Chapter 1 Stepping onto the Field

Stepping onto the field, Zhou Yi turned his head to observe the players of the Borussia Dortmund youth team, matching them one by one with the Borussia Dortmund youth team he had faced in his dreams.

Finally, his gaze settled on Mario Götze.

Götze, with his baby face, wore the captain's armband with a somewhat incongruous air.

Seeing Zhou Yi staring at the Borussia Dortmund players, Yang Muge thought he was nervous, so he reassured him, "Zhou Yi, don't worry, I'll protect you. You can focus on passing and controlling the ball, organizing the attack."

Having trained together for so long, Yang Muge naturally knew Zhou Yi's style and strength. In his opinion, Zhou Yi had a unique eye for passing, able to spot openings that others couldn't. But Zhou Yi's weaknesses were also obvious: his physical strength was lacking. Although he had done intensive strength and conditioning training for two months during domestic training, it wasn't of much use on the European stage.

He could make some brilliant passes, but he could also lose the ball under the physical pressure of the opposing players.

So his task was to win the ball back for him and then pass it back to him so he could continue to organize the attack.

"Thank you, Yang Muge. But I think you should pay more attention to that guy." Zhou Yi nodded his chin towards Götze.

"Götze?" Yang Muge glanced over.

"Yes, he's the core of Borussia Dortmund. He's not very fast, but his dribbling is good, so be careful. He's good at breaking through and then passing the ball out when everyone surrounds him." Zhou Yi told Yang Muge everything he had observed while playing against Götze in the system.

"You know him well?" Yang Muge was a little surprised. He didn't think Zhou Yi could have watched Götze's matches beforehand. Shouldn't this be the first time he had heard of Götze?

"Uh... no, this is what I observed..." Zhou Yi quickly evaded. It was indeed difficult for him to explain this to Yang Muge.

"You've seen him play before?" Yang Muge was even more puzzled.

"No, I observed it from his appearance."

"His appearance? How can you tell his playing style from that?" Yang Muge frowned.

"It's like this, you see Götze's face is round, right?" Zhou Yi began to spout nonsense with a straight face.

"Yes," Yang Muge nodded.

"His face is round, which means he's not a speed-type player. Speed-type players all have long faces. Think of Liu Xiang, doesn't he have a long face? And look at Bolt, he doesn't have a round face either. Also, look at his chest, a big chest means more air resistance, so he definitely can't run fast! Look at those female sprinters, aren't they all as flat as airfields?"

Hearing this, Yang Muge actually began to carefully consider the relationship between face shape, chest size, and speed. If Sun Pan heard Zhou Yi's words, he would definitely roll his eyes.

As Yang Muge pondered, Zhou Yi quickly ran away. He didn't dare stand next to Yang Muge anymore, afraid that Yang Muge would ask, "What about Lao Guo? He has a round face, but he's not slow..."

He couldn't exactly say that it was because Lao Guo was short and had a fast stride frequency that he ran fast, could he?

※※※

When the two teams stood on the field, ready to kick off, Liang Qiqi and Yang Fei also sat on the bench, arms crossed, leaning back in their chairs, sitting with a relaxed air, putting on a show of watching a good play.

With the referee's whistle, the game began.

Götze quickly demonstrated his ability, which surpassed everyone else around him, in the attack. He moved on the wing, dribbled the ball, then suddenly cut inside, and facing the Chinese team's defensive midfielder, Yang Muge, he used a beautiful feint to throw Yang Muge off balance.

After getting past Yang Muge, Götze continued to dribble towards the penalty area.

At the edge of the penalty area, he made a feint to shoot, tricking Guo Nu, who was starting in this game, into making a tackle.

But this was just a feint. He pushed the ball past Guo Nu and broke into the penalty area.

However, this push was a little too big. The ball he pushed past was intercepted by another center back, Liu Nian, who arrived in time and kicked it out of bounds.

"Phew!" On the Chinese team's coaching bench, assistant coach Xu Yang breathed a sigh of relief - if Liu Nian had been any slower, Götze might have gotten the ball back...

From this defense, it seemed the adjustments made were useful, preventing the opponent from exploiting the gap behind Guo Nu after he pressed forward.

However, among the substitutes, there was no such feeling of escaping death.

"See, I told you!" Liang Qiqi snorted. "That mad dog only knows how to press forward. All you need is the simplest push! Don't worry, Yang Fei, he won't be arrogant for long before he's taken off, either for a reckless foul or to be replaced by you."

Yang Fei smiled.

This was the scene he hoped to see.

Xu Yang, who had let out a breath, shook his head at Hao Dong: "Guo Nu is too rash..."

"Isn't that what we wanted him to do in the first place?" Hao Dong's expression was still normal. "We're betting on his initial press. His explosiveness is the most outstanding in the entire team."

"But isn't the risk a bit too high?" Xu Yang was a little worried.

"It's okay, we don't have anything to lose anyway. We've already lost so badly." Hao Dong spread out his hands.

Letting Guo Nu press aggressively was, to put it nicely, making full use of his personal characteristics. To put it bluntly, it was treating a dead horse as if it were still alive. Hao Dong didn't know if Guo Nu would really execute this tactic. But even if he couldn't, the worst that could happen was losing 0:9 again.

※※※

Guo Nu lay on the ground, looked back and saw Liu Nian kick the ball away, and then he breathed a sigh of relief, but his heart was still beating very fast, very fast, with a sense of fear - if he caused the team to lose a goal at the start of the game, he probably wouldn't even finish the first half before being taken off, right?

"Lao Guo!" Zhou Yi turned his head and saw Guo Nu staring at his back and not getting up, so he shouted his name.

But after shouting several times, Guo Nu didn't move, so he had to run up and pull Guo Nu up.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Uh, Zhou, Zhou Yi..."

"You did very well just now." Seeing him like this, Zhou Yi quickly comforted him.

"But, but... but I let him get past." Guo Nu looked at Götze and said.

"It's okay, you can't have a 100% success rate in defense, otherwise you wouldn't be on this team. Besides, the coach's task for you was to press forward. Liu Nian is there to clean up your messes, so there's nothing to worry about. You're doing well, just keep doing it, you'll be fine!"

Zhou Yi grabbed Guo Nu's shoulders, rattled off these words to him, and then let go and ran to his position.

Guo Nu was still in a daze.

I did well?

"Guo Nu, defend!" Goalkeeper Sun Pan shouted at Guo Nu from in front of the goal, waking him up. He quickly ran to his defensive position.

The Borussia Dortmund youth team threw the ball in from the sideline, and the throw-in was taken by their side back, a tall, blonde-haired young man.

He held the ball and didn't throw it right away, but wiped his hands with his jersey, then took the ball and stepped back, three or four steps back.

"Long throw! Watch out for the high ball!"

As soon as Sun Pan saw this stance, he shouted loudly, and he himself moved forward a little.

As soon as he finished speaking, the Borussia Dortmund youth team threw the ball in. As expected, it was a "grenade" style throw-in. The thrower threw the ball hard into the penalty area, flying straight to the front of the goal.

A throw-in had become a corner kick.

※※※

Götze didn't go to head the ball, because heading wasn't his specialty. His height of one meter seventy-four didn't give him much of an advantage in the penalty area, which was full of tall people. He waited a little outside the penalty area, waiting for the second drop point. If the team's center forward, Schneider, didn't head the ball well, he could threaten the goal again as long as he could control the second drop point.

However, he didn't think there would be such a possibility - Schneider, who was one meter eighty-six tall, was good at heading, otherwise the Borussia Dortmund youth team wouldn't have used the "grenade" throw-in tactic.

Liu Nian and the Borussia Dortmund youth team's number nine jumped up to compete for the header, but almost from the beginning of the jump, he was suppressed by the opponent. It was impossible for him to head the ball. He could only try to squeeze his body against the opponent's body to interfere with him.

But he felt like he was leaning against a wall, and the opponent didn't move at all.

This is going to be bad...

Liu Nian thought with some despair.

But at this moment, he felt a gust of wind behind his head.

Then there was a muffled "bang".

He felt the wall he was leaning on shake.

He guessed that something must have happened above his head, but unfortunately he couldn't see it because his head was being pressed down.

Although Liu Nian couldn't see it, there were people who could.

Götze, who was preparing to grab the second drop point at the front of the penalty area, saw it. Sun Pan, who had spread his arms in front of the goal and was ready to pounce on the ball, saw it. Zhou Yi and Yang Muge saw it. He Ying, who was waiting for a counterattack opportunity in the center circle, saw it. Yang Fei and Liang Qiqi, who were sitting on the bench preparing to watch a good show, opened their mouths wide and also saw it... Everyone on and off the field saw it.

Just as Schneider was pressing down on Liu Nian to head the ball, another person suddenly came out of the air and headed the ball out before Schneider!

Then his body couldn't stop and directly crashed into Schneider. Schneider immediately lost his balance, and that person pressed on his body and pressed him down from the air!

It was Guo Nu!

He wasn't jumping to compete for the header, he was flying to compete for the header!

Hao Dong suddenly stood up from the coaching bench.

※※※

After Guo Nu headed the ball out, he also lost his balance. He pressed on Schneider, and Schneider pressed on Liu Nian. The three of them fell from the air like a human pyramid and fell to the ground.

Before the other two could get up, Guo Nu clapped his hands and kicked his legs, and jumped up from the ground again.

He roared to the sky: "Ah -!"

This sound released all the pent-up frustration in his chest.

The ball he headed out didn't fly to Götze's side, but deviated slightly and fell to the back of Götze's diagonal.

There, there was a space with a diameter of about six meters.

In this space, there was only one person - Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi used his chest to cushion the ball that Guo Nu had headed over. Then, he didn't turn around, but stepped on the ball and paused, then turned his back to the direction of attack and passed the ball to Yang Muge not far away.

After passing the ball, he quickly turned and ran diagonally forward, while shouting to Yang Muge: "Pass it over!"

Yang Muge didn't hesitate to send the ball he had just received out again.

Zhou Yi had left the previous gap. Of course, that gap was now gone. He ran to a new gap, a completely new gap created because the Borussia Dortmund youth team players went to fill the gap he had been in before.

He received the ball again.

Hao Dong, who was watching from the sidelines, clenched his fists.

※※※

Zhou Yi received the ball, and one of the two forwards, Zhang Tao, was running forward desperately in the center, and didn't forget to raise his hand to signal Zhou Yi to pass the ball to him. This was a counterattack!

But Zhou Yi looked up at him, and then passed the ball to the other side, to a narrow space about ten meters away from him.

There, He Ying suddenly appeared, received Zhou Yi's pass, and then dribbled the ball towards the Borussia Dortmund youth team's penalty area at high speed!

After passing the ball, Zhou Yi didn't continue to run forward. Looking at the distance of the first touch and his speed of chasing the ball, Zhou Yi felt that it was useless for him to go up - before he could run there, He Ying would definitely shoot.

Sure enough, He Ying soon cut inside into the penalty area, and facing the onrushing goalkeeper, he chose to chip the ball.

The ball drew an arc in the air, bypassing the Borussia Dortmund youth team goalkeeper's fingers and flying towards the far post of the goal.

At that moment, many people's hearts almost stopped beating...

Until the ball slid out of the goal.

"Ah!!" This was the regretful cry of assistant coach Xu Yang.

Hao Dong, who was beside him, breathed a long sigh of relief.

Didn't go in... What a pity!

However, Hao Dong saw something different from this attack.

This thing was extremely rare, or even nonexistent, in the previous five games.

Maybe this game will really be a little different from the previous five games?