Chapter 202 League Before the Champions League

Dortmund's game takes place one day earlier than Bayern Munich. So when Dortmund defeated Frankfurt at home with overwhelming momentum, reporters threw questions to Guardiola at the pre-match press conference between Bayern Munich and Freiburg at home, asking him what he thought of Dortmund's two games. What do you think of the victory?

Guardiola rubbed his nose and said: "To be honest, I don't care about them very much. I only care about my own team. We just have to do our own thing."

He said this very confidently, as if he didn't take Dortmund seriously.

Of course, his Bayern Munich does have such capital.

In the subsequent game, Bayern Munich also defeated Freiburg 4:0, and the score was exactly the same as Dortmund's.

It can be regarded as a response to Dortmund's recent aggressive pursuit.

Now that the league has played for 21 rounds, Bayern Munich is still at the top of the list, four points ahead of Dortmund, and has a huge advantage in goal difference - they have scored 57 goals, but only conceded nine goals. There were forty-eight goals won.

Only nine goals conceded made them the best defensive team.

Everyone says offense wins plaudits and defense wins championships.

From this simple truth, we can know that teams with good defense are generally champions.

So everyone feels that if Bayern Munich still fails to win the league championship, it will definitely make many people doubt their life...

On the other hand, Dortmund has conceded 23 goals so far this season.

This is the season in which they have conceded the most goals in the same period in the last four seasons.

Last season, they conceded 19 goals in 21 games.

In the 2011-2012 season, they only conceded 14 goals in 21 games.

In the 2010-2011 season, they only conceded 14 goals in 21 games.

Obviously, Dortmund's defense is better than before, which has a lot to do with their incomplete defense.

In terms of goal difference, Dortmund is 37, which is 11 goals different from Bayern Munich's 48.

So why should Dortmund chase Bayern Munich?

What about fighting for the championship?

Their performance this season is actually not without merit. At least so far, they are the team with the most goals in the Bundesliga, having scored 60 goals in the 21st round of the league.

This is also the season with the most goals in the same period of the last four seasons.

In the previous three seasons, in the 21st round, they scored 53, 50 and 44 goals respectively.

Although their performance has been ups and downs this season, Dortmund is still very efficient offensively. After leaving Lewandowski and Gotze, Dortmund's offensive performance has not declined, which is naturally inseparable from Zhou Yi's outstanding performance.

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After the game against Frankfurt, there is still one league round, and then there is the Champions League knockout round.

For this reason, the next twenty-second round of the league will be very delicate.

Because Dortmund's first game of the Champions League knockout round was played away from home, and it was in the distant and cold St. Petersburg, Russia - Dortmund's opponent in the quarter-finals of the Champions League was Zenit St. Petersburg.

Among the total of sixteen teams, Zenit St. Petersburg can be regarded as "one" if not the worst.

Perhaps even weaker than them is Greece's Olympiacos.

But this does not mean that Dortmund was lucky and got a good draw.

This has to take into account the weather in St. Petersburg and the time when the quarter-finals are held.

On February 25th, it was still very cold and snowing heavily in St. Petersburg at high latitudes.

Dortmund had just suffered a blizzard in Istanbul, which caused the game to be interrupted and postponed for one day. They were almost overturned and unable to qualify from the group.

So Dortmund has become very sensitive to the weather.

Everyone is paying attention to the weather in St. Petersburg. According to the weather forecast, St. Petersburg has been cloudy these days, but no one knows what it will be like in a week.

The weather is always changing.

They can only pray that Istanbul will not be hit by another blizzard.

At the same time, because they have to travel to St. Petersburg, it will inevitably affect Dortmund's plans in the league.

In the 22nd round of the league, Dortmund was also away from home, and their opponent was Hamburg.

The Hamburg team has performed very poorly this season. After 21 rounds of the league, they only accumulated 16 points and ranked 17th and second to last. This is the rhythm of downgrading.

So with almost half of the league left, Hamburg has already entered a state of relegation.

They must fight game by game and point by point. Only in this way can they ensure success in relegation.

This game is their home court again, and Dortmund is not easy to play.

If Dortmund holds back in the league in order to prepare for the Champions League, it is very likely that they will lose to Hamburg.

Once they lost to Hamburg, competing with Bayern Munich for the league championship really became a fantasy - Bayern Munich will challenge Hannover 96 away from home. Although it is an away game, with the strength gap between the two teams, it is not difficult for Bayern Munich to win on the field.

By then, the point difference between the two teams was stretched to seven points. Judging from Bayern Munich's stable performance this season, it is really difficult to surpass it.

But what if you push too hard in this league and the team performs poorly when they play Zenit St. Petersburg away from home?

The Dortmund club may not have thought about defending the Champions League champion, but being eliminated in the first round of the knockout round for the defending champion is not only about face, but also about income.

For many teams, appearance fees and various bonuses from Champions League games are important sources of income.

Although Dortmund is a wealthy club, they will not say that they look down on the appearance fees and bonuses of the Champions League...

Of course they hope to go further in the Champions League.

This dilemma will of course ultimately be decided by head coach Klopp.

Klopp didn't hesitate much and decided to use all his main players in the league.

The reason is actually very simple - the Champions League is behind, and the league is ahead. It is unknown how the Champions League will play out, and it is not certain whether the league will have an impact on the Champions League.

It would be foolish to sacrifice the present for an uncertain future.

Therefore, Klopp does not intend to let the team suffer losses in the league because of an uncertain future. The first thing is of course to win the league, and then we will consider the Champions League.

If we give up the league and fail to win the Champions League, wouldn't it mean that we are all in vain?

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Before the game against Hamburg, Dortmund announced their 18-man roster, with all the main players included.

Klopp also appeared cautious when facing Hamburg. He said at the pre-match press conference: "I don't care about the Champions League right now. Our opponent is Hamburg, so I only focus on the league opponents."

Hamburg has recently suffered a seven-game losing streak, and its morale has hit rock bottom. But they changed their head coach, and the original Dutch coach Van Marwijk dismissed get out of class, and Slomka took over.

Hamburg looked for Slomka not only to find a fire-fighting coach, but also not just to find someone to put out the fire. They gave Slomka a long-term contract until the end of June 2016, which is valid even if the team is relegated to the second division this season.

At the same time, they naturally looked for Slomka because of his experience in successfully leading the team to avoid relegation. In the second half of the 2009-2010 season, Slomka took over Hannover 96 and miraculously completed the task of avoiding relegation in the last round.

Hamburg's management clearly hopes that Slomka will do the same for Hamburg.

There is a saying in football that "changing coaches is like changing swords." There are many examples of teams that have fundamentally improved their results after changing their head coaches.

Whether this is superstition or the changes brought about by the new coach's freshness...

This phenomenon does exist.

Of course, Klopp has to worry that his team will become a victim of Hamburg's change of knife.

Recently, Dortmund has won two consecutive league games by huge margins, and the team's morale is high. Klopp has to worry about the team being too excited and even being a little proud and underestimating the enemy.

Hamburg, ranked second from the bottom, seems to be unqualified to be taken seriously by Dortmund, who is ranked second from the top...

Moreover, Hamburg before this game also suffered from extensive injuries-Boy and Dickmeier were absent due to illness, and Ilicevic, Van der Vaart and others were absent due to injury.

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Klopp's concerns are not without reason.

Just three minutes after the game started, Hamburg's Iracek got the ball on the left side of Dortmund's penalty area, turned around and shot, but the football only went slightly wide.

This was the first shot from both sides, started by Hamburg.

Dortmund then took the initiative, but Hamburg's defense was always solid and Dortmund never had any good chances.

"It seems that changing the head coach has really given Hamburg a new look. Facing Dortmund, Hamburg did not fall behind at all!"

Klopp looked serious on the coaching bench.

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