Chapter 1 "Özil! A Beautiful Goal! Absolutely Stunning!!"

Of course, Özil was a German international, so Marcel Reif didn't have any psychological burden when praising him like this.

In any case, he was the pride of German football!

And this goal was indeed very beautiful. While everyone was expecting him to pass and assist, the former assist king of Real Madrid kicked a very imaginative free kick...

Who would have thought that he would make the football go around the outside of the wall and straight into the near corner of the goal?

"Özil! He has shown his value! The price tag of fifty million euros is justified!" He Ping also cheered for Özil.

With Zhou Yi not around, and Yan Min not on the field, and not being a Dortmund fan himself, he could be objective and neutral at this time.

Besides, Özil's goal was really beautiful.

A nickname for Özil was circulating on the internet, called "Özil the Great," mainly to draw a comparison with the former Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane, "Zizou the Great." "Özil the Great," of course, was to describe Özil's superb level and performance on the field, which was as remarkable as Zidane's.

From that free kick just now, it could be seen that "Özil the Great" lived up to his name.

The entire Emirates Stadium was cheering for Özil. He ran to the bottom of the stands to receive the cheers, and the other Arsenal players rushed up to hug him and celebrate with him.

At this moment, Arsenal fans, whether on the scene or in front of the TV, must be very excited and grateful.

Because such an outstanding midfielder almost didn't belong to Arsenal.

Some excited Arsenal fans even posted on their personal social networks after Özil scored, excitedly declaring: "Who needs Zhou Yi! Who needs Zhou Yi! We have 'Özil the Great'! Özil the Great is the greatest, most powerful, and most awesome midfielder!"

His excited declaration quickly gained the approval of many Arsenal fans who were equally excited and could not control themselves, and they all liked and supported him.

Any Arsenal fan who understood the transfer drama of this summer would be very excited at this moment, because all of this was too hard-won...

This summer, Arsenal pursued Zhou Yi with great intensity, but in the end, Zhou Yi renewed his contract with Dortmund, leaving all of Arsenal's efforts in vain.

They had to turn to pursue other candidates, and Özil was one of them.

Originally, Özil had always been the main player in Real Madrid, but due to the contract renewal, conflicts arose between the two sides.

Özil's agent was his father, Mustafa, but he was a notoriously greedy person. He became his son's agent with the sole purpose of using his son to make money.

The club and the agent broke down on the contract renewal issue, and during that time, there were many negative news about Özil in the media, such as frequenting nightclubs in Madrid, not being active in training, not having a proper attitude in matches, and dropping the ball in key games... which also damaged Özil's image.

But whether Özil really had these negative news, or whether Real Madrid launched a public opinion offensive to lower the price for contract renewal or sell him for cash... Unless you were truly an insider, even the parties involved probably couldn't say for sure.

Subsequently, a series of events occurred that became unfavorable for Özil to stay in Real Madrid.

The first was Mourinho's departure.

Özil was a player that Mourinho insisted on bringing in when he was coaching Real Madrid, and he could be regarded as one of Mourinho's favorite players. However, with Mourinho's departure, Özil's future in Real Madrid became less certain.

The second was Real Madrid's series of signings in the summer. Florentino wanted to create his new "Real Madrid Five Eagles," so he brought in many local players, including Isco, the winner of the European Golden Boy award from Malaga, who was naturally the local signing that Florentino valued the most.

And Isco's arrival also squeezed Özil's position.

In the pre-season warm-up matches, Özil even had to play on the wing, which was completely incompatible with his setting as an attacking midfielder.

The arrival of Welsh winger Gareth Bale was the last straw that forced Özil to leave Real Madrid.

Because the introduction of Bale cost 91 million euros, even a wealthy club like Real Madrid needed to raise funds to make up for the expenditure. Therefore, selling Özil, whose contract renewal was in a deadlock, to cash in was very normal.

Real Madrid initially wanted to sell Özil to Paris Saint-Germain, the nouveau riche with the higher offer.

But Özil himself refused to go to Paris.

If he couldn't stay in Real Madrid, he would rather go to the Premier League.

After losing the opportunity to sign Zhou Yi, Arsenal began to turn to Özil. In the end, it was Wenger who personally called Özil to persuade him to join Arsenal.

So, at the last moment of the transfer window closing, Arsenal officially announced the signing of Özil for a transfer fee of 50 million euros, wearing the number 11 jersey, signing for five years, with an annual salary of 8.5 million euros. The transfer soap opera finally came to an end.

Özil certainly wouldn't have thought that when he advised Zhou Yi to join a big club back in Real Madrid, he would have the day when he would leave Real Madrid himself...

Fortunately, Arsenal was also a big club, but with eight years without a title, their status as a big club had weakened slightly.

However, Arsenal spent so much money to buy him, breaking the team's salary structure for him, wasn't it just to let him bring championships to Arsenal and rise again?

From the current game, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he was living up to his price tag.

※※※

Özil's goal was like a bolt from the blue for Dortmund. They started in good form, but were stunned by Arsenal's two consecutive goals.

When they encountered problems in the game, and Zhou Yi was not around, the players habitually felt demoralized.

At this time, Klopp began to make adjustments.

He replaced Mkhitaryan, who scored a goal, with Kuba.

Mkhitaryan scored the first goal for the team in the first half, so he should be considered to have performed well. Therefore, replacing him was not because he was dissatisfied with his performance, but purely a tactical choice.

Klopp wanted to make the attack simpler and faster.

So he replaced Mkhitaryan with Kuba, hoping to speed up the attack.

With Zhou Yi not on the field, Klopp also adjusted his thinking. He didn't want to slowly play with his opponents, but rather take a simple, fast, and direct approach. Although the technical content might be low, the effect might be good.

Kuba came on in the sixtieth minute.

With thirty minutes left in the game, for Dortmund, scoring a goal in thirty minutes to equalize the score was not an impossible task.

However, ten minutes passed, and Dortmund did not make any progress in attack.

With Zhou Yi not around, and Mkhitaryan being replaced, Dortmund's current offensive methods were very limited. These offensive methods relied more on the players' individual performance than on tactical cooperation.

But in today's game, most of the players on the offensive end were not in good form.

So Klopp began to brew his second substitution.

There were still three players on the bench who could strengthen the attack: Hofmann, Yan Min, and Schieber.

Hofmann had stable substitute appearances before, but apart from that goal, he hadn't shown any particularly good performance. Could he repay his trust if he was given another chance this time?

Schieber only had one substitute appearance experience and no goals.

What about Yan Min?

He didn't even have one substitute appearance experience, let alone performance.

Logically speaking, if you were to be cautious at this time, you should replace him with Hofmann, who had rich substitute appearance experience. But Klopp could almost foresee what Hofmann could do after he came on the field...

He had already made eight substitute appearances in the league and one substitute appearance in the Champions League. What kind of performance he could produce was almost fixed.

As for Schieber... From a tactical point of view, he was not a very suitable player.

So Klopp chose Yan Min.

He called assistant coach Buvac from the bench: "Go and call Yan Min."

Perhaps because the Emirates Stadium was very noisy, Buvac thought he had misheard, so he asked, "Who?"

"Yan Min!" Klopp repeated loudly.

This time Buvac heard clearly, it was indeed Yan Min.

However, this choice was not very surprising. Since Yan Min joined the team, his training attitude had been impeccable. He had never caused trouble or showed any emotions for not playing, and he had not talked nonsense in the media.

So, just for this reason, he should be given a chance to play.