ps, sorry, I messed up the chapter number of yesterday's update. It should have been Chapter 283, but I wrote 286 instead. The chapter name is the same, and the content hasn't changed, just the number is wrong. It doesn't affect reading...

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After Messi scored, Barcelona clearly gained the upper hand in attack.

Xavi retreated, leaving more space for Messi, and also handing over possession to Messi.

Now was Messi's time to perform.

Xavi, Iniesta, and the others were relegated to supporting roles.

Messi seemed to be in good form in this match, his sharp breakthroughs making Dortmund's defense extremely embarrassed.

The stands repeatedly cheered for Messi's wonderful performance, and also roared with laughter at the embarrassment of Dortmund's defenders.

Barcelona fans were enjoying such a wonderful time.

Although they were still tied, Messi's performance seemed to make them forget about that.

Many people even thought that if Messi continued to perform like this, it was only a matter of time before he scored again.

Faced with the aggressive Messi, Dortmund had to choose to defend with everyone behind the ball.

Zhou Yi's contribution in defense was not as great as it had been in the first half.

"...Guardiola made adjustments at halftime, increasing the players' individual breakthroughs. Messi, Sanchez, and Iniesta are all players with extremely strong breakthrough abilities. Once they go all out, I don't think there are many teams in the world that can stop them!" the Catalan commentator said triumphantly.

Although the Catalan commentator's words were a bit dismissive of Dortmund, what he said was indeed correct.

This is also the most important difference between Barcelona and those other imitators.

Since Barcelona's football became successful, there have been many imitators in world football, and everyone emphasizes passing and control.

Gao Hongbo's Chinese team was, in a sense, also one of the imitators.

But the biggest difference between these imitators and the original is that the original has Messi, and they don't.

Throughout the years, there seem to have been two completely different views on Messi.

One view is that Messi is the core of Barcelona, the most indispensable person, so he can win so many Ballon d'Or awards and FIFA World Player of the Year awards.

The other view is that Messi is overrated. He is certainly very powerful, but the truly crucial task for Barcelona is Xavi. Messi is just a system player. Without Barcelona's system, he can't function. This view also has a lot of traction, after all, they have factual basis, which is that Messi in the Argentine national team and in the Barcelona team are almost two different people.

As one of the best players in the world (or even without the "one of"), he has won countless honors with Barcelona, but has not led the Argentine national team to win any major international tournament.

This has become a reason for many people to attack Messi, believing that he will not play football if he leaves Barcelona's tactical system. Many people also say that Messi should go to the Premier League to achieve something...

Although this statement has some truth to it, Messi's contribution to Barcelona is definitely not as small as some people think.

If Barcelona did not have Messi, even with Xavi and Iniesta, it would probably be difficult to reach its current height.

Barcelona's tactical system needs a sharp knife figure who can change the rhythm and suddenly accelerate.

And Messi is such a sharp knife.

Of course, some people will say that Sanchez can also be a sharp knife, and there must be other people who can break through like Messi and be a sharp knife. So what is Messi's irreplaceable quality?

Messi's irreplaceable quality is that although others can do what he can do, they don't do it as well as he does. Messi can do all these things to the extreme.

So why is he the number one player in the world today, and not someone else? There is a reason for this.

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After Messi scored, he became more and more active, and the commentators exclaimed that Messi was invincible and unstoppable.

In fact, Dortmund was indeed in great crisis.

Now Messi was retreating deeper than before, breaking through after getting the ball.

Faced with Messi's breakthrough, Dortmund was responding very embarrassedly.

And Messi was galloping freely in Dortmund's half, as if entering an uninhabited land, amidst the cheers of the fans.

Ray Hudson was eloquently praising Messi.

In the sixty-seventh minute, Messi once again received the ball in midfield, turned around, and then shook off Kagawa Shinji with a change of pace.

Zhou Yi wanted to go up to intercept, no matter how much he could do in one-on-one defense, at least he had to be there, and if that didn't work, he would foul. Now they were still relatively far from the penalty area, and fouling in this area, unless it was a particularly serious malicious foul, would at most be a yellow card, and if he was lucky, he might not even get a yellow card.

But Messi didn't give Zhou Yi a chance to foul at all. When he was still three meters away from him, he suddenly changed direction, throwing off Zhou Yi, who was like a scarecrow.

Zhou Yi, who was not fast, had no way to deal with such an unreasonable forced breakthrough.

He could only turn around and run back, not to chase Messi, but to get as close as possible to his own penalty area.

He saw that after Messi shook off himself, he cleverly flicked the ball with his foot, and Sven Bender, who came up to defend, fell down.

A very small movement, but the effect was surprisingly good. This is where Messi is so great, his dribbling moves are not fancy, but very practical. This is the result of the super-fast step frequency caused by his not-so-tall height.

Even as an opponent, Zhou Yi had to marvel at Messi's power.

Then Messi, who had shaken off Sven Bender, broke into the penalty area.

Zhou Yi squeezed a sweat for his team in his heart. He knew that letting Messi into the penalty area would be very troublesome... because the defenders would not dare to make moves easily, and Messi's excellent ball control ability would allow him to move around in the narrow penalty area, protect the ball, and then look for opportunities to shoot.

Sure enough, when Messi entered the penalty area, Hummels, who was in front of him, originally wanted to come up to steal the ball, but when he saw that Messi had entered the penalty area, he had to stop.

He stopped, but Messi didn't stop. He pounced on Hummels.

Just as the two were about to make contact, Messi's left foot hooked the ball to the right, and the ball went through. And Messi's right foot hooked on Hummels' sweeping leg, and the Argentine fell to the ground!

The referee's whistle sounded.

Zhou Yi's heart skipped a beat.

He saw the referee pointing to the penalty spot!

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"Penalty! Penalty!" Hudson was climaxing again. "Messi! Ahhhhh! A genius performance! In front of his nimble body, Hummels is simply like a clumsy giant!"

"Penalty! Dortmund has been penalized with a penalty!" Marcel Reif's voice was filled with panic. He knew very well what this penalty meant.

As long as Barcelona scored this penalty, they would lead Dortmund 2-1.

This would be an extremely heavy blow to Dortmund's morale.

But an even heavier blow was yet to come...

When the Dortmund players saw that the referee had awarded a penalty, they all ran towards the referee, filing appeals.

Hummels also defended himself, feeling that Messi's fall was exaggerated, that it was a dive.

But just as he was complaining that Messi had dived, the referee took out a... red card from his pocket!

"R... red card?!" He Ping was taken aback. He thought that even if there was no problem with this penalty, a yellow card for Hummels would be the most severe punishment, after all, Barcelona had already been given a penalty...

But he didn't expect that the referee of this match, Kuipers, would directly show Hummels a red card!

Red cards and yellow cards are not just different colors!

If Barcelona scores the penalty, Dortmund, with one less player, will almost certainly be eliminated.

Klopp on the sidelines was very dissatisfied with the referee's decision. He rushed out of his area of activity and roared loudly into the field: "Are you out of your mind! How can this be a red card!? Goddamn it!"

The fourth official came up and asked him to calm down, but Klopp roared back at him with an even more ferocious expression and louder voice.

So, as a matter of course, the fourth official called the referee, Kuipers pushed aside the Dortmund players around him, ran back to the sidelines, and after listening to the fourth official's statement, he also showed Klopp a red card, signaling him to leave the field!

"Klopp has also received a red card!" Marcel Reif felt that the situation was really chaotic. "It's just too bad... With Hummels being sent off and a penalty being awarded, Klopp has also been sent off!"

The referee Kuipers' two red cards in a short period of time led to dissatisfaction among Dortmund's players and coaches, and the scene was somewhat chaotic for a while.

Dortmund's substitute players protested to Kuipers, but Kuipers did not respond to them. Instead, he turned around and returned to the field, urging Hummels to leave the field.

Although Hummels was very reluctant, he couldn't argue with the authority, and he walked off the field while complaining.

The other Dortmund players couldn't do anything about it at this time, no matter how dissatisfied they were.

They could only choose to accept it.