Chapter 281 Air Superiority

Logically speaking, the English team shouldn't be afraid of aerial balls; after all, they invented the long pass and high ball tactic.

However, most of the current English teams are transitioning to a more technical style of play. Those who stick to the traditional English style are becoming fewer and fewer, and their results are mostly not good, ranking only in the middle and lower reaches, or even in some lower-level leagues.

Everton's style is still considered tough, with Joleon Lescott and Joseph Yobo, two central defenders with excellent heading ability, their aerial defense has always been strong.

But today, the two of them are facing a severe challenge!

This time, even the experienced Yobo was defeated. When he and Chen Hero competed for a header in the air, it was clear that Chen Hero jumped first, and then he jumped, but he didn't expect that the one who landed first was him, who jumped later, not Chen Hero, who jumped first!

Chen Hero now has this feeling—in the air, I can look to the left first, then observe the right, and consider who would be better to pass the ball to.

After he's done considering these things, he makes a heading motion, and his opponents have already fallen down...

This is the added effect of "Air Jordan's" hang time.

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While Everton's defenders were fighting Chen Hero in the air, Everton's forwards were also competing with Zenit's defenders.

This is an atypical game.

The focus of both sides is on the front and rear ends, rather than in the midfield...

Everyone's general perception is that "whoever controls the midfield controls the world," but this game subverted many people's perceptions. The midfield is irrelevant to Zenit, and it's not crucial to Everton either. Anyway, Arteta's midfield won't get too entangled with Zenit here, and they'll just try to pass the ball straight forward whenever they have the chance.

However, the effect is not as good as in the first half, because Zenit, with one less player, has shrunk its defense and compressed the space in the backfield, not giving Arteta a chance to pass behind the defense.

Andy Johnson and Yakubu's speed can't be used.

So the game presented a situation like this—Everton desperately tried to pass straight forward, but the success rate was very low. The Zenit backfield players who intercepted the ball didn't get too entangled with Everton's players either, and just kicked the ball forward with a big foot. Wherever Chen Hero was, the ball would fly there. Then Chen Hero jumped up and competed with Yobo, Lescott, and Carsley. He would win the first point nine times out of ten...

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Moyes on the sidelines almost twisted his eyebrows into water.

He found that neither Lescott nor Yobo, or Carsley, could shake that number 99 player's advantage in the air... He considered it and decided to give up competing with Chen Hero for the first point. It was futile, and wasting three people on him only gave Domínguez and Arshavin more opportunities, which was not worth the loss.

So he walked to the sidelines and made adjustments.

He withdrew Carsley from the battle, not letting him compete with Chen Hero for headers anymore. The 1.81-meter tall Carsley couldn't take advantage, even though his heading technique was very good, the huge gap in height and jumping ability couldn't be made up by simple heading technique. Not to mention that Chen Hero's heading technique was also very good.

Yobo was also withdrawn, continuing to let Lescott entangle with Chen Hero.

What were the withdrawn players going to do? Control the second point.

Since they couldn't grab the first point at all, then they simply wouldn't try to grab it, and grab the second point instead. As long as they could control the second point, it wouldn't matter how good the opponent's center forward's heading was—he couldn't possibly head the ball directly into the goal from thirty or forty meters away, could he?

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Moyes' move worked. Controlling the second point did take away Chen Hero's ability to use his strengths. After all, if Zenit's backfield directly kicked the ball long, he wouldn't be able to control the ball himself and then dribble into the opponent's penalty area—he wasn't good at dribbling.

In this way, Zenit's attack lost its threat. Because after Chen Hero headed the ball down, it would be intercepted by Everton's players.

The success rate of the attack was greatly reduced.

When they planned to head the ball to Arshavin, but the opponent guessed their intention and intercepted the ball midway, launching a high-quality counterattack that almost resulted in a goal.

Chen Hero felt a sense of crisis.

He used to think that with his current amazing heading skills and a long-range shooting skill, he should be able to rampage for a while.

Who knew that he would encounter trouble before the UEFA Cup group stage was even over. Although he had heading skills, his technical characteristics were still too simple... When the opponent limited his advantage in the air, he lacked other weapons.

He had to continue to become stronger, possess more weapons, be more comprehensive, and more powerful!

However, this sense of crisis did not make him feel frustrated, but... filled him with fighting spirit!

It was just the UEFA Cup group stage, and even an Everton was so powerful, what would it be like in the knockout stage? What about playing in the European Champions League in the future? With so many strong players, wouldn't it be even more exciting?!

Chen Hero didn't want to stay in St. Petersburg any longer...

His journey was the sea of stars, how could he be trapped in a remote and bitterly cold place like Russia?

But now, wearing the jersey of St. Petersburg Zenit, he had to contribute all his strength to this team.

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Chen Hero decided not to be an offensive transfer station anymore. Passing the ball to his teammates ultimately ended up at the feet of the opponents, which would make Zenit very passive.

He decided to use his feet.

Although his heading was strong, his feet were not useless.

When his teammate passed the ball over again, he jumped up, but instead of heading the ball, he chested it down!

After protecting the ball with his body, he passed the ball to his teammate again.

This was much more stable than directly using his head, and it was also not easy for the opponent to guess his intentions—everyone basically knew who he would head the ball back to—heading passes were very difficult, so he would definitely head the ball to those teammates who were easier to pass to, and the teammates in better positions naturally became the focus of the opponent's attention.

Passing with his feet was different, there were more possibilities with his feet.

When he pretended to pass the ball to Domínguez, but passed it to Hyypiä instead, Everton's defense was disrupted...

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Moyes on the sidelines frowned again, he hadn't relaxed his eyebrows for long, and now they were furrowed again. It was estimated that after today's game, the muscles on his eyes and forehead would be twitching.

This Chen Hero was more difficult to deal with than he had imagined...

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When Chen Hero could use both his head and feet to pass the ball to his teammates, Everton's defense began to waver, they didn't know how to defend anymore. Zenit didn't commit many players to the attack in the frontcourt, but because they had Chen Hero, even with so few people, they could stir up a storm in Everton's half!

Chen Hero turned around and passed the ball to Arshavin, then ran forward. Arshavin passed the ball back to him, the two of them completed a one-two, and then he passed the ball to Domínguez, who was running up from behind.

The Argentine midfielder suddenly took a long-range shot, and the ball rolled out of the baseline, just missing the post, causing a burst of exclamations in Goodison Park.

Everton pressed forward in force, while Zenit was determined to play a defensive counterattack, it seemed that Zenit had more opportunities...

"Domínguez's long shot almost flew into the goal! Really dangerous! Can everyone see now that Zenit has one less player than Everton? At least I have completely ignored this fact. From the looks of the game, the two sides are evenly matched, or even... Zenit is more threatening!"

"Chen Hero's role for Zenit is reflected here. With him, there is a fulcrum for the attack in the frontcourt. Even if they kick the ball up with a big foot, someone can get the ball down, so that others can confidently come up to attack, and the quality of the attack will naturally improve. It now seems that Moyes' neglect of Chen Hero before the game was indeed a big problem, perhaps even... fatal!"

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Chen Hero, who could cooperate with his teammates both up and down, made it difficult for Everton to defend.

So he quickly broke through Lescott's defense—he passed the ball to his teammate, and then ran into space. At this time, his teammate would seize the opportunity to pass the ball over, so he didn't need to dribble and break through, which was not his strength.

But this was not the most terrible thing. The most terrible thing was when Chen Hero pressed to the edge of the opponent's penalty area... Zenit's attack had a bridgehead that could directly threaten Everton's goal.

He controlled the ball with his back to the direction of the attack. Although he couldn't turn around or break through, he could protect the ball and then pass it to his teammates—like a gun emplacement...

In the seventieth minute, this kind of tactical cooperation was played out.

Arshavin dribbled the ball in from the wing and suddenly cut inside, while Chen Hero pulled out of the penalty area to seek cooperation with him—in the past, this work was done by Kerzhakov, while Chen Hero waited for headers in the penalty area. Now that Kerzhakov was off the field, he naturally had to come, otherwise if he continued to stay in the penalty area, Arshavin would dribble to a dead end...

Arshavin saw him come out to meet him and passed the ball over, while he continued to run horizontally.

Chen Hero raised his arm and blocked Lescott behind him with his body, then passed the ball horizontally to Arshavin, who had bypassed him to the other side.

After passing the ball, Chen Hero did not stay where he was, but turned around and rushed into the penalty area!

Looking like he wanted to play a one-two with Arshavin, Lescott followed him back—the space came out!

Arshavin didn't hesitate and shot directly!

The ball flew quickly along the grass towards the far corner of the goal!

Tim Howard made a save, but this shot was very sudden, and Chen Hero's run attracted Howard's attention—he always thought that Arshavin would pass the ball back to Chen Hero, and let him shoot again after a one-two.

So when he pounced over, it was obviously too late...

The ball rolled into the goal along the grass, was lifted up by the net, and then rolled out... but this could not change the fact that the ball had broken through the goal!

"Goal! Beautiful! Arshavin's long shot!!" Yuri Petrov cheered again.

"They are leading Everton away from home! In this crucial game, they finally see the light of victory!!"

Arshavin, who scored the goal, ran directly to Chen Hero and hugged the hero who made the ball for him. But it looked like Chen Hero directly picked up the petite Arshavin...

The St. Petersburg Zenit fans in the stands let out a huge cheer.

This time, they briefly became the masters of this stadium again!

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