Chapter 1 When to Shoot

When Zhou Yi stepped onto the field, his excited mood gradually calmed down.

The sounds of the fans at the stadium could no longer affect him. His pores closed up again, and no electricity shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

His brain was in a calm state.

Captain Kehl finished the coin toss, and Borussia Dortmund got the kickoff.

Since there was only one starting forward, Zhou Yi, as an attacking midfielder, also had to go to the center circle to kick off. He and Barrios faced each other, Barrios with his foot on the ball.

Zhou Yi did not look around to "scan." At this time, the positioning was meaningless, and there was no need to scan it into his mind.

"Wizard, did you dream that I scored a goal yesterday?" Barrios chatted with Zhou Yi before the kickoff.

Zhou Yi smiled, "Since I can play, there's no need to dream. Lucas."

Barrios understood Zhou Yi's meaning and smiled.

At this moment, the referee blew the whistle to start the game, Lucas gently nudged the ball into Nuremberg's half, and Zhou Yi stepped forward and kicked the ball back.

Afterward, Barrios rushed forward, while Zhou Yi ran back. The two parted ways.

After the ball went around the defense line, both sides' formations were stretched out, and the ball returned to Zhou Yi's feet.

This time, Zhou Yi did not play the ball back and forth with the defenders in the backcourt as he did in the previous game.

After receiving the ball, he turned around and passed it to Grosskreutz on the wing.

Then he ran forward.

Grosskreutz dribbled the ball forward, and when he encountered difficulties, he chose to pass the ball back to Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi then passed the ball to Kuba on the other side.

Zhou Yi had played many games against Nuremberg in the simulation world.

He knew very well that the opponent in front of him was not strong, and their performance would be further reduced as they were playing away from home.

Looking at their active retreat tactics after the start of the game, it was completely unnecessary to pass the ball back and forth with them in their own backcourt.

After getting the ball to the frontcourt, how to break through the dense defense was the problem Zhou Yi should consider.

In the process of continuous passing and running, his neck began to turn again, like a radar, taking in the situation on the field.

Kuba's development on the wing was also blocked by Nuremberg. He finally chose to cross the ball by force. Barrios failed to get a touch, and the ball was headed out by Nuremberg's center back, Pinola. Fortunately, the headed ball did not fall to Nuremberg's players but was intercepted by Sven Bender.

Zhou Yi asked Sven Bender for the ball. He already knew how to organize the attack.

Because Borussia Dortmund only had Barrios as a forward in this game, there were too few points in front of the goal, so crossing was not a good option. However, wing crosses still had a very important role in Klopp's tactics, so Nuremberg would naturally focus on defending the wings. That's why Grosskreutz and Kuba were both blocked by the opponent on the wings after the start of the game.

Nuremberg obviously did not expect that Zhou Yi's appearance would change Borussia Dortmund's two-forward formation into a single-forward one, with fewer points in the penalty area. So they were still playing according to the original plan.

Now it seemed that this defense was more beneficial to them.

But what if they changed it slightly?

Zhou Yi already had an idea, but football was a team sport after all. It was mostly useless to rely on one person alone. He still needed someone to cooperate with him.

Next, it depended on whether anyone else could see it too.

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Grosskreutz was on the wing, and the ball did not reach his feet, but he was also observing the situation. He found that the four players on Nuremberg's defense line were positioned relatively far apart, perhaps to take care of wing defense.

At this moment, Zhou Yi passed the ball over.

After receiving the ball, Grosskreutz initially wanted to open a breakthrough on the wing, but he found that the opponent's wing defense was very strong, and it was not easy to break through.

So he had to develop horizontally.

Just like in the last game, when he cut inside and dribbled horizontally, he passed the ball back to Zhou Yi again to avoid being intercepted by the opponent.

After passing the ball, he did not continue to go to the middle to compete for position with Zhou Yi, but instead cut inside, intending to run into the penalty area.

This scene was very similar to the last game. Marcel Reif couldn't help but say after seeing it: "Will Grosskreutz complete another assist? Will Zhou Yi choose to shoot directly?!"

Nuremberg had indeed studied Zhou Yi, at least they must have watched Zhou Yi's nearly half an hour of the game in the last match.

So at the same time as Grosskreutz passed the ball to Zhou Yi, a Nuremberg midfielder, Gygax, immediately pressed up, not allowing Zhou Yi to shoot easily.

But this time, Zhou Yi did not intend to shoot. He raised his right foot towards the ball passed by Grosskreutz, his ankle turned sideways and kept fixed, and then like a golf putter, pushed the ball forward!

The ball went past Pinola, one of Nuremberg's two center backs!

Pinola wanted to disrupt Zhou Yi's sudden pass, but because he was unprepared, and his movements were too hasty, he did not touch the ball but fell to the ground!

And Grosskreutz? After Pinola fell, he had no defensive pressure.

While passing through Nuremberg's defense line, he received the ball passed by Zhou Yi. Not offside!

"What a beautiful pass!!" Duan Xin exclaimed.

"A wonderful pass!" This was Marcel Reif's shout.

At the same time, a huge cheer broke out in the South Stand.

In their cheers, Grosskreutz stretched his foot forward and went into the penalty area in one go.

He was now facing Nuremberg's goalkeeper, Stephan!

For Grosskreutz, this was a great opportunity. He had not scored a goal this season!

Facing Stephan, he raised his left foot, rubbed out an arc, bypassed the goalkeeper Stephan's fingers, and then... flew into the goal!

Goal!

"Kevin Grosskreutz!!!" Marcel Reif raised his arms and shouted. "The game has only started for four minutes, and Borussia Dortmund has taken the lead!"

"Good goal! Good goal!" In the Beijing studio, Duan Xin shouted out the feeling of commentating on the game live. "Good goal! Really a good goal! Zhou Yi has completed his second assist of the season!"

"Yeah!" Zhou Jianliang jumped up from the sofa, waving his fist.

When Zhou Yi's pass passed by the fallen Nuremberg center back Pinola, He Ying, who was in front of the TV, couldn't help but clap his hands. At that moment, he thought of what it would be like if he were the one receiving the pass... How great that would be! As a forward, He Ying knew too well how great such a pass was.

"Ah! He's showing off again!" Sun Pan shouted, but he was smiling as he yelled.

※※※

Starting from the South Stand, Westfalenstadion erupted in a storm of sound.

If Norbert Dickel didn't have a microphone and speakers all over the stadium, he would not have been able to suppress the voices of all the Borussia Dortmund fans on his own.

He shouted, "Goal! We have taken the lead! The goalscorer is number nineteen, Kevin—!"

The fans in the stands shouted in unison, "Grosskreutz!!!"

"Now the score on the field is—!" Dickel continued to shout.

"One!" The fans also shouted.

Dickel: "Nuremberg—!"

Fans: "Zero!!"

"Old Dad" Bruno and his "Black and Yellow" companions were cheering for Grosskreutz's goal and for Zhou Yi.

"Zhou Yi's pass was really beautiful! He passed the ball directly without stopping it! If it had been any later, he probably wouldn't have had the chance to pass!"

"Yeah, yeah, we're leading by one goal after four minutes, thanks to Zhou Yi!"

※※※

Grosskreutz also knew who he should thank. So after scoring the goal, he did not go straight to the corner flag but turned around and ran towards Zhou Yi, while pointing at him with his finger, inviting him to celebrate the goal together.

"Why didn't you shoot this time?" He asked when he ran up to Zhou Yi.

"Dude, how could I bear to see you run for nothing again?" Zhou Yi said.

"Hey!" Although he rolled his eyes, Grosskreutz still hugged Zhou Yi, "I still have to say thank you!"

The other teammates also rushed up and surrounded the two of them.

Marcel Reif said when he saw Grosskreutz and Zhou Yi hugging: "Grosskreutz should really thank Zhou Yi, because this is his first official goal after transferring to Borussia Dortmund! He played fourteen times in the league before, but didn't score a single goal. Now he has finally broken his goal drought! And this goal is thanks to Zhou Yi's decisive and accurate through ball!"

After celebrating the goal on the sidelines, assistant coach Željko Buvač said to Klopp: "You see, Jürgen. Letting Zhou Yi start was the right thing to do, wasn't it?"

Klopp didn't say anything.

Zhou Yi, who started the game, looked no different from Zhou Yi, who came on as a substitute in the last game. The exciting atmosphere of Westfalenstadion didn't seem to affect him at all. He performed as always.

He was now very sure that he had really found a great treasure.

What determines the lower limit of a player's achievements may be his technical ability, his level of talent. But what determines the upper limit of a player, Klopp believes, is not so-called talent, but psychological quality.

A player with a mature and stable psychological quality can often achieve greater success than a player with the same ability but poor psychological quality.

In his opinion, the ceiling above Zhou Yi's career is so high that it is almost out of reach.