Chapter 154 Early Upgrade

After the match restarted, Perugia launched a counter-attack, while Napoli appropriately slowed down their attacking tempo, pulling their formation back to deflect the opponent's initial surge. Napoli, holding a clear superiority over their opponents, always managed the game with effortless ease once in the lead. They would wait until the opponent had exhausted themselves with fruitless attacks before launching a counter-punch to secure victory. This tactic was both highly practical and extremely energy-efficient. However, when Perugia adopted this conservative approach, Long Bisheng found himself somewhat marginalized on the pitch.

While Long Bisheng was immensely useful during a siege on the opponent's goal, he seemed to have little impact when Napoli was defending. Lacking explosive pace, he was unable to drive forward swiftly on the counter-attack; all he could do was contest aerial balls in the final third to flick them on, or hold the ball up at his feet and wait for teammates to arrive in support before laying it off.

Ten minutes passed, and with the first half drawing to a close, a roar akin to a mountain collapse or a tsunami suddenly erupted from the stands of the Stadio San Paolo!

The players on the pitch froze in unison—for Perugia was currently in possession and building an attack. In the preceding moments of the match, every time Perugia touched the ball, the stands had greeted them with jeers. Why the cheers this time? And why was the volume so deafening?

Soon enough, the sharper-witted players caught on instantly—it must be that on the other pitch, Frosinone had fallen behind!

Before this round of matches, Napoli held a ten-point lead over Frosinone. If Napoli won and Frosinone lost, their lead would stretch to thirteen points. With only four rounds of the league remaining, they would successfully secure promotion four matches ahead of schedule!

Grava executed a flying tackle, brilliantly dispossessing the opposing player, and immediately distributed the ball forward to Trotta. Trotta shook off a defender and carried the ball across the halfway line. The rest of the players surged across the midfield right behind him.

No grand declarations were uttered aloud, but a single thought echoed in the mind of every player on the pitch: This match might very well be the one where we clinch promotion early; we cannot afford to look cowardly, not even for a fleeting moment!

Fueled by the prospect of securing promotion in advance, the inspired Napoli players suddenly radiated an unstoppable momentum. Faced with this overwhelming surge from Napoli, a caught-off-guard Perugia could only fight and retreat simultaneously.

Fontana orchestrated the rhythm of the game to absolute perfection. Whenever his teammates' advances were intercepted, they would immediately offload the ball to him, and he would instantly thread it to the feet of the player in the optimal position. Soon, an opposing player tightly man-marked him, but he still managed to deliver a final pass into the penalty area.

Long Bisheng leaped high amidst his run, redirecting the cross with a powerful glancing header. Pià, waiting inside the box, struck the ball first-time on the volley without taking a touch!

The Perugia goalkeeper sprang into the air, barely managing to tip the ball over the end line. A collective sigh of disappointment swept through the stands.

"Napoli's counter-attack was simply breathtaking, featuring crisp consecutive passes through the center and a headed flick-on by the striker inside the box, followed by a first-time volley from the supporting player! What a pity it missed the target by just a fraction..." sighed the host from RAI, Italy's national broadcaster. "This team certainly does not belong in Serie C1. Every single one of their players possesses Serie B quality. I believe that next season, upon their return to Serie B, Napoli will let everyone know that they are still that very same Napoli—the Napoli that once boasted Maradona, and nurtured Zola, Ferrara, Cannavaro, and others..."

Amidst the commentator's impassioned voice, Fontana whipped in the corner kick. Calaiò, running in under the cover of Long Bisheng's screen, met the ball with a contested header that sailed wide—and immediately afterward, the referee blew the halftime whistle.

"I imagine everyone here knows what happened during the first half. Yes, we are leading one-nil, and Frosinone is trailing zero-one. If these scores hold until the final whistle, we will secure our promotion four rounds early," Reja said inside the locker room. "A huge crowd has turned out today. I haven't counted the exact numbers, and I'm not sure if it surpasses the attendance from the day the club was renamed. But I know what they want to see. They want to witness us win this match in style. They want to see with their own eyes our return to Serie B at our home stadium with four games to spare. We boast the highest attendance in all of Serie C1—numbers that would hold their own even in Serie A—and I believe we owe it to this attendance to give our absolute best."

The players offered no verbal response, but their breathing grew heavier and deeper. Many among them could easily have transferred to a Serie B club before the start of the season; some could even have secured a role as a substitute or a primary backup in Serie A. Yet, they chose to stay—beyond the fact that President De Laurentiis offered salaries completely on par with Serie B standards, the passionate home attendance at the San Paolo, which rivaled that of Serie A giants, was equally a compelling factor that drew them in!

Reja's words struck a chord deep within them. Just like the previous match, their emotions were reignited once more. There was only one home game left after this; this fixture represented one of the rare opportunities this season to showcase their brilliance on home turf! If they didn't put on a show now, when would they ever?

Napoli had practically run out of targets to chase this season. Apart from the promotion spot that had been all but guaranteed for a while, their sole remaining mission was to squeeze out every drop of brilliant, exhilarating football to entertain the Napoli faithful. If they could clinch next season's Serie B status on the back of a spectacular home victory, could there possibly be anything more perfect?

Whether they could secure early promotion after this match depended on whether Frosinone dropped points, but whether they could sweep this match with style depended entirely on their own effort. The former was out of their hands, but the latter was firmly within their grasp.

"I don't think I need to say much regarding tactics. Playing with our current system, we've only lost a single match all season, and that opponent was none of other than Perugia... Do you all remember how we lost that game?" Reja abruptly posed a question.

The players who had participated in that match fell into deep thought. That fixture had been the most frustrating defeat of Napoli's season. Perugia had utilized superior physical stamina and ferocious high-pressing in midfield, completely neutralizing Napoli's playmaker Fontana so that he could barely string together a few decent passes all game. Meanwhile, Sosa had fallen into the trap of the opponent's cynical foul tactics. Throughout the entire ninety minutes, Napoli managed a mere five shots on goal, while Perugia settled the score via a single penalty kick.

"We lost that match, and we must win it back in this one. Napoli has not fallen so low as to fail to defeat an opponent over two legs even in Serie C1! Win this match, and let's march into Serie B with the finest record! Let's return to the league where we should have been all along this year!"

Reja clenched his fists and roared. The burning desire deep within the players' hearts was thoroughly ignited. Yes, this should undoubtedly be one of their goals: to claim an undisputed, resounding victory against the only opponent that had ever beaten them this season!

"Pià with a shot from a tight angle! The ball hits the side netting! What a pity, Pià's entire sequence of moves was magnificent, but the ball just wouldn't go in!"

"Fontana carries the ball outside the penalty area... a chip, a lobbed shot! The goalkeeper takes a step back and tips the ball over the end line! Fontana's performance is simply phenomenal; he doesn't look like a veteran of thirty-five at all!"

"On the other pitch, Frosinone is still trailing zero to one. I believe this scoreline has further stimulated the Napoli players. They've pinned the opposition back right from the start of the second half, as if they were the ones trailing. A Napoli side like this thoroughly deserves the Serie C1 championship trophy, and even more so, deserves to feature in Serie B next season!"

True to his words, from the start of the second half onward, Napoli firmly seized control of the proceedings. Although midfield orchestrator Fontana remained marked by two opponents, he shifted the ball with a nimble agility that belied his age, releasing it instantly to the optimal locations, allowing his teammates to convert his passes into wave after wave of shots on goal.

Perugia's defenders continued with their rough, dirty tactics, but they still could not hold back the rampaging Napoli players. A barrage of fouls earned them a flurry of yellow cards. Finally, in the sixty-seventh minute of the match, a Perugia defender hauled down Long Bisheng, picked up his second yellow card of the game, and was sent off!

Having gained a numerical advantage, Napoli smoothly doubled their lead two minutes later. Calaiò latched onto Fontana's exquisite through-ball, burst into the penalty area, and fired the ball into the top-left corner of the net. Two to nil.

In the eighty-third minute, Long Bisheng laid the ball off at the edge of the box, and Pià unleashed a stunning long-range strike to extend the lead to three to nil—securing the result for Napoli.

And fortune seemed to stand firmly on Napoli's side as well. Just as they established a three-goal cushion, news arrived from the other pitch that Frosinone had conceded two goals within five minutes away from home, falling behind zero to three!

The remaining minutes of the match lost their competitive suspense. Perugia had no mathematical chance of clawing back a three-goal deficit in the time left, and Frosinone had even less hope of drawing level. If such a miracle were to occur, it would truly be the stuff of legend, but today did not appear to be a day for miracles.

During the final few minutes of the match, the players on the pitch slowed their pace, but the fans in the stands cared little about that. They simply cheered continuously, celebrating Napoli's promotion to Serie B four rounds ahead of schedule!

At last, after two minutes of stoppage time, the referee blew the final whistle. The fans in the stadium erupted into deafening cheers simultaneously, while the players on the pitch raised their hands high, sharing in the jubilation with the supporters!