Chapter 23 February 23rd

On February 23rd, the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16 concluded.

For Italian teams, the tone of this first leg was one of sadness and despair.

AC Milan and Roma both suffered upsets, losing to their opponents on their home grounds. AC Milan lost 0-1 to Tottenham Hotspur, while Roma fared even worse, conceding three goals at home, losing 2-3 to Shakhtar Donetsk.

Inter Milan fans first mocked AC Milan, then Roma, but soon they too suffered misfortune, losing 0-1 to Bayern Munich at home.

Of the four Italian teams that made it to the Round of 16, only Napoli's performance was encouraging, with a 4-0 thrashing of Lyon at home.

No wonder *La Gazzetta dello Sport* described February 22nd as "a sad day for Italian football."

Both of Milan's major clubs stumbled at home, and traditional powerhouse Roma was defeated by a team from Ukraine. The pride of Italian football had to be defended by a grassroots team like Napoli, which was truly ironic...

Italian football was indeed on the decline.

This reality made many Italian fans feel dejected.

If there were any surprises in this first leg, Chen Yingxiong's hat trick was one. And Arsenal's 2-1 victory over Barcelona at home was another.

For a long time, everyone believed that Barcelona was invincible—last year's semifinal loss to Inter Milan was just a mistake, an exception—especially this season's Barcelona. Mourinho's Real Madrid was once considered a team that could challenge Barcelona's dominance, but at the Camp Nou, they suffered a humiliating 0-5 defeat. This match made the whole of Europe feel that Barcelona was unbeatable. But Arsenal stubbornly defeated Barcelona at their home ground, although they conceded an away goal, a victory was still a victory.

In the Champions League top scorers list, Messi didn't score, Eto'o didn't score, only Gomez scored one goal. Now, Germany's "Super Mario" is tied with Eto'o with seven goals.

Chen Yingxiong's name appeared on the list for the first time this season, with the number "3" next to his name.

The whole of Europe was discussing whether Napoli's Chen Yingxiong could complete an unprecedented comeback and defend his Champions League Golden Boot title despite playing six fewer games. He was still four goals behind the top two scorers. Originally, this was a huge gap, but considering that just one game ago, he was seven goals behind the leader, the four-goal gap suddenly seemed insignificant...

Some European bookmakers had already offered different odds on whether Chen Yingxiong could defend his top scorer title, ranging from 6 to 1 to 33 to 1. It was clear that the bookmakers were also unsure, not knowing whether to favor Chen Yingxiong or be pessimistic about his chances.

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March 1st, the last match of the twenty-seventh round of the league, a key battle in Serie A, a contest between the first and second place teams in the league. Logically, this match should have been an evenly matched contest.

But the impact of Napoli's dual-front campaign on the whole team began to show. Napoli, playing with their full squad, lost 1-3 to AC Milan away. During the match, most of the Napoli players looked very tired, even though they didn't have a midweek game that week.

This was the effect of consecutive dual-front battles. The league was already about one-third finished, and the players' stamina accumulated from last summer was almost exhausted. At this time, facing dual-front battles, the pressure of the Champions League was far greater than that of the domestic league.

In dealing with dual-front battles, traditional powerhouse AC Milan was far superior to Napoli.

Napoli's loss to AC Milan relieved many people. If they kept winning like that, they would probably lock in the league title in advance, just like Chen Yingxiong... That would be too boring.

They didn't necessarily hate Napoli, but AC Milan's victory helped to increase the suspense of this season's league, which was what everyone wanted to see. Except for Napoli fans, no one wanted them to win the title early.

Now, AC Milan, ranked second in the league, had defeated Napoli, ranked first, and although the rankings of the two teams had not changed, the gap between their points had narrowed from four points to one point.

This was a gap that allowed for much speculation.

A difference of one point, considering that Napoli would face the test of both domestic league and Champions League battles, this one point might become the watershed that determined the final league champion.

Would Napoli hold on to this one point? Or would AC Milan complete the reversal in one fell swoop?

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Losing the match against AC Milan made the entire Napoli team very depressed. Before the match, they all knew how important this match was.

Everyone was eager to defeat their opponents, so that they could widen the gap between the two sides and prepare enough "strategic depth" for the upcoming Champions League match.

If they could defeat AC Milan, Napoli would gain a lead of as many as seven points, which was a considerable advantage in the league.

The result was not as desired, which naturally made the entire Napoli team very depressed.

Even Chen Yingxiong, who scored a goal in the match, his twenty-sixth goal of the season, was not in the mood to celebrate.

"I scored a goal? Yes, so what? The key is that we lost the match!"

Losing this match to AC Milan was really crucial. A one-point gap meant that the team would not be able to relax for a long time to come, and would have to keep their nerves taut. In this way, who knew when they would collapse, perhaps in the domestic league, perhaps in the Champions League match, the worst thing would be simultaneous collapse on both fronts...

No one wanted such a result.

But that was the reality. After losing to AC Milan, everyone's nerves immediately tightened.

On the way back to Naples from Milan, there was much less laughter and joy among the players.

Even Mazzarri frowned, feeling a headache coming on.

But now was not the time to worry about the team's precarious situation in the league. Napoli was about to usher in the second leg of the Champions League Round of 16.

Although they had a four-goal lead at home, football is round, and who knew what would happen at Lyon's home ground?

Napoli, which had dealt with UEFA many times, did not dare to take it lightly at all.

So Mazzarri still had to send out the strongest lineup for this match and cheer them up.

In fact, for teams like Napoli, they should have made a choice between the league and the Champions League long ago. After all, their bench depth was far less than that of the giants, and they did not have the strength to fight on multiple fronts and still achieve success on all fronts.

The smart thing to do was to put all your eggs in one basket and choose one front to break through.

Many teams of the same level as Napoli would choose the Champions League. Because the league is too long, a slight mistake can lead to extremely serious consequences. The Champions League is different. The Champions League is a home-and-away knockout match. One or two excellent performances can take you further in this competition, until you reach the final. If you are lucky, it is not impossible to win a championship.

The Champions League is a quick-return investment project. If you want quick success, you have to choose the Champions League.

Small and medium-sized teams do not have the same strength, funds, and heritage as the giants. So they are more likely to choose a quick-success strategy. The Champions League is a big stage, and it is obviously more worthwhile to become famous on this stage than to work hard slowly in the league.

There is another more important reason—money.

The prize money distribution scheme for the 2010-2011 season of the European Champions League was as follows—entering the top thirty-two directly earned a bonus of 3.9 million euros. Each match played in the group stage earned 550,000 euros, which amounted to 3.3 million euros for six matches. 3.9 million plus 3.3 million equals 7.2 million. This 7.2 million euros was a fixed bonus, which the team received regardless of whether they qualified from the group stage. This was also the main reason why many small teams desperately wanted to enter the Champions League. They did not hope to win the championship, they just hoped to get this 7.1 million euros. This money was still a huge sum for small teams, and they could do a lot of things if they saved it. Some teams' annual financial budget may not even be 7.1 million euros...

In addition, if they could win a match in the group stage, they would get 800,000 euros for each win, and 400,000 euros for a draw, and nothing for a loss.

This was an extra bonus, but many small and medium-sized teams might not count on it very much. Those teams from small leagues in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe were basically the teams that were there to give points to the other teams in the group. Winning? A pipe dream.

Each of the sixteen teams that entered the knockout stage received a bonus of 3 million euros, and if they advanced to the quarterfinals, they received another bonus of 3.3 million euros. The semifinals were 4.2 million. In the end, whichever team could lift the Big Ears Cup at Wembley Stadium would receive a bonus of 9 million euros, and even the runner-up would receive 5.6 million euros.

For those teams with the strength to pull off upsets, the Champions League was obviously more attractive than the league—the revenue from the league mainly came from television broadcast distribution. The television broadcast fee distribution schemes of each league were different, but one thing was the same, that was that the giants always took the lion's share, and the other teams shared the small pieces of the cake.

It wasn't like the Champions League, where everything depended on performance.

So mid-tier teams were more inclined to take a gamble in the Champions League. Even if they didn't win the championship in the end, it would be good to go further in the Champions League.

Teams like Napoli belonged to the kind of teams that had to bet on one thing. The Champions League had greater benefits, so they should obviously choose the Champions League. As for the domestic league, with Napoli's current strength, it was easy to guarantee a top-four finish, and a top-three finish was not a problem either. As long as they could guarantee to continue to participate in the Champions League next season, that was a victory. The league title? Stop daydreaming!

But now Napoli had such an idea—we not only want to go further in the Champions League, we also want to win the league title!

Napoli was originally a team that feared nothing. From the era of the King of Football, Maradona, they had always played the role of challenging the rules and despising authority. It was perfectly normal for them to want to achieve glory on both fronts at the same time...

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ps, the update spree is over, but there will be another update spree in a few days~

February has only started for three days, so I'm going to continue to shamelessly ask everyone for monthly tickets! The trend of monthly tickets this month looks very gratifying! I hope we can maintain this momentum, and I sincerely thank everyone!