Chapter 42 Towards Their Goals

Mazzarri was leading the team towards his UEFA Cup goal, while Chen Hero was heading towards his Champions League goal.

The two had different goals, but they were walking the same path.

While Chen Hero strived for his own goal, he also continued to push the team forward. And when the team fought for a UEFA Cup goal, the whole team could twist into a rope to help Chen Hero score.

The relationship between a striker and a team should have been like this. It was just that many people had forgotten this point and only pursued personal honor, simply and rudely distinguishing personal honor from collective honor, and setting them against each other.

In the following month, Napoli played five games. Apart from losing 0:1 to Juventus on the road, they achieved a good record of three wins and one draw in the other four games.

These included a 2:1 home win against Bologna, a 2:0 home win against Genoa, a 2:2 home draw against Lazio, and a 3:1 away win against Reggina.

In these five games, Chen Hero had four goals. He had one goal in the 2:1 victory over Bologna, one goal in the 2:0 home win over Genoa, and two goals in the 2:2 draw with Lazio, making him a key figure in the team's ability to secure a point.

As he had shown before, after the game against Roma, Chen Hero seemed to have awakened from hibernation and scored one goal after another. With ten rounds left in the league, he had already scored seventeen goals, rising to fourth place in the scorer list.

When many people turned their attention to the scorer list, they were surprised to find that Chen Hero, who had previously received little attention, had actually risen to fourth place!

In the scorer list, he surpassed AC Milan's star player Kaka.

The northern giant bear from Russia had joined the competition for the Serie A Golden Boot, and this season's league top scorer list was bound to set off a bloody storm.

However, Chen Hero was still not satisfied with this, because the team had not achieved a winning streak.

In particular, losing 0:1 to Juventus on the road made him feel very frustrated.

In the first half of the season, when his state was so bad, he helped the team beat Juventus at home. Unexpectedly, in the second half of the season, when his state recovered, the team lost to Juventus on the road instead. He was unable to score in this game.

His consecutive scoring record in Serie A also ended at six games.

But this time, there were much fewer voices criticizing him. Only some people said that Chen Hero could only pick on the weak, and would fail when he encountered a strong team. In the games against the Northern Three, he only scored one goal at home against Juventus in the first half of the season.

He did not score against Inter Milan and AC Milan.

In this regard alone, he was not as good as Maradona, whom he "disdained."

Chen Hero ignored such voices, and in the game against Lazio, he announced his return with a brace.

The team achieved a draw with his brace.

Next, he did not score in the game against Reggina. But no one questioned that he would fall into a goal drought.

Chen Hero had already proved his ability with his seventeen league goals.

It was truly commendable to have such a terrifying number of goals in his first season in Serie A.

After these few games of excellent performance, the team's ranking also returned to sixth place from eighth place.

If the season ended here, Mazzarri's goal would be considered achieved, but Chen Hero's goal was still far away.

Serie A has four spots, with the top three directly qualifying for the Champions League group stage, and the fourth place being able to participate in the Champions League qualifiers.

So, if they wanted to get a Champions League spot for next season, both Chen Hero and the team had to work hard.

In the next round, the team would face a strong opponent—AC Milan, a team full of experts and superstars!

※※※

"Speaking of Milan, we still have a grudge with them," Hamsik said to Chen Hero.

"How so?"

"Do you know that Milan is playing in the UEFA Cup this season?"

Chen Hero nodded.

"With their strength, they should have been participating in the Champions League, but do you know why they went to play in the UEFA Cup?"

Chen Hero shook his head.

"Haha, it's because of us!"

Hamsik was particularly proud when he said this.

Last season, the competition for Champions League qualification in the league was unusually fierce, with the final point difference from fourth to sixth place being only six points.

Before the penultimate round of the league, AC Milan had sixty-one points, ranking fourth in the league. This position could obtain Champions League qualification, even if it was just a qualifying match. Fiorentina was one point behind, ranking fifth with sixty points, and Sampdoria, sixth in the league, had fifty-six points. Sampdoria was as many as five points behind AC Milan, who was fourth in the league, and the chance of participating in the Champions League was already very small with two rounds left in the league.

The main competition was between AC Milan and Fiorentina.

Judging from the scores of the two teams at the time, AC Milan had the advantage. As long as they achieved two consecutive victories in the last two rounds of the league, they would catch the last train to the Champions League.

In this situation, they challenged Napoli on the road.

At the same time, Napoli also needed a victory, because they were competing with Genoa and Atalanta for the Intertoto Cup qualification. According to the rules, the eighth place in Serie A could get the Intertoto Cup qualification, and through the Intertoto Cup, they could get the UEFA Cup qualification, achieving the goal of "saving the country by a curve."

So this was bound to be a collision where no one would give in.

However, from the perspective of strength analysis, everyone generally favored AC Milan, who were playing away.

At that time, AC Milan fielded their strongest lineup, with Inzaghi, Kaka, Seedorf, Pirlo, Ambrosini, Gattuso, Nesta… and other main players all playing.

The result was a shocking 3:1. The home team, Napoli, gave AC Milan, who were fantasizing about participating in the Champions League next season, a head-on blow at their home ground.

Moreover, Napoli had been leading by three goals until the 90th minute, when Seedorf of AC Milan scored a goal, saving some face for the wealthy AC Milan.

Because of the loss in this game, AC Milan went from being a leader to being a loser. Fiorentina defeated Parma 3:1 at home. While sending Parma into the relegation zone, they also sent themselves to fourth place in the league.

In the last round of the league, although AC Milan swept Udinese 4:1 at their home ground, it was to no avail.

Fiorentina narrowly beat Turin 1:0 on the road, taking away the Champions League play-off ticket, and AC Milan could only tragically participate in the UEFA Cup next season.

That's why Hamsik said that they had a grudge with AC Milan.

In that game, it was Hamsik who opened the scoring for the team and opened the door to victory.

It would be a lie to say that AC Milan was indifferent to this failure. One failure cost AC Milan at least 7.1 million euros in financial losses, which was no small amount for AC Milan, whose boss was becoming increasingly stingy with investment.

In the first half of this season, AC Milan defeated Napoli 1:0 at their home ground.

But for such a painful failure, how could one game be enough to take revenge? What's more, the victory in this game was brought by the opponent's players—the goal that caused Napoli to lose the game was their own own goal, which meant that AC Milan did not take revenge with their own hands.

AC Milan not only had to beat Napoli twice this season, but also had to play an undisputed victory, so as to vent the bad breath in their hearts.

※※※

Chen Hero stood on the field, the game about to begin. Opposite him were the AC Milan players. He didn't find Kaka in there. This made him a little regretful.

He had already seen Kaka's power when the two sides first played against each other. He originally wanted to face such a master in this game, but he didn't expect Kaka to be sitting on the bench in this game…

Although Kaka was not arranged to start, AC Milan's lineup was strong enough. Pato and Inzaghi partnered on the front line, and in the midfield were Seedorf, Pirlo, Flamini, and Beckham. On the defense line were Zambrotta, Favalli, Maldini, and Kaladze. The goalkeeper for the team was the former Brazilian national team goalkeeper Dida.

On the bench, in addition to Kaka, were also masters such as Shevchenko and Ronaldinho. But in terms of lineup strength, AC Milan was indeed much stronger than Napoli. Perhaps the only Napoli player who could compete with the opponent in terms of fame was Arshavin.

Of course, if it came to competing in alternative popularity, Chen Hero alone could completely defeat AC Milan's superstars. Just ask one question, and AC Milan's superstars would have to surrender—"Can you cause riots in the entire city and make the headlines of the entire Italian media with just one sentence?"

In the last match, AC Milan had their first most direct understanding of Chen Hero. But Chen Hero's state was not very good at that time, and the entire Napoli team was in a slump at that time. Hamsik was also not there, and the team eventually lost the game due to an own goal.

This was also why AC Milan did not take that victory seriously—because they did not defeat the strongest Napoli.

Now, they had the opportunity to fulfill their wish. Napoli was in really good shape now, and Chen Hero was also in excellent form.

Although he did not score in the last league game, everyone knew that it was just to adjust his state, in order to leave his hottest state for AC Milan. Anyway, in the game against Reggina, he did not score, and the team also achieved a 3:1 victory, so he did not need to add icing on the cake.

On the other hand, not scoring in the game against Juventus, followed by a brace against Lazio, was very worthy of reference…

But AC Milan also had their troubles in this game—Nesta and Senderos were both injured, so Ancelotti had to use Maldini and Kaladze to defend Chen Hero.

The combined age of these two people was seventy-one years old. It might not be so easy to defend against the young and strong Chen Hero…