The lagging Dortmund also felt the enormous threat. After the game restarted, they tried to fight back. As the defending champion, playing so embarrassingly made the Dortmund players quite unhappy. This unhappiness made them temporarily forget the jeers of the Napoli fans and the threats from those extremist fans.

Marko Reus and others also retreated more actively to participate in the team's operation, narrowing the distance with Zhou Yi, so that Zhou Yi could pass the football to them. At the same time, they would not be as isolated as before when they got the ball in the frontcourt.

After all, Dortmund is a strong team with outstanding strength, the defending champion. When they regained their confidence, they finally had a decent offensive.

Zhou Yi is certainly the most critical figure in this. However, he did not take all the work of organizing the offense on himself. Sometimes, he would pull to the wing to create space for his teammates, helping others to organize the offense.

Although he was no longer the protagonist, he successfully made Dortmund's offense run much more smoothly.

Especially since İlkay Gündoğan was injured, Nuri Şahin, who partnered Sven Bender as a defensive midfielder, has the ability to organize attacks. When he was still in Dortmund, Klopp tried to form a double core with him and Zhou Yi, so he is no stranger to this situation and does not need to adapt at all. He can switch a mode to work normally.

Napoli also felt the pressure from Dortmund. In order to contain Dortmund's attack, their high pressing also paid some price.

In the thirty-third and thirty-sixth minutes, within a short two minutes, Behrami and center-back Miguel Britos received yellow cards one after another.

Especially Britos's yellow card, as a center-back, getting a yellow card before the end of the first half is a hidden danger.

However, if Britos hadn't fouled at the time, there would have been no better choice. If Reus took another step forward, he would have entered the penalty area. If he hadn't fouled and let Reus slip into the penalty area, it would have been difficult to foul, and he couldn't give a penalty, right?

So he decisively pushed Reus down. This action earned him a yellow card, but also prevented Reina's goal from falling into danger.

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Overall, Napoli was more dominant in the first half. Dortmund had very few good opportunities, and Reus's breakthrough was probably the best.

In the thirty-ninth minute, Napoli launched another quick counterattack. Callejón dribbled the ball and went straight to Dortmund's core area. Left-back Schmelzer could do nothing against the fast and agile Callejón and had to foul. So he also received a yellow card.

Now both sides have players on the defensive line with yellow cards, which brings more variables and suspense to the following games...

When the first half finally ended, the score was 1:0, with the home team Napoli leading.

"Napoli's performance in the first half can be called perfect, whether it is tactical application or the performance of the players... Let's see what adjustments Klopp will make during the halftime break... He must do something, otherwise Dortmund is likely to return home in defeat at the Stadio San Paolo!" He Ping was still ostensibly objective and neutral, but in reality, he was very worried about Dortmund.

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In the locker room during the halftime break, Klopp did not criticize his players, although their performance in the first half was not very good, but there was a reason for this bad performance.

Everything at the Stadio San Paolo brought trouble and threats to the Dortmund players. Playing in this fanatical and hostile atmosphere requires very high psychological qualities from the players. Klopp could not ask everyone to have a big heart like Zhou Yi, so he could not rely on scolding the players to make them perform better.

He still had to think of more ways in terms of tactical arrangements.

The reason why Dortmund's offense was difficult to threaten Napoli's goal in the first half, according to Klopp's observation on the sidelines, was mainly due to the disconnection between the front and rear.

Dortmund was cut into fragmented pieces by Napoli's high pressing, making it difficult to connect them. Because Napoli's players pressed tirelessly, it was difficult for them to pass the ball smoothly and continuously. Passing the ball back in the backcourt was worrying about being intercepted by Napoli using high pressing to directly launch a counterattack. Forcibly sending passes forward was often prone to errors due to low accuracy, sending the ball to the feet of the opposing players...

In response to this situation, Klopp's countermeasure was to increase the number of players who could participate in the attack, using more players to fill those gaps, liberating Zhou Yi or Şahin so that they could connect the whole team.

With this in mind, Klopp made a very bold adjustment - he decided to replace center-back Hummels with Aubameyang.

Reducing a defensive player and adding an offensive player. This kind of substitution strategy is not uncommon, but it is generally done when there is little time left in the game, as a last resort.

Klopp is now going to make such a substitution during the halftime break, which means that in the next forty-five minutes, Dortmund will use a three-back lineup to fight against Napoli's high pressing.

A very simple math problem: the defensive area covered by four defenders is certainly larger and more than that of three defenders, and it can also form a numerical advantage in some areas. Conversely, the gaps that may exist with three defenders are more than with four defenders. For as long as forty-five minutes, Dortmund will have to use three defenders to deal with Napoli, and the difficulty can be imagined.

Klopp can be regarded as burning his boats, but is it a bit too early to start burning the boats?

But this is Klopp. As a coach with personality, his substitutions and adjustments will never follow common sense, and everyone is used to it.

If he's not crazy, he probably wouldn't be Klopp.

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According to Klopp's vision, after Aubameyang is brought on, on the one hand, he can increase the number of attackers and enrich the offensive levels. On the other hand, Aubameyang's speed can also allow Dortmund to launch long passes for counterattacks when there is really no other way.

There is no need to pass the ball to Aubameyang's feet too accurately, as long as it is roughly in that area, Aubameyang can sprint.

This is also a killer move that Klopp has arranged for the team to use in desperate situations.

Klopp's idea is very good.

But the most fascinating thing about football is that it is always full of various accidents. These accidents are completely unpredictable and without any warning.

Even Zhou Yi, who possesses the virtual world, cannot simulate all possible situations. After all, some things may not have been supposed to happen at all, but they did.

At the beginning of the second half, Dortmund, who were determined to regroup and compete with Napoli, suffered a heavy blow from the very beginning.

In the forty-sixth minute of the entire game, just one minute into the second half, Hamšík sent a sharp through ball in front of Dortmund's penalty area, and Higuaín was successful in beating the offside trap and chased after the ball.

Weidenfeller, Dortmund's goalkeeper and the team's last line of defense, decisively abandoned his goal and attacked, but he missed the ball when he dived to save it!

Higuaín cleverly pushed the ball to the outside, and then his foot was caught by Weidenfeller instead of the ball. The unbalanced Argentine striker fell to the ground!

Almost at the same time, deafening boos rang out from the stands, and the referee's whistle sounded!

"Weidenfeller... It's over! Penalty!" He Ping felt a chill in his heart. He had already seen the referee blowing his whistle and running towards the penalty spot. This was undoubtedly a penalty!

"Higuaín was brought down by Weidenfeller! Penalty!" The Italian commentator cheered.

"Higuaín's ball is suspected of diving, right?" As a German commentator, Marcel Reif was still unwilling to give up, hoping that the referee would judge that Higuaín was diving. But the referee's actions dispelled all his illusions - he stood on the penalty spot, raised his arm, and indicated that it was a penalty.

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Weidenfeller jumped up from the ground and ran towards the referee, wanting to appeal for himself.

But in fact, this was in vain.

And there were more serious consequences waiting for him...

The referee not only awarded Napoli a penalty, but also showed Weidenfeller, who had brought down Higuaín, a... red card!

Weidenfeller, who had rushed up to argue about the penalty, was dumbfounded...

The other Dortmund players who wanted to speak for Weidenfeller and accuse Higuaín of diving were also frightened.

A penalty plus a red card combo?!

Did they have to be so unlucky!