Chapter 103 Nothing to Be Nervous About

The night of October 20th is the most anticipated football night for Chinese fans. First, at 9:30 pm, there is the Ruhr Derby, and then at 4:00 am on the 21st, Barcelona plays away. Challenging Deportivo, if they are lucky, they can watch three Chinese players play in one night.

The day before the game, Barcelona announced the 18-man roster for this game, and He Ying was selected again.

This makes Chinese fans full of longing for the next game.

In fact, Zhou Yi and Yang Muge were also selected into the squads of their respective teams, but their inclusion in the squads is no longer news, so no one pays attention to them. Everyone just needs to see them playing on the court.

In fact, there is another person who was selected into the game squad that deserves attention, but Chinese fans and media don't care because he is not a Chinese player.

But the local media in Dortmund are very happy.

That is, Mark Wagner, who missed the entire season due to serious injury last year, finally entered the game roster. This means that his body has reached the standard for playing games, and it also means that his injury has been healed.

The Dortmund media expressed their welcome and longing for Mark's return, and Dortmund fans were also very happy. Everyone still remembers Mark's performance after joining the first team last season. At that time, all of Germany believed that a new star on the striker was rising.

Injuries brought everything to a screeching halt.

After experiencing such a serious injury, it is already a great victory for Mark to return to the court. Everyone is actually very tolerant about his future. He needs to return to the court first and then talk about other things.

Zhou Yi was not surprised that Mark could return to the roster, because when he saw Cortana moving back to live with him, he knew that Mark would not be far away from returning to the court.

Sure enough, Klopp put Mark on the roster for this game.

Having just experienced a national team game, many players in the Dortmund team will have some ups and downs in terms of physical fitness and state. Letting Mark enter the big list is also a supplement and prevention.

If a player performs poorly, Klopp can consider putting Mark on top.

※※※

Before the game, the entire Dortmund team checked into the hotel to prepare for the game.

Zhou Yi was assigned to a room with Mark.

When it was time to rest, Mark couldn't sleep, so Zhou Yi, who was in the next bed, joked: "What, Mark? This is not your first professional game, why are you nervous?"

"Ahem..." Mark didn't expect Zhou Yi to be awake, and he was startled. "You didn't sleep, Zhou Yi?"

"You woke me up, Mark."

"Ah, I'm sorry, Zhou Yi, I didn't mean it... I just... indeed, I'm a little nervous. Because after all, this is my first time back on the roster after being on the roster for more than a year..."

Zhou Yi laughed: "It's just that I'm on the roster, and I'm not really going to play in the game. Why are you nervous? Besides, even if you're going to play, there's nothing to be nervous about, right?"

"After all, I haven't played for more than a year, and I don't know how I will perform then. What if I don't play well? You know, this is a Ruhr derby!"

"Have some confidence in yourself, Mark. What happened to the Ruhr derby? Do you remember your first first-team game? Have you forgotten? It was also a Ruhr derby..."

When Zhou Yi said this, Mark remembered: "I remember, I was also very nervous before that game..."

"Yeah, you were so nervous that you couldn't even do the warm-up, and I even kicked you in the head."

"It's the face!"

Zhou Yi burst out laughing.

Mark also laughed, and the scenes at that time flashed before his eyes. He really made a fool of himself at that time.

But when he was unexpectedly brought on as a substitute...

"But when you came on the field, you scored two goals, Mark. You shocked everyone, including your parents." Zhou Yi said after laughing. "So believe in yourself, Mark. Treat this game with a normal mind. As long as you are given opportunities and time, you will find your form. There is nothing to worry about.

Hearing Zhou Yi's words, Mark's heartbeat slowed down a lot: "Thank you, Zhou Yi. I feel better now and not so nervous. I think I can have a good sleep now."

"Goodnight then, Mark."

"Good night, Zhou Yi."

After speaking, Zhou Yi did not really close his eyes and enter the virtual space, but waited quietly until he heard the breathing from Mark's bed become smooth and even. He then closed his eyes and went to compete with Schalke 04 in his "dream".

※※※

Before this Ruhr area derby, Dortmund and Schalke 04 shared 14 points. Among them, Dortmund was ranked above Schalke 04 - third because of its goal advantage.

Schalke 04 "ranked" fourth.

This is the Ruhr area derby with the smallest gap between the two teams in recent years.

On the one hand, Schalke 04 has performed well this season, and on the other hand, Dortmund's performance since the start of this season has been unstable.

Seven rounds of the league have passed. Currently ranked first in the league is Bayern Munich led by Heynckes. They have seven wins from seven games and accumulated 21 points, ranking first with an unbeaten record.

Bayern Munich's performance announced their strong return this season and vowed to regain the league title.

Media experts believe that the reason why Dortmund's performance after the start of this season was mediocre is that their core Zhou Yi did not train with the team at all before the season.

Their analysis makes sense. Pre-season training is very, very important for a team. There are many examples in European football where performance plummeted during the season because pre-season training was not done well.

A typical example is Real Madrid in the 2003-2004 season. Real Madrid, who was the league champion last season, came to East Asia to make money during pre-season training. The team was busy with various business activities and did not conduct a systematic pre-season training.

This results in players having insufficient physical reserves.

In addition, the new head coach Queiroz placed too much trust in the main lineup during the game and rarely used rotations. As a result, the main players' physical energy was exhausted too quickly, and the substitute players lacked game training. When they were needed to replace the main players, they simply could not stand up. .

Until the 31st round of the league, Real Madrid ranked first with 67 points and hoped to defend the league championship.

But then Real Madrid fell into collapse. From the 32nd round to the 38th round of the league, Real Madrid lost all seven league rounds!

It set the most shameful record in Real Madrid's century-old history. After that season, Queiroz was fired. Originally working as Ferguson's assistant coach at Manchester United, he thought his wings were strong, and Real Madrid extended an olive branch to him, making Queiroz extremely ambitious. However, he encountered the biggest Waterloo of his coaching career at Real Madrid.

Real Madrid ended the season in disgrace and ended Queiroz's tenure at the Santiago Bernabeu.

If Real Madrid can do a good job in training during the pre-season training, maybe it won't collapse so quickly in the end.

Although Zhou Yi has shown good form since the start of the league and is no stranger to the team. But just because he is not a stranger does not mean that others in Dortmund are not strangers to him.

In short, there are still some problems with running-in. This is an objective fact.

The national team game has just ended, which is the Ruhr area derby. Zhou Yi has flown back and forth across the Eurasian continent, which will definitely affect his state and physical fitness. The media all believe that although this game is Dortmund's home court, Schalke 04 may not have a chance to win against their opponents.

All in all, this is probably the most evenly matched Ruhr derby in recent years.

※※※

After the game started, the media's analysis was confirmed.

The first one to score was not the home team Dortmund, but the visiting team Schalke 04!

Only fourteen minutes into the game, Schalke 04 scored!

Schalke 04's Ibrahim Afellay, on loan from Barcelona, ​​used his speed and skill to break through and score.

He made the entire West**** Stadium quiet a lot.

Schalke's commentator excitedly shouted in the commentary box: "Afeilai! Afeilai! The elf from the Netherlands! He opened the scoring for Schalke 04!!"

"To be fair, Schalke 04 did perform better than Dortmund before the goal. The goal was logical and there was no surprise. Schalke 04 was obviously better prepared than Dortmund... ” said Marcel Leif.

After Schalke took the lead with a goal in 04, their morale was boosted and they played even crazier. Everyone used tireless running to contain Dortmund. Yang Muge not only marked Zhou Yi but also defended other Dortmund players in the midfield. It was like building a dam in the midfield, blocking Dortmund's offense outside the dam, leaving his own goal unharmed.

In the first half, the Dortmund team was almost sleepwalking. The national team match day still had a greater impact on them.

Logically speaking, the Ruhr area derby should be very intense. Even if there are no goals, there should be many fouls. But Dortmund seemed too polite on their home court. The only yellow card in the first half was received by a Schalke 04 player, from their midfielder Hogger.

At the end of the first half, the score was still 0:1, with the home team Dortmund lagging behind. (To be continued.)