Chapter 189 League Cup

While Chen Hero retaliated with a hat trick and officially declared war on Pavlyuchenko, Zenit achieved a breakthrough victory on another front—they returned to their home stadium and defeated Standard Liège 2-0, successfully advancing to the UEFA Cup main competition.

The only regret was that Chen Hero didn't score in this match. He came on as a substitute in the second half, played only fifteen minutes, and didn't have any decent opportunities.

This wasn't the first time Zenit had entered the UEFA Cup main competition, but Chen Hero was very much looking forward to it, because it was his first European campaign.

The group stage draw took place immediately after all the teams that had entered the main competition were decided.

In the end, Saint Petersburg Zenit was placed in Group A, together with AZ Alkmaar from the Netherlands, Everton from the English Premier League, Larissa from Greece, and Nuremberg from Germany.

The UEFA Cup is different from the Champions League. Each group has five teams, and there is no home-and-away system. Each team plays each other once, and the rankings are determined to decide who advances to the knockout stage.

Therefore, although the UEFA Cup group stage starts later than the Champions League and has more participating teams, all group stage matches can be completed before the winter break.

It's just hard on the Russian league teams. They still have to play three UEFA Cup group stage matches after the season ends. The last round of group stage matches ends on December 20th. And this season's Russian Premier League ends on November 11th.

Those teams that don't have to participate in European competitions are naturally disbanded directly, and the players are given a vacation. But the teams that need to participate in European competitions are in trouble, and still have to train and compete in the icy and snowy weather. Of course, for other European teams that unfortunately come to Russia to play away games at this time, they are even more miserable...

After the group stage opponents were decided, the schedule was also announced.

Zenit's matches started on October 25th, with a total of four matches. On October 25th, they first played AZ Alkmaar at home. On November 8th, they challenged Larissa away. On November 29th, they played Nuremberg at home. Finally, on December 6th, they challenged Everton away.

In this group, the strongest team is probably Everton from the English Premier League, while the weakest team is Larissa from Greece. The other three teams are middle-of-the-road teams that have a chance to advance and may also be eliminated.

Advocaat had to carefully study the opponents and decide what strategy to adopt in the group stage. For example, the away game against Everton was the last group stage match. If they played well before this match and had basically secured advancement, then the match against Everton would become a true friendly match—Advocaat felt that Everton should also advance early.

This most difficult match might become the easiest to play.

Although it was an away game, the match against Larissa shouldn't be difficult either.

What needed to be considered was the home match against AZ Alkmaar, and the home match against Nuremberg...

Play these two matches well, and you can win the right to qualify, otherwise... you're finished!

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Chen Hero wasn't the head coach, and he didn't care how the team would play or which match would require them to go all out, and which match they should conserve their strength. His mind was full of thoughts of letting the world know his name in the UEFA Cup main competition.

I want to score goals! I want to score more and more goals!

But so far, the domestic league was still more important. The first UEFA Cup group stage match wouldn't be until October 25th. Before that, he still had two league matches to play.

On the one hand, compete for the league championship, and on the other hand, completely crush Pavlyuchenko under his feet.

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On October 7th, Saint Petersburg Zenit challenged Moscow Lokomotiv away. Although this team was currently ranked eighth in the league, its strength shouldn't be underestimated. You should know that in the league round before last, they defeated Moscow Spartak 4-3 at home, pulling this team from the top of the league. Giving Zenit a chance to reverse the situation.

Zenit certainly didn't want to repeat Moscow Spartak's mistakes.

So in this match, Advocaat sent out the strongest lineup he could send.

Chen Hero started the match, at the very front, and his task was to capture the fortress and seize the stronghold.

Of course, Advocaat knew that Chen Hero was holding back his energy to compete with Pavlyuchenko, and his goals could bring victory to the team. This was what Advocaat wanted. Of course, he had to make good use of Chen Hero's desire.

As a result, in this match, Chen Hero lived up to expectations and scored another goal!

"The twenty-second goal! It's unbelievable! He's scoring goals continuously! He has already scored twenty-two goals! Since the establishment of the Russian Premier League, the most goals that the league's top scorer can score in a single season is twenty-five, created by Oleg Veretennikov in the 1995 season... Can Chen Hero break this record?"

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Relying on Chen Hero's goal, Zenit took down Moscow CSKA 1-0 away.

In this way, the pressure shifted to Moscow Spartak and Pavlyuchenko.

Especially for Pavlyuchenko... the pressure was quite high!

He didn't score in the last round of the league, which allowed Chen Hero to overtake him by one goal. In this round of the league, Chen Hero had already scored one goal. If he couldn't score again, the gap would widen. Eventually, it would be impossible to make up for it.

With this mentality, Pavlyuchenko was frantically looking for scoring opportunities in the match.

But there is an unbreakable truth, that is, your mentality is very important in football matches. The more anxious you are, the less chance you have. When you are calm, you will get many opportunities that you didn't dare to imagine before.

Pavlyuchenko's idea of competing with Chen Hero on the scorer list was good, but he didn't control his mentality well and was a little too anxious...

In the end, Moscow Spartak defeated Nalchik Spartak 2-1 away, continuing to closely follow Zenit in the standings, not giving Zenit the slightest chance to relax.

But Pavlyuchenko, who was out of balance, failed to seize the opportunity to score in the match, and the gap between him and Chen Hero was widened to two goals.

It was really wonderful. Just two league rounds ago, he was still leading Chen Hero by two goals on the scorer list. Who would have thought that now it would be his turn to be led by two goals...

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On October 20th, the twenty-seventh round of the Russian Super League, the Moscow Spartak and Moscow FC derby was very hot, and each side had a player sent off with a red card. Pavlyuchenko finally found his scoring touch in this match. He scored a goal from a penalty kick, bringing his total number of league goals to twenty-one.

Only one goal away from Hero.

Moscow Spartak defeated Moscow FC 3-1 in their home stadium, and returned to the top of the league before Zenit's match had even started. But everyone didn't care about this, because they all knew that as long as Zenit won, Moscow Spartak would have to fall from the top of the league again.

Sure enough, Saint Petersburg Zenit didn't disappoint those who were watching the show.

In the league match a day later, they completely defeated Khimki 4-1 at home, and unsurprisingly pulled Moscow Spartak down.

Now everyone felt that the competition for the league championship was just so-so. Anyway, both sides were in good shape. If they could both win, the league championship would definitely be Zenit's in the end. It just depended on who made a mistake in the end.

But the competition for the league's top scorer was different. In addition to the suspense of who would win the Golden Boot in the end, there was another suspense—Oleg Veretennikov's twenty-five goal record had been maintained for eleven seasons. Was there any hope of breaking it this time?

Chen Hero used a beautiful goal in the match to tell everyone—there was hope!

After scoring this goal, he had now scored twenty-three goals, only two goals away from Veretennikov's twenty-five goals.

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After this match, his pace of scoring goals like crazy in the league would have to stop temporarily and rest for a while.

The UEFA Cup group stage was here!

In Advocaat's plan, Zenit must win the home match against AZ Alkmaar, because this was a team of similar strength, and also the team that posed the greatest threat to Zenit.

But what was the result?

The result was that Zenit drew 1:1 with their opponent at home...

AZ Alkmaar took the lead away from home, scoring in the nineteenth minute.

Next, AZ Alkmaar, playing away from home, began to use frequent fouls to contain Zenit at home.

Especially Chen Hero.

When he rushed to the front, there would always be at least two people surrounding him, and they would use both hands and feet to defend.

The price that AZ Alkmaar paid for this was seven yellow cards and one red card in the entire match—their goal scorer, Ari, was sent off.

Chen Hero was unable to score in this match due to being suppressed by the opponent's foul tactics.

Captain Tymoshchuk helped the team equalize the score just as the second half of the match began.

After that, AZ Alkmaar's foul tactics continued. Because they were one player short, they withdrew all their forces, and fouling plus defending made Zenit's attack fall into a quagmire.

Obviously, Advocaat didn't expect that his team would encounter such stubborn resistance at home. He lacked change and couldn't come up with an effective solution.

Chen Hero also fell into the misunderstanding of competing with the opponent's body, blindly showing his strength, but forgetting to shoot.

In the end, Zenit could only regretfully accept the result of a 1:1 draw at home.

Although Chen Hero was very much looking forward to it, his first goal in the UEFA Cup had not yet arrived.

Being forced to a 1:1 draw by AZ Alkmaar at home cast a shadow over Saint Petersburg Zenit's prospects for qualifying for the group stage.

If they couldn't even get past the group stage, what was there to talk about a hat trick in the knockout stage?

Chen Hero wasn't too frustrated when he left the field. He frowned, and anger could be vaguely seen on his face.

He wasn't angry with the performance of his teammates, he was angry that his own performance wasn't good enough, and he couldn't score to help the team win.

He must advance to the knockout stage of the UEFA Cup, this was the dead goal he had set for himself.

For this goal, he was going to go wild.

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ps, I'm going to sleep in a while, I don't think there will be another update before I go to sleep after this one, right?