Chapter 1 The Surge

The Borussia Dortmund players saw the surging crowds outside the stadium, like a vast ocean, and assumed they were Napoli fans waiting to enter.

But when they changed and went out to warm up, they realized that those fans outside were definitely not waiting to enter, because the stadium couldn't hold that many people, and more importantly, about twenty thousand fans were already sitting in their seats inside the Stadio San Paolo…

The reporters and commentators on-site knew more than the Dortmund players.

“…Stadio San Paolo opened nearly five hours before the game, and at that time, nearly ten thousand Napoli fans had already entered the stadium and taken their seats…” Marcel Reif, as an on-site commentator and frontline reporter, said during a live broadcast with the studio.

The hosts and guests in the German studio marveled—what was the concept of entering five hours early? Those fans would be sitting in front of an empty stadium for five hours! But nearly ten thousand people were willing to do so, showing how deeply rooted the city of Naples’s madness for football was.

Dortmund challenging such a team in such an away atmosphere, the future was probably not as wonderful as people thought…

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Zhou Yi changed his clothes and warmed up on the field. He dribbled the ball with his head down but suddenly noticed a flash in the green grass. Generally speaking, a flash could be caused by the stadium being watered recently, with the water droplets on the grass reflecting the light, but this flash was a little different, because it wasn't a flash on the surface of the grass, but inside the grass…

So he stopped, bent down to search for the flash, and was surprised to find that it was a nail about ten centimeters long when he picked it up!

The pointed end of the nail shone with a cold light under the stadium lights…

Zhou Yi was speechless. He had been to so many away games and seen "baldy" type fields with a lot of exposed sand, he had also seen vegetable garden fields that were uneven and full of potholes, and he had even seen fields where the drainage facilities were not good enough and would become ponds when it rained… But this was the first time he had seen a field with nails hidden in the grass.

He didn't even know if it was the Stadio San Paolo staff deliberately throwing it in there to cause trouble for the Dortmund players, or a simple work error… Or if it was thrown in by fans who had arrived at the stadium early—because the place where the nail was found wasn't very far from the end line…

"Hey, Zhou Yi, what are you doing?" Mark asked curiously, seeing Zhou Yi with his back to him, staring blankly at the ground.

"Uh, nothing." Zhou Yi quickly clenched the nail in his hand, put his hand behind his back, and turned to face Mark.

After speaking, he threw down Mark and the football and ran straight to the sidelines to find a member of the club staff.

Mark looked at Zhou Yi's back, feeling strange.

When Zhou Yi ran to the sidelines, he found assistant coach Željko Buvač and showed him the nail in his hand.

"What's up, Zhou Yi?" Buvač looked strangely at the nail in Zhou Yi's hand. "This is…"

"I just found this in the penalty area grass," Zhou Yi said.

Buvač had a "are you kidding me" expression on his face.

"Maybe a fan threw it down," Zhou Yi said.

Buvač looked at the stands of Stadio San Paolo. There was a running track between the stands and the field. How could any fan throw a nail into the field?

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The process of Zhou Yi communicating with Buvač while holding the nail was filmed by a camera on the sidelines, so this scene was transmitted to the studio.

Everyone in the German studio was stunned when they saw this scene: "There's a nail in the grass of Stadio San Paolo? Are you kidding me! If a player makes a move in that place, wouldn't they be cut?"

"Just cutting themselves would be light. What if they jumped up and it stabbed them in the eye?"

"Napoli is doing a terrible job with their home field!"

The guests and hosts all criticized the Napoli club.

This matter was also filmed by sharp-eyed photographers and the photos were uploaded to the Internet.

So it also caused an uproar on the Internet—a dignified stadium hosting a Champions League match actually had a nail found in the grass before the game! If it hadn't been discovered, what serious consequences would have occurred during the game? No one dared to imagine…

Many Dortmund fans were clamoring for the cancellation of Stadio San Paolo’s eligibility to host Champions League matches, and some Dortmund fans suggested that the match should be declared a 3-0 victory for Dortmund.

Of course, the Napoli fans were very dissatisfied with the Dortmund fans’ statement, and some even used conspiracy theories to believe that who knew if this nail was hidden on Zhou Yi's body in advance, and then brought into the stadium, intending to frame Napoli… As for the purpose of doing so, haven't the Dortmund fans' proposals already answered it?

The foreign Internet was in a frenzy, and the atmosphere on the Chinese domestic Internet was relatively harmonious—because there were too few Chinese fans supporting Napoli, so it was a one-sided criticism and accusation of the Napoli club. Such a harsh accusation as "premeditated murder" had been made.

All Chinese fans believed that Zhou Yi could not be faking this, so it must be a problem with the Napoli club. Moreover, Napoli’s extreme fans did have similar previous convictions.

Because of the treatment Dortmund received after arriving in Naples, everyone knew about the extreme behavior of Napoli fans through media publicity, which aroused a lot of people's disgust. Now that the nail incident came out, it added another "charge" to the extreme Napoli fans.

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Zhou Yi gave the nail to Buvač, turned around and returned to the field to continue warming up. Some things were not for him to consider.

Buvač lowered his head and stared at the nail in his hand, feeling its weight.

He also tried the tip of the nail with the pad of his thumb and found it was very sharp, and felt like it could pierce the skin with a little force…

Startled, Buvač then became angry—was Napoli planning to let their players compete on such a field?!

So he turned to find the match supervisor.

If Napoli didn't give a solution, he wouldn't mind letting the game be aborted.

※※※

"What did you go do?" Mark was very curious when he saw Zhou Yi running back.

"Nothing, just chatted with the assistant coach for a few words," Zhou Yi said.

"What's so good about chatting about that?"

"Asked him if he had any other suggestions… Okay, let's warm up. If you don't warm up properly now, be careful of getting injured later!" Zhou Yi perfunctorily said. He didn't want to tell Mark about finding a nail in the grass. Mark had been a little neurotic these days because he was scared by the atmosphere in Naples. If he knew now that there was a hidden danger in the grass, he probably wouldn't be able to perform to his normal level during the game…

Not only would he not tell Mark, but he would not tell any other teammates for the same reason, he didn't want everyone to be distracted by this.

As for whether there would be other things like nails in the grass, Zhou Yi didn't know, but he thought assistant coach Buvač would definitely solve this matter, it wasn't up to him to worry about it.

※※※

When the Dortmund players finished warming up and returned to the locker room, they didn't see that Stadio San Paolo had sent ten staff members to start from both baselines and move towards the center line, searching the grass for possible "dangerous goods" with their heads down.

This was the result of Buvač arguing with the UEFA match supervisor. The nail he held in his hand, discovered by Zhou Yi, was shining with a cold light and was very convincing.

In the face of this strong evidence, Stadio San Paolo had no way to shirk responsibility and could only be forced to re-examine the grass under the pressure of UEFA to ensure that there were no unwanted sundries in the competition area.

Of course, the Dortmund coaching staff knew about this, and Buvač told Klopp.

However, Klopp didn't tell the players in the locker room, he thought this was a distraction for the team. Regardless of whether the staff at Stadio San Paolo checked carefully, if the players knew about this, they would always have a knot in their hearts, which would definitely cause interference during the game.

So Klopp privately found Zhou Yi and asked him if he had told the other players about this. Zhou Yi shook his head and gave Klopp the answer he wanted.

"Very good, you did a good job. But are you okay?" Klopp asked.

"What's wrong with me?" Zhou Yi felt strange.

"I hope the nail won't affect you…"

"No, no, it won't affect me. I believe coach Buvač will have a good communication with the stadium." Zhou Yi shook his head repeatedly.

Klopp laughed after hearing Zhou Yi's words: "That's right, the stadium has sent people to re-examine the grass. With UEFA supervising them, I believe they won't dare to do anything sneaky. In short, just play the game with peace of mind."

He was really very satisfied with Zhou Yi. These past two days, while the other players were obviously frightened, Zhou Yi's performance was normal, which made Klopp very relieved. As the core of the team, Zhou Yi was calm and composed, and he would definitely be able to influence his teammates and inspire them during the game.

Although he didn't understand why the young Zhou Yi could have such a big heart, he didn't need to figure it out. He just needed to enjoy the benefits Zhou Yi brought.

Back in the locker room, Klopp clapped his hands, and then said to everyone in the quiet locker room: "Forget those messy things, all that's in front of us is a Champions League group match. What we have to do is very simple, that is to show what we have in training, play this game well, and then go home."

He added an extra sentence, "go home," hoping that this would reduce some of the players' psychological pressure. After playing this game, they would go home. Thinking of going home would make many people feel a lot more relaxed…