It wasn't just Pique and Valdes who thought he was just a bit unfocused; the commentators and fans on Barcelona's side thought so too.
After all, the game had only started for ten minutes, and sometimes a slow start was understandable.
Of course, a slow start wasn't a good thing, especially not at home.
So the commentator voiced what everyone was thinking.
"Barcelona's performance in the first ten minutes has not been good, we hope they can recover as soon as possible!"
Whether they can recover quickly depends on themselves on the one hand, and on whether Napoli will allow it on the other.
Napoli certainly didn't want Barcelona to recover quickly. Now that Barcelona had been stunned by Napoli's series of sharp attacks, Napoli couldn't wait for Barcelona to remain stunned until the end of the game...
Of course, that was impossible, so they had to seize the opportunity while they hadn't recovered to score a goal or something.
Chen Hero's two consecutive headers over Pique had greatly increased the confidence of the entire Napoli team in their attacking tactics—it seemed that Barcelona's aerial defense was still not very good!
If that's the case, then let's continue the bombardment!
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Barcelona tried to counterattack and control the rhythm of the game. Barcelona was good at controlling the ball, so simply competing with their opponents in speed was not going to work.
So Barcelona didn't launch a fatal blow when they attacked, but kept passing the ball around. This was what they were good at, and it was also a way to slow down the pace.
The pace of the game was too fast now, all thanks to Napoli. As long as Napoli had the ball and attacked, it was forward, forward, and forward again. There were very few horizontal passes, basically no back passes, and the two wingers were speeding forward, with Chen Hero following in the middle. Such tactics were too simple and lacked any technical content. In the eyes of Barcelona fans, it was simply unaesthetic and not worth mentioning compared to Barcelona's football.
Anyway, after getting the ball, it was all about pulling to the wings, passing, breaking through, getting to the baseline, crossing, and following up in the middle to shoot. Napoli was really embarrassed to bring this football philosophy, which was ten years behind, to the Camp Nou to show off!
But no matter how disdainful Barcelona's fans were of Napoli's football, there was one thing that existed objectively, whether they admitted it or not, and that was... this simple, crude, and technically devoid style of play was quite effective against Barcelona's defensive line, which averaged 1.82 meters in height and didn't have very good heading ability...
Barcelona passed the ball around for a long time and found that Napoli's defensive formation was well-organized and hadn't been disrupted by their passing, and Messi was closely marked, with De Jong following him almost every step of the way, interfering with him whenever he received the ball.
At the same time, Xavi was jointly contained by Pazienza and Hamsik, while Iniesta was handed over to Arshavin, who had retreated, and right-back Maggio.
Actually, even though Barcelona didn't seem to be getting any decent chances, their every attack still brought tremendous psychological pressure to Napoli's players. After all, they were Barcelona, after all, they were the six-time champions of last year, after all, they were the defending champions of the Champions League, after all... this was the Camp Nou, their home ground.
So, to reduce this pressure, defense was not the solution; scoring was.
Ranocchia intercepted Messi's forced breakthrough head-on, and then quickly kicked the ball forward, passing it to Hamsik.
He breathed a slight sigh of relief. The game had only started for fifteen minutes, but he felt like he had been playing for forty-five minutes.
The pressure was too great.
He turned his gaze to the frontcourt, where Hamsik was dribbling forward, while Chen Hero retreated to meet him. In addition, Arshavin and Cassano, and even Maggio, were sprinting forward!
This was a Napoli attack.
Damn it! Score a goal, Hero! Don't you know how difficult it is to defend against Barcelona's attacks!!
Ranocchia shouted in his heart.
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Hamsik dribbled forward, and Xavi came up to interfere with him. Before the game, Hamsik had said that Xavi was his idol. This statement was heavily publicized by the Barcelona media and was one of the pieces of evidence of Napoli's flattery. However, Hamsik was speaking from the heart. As a fellow midfield organizer, he really admired and liked Xavi. Putting aside the fact that they were opponents, he felt that Xavi was the direction he should strive for and the goal he should chase.
But now, the thoughts of chasing stars were temporarily put aside.
Hamsik didn't fight Xavi head-on; he directly passed the ball out, not to his teammates on either wing, but to Pazienza, who had come up. Pazienza then passed the ball back, and the two of them did a one-two, bypassing Xavi's defense.
Chen Hero was in front, retreating to meet him. This was what the coach had asked for. If the distance was too far, the accuracy of the pass would drop rapidly, so they had to be within a suitable distance.
But he didn't plan to give the ball to Chen Hero. Chen Hero's back was to the direction of the attack, so even if he passed the ball to him, it wouldn't make much sense.
Hamsik directly made a diagonal pass, lifting the ball up. He passed it to Cassano on the left wing.
Cassano used his chest to bring the ball down near the sideline, just as Barcelona's full-back, Daniel Alves, chased back from the frontcourt.
When Hamsik lifted the ball to Cassano, Chen Hero turned and ran towards Cassano, running in this way to ensure that the distance between himself and Cassano was also suitable, so that when Cassano wanted to pass the ball to himself, it wouldn't be so easy to misplace the pass...
Sure enough, Cassano brought the ball down and saw Alves rushing up, so he directly passed the ball to Chen Hero, who had come up to meet him.
Chen Hero didn't control the ball for long. After receiving the ball, he quickly passed the ball forward again. Without the ball, it was much easier for Cassano to get rid of Alves. After passing the ball, he went straight forward, very decisively, as if he knew that Chen Hero would pass the ball to him.
Then Chen Hero really passed the ball over!
After passing the ball, Chen Hero turned and ran diagonally into the penalty area.
Pique followed him all the time.
Cassano didn't continue to dribble the ball after receiving it, but... crossed it directly!
At this time, Arshavin and Hamsik both rushed into the penalty area, one in the middle and one at the near post, fully prepared to meet Cassano's pass.
But Cassano passed the ball into the edge of the penalty area, instead of in front of the goal.
Was this ball passed a bit too far from the goal?
It didn't matter, because the person I wanted to pass to was Chen Hero!
In the air, that was his territory!
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Chen Hero, who was running into the penalty area, had actually been paying attention to Cassano all the time. He saw that Cassano didn't dribble the ball but passed it directly, so he knew that this ball was passed to him, because only he was still in motion and hadn't been marked to death by Barcelona.
What?
You say there was still Pique next to him?
Ah, sorry, Chen Hero almost forgot about him...
Why mention a defeated general?
Chen Hero turned his head to look at the ball and began to adjust his steps.
Puyol was originally in the middle guarding Hamsik, but when he looked up, he saw that Cassano's ball was flying towards the penalty spot. So he quickly abandoned Hamsik and rushed forward towards Chen Hero.
Chen Hero felt that if he had to wait for the best time to jump, he might be beaten to it by Puyol. Because this best time only referred to the cooperation between himself and the ball, without taking into account the interference of the defensive players. Therefore, the best time only had reference value, not guiding significance.
He decided to jump early to disrupt the rhythm of the defensive players.
Jumping early might cause him to not be able to head the ball, or not be able to head it accurately. But this was the only way now!
Some distance away from the ball, Chen Hero, who was running, suddenly jumped up!
Pique, who had been following Chen Hero back, didn't expect Chen Hero to jump so early. He had also been observing the ball, judging the landing point and timing. According to his judgment, he should run one more step and then jump, so that the timing would be just right...
Who would have thought that the other party would jump early? Did this mean that Chen Hero wouldn't be able to head the ball? Was this a mistake?
Pique didn't dare to guarantee it, so he jumped up as well. It was a bit rushed, but it didn't matter. He saw his teammate Puyol, so his main task was to interfere with Chen Hero!
After jumping up, Pique grabbed Chen Hero's clothes with one hand, intending to slow down Chen Hero's speed. It would be even better if he could make him miss the ball!
However, in order to prevent the other party from falling into the penalty area, he didn't keep holding on, but grabbed the jersey and yanked it down, releasing his hand at the same time.
He was sure that this would be enough to make Chen Hero lose his upward momentum.
Next, it was up to Puyol...
He had already seen that Puyol had also jumped up.
Three people and one ball in the air, three dragons playing with a pearl!
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Chen Hero could feel Pique pulling him, but to be honest, it didn't work on him, because he had jumped with great force, so the momentum of rushing forward and upward was also very strong, plus his weight... Pique's pull was of no use at all, unless he kept holding onto the jersey, but in that case, the referee would have noticed it.
Since it didn't affect him, he ignored it.
Chen Hero's body was like a rocket launched, rushing diagonally into the sky.
In front of him was Puyol.
To the side in front of him was the ball.
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Puyol knew that Chen Hero had jumped early and guessed that it might be in order to compete with himself for the landing point, so he had to jump early.
As a center back, sometimes deterrence is also one of the defensive skills. It's best if you can force the other party to panic and make mistakes first just by virtue of your ability to appear in the right position.
So he was very happy that Chen Hero jumped early.
This meant that there was a good chance that he would head the ball!
Even though his height was much shorter than Chen Hero's, heading was by no means a mindless technique that only relied on height.
The person who jumps first will inevitably fall before the person who jumps later. This is a law of nature.
So Puyol jumped half a step later, which he thought was the most appropriate time. Jumping at this time had a very high probability of heading the ball.
But he soon realized that something was wrong!
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It wasn't just Puyol who realized that something was wrong, but also Pique!
Because Chen Hero, who had his jersey pulled, didn't fall down, but... continued to rise! He was as if he had rocket boosters installed on the soles of his feet! Gravity couldn't stop him at all!
The super jumping ability and outstanding hang time allowed Chen Hero to perfectly break through the defenses of Pique and Puyol. He headed the ball a step ahead!
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"Oh my god! He's so high!" a commentator exclaimed.
Accompanied by his exclamation, Chen Hero smashed the ball down with his head!
"Hero heads the ball!"
"herooooooooooooooooooo——!!"
The commentators roared.
Of the three people in the air, Chen Hero was the highest, Puyol was the second highest, and Pique, who was fighting in a hurry, was the shortest. He could only watch Chen Hero head the ball before Puyol...
The ball was smashed directly to the ground by Chen Hero, instead of the goal, and then bounced up again, just bypassing Valdes' defense and flying into the goal!
A beautiful rebound!
The air in the Camp Nou seemed to freeze at that moment!
Because the first goal was actually scored by the visiting team, Napoli!
Eighteen minutes into the game, Chen Hero scored the first goal with a header!
1:0!