Chapter 35 The Second Leg

Since they were going to have a life-or-death battle with Manchester United at Old Trafford, Mazzarri had to temporarily give up on the domestic league. In the thirty-fifth round of the league, Napoli played Genoa at home, and Mazzarri sent out the vast majority of his substitutes.

Even though he knew that Chen Hero was only one goal away from catching Nordahl's record, Mazzarri did not make an exception and let Chen Hero start. Instead, he let Cavani start.

Most of the main players got time to rest. They would go to Manchester United in the middle of the week to challenge a powerful opponent, so they couldn't do without rest.

At the same time, it was also to avoid injuries.

Mazzarri still remembered the last stage of last season, when Cassano was injured, Hero was suspended, and Ranocchia was also injured, one serious injury after another.

He didn't want to encounter such bad luck in the final stage of this season.

In the end, in their home stadium, Napoli relied on Zuniga's goal to narrowly beat Genoa 1-0.

In the next day's league, AC Milan also narrowly beat Bologna 1-0 at home.

The two sides were still only two points apart.

Napoli was temporarily ranked first.

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On May 3, the highly anticipated second leg of the National Derby began. In the end, Barcelona drew 1-1 with Real Madrid at their home stadium, and eliminated Real Madrid with a total score of 3-1 to advance to the final.

Chen Hero, who was watching the live broadcast in a hotel in Manchester, was in a good mood.

Barcelona had advanced, and Messi had not scored. Now Messi was still one goal ahead of him, such a small gap was nothing to him.

Mourinho's team had not been able to complete the reversal—in fact, this was also expected. Right after the first leg, Mourinho said that in UEFA, someone didn't want his team to win, and asked seven "whys" in a row, which angered UEFA, and he was said to be facing a suspension.

But for Mourinho, this season was still not a failure, because he led Real Madrid to the victory of the Spanish King's Cup.

And Real Madrid defeated Barcelona in the King's Cup final.

It couldn't be considered a complete disadvantage...

Barcelona's advancement filled Chen Hero with fighting spirit. Now, in his opinion, Manchester United had to die.

In fact, it wasn't just Chen Hero, many teammates were gathered in Chen Hero's room, watching the game together.

When the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, everyone jumped up and cheered.

If outsiders saw it, they would think this was a group of loyal Barcelona fans...

"Good job! Now we have a chance for revenge!"

"I'm going to kill them with my own hands!"

"We must let Barcelona see how powerful we are!"

Everyone cheered.

Chen Hero simply stood on the bed, waving his arms and shouting: "As long as we can beat Manchester United, we can go to Wembley for revenge, guys! So... Manchester United must die!"

"Manchester United must die!"

"Manchester United must die!!"

"Manchester United must die—!!!"

A group of people roared at the top of their lungs.

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After the game, the Catalan media did a survey—who do you want Barcelona to face in the final? The results showed that more than half of Barcelona fans wanted Manchester United to advance.

Obviously, this was because Barcelona fans hated Napoli too much and didn't want them to advance to the final. No one would want their mortal enemy to have a good life, right?

But when this matter reached Chen Hero's ears, a brand new explanation was born.

"I am very happy that the Barcelona fans finally know to be afraid of us, they are afraid of facing us in the final, because they know that we can definitely defeat them! Just like they know that I can definitely defeat Messi and be elected as the best scorer in the Champions League this season. It's just that they don't want to admit it on their lips. I bet if they hear my words, they will be embarrassed and angry and ridicule me, but I don't care. The more they do this, the more it shows how big their inner fear is." Chen Hero told reporters after adapting to the training ground.

Sure enough, when the Catalan media heard this, they launched a fierce ridicule and mockery. Of course, their reason was that Chen Hero was too arrogant... it had nothing to do with our inner fear.

Chen Hero ignored the media's ridicule and mockery of him, because he knew that only with absolute performance and results on the court, would slapping people's faces off the court be more powerful.

Besides, he already knew how to slap people's faces in the most satisfying way. For that moment, he had prepared for a full year, holding back a year of anger, and he would vent it all at Wembley Stadium. He wanted to show the Barcelona people how powerful the Vesuvius volcano, which once devoured Pompeii, could be when it erupted!

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Since the end of the first leg, Mazzarri had been considering how to win the game at Old Trafford.

In the group stage, Napoli had almost tied their opponent, only one goal away. But that was just an accident. You can't always expect your team to erupt in the second half, chasing two goals, three goals, or something. Just like Manchester United wouldn't think that as long as they returned to their home stadium, they would be able to score three goals in the first half and secure the victory.

That game was an exception and had no reference value at all.

The latest news from Manchester showed that Rio Ferdinand, who was sent off with a red card, would definitely not be able to play. There was no doubt about that. It was hard to say whether Park Ji-sung would be able to play.

At least in the weekend's Premier League game, Park Ji-sung did not play.

Ferguson also did not indicate that Park Ji-sung would be able to play.

Some English media said that Park Ji-sung's injury was more serious than everyone thought. He may have suffered a concussion, accompanied by mild vomiting... In short, it was impossible for him to play.

Park Ji-sung was the kind of person who could play a big role in attacking tough battles, because his spirit of never giving up until the last second could inspire the whole team and always create miracles.

If Park Ji-sung really couldn't play, it should be good news for Mazzarri.

He felt that he couldn't attack Manchester United at Manchester United's home stadium, because defense was not what Napoli was good at.

In the aggregate score, Napoli led 2-1, so Manchester United should be the one who was anxious.

He had decided to choose a more stable tactic at Old Trafford, focusing on defense and counterattack.

He would leave Chen Hero alone in the frontcourt, and then station troops in the backcourt. If there was a chance, he would directly pass the ball long to the front, giving full play to Chen Hero's role as a bridgehead for attack.

This way, as long as they didn't concede a goal in the first half, Napoli's chances of advancing to the final would greatly increase.

So in the past few days, Napoli's training had been mainly focused on defense. In attack, they also mainly practiced various counterattack routines, such as crosses from the wing, long passes from the backcourt directly to find Chen Hero... all kinds of things.

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On the afternoon of May 4, the entire Napoli team boarded the bus and drove to Old Trafford Stadium.

Sitting on the bus, the atmosphere of the Champions League semi-final was already very strong. On the road leading to Old Trafford Stadium, the flags of the Champions League and the participating teams were hung on the trees and lampposts on both sides.

On the road, you could also see home team fans wearing red Manchester United jerseys everywhere. There were a lot of them, definitely not "scattered in groups of three or five," but a huge crowd formed by who knows how many people.

And it was easy to see which were organized fan groups and which were individual fans.

Those who were gathered together, walking towards the stadium while singing songs in unison, were obviously fan groups. There were a lot of such fan groups, and there were very few individual fans.

Looking at those crowds, someone on the bus said, "I guess the whole of Manchester is our enemy..."

"Wrong. Half of Manchester supports us," Chen Hero said.

"Half of Manchester?" The person who spoke before was the team's main central defender, Ranocchia. He was a little puzzled.

"Manchester City fans. Have you forgotten? They definitely don't want Manchester United to win, right?"

There was a burst of laughter in the car. Yes, Manchester City fans would definitely not want Manchester United to have a better life than them.

In fact, some Manchester City fans really came to Old Trafford Stadium to watch this game. Of course, they didn't come to cheer for their city rivals. They didn't have such noble sentiments, and didn't think that everyone could represent the city of Manchester. Tearing each other down and scolding each other was the right thing to do. They were here to cheer for Napoli.

On the one hand, it was because they were mortal enemies with Manchester United and didn't want their mortal enemies to have a good life. If Manchester United were eliminated, they would definitely not pretend to be rational and say something like "In the Champions League final held at Wembley Stadium this season, Manchester United's elimination is definitely a tragedy for English football. At this moment, we are not Manchester City fans, we are English fans." They would only laugh as much as they wanted at Manchester United being eliminated by Napoli, and rub salt in their wounds.

Another reason was a bit far-fetched, but it could be considered a reason for Manchester City to support Napoli in this game—Manchester City's home jersey was sky blue, and Napoli's home jersey was also sky blue, only the depth of the blue was slightly different, but they were both blue. Since they were both blue, then they were one family...

Therefore, when the players saw some fans wearing Manchester City jerseys outside the stadium later, they were not surprised—Hero was right!

And when the players clearly saw the slogans on the banners held by the Manchester City fans, they all burst into laughter.

It turned out that both sides had thought of the same thing!

These Manchester City fans openly held up such banners in front of Manchester United fans to provoke them, proving that the relationship between the two clubs was very normal.

The banner read:

"To Napoli: Manchester United Must Die!"

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