The 2007 season of the Russian Premier League kicked off on March 10, 2007. Before that, all teams were working hard to prepare for the new season.

Due to the weather conditions in St. Petersburg, the team's training was conducted in the indoor stadium.

Outside it was freezing, inside it was hot and steamy.

Chen Hero and his teammates were drenched in sweat by Advocaat's training.

This high-intensity training was all for the matches this season.

Although Chen Hero's clothes were soaked with sweat, he adapted well.

After the physical training phase, Advocaat mainly focused on the drills of offensive routines. Last season, he hastily pushed Chen Hero to the position of main striker. Chen Hero exposed his lack of experience, and he also seemed inexperienced.

As a result, Chen Hero was easily marked to death by his opponents on the field.

This season he has time, so he will naturally formulate offensive routines and tactics around Chen Hero's characteristics.

How to cross from the wing and how to cooperate? How to cross and cooperate at a 45-degree angle? How to maximize Chen Hero's heading ability during free kicks and corner kicks in the frontcourt? Chen Hero scored ten goals last season, but none of them were scored from set pieces, which was a huge waste. In addition, whether Chen Hero should bear the responsibility of defense, and whether he should make牵扯 running (qianche running - creating space) for his teammates in the offense... These problems also plagued Advocaat.

Judging from the training, Chen Hero was not interested in defense at all. Advocaat once asked Chen Hero to actively return to defense, but Chen Hero's response was to desperately score goals in training matches and warm-up matches, and then run to talk to Advocaat - Look, since I can score so many goals in the game, isn't it a waste to let me defend?

His approach made assistant coach Potter very angry, but Advocaat didn't know why he was so fond of this big kid who was not yet nineteen years old. He acquiesced to Chen Hero's status of not participating in defense, and Chen Hero was able to continue to stand at the forefront of the attack. Even if the whole team retreated to defend, he was still the one closest to the front. When the team launched an attack, he was like a lighthouse, illuminating the way for the team to attack.

Every coach may have his own set of methods for dealing with such unruly special talents. Some choose strict discipline, some let them develop freely, and some guide them on the right track like a loving father.

Advocaat chose "spoiling" because he found that no matter how much he indulged Chen Hero, even if he went to nightclubs, drank and had fun, or was not very obedient in training, he could always score goals on the field.

For a striker, what better performance could there be than this?

He and Chen Hero seemed to have signed a tacit agreement. Advocaat gave Chen Hero the greatest degree of freedom, and Chen Hero rewarded him with one goal after another.

In the pre-match warm-up matches, Chen Hero scored goals one after another, most of them were headers, and occasionally he would show off his long-range shooting ability.

Advocaat saw his progress from it, and what surprised him was how fast Chen Hero's progress was... It stands to reason that an eighteen-year-old player is originally in a stage of rapid growth, so it's no big deal if he improves faster. But Chen Hero's progress was too fast, right? His growth curve was simply rising all the way. Less than half a season ago, he was only good at heading, but now he has learned an excellent long-range shot.

Advocaat didn't know why Chen Hero had improved so significantly and quickly. He didn't find anything special from his daily training, and what's more, he didn't even do extra training after training now.

His rapid progress is like a mystery.

But that's not important. What's important is that his progress is fast, which means that he still has enough room for growth. What will he look like in the end?

Advocaat was full of anticipation.

For Chen Hero, he didn't care how many goals he scored in the warm-up matches. He just wanted the new season to come sooner.

But now he has been able to realize that he is famous. Because on the sidelines, more and more fans are asking for his autograph, and many fans are wearing his No. 99 jersey at the training ground.

In fact, Chen Hero likes the No. 9 jersey, but the No. 9 jersey belongs to Teke, and Teke is unlikely to leave the team for a while. Advocaat originally planned to give Chen Hero a small number symbolizing the main position, such as No. 8. But Chen Hero didn't feel anything about No. 8. He felt that this number was more like a midfielder's number and had nothing to do with a center forward.

So he will still wear the No. 99 jersey in the new season to compete in the Russian Super League.

The largest number of all numbers also symbolizes his ambition - he wants to be the most outstanding center forward in the Russian Premier League!

In addition to wearing his jersey and more and more fans asking for his autograph, Chen Hero also saw... Chinese reporters outside the stadium!

St. Petersburg Zenit is no stranger to reporters from the East. Last season, three Korean players joined the team, attracting a large number of Korean reporters to follow and report on the lives of the three Korean players in Zenit.

Now, Xuan Yongmin has been sold back to Ulsan Hyundai by the team. He has not had any decent performance in St. Petersburg Zenit.

Li Hao has lost his position due to the arrival of Tymoshchuk, and now he has been reduced to a reserve team player. Among the three Korean players, only Kim Dong-jin can still play in Zenit.

At the beginning, the large-scale joining of three players to Zenit caused the Korean media to be as excited as if they had been injected with chicken blood, flocking to report on these three Korean players. Some domestic media in Korea even gave these three people a group name called "Korean Three Musketeers", seemingly wanting to compare them with the "Dutch Three Musketeers" and the "German Three Horsemen", but facts have proved that this is just a case of Dong Shi imitating Xi Shi (a saying meaning to make a fool of oneself by blindly imitating).

The Korean players' performance was not strong, and only Kim Dong-jin could save face for them. Therefore, the Korean reporters gradually lost interest in this icy and snowy place. After the new season began, as Xuan Yongmin returned to Ulsan Hyundai and Li Hao was relegated to the substitute of substitutes, a large number of Korean reporters also withdrew back to China, and fewer and fewer Korean faces remained here.

But the number of Easterners has not decreased, and other people have quickly filled the void they left - Chinese reporters are here!

After Chen Hero returned to China in winter, he was searched out by omnipotent netizens and reporters, and his goal videos were also placed on the Chinese Internet, but there was still too little understanding of him. So this season, two professional sports media in China have sent reporters to interview and report.

Some media, due to economic pressure, could not send reporters, but they were also paying attention to Chen Hero's situation on the Internet at any time. The official website of St. Petersburg Zenit was even crashed several times due to the enthusiasm of Chinese netizens.

Later, Zenit's official website upgraded the server and added Chinese as an option in the language bar. Now Chinese fans no longer have to worry about not understanding Russian... As a result, Zenit's official website crashed again for several hours...

The Zenit club saw the publicity effect that Chen Hero brought to their club, so they decided to promote this young man who was only eighteen years old.

To make him Zenit's spokesperson in China, which will help promote the club's image and increase its popularity. After all, China, as a huge market, cannot be ignored by anyone.

Soon, the manuscript of Chen Hero's exclusive interview with Zenit's official website appeared on the homepage of the website, accompanied by photos of Chen Hero scoring goals in the warm-up match. Now no one dared to doubt Chen Hero's identity anymore - in fact, before this, some people in China did express doubts about Chen Hero's identity and status. Some people thought that Chen Hero might be an imposter, he just happened to look a bit like the person in the photo... Others thought that Chen Hero was a Zenit player, which was true, but his status in the team was definitely not as high as he said, maybe he was just an ordinary substitute player...

Even such an idiotic point of view, under the huge base of the Internet, there were still people who believed it.

But now, no one doubts it anymore.

In the interview, Chen Hero described how he came to the team, which was the same as what he said when he was interviewed by his hometown media in Chengdu. And Zenit officially highlighted the grievances and hatred between Chen Hero and Moscow Central Army - after those Russians finished reading this exclusive interview, they realized that Chen Hero was almost going to join Moscow Central Army!

If it wasn't for Central Army's arrogance...

The follow-up of this news was that the assistant coach of Moscow Central Army, Ratish, was reportedly scolded by the club's senior management, because he had let go of such an excellent center forward!

Although Moscow Central Army already has two excellent forwards, Jô and Vágner Love, who would dislike having more excellent players?

Before the start of the season, the focus of media reports was on transfers, but the warm-up status of each team was also closely watched.

Chen Hero scored goals in the warm-up matches one after another, and a St. Petersburg media ridiculed their Moscow rivals: "...Every goal Hero scores now is like slapping Moscow Central Army in the face - Let you be arrogant to me at the beginning! Let you look down on me at the beginning! Let you be arrogant at the beginning!"

The facts were about the same as what this media said...

Since Gasayev learned about the story behind Chen Hero and Moscow Central Army, he hadn't given assistant coach Ratish a good look for two whole weeks.

Ratish also knew that he was in the wrong - when he saw that damn kid at the beginning, who could have known that he contained such terrifying potential? He was so clumsy at the beginning, at most he was a little stronger physically. Even his proud heading ability was only barely headed into one goal when facing youth team players...

He at that time was far from the "super center forward" who is now scoring goals in the warm-up matches and scored ten goals in eleven league rounds last season.

Ratish still couldn't accept this reality. He felt that God had played a big joke on him. He made him a clown-like character. Now the entire Russian football world is laughing at him for having misjudged him and letting Zenit pick up a big bargain.

He is a negative example, and the positive example is the chief scout of St. Petersburg Zenit, Panchenko. This scout, who brought Chen Hero from outside the training base of Moscow Central Army to St. Petersburg, has a more stable position in the club...