Chapter 175 Strategic Giving Up?
The make-up match against Galatasaray was in the afternoon local time, so after the game, the entire Dortmund team rushed to the airport. Although the snow is still falling, it is much lighter than last night and does not affect the normal takeoff and landing of the plane.
They can return to Dortmund today to prepare for the weekend's league game against Hoffenheim.
This is the penultimate game of the first half of the league, and they cannot play the last league game of the first half for the time being. Due to the Club World Cup, the seventeenth round of the league between Dortmund and Hertha Berlin at home has been postponed to next year. To be held on January 30th.
They have one game less than Bayern Munich and are also behind in points. No matter what the result of Dortmund's game against Hoffenheim, they cannot threaten Bayern Munich's position. Regardless of the outcome of this game, Bayern Munich has already won the Bundesliga winter break championship ahead of schedule.
The significance of this championship is very important, and it is almost the vane of the final league championship.
Bayern Munich have performed extremely well this season under new head coach Pep Guardiola, and it looks like they are finally about to end Borussia Dortmund's dominance in the league.
Just as the Dortmund team was flying back to Germany, the European media also summarized the just-concluded Champions League group stage.
This season's Champions League group stage has set many records, not only Napoli's record of being eliminated with the highest score, but also in sharp contrast is the record of qualifying from the lowest score group - this summary is simply hurting Naples. Stab it with a knife and sprinkle it with salt...
Zenit St. Petersburg won the record of "lowest qualifying points in the group". They got the right to qualify in the group with six points and qualified to participate in the Champions League knockout rounds.
They won only one of the six group matches and became the first team after the Champions League was restructured to qualify with only six points in the group stage.
In addition, this season's Champions League group stage also created the second place in the group with the most points - Manchester City scored 15 points, but they can only be second in the group, not first, which is also "baby's heartache" . They share fifteen points with Bayern Munich. Because they did not have an advantage in terms of victory or defeat, they were squeezed into second place in the group by Bayern Munich.
The Champions League group stage is finally over, and the next step is the draw for the Champions League knockout rounds.
The first place in the group and the second place in the group will fight against each other.
However, no one is optimistic about the defending champion's road to defense, because they have too many injuries, and who knows what strange injuries they will encounter next... After all, their subsequent schedule is not easy, and the players' The competition is very intense;
Very tired and prone to problems.
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Zhou Yi lay on the massage bed at home - because his girlfriend is a physical therapist, and because the male host is a professional athlete, Zhou Yi's home facilities are a little different from others, and a massage bed seems very inconsistent.
But it's actually very useful. After all, you can't always massage on a soft bed, because it won't be easy to exert force.
Zhou Yi was lying on the bed, and Cortana was massaging him to relax while the two of them chatted about recent events.
Cortana told Zhou Yi about the internal team news she heard from Dr. Braun, the team medical leader: "Klopp may give up the Champions League..."
Hearing his girlfriend's words, Zhou Yi turned over and sat up, startling Cortana who was massaging him, and looked at him blankly: "What are you doing?"
"Abandon the Champions League?" Zhou Yi asked.
"Yes, the team's injuries this season are too serious. If we continue to fight on two fronts, Klopp is worried that in the end both the league and the Champions League will fail. Moreover, next year will be the World Cup. If there are international players in the club because Being injured and missing the World Cup, the team has to bear a lot of pressure..."
What Cortana didn't tell Zhou Yi was that the biggest pressure came from the Chinese reporters who gathered in Dortmund all day long.
This is the second time in the history of the Chinese national team that it has reached the World Cup finals. Zhou Yi is an absolutely indispensable core figure of the national team, and there must be no mistakes. This season Dortmund feels like being cursed at any time. Players in the team are injured one after another, and the injuries are all main players. Therefore, the Chinese media and fans have always been worried that injuries will find Zhou Yi - Zhou Yi was knocked unconscious during the game against Naples, causing him to miss the game for more than a month, which caused an uproar in China and intensified their hatred of Zhou Yi. The fear of injury.
Now although Zhou Yi has returned from injury, Yan Min has also played steadily in the team and performed well, so Chinese fans have another person to worry about.
Every time Chinese reporters ask Klopp questions at press conferences before and after the game, they will more or less convey the idea that they do not want Klopp to overuse the two Chinese players, and are worried about Zhou Yi and Yan Min was injured.
In addition, the team's injuries this season are indeed serious, the staff gap is huge and the team is stretched thin.
In the league, Bayern Munich's performance is terrible and stable, and in the Champions League, Dortmund stumbled to qualify for the group stage. After the great success last season, the players' fighting spirit has dropped, and their hunger for victory and championships is not as strong as before... …
These factors have prompted Klopp to seriously consider giving up one event and specializing in another.
If Dortmund did not win the Champions League last season, Klopp will seriously consider taking another gamble in the Champions League this season and try his best to hit that supreme honor.
But now that Dortmund has won the Champions League, the Champions League is not so important - it is good to be able to go further in the Champions League, but if it takes a lot of energy and even affects the league, it will not be worth the gain. . After all, the league is the foundation. If the league does not play well, it is very likely that it will not even qualify for the Champions League next year.
So in Klopp's mind, he has actually decided to give up the Champions League and focus on the league.
Although he specializes in the league, it is actually hard to say whether he can defeat Bayern Munich in the league and win the league championship. Bayern Munich has performed so well this season, their stability and excellence are disappointing.
So deep down, Klopp's goal for Dortmund this season is very realistic, but also a bit low - as long as they can qualify for the Champions League next season.
Klopp does not intend to make this goal public, because if he does say it, it will only attract ridicule and blows from competitors, and it will also affect the morale and confidence of his team's players. On the surface, he will still put on a posture of competing for the championship with Bayern Munich, but in his heart, he will feel that the top three in the league will be satisfied.
Zhou Yi and Cortana don't know Klopp's inner thoughts now. He just frowned after hearing his girlfriend say that the head coach wanted to give up the Champions League.
He didn't want to question the coach, but he couldn't help but think about the incident of voluntarily giving up the German Cup last season.
Choosing to give up in the German Cup against Bayern Munich has always bothered Zhou Yi.
Let’s not talk about the possibility of Dortmund winning the Triple Crown. Let’s just talk about the time to give up. Don’t give up early, don’t give up late, but give up against Bayern Munich... This is really uncomfortable.
Zhou Yi himself has no obvious preference for Bundesliga teams. He is not a fan of a certain team. But since he chose to join Dortmund and played in Dortmund for so many years, he has naturally become a supporter of Dortmund. Since his heart belongs to Dortmund, he will naturally regard Schalke 04 and Bayern Munich as enemies. Naturally, he will not I hope the enemy is well off. Therefore, he worked very hard when playing against Schalke 04 and Bayern Munich, becoming the person that fans of these two teams least wanted to see.
Choosing to give up in the German Cup match against Bayern Munich was unacceptable to Zhou Yi.
It also made Zhou Yi feel a little resistant to "strategic abandonment".
"Giving up" is certainly a smart approach. Only when you give up can you gain something.
But Zhou Yi always had another stubborn idea in his heart - for those weak teams, giving up is a helpless and smart move. But as a wealthy team like Dortmund, why can't it launch more challenges on multiple fronts?
Of course, Dortmund has indeed encountered a personnel crisis this season, with many injured soldiers. But not all players are like Gundogan and Subotic, who suffered season-ending injuries. They will always come back, and there will always be a time when Dortmund's lineup is in order.
Zhou Yi is really unwilling to surrender in advance. There are some things that he still has to try his best.
"I'll go find the coach tomorrow." Zhou Yi lay on the bed again and asked Cortana to massage him.
"You want to object in person?"
"Not really. I'm just expressing my opinion. It's the coach's business to listen or not, but it's my business to say it or not." Zhou Yi curled his lips. "Didn't the coach also come to me to discuss tactics?"
"That was about discussing tactics, but this time we were talking about strategy." Cortana corrected Zhou Yi's thoughts.
"It's all the same, I still have the right to express my opinions, right?"
Cortana stopped talking. "Freedom of speech" is politically correct. Zhou Yi said so and she couldn't refute it.