Chapter 1 The situation

When the game entered the eightieth minute, the score remained unchanged, with Shakhtar Donetsk leading Borussia Dortmund 2-1 at their home stadium.

In the last ten minutes, Shakhtar Donetsk abandoned their attack and retreated across the board, hoping to hold onto their one-point lead in the final ten minutes.

So Borussia Dortmund faced an even more complicated situation.

Another five minutes passed. In these five minutes, Borussia Dortmund increased their number of shots by four, but the score was still not changed.

In the eighty-sixth minute, Borussia Dortmund organized another attack, reaching the front of Shakhtar Donetsk's penalty area, and then got bogged down again.

Shakhtar Donetsk's defense was very tight, giving Borussia Dortmund almost no openings.

Borussia Dortmund could only pass the ball horizontally. Shakhtar Donetsk didn't dare to press, fearing that Zhou Yi would seize the opportunity to send a fatal pass.

They were still very wary of Zhou Yi.

So even though Zhou Yi kept getting the ball outside the penalty area, no one came up to challenge him. They believed that as long as their defense didn't have any loopholes, even if Zhou Yi had the ball, he wouldn't be able to do anything.

This approach was correct, especially given the terrible condition of the pitch. Even if Zhou Yi or other Borussia Dortmund players wanted to break through with the ball to find an opening, it would be very difficult to achieve on such a bad surface. When only passing could be used to organize the attack, the available paths of attack became very few, making it easier for the defense to defend.

But there is an exception to everything.

Nothing is absolute.

Even the tightest defense has loopholes; it can't be completely impenetrable.

Zhou Yi's head turned back and forth, like a radar antenna, taking in the situation around him. Then, a bird's-eye view formed in his mind.

On the bird's-eye view, the distribution of players on both sides was clear. Zhou Yi carefully searched this bird's-eye view, looking for a channel that could create an opportunity.

He searched and searched, and he actually found one!

A very hidden passage, but it did exist. As long as it could be used, it could pose a threat.

But the problem was that he saw this passage, but it was useless if no one else saw it, because if no one inserted themselves and ran to the right spot, it wouldn't matter if he passed the ball there. If no one could receive the ball, how could they threaten the opponent's goal?

He needed someone to cooperate with him, but time didn't allow him to notify others. After all, the situation on the field was changing rapidly, and a slight delay could make this passage disappear.

Besides, signaling too obviously would only raise the opponent's vigilance.

So Zhou Yi could only hope that someone on his team also saw this passage. He couldn't wait to be sure before passing. He had to pass the ball over immediately, hoping that someone would run into the open space to receive the ball.

It was like a door closing. A little later, and the door would be completely shut.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yi raised his arm to ask Götze for the ball.

Götze, who had the ball on the wing, saw Zhou Yi raise his hand and quickly passed the ball over.

To avoid the ball's trajectory being affected by rolling on the muddy field, Götze kicked the ball up, and it flew through the low air towards Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi ran towards the ball, but instead of stopping it, he reached out with his right foot and used the outside of his right foot to curl the flying ball towards the penalty area.

The ball curved and changed direction, flying into the penalty area!

This move caught the Shakhtar Donetsk players off guard. None of them expected Zhou Yi to pass the ball without stopping it, using the outside of his foot to create such a curve!

When the ball flew over, all the Shakhtar Donetsk players were caught off guard. They could only watch as the ball flew over their heads and towards the far corner behind them...

Someone turned to look. The ball didn't fly directly towards the goal, but curved in the air.

It flew along a path almost parallel to the goal line, towards the back of the defense. There, a yellow and black figure dashed out like lightning!

※※※

"Mark!" In Marcel Reif's exclamation, Mark Wagner jumped high during the sprint and met the ball with a powerful header!

The ball hit his forehead solidly and flew towards the far corner of the goal!

The Shakhtar Donetsk goalkeeper, Pyatov, who had just turned around to pounce, was powerless to do anything about this ball heading behind him. He couldn't possibly turn around again to pounce; that would defy the laws of physics.

Inertia froze him in place. He could only turn his head and watch the ball fly into the goal...

"Aaaaaaah!!" Marcel Reif screamed excitedly. "Beautiful! Beautiful! Mark Wagner! He equalizes for the team! Two away goals, Borussia Dortmund can return to Germany satisfied with this result!"

"Mark Wagner!!" He Ping also shouted. "A game-changing goal! He equalizes the score for Borussia Dortmund! This goal came from Zhou Yi's imaginative assist!"

※※※

After scoring, Mark landed and ran towards Zhou Yi to celebrate the goal, but before he could reach Zhou Yi, he was hugged around the waist by Lewandowski and then thrown to the ground.

Next, Reus piled on top, Zhou Yi ran over and stacked himself on top of Reus, Götze jumped on, and more Borussia Dortmund players swarmed over, completely burying Mark in the mud...

Amid the Borussia Dortmund players' wild celebrations, the Shakhtar Donetsk players were somewhat unable to accept it—they were about to win the game, and Mark scored in the eighty-seventh minute of the game... and then they conceded a goal! Not only was the score tied, but Borussia Dortmund also had two away goals!

This was practically the second worst result, second only to losing at home.

On the sidelines, Borussia Dortmund coach Klopp smiled broadly at the result. He didn't hide his joy and performed a sliding knee on the slippery field.

※※※

The Borussia Dortmund team's wild celebration finally ended under the intervention of the referee. Everyone returned to their positions, after all, the game was not over yet.

Zhou Yi and Mark ran side by side back to Borussia Dortmund's half. Zhou Yi asked Mark, "How did you think to move forward on that ball just now?"

"I thought it would definitely be an opening for you, Zhou Yi. You might pass the ball there, so I tried to go up..." Mark explained.

Zhou Yi happily patted Mark on the shoulder. Sure enough, Mark understood him the most. Although Mark hadn't played for a long time, their tacit understanding had always been there.

※※※

Equalizing the score was a very happy thing. For Borussia Dortmund, they could be satisfied.

Excluding Lao Guo from the group, Sun Pan had to admit that Borussia Dortmund was lucky, and they were able to equalize the score in such a difficult situation.

"Zhou Yi's pass was really beautiful..." Yang Muge exclaimed, he was truly impressed by Zhou Yi's thinking and vision. Many people couldn't even imagine passing like that, let alone actually do it, but Zhou Yi was able to pass such an imaginative and seemingly impossible ball.

"Maybe it was a fluke?" Sun Pan poured cold water.

"Being able to pull off a fluke is also good!" Guo Nu said.

He Ying said, "I think Mark's movement was even better. He seemed to know exactly how Zhou Yi would pass. That kind of movement is really amazing."

As a fellow forward, and also a forward who was good at off-ball movement, He Ying naturally paid more attention to Mark.

"Mark used to be a very good forward. If he hadn't been injured, maybe Lewandowski wouldn't have had a chance," Yang Muge said. As Borussia Dortmund's derby opponent, Yang Muge knew the Borussia Dortmund players very well. In addition, Mark had repeatedly performed well in the Ruhr derby, so the impression was naturally deeper.

"That's really a pity..."

Injuries are the biggest enemy of all professional players. No player wants injuries to find them, so everyone sighed when Yang Muge said that.

The TV broadcast gave Mark another close-up. Although Zhou Yi's pass was beautiful, Mark was the one who scored, so Mark was the focus of attention.

Marcel Reif said, "After recovering from his injury, Mark has been in good form, but Borussia Dortmund has too many attackers in the front, so Mark can only be a substitute. But despite being a substitute, Mark's performance has been very good. I think this is a good thing for Klopp, because Borussia Dortmund has been using a rotation strategy to cope with two-front battles this season. He needs a deeper bench, and Mark's performance gives him more confidence in rotating players."

※※※

There are three minutes left in the game's regular time, plus stoppage time, about six or seven minutes. Is that enough time for both teams to score another goal?

For Borussia Dortmund, this is an acceptable result, but Shakhtar Donetsk is less likely to accept it.

So after the game restarted, Shakhtar Donetsk launched a fierce attack on Borussia Dortmund's goal, hoping to take the lead again in the final moments of the game.

Faced with Shakhtar Donetsk's fierce attack, Borussia Dortmund contracted and played counter-attack, passing the ball forward when they had the opportunity, and if they didn't have the opportunity, they would clear the ball with a long kick to disrupt the opponent's attack.

The game might end in this situation.

But in the ninety-second minute, an unexpected situation occurred on the field—at that time, Borussia Dortmund got the ball and launched a quick counter-attack. Zhou Yi found Mark, who was left in front, with a long pass. Because Mark was the last to come on, his physical fitness was relatively better, so only he was at the front during the counter-attack.

When Mark saw the ball passed over, he accelerated forward to chase the ball.

But just as Mark was chasing the ball, he suddenly stopped, watching helplessly as the ball in front of him was snatched away by the Shakhtar Donetsk defender.

"Huh, what happened?" Marcel Reif was a little surprised, not understanding why Mark stopped.

But he soon knew why...

Mark, who had stopped, covered the muscle behind his right thigh with his hand, his expression somewhat painful. Then he simply sat down and kept rubbing the muscles on the back of his thigh with his hand.

"It seems that Mark's muscle has a little problem... This..." Marcel Reif didn't know what to say.

Seeing that Mark had a problem, Zhou Yi quickly raised his hand to signal the Shakhtar Donetsk players to kick the ball out of bounds.

But Shakhtar Donetsk would not let go of the opportunity to continue besieging Borussia Dortmund. They turned a blind eye to Zhou Yi's gesture, treating Zhou Yi, who was waving his arms, as a cloud of air, and continued their attack.

Seeing this, Zhou Yi stopped signaling and rushed forward, directly hugging the Shakhtar Donetsk player who was dribbling the ball around the waist, preventing him from continuing to dribble.

This was an obvious foul, and the referee finally blew the whistle, pausing the game.

Now Mark could get the opportunity for the team doctor to come on the field for treatment.

And Zhou Yi also received a yellow card for this intentional foul.

But Zhou Yi didn't care. He left the referee who showed him the yellow card, the very dissatisfied Shakhtar Donetsk players, and his teammates who were defending him, and ran straight to Mark in front.

"How is it?" he asked anxiously.

"Muscle strain..." Mark heard Zhou Yi's voice, turned his head and said to Zhou Yi, with a smile on his face, but this smile looked a little bitter to Zhou Yi.

"Fuck!" Zhou Yi cursed in his native language.