Chapter 196 Do Your Best

Dortmund, who defeated Augsburg at home, are now second in the league.

Leverkusen has suffered a losing streak since losing to Dortmund away from home.

A wave of three consecutive defeats caused them to fall directly from the second position in the league.

Although Dortmund has one game less, it is still second in the league.

Everyone feels that Klopp is more realistic and it is better to set the team's goal to qualify for next season and the Champions League. The team will not be under too much pressure and can play with a normal mind.

On January 29th, in the middle of the week, other Bundesliga teams were training as usual, but Dortmund ushered in a league opponent Hertha Berlin at home. This was a make-up match for the seventeenth round of the league.

At that time, because Dortmund went to participate in the Club World Cup, the game that was supposed to be played on December 21 was moved to this day.

Facing Hertha Berlin at home, Dortmund defeated their opponent 2:1 after a hard battle and scored three points.

With the same number of games, there is only a four-point gap between them and Bayern Munich!

Now many people remembered that during their previous discussion, they had forgotten that Dortmund was seven points behind Bayern Munich and there was a prerequisite, that is, Dortmund had one game less than Bayern Munich...

Now that both sides have played the same number of games and are four points behind, it doesn't look so insurmountable.

The Dortmund media naturally praised Dortmund's performance, saying that Dortmund's victory over Hertha Berlin brought the suspense of the league championship back.

The majority of neutral melon-eating people were also happy to watch the show of the two heroes competing for hegemony, and followed along with the noise below.

Overnight, it was as if Dortmund, the dominant player in Germany, was back...

But in fact Dortmund is not out of their crisis.

Because of Kuba's injury, Dortmund wanted to introduce Holtby to replace Kuba.

Holtby was a former Schalke 04 player, but was sold to Tottenham Hotspur by the club for 1.75 million euros a year ago. Borussia Dortmund want to buy the former Schalke 04 player from Tottenham Hotspur.

Unfortunately, this plan was not successfully implemented.

During the winter break,

Holtby was loaned to Fulham by Tottenham Hotspur.

In the end, Dortmund gained almost nothing in the transfer market during this winter break.

There are no new players in the positions that need to be strengthened, and none of the problems that need to be solved have been solved.

Under such circumstances, it is simply fanciful to want to catch up with Bayern Munich.

※※※

"Even if it's considered fanciful, I still want to give it a try." Lying in bed at night, Zhou Yi talked to Cortana about the current difficulties facing the team.

"But the problem is, even if we all win, we can only count on Bayern Munich to make mistakes." Cortana pointed out the problem with Zhou Yi's idea.

"Of course, but we must do our own thing first. If we can't even do our own thing well, how can we expect our opponents to give us a chance?" Zhou Yi curled his lips, "And if we can continue to win, how can we give Bayern Munich a chance?" If there is pressure, maybe Bayern Munich will make a mistake? There is a lot of pressure on the leader in a marathon."

"I don't think the story of last season can happen again..." Cortana shook her head.

"How will you know if you don't try?"

Cortana didn't speak this time. It was true. How could we make a conclusion in advance without trying?

The situation Dortmund faced last season was similar to this season. No one believed that Dortmund could reverse Bayern Munich and win the championship.

Unexpectedly, Dortmund completed great comebacks on both the league and Champions League fronts.

“What if you finally try and still don’t get the results you want?”

Zhou Yi waved his hand: "I don't think so much now, let's go all out and do our best."

※※※

Three days later, in the 19th round of the league, Zhou Yi did his best to help Dortmund, who lacked on-site coaching from the head coach, narrowly beat the relegation team Eintracht Braunschweig 2:1 away from home. He contributed a goal and an assist in this game. It can be said that the reason why Dortmund was able to win this game was all due to Zhou Yi.

Compared with Dortmund's stumble, Bayern Munich defeated Frankfurt 5-0 at their home court and won the game without a fight.

The German media exclaimed that Guardiola's team was invincible.

The Dortmund media did not care about this. What they cared more about was that in the game against Brunswick, the main center back Hummels finally returned from injury. He played and played the entire game.

At this juncture, the return of any injured soldier is good news for Dortmund.

Now Dortmund's defense is not as tight as before.

Schmelzer, Piszczek and Hummels have all returned, but Subotic is completely out of action this season.

This is great news for Dortmund, which has a busy schedule.

On February 7, in the twentieth round of the Bundesliga, they will challenge Werder Bremen away from home.

Two days after this game, on February 9th, Dortmund still has a German Cup quarter-final to play.

It's definitely impossible to maintain one lineup. So Klopp made some adjustments based on the situation of these two games.

The so-called adjustment of course means giving up the German Cup.

Klopp decided to use all his main players against Werder Bremen, and when the German Cup is played, he will send as many substitute players and second-team players as possible to give the main players a chance to rest and reduce the chance of injury. .

If one event must be given up, then the German Cup must be without any suspense.

This event is the most useless and has the lowest gold content.

This event will only be considered if there is no hope of winning in several other events.

Klopp decisively gave up the German Cup last season, allowing the team to maintain a good upward momentum in the league and Champions League, and finally won the double crown in one fell swoop.

This season, when the team encounters difficulties and cannot fight on multiple fronts, the German Cup will definitely be the first to be abandoned.

Klopp thought well, but in a warm-up match before the game against Werder Bremen, Hummels, who had just returned from injury, was injured again!

When Hummels was helped off the field, Klopp's expression was... numb.

Yes, after experiencing so many injuries this season, Klopp can't help but feel numb.

Even if there is a month when there is not a single sick person in the team, he will feel strange and uncomfortable.

Soon, the media reported that Hummels had just recovered from injury and was injured again.

In addition to the pro-Dortmund media, other media are ridiculing Dortmund, exclaiming that they must be cursed by the devil this season.

In other words, they should not have come back to win the championship last season. Both the league and the Champions League came back to win the championship, which has severely overdrafted their luck. Now it is their turn to pay off the debt for their crazy overdraft.

The latest news is that Hummels will be sidelined for another two weeks due to this injury.

"...Good news, Hummels only needs to rest for two weeks! It's better than two months of truce, isn't it?" This is the self-deprecation of a Dortmund media.

※※※

Hummels' injury before the game cast a shadow over Dortmund's away game against Werder Bremen.

Klopp put together the strongest lineup he could.

However, looking at this lineup makes people feel sad. This incomplete lineup is Dortmund's strongest lineup at present. It is really a completely different team from Dortmund last season...

But when the game started, the situation on the field was somewhat different from what everyone expected...

From the beginning of the game, Dortmund was firmly in control of the situation.

Why is this happening?

Because Zhou Yi's performance today was very positive. From the first minute of the game, he kept running and appeared in every corner of the court. No matter where the Dortmund players get the ball, as long as they look up, they will definitely see Zhou Yi for the first time.

Led by Zhou Yi, the Dortmund team was like a high-speed machine, dragging Werder Bremen into it and then crushing it.

In the 26th minute, Mark Wagner received a cross from Yan Min and opened the scoring for Dortmund with a header. Yan Min received Zhou Yi's pass before passing the ball.

After taking the lead, Dortmund continued to maintain its original pressure, making Werder Bremen unable to organize an effective attack and could only be suppressed by Dortmund.

This made the commentator Marcel Leif a little surprised: "Whose home stadium is this..."

...