Chapter 57 End of Negotiations

Thanks to Dekura's meddling, Chen Hero's contract renewal negotiations with the club naturally came to an end. Of course, what Sassania told Advocaat was that they were "temporarily paused," and the door to renewal was not closed.

Advocaat was a little anxious. He really wanted to keep Chen Hero, but he didn't seem to have any reason or ability to convince Chen Hero to stay. After all, everyone knew that the Russian Super League was only second-rate in Europe. How could a genius like Chen Hero stay in the Russian league forever? Even if his performance in the Russian domestic league couldn't make him known throughout Europe, the upcoming UEFA Cup group stage would definitely make him famous overseas...

By then, what capital would Zenit Saint Petersburg have to keep him?

Advocaat planned to lead the team to achieve good results in the UEFA Cup, but at the same time, he knew that this was a very contradictory thing—when his team began to shine in the UEFA Cup, the fate of his team being dismembered would not be far away...

Now he could only make the best use of the time that Chen Hero was still in the team.

If Chen Hero insisted on not signing a contract with the club, then the club would definitely not wait until the end of next year when his contract expired to let him leave on a free transfer. So the only result would be that Chen Hero would be sold by the team next summer, so they could still get some transfer fee. If Chen Hero performed well in the UEFA Cup, maybe they could sell him for a good price.

Moreover, Chen Hero's contract was due to expire at the end of the year, so from July 1st, he could bypass Zenit Saint Petersburg and negotiate freely with other clubs. After the personal contract was negotiated, he only had to wait until the end of the 2008 season to join the team as a free agent in January 2009.

By then, Zenit Saint Petersburg would definitely lose both money and talent.

So in order to prevent this from happening, Zenit had to desperately find a new home for Chen Hero. Maybe they could find a suitable buyer for him before July 1st?

He suddenly felt very sorry, not for the team, but for Chen Hero.

Would a person with his personality be able to thrive in other teams as he did in Zenit?

※※※

Chen Hero couldn't consider such distant matters. With the league title in hand, his resume had added a shining glory.

At the same time, he found that this league title had earned him 100,000 experience points!

He was taken aback when he opened the webpage. Since he leveled up to level seventeen in September, he had leveled up three more times in the past two months, and was now level twenty.

He added all the talent points he had earned to the "Immovable as a Mountain" talent. Now it was only a little bit away from being maxed out.

His physical confrontation ability had indeed improved significantly. When shooting, even if there was an opponent's impact, he was not as easy to lose his balance as before.

Of course, this was also related to his targeted training of his confrontation ability in the dungeon. Chen Hero sometimes wondered whether this talent was improved by his desperate training in the dungeon, or whether he became awesome with a "swoosh" after clicking on the talent?

He had just leveled up three days ago, he remembered it clearly. Who would have thought that when he opened the webpage today, he would find that his experience bar had suddenly increased a lot.

Feeling strange, he ran to the task system to see if he had unintentionally completed some particularly awesome task recently.

With this look, he found that winning the league title also had a task, and this task gave him 100,000 experience points at once!

There was also an explanation below the task, telling him that because the Russian Super League could only rank sixth in Europe, the rewards for winning the league title were not many...

Not many!

100,000 experience points were considered "not many"!

Chen Hero wondered how much experience he would get if he won the Premier League title, which ranked first? 500,000? Or one million?

Just this association made him feel that staying in the Russian league was really hopeless...

At the same time, he was also full of expectations for the upcoming league top scorer award.

The league title was 100,000 experience, what about the league top scorer?

Just thinking about it made him excited, and he couldn't wait for the last round of the league to come soon!

But before that, he still had a UEFA Cup group stage match to play...

※※※

Zenit Saint Petersburg did not celebrate their league title win in a big way, because they still had to go to an away game for the UEFA Cup group stage.

This time, their opponent was the Greek team Larissa.

Considering that Chen Hero had been fighting continuously for this period of time, and the schedule was intensive, Advocaat did not let Chen Hero start in this game. Not only him, but also some other players were rotated.

But only Chen Hero went to Advocaat's room after learning of this arrangement, and told him that his waist was good, and he could take on heavier burdens...

But Advocaat remained unmoved and still insisted on making him a substitute. This is what he said to Chen Hero: "You always have to give Tekke a chance to play, Hero, right?"

Everyone had almost forgotten about this tragic Turkish striker. When he first came to the team, he took the highest salary in the team, but now he had been reduced to a substitute and almost forgotten.

Seeing that the coach had even brought up Tekke, Chen Hero didn't know what to say.

Now he had no choice but to wear a thick coat and shrink on the bench to watch his teammates play on the field.

In the thirty-ninth minute, Kerzhakov scored first, helping Zenit take the lead away from home.

Not only was the score leading, Zenit also had an advantage on the field.

But who would have thought that in the last minute of the first half, Arshavin was injured and unable to continue the game, and was replaced by Dominguez.

This disrupted Advocaat's deployment and interfered with the morale of the army. Arshavin was definitely the number one star in Zenit, and his importance to the team even surpassed Chen Hero, a super center who could score twenty-five goals in a season.

His injury would undoubtedly cast a psychological shadow on the team's players—how serious was his injury? Would he miss many games?

These thoughts would follow.

As a result, in the second half, Zenit allowed Larissa to score two goals in four minutes, and the score became 2:1, with the home team leading!

In the fifth minute after the opponent surpassed the score and took the lead, Chen Hero, who had been warming up on the sidelines, came on the field.

He replaced Tekke, who had performed mediocrely.

As soon as he came on the field, Zenit's performance underwent a transformation. He was not the kind of free man who could revitalize the entire team in the frontcourt, but his appearance made the entire Zenit team have a direction for the attack, knowing where to pass the ball, instead of hitting here and there.

In the sixty-ninth minute, Zenit equalized the score. The person who scored the goal was not Chen Hero, but he assisted.

He assisted Dominguez with a header.

This was one of his best ways to assist, leaping high in the penalty area, relying on his body to become the focus of everyone's attention, and then sending the ball to the place he wanted it to go.

Then, just wait to raise your hands and cheer!

※※※

A draw was certainly not enough. Zenit was forced to a draw by AZ Alkmaar at home. If they still couldn't win against the weakest team in the group, then Zenit's UEFA Cup dream this season would have to say goodbye early.

So Zenit, after equalizing the score, attacked even more fiercely, not like they were away from home at all, but like they were in their own home.

In the seventy-seventh minute, Zenit's frantic attack paid off.

"Zenit attacks... Tymoshchuk passed the ball to Dominguez, who retreated to meet him. Dominguez passed it straight! It was blocked by the opponent... The ball fell to Chen Hero's feet. He distributed the ball to the wing and gave it to Radek Šírl... Cross from the wing! Kerzhakov! His shot was saved by the goalkeeper... But it's not over yet! Hero! He appeared... Shot—gooooooooooooL!!!"

The ball that was saved by the goalkeeper flew to Chen Hero as if it had eyes. At this time, the defenders in the penalty area were all following Kerzhakov, and the goalkeeper was also lying on the ground. There was almost an empty goal in front of him!

Such an opportunity was not difficult for Chen Hero, who had been practicing shooting at his feet for more than a season. He stretched out his foot, trying to relax his body as much as possible... and then shot angrily at the ball!

The football flew towards the goalkeeper like a cannonball!

The goalkeeper watched the football fly over and wanted to get up from the ground to block the football, but the speed of this shot was too fast!

For a shot at close range, many people would choose to push it gently, which would give them the highest chance of scoring. But Chen Hero swung his thigh as if he was taking a long shot before shooting it out.

Fortunately, there were no defenders around him at this time, otherwise, with such a long preparation time, he would probably end up kicking the defender's foot instead of the football...

The football lifted the net fiercely, as if venting all of Chen Hero's depression.

Before this football flew into the goal, Chen Hero was depressed. In the UEFA Cup, whether it was the qualifiers or the main match, he had not scored a goal. In this game, he was also arranged to rest.

Now he finally found an opportunity to prove himself—I am not the kind of striker who is good at domestic warfare but not good at foreign warfare!

Therefore, he was exceptionally excited after scoring the goal. He didn't dare to take off his clothes to celebrate in the domestic league because he had to compete with Pavlyuchenko for the number of goals, so as to avoid being automatically suspended due to accumulated yellow cards. He didn't care about it in the UEFA Cup. He didn't have a single yellow card at the moment, so he could take off his shirt and show off his muscles, as well as... the lifelike giant bear on his back!

"Oh oh oh! This is Hero's first goal in European competitions!" Those Chinese reporters who followed the team to the away game were also excited in the stands.

Some knowledgeable reporters knew that this was the second goal scored by a Chinese player in the UEFA Cup—the first goal came from Sun Jihai's header in Manchester City's 5-0 victory over Welsh TNS on August 15, 2003. This goal was also the only goal scored by a Chinese player in European competitions.

On the honor roll of Chinese players in European competitions, Sun Jihai had been waiting lonely for too long. Now, the second person had finally emerged!

After taking off his clothes to celebrate, Chen Hero turned his jersey over, showing the side with his name and number on it in front of the camera.

Just like in the first game when he first stepped into professional football, after scoring a goal, he wanted to make all of Russia remember his name.

Now, he wants to make all of Europe remember this name.

But it doesn't matter if they don't remember it this time.

There is plenty of time to let the whole of Europe go from unfamiliar to knowing, and then to become familiar with this name.

※※※

ps, finally reached three thousand monthly tickets! But this is not the time to breathe a sigh of relief, there is still an hour left before the double monthly ticket expires!

This is the last madness, please everyone... be crazy!

I think the rest of this month can't be as crazy as these seven and a half days no matter what...

So everyone, don't be polite, smash all the tickets you still have in your hands that you can still vote out!!

ps2, the first phase of the book review prize event has officially started, welcome everyone to actively publish long reviews of more than 300 words, the best will receive a reward of up to 588, and a minimum of 100 starting coins!

Not much money, just a little bit of my heart, I hope everyone don't dislike the small amount of money, and actively participate!