Chapter 36 Champions League Arises

While Chen Hero was striving for his consecutive league top scorer title, the Champions League battle also attracted everyone's attention.

After eliminating Napoli, Barcelona successfully entered the final four, and their opponent was another team from Italy—Inter Milan.

The feud between Inter Milan's coach and Barcelona had a long history. Whenever they met, it was like a collision of planets, never lacking hype to attract attention.

Since his time at Chelsea, Mourinho had repeatedly clashed with Barcelona. One of the most famous encounters even led to the premature retirement of the renowned Swedish referee, Anders Frisk. In the 2004-05 season, Mourinho's Chelsea faced Barcelona in the Champions League round of 16. After the match at Camp Nou, Mourinho claimed that Barcelona officials had entered Frisk's dressing room.

His words caused an uproar, and even Chelsea fans, upset by the loss, sent death threats to Frisk. Coupled with media harassment and scrutiny, Frisk finally couldn't bear it and decided to retire in his prime.

Later, UEFA's disciplinary committee and referee committee found no evidence of any behind-the-scenes dealings between Barcelona and Frisk. So Mourinho changed his story, claiming that his assistant had seen Barcelona officials entering the referee's dressing room, putting all the blame on the assistant, perfectly embodying the essence of the "temporary worker" excuse.

This incident made Platini's UEFA and the referees gnash their teeth at Mourinho, hating him immensely. From then on, this outspoken Portuguese coach became Platini's enemy.

Therefore, as long as Mourinho was involved, his team would repeatedly encounter Barcelona.

This season was no exception, as Mourinho's Inter Milan was drawn into the same group as Barcelona in the group stage.

In the group stage, Inter Milan were held to a 0-0 draw at home by Barcelona, and then lost 0-2 away, truly being at a disadvantage in all aspects.

Now the two teams had met again, and this time in the semi-finals.

Judging from the previous encounters between the two teams in the group stage, Inter Milan was clearly no match for Barcelona.

So this encounter was considered to be without suspense. Along the way, the most difficult hurdle for Barcelona to overcome should have been the two matches against Napoli. If it hadn't been for the referee's key misjudgment, the defending champions would have had to surrender at the Stadio San Paolo.

And once Barcelona had passed the Napoli hurdle, everyone felt that no team could stop them from defending their title.

But the result was a big surprise. In the first leg, Inter Milan completely defeated Barcelona 3-1 at home.

This result was something no one had expected before the match.

In this match, Mourinho demonstrated several tactics, such as cutting off the connection between Messi and Xavi, conducting targeted defense in midfield, and not being afraid to attack against Barcelona.

Obviously, Barcelona was not used to this style of play, so they lost 1-3 away.

After returning home, Barcelona, with their backs against the wall, were determined to complete a super comeback.

Their start was also perfect—Busquets returned in this match, wearing a mask to protect his nose. During the match, he made physical contact with Inter Milan player Motta. When Motta was shielding the ball, he swung his arm back and hit Busquets' chin. As a result, the Barcelona midfielder covered his face and fell to the ground in pain in front of the world's audience.

This action directly led to Motta being sent off with a red card because the referee believed that Motta had hit someone…

The angry Motta questioned Busquets, and the players from both sides clashed.

This scene reminded many people of the match between Barcelona and Napoli.

"Another controversial penalty, another conflict, another red card… why do Barcelona's matches always have such situations?" the commentator complained.

Because they were one man down, Inter Milan had to adjust their strategy, retracting all their lines, giving up possession, and desperately defending their goal.

Barcelona then pressed forward, wanting to break through the goal as soon as possible.

The two sides stalemated until the 80th minute, when Piqué scored a goal for Barcelona. But it was already too late. Barcelona ultimately lost with an aggregate score of 2-3. Although Inter Milan lost the away game, they eliminated Barcelona and entered the final with their heads held high. After the match, Mourinho rushed onto the Camp Nou pitch to celebrate, but was blocked by Valdés, and the two quarreled again.

While the Inter Milan players were celebrating their victory, the Camp Nou pitch suddenly started watering… Obviously, the Barcelona people were unwilling to see someone they hated behaving so arrogantly on their territory, as it would make them feel even more hurt.

If it ended here, then Motta's red card would have been just another controversial penalty, and there were simply too many such penalties. But after the match, a British television station broadcasted a clip. In the clip, everyone could clearly see Busquets, who was covering his face with both hands, rolling on the ground, and looking extremely painful, opening his hands covering his face, and then secretly glancing at the referee. He was watching what card the referee was pulling out!

This shot proved that Motta had not caused any harm to Busquets. He was not as painful as he had shown at all, because he even had the leisure to care about the referee's decision on Motta—he wanted to see if his exaggerated and well-done performance had achieved the desired effect!

This was a blatant dive and acting!

Many people immediately thought of the match between Barcelona and Napoli, and Alves covering his face and falling to the ground.

Many people felt that Napoli's elimination was truly unjust…

This dive earned Busquets the title of "Best Actor," and also caused the fans of both sides to engage in a war of words for a long time.

Some media even went to interview the Napoli players, asking them what they thought of Busquets' dive.

Most of the Napoli players didn't want to cause trouble, so they refused to answer the question.

Only Chen Hero spoke about this matter during an interview. "From this incident, everyone can understand why I was so angry at the time, right? Football is a sport for real men. I despise this kind of behavior of using exaggerated performances to gain an advantage. If you have the ability, compete with me fairly, but obviously, the Barcelona people don't dare."

And Barcelona's response was… "That executioner has no right to say such things to us!"

※※※

Regardless of any controversy in this match, the final result had already changed. Inter Milan eliminated Barcelona and advanced to the final.

Their opponent in the final was Bayern Munich.

At Camp Nou, Inter Milan, playing with ten men, eliminated the powerful Barcelona. This match ignited the fighting spirit and confidence of the Inter Milan players. Many media outlets also felt that facing Bayern Munich in the final might not be bad news for Inter Milan.

Many people had already begun to look forward to Inter Milan lifting the Champions League trophy again after forty-five years.

But all of this had nothing to do with Napoli.

Napoli was currently fighting for their future in the domestic league.

In the 36th round of the league, in a match that ended earlier in the day, AC Milan finally won. They narrowly defeated Fiorentina 1-0 at home.

After learning of this result, Mazzarri breathed a sigh of relief—now his team could wholeheartedly focus on winning.

In the away match against Chievo, Chen Hero started and scored a goal, helping the team ultimately defeat Chievo 2-1.

In another match taking place at the same time, Udinese and Cagliari drew 2-2. Udinese was ranked 14th, and it was unrealistic for them to qualify for European competitions. There was no threat of relegation either. This team only had one last honor to compete for. That was the league's top scorer.

Di Natale scored a goal in this draw, bringing his personal goal tally for the season to twenty-five.

His gap with Chen Hero was still one goal.

He was biting hard on the top scorer list.

※※※

The strength of his opponent did not make Chen Hero furious; on the contrary, it excited him.

Because only the Golden Boot won in this way would be especially meaningful.

In the 37th round of the league, which was the penultimate round, Napoli hosted Atalanta. From this round of matches onwards, all Serie A matches were scheduled to kick off at the same time, in order to avoid various match-fixing situations.

Napoli defeated Atalanta 2-0 at home, and Chen Hero scored twice in the match.

When he scored his second goal, the commentator exclaimed, "Hero looks full of fighting spirit today! He scored twice!"

The Stadio San Paolo also erupted in a clamor mixed with boos and cheers.

This was a unique scene after Chen Hero scored—Napoli's radical fans still couldn't forgive Chen Hero. A small number of radical fans even attributed the team's elimination by Barcelona to Chen Hero's impulsiveness.

In fact, this situation where they wouldn't reconcile with their own players for many years wasn't unique to Napoli fans and Chen Hero.

AC Milan legend Paolo Maldini had clashed with the radical fans in the south stand of the San Siro at his farewell match. At the time, the fans in the south stand chanted, "Baresi!" and "Costacurta!"—the names of these two Milan legendary center-backs—in order to disgust Maldini. Baresi and Costacurta were the true legendary captains of Milan. Maldini, you are nothing!

The angry Maldini responded by giving the middle finger to the group of radical fans in the south stand.

The conflict between Maldini and the fans in the south stand had a long history. Even when Maldini retired and the whole world was reviewing Maldini's glorious career, these radical fans were so uncooperative, insisting on disgusting Maldini at such an important farewell match.

Even Paolo Maldini, a legendary figure with a status like a "four generations, three public officials" in AC Milan, would be treated like this by radical fans, let alone Chen Hero of Napoli.

Chen Hero ignored the boos from the radical fans. More and more fans liked him, so the cheers became louder and louder.

After scoring, he rushed to the west stand to celebrate his goal with his supporters.

This caused a group of radical fans in the south stand to shout, "Traitor!"

Scoring twice in the match and helping the team win the match should have been good news for Chen Hero.

But after the match, Chen Hero still learned some "bad news."

"Di Natale scored again, also two," assistant coach Viviani told him.

※※※

ps, explosion forecast, four updates tomorrow~