Chapter 160: The Golden Era of Serie B

Before heading to Italy, Long Bisheng made a trip to Qingdao, where he was heavily shaken down by local heavyweights like Li Erlong and Lu Dashan. Qingdao Haifeng’s rebuilding efforts had gone quite well this season, currently ranking fifth in China League One, a world of difference compared to last season, though still some distance away from Cai Sheng’s grand ambitions.

Yet Cai Sheng remained firmly convinced that spring for Qingdao Haifeng would arrive sooner or later. His signings this season were predominantly young players, basically selected from the same age group as Long Bisheng. Leveraging his connections, he had poached quite a few talents from various club youth academies. Aside from Huang Zhenghong, he brought in attacking midfielder Gu Yu from the Shanghai youth team and striker Hu Shuangpeng from Wuhan. Cai Sheng intended to follow the path Changchun Yatai had taken in previous years—using League One to temper a batch of promising youngsters and then surging into the Chinese Super League within a few years to achieve a stunning breakthrough. Indeed, Changchun Yatai’s performance in the Super League this season truly deserved the word "stunning."

Meanwhile, Ning Xi’s work in Italy was progressing smoothly. Napoli itself was ambitious about making a big push this season, and owner Aurelio De Laurentiis provided head coach Edy Reja with a transfer budget of fifteen million euros. Naturally, Reja had no hesitation in offering slightly better terms to a backup striker with immense potential. Ning Xi perfectly accomplished her mission: Long Bisheng’s annual salary was increased from fifty thousand euros to eighty thousand euros, along with a fifty-thousand-euro bonus upon successful promotion.

This summer, the landscape of Italian football underwent earth-shattering changes. The world-shocks of the *Calciopoli* scandal initially dealt a heavy blow to Napoli’s promotion plans. In the first trial of the scandal, three Italian football giants—Juventus, Fiorentina, and Lazio—were sentenced to relegation to Serie B. If this stood as the final verdict, it would be extremely difficult for other Serie B teams to secure promotion spots from them, as there were only three promotion slots available in Serie B.

Perhaps out of such considerations, during the second trial of *Calciopoli*, Fiorentina and Lazio retained their Serie A status, starting the new league season with deductions of nineteen and eleven points respectively. Although AC Milan was sentenced to start the new season with a minus-eight-point penalty, they also retained their Champions League qualification. Juventus was still relegated to Serie B and docked seventeen points for the new season. Aside from allowing the aforementioned four clubs to breathe a sigh of relief, this verdict also brought relief to numerous Serie B clubs: even though Juventus would undoubtedly occupy one promotion spot, at least there were still two promotion spots left to fight for. Following the appeal verdict on July 25, the Napoli club swung into action. Their strategy for the new season was simple: if three Serie A clubs were truly penalized with relegation, they would rather spend another year in Serie B, focusing entirely on developing young players. After all, having just been promoted from Serie C1, spending a transitional year in Serie B was nothing too difficult to accept. But now, with only Juventus as their biggest competitor, fighting for promotion still held a glimmer of hope.

Although the second instance was not the final judgment, everyone knew the final ruling would only be lighter, not heavier, because no one wanted the *Calciopoli* scandal to deal too severe a blow to the vitality of Italian football. Moreover, the Italian national team—composed primarily of players from Juventus and AC Milan—had just triumphed in the recently concluded World Cup, giving the Italian Football Federation, responsible for the rulings, an even more ample reason to show leniency.

Except for Fontana, who announced his retirement, all other key players from last season’s main squad remained at the club. These players already possessed the caliber to hold their own in Serie B, and through the previous season, their coordination had become even more tacit. For head coach Edy Reja, what he needed was not rebuilding, but filling vacancies.

The first vacancy to fill was naturally the one left by Fontana’s retirement. Amodio possessed good ability, but he was too youthful and not yet ready to shoulder the heavy responsibility of orchestrating the team’s attacks. In the defensive line, an outstanding central defender needed to be added to partner with Domizzi. These two positions were of paramount importance.

Reja quickly found the right men. Paolo Cannavaro, a superstar product of Napoli’s youth system and the younger brother of Italy’s current national team captain Fabio Cannavaro, transferred from Parma for a fee of 1.5 million euros. Leaving Serie A side Parma to join a newly promoted Serie B club like Napoli was driven not only by the younger Cannavaro being a local Neapolitan, but also by his high regard for this once-glorious powerhouse—the biggest reason for his choice.

With the addition of such a proven, high-caliber central defender who had years of experience battling in Serie A, Napoli’s defensive strength was vastly enhanced. Immediately afterward, Reja found Fontana’s replacement as well. He secured Italian powerhouse midfielder Massimo D'Abona on loan from AC Milan. Having been an absolute core regular for Lecce—the "little chilli of Serie A"—over the past two seasons, D'Abona was fully capable of filling the void left by Fontana!

The next two transfers, however, were hardly good news for Long Bisheng. Napoli poached Italian left winger Daniele De Zerbi from Serie A newcomers Catania for 2.8 million euros, and then bought Cristian Bucchi, the top scorer of Serie B last season from Modena, for three million euros. Bucchi, a center-forward standing 1.86 meters tall, played in the exact same position as Long Bisheng. By introducing another center-forward when he already had two in the squad, Reja naturally had his own considerations.

Sosa was thirty-one years old and frequently plagued by injuries, while Long Bisheng was only seventeen. Although Long had performed well in Serie C1 last season, whether he could replicate that stellar performance facing the higher level of Serie B remained an unknown variable. Bucchi, twenty-nine years old, was in his physical prime, and his status as last season’s Serie B top scorer proved his capability against Serie B opponents. For the new season, Reja intended to employ a three-forward formation; a healthy center-forward with consistent scoring ability was his most urgent need.

Bucchi spearheading the attack, Calaiò roaming underneath, and De Zerbi responsible for breakthroughs on the flanks—this was the core forward line Reja envisioned for the new season, while the Brazilian Piá, the Argentine Sosa, and the Chinese Long Bisheng would serve as their backups.

For a team playing with a three-forward system, could having six forwards be considered too many? Not many at all, is it many? Not many indeed! So thought Reja.

Aside from the four heavyweight additions—Paolo Cannavaro, Massimo D'Abona, Daniele De Zerbi, and Bucchi—the Napoli club also imported young defensive prospect György Garics from Hungary. This defensive utility player was an investment in the future by Reja. Just like Long Bisheng, the investment was small, the salary was low, and keeping him in the first team could sometimes yield useful results, while young substitutes generally harbored no complaints. For small and medium-sized clubs, such acquisitions happened every single season; with a bit of luck, a player might break through and perhaps even bring extra revenue to the club, but even if they didn't, the club lost nothing.

Once pre-season training began on August 1, both the veterans from last season and the newly joined players trained desperately, hoping to squeeze into the starting lineup. Yet Reja naturally had his own set of preferred starters in mind.

The starting goalkeeper would still be Chu Ran. This Chinese goalkeeper had been bought outright by Napoli from Inter Milan this season for a fee of five hundred thousand euros. Having paid such a price, Napoli certainly did not intend to use him merely as a backup; veteran goalkeeper Gennaro Iezzo would serve as the most reliable understudy.

On the defensive line, last season’s regular Domizzi and newly arrived Paolo Cannavaro would partner as the starting central defenders, while the two full-backs remained Grava and Maldonado. The three starting midfielders would be captain Montervino, Massimo D'Abona, and the Uruguayan Bogliacino, with Amodio, Trotta, and Capparella acting as backups. The starting forward line would consist of Bucchi, Calaiò, and De Zerbi, with Sosa, Piá, and Long Bisheng on the bench. Armed with such a squad, Napoli possessed ample confidence to fight for a top position in Serie B.

Yet for Reja, despite possessing a squad that was the envy of Serie B, completing the mission of promotion to Serie A remained an immensely arduous task. Leaving aside Juventus—even though superstars like Vieira, Cannavaro, Thuram, Emerson, and Zambrotta departed one after another following their confirmed relegation, the retention of Buffon, Nedvěd, Camoranesi, Trezeguet, and captain Del Piero meant they still fielded a squad powerful enough to dominate Serie B single-handedly. Furthermore, their roster boasted high-caliber players such as Giannichedda, Palladino, Chiellini, Balzaretti, and Zebina, giving this team an overwhelming advantage in Serie B.

Aside from Juventus, Napoli had no shortage of other rivals. Genoa, like Napoli, had charged up from Serie C1 into Serie B last season; had it not been for a match-fixing penalty that dropped them into Serie C1 a year prior, they would have already appeared in Serie A last season. In addition, familiar names such as Bologna, Bari, Brescia, and Piacenza possessed formidable competitiveness as well! Although Napoli feared no opponent, they had, after all, just been promoted from Serie C1. Facing these teams equipped with upper-tier Serie B or even Serie A strength, Napoli faced a long and arduous road ahead in the new season.

Precisely because Serie B featured so many outstanding teams this season, the Italian media dubbed the upcoming campaign the "Golden Age of Serie B!"

As pre-season training drew to a close, the footsteps of the Golden Age of Serie B grew ever closer.

Before the Serie B campaign officially commenced, the first competition awaiting Napoli was the Coppa Italia, starting on August 20. In the first round of the Coppa Italia, Napoli hosted fellow Serie B side Frosinone, marking the very first match of Napoli’s new-season journey.