Volume One: Heroes Appear, People Pay Attention Chapter 29 Northern Legend (Guaranteed Second Update)

Chapter 29 The Legend of the North (Second update guaranteed)

Mazzarri's first game after taking office came two days after he became the head coach of Naples. The short time made it impossible for him to rebuild the team's tactics according to his own ideas. So he followed Rhea's tactics and copied them all, without changing anything.

He even asked the players to play as they had been practicing before.

This made Chen Yingxiong, who had high expectations for him at the beginning, a little disappointed - if it's still the same as before, what's the point of replacing you as the head coach? It’s better to let Rhea stay. At least I won’t have to be blocked in front of my house for several days...

As the saying goes, "Changing hands is like changing knives." Changing a new head coach seems to bring good luck. Without making any adjustments and without changing the starting lineup, Naples defeated Siena 2-0 at their home court.

In fact, it's just because everyone wants to perform hard to leave a good impression on the new head coach and occupy a favorable position in the head coach's mind.

Chen Yingxiong worked particularly hard. He scored one goal in the game, still using corner kick tactics. Some Italian media have already nicknamed him "Mr. Corner Kick". I don't know if this is considered irony or a different kind of compliment...

The other person who scored a goal was Maggio.

Lavezzi started the game and played seventy-five minutes without scoring a single goal, despite his efforts.

After this game, the team stopped the downward trend, but Mazzarri did not make any adjustments.

On December 13, in the sixteenth round of the league, Naples faced Lecce at home, and the score was 3:0.

Chen Yingxiong scored in two consecutive rounds. This time his goal was finally not scored with a set kick, but a long shot from outside the penalty area. He seems to be taking turns to show off his scoring weapons to the coach who trusts him. In the last round of the league, he showed headers, but this round it became long shots.

And his rival Lavezzi on the front line continued to have no performance.

Lavezzi was also anxious. He also wanted to use his performance to impress the new head coach, but luck was not on his side...

During the game, he had a very exciting shot after a breakthrough. As a result, the football hit the goal post and bounced off the baseline.

December 18th was Naples’ last UEFA Cup group match. Before that, Naples, which had only accumulated one point, had basically bid farewell to the UEFA Cup in advance. Therefore, Mazzarri did not waste the time of the main players in this game. In order to maintain his physical strength, he lined up a substitute lineup to play, and players who usually didn't have much time on the court got a chance to play.

This Napoli team played quite tenaciously, but after all, they had no hope of advancing, so they still lost to Metalist Kharkiv (metalist_kharkiv) 0:1 at home. In this way, the UEFA Cup journey ended with one draw and three losses.

The European war trip that people had high hopes for before, unexpectedly ended just after it started.

Although it was decided long ago, many fans still felt sad when they really said goodbye to Europe.

This time, there were no curses or boos at the Sao Paulo Stadium. The previous disturbances that enveloped the Sao Paulo Stadium disappeared, leaving only sadness.

It’s not just the Napoli fans who are sad, but also the Napoli players.

Many players even cried.

Mazari could only comfort them one by one.

"Don't be sad, don't be sad. We'll come back next year!"

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December 21st is the last league game before the winter break in Serie A. Naples went away to challenge the "Red Bull" Turin.

In this game, Mazzarri still did not make any adjustments to the team's starting lineup and tactics, and just took the team out.

He used Rhea's tactics and lineup for three consecutive games, leaving everyone confused. Not only did the media find it strange, but the players were also puzzled - could it be that after Mazzarri's research, he found that only Rhea's tactics were the most suitable for the current Napoli team? So what's the difference between him coming and Rhea staying?

Or is his ability to handle locker room relations better than Rhea's?

But so far, it is not found that he has taken any action on the conflict between Chen Yingxiong and the Argentinian gang...

Amidst such confusion, Naples went away and lost to Turin with a score of 0:1. A defeat ended the first half of Napoli's 2008-2009 season.

The outside world doesn't know what Mazzarri is doing. Only Mazzarri's colleagues, the coaches on his Naples coaching staff, know what the new head coach is doing.

He was studying the videos of these games repeatedly, and then comparing them with the player information he had. Sometimes he would discuss Rhea's tactics with them and then ask some questions. In addition, the information and game videos of Arshavin, who is about to join the team during the winter break, are also on his desk.

Arshavin's characteristics are somewhat similar to Lavezzi's. His position and role on the court, as well as his playing style, are almost the same.

What will Lavezzi do after he arrives?

In fact, from the beginning, Mazzarri did not think Lavezzi was Chen Yingxiong's competitor because their positions were different. Rhea's decision to let Lavezzi be the main player was ultimately because he did not have a good center, Sarayeta was not useful, and Paul Sosa was old and his level was limited.

It stands to reason that the arrival of Chen Yingxiong should have helped Rhea solve this problem. Who would have thought that Rhea had already formed a fixed mindset and felt that the tactics had been polished and formed. It would be too risky to revise them again, so he still let Lavezzi be the main force. separate. However, Lavezzi's shooting level is very average. His characteristics are his superb dribbling, sharp breakthroughs using speed, and crosses from the wing.

Mazzarri believes that Lavezzi's competitor should actually be Arshavin, who will join the team in the second half of the season. His arrival will inevitably squeeze Lavezzi's living space.

So at first he was curious as to why Lavezzi was in a relationship with Chen Yingxiong. Later he learned that Chen Yingxiong's attitude toward Maradona had angered Lavezzi, and the two had a personal grudge.

There's no way around it...

Mazzarri is quite satisfied with Chen Yingxiong's performance in these league games. Although the overall tactics are not built around him, he can still score six goals, which is already a very good result. Sarajeta, who played in his position last season, only scored four goals in 22 appearances, and Lavezzi only scored 11 goals in 35 appearances. From this point of view, this striker is really as he said - especially good at fighting and scoring goals.

He suddenly felt sorry for Rhea - he had such good cards, why didn't he know how to use them?

Mazzarri observed four games, including three league games and one UEFA Cup group match, and a brand new tactic has basically taken shape in his mind.

The next step is to use the winter break training camp to run into the team.

The reason why he suddenly changed his tactics is that in a sense, this set of tactics is not much different from Rhea's tactics. It can be said that he followed Rhea's tactical thinking, but made key adjustments in some places. So don’t worry about the players not being able to adapt, they are still relatively familiar with it. It can even be said that his tactics are a variant of Rhea's tactics.

In the second half of the season, Mazzarri plans to let Naples switch to 343 to give full play to the scoring ability of Chen Yingxiong, a high center forward who is "especially good at fighting and scoring."

This also solves the problem of Arshavin and Lavezzi coexisting.

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For Chen Yingxiong, the 2008-2009 Serie A season was a very hard and confusing half season for him.

On the one hand, he had to work hard to adapt to the living environment in Italy, the food, living habits, language, and the poor traffic conditions in Naples. On the other hand, he has to work hard to adapt to the tactical characteristics of Italian football, allowing himself to run more in the game and preventing opponents from easily marking him. In addition, he also has to fight with almost all Naples media and most of the Italian media, fight with Naples fans, fight with his stubborn head coach, and fight with his teammates.

Keep fighting and fighting and fighting...

Under such circumstances, he still scored six league goals and one UEFA Cup goal.

After such a bad and chaotic half of the season, Chen Yingxiong suddenly found himself promoted to a level in December!

He ran to read the mission description, which reminded him that he had completed two missions - "Second Golden Boot" and "Mission Impossible".

He won the Russian Premier League Golden Boot Award in the 2008 season!

He really won the Russian Super League Golden Boot this season while playing only eleven rounds of the league!

After Chen Yingxiong saw the prompts that these two tasks were completed, he laughed in front of the computer.

Arshavin also called him. When he talked about it, he became very excited and told him about the situation in Russia vividly.

In the summer of 2008, Chen Yingxiong moved to Naples, and his rival in the league's top scorer list, Pavlyuchenko, also left Spartak Moscow and went to Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League. So even though Pavlyuchenko was in good scoring form in the first half of the season, he also lost the chance to compete for the Golden Boot. Next, the whole Russian Super League will watch CSKA Moscow's Brazilian center Love start to break out, chasing the high-ranking Chen Yingxiong.

A major theme in the second half of the Russian Super League season is that the media are speculating whether Love can beat Chen Yingxiong's number of goals and become the top scorer.

"You have become a benchmark for the best scorer, haha!" Arshavin laughed when he said this.

Chen Yingxiong also laughed. It felt really good - he was high up, overlooking all living beings climbing up like ants, and he had the illusion of becoming a god.

Later, the St. Petersburg media came out, and almost the entire Russian media was encouraging the Brazilian, completely forgetting all the ridicule and discrimination they had against the black man.

The CSKA Moscow team is also helping Love surpass Chen Yingxiong. For CSKA, the name Chen Yingxiong is their eternal pain. If their teammates can destroy Chen Yingxiong's dream of winning the Golden Boot, it will undoubtedly be a powerful counterattack.

So everyone watched as Love's number of goals continued to rise, getting closer to Chen Yingxiong's benchmark.

It finally came to a halt on the twentieth goal. In the last round of the league, Love tried his best, CSKA Moscow also tried their best, but no goals were scored.

When the final whistle of the game sounded, the commentator Yuri Petrov shouted: "He really did it! He really did it! In the eleventh round of the league, he became the league's top scorer! Twenty-one goals! Twenty-one goals! Twenty-one goals in eleven rounds of the league, he accomplished something that no one could even imagine before! It’s incredible!!”

The "he" in Petrov's mouth is Chen Yingxiong.

Although Chen Yingxiong encountered trouble in Italy, he is still a legend in Russia. After the season, the St. Petersburg media praised Chen Yingxiong as a "Northern Legend" belonging to St. Petersburg.

The 2008 season of the Russian Super League has come to an end, and Chen Yingxiong’s legend in Russia has also come to an end.

Next, it depends on whether he can write a legend of his own in Apennines...

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***, Chen Yingxiong’s epic mission in Russia has finally been completed. Please wait and see. Chen Yingxiong will challenge the hellish mission in Italy!