Chapter 1 The Start

After the Champions League group stage ended, Borussia Dortmund lost to Hannover 96 1-2 away in the league. However, in the seventh round of the league that followed, they beat Mainz 2-1 away.

After seven rounds of league matches, Borussia Dortmund had four wins and three losses, accumulating twelve points, ranking fifth.

This league start could not be considered outstanding. It should be noted that Borussia Dortmund only lost four games in the entire season last year, while now Borussia Dortmund has already lost three games.

The road to defending the league title is not easy.

However, their performance in the Champions League is still quite good. In the second round of the Champions League group stage, Borussia Dortmund challenged Marseille away and defeated Marseille with a score of 2-1, achieving two consecutive victories in the group stage.

Also ranked first in the group with six points.

Back in the league, Borussia Dortmund also found their form, defeating promoted team Augsburg 4-0 at home. Zhou Yi contributed an assist and a goal.

After this game, it was the international match day.

Zhou Yi left the club and returned to China.

For the Chinese national team, there is only this one game in October, but it is very crucial.

Their opponent is the Asian powerhouse Iraq team.

The Chinese team now has the same four points as Jordan, only ranking first in the group due to the advantage of goal difference.

Before the start of the top twenty group stage, some domestic Chinese media analyzed that if the Chinese team wants to qualify from the group, then they must win the two home games against Jordan and Iraq, otherwise the hope of qualifying will become very slim.

And this game, which kicked off at 8:15 pm Beijing time on October 11th, is the first home game that must be won.

The Iraqi national team surprisingly won the Asian Cup in 2007. At that time, the national team born in the flames of war won the respect of the world.

Many Chinese fans also compared Iraq with the Chinese team, saying that the motherland of the Iraqi national team was caught in the flames of war, and the team did not even have a normal training ground, so they could only train abroad, and every player's family was risking their lives.

Even so, they won the Asian Cup.

China has such good domestic conditions, social stability, and economic prosperity, but the Chinese team has always been like mud that can't be plastered on the wall.

Chinese fans seem to have preconceived notions due to the turmoil in Iraq, thinking that the Iraqi national team is not strong, so the Chinese team should be stronger than the Iraqi team.

But this is actually a misunderstanding.

The Iraqi national team has always been an unignorable representative of West Asian football. Their nickname is the "Mesopotamian Lions". They have won the Arab Cup four times in 1964, 1966, 1985 and 1988, and the Gulf Cup three times in 1979, 1984 and 1988. They also won the gold medal in the football event at the 1982 Olympic Games. And they once reached the World Cup finals in 1986, the first team in the Middle East to reach the World Cup finals. It should be known that at that time, there were only two places in the entire Asia, which means that Iraq was one of the two best teams in Asia at that time.

And the Chinese team was still struggling to find a place in the World Cup finals until 2002.

So, from a historical perspective, Iraq is stronger than the Chinese team.

Iraqi football is not bad.

It's just that Iraq has been in turmoil since the Gulf War, which would make people naturally think that their national strength is weak, which is equivalent to their football strength not being very good.

Indeed, Iraqi football had a low point after the golden age of the 1980s. However, symbolized by the fourth place in the 2004 Olympic Games, Iraqi football ushered in a new golden generation, and finally won the Asian Cup in 2007.

Since entering the twenty-first century, the Chinese team and Iraq have played a total of seven times in various competitions. The Chinese team has three wins, two draws and two losses. From this point of view, the Chinese team has a slight advantage.

But if you carefully analyze these seven games, you will find that the Chinese team does not actually have any advantages as everyone thinks.

Among the seven games, the Chinese team won three, two of which were friendlies, one was an invitational tournament in 2000, where the Chinese team defeated Iraq 4-1. The other was a warm-up match before the Asian Cup at the beginning of this year, where the Chinese team defeated Iraq 3-2.

The only official match in which the Chinese team defeated Iraq was the Asian Cup held in the country in 2004, where the Chinese team defeated Iraq 3-0 in the quarter-finals.

Among the three draws and two losses, there were two Asian Cup qualifiers and two World Cup qualifiers.

Is the victory in the warm-up match more important or the victory in the qualifier?

It goes without saying.

So, in fact, the Chinese team has absolutely no advantage against Iraq in real matches.

And from the overall historical record, Iraq is also dominant—since the two teams first played against each other in the group stage of the 1974 Asian Games, the Chinese team and Iraq have played a total of sixteen games, with Iraq winning seven, drawing three and losing six, scoring twenty goals and conceding nineteen, slightly better.

In addition, the current Iraqi team is the golden generation that won the Asian Cup in 2007, and they are at their peak.

It is not easy for the Chinese team to defeat them.

So, from the beginning, this game fell into a stalemate.

It is difficult for either side to gain an advantage and overwhelm the other.

No goals were scored in the entire first half.

But the game took a dramatic turn in the second half. Just one minute after the start of the second half, Iraqi striker, captain, and representative figure of Iraq's golden generation Younis Mahmoud finally broke through the ten fingers of Chinese goalkeeper Yang Zhi and took the lead for Iraq!

"Ahhh!" Liu Hong shouted regretfully, "The first goal was actually scored by the Iraqi team! It's Younis again!"

From the perspective of the field, the Chinese team, playing at home, did not have any advantage. Although there was Zhou Yi, they did not suppress Iraq. After all, there are also many fierce generals on the Iraqi side. After all, it is the golden age of an entire generation in Iraq. And what about the Chinese team? Although they won the runner-up in the Asian Cup at the beginning of the year, everyone knows who the biggest contributor to that runner-up was.

Without Zhou Yi, the strength of this national team is still worrying.

If Iraq is a golden generation, then the Chinese team's golden generation has not yet arrived...

So, there is nothing wrong with falling behind to this Iraqi team at home.

The key is what to do after falling behind.

Everyone looked at Zhou Yi, including the camera lens of the game live broadcast, which also gave Zhou Yi a close-up.

Although Zhou Yi is very young, only twenty years old, he is already the core of this national team.

Here, I must also thank coach Gao Hongbo, who loves to use young people and dislikes veterans. If he had not resolutely excluded those experienced players from the national team, would Zhou Yi want to be the core of the national team? Have you paid a visit? Have you recognized a big brother? If you haven't done any of the above, then what are you doing as the core!

Now this problem does not exist. The factionalism within the country has been effectively curbed, and there is no more factional struggle. Everyone is unprecedentedly united, so Zhou Yi can easily become the core.

Coupled with his outstanding performance in the Asian Cup, Zhou Yi has conquered everyone's hearts. He has shown his skills in times of crisis more than once.

So, what about this time?

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This time it is not so easy.

Iraq has carried out a very strict defense against Zhou Yi, and their defense against Zhou Yi is quite aggressive.

This Iraqi team is completely different from the Iraqi team encountered during the warm-up match before the Asian Cup at the beginning of the year. This is also the biggest difference between the warm-up match and the official match - the opponent's level of investment is different.

When Iraq launched a siege-like full-court press on Zhou Yi, the Chinese team's midfield was not running smoothly enough.

"Zhou Yi needs help..." Liu Hong could see that if the Chinese team only relied on Zhou Yi, they could still catch the opponent off guard in the Asian Cup, but when they won the Asian Cup runner-up, and Zhou Yi performed extremely well, the opponent would naturally not be able to ignore Zhou Yi.

At that time, what will the Chinese team that only relies on Zhou Yi do?

Some teams value the World Cup qualifiers more than the Asian Cup. They may not be as desperate to play in the Asian Cup as they are in the World Cup qualifiers. After all, the Asian Cup is just playing among themselves in Asia, but if they can break into the World Cup finals, it is an opportunity to show their faces in front of people all over the world.

Gao Hongbo obviously saw this, so he started to make substitutions, replacing Deng Zhuoxiang and replacing a forward, Yu Dabao. It seems that the strength of the attack has been weakened.

However, Deng Zhuoxiang's appearance can enhance the control of the midfield, and Zhou Yi can also have a helper. After all, before Zhou Yi joined the national team, the Chinese team's main attacking midfielder was Deng Zhuoxiang.

After Deng Zhuoxiang came on the field, the pressure on Zhou Yi was much less.

The Chinese team finally equalized the score in the sixty-third minute.

And this goal was precisely because Zhou Yi passed the ball to Deng Zhuoxiang, allowing Deng Zhuoxiang to attract some defensive attention, and then received the ball passed back by Deng Zhuoxiang, and then passed the ball to Gao Lin, who shot the ball into the goal.

When Gao Lin equalized the score, there was thunderous cheers in the stadium.

"Goal! The Chinese team equalized the score! Beautiful!!" Liu Hong shouted excitedly. "Zhou Yi's assist!!"

Gao Lin, who scored the goal, turned around and pounced on Zhou Yi, and then hugged each other to celebrate the goal.

The other Chinese team players swarmed up and surrounded them.

The Chinese fans in the stands cheered, this is just the beginning, they are already looking forward to surpassing the score while equalizing the score!