The energetic teenager trains with full of energy every day.

The team is also actively preparing for the new season.

After the German Super Cup, the Bundesliga season will soon begin.

Because of the World Cup next summer, the national team needs to train before the World Cup. Therefore, the league must leave enough time for the national team to train. As a result, this season's league starts earlier and ends earlier, and the schedule during the season is relatively more intensive.

The new Bundesliga season will kick off on August 9th, with the first game being the defending champion Borussia Dortmund playing against Augsburg away.

The opponent is not very strong, but Borussia Dortmund is playing away from home, and it is also the first league game, so what kind of state the players can show is still unknown.

However, since the Super Cup against Bayern Munich, the voices in Germany doubting and criticizing Borussia Dortmund have become much smaller. Only the Munich media is still stubbornly insisting that the performance and result of the Super Cup, a meaningless competition, cannot explain anything.

Before the Super Cup, it was the same media that believed the victory in the Super Cup would foreshadow different prospects for Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich this season…

Guardiola was more frank than his media friends. After losing the Super Cup, he admitted in an interview with reporters that his team's performance was not as good as Borussia Dortmund's, and it was normal to lose the game. At the same time, he also admitted that he was still learning about this brand new league and everything in it.

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August 9th, the first round of the league.

Borussia Dortmund challenges Augsburg away.

The day before, Klopp announced the eighteen players who would be traveling with the team, and Yan Min was not among them. Although Chinese reporters and fans were very concerned about this issue and hoped that Yan Min could appear in the eighteen-man list, Klopp used cruel reality to tell the wishful thinking Chinese media and fans that they were thinking too much.

Zhou Yi was then surrounded by Chinese reporters who wanted him to talk about his views on Yan Min's failure to be selected for the eighteen-man list.

This time, Zhou Yi, who has always been relatively polite to the media, criticized the media's bad mentality very impolitely: "... Yan Min has only just arrived at Borussia Dortmund, and the time he has trained with the team has not even been two weeks. He has not played a minute of warm-up match on behalf of Borussia Dortmund, so isn't it normal for him not to be selected for the league's eighteen-man list?"

"I don't think this kind of attention is concern and support for the players, but more like a kind of pressure, just like parents constantly nagging in their children's ears, 'If you don't study hard, you will be sorry for our upbringing.' It's useless, or rather, it only has the opposite effect. Have you ever seen a child who can study well because their parents keep nagging this kind of thing? Whether a player can play in a game is governed by objective laws. Even if the training status is good, it also depends on the coach's tactical arrangements. How can there be such an absolute thing? Just play if you say so?"

"I remember when I was in the Borussia Dortmund first team, you guys were like this, right? You're here again this time? Aren't you afraid of causing Klopp's disgust and rebellious psychology, and directly blacklisting Yan Min? I don't think Yan Min can live under the spotlight and magnifying glass of the media and the public now. If you really support Yan Min, you should give him more space and patience. Don't worry about when he will enter the eighteen-man list, when he will come on as a substitute, and when he will start. When the time is right, he will naturally play, just like I did back then. I really don't want you to ask me and the coach similar questions in the future. Of course, don't ask Yan Min either - I know what you want to do. Yan Min's temper, the words he says are good materials for you to hype. But doing that is not good for the players, it's very bad."

Zhou Yi's expression was very serious when he said these words, and he didn't have his usual grinning face, which made the reporters a little uncomfortable and a little embarrassed - they really didn't expect Zhou Yi to be able to lecture people with a straight face.

But after thinking about it, with Zhou Yi's current status and achievements, it seems... there's nothing wrong with being lectured by him.

After Borussia Dortmund lost Gotze and Lewandowski one after another, Zhou Yi's position in the team became more and more stable. To put it bluntly, if he wanted to be a ball hog, he would probably get the support of the club's senior management.

After saying these words with a straight face, Zhou Yi returned to his familiar smile and said, "I'm telling you so much today because I hope that players and reporters can maintain a good relationship in the future. We have cooperated quite well in foreign countries these years. Everyone is stationed abroad for a long time and can't see their families. It's hard enough. If you don't do your job well, wouldn't that be a loss? You can publish all of these words of mine, whether it's pressure from above or pressure from fans, let them all see, and see if what I said is right. When I was promoted to the first team, many people were also anxious for me and kept asking the coach about when I would be able to play in the game. I know it's all for my own good, but I know very well that as a player, waiting is a compulsory course. If you don't have the patience to wait, impetuosity will not help players seize opportunities and achieve success. You also interviewed Yang Muge. In my opinion, Old Yang is an excellent representative of patience. As a result, he is now in Schalke 04 and is an indispensable main player. No matter which coach comes, I believe he can gain a foothold in Schalke 04."

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Zhou Yi's words were really published by the media, but some media published them word for word, while others published excerpts. But no matter which way, they all wrote commentary articles based on Zhou Yi's words, reflecting on their own practices. Some media had a broader vision and linked it to the current situation of Chinese football.

"... The domestic Chinese league is booming, with a tendency to surpass the Japanese and Korean leagues. We have money-burning owners, and world-class stars who we never dared to think about before have come to join us one after another. The league's attendance rate is rising steadily, making it the best in Asia... The Chinese national team has also historically entered the World Cup finals again, and the national Olympic team has won the Olympic gold medal... Everything looks very beautiful, like adding flowers to brocade and cooking oil over a raging fire. But all these beautiful scenes seem to have made us impetuous, and we have lost our normal heart and patience.

I think the current achievements of Chinese football have a lot of accidental components. Not to mention the league, let's talk about the national team's achievements. The rise of Zhou Yi and others is like a meteor suddenly appearing in the night sky. Although it is dazzling, everyone knows that this cannot be eternal. This batch of 'golden generation' appeared very suddenly. What awaits us after their peak period is over? If we are only immersed in the dream brought by a group of talented players, then Chinese football will never get out of the trough.

I think it's time to calm down and do some 'tree planting' work. Thanks to Zhou Yi and others, they have brought more attention to Chinese football. Because of Zhou Yi and others, the image and reputation of football in China are improving. Maybe more parents will be willing to let their children play football in the future. But at that time, are our football workers ready? Do we have more football fields? Do we have more principals who are willing to let football enter the school? Do we have more high-level football schools? Do we have more grassroots coaches who are willing to devote themselves to youth football training? Do we have football players like Xu Genbao who are willing to bury their heads in hard work on an island for ten years to sharpen a sword?

If we don't have these, then Zhou Yi and others are meteors. After crossing the sky, what remains for Chinese football is still a dark night. After enjoying a period of joy, Chinese fans will endure endless pain again - there is a precedent for this. Think about when we entered the World Cup twelve years ago, the whole country celebrated, and everyone thought that the spring of Chinese football had arrived, but the reality is very cruel. Enjoying happiness without making preparations, then happiness is destined to be temporary.

Therefore, I call on our football players, not only reporters and fans, but also managers, to take this opportunity to vigorously improve our domestic football environment, to promote policies that are conducive to football entering primary and secondary schools, and to allow football culture to take root in this society. In this way, Chinese football can 'take advantage of the good wind to send me to the blue sky'..."

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Zhou Yi himself probably didn't expect that his words could lead to such a strategic commentary article, and this article was not published in general media, but in the *People's Daily*, it was a commentator article in the *People's Daily*!

This specification is quite high, so high that it is not Zhou Yi's personal influence that can determine the *People's Daily* to do this.

Perhaps Zhou Yi is just a lead, a medicinal primer, and the real people behind the scenes, at the top, want to take this opportunity to say something to test the domestic public opinion reaction and pave the way for promoting other new policies in the future.

After all, in today's China, everyone knows that the newly appointed one likes football...