Chen Yingxiong’s goal had the Barcelona defense feeling rather dejected.
“It must be luck, right?”
“Definitely good luck…”
“A fluke, definitely a fluke!”
They quickly arrived at this conclusion when they put their heads together. Because if it wasn’t a fluke, they really couldn’t believe that Chen Yingxiong could score such a beautiful goal.
Actually, many wonderful and stunning goals worthy of a spot on the year’s Top 100 Goals list had an element of luck.
But some goals depended more on luck and others more on skill. And Chen Yingxiong’s goal… actually depended more on skill.
Using the head to dribble past people wasn’t unprecedented. A long time ago, the King of Football, Pelé, once put on such a performance, and more recently, the young Brazilian player Kerlon performed his seal-like dribbling many times. This player was even signed by Inter Milan in 2008, and then loaned to Chievo. However, Kerlon’s seal dribbling was more of a show and performance. Chen Yingxiong’s header dribbling didn’t have a lot of moves, but it was very practical, and he even completed a goal. It’s no wonder Barcelona couldn’t defend against it—Barcelona’s defense was already poor when it came to aerial defense, and Chen Yingxiong was still passing people in the air. They couldn’t exert their strength at all.
Faced with such a loss, they could naturally only attribute it to the fact that the other side had too much luck, while they were simply too unlucky…
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While the Napoli fans were celebrating the goal like crazy, Messi was caught in the crossfire.
Because a group of Napoli fans pointed at Messi and shouted, “You’ll never score a goal like that in your life, Messi!!”
In such a noisy environment, there was no way Messi could have heard this sentence. But he was indeed depressed by the conceded goal. The goal meant that Napoli had tied the aggregate score, and relied on two away goals to take the advantage in advancing.
He had to score.
The team was encountering difficulties, and as the team’s biggest star, of course he had to step up to save the day.
But he was trapped.
This wasn’t the first time he had felt this way. During the first leg of the match, he also felt like he had a lot of strength but nowhere to use it.
When he got the ball, that De Jong would follow him closely, tackling fiercely, making him suffer unspeakably.
Not only that, his teammates were also being closely guarded by the Napoli players.
This was truly the most difficult match he had felt as a Barcelona player in the past year…
The television broadcast seemed to know what Messi was thinking, and gave Messi a close-up shot.
After seeing this shot, He Ping said, “This match is actually a contest between two strikers. In this contest, Hero is currently in the lead. As Barcelona’s number one star, can Messi turn the tide?”
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Taking the lead after just eight minutes was something that Mazzarri was very happy about. It couldn’t be better. And judging from the game, his targeted defensive strategy was also very effective. As long as there were no accidents, if things continued like this, Napoli would have a good chance of eliminating Barcelona and advancing to the semi-finals.
At the thought of leading the team to the Champions League for the first time and actually being able to break into the semi-finals, Mazzarri trembled slightly with excitement.
The Champions League semi-finals! This would become the most glorious mark on his résumé.
Actually, although he didn’t show it on the outside, Mazzarri privately had some opinions about Mourinho winning the Serie A Coach of the Year award. He thought Mourinho just had a good foundation, and that foundation was laid by Mancini.
He didn’t think he was any worse than Mourinho at all. If he could lead the team to the Champions League semi-finals, it would definitely become an important achievement that would attract the attention of the top teams.
Although Mazzarri was coaching Napoli, he did have the idea of going to a big team to be the head coach in the future.
Barcelona, who the entire Europe… no, the entire world couldn’t defeat, was actually going to be defeated by Napoli!
At the thought of this, Mazzarri felt complacent. He stood on the sidelines with his arms crossed, looking smug.
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It wasn’t just him who was very proud. Even the Italian commentators thought that Napoli’s performance was excellent, that they had the actual advantage, and that defeating Barcelona and advancing to the semi-finals wasn’t a dream.
“Before the quarter-final match against Barcelona, many people thought that Napoli’s Champions League journey would end here. They might be defeated miserably at the Camp Nou in the first leg, but what people didn’t expect was that although they were defeated, it wasn’t miserable at all. And now they are even in the lead!”
He also focused on praising Chen Yingxiong’s performance.
“The reason why Napoli is able to compete evenly with Barcelona is because they have a super strong center forward. Because of Chen Yingxiong’s existence, Mazzarri can get more room to maneuver in tactics and strategy. Chen Yingxiong alone is enough to contain Barcelona’s entire defense. His strong body and excellent header skills make him the forward that Barcelona’s defenders are most unwilling to face! I think that as long as Chen Yingxiong is on the field, even if he doesn’t score, it’s completely enough to give Barcelona a headache…”
That was very correct.
Now, whether it was Guardiola or Pique and the others, they all had a headache because of Chen Yingxiong.
Napoli knew very well about Barcelona’s weakness in aerial defense, so they kept passing high balls when attacking, just to keep the football in the air. And in the air, Chen Yingxiong was almost invincible.
“Hero is here again—a header!! This time, Puyol is being suppressed by him!”
Valdés made a great save, flying out sideways and catching the football firmly in his hands.
But soon he could only watch the football helplessly…
“Napoli’s free kick in the frontcourt… a high ball cross, it’s Hero again! He headed the ball again… Oh! The crossbar! The crossbar saved Barcelona!”
With a crisp sound, the football bypassed everyone’s defense, and then hit the crossbar as everyone “escorted” it with their eyes… Chen Yingxiong held his head in his hands, looking very regretful.
This time, Valdés didn’t react, because the distance was too close, and he didn’t have time to pounce.
Fortunately, the football was blocked by the crossbar, otherwise it would be difficult to play this game if they fell behind by two goals…
“Chen Yingxiong is now Napoli’s most threatening player. Every time he jumps, he can bring huge psychological pressure to Barcelona’s players and fans. Pique is no match for him in heading the ball… and Hero’s condition in this game is also very good. I always feel that the beautiful goal before won’t be the only goal he scores in this game…”
The “Blue Giant Bear” organization in the west stand kept shouting: “Score one! Score another one! Hero!!”
In addition to this, the entire Stadio San Paolo was filled with songs and shouts cheering for Napoli. Regardless of whether Napoli’s attack was threatening or not, the sound wouldn’t be small. And when Napoli got a threatening attack, there was no maximum, only bigger—the voices of the Napoli fans had broken through the sky.
You really need to have a good mental fortitude to play in such a stadium…
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In the fifteenth minute, Napoli continued to launch an attack, and it was still a high ball this time.
However, the step of going through the midfield was omitted, and instead the right back Maggio directly launched a long pass from the backcourt to the front.
The football flew out in a diagonal line, flying straight from the right to the left.
Chen Yingxiong also moved to the wing. He didn’t look at the position of the defending players. He kept staring at the football, and then slowly moved his feet, came to the wing, and then when he felt it was okay, he stopped and prepared to receive the ball.
This time, it was still a chest trap.
The position he was in happened to be the territory of Barcelona’s right back, Alves.
The pressure was on Alves, who was 1.73 meters tall, to compete for the header with Chen Yingxiong, who was 1.93 meters tall…
But he couldn’t just not defend because of that, could he?
Chen Yingxiong used his chest to stop the football before scoring the previous goal.
Barcelona couldn’t concede another goal…
But how to stop Chen Yingxiong?
He didn’t have much time to think.
The football fell from the sky.
Chen Yingxiong moved sideways, blocking Alves in front of him, and then… he raised his arms, preparing to chest trap the ball.
A flash of inspiration struck Alves’ mind, and he was sure he had caught something.
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Chen Yingxiong had his back to the baseline, blocking Alves behind him. He could feel this, because Alves was right behind him, trying to get around him to the left and right.
He didn’t care about that short guy. Alves’ small body had no chance of winning against him!
Chen Yingxiong raised his arms, then retracted his chest, lowered his head, and relaxed his chest muscles.
This was a very standard and correct chest trap.
When the football landed on his chest, it cushioned the impact. This time it didn’t bounce up high again, but obediently fell down.
Very good!
Chen Yingxiong praised himself in his heart. Next, he would take the football into the penalty area, stride away from Alves, and if the other party wanted to follow, he would use his physical advantage to block the other party firmly behind him, not giving him a chance to touch the football. As long as he entered the penalty area, the other party would have no way to deal with him…
He stretched out his foot and took the football away, keeping his eyes on the ball. Then he exerted force and kicked his legs, ready to rush forward!
At this moment, he heard a clear, piercing whistle.
He looked up and saw the referee in the distance running towards him. At the same time, his hand was still groping for something in his chest pocket.
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“What happened? Alves, who was fighting with Hero for position, suddenly fell to the ground covering his face. He was rolling on the ground, looking very painful… The referee blew his whistle to stop the game, and he ran towards Hero with something in his hand… God! A red, a red card!!”
The commentator’s voice changed with fright…
Chen Yingxiong stared blankly at the referee running towards him with a red card in his hand, not knowing what was going on. He looked around, looking very dazed.
Chapter 1 The Beginning
Hu Die Lan