Chapter 1 European Champions League

The European Champions League, the highest-level event in today's football world, has comprehensively surpassed the World Cup. The gold content of the finals alone has completely blown away the World Cup finals.

As a football player, the opportunity to participate in the World Cup is not great, but the Champions League final is still available every year. The Champions League champion has almost become the highest honor for a professional player, especially for those players who cannot participate in the World Cup, the Champions League is their World Cup.

Shevchenko, a Ukrainian player who used to play for AC Milan, once said: "For me, the Champions League final is my World Cup final!" At that time, he had just led AC Milan to defeat Juventus in the final and won the 2003 Champions League trophy, and then he took the trophy back to his hometown and to the tomb of his mentor Lobanovsky, to comfort his mentor.

At that time, Ukraine's strength in the football world was still not up to par. Apart from a few stars, they were never able to participate in the World Cup. It was the prime of Shevchenko's career, the golden age of professional football, and Ukraine had no hope of reaching the World Cup at that time, which made Shevchenko very pessimistic, feeling that he would never have the opportunity to participate in the World Cup in his lifetime. Who would have thought that three years later, he would lead Ukraine to appear on the stage of the German World Cup.

The same is true for Chen Yingxiong today. Because of his tense relationship with the domestic sports authorities and the Football Association, he feels that he may never have the opportunity to represent the Chinese team in the World Cup in his life, so he has long stopped dreaming the World Cup dream that many players have had.

For him, having lost the opportunity to show himself on the important stage of the World Cup, the equally high-level Champions League has become the only stage. No matter what the league is like, even the English Premier League, the number one league in Europe, has its regionality. Some people like to watch Serie A, some are supporters of the Bundesliga, and some think that La Liga is the number one league in Europe. These people may dismiss the Premier League and naturally will not pay attention to the Premier League games.

But the Champions League is different. Everyone knows the importance of the Champions League, so of course they will value the Champions League event very much. So, if a player has an outstanding performance in the Champions League, he will soon become famous all over the world.

It has been two years since Chen Yingxiong was able to appear on this top-level stage in the world of football, because he chose to join Liverpool, a team that has not qualified for the Champions League in the past two seasons. Last season, the team finished second in the league and finally won this qualification.

Chen Yingxiong, the super center who once amazed the entire Champions League and made all participating teams fearful, also announced his return.

Before the first Champions League group match, Chen Yingxiong chose a particularly peculiar way to celebrate this memorable day.

He went to get a tattoo.

He hadn't gotten a tattoo in a long time. After initially tattooing a whole giant bear on his back, he successively tattooed the Chinese characters "Beware of Bears" on his neck and a bear head logo on his left arm.

Then there were no new tattoos added to his body.

Now he went to the tattoo shop and tattooed a Champions League trophy silhouette logo on his upper right arm.

The tattoo is not big, very small, and does not look very conspicuous.

But it was still spotted by observant reporters.

After a training session, Chen Yingxiong walked out wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, accepting fans' requests for photos and autographs at the sidelines.

Then the sharp-eyed media discovered the tattoo on his arm - in fact, it's really hard to say whether Chen Yingxiong deliberately let others discover his new tattoo...

For a star like him, anything can really become news and appear in various media. Tattooing is naturally something that everyone pays attention to. In the eyes of many traditional Chinese people, tattoos are only done by people in the underworld, gangsters, hooligans and other scum. However, in Europe and the United States, tattoos have become an art, and many excellent tattoo artists are simply artists.

The bald tattoo artist who tattooed a whole giant bear on Chen Yingxiong's back has now become a tattoo artist with a great reputation in St. Petersburg and even Russia because of this incident. People come to him for tattoos in an endless stream, and his business is many times better than before. Until now, the photo of Chen Yingxiong taking off his shirt after scoring a goal to show off the tattoo on his back to the camera is still hanging high in the shop, showing off his skills to all the guests who come here.

So, when interviewing Chen Yingxiong next, everyone mentioned the new tattoo on Chen Yingxiong's arm.

"Oh, this." Chen Yingxiong tilted his head. "This is my new tattoo."

"Does it have any special meaning, Yingxiong?"

"No, it just shows that I have won a Champions League title once, it's like a record..."

"Then why is it tattooed so small... it's not conspicuous at all."

In everyone's opinion, tattoos should be conspicuous and should be able to be seen at a glance, then it has its meaning. With such an awesome achievement as the Champions League, with Chen Yingxiong's personality, he should have tattooed it on his chest, from his chin all the way to his lower abdomen, that's right.

Why did he tattoo it so small on his right arm?

"It's only because it's small that I can tattoo it. It's impossible for me to only win one championship, I have to leave enough space for future Champions League trophies..."

Chen Yingxiong's words left the other party dumbfounded!

It turns out that he is thinking about more Champions League trophies!

This is really arrogant to a certain level - it seems to be low-key, but it is actually true arrogance!

Just looking at the size relationship between his trophy tattoo and his arm, you can tell that this is definitely not something that two or three trophies can satisfy him...

Is Chen Yingxiong so sure that he can win so many Champions League trophies in his career?

You must know that winning a Champions League title is already considered very impressive for many players in their entire career. Those who can win two or three are considered great. As for more than four times, those are basically legendary players.

The player with the most Champions League titles in history is Real Madrid's Gento, who has won the Champions League six times, five of which were consecutive.

Next are Paolo Maldini and Costacurta, who have won the Champions League five times. These two AC Milan legendary defenders won the championship at exactly the same time. There are also Di Stéfano who won the Champions League five times, as well as his Real Madrid teammates Juan Santisteban, Héctor Rial, Juan Alonso, Rafael Lesmes, Marquitos, and José María Zárraga. These eight Real Madrid players were all players from the initial Real Madrid's five consecutive Champions League titles.

Next is Seedorf who won the Champions League four times.

Counting down, there are three times and two times.

With Seedorf having retired, there is no player in today's football world who can win the Champions League four times.

In today's football world, the closest person to Seedorf is Messi, who has already lifted the Champions League trophy three times.

Looking at the situation, Chen Yingxiong's goal is not to catch up with Messi, but to catch up with those legendary figures in history.

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The next day, many media took advantage of reporting on Chen Yingxiong's tattoo to create a special feature on "The Hero Returns."

For many people, Chen Yingxiong's return means that the Champions League competition this season will be more intense. Many people are even looking forward to Yingxiong's return.

They believe that he is the key third person who can break the balance.

For a long time, Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi have dominated the various competitive mainstream of the Champions League, the top scorer, the best player... these awards are basically rotated between the two of them.

The season before last, Messi led Barcelona to win the championship, and he also won the Champions League top scorer and the UEFA Golden Globe Award that season. Last season, Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid topped the list together, and he also became the UEFA Golden Globe Award winner this season.

And Barcelona and Real Madrid, which have them both, are not just Spanish Super League teams, but also "European Super" teams. Their strength greatly exceeds that of other wealthy teams, and they are already wealthy teams among wealthy teams, super wealthy teams.

This situation is inevitably too boring. Anyway, either Real Madrid wins or Barcelona wins. Many teams are already timid before the fight when they play against them, and they have no power to fight back at all.

Anyway, everyone always doesn't want to see a situation where one family dominates, and even if two families dominate, it's not very interesting. It's just that one answer has become two answers, and the difference is not big.

Now everyone is happy to see Chen Yingxiong's Liverpool return, and everyone places their hopes of breaking the balance on Chen Yingxiong and his Liverpool.

They all want to see what kind of surprises this team and this person can bring them, and what kind of waves he can stir up in this stagnant pool.

"...The hero returns, and two seasons of silence have almost made people forget the super center who scored thirteen goals in seven Champions League knockout matches, completing a shocking reversal on the scorer list, not only defeating Messi, but also defeating Barcelona... But now he is back! He used to wear the blue Napoli jersey, but now he has changed his owner and is wearing the red Liverpool jersey, returning to the stage he was once most familiar with... Everyone is looking forward to his performance. He won the top scorer in his first Champions League appearance, and defended the top scorer in his second Champions League appearance after only playing half a season... We even have every reason to guess that if he had not transferred to Liverpool, which was not eligible to participate in the Champions League, would he still be able to continue his top scorer myth... Unfortunately, the two-year blank period made this possibility obsolete. Now, he has returned again, proving to the world with a record-breaking thirty European goals last season - the peerless hero is about to take the stage!"