Chapter 61. Excessive Strength

Tekke had already started in the Russian Cup, which was definitely not good news for Chen Yingxiong...

The worse news was that Tekke had even scored one goal.

On the one hand, Chen Yingxiong was in a "low state," while on the other hand, Tekke was in great shape after his comeback.

It was clear who Advocaat would lean towards.

Although Chen Yingxiong had already allocated his new talent to "heavy artillery," the 7% scoring rate increase was really... too insignificant.

Even if he had not practiced long-range shooting before, he could still have a 10% goal scoring rate - an average of one goal for every ten shots.

Now it was only 17 percent at most.

The effect was not obvious.

The percentage added by talent was fixed. If one wanted to further improve their goal scoring rate, they could only work hard in this area during their training.

So for a whole week, Chen Yingxiong had been honing his long-range shooting ability in the dungeon. He kept trying long-range shots at different angles and distances, hoping to find some tricks from them.

This time he really felt that he had made significant progress. Unlike before when he was alone and was trying to gain experience, this time he had a whole team of coaches to guide him and his teammates to cooperate with him. He no longer had to rely on Yesenin for everything like before.

Although Advocaat, Porter, and other coaches were virtual, they had excellent professional knowledge just like in reality. They would tell Chen Yingxiong what was wrong with his shot and what to do to improve it.

In this way, Chen Yingxiong's progress was naturally much greater than when he practiced alone.

His long-range shooting and finishing abilities were improving little by little.

And the time Chen Yingxiong persisted in this copy was getting longer and longer.

From the initial half an hour, he could now persist for an hour with relative stability.

What did one hour mean? That was 12,000 experience points!

It took 120,000 experience points to advance from level 6 to level 7. Even if Chen Yingxiong only relied on dungeon training, it would only take him ten hours to reach the level!

This speed was amazing!

Of course, it was impossible for Chen Yingxiong to finish all these ten hours in one day - that would be fatal.

Chen Yingxiong could now clear the dungeon once a day, that was it.

But besides grinding dungeons, he had other ways to gain experience, such as normal training in the team, participating in competitions... Unfortunately, Chen Yingxiong could forget about gaining experience by scoring goals for the time being.

So with this calculation, in less than ten days, he would be able to reach level seven and get a talent point. This way, his long-range shot success rate would be at least 24%. It would be better to score two goals out of ten shots than just one, right?

…

Chen Yingxiong was eager to max out his "heavy artillery" talent, so he was madly clearing dungeons in pursuit of upgrades.

In reality, bad situations continued occurring.

In the 24th round of the league in the middle of the week, Zenit St. Petersburg challenged Rubin Kazan away. After starting for five consecutive rounds, Chen Yingxiong finally fell out of the starting list.

He made the game roster, but his position had been replaced by Tekke.

On the bench, Denisov touched Chen Yingxiong. "Don't worry, Yingxiong, you will be back soon!"

Chen Yingxiong stared at the restricted area of ​​Rubin Kazan and said, "Of course I will be back soon..."

After I upgrade more...

I will be back, I will definitely be back!

Because this was my territory!

… 　

But, the news wasn't always bad.

For example, although Tekle started the match against Rubin, he did not continue his form from the Russian Cup. He did have a few shots, but none of them went into the goal.

The commentator thought that he had just returned from injury and had not yet found his own rhythm, and the entire Zenit team also needed to adapt again, because before that they were all used to Chen Yingxiong playing as the spearhead.

Tekke was 1.78 meters tall. Although he had scored four headers this season, his header goals and Chen Yingxiong's were completely different in style. Chen Yingxiong was domineering and direct, while Tekke looked for the landing point and sneaked by. He rarely confronted the opponent's defender head-on.

Neither Tekke nor Kerzakov were the type of center forward who could hold the ball and stay in the front. Without Chen Yingxiong, Zenit lost its offensive bridgehead.

The whole team needed to adapt again, so the support for Tekke was naturally not enough.

Zenit's luck in this game was really bad - the enemy ​​Argentine striker Alejandro Domiguez scored in the first nine minutes. Zenit, who were behind, could only press forward, but since they didn't have a bridgehead to consolidate the front position, they would be frequently intercepted by the opponent and counterattacked. The full-backs had to withdraw immediately after rushing forward.

Anyukov ran back and forth like a stupid bird and became incredibly angry.

He began to miss the time when Chen Yingxiong was on the field. At that time, as long as the ball was passed, Chen Yingxiong could always use his header and body to pass the ball to his teammates, providing a fulcrum for attack. With this fulcrum, the players in the backcourt dared to press forward boldly.

He even felt that although Tekke had scored a lot of goals in the previous half of the season, Chen Yingxiong was still better! This was definitely not out of class friendship in the "Eat, Drink and Play Group," but from the experience of a professional player.

Chen Yingxiong replaced Kerzakov in the 80th minute, but it was useless, because the team was already 0-3 behind Rubin Kazan.

It was just after Zenit lost the third goal that Chen Yingxiong came on the field. His coming on the field was definitely not to let him turn the tide and equalize the score, but to preserve the stamina of the other players.

Zenit itself had no fighting spirit, and they lost 0-3 away from home.

…

In fact, Tekke was also very anxious. When he was recovering from his injury, he watched Chen Yingxiong score one goal after another, and his hope was gradually exhausted.

Unexpectedly, fate helped him at the critical moment. When he was about to return from injury, Chen Yingxiong encountered a bottleneck and Tekke was able to regain his main position.

Perhaps he wanted to show off too much, so as to keep Chen Yingxiong on the bench. He was very impatient in the match against Rubin Kazan, and ended up not seizing any chances, and ultimately didn't score a single goal.

If you don't perform well in the game, you can only try your best to show yourself in training.

As a result, he used too much force again... and… was injured again!

When Chen Yingxiong saw Tekke leave the field due to injury, he felt that his good luck... seemed to have not run out yet.

Later, when Tekke was examined, it was found that he had a muscle strain and would be out for two weeks, which meant that he would definitely miss the 25th round of the league match against FK Moscow. And he didn't know if he would be able to catch up with the 26th round against CSKA Moscow...

"What a tragedy..." Denisov sighed after seeing Tekke injured.

…

Tekke's injury allowed Chen Yingxiong to return to the starting lineup.

This time, his performance was slightly better, at least he no longer looked tired during the game... That was because Chen Yingxiong had gradually gotten used to the pressure of the dungeon.

However, he still did not score a goal or provide an assist. But this time, Zenit's attack was improved compared to the previous match against Rubin Kazan. They had regained their offensive bridgehead.

Chen Yingxiong stood at the front, acting as a beacon for the whole team and pointing out the direction of the team's attack. His teammates passed the ball to him from the air. Although he was closely guarded in front of the goal, he still had space to move outside the penalty area. He passed the ball to his teammates, who then shot at the goal.

The goal scored by Zenit was like this. A long pass from the backcourt went directly to Chen Yingxiong, who jumped up to compete for the header and then passed the ball to Kerzakov behind him. Kerzakov received the ball and passed it to the wing, Arshavin dribbled past him and broke into the penalty area, then faced the attacking goalkeeper and calmly sent the ball into the goal.

At this time, the game had only been going for fourteen minutes...

In the following games, although Chen Yingxiong could not score a goal, he was still able to cause trouble and put pressure on the defenders of the Moscow Club in the frontcourt - in order to prevent him from scoring, the Moscowites had to line up almost the entire defense line to suppress and cut off his support from the wing. This meant that the other Zenit players were more likely to get opportunities.

Advocaat seemed to be using Chen Yingxiong as a tactical center forward - scoring goals was not the main task. The point was receiving the ball and making passes to teammates...

Sergeyevski finally felt better. At least this kid hadn't completely fallen. He was still useful, even though he scored fewer goals than before...

Chen Yingxiong played for 80 minutes before being substituted, which was a remarkable improvement. You should know that his playing time had dropped sharply in comparison to before. The decline was so large that it was almost shocking. He completely lost his starting position. If it weren't for Tekke's repeated injury, who knew when Chen Yingxiong would have been able to return...

However, once he left the field, Zenit lost its ability to suppress the Moscow club's defense line. Since they were only one goal behind, the visiting team began a frantic counterattack.

Their counterattack paid off in the 90th minute.

In the 90th minute, Petr Bystrov finally scored an equalizer for Moscow... The entire Kirov Stadium was celebrating the victory one minute, and suddenly fell into silence the next minute.

The sporadic cheers from the away players and fans in such a huge stadium was so weird.

"Zenit St. Petersburg lost the ball in the 90th minute... They have suffered two consecutive defeats! This must be a disappointing afternoon for Advocaat... When he just took over the team, the team won consecutive games and the rankings soared. But now that the season has come to an end, his team has run into trouble... If they want to qualify for the Champions League, this performance alone is definitely not enough! They only scored one goal in two league games, but conceded four goals! We need goals! Only goals can bring victory!"

Shilgeyevsky called out as the camera gave Chen Yingxiong a close-up.

He was trying to wake up the giant bear that seemed to have fallen into hibernation...