League mid-season ended, and Borussia Dortmund was currently ranked sixth. Too many draws were one of the reasons for their low ranking.

Of course, some media also analyzed that Klopp's extensive use of young players was also the main reason for the unstable performance.

But for Borussia Dortmund fans, they were already very satisfied. After all, Borussia Dortmund's final ranking last season was thirteenth.

After changing the coach, the team could still get sixth place, which was already quite good.

Moreover, Borussia Dortmund fans could be said to be the most loyal fans in Europe. Even if the team's performance fluctuated, they had no complaints. Every home game day, the Westfalenstadion was packed to the brim, a clamorous sea of voices.

Zhou Yi hadn't been to Borussia Dortmund's first team games yet, but he already knew something about this.

For example, the family he was staying with was a family of loyal Borussia Dortmund fans. Except for their freak daughter, the whole family, even Mark's mother, were die-hard Borussia Dortmund fans.

The Borussia Dortmund logo and yellow and black merchandise could be seen everywhere in the house.

Mark's toothbrush cup had the Borussia Dortmund logo on it, and old Wagner's set of beer glasses were also printed with the Borussia Dortmund logo. In addition, there was a Borussia Dortmund alarm clock, a Borussia Dortmund bath towel, a Borussia Dortmund hat, a Borussia Dortmund floor mat, Borussia Dortmund gloves, Borussia Dortmund bed sheets, quilt covers...

The house was completely a Borussia Dortmund club-authorized merchandise exhibition.

Even their Mercedes-Benz car was yellow and black, as if they were afraid others wouldn't know that his family were all Borussia Dortmund fans.

When he first arrived, it was an eye-opener for Zhou Yi, who lacked the corresponding football culture at home.

But after staying for a month, Zhou Yi gradually got used to it. The face towel he was using now was a yellow towel with the Borussia Dortmund logo on it. When he first used it, he was worried about fading, but Mark comforted him, "Anyway, you're Asian, you have yellow skin, you won't be able to tell if it fades!"

Zhou Yi rolled his eyes at him: "Then how come you haven't been dyed yellow?"

Mark retorted: "That's because our German products are of good quality!"

Zhou Yi pointed to the German "Made in China" on his towel label to show him, and he fell silent.

※※※

Since the Christmas family dinner that night, Zhou Yi hadn't seen Cortana again. According to her brother Mark, she had gone traveling with her classmates.

"Did I ruin your family's travel plans?" Zhou Yi asked.

"Of course not. Actually, we don't go out every Christmas." Mark waved his hands repeatedly.

"I'm going to take that as the truth!"

"It's definitely true!"

So, during the Christmas holidays, Mark and his parents didn't go anywhere and stayed at home.

Zhou Yi's daily life was also very simple: learning languages on his own, training physically with Mark, and doing some excellent training together in the afternoon. In the evening, he naturally had "special training" with Mark in the game.

Of course, he threw the book that Cortana gave him directly into the drawer without even opening it.

During this time, Zhou Yi had a meal with Tim Kiste. Kiste told him that he was going back to Japan, which surprised Zhou Yi a little.

"After all, I'm not a dedicated translator, I'm a scout, so I still have to go back and do my job. Besides, you shouldn't have any problems with language communication now, so you don't need me as a translator anymore."

Zhou Yi was a little reluctant.

Kiste smiled: "But I think I'll come back to Dortmund often to see how you're doing. Next, you'll have to rely on yourself for living, studying, and training here. The most important thing for playing football abroad is the ability to live independently. But many Chinese players ignore this, which is one of the reasons why they are not successful. I hope you don't follow their old path."

Zhou Yi nodded repeatedly to Kiste's instructions and accepted them all.

Kiste also knew that Zhou Yi was a sensible child, so he didn't say much.

After the meal, Kiste drove Zhou Yi back to Mark's house. He waved to Zhou Yi in the car and drove away.

Zhou Yi stood outside, watching Kiste's car disappear completely at the corner of the street.

He was grateful to Mr. Kiste. Although he said he was a scout, for Zhou Yi, he did more than just a scout's job.

※※※

The Christmas holidays were over, and Borussia Dortmund's TV stations began to show news of the players returning to the Brackel training base, meaning that the first team had started training.

At the same time, the youth team's training also started.

Zhou Yi and Mark returned to the U17s.

Physical training still occupied a very important part of Zhou Yi's daily training, and physical training was not just about following Bartlett in the gym, but was integrated into all training projects.

For example, short-term small-sided games with limited recovery time, with games lasting two minutes, and players taking very short breaks after two minutes before continuing the game; four-on-four or smaller games that allowed players to touch the ball more; forcing players to make quick decisions in the penalty area or smaller marked areas, and requiring them to pass while running quickly.

Small-sided games meant less rest time, so the body had to learn to adapt to the rapid recovery from temporary fatigue caused by each sprint.

In terms of endurance training, exercises often involved more athletes and larger spaces, while stipulating that movements should be maintained for longer periods at a fixed pace. For example, fifteen to twenty minutes of training on three-quarters or the entire field, or eight-on-eight or larger games, while stipulating that all players must be in the attacking area before shooting.

These trainings were excellent for physical recovery.

With Zhou Yi's physical condition, he found it very difficult at the beginning of this training. After two sets, he was out of breath—the intensity of the training here was much greater than the training intensity of the team that was temporarily put together for the reality show. It was up to the standard of a professional league.

However, after more than a month of physical training, Zhou Yi had gradually been able to keep up with this training rhythm.

With his physical fitness keeping up, Zhou Yi's performance was also guaranteed.

He showed the qualities that Klopp had seen in him in daily training.

The U17 coach was a little surprised, but he was not surprised by Zhou Yi's personal ability. After all, he was on the sidelines to direct the team in that game, and he could say that Zhou Yi's performance was still vivid in his mind.

What surprised him was the degree of understanding between Zhou Yi and his teammates.

It stands to reason that Zhou Yi had only been on this team for more than a month, and he shouldn't know many people on this team. He could only be regarded as knowing them, and there was no understanding at all.

But when the team was training together, Zhou Yi seemed to have been training with this team for a year. He knew the playing styles of his teammates very well. As a midfielder, this was reflected in his passing and finding gaps.

He seemed to know how his teammates were used to running, where they were used to appearing, and what their playing styles were, so the passes he made were always just right.

As for his teammates, they were even more surprised. Although some of them had competed against Zhou Yi in the original game, the feeling of being an opponent and being a teammate was different. The feeling of being a teammate was more profound and more detailed.

When they passed the ball to Zhou Yi in training, and then ran forward to fill the gap, and turned around to remind Zhou Yi to pass the ball to them, they saw that the ball had already been passed over by Zhou Yi!

They didn't need to shout at all, and they didn't need to raise their hands. They just had to run, and as long as there was a gap, the ball would be passed over by Zhou Yi.

And Mark finally understood why Zhou Yi had set his vision to ninety-nine... Such a powerful ability to find gaps was indeed worthy of a vision of ninety-nine!

The U17 coaching staff had seen Zhou Yi's ability in finding gaps.

Coach Ecker was beginning to consider whether to give Zhou Yi a chance to play in advance.

Previously, he thought that even if Zhou Yi's physical fitness was up to par, he would still need to increase his understanding with his teammates in order to integrate into the team.

Who would have thought that Zhou Yi didn't seem to need to integrate into the team at all. He seemed to be born to play on this team.

In this way, the only factor restricting Zhou Yi from playing was his physical fitness.

So, after more than a month of physical training, what was Zhou Yi's physical condition like?

"It's still difficult to adapt to the intensity of professional league sports, but for the youth team... you can try." Bartlett said to the U17 coaching staff with the data.

How to try?

It's very simple, use the game to test.

Let Zhou Yi start and see how many minutes his physical fitness can last.

If he can last until after eighty minutes, then it can be regarded as meeting the basic requirements of the game.

And during the training camp, there were plenty of such examples, because the U17 youth team also had warm-up matches.

What are warm-up matches for? Isn't that what they're for?

"I've decided to let Zhou Yi start in the next game against Dusseldorf." Ecker announced this decision at the coaching staff meeting on Monday. No one on the coaching staff objected.

Everyone had seen what Zhou Yi had shown in training. This kid had a super strong ability to read the game. He could read the game one or two seconds faster than the average player.

If it weren't for his physical fitness, he might have been able to play on the team long ago.

Since it was to test his physical fitness, it was normal for him to start in the next game.

Seeing that everyone had no objections, Ecker continued: "Then let's determine the other starting players."

Starting with the goalkeeper, many positions were arranged without much effort. The coaches had been with this team for a long time and were very familiar with the team. They wouldn't think too long about which players should be arranged to start, unless there were large-scale injuries, which would make people a little worried.

But there was no such situation now.

After the arrangements were made so smoothly, they came to the starting striker position.

"Let's let Hank play here..." The assistant coach said as he was about to write the name on the list.

But head coach Ecker suddenly stopped him: "Wait."

The assistant coach looked up at Ecker strangely. After Schneider was transferred from the U17 to the U19, Hank had always been the main striker of the U17. He was not injured at the moment, and his physical fitness was well maintained. Why was he still hesitating about letting him start?

"Replace him with Mark Wagner." Ecker said.

His decision surprised the entire coaching staff.

"Why?" The assistant coach asked directly.

"Didn't you notice that his understanding with Zhou Yi is far better than with other teammates?" Ecker asked his coaching staff.

When he said this, the other members of the coaching staff began to ponder. When they recalled carefully, they realized that what Ecker said made sense.

Although Zhou Yi looked like he had no barriers with the whole team on the field, there was still a gap between having no barriers and cooperating seamlessly. There was indeed a feeling of "seamless cooperation" between him and Mark.

In the team's offensive drills and internal games, it could be seen that Zhou Yi was consciously looking for Mark to cooperate, and Mark was also the player on the team who could best understand Zhou Yi's passing ideas.

Zhou Yi's lack of barriers with other players meant that he cooperated with those teammates, but it didn't mean that other teammates could actively cooperate well with Zhou Yi.

Mark was the best performer.

There was an obvious but overlooked fact in training, that was when Mark was in the same group as Zhou Yi, his performance was better than when he was not in the same group as Zhou Yi.

The coaching staff had always overlooked this point, because Zhou Yi couldn't get a chance to play in the game. When arranging the starting lineup, there was no Zhou Yi, so naturally there was no Mark.

But now that Zhou Yi was going to start in this game, could Mark also get a chance to start accordingly?

This was indeed a... matter worth considering.

"Okay, let's take the opportunity to examine more players." The assistant coach did not insist on his choice and filled in the name of Mark Wagner.