Chapter 167 Reunion and Reinforcements

Compared to the summer break, the winter break was much shorter. Zhou Yi ultimately only stayed at home for a week before saying goodbye to his parents.

He met up with Yang Muge in Beijing and together they returned to Germany.

Unlike when they arrived, when they left China, there were many fans at the airport to see them off. It was unclear where they had gotten the exact time of Zhou Yi and his teammates' departure.

At the airport, Zhou Yi asked Yang Muge, "How was it, Lao Yang? Was going back this time amazing?"

He was referring to Yang Muge's skyrocketing fame.

Yang Muge smiled.

At this moment, loud shouts rang out from outside the airport security checkpoint, as enthusiastic fans bid Zhou Yi and Yang Muge farewell.

"Look, Lao Yang. We didn't have a scene like this when we left before." Zhou Yi turned around and waved to the enthusiastic fans outside security. "How does it feel?"

Yang Muge also turned to say goodbye to the fans: "It's great."

"Ha!" Zhou Yi laughed.

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After returning to Germany, Zhou Yi didn't stay in Dortmund for long before joining the team in warm Mallorca, Spain. On that famous European tourist island, they began training for the second half of the season.

The Borussia Dortmund club's transfer work also began at the same time.

Winter transfers are generally for patching up holes in the team's roster, not for very high-profile transfers.

But for Borussia Dortmund, this season's winter transfer was very important.

Because Marc Wagner was seriously injured in a previous national team match, ending his season completely. No one knew what the situation would be after he returned next season.

The team had lost an important source of firepower in the frontcourt attack.

Of course, they had to strengthen it.

This time, their target was Marco Reus, another "Marc," who had previously trained in Borussia Dortmund's youth academy.

As a native of Dortmund, Reus trained in Borussia Dortmund's youth team from a young age, and like every Dortmund child, dreamed of one day playing for Borussia Dortmund.

But realizing such a dream was not easy.

Reus did not get the opportunity to be promoted directly in Borussia Dortmund's youth system. Like Grosskreutz, he was abandoned by Borussia Dortmund halfway through, so he chose to go to Rot Weiss Ahlen, a lower-level team in the same region, and performed well there.

Grosskreutz, who also performed well at Rot Weiss Ahlen, was spotted by Borussia Dortmund and bought back in the summer of 2009.

But Reus still failed to catch Borussia Dortmund's eye. He went to Borussia Monchengladbach, replacing Marco Marin, the former core player who left the team for Werder Bremen.

At that time, his transfer fee was only one million euros.

But at Borussia Monchengladbach, Reus quickly achieved success.

In the 2009-2010 season, his first season after transferring to Borussia Monchengladbach, he played in thirty-three games, scored eight goals, and assisted nine times, showing outstanding performance.

In the following 2010-2011 season, he completely secured his core position at Borussia Monchengladbach, playing in thirty-two games, scoring ten goals, and assisting twelve times.

Strictly speaking, Reus and Marc Wagner are players of different styles. Marc is more active in the center, while Reus is more active on the wing. Reus is fast and good at dribbling. Speed is not Marc's advantage, and his dribbling is also average. He relies on his ability to seize opportunities and his excellent ball-playing ability.

Apart from the pronunciation of their names being the same, there is nothing else the two have in common.

So it would be incorrect to say that Borussia Dortmund was interested in Reus entirely to fill the gap left by Marc's injury.

It was just that Marc's serious injury strengthened the Borussia Dortmund executives' determination to introduce Reus. After all, Borussia Dortmund's attacking lineup looked strong now, but it lacked depth. They only had a few players, and losing one meant losing one. After Marc's injury, even if another person got injured, not Zhou Yi, but someone else, Borussia Dortmund's attacking lineup would not be able to hold up.

For the sake of future journeys, Borussia Dortmund hoped to introduce Reus.

But how could Borussia Monchengladbach easily let go of their core player?

The two sides haggled over the transfer fee for a long time, and then continued to drag on the transfer event.

Borussia Dortmund hoped that Reus could transfer over during this winter break.

But Borussia Monchengladbach resolutely refused to let him go, saying that if Borussia Dortmund insisted on completing the transfer during the winter break, then Borussia Monchengladbach would not sell.

Borussia Dortmund naturally wanted Reus to transfer during the winter break because of the Champions League knockout stage in the second half of the season.

But Borussia Monchengladbach performed well this season. After the first half of the league, Borussia Dortmund ranked first with thirty-eight points, while Borussia Monchengladbach ranked fourth with thirty-three points. They also had a chance to compete for a Champions League spot next season.

And in this process, Reus made great contributions and was very important.

If Reus was let go during the winter break, it would be equivalent to the Champions League spot next season potentially disappearing.

The Borussia Monchengladbach club executives were not idiots. Although Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Monchengladbach had basically reached an agreement on Reus's transfer price, which was 17.5 million euros, Borussia Monchengladbach was very clear that if they could participate in the Champions League next season, even if it was just the group stage, the economic income they would get would not be less than this transfer fee.

If Reus was allowed to go to Borussia Dortmund now, Borussia Monchengladbach would be sacrificing a lot for a small gain.

The Borussia Monchengladbach club executives could still do such simple math.

So they firmly rejected Borussia Dortmund's proposal.

In the end, after a long period of haggling, Borussia Dortmund finally agreed to Borussia Monchengladbach's transfer plan—a transfer contract could be finalized now, but the transfer would not be implemented until the end of the season.

It was equivalent to Borussia Dortmund finalizing Reus's transfer half a year in advance.

Although this meant Borussia Dortmund would have to wait another half a year, as Reus's performance continued to improve, Borussia Dortmund's competitors would inevitably increase. By finalizing this transfer deal half a year in advance, they were reassured. Even if Reus really helped Borussia Monchengladbach secure a Champions League spot after the end of this season, his value and contract salary would not increase as a result, and it would no longer be possible for other teams to poach Reus from Borussia Monchengladbach at a high price at that time.

It was equivalent to taking out insurance.

Of course, this kind of operation was not without risks. If Reus's form declined in the second half of the season and his performance was not worth the current price, Borussia Dortmund could only admit their bad luck.

As for the greater risks, they were all explained in the contract. For example, if Reus was seriously injured in the second half of the season, Borussia Dortmund had the right to return the goods.

After all the contract details were finalized, and the contract between Borussia Dortmund and the player himself was also negotiated.

On January 4, 2012, Borussia Dortmund officially announced that they had signed Marco Reus. The transfer contract would take effect on July 1, 2012.

When this news was announced, the happiest people were Borussia Dortmund fans. Because of their extraordinary sense of identity, Borussia Dortmund fans attached great importance to and loved every player who came from Borussia Dortmund's youth academy. They hoped that more players from Dortmund could wear the Borussia Dortmund jersey. Therefore, players like Grosskreutz and Marc had great popularity among Borussia Dortmund fans.

When Marc was seriously injured, the saddest people besides his relatives were those Borussia Dortmund fans.

Now that the Dortmund wanderer who had been drifting outside could return to Westfalenstadion, it was still very exciting and anticipated.

And the saddest people were probably the Borussia Monchengladbach fans.

Some excited Borussia Monchengladbach fans even went outside the training base to protest the club's easy sale of the team's core.

Before, Marin was sold and Reus was bought.

Now that Reus had been sold again, could Borussia Monchengladbach find a qualified replacement for Reus?

But this was the way for small and medium-sized clubs to survive. They did not have the financial support of large consortia, nor the faith bonus of a large number of fans, and could not carry out global commercial development. The annual salary budget of some teams might not even be equal to the transfer fee of a player from a giant like Bayern Munich.

Therefore, these clubs had to be responsible for their own profits and losses, so they could only rely on selling players, digging up talented players from smaller teams at low prices, and then playing for two years. After achieving results, they would sell these players to large clubs to earn the difference.

Although Borussia Monchengladbach was once a veteran powerhouse in the Bundesliga, in an era where football was becoming more and more commercialized, they had gradually fallen behind the times and become a mid-to-lower-level team in the Bundesliga, and even relegated from time to time.

Selling the core players, although it would make the fans dissatisfied, compared to the club falling into a financial crisis and going bankrupt, losing the core was not a big deal...