Chapter 19 He Just Wants to Score Goals

Thinking it over, Chen Hero felt that what he needed to improve most was perhaps not his footwork. He hadn't stopped practicing that in the training ground for a single day, and it was starting to show results. But that was just the foundation, not the ultimate solution to his problems.

Just like physique and speed, they were all foundational. Without good technique, there were many things you couldn't execute. But even with good technique, you couldn't necessarily rest easy and be invincible. There were many players in this world with fancy footwork, but they couldn't all succeed.

Take his swivel shot against Inter Milan, for example. Chen Hero later saw that goal on television, and it was included in the highlights of that round of Serie A matches.

Not to sound conceited, but he really thought that shot was very beautiful, almost perfect. Even now, he admired himself for being able to think of such a shooting method at the time.

First of all, without good technique to support him, he wouldn't even be able to control the ball, let alone hope for the series of movements that followed. This goal would not have happened from the start. So technique was the foundation.

But if he only had technique and didn't have that flash of inspiration at that moment? Then it would just be a beautiful ball control, and then what? The ball would be at his feet, but he would still be unable to get rid of Samuel's close marking, complete the shot, and score such a wonderful goal.

So, inspiration and foundation were indispensable. Without either, he couldn't become a world-class superstar, but at most a first- or second-rate player. Some people have excellent technique but lack the necessary inspiration, so they remain "flops" who show off fancy footwork for the rest of their lives, like the Brazilian Denílson, who once commanded the world's highest transfer fee and was highly expected. And some people, although they have inspiration, are limited by their poor technique and cannot realize their inspiration… There are many such players, impossible to name, because they have no chance to show their inspiration at all, so who knows if they have any inspiration.

From his goals this season, Chen Hero felt that he did have this thing called inspiration—it was like mischief. Could a guy whose mind was always active and could always think of new ideas to prank people be the kind of player on the field who was conventional, mediocre, and afraid to take risks?

Of course not. The performances of people like Robinho, Ribéry, Cassano, and Balotelli on the field always made people's eyes light up, and their personalities were definitely not dull.

Chen Hero was one of them.

So he had to continue practicing his footwork, which would be very helpful to him, but the top priority was not to learn a few more dribbling skills, but how to shoot with the least amount of wasted movement to score goals.

When Chen Hero thought of this, a name suddenly popped into his mind—Filippo Inzaghi.

The master of opportunism!

He had played against him before and knew how powerful this legend was. Most of his shooting actions were unremarkable, not even beautiful or dashing. He wasn't a natural dribbling fanatic like Ronaldo, and he didn't have outstanding speed to dribble wildly and leave all the defenders behind.

But he was particularly good at scoring goals, why?

Because he could always appear in the right place at the right time, and the next job was much easier for a striker of his level.

When he was young, many people sneered at him, mocking him as an "opportunist" and a "professional scavenger." At that time, everyone admired and liked Ronaldo, who could dribble past several people in a row, run half the field, use brilliant feints to shake off the goalkeeper, and then shoot the ball into the empty net, because…it was highly watchable.

But now, as everyone's understanding of soccer has increased, everyone has also changed their impression of Inzaghi, from the initial disdain to the current respect. Because people all know that being able to scavenge… is also an awesome skill.

Chen Hero felt that he had a lot of shortcomings in finding and seizing opportunities. For example, he could only shoot when his teammates passed the ball to his feet, and when he did shoot directly, he mostly relied on headers—he had almost reached the limit in headers, and there was not much room for improvement. But headers, no matter how strong, were ultimately just a means of attack, easy to freeze and contain. No one had ever heard of anyone becoming a world-class superstar by relying on a header alone.

He felt that his positioning and his sense of capturing shooting opportunities in front of the goal were always a little off. Maybe he could learn something from Inzaghi?

He decided to first check Inzaghi's value.

"Three million?" Chen Hero was a little surprised, because this value was lower than he expected. He thought it should be at least six million, right?

"The value here is not the real value. Otherwise, you would have to pay 65 million experience points for a Kaká. I think you'll be able to earn enough experience by the time you're thirty. So I converted their values..."

"That's not very high either..." Chen Hero felt that three million was indeed not high for a legendary scorer like Inzaghi. His experience for leveling up was enough to buy him.

"Because Inzaghi is relatively old..."

"How old?"

"Thirty-two years old."

"Huh? I remember Maldini is in his prime, why is Inzaghi..."

"Wine gets better with age, so he's a bit older."

Chen Hero thought that made sense. Anyway, Inzaghi didn't rely on physical fitness to make a living, so maintaining basic physical fitness was enough.

"Being older means his value is discounted. Do you want to buy him?"

Chen Hero nodded.

Dracula lowered his head and quickly raised it again: "You leveled up before, and now you have only accumulated 1.2 million experience points. You are still 1.8 million short of three million. You can't buy him yet."

Chen Hero didn't pay much attention to his experience. When he heard that he only had 1.2 million, he was immediately disappointed.

"Only that much?"

"Actually, it's not a small amount. Do you want me to filter out the players you can buy now?" Dracula asked.

Chen Hero nodded.

Dracula snapped his fingers, and most of the players in front of Chen Hero disappeared instantly. There were not many players left in the end, and Chen Hero saw his opponent Pavlyuchenko from the Russian Premier League at a glance. He said with a sigh: "Damn, he's even here?!"

"What's wrong?" Dracula asked strangely.

"Why would I spend experience to buy a player that I can't even beat? What am I going to learn from him? Forget it, forget it..." He waved his hand and made a decision. "I won't buy anyone for now. I'll save up to buy Inzaghi!"

Chen Hero felt that if he worked hard and went to nightclubs less often during this period, he would naturally get more experience. He didn't think that such a short period of time would cause him to fall into a goal drought.

Dracula nodded. He never interfered with Chen Hero's decisions, because once he did, it would be his choice, not Chen Hero's.

"Okay, do you still want to train today?"

"Of course!" Chen Hero nodded. He couldn't go to Inzaghi to learn from him yet, but it didn't matter. He still had Maldini. In fact, training with Maldini was still very beneficial to him. Because sparring with a top defender also helped improve his personal abilities. He often had some inspiration in his duels with Maldini, just like his swivel shot, but those inspirations rarely had a suitable opportunity to be used in actual games...

He and Maldini didn't become master and disciple, but Maldini was like his master, teaching him how to deal with those defensive players.

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"Hey, Hero, do you have any plans for tonight?" After training, Cassano winked at Chen Hero in the locker room.

Hearing what he said, the other teammates immediately perked up. They were all members of the Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Gang, and wondered if the gang was organizing an activity.

Young people like to have fun.

But Chen Hero shook his head. "I have something to do today, Antonio."

Cassano curled his lips. "Going on a date with some chick again, huh?" Now Chen Hero's fame in Italy has greatly increased. He is tall, strong, rich, and famous, and is the object of admiration for many beauties. More than one female artist has mentioned Chen Hero while participating in television programs, saying they want to hook up with him.

"Yeah, I'm going to have a three-hundred-round battle with her!" Chen Hero puffed out his lower abdomen and shook it.

So everyone knew that Chen Hero really had something to do, not secretly going on a date with some chick...

"Okay, if you don't go, we'll go!" Cassano waved his hand, and the others who were just disappointed immediately became happy. "Antonio, you're such a good guy!"

"Damn it, don't say I'm a good guy!"

Chen Hero had already told them the story of the "good guy card," but his explanation was..."A good guy is a pitiful worm with no luck with women." Cassano was afraid that he would have no luck with women. Although he had a girlfriend, being unfaithful was always a man's nature...

"Okay, you're a bad guy! You're a big bad guy!"

Cassano laughed loudly. "That's right, I'm the big bad guy who makes women unable to get up! Wahahaha!"

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Chen Hero refused to participate in the Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Gang's activities, not because he was no longer interested in these things, but because he wanted to desperately earn experience so that he could join Inzaghi in the training ground as soon as possible... no, to learn a thing or two.

In addition to earning experience through training in the training ground, he could also earn experience by scoring goals, winning games, and completing various tasks.

After defeating Inter Milan away from home, he checked his task log. He had completed half of the task "So What If You Are the Defending Champions?" But this kind of task had to wait until the second half of the season for the two sides to play each other again before it could be completed. He couldn't count on it now.

He could only do other tasks. For example, various "daily tasks"—winning games. This task would refresh as long as there were games. Before the game with Inter Milan, the task was "Defeat Inter Milan." After winning that game, he received a reward, and then the task refreshed to "Defeat Siena." Siena was Napoli's next opponent in the league.

This kind of task refreshed quickly, but the rewards were low and there was no difficulty at all—some games were difficult to win, and some games were easy to win. How could the difficulty be determined? So there was no such thing as difficulty at all.

Chen Hero didn't care about this kind of task reward before. Even if he could win a game, the reward for this task was only a mere 10,000 experience points. But regardless of the strength of the opponent, winning was always so much. So Chen Hero didn't care about it.

Now, he didn't care anymore. Even a mosquito had meat!

What's more, after the new expansion pack was launched, Dracula made some adjustments to experience acquisition. Now, whether it was scoring goals, completing tasks, or obtaining experience through training, it was more than before—this was also normal. Now experience was like currency, and there were naturally more places where experience was needed, unlike before when it was useless except for leveling up. So if the experience acquisition speed was still as slow and difficult as before, the game would be too boring to play.

Now the experience that could be obtained from this task had been increased to 100,000, an increase of ten times! Even if he only completed this kind of task, he would only need eighteen games to collect 1.8 million experience points, not to mention the goals and other tasks during this period... So Chen Hero was now full of motivation.

The next game, against Siena, he was full of fighting spirit!

In the training ground, he leaned against Maldini and then successfully turned around and shot.

He waved his fist and simply celebrated the goal, and then pulled Maldini up again.

"You seem particularly motivated today," Maldini asked after getting up.

"Because I need experience, I really need experience, I really need a lot of experience," Chen Hero replied seriously.

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ps, there is one more chapter, where are the monthly tickets?