expected to start in the next couple of days.

Chen Hero had learned a bit of Italian before coming, but it was limited to very simple greetings. His Italian wasn’t good enough for normal conversation.

Marino and Reja didn’t make Chen Hero feel any more awkward. They acted as if they didn’t see the uproar happening right under their noses. After shaking hands with Chen Hero, they headed for the team’s locker room.

Reja was going to introduce Chen Hero to his new teammates.

But deep down, both of them were worried about Chen Hero’s performance in Naples, given the big fuss he had caused. If he was booed as soon as he stepped onto the pitch, and even the home fans didn’t support him, would he be able to withstand the immense pressure and perform to the level he had in Zenit?

The defense in Serie A was stronger than in the Russian league, and for Chen Hero, Serie A was a whole new world. Could his individual characteristics adapt to the team’s tactics? And how would he handle his relationship with his teammates, given that he still couldn’t speak the language?

All these things were enough to give a new player a headache, but for Chen Hero, there was also the pressure from the fans and the media.

With so many complex circumstances, a player would inevitably have to spend a lot of energy dealing with the troubles and pressures in his life. How much energy would he have left to put into training and matches?

Starting his new season in Italy with such a beginning, Chen Hero’s form was a cause for concern.

Reja had another worry—he knew that Chen Hero had been scoring like crazy in the first half of the Russian Premier League, with twenty-one goals in eleven league games. This record was unmatched in Europe. But such a crazy run of form had been interrupted by the break. Could he continue in such a crazy state? Generally, such a crazy period was inevitably followed by a slump—his mind and body would be fatigued and in need of rest. It might not be so easy for him to get excited again.

If Chen Hero fell into a slump, the pressure on him, the head coach, would be immense…

Chen Hero, on the other hand, was full of anticipation and longing for his new club adventure.

Serie A! He had been familiar with those names since he was a child, having heard them from the broadcasts of that league.

What kind of performance would he have in such a vast world, wider than the Russian Premier League?

I want to score goals! Score more goals!

And so, with their own thoughts, the men disappeared from the sight of the media and the angry fans.

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The first thing Chen Hero did when he met his new teammates in the locker room was to have Dekura translate for him. He wanted to explain the things that had happened before—if everything went according to plan, some of these teammates would be working with him for several seasons, and he couldn’t afford to have a bad relationship with them.

He knew that the impact of this incident was widespread, and his teammates couldn’t possibly be unaware. If they were misled by the media, it would be bad for him…

Although Chen Hero sometimes seemed a bit foolish to others, he wasn’t stupid. He knew that locker room relationships were crucial for a newcomer to the team.

After his words were twisted by the media, inciting the fans’ madness and hatred towards him, he didn’t want to be in the same situation in the locker room.

It wasn’t like he was backing down. He genuinely hadn’t intended to insult Maradona. Explaining wouldn’t get him pregnant, so what was there to be afraid of?

He could see that some people on the team didn’t have very good expressions on their faces—later, during the self-introduction process, he learned that they were forward Ezequiel Lavezzi and goalkeeper Nicolas Navarro. It was understandable that these two Argentinians in the Napoli team were unhappy with Chen Hero, after all, according to the media, Chen Hero looked down on their entire Argentinian football idol, the King of Football, Maradona!

But after he explained, the expressions on the two men’s faces softened a bit.

This showed that his explanation had been effective.

As for the other Italian players, they simply treated the matter as a news story and didn’t feel angry or anything as a result.

Maradona wasn’t Italian. Even if he had once been the god of Naples, there weren’t many people in the team who had been nurtured by Naples—that Naples had already disintegrated and disbanded in 2004. When De Laurentiis formed this team, there weren’t even any players. Later, the people in the team were all found by Manager Marino and Head Coach Reja, who had run around everywhere.

Goalkeeper Matteo Gianello had transferred from the Lodiigiani club in Serie C2 when the new Naples was first established.

Another goalkeeper, Gennaro Iezzo, had transferred from Cagliari in Serie A to Naples, which was still in Serie C1 at the time, in the second season.

Paolo Cannavaro on the defensive line was a native of Naples. He was the captain of the Italian national team, and the younger brother of that world-class center-back, Fabio Cannavaro. Perhaps he still had deep feelings for the former Naples, but he had played for Parma for many years. He was a true professional, and he knew that in this business, feelings were not as important as the pursuit of fame and fortune. So although he had returned to his hometown team and was the captain of the team, he had never given up his dream of playing for a powerhouse.

He didn’t have much of a reaction to Chen Hero’s words. He even thought that Chen Hero had a point. As a local of Naples, he deeply understood this “nostalgia” of the Neapolitans. Naples was still immersed in the glory of being the capital of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but time was passing, the world was developing, and so was football. The team always had to improve. We respect Maradona, but this Naples is them wearing the Naples jersey and playing, and fighting. The future of Naples really depends on them, not on Maradona, who has already been enshrined as a god.

Fabiano Santacroce, who could play center-back and right-back, had only transferred from Brescia to Naples in January of this year and hadn’t had time to establish a sense of belonging to the team. Most importantly, he was Brazilian. Although he had already become an Italian citizen, he was born in Brazil. Brazilians worship Maradona? Ha!

Cristian Maggio, the one-stop shop on the right wing as a right-back and right-winger, had also just transferred to the team. He definitely didn’t come to Naples because he admired Maradona and planned to follow in his idol’s footsteps. So he didn’t care whether Chen Hero had really insulted Maradona or not.

Luigi Vitale, who was also a one-stop shop on the left wing, came from the new Naples’ training system, but he was only twenty years old, and Maradona’s era was too far away from him…

Manuele Blasi had transferred from Juventus to Naples last season, and he didn’t have any special feelings for the team’s legendary figure.

Walter Gargano, a Uruguayan, joined Naples last season. He was a loyal fan of Naples, and he had a lot of feelings for the King of Football, Maradona. He was the same height as the King of Football. So if there was anyone Chen Hero might have offended, it was him, but after listening to Chen Hero’s explanation, his expression also softened a bit. Even if he had any dissatisfaction, he still had to put on a show of politeness and couldn’t turn his face on the spot.

Michele Pazienza transferred from Fiorentina to Naples last season. He was completely irrelevant in this matter and had no special feelings.

There was also Marcelo Zalayeta, who transferred from Juventus last season. Naples and Juventus shared his ownership. He played in twenty-two games last season and scored four goals, which was not a good performance. He is currently recovering from a torn cruciate ligament. Chen Hero didn’t see him this time.

The last player he met was Marek Hamsik, the current core of Naples’ offense and defense, who also didn’t have much of a reaction to the matter. He welcomed Chen Hero’s arrival and told him not to care too much about the voices from the outside world.

“When you show your worth on the pitch, I think they will change their opinion of you.”

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Chen Hero had met all of his new teammates, and the internal situation of the team was relatively calm about the uproar outside. After all, these players weren’t ordinary fans who would get carried away and forget who they were after being incited by the media.

They had their own judgment. Whether Chen Hero’s words made sense and whether he really insulted Maradona, they all had their own opinions.

Unless Chen Hero said, “Maradona is an idiot, how can he be compared to me?” then no matter how he apologized or explained, the people in the locker room would not forgive him.

But obviously, Chen Hero wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that…

To say that Chen Hero’s first meeting with his teammates was actually quite uneventful. Nothing newsworthy happened. Everyone was unfamiliar with each other, and Chen Hero didn’t speak any languages other than Russian, Chinese, and English. His three languages were useless in the Neapolitan locker room, which was filled with Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Because of the language barrier, there wasn’t much to communicate.

After all, Chen Hero wasn’t an unknown nobody. He was the top scorer in the Russian Premier League last season, the top scorer in the UEFA Cup last season, and the main striker for the UEFA Cup champion team. Joining Naples wasn’t exactly a sign of low status…

Moreover, even if his new teammates didn’t know much about him before, they would have already known what kind of person their new teammate was through the media’s intensive bombardment in the past few days.

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ps, You guys are too fierce… you can smash out fifty monthly tickets in less than half an hour…

I said before that I could take a breather, but now it seems… it’s really a race against time!