Negotiations for Yan Min's transfer quickly unfolded between Shanghai Chongming Club and Borussia Dortmund of Germany. Dortmund didn't initially make an offer, so the two sides needed to reach a consensus on Yan Min's value.

Only when the money issue was resolved could they discuss other matters.

Chinese media and fans were also paying close attention to this transfer, but both clubs were doing an excellent job of keeping it secret, so no information was leaked to the public through the media.

Fans could only wait for the final result.

Dortmund wasn't just considering bringing in Yan Min this summer. It should be said that Yan Min was an unexpected bonus; he wasn't originally in Klopp and Zorc's transfer plans.

With Götze and Lewandowski gone, Dortmund would inevitably have to make signings in midfield and attack to fill the void left by the two players.

So even if they hadn't encountered Yan Min, Dortmund would have already launched their transfer campaign in the market.

In midfield, they had set their sights on Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the young midfielder from Shakhtar Donetsk, and were battling Liverpool for his signature – Liverpool had also lost their attacking linchpin, Suarez, this summer and were in desperate need of strengthening.

At the same time, Dortmund were in negotiations with French club Saint-Étienne to sign their top scorer, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the runner-up in the Ligue 1 golden boot race last season.

Klopp wasn't planning a massive summer overhaul; he believed that quality was more important than quantity. Dortmund had only lost Lewandowski and Götze from their starting lineup, so there was no need to buy a large number of new players. The team's structure was stable, and they only needed to supplement a few positions.

Having grown accustomed to a frugal existence, Dortmund seemed to have been spurred on by Bayern Munich's continuous poaching and decided to adjust their business strategy, splashing out this summer.

They had prepared far more funds than in previous seasons for signings. Moreover, the departures of Götze and Lewandowski had also brought a significant amount of transfer revenue to Dortmund. Götze left for thirty-eight million euros, and while Lewandowski wasn't quite as much, he still fetched twenty-five million euros – Lewandowski's agent revealed the details of their verbal agreement with Dortmund to Bayern Munich, so Bayern knew that as long as they offered twenty-five million euros, Dortmund would have to let him go. So they offered that price, unwilling to pay a penny more. It wasn't that Bayern Munich was stingy, but rather to spite Dortmund...

The departures of Lewandowski and Götze brought Dortmund a revenue of sixty-three million euros, not including the Champions League prize money from last season, which was also a considerable sum.

All in all, Dortmund certainly had the capital to splurge in the transfer market this summer.

So they eventually took Armenian star Mkhitaryan from Shakhtar Donetsk for twenty-five million euros, beating out rivals Liverpool.

For Aubameyang's transfer, Dortmund spent thirteen million euros.

The leagues that Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang played in were weaker than the Bundesliga, especially the Ukrainian league where Mkhitaryan played. Joining a Bundesliga giant like Dortmund, who had just won the Champions League, was very attractive to them.

As long as the players themselves were willing, the players' clubs couldn't cause too much trouble.

In addition, in the center-back position, with Brazilian center-back Santana moving to Schalke 04 for one million euros, Dortmund also needed to buy someone who could serve as a substitute or rotation player, so they spent nine and a half million euros to buy Greek center-back Sokratis Papastathopoulos from Werder Bremen.

Looking at these transfer fee numbers, aside from the seventeen million euros to buy out Reus from Borussia Mönchengladbach, these three transfer fees all broke Dortmund's previous transfer fee records. Even for a rotation center-back, Dortmund was now willing to shell out nearly ten million euros, which was completely unimaginable before.

Dortmund perhaps finally realized that if they continued to operate on a small scale, it would be difficult to resist the impact from Bayern Munich.

In fact, Dortmund had two things to deal with this summer: one was transfer signings, and the other was renegotiating contracts with the current players and increasing their salaries. This was certainly not something Dortmund was willing to do, but under the threat of Bayern Munich, they had to use new contracts to re-tie the players. At the same time, the players also had demands for a raise. After all, they had won the league title and the Champions League with the team, they had contributed, and they were heroes who hoped that their income could match their contributions.

So-called professional players, of course, take playing football as their profession. Since it's a profession, then of course they have to talk about money, and money still occupies a very important position.

This wasn't just a matter of one or two people wanting a raise, so for Dortmund, this was a huge expense.

Before the start of the new season, the media reported on the wage budgets of the Bundesliga clubs for the new season.

The total wage budget of the eighteen Bundesliga teams reached 747.6 million euros, a record high. The total wage budget of the eighteen teams last season was 708.6 million euros, an increase of nearly forty million euros in the new season.

Although wage investment increased, the revenue of the Bundesliga also increased. The total marketing revenue of the league in the new season was about 2.1 billion euros, plus some other income, the total revenue would definitely exceed this number.

Wage expenditure accounted for one-third of the total revenue, which was a very ideal ratio.

Among the eighteen Bundesliga teams, Bayern Munich had the highest wage budget, at 140 million euros, with an average salary of 5.6 million euros per person.

Dortmund, who won the league and Champions League titles last season, had the largest increase in wage expenditure in the new season, with an increase of 40 percent. The wage expenditure budget for the new season was 68 million euros!

This figure exceeded Dortmund's wage expenditure before the financial crisis. At that time, an expenditure of 52 million euros per year was already overwhelming for Dortmund, and it was later cut to 35 million euros, and then reduced to 28 million euros.

Knowing this, and then looking at Dortmund's wage budget for the new season, you can see how hard Dortmund was trying to ensure the team's combat effectiveness this time. They really gave up the operating ideas and methods they had become accustomed to for many years.

Losing two main players in one summer was indeed a big blow to Dortmund. Moreover, these two main players were poached by the same team, and this team was Dortmund's biggest rival in the Bundesliga... All these reasons ultimately led to Dortmund's explosion as well.

Fortunately, Dortmund wasn't short of money now, otherwise, more than just a few people might have left this summer.

Indeed, this summer Dortmund didn't just lose Götze and Lewandowski, but also some other players, but none of them were Dortmund's main players. For example, forward Bittencourt transferred to Hannover 96 for three million euros, Santana went to Schalke 04 for one million euros, Moritz Leitner was loaned to Stuttgart, and Owomoyela left the club because his contract expired.

Apart from Götze and Lewandowski, the departure of the others had very little impact on Dortmund.

And in the entire Bundesliga, Dortmund, who had finally become generous, was not the team with the second-highest wage budget. Although they were already very generous, but thinking carefully, their wage budget was actually less than half of Bayern Munich's. The gap in financial resources between the two sides was very obvious. In the face of such a huge gap, Dortmund was able to suppress Bayern Munich for three consecutive seasons, which was really not easy...

On this new season's wage budget list, the club ranked second was Dortmund's derby rival Schalke 04. The "Miners" had a wage budget of 80 million euros for the new season. In fact, Schalke 04's investment has been very large in recent years, but the results have not been ideal. Perhaps they should learn from their derby rivals. Although football cannot be separated from financial investment, relying solely on burning money... I'm afraid it's not necessarily a good thing.

Dortmund's wage budget ranked third in the Bundesliga, followed by Wolfsburg in fourth, with 50 million euros. Bayer Leverkusen ranked fifth with 48 million euros. Hamburg and Stuttgart both ranked sixth with 40 million euros. The bottom three in the wage expenditure list were promoted team Braunschweig, with 15 million, the least among the eighteen Bundesliga teams. Freiburg and Augsburg were tied for second-to-last with 17 million euros.

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Having just returned to Germany, Dortmund, after adjusting for less than a week, welcomed their first game of the new season – the German Super Cup. As league champions, their opponent was the German Cup champions, Bayern Munich.

This was originally the first game where Götze and Lewandowski faced their old club after transferring to Bayern Munich.

But Götze was injured and would definitely miss the game.

It was possible that only Lewandowski would appear in the game, but whether he would start or come off the bench was unknown...