Chapter 291 Slapping the Face

During the second half, everyone noticed the rostrum was empty. Zhong Chusheng and his underlings were nowhere to be seen. Camacho, however, remained in his seat, still observing the team's performance.

Everyone knew why Zhong Chusheng and the others had left. They had been slapped away by Chen Hero’s slap celebration.

Only Chen Hero felt a little unsatisfied—why did they chicken out? Why did they wimp out?

He still wanted to slap them some more.

Since they were gone, there was no way to continue slapping them. But Chen Hero did not stop scoring goals because of this.

Before being substituted in the second half, he scored another goal, completing his first hat trick since joining Liverpool. Although this wasn’t an official match, considering both sides treated it seriously, this hat trick still had some weight to it.

In addition to Chen Hero, other Liverpool players scored three more goals, while the Chinese team? Only one goal. In the end, Liverpool defeated the Chinese team 6-1 at Helong Stadium, leaving them with a crushing defeat.

Towards the end of the match, the fans simply started cursing the Football Association from the stands. Although the FA couldn't hear them, they still needed to vent.

The fans' reasons for cursing the FA were understandable—shouldn't they be cursed for not recruiting such an outstanding player like Chen Hero into the national team for so long? If the reason was because of that idiot Nan Yong, who prevented Chen Hero from entering the national team, now that Nan Yong was in jail, what other obstacles were there?

The FA was just perverse, not recruiting people, nor explaining why. This made the Chinese fans feel stifled. If they had recruited Chen Hero into the national team earlier, why would they have failed to qualify from the group stage in the Asian Cup at the beginning of the year?

Especially after seeing how outstanding Chen Hero's performance was in this match, a hat trick! How could such an outstanding performance not catch the eye of those dog officials in the FA?

The more the fans thought about it, the angrier they became. In the end, they simply stopped watching the game and started cursing and satirizing the FA in every possible way.

The only pity was that those people from the FA had already been slapped away by Chen Hero's two "slaps," so they didn't see or hear anything. However, they must be very clear about the fans' attitude towards them...

※※※

As soon as the match ended, Chen Hero was surrounded by reporters, who wouldn't let him leave without answering their questions.

Holding the Man of the Match trophy, he stood in the circle of reporters, with countless microphones reaching towards him.

"Hero! Can you talk about your celebration?"

"Was that a slapping motion?"

"What exactly does it mean?"

"What grudges do you have with the FA?"

"Is the celebration aimed at the FA a bit too much?"

All sorts of questions were thrown at him in an instant.

The scene was noisy, and Chen Hero didn't understand much of what they said, but he knew what these people were asking. So he answered directly himself, this matter… I'm going to expose it to you all, and I don't care how you clean up the mess for me!

He raised his hand, signaling the reporters to be quiet; he had something to say.

"That's right, my celebration is definitely slapping the FA in the face. Yes, you heard me right, you didn't see it wrong, I'm slapping the FA, the Chinese Football Association, I'm slapping them!"

As soon as these words came out, they caused an uproar among the reporters present.

They had seen bold people, but they had never seen someone so bold. This couldn't be described as "bold" anymore; it was completely insane. A Chinese player, in a public setting, in front of so many reporters, saying such words, he could forget about trying to get anywhere in the Chinese football scene, right?

"Why slap them? It's very simple. A few days ago, when I had just arrived in Guangzhou with Liverpool, I met with one of their agents. I didn't know beforehand that the FA wanted to talk to me. The FA expressed this to me—if I want to join the Chinese national team, I have to apologize for my unauthorized withdrawal from the Chinese Olympic team in '08, and hold a press conference to announce the truth! Note, they said I withdrew from the Olympic team, not that I was kicked out of the Olympic team. But I don't think I did anything wrong. I was kicked out, and they still tried to smear me, not allowing me to speak. They wanted to hold a press conference, and the media received threats not to attend. Why were they so afraid of me speaking? Because what I said was the truth, and the truth would embarrass them. Now they want me to apologize, isn't that just making me admit that everything I did before was wrong, and they were right? So, I absolutely cannot agree to this!"

When Chen Hero told this story, it caused even more of a stir than before.

A group of reporters looked at each other, surprised, shocked, and of course, some weren't surprised at all, obviously, they knew what kind of people the FA were.

"I am willing to serve the country, but not by entering the national team in such a self-deprecating way. If it really comes to this, then I would rather not play for the national team. Anyway, it's not a big deal for Chinese football to be without me. The earth still revolves without me, right? Ah, I believe the FA must be thinking this in their hearts. I'm just a small person, so I can only vent my anger by slapping them in the face after scoring a goal. I can't really go up and slap them, can I? They can arbitrarily decide the life and death of a player, or even the entire country's football movement. How can I, a small ant, have such amazing abilities?"

The more Chen Hero spoke, the more sarcastic and mean he became, and in the end, it was completely a critique of their very nature.

However, many people still felt that Chen Hero was right. No one doubted the truthfulness of what he said, especially the FA's request that Chen Hero apologize before being selected for the national team.

Because in the past ten years, the Chinese FA had done too many messed-up things. Everyone was in this circle, and they had interviewed, contacted, and heard countless similar things, so no one doubted it. They felt that the FA was like this, and it was not surprising or unbelievable that they would do such things.

For example, temporarily changing coaches when the Olympic team was approaching the Olympics, temporarily changing coaches before the World Cup qualifiers, giving clubs beer when they didn't have money to distribute bonuses, deciding the league runner-up by drawing lots, arbitrarily canceling promotions and relegations, changing policies frequently, dividing the league into north and south divisions for the sake of the Olympics, not distinguishing between "6" and "9"... Some of these absurd things had deep-seated reasons, while others were completely caused by the FA's people having low business abilities and low IQ (Author's note: Friends who are interested in the FA's absurdities can search for keywords such as "Chinese FA absurdities" by themselves. I won't use things that can be found on Baidu to make up the word count).

So, it seemed very unreasonable to them to propose such an absurd request to let Chen Hero return to the national team. But after a deep analysis, it was really reasonable—the Chinese FA, they are an institution that specializes in turning the unreasonable into the reasonable! Li Ning and Adidas should really find them to sign endorsement contracts. "Anything is possible" and "Nothing is impossible" are simply perfect interpretations of the Chinese FA. Oh, actually Nike can also find the Chinese FA to endorse, "Just do it," right? The Chinese FA always makes decisions on a whim. They really just do whatever they want. They say that every decision has been rigorously demonstrated by experts and solicited opinions from all parties, but the initial source is still just a leader who wakes up after a nap and thinks of an idea, and then hands it over to experts to demonstrate, no matter how they demonstrate, they have to demonstrate that this method is feasible...

After Chen Hero vented, he shrugged, "That's all I have to say, goodbye everyone!"

After speaking, he pushed past the crowd and squeezed out.

None of the reporters present spoke to stop him. Looking at Chen Hero's back, some of them shook their heads, "He's really crazy..."

"But he has the right to be arrogant, doesn't he?" his colleague next to him asked.

The person who shook his head didn't speak.

"He's right, but we don't dare to say these things. We always have to consider our own jobs... But he doesn't have this psychological burden. The FA can't control him. He plays football abroad and doesn't have to listen to the FA. Only he can say these words. It feels so good!"

"Don't feel good, it's still not sure if these words can be published..." someone poured cold water on him.

Many people felt discouraged when they thought that the FA might call their leaders.

In the silence, suddenly someone popped up: "Damn it, what's the big deal about resigning? I'm going to risk not doing this job and expose this matter!"

Someone laughed: "Don't be so tragic, there are actually more than one way to report things..."

Everyone turned to look at the speaker.

A short, middle-aged man with a cigarette in his mouth had a confident smile on his face. He was Zhong Dajun, who had become famous for being the first to find Chen Hero.

"Everyone, what era is it now? The Internet age! The influence of our print media is not as good as the influence of the Internet. If they really don't let us publish it, we'll just register some random alias ID and post it online! Various video websites, various blog websites, and Weibo. If these new media are used well, the effect will be a hundred times better than if we publish it in our own magazines, newspapers, and TV stations!"

Many people suddenly realized, yes! Now Weibo's power is so strong that many things are exposed on Weibo and then spread, which has aroused enough attention. How did we not think of that?

"So, everyone can post it as they please, but be careful not to reveal your identity, so as not to really lose your job, that would be bad! Haha!" Zhong Dajun smiled and left his colleagues. He was going to write his manuscript. If the editor-in-chief really vetoed it under pressure from above, he would post it on Weibo. He must let all Chinese fans know what happened at Helong Stadium today!