Chapter 1 The Initial Loss

The fact that it was Borussia Dortmund's youth team that conceded the first goal surprised Borussia Dortmund's club chairman Rauball, who was watching from the sidelines. He turned to look at the youth training director, Ricken, whose expression wasn't much better than his...

Although Ricken and Rauball were very enthusiastic when welcoming the Chinese guests, deep down they didn't think this game was meaningful. It was just a formality. They had heard that this team hadn't scored a single goal in their previous four games, losing all four. These results were enough to prove their strength.

Rauball and Ricken felt that this team was just a rabble, a group of people brought to Europe for a trip by wealthy Chinese companies. Playing football was just a side hustle. And if the club hadn't been paid, they certainly wouldn't have bothered playing this childish game with them.

But now, the cruel reality was in front of them.

They were the ones who conceded first. It was the "rabble" who scored first.

Ricken and Rauball were surprised, but even more surprised were the people on the Chinese team's bench.

While his teammates Lai Cong and others were cheering for the goal, Liang Qiqi and Yang Fei remained seated on the bench, but that didn't mean they were completely calm.

In fact, they suddenly felt like there were nails in the cushions of their seats, pricking their butts, making them want to fidget, but they were unwilling to get up, looking restless.

They had come to see a good show, and they had indeed seen one.

But this wasn't the kind of good show they wanted to see.

Zhou Yi's role and performance in this goal were obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain.

And Guo Nu? The beginning of this goal was his soaring leap in front of the goal, heading the ball away before Borussia Dortmund's youth team striker Schneider...

Liang Qiqi and Yang Fei's replacements were both performing well.

How could they possibly sit still on the bench?

The two exchanged a glance. Yang Fei asked, "Beginner's luck, right?"

"Beginner's luck!" Liang Qiqi gritted his teeth, as if he wanted to chew Zhou Yi to pieces.

※※※

The Chinese youngsters' wild celebrations only stopped when the referee intervened.

Everyone huddled around the goal scorer, He Ying, and ran back to their own half of the field.

Zhou Yi didn't follow He Ying to receive everyone's praise, but instead ran towards Guo Nu.

"Great header!" he gave Guo Nu a thumbs up.

"Hehe..." Guo Nu scratched his head a little embarrassedly and smiled shyly.

He Ying was surrounded by his teammates, and everyone was congratulating and flattering him, but his mind wasn't on that. His eyes were always on his roommate, Zhou Yi's back.

He thought Zhou Yi was a happy-go-lucky person who didn't care about anything, and naturally didn't have the fighting spirit to pursue goals and victory.

He had only taken Zhou Yi's words to him that morning as his usual nonsensical rambling.

He didn't expect...

He had actually helped him score!

Could it be... that his view of him had been wrong all along?

Was there another soul hidden beneath his carefree exterior?

But no matter what, he seemed to have a companion on the road to fighting fate.

This feeling... wasn't bad.

※※※

The Chinese youngsters were celebrating their goal, but this scene was not pleasant for the Borussia Dortmund youth team players to see.

Before the game, none of them had taken this game and this opponent seriously.

They had heard about this Chinese team that had come to challenge them. After all, this team had already challenged four opponents among the youth teams in Europe and had just played against the Bayern Munich youth team.

The Borussia Dortmund youth team and the Bayern Munich youth team were rivals, and the young players on both sides had a sense of comparison.

Since the Bayern Munich youth team could beat this team 9-0, why couldn't they do even better?

They wanted to completely end this game in the first half!

That was the real thought of the Borussia Dortmund youth team players before the game.

But who would have thought that after the game started, it was their despised opponent who scored first!

Now that this unexpected situation had really happened, what they needed to do was find the reason for it.

"Damn it!" said defender Greetz, who had slipped during the defense, unwillingly. "If I hadn't slipped... how could they have scored so easily?!"

His slip did indeed become the best background for the Chinese team's goal. What he said made sense and resonated with many Borussia Dortmund youth team players - if Greetz hadn't fallen, he should have been able to press the Chinese team's number sixteen, preventing him from sending the ball out so easily.

In the end, the Borussia Dortmund youth team players came to the conclusion that the Chinese team's goal was due to good luck, and their loss was due to bad luck.

※※※

When the game restarted, Klopp gave up on observing Götze. Anyway, Götze was either in the U17 or U19, and he could learn about him through various channels at any time.

It was the Chinese team's number sixteen that made him very curious.

The qualities that Zhou Yi showed in this goal fascinated Klopp.

Positioning, running, passing, and directing teammates' movements, Klopp saw them all in this attack.

But was this an accident, or was it inevitable?

He wanted to observe this number sixteen more.

Klopp, who was vigorously promoting young players in Dortmund, sniffed, as if he smelled something that interested him.

※※※

The Chinese team's morale soared after the goal. Suddenly, a sense of pride surged from their hearts, and they even felt that they could defeat the Borussia Dortmund youth team.

But the Borussia Dortmund youth team, angered by this goal, taught the Chinese team a lesson just five minutes later.

They took advantage of the Chinese team's all-out attack and launched a counterattack. In the end, Götze scored with a long shot from outside the penalty area, sending the ball into the goal guarded by Sun Pan.

And Guo Nu didn't even have time to rush up and block the shot – Götze's shot was very sudden.

Sun Pan was very frustrated after conceding the goal. He felt that if his fingers were a little longer, he could have pushed the ball out.

He slammed the turf hard.

And the other Chinese team players also looked frustrated after conceding the goal.

Götze's long shot was like a blow to the head, making them realize that their opponents were actually very strong...

After scoring, the Borussia Dortmund youth team players went forward and hugged Götze to celebrate the goal.

Equalizing the score so quickly relieved the anger in their chests, and it also seemed to prove their previous analysis of the reason for conceding the goal - it was just bad luck.

Now that their luck was back to normal, wasn't scoring just a matter of minutes?

The Borussia Dortmund youth team players were already considering whether to score ten or eleven goals in this game.

※※※

After the game restarted, Dortmund continued to put pressure on the Chinese team in attack. Center forward Schneider turned from a scorer to an attacking bridgehead, mainly setting up Götze. Götze now shouldered the responsibility of scoring goals for the team. After scoring a goal, his touch was good, so naturally he had to make good use of it.

Dortmund's attack made it difficult for the Chinese team's defense, and their defense also made it difficult for the Chinese team's attack.

When the Chinese team attacked, the Dortmund youth team tightened their defense and deployed heavy troops in front of the penalty area. They showed the rigorous tactical discipline of German teams, maintaining a complete formation and not being chaotic at all when defending.

Several times after Zhou Yi received the ball, he could only choose to pass it back and pass it sideways, with no possibility of sending the ball forward at all.

It wasn't just the players on the field who realized the gap between the two teams, but also the Chinese team coaches off the field.

Seeing that even if the Chinese team had attacking opportunities, they couldn't threaten the Borussia Dortmund youth team's goal even when they had the ball at their feet, the coaches shook their heads in front of the coaching bench and sighed, "No chance at all..."

"It seems that being able to score a goal in this game is already a very good result. Think about the previous few games, not a single goal!"

"Yes, yes, even if we lose the game like this, it's completely acceptable..."

However, head coach Hao Dong did not participate in their discussion. He got up directly from the coaching bench and walked to the sidelines, staring at the field with a serious expression.

"Looking for a solution?" assistant coach Xu Yang asked, moving closer.

"No. To be honest, Xu Zhi, I can't think of any solutions," Hao Dong shook his head. "Right now, I can only watch from the sidelines like those spectators. As a coach, I can only rely on my players now."

He turned his gaze to Zhou Yi.

As an organizing midfielder, what kind of performance could Zhou Yi put on when facing such a heavily guarded defense?

Hao Dong was very curious.

In youth team games, he preferred to see the choices his players made when facing various situations in the game. He felt that this was more important to a young player than technique.

To put it bluntly, this was game intelligence.

Game intelligence was not something that could be easily trained.

This was talent.

Some players had very good physical qualities and amazing techniques. But their performance on the field was always unsatisfactory.

Why?

Because of low game intelligence.

Not passing when they should pass, going backward when they should go forward, and choosing to force a breakthrough when they should shoot...

Hao Dong had seen too many such examples in his career.

He wanted to see if Zhou Yi had this game intelligence.

※※※

Zhou Yi had just received the ball when a Borussia Dortmund player rushed up aggressively. He quickly passed the ball out again, but was still knocked to the ground by the rushing Borussia Dortmund player.

But the referee's whistle didn't blow. He thought it was a reasonable collision.

Zhou Yi didn't have time to argue with the referee. He got up from the ground and rubbed his sore arm, wincing.

This wouldn't work.

Not to mention sending the ball into the penalty area, it was even difficult to pass the ball into the thirty-meter area.

He had to think of a way. He couldn't always pass it sideways and back.

He began to look around, observing the situation, and then presented the real-time positions of the players on both sides in his mind.

By observing this flat map of the positions, he quickly made inferences in his brain.

If he ran this way, how would the opponent run, and how would his teammates run...

If he ran in a different direction, how would the opponent and his teammates run.

This kind of thinking didn't take Zhou Yi too much time. He completed all kinds of inferences in less than a second.

After the inference was over, Zhou Yi's eyes also lit up.

He already knew what to do.

So he looked around and started running back, towards the center circle.

This took him away from Dortmund's defense, and at the same time, there was a lot of space around him. Then he raised his hand to ask for the ball.

The player with the ball now was Li Xiang, the Chinese team's left midfielder.

He originally wanted to go forward, but both the route to break through on the wing and the route to cut inside to the middle were blocked by Dortmund's tight defensive formation.

He couldn't find a way forward.

Just when he didn't know what to do, the corner of his eye caught Zhou Yi raising his arm.

He quickly passed the ball over, a diagonal pass back.

※※※

Seeing Zhou Yi raise his hand to ask for the ball, two people on the sidelines brightened up at the same time, locking their eyes on Zhou Yi.

One was the Chinese team's head coach Hao Dong, and the other was Klopp, who was secretly observing in the corner.