Chapter 1 The Legends and Superstars

"As you can see, Hero. These are the legendary figures and superstars in the history of world football."

It wasn't Chen Hero's fault for being so surprised. Every single figure under those spotlights was a giant in football history—Pelé, Maradona, Di Stéfano, Beckenbauer, Platini, Cruyff, Zidane… Not to mention these retired superstars, there were also many active players, including household names like Beckham, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho. In addition, there were some active players who were not as famous as those mentioned above, but were still considered first-class or even top-tier stars.

Chen Hero glanced around, feeling that there were many people, and the space didn't seem that big, but somehow it didn't feel crowded at all… But he figured it must be Mr. Aurora's masterpiece, so he didn't bother with it.

These stars, both retired and still playing, and even those who had passed away, stood before him, lifelike. They struck various poses, all their signature moves.

"This… why do I feel like I've come to a wax museum?"

"You're the wax figure! Your whole family are wax figures!" A "wax figure" standing not far to Chen Hero's left, suddenly spoke up.

Hearing the unfriendly tone, Chen Hero turned his head. A short but stocky guy, wearing a blue and white striped Argentine national team jersey, with a head of messy curly hair, looking like a mushroom.

This was none other than the God of Naples and Argentine football—Diego Armando Maradona!

"Holy crap…" Chen Hero was startled.

Dracula seemed to know what he was surprised about and explained from the side: "Based on your attitude and impression of these stars in reality, these people will be reflected in the instance. For example… you once exchanged jerseys with Maldini, so your first meeting in the instance will be relatively good, as if you know each other. And you… uh, once made disrespectful remarks about Maradona in reality, so it's reflected in the instance like this—you're unhappy with him, and he's unhappy with you."

Chen Hero grinned after listening to Dracula's explanation: "Then I'd better not look for him to be my teacher…"

"You can't find me even if you wanted to, because you're not qualified, kid!" Maradona in the instance interjected arrogantly.

"Damn it, shut up!" Chen Hero knew that this wasn't the real Maradona, so he didn't feel any psychological burden when scolding him. In fact, he wasn't afraid of the real Maradona either. He had exchanged barbs with Maradona in the media because of Lavezzi.

"Uh, Hero. He's right, you really can't ask him right now…" Dracula said from the side.

"Why?"

"You know that 'Conquer Naples' mission, right?"

"I know… oh, he's in the mission rewards, but completing that mission…" He would rather die than suck up to those extreme fans.

Maradona smiled happily beside him.

For the first time, Chen Hero felt that these NPCs were too intelligent, which wasn't good at all. He rolled his eyes: "I don't care, what can a midget of 1.68 meters teach me? The Hand of God? Thanks, I never use my hands when heading the ball."

Maradona snorted and stopped talking after hearing him say that. After all, he was an NPC. If this were the real Maradona, he probably would have turned around, gone home, and grabbed his shotgun…

Dracula waited until the two stopped arguing before saying: "Actually, Hero, despite the fact that there are many stars standing in front of you, the range of options you can choose is quite narrow…"

"Of course, I won't go looking for defenders to learn from."

"No, that's not the problem. Actually, finding a defender to learn from has its own advantages… Of course, now is not the time to talk about that. Take a closer look at them…" Dracula motioned for Chen Hero to look at the stars.

Chen Hero turned his gaze over: "There's no difference… huh? There are numbers? What are those? 4860000…"

"Price tags. The stars' prices, which mean that if you want to take this star from here to the training ground and turn him into a teammate you can train with, you have to spend 4.86 million… experience points."

"Damn… that's so expensive!" Chen Hero was surprised again.

4.86 million experience points were almost equal to the experience points he needed to level up. And what he was looking at just now wasn't a football king like Pelé or Maradona, but a star who was still playing.

"You can also choose to complete certain tasks to acquire these players for free, but the higher the star's level, the higher the difficulty of the tasks you have to complete."

"Is Maldini only worth one victory against AC Milan?"

"That's just a little reward for you to try out this BAte version of the expansion pack," Dracula said.

"Actually, you're using me as a guinea pig, right?"

"Ahem… I only have you as a test subject. Actually, I don't think you need to aim for those superstars from the start. Look at these… their prices are very low. You may be able to buy them into your team soon."

"My team?"

"Yes, in the instance, Napoli is your team."

※※※

After Dracula's explanation, Chen Hero finally understood some of the rules of this new expansion pack.

He found it quite interesting—he works hard to train, scores goals, performs well in matches, and earns experience points, then accumulates experience points to exchange for players here. Players have different prices based on their ability and popularity. The lower the fame and the worse the ability, the fewer experience points are needed, and vice versa.

This is also very realistic. Players with high levels and great fame are naturally easy to sell at good prices, and their prices are definitely not low. The reflection in the instance is that the required experience points are high—in the instance, experience points are the universal currency.

With the basic rules here, what Chen Hero needs to do besides working hard to earn experience is to make a choice. See which stars he wants to appear in his Napoli team first, become his teammates, train with him, and then… he can also learn from them.

Who is the best person to learn from? Of course, the better the teacher, the better. What they can teach him is enough and the effect is better. For example, if he wants to learn free kicks, Chinese player Shao Jiayi also has a free kick skill, but compared with Lyon's Juninho, it is still far behind. Of course, the level of free kicks learned from Shao Jiayi will not be as good as those learned from Juninho.

The same is true for learning in other aspects.

However, Shao Jiayi's price is much lower than Juninho's. It can be said to be… a bargain price. The experience points he currently owns can immediately buy Shao Jiayi.

So players with low levels have the advantage of low levels. He can immediately let you learn from him and get promoted. What about those with high levels? You have to wait…

Chen Hero thought about it, what aspect of his abilities does he need to improve most urgently?

In the game against Inter Milan, he had already discovered his problems—he relied too much on headers and long shots, these old weapons. Although his technique had improved, it was still far behind compared with the Italian defense—Speaking of this, this is Chen Hero's biggest experience in the new season. So far, he has scored a total of five goals in the new season. There have been five rounds in the league, and there have been five goals. This seems to be a very good result. But Chen Hero knows that it is just luck, because these five goals were scored in three games, and he did not score in two games. He feels that he is not stable enough, with strong explosive power and poor sustainability.

Moreover, he also noticed another situation in the game, that is, other Serie A teams are paying more and more attention to him, and they are studying him more and more thoroughly. This can be seen from this game against Inter Milan. It is now difficult for him to get decent header opportunities. Although he is not afraid of physical confrontation with central defenders, he can't guarantee a header goal rate in the case of physical confrontation no matter how strong he is… In fact, whether it is him or other players who are good at headers, they can score headers, but it does not mean that they can ignore the defense and head the ball in. Many goals are scored when they head the ball in without defense. Their header skills are reflected in the timing of the header and the judgment of the landing point of the football. Always expecting to knock open the defensive players with their bodies and then head the ball in is a YY novel!

Now that the opponent has restricted crosses from the wing and strengthened the air defense in the middle, his headers are not so easy to score.

Last season, he just came to Serie A, and these coaches didn't know enough about him, or although they heard that he was good at headers, they lacked an intuitive impression. Therefore, Chen Hero was always able to score with headers in corner kicks, and many of his twenty-seven goals last season were headers.

After he became the Serie A Golden Boot last season, he also became the key figure often studied by the coaches of other teams. He was cut open, crushed, and analyzed little by little by that group of professionals, and his advantages and disadvantages were studied.

Therefore, his current five goals are almost all unconventional goals. The so-called unconventional goals mean that they are not the kind of simple and direct goals that he is good at, such as headers, but more worldies. Of course, worldies are beautiful and everyone likes them, but it also shows that he can only use unconventional methods to score goals, and the power of his conventional weapons is greatly reduced. There is too much luck in this kind of goal, and it is not threatening. Just like an atomic bomb, everyone knows that the atomic bomb is powerful, but have you ever seen anyone throw an atomic bomb in a war? That thing can only scare people, and if you really want to solve the problem, you have to use conventional weapons such as airplanes, cannons, tanks, and warships.

Now Chen Hero feels that his conventional weapons have been thoroughly studied again, leading to the danger of failure.

He feels that he must continue to improve himself.

So what aspects of his abilities should he improve?

Foot skills? Let himself become like Ronaldo at his peak, a forward who can solve problems by dribbling the ball alone?

Chen Hero feels that this is too far away and unrealistic. It cannot solve the current dilemma he is facing—he doesn't want to retreat for several seasons, with few goals, and then have a big explosion. That way, before he explodes, he will have lost his position in the team and be completely finished.

In today's world football, the winner is king. As a forward, if you can't score goals, you deserve to be eliminated!