Chapter 3 Dortmund's Opponent

Dortmund defeated Schalke 04 3-1 at home. In addition to winning another Revierderby, they also relied on this victory to successfully squeeze out Schalke 04 and become third in the league.

They now have five wins, two draws, and one loss in eight league games, accumulating seventeen points, ranking third.

Bayern Munich is first with eight wins out of eight games, accumulating twenty-four points. Bayern Munich's resurgence this season is indeed very strong, which seems to fit everyone's preseason predictions for the league champion this season. In today's German football scene, no team except Bayern Munich can win the championship for three consecutive years, so this year's league champion must be Bayern Munich. Dortmund might as well consider how to achieve a historic breakthrough in the Champions League.

The team ranked second is somewhat unexpected, a name that Chinese fans used to be very familiar with—Eintracht Frankfurt.

Eintracht Frankfurt has six wins, one draw, and one loss this season, accumulating nineteen points, pressing down on a number of strong teams such as Schalke 04, Dortmund, and Bayer Leverkusen.

However, experts are not very optimistic that they will ultimately remain in this position. In fact, Eintracht Frankfurt themselves know that they cannot hope for second place in the league and qualify for next season's Champions League. Their coach, Armin Veh, told reporters after defeating Hannover 96 3-1 that Eintracht Frankfurt's goal this season is to "avoid relegation." For Eintracht Frankfurt, who were still in the Bundesliga 2 last season and have just returned to the Bundesliga this season, this goal is very realistic and sincere.

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After the Revierderby, another game awaited Zhou Yi and his Dortmund teammates.

That is the Champions League group stage match, in which Dortmund will host the strongest team in this group, the top seed Real Madrid.

The Champions League group stage has already been played for two rounds, and Real Madrid and Dortmund have both maintained a perfect record. Dortmund defeated Ajax 1-0 at home and Manchester City 2-1 away. Neither of these two victories were considered big wins, and Manchester City was not won very easily.

In comparison, Real Madrid only encountered trouble in the first game against Manchester City, where they narrowly defeated Manchester City 3-2 at home. In the second game, they defeated Ajax 4-1 away. Mourinho's Real Madrid demonstrated great strength, completely ignoring the opponent's home advantage. The same opponent, Dortmund, had a very difficult time at home, and finally relied on Zhou Yi's goal in the eighty-seventh minute to win, while Real Madrid won by three goals at Ajax's home, which clearly showed the difference in strength.

The whole world believes that Mourinho's Real Madrid will be the top favorite to win the Champions League this season. The performance in the group stage shows that the critics are right.

And this time, the best performing teams in the group will meet. This game is seen as a contest to determine who can be the boss of this group. Whoever wins is the first in the group.

In terms of strength, Mourinho's Real Madrid is stronger than Dortmund. But Dortmund is not completely at a disadvantage. They also have advantages, that is, this game is at their home.

Yes, Dortmund has the home advantage, but this home advantage is different from the general home advantage—for Real Madrid, the home of German teams is like hell.

Yes, not Dortmund's Westfalenstadion, but the homes of all German teams. No matter what the record of this team is against other teams, as long as they meet Real Madrid, they explode at home.

In the previous Champions League history, Real Madrid has met German teams a total of twenty-four times away. The historical record cannot even be described as "not dominant," but must be described as "horrible." In these twenty-four away games, Real Madrid has only won a pitiful one game, and there is no shortage of humiliating games such as losing 0-5 to Kaiserslautern, being humiliated 1-5 by Borussia Monchengladbach, and being bloodbathed 1-5 by Hamburg.

The only away win they achieved was on September 20, 2000, when they defeated Bayer Leverkusen 3-2 away. In the twelve years since then, Real Madrid's record against German teams is three draws and six losses in nine games. It has to be said that traveling to Germany is simply Real Madrid's nightmare, and this nightmare has been going on for twelve years and cannot be broken.

In addition to the difficulty of winning a game, Real Madrid, which has a strong attacking power, has scored a maximum of three goals in a single game when traveling to Germany before.

All aspects show that Real Madrid is not adapted to the environment in Germany.

Specifically, Real Madrid and Dortmund have met three times in the Champions League before. Although Real Madrid won Dortmund in total score in these three times, Real Madrid has never won any of the three away games against Dortmund.

In the 1998-1999 season, Real Madrid and Dortmund met in the Champions League, and Real Madrid drew 0-0 with Dortmund away, without winning.

In the 2002-2003 season, Real Madrid and Dortmund met again in the Champions League, and Dortmund tied Real Madrid 1-1 at home, and Real Madrid still did not win.

The 2010-2011 season was the most recent match. This game may be more valuable for reference, because the players of the two teams have not changed much compared to that time. It can be regarded as the same team as today, while the two Real Madrid and Dortmund teams more than ten years ago no longer exist.

In this match, Real Madrid first defeated Dortmund 4-1 at home, who had entered the Champions League for the first time in seven years, almost ending the suspense of the two-legged match.

However, Dortmund, who had already been eliminated, performed very tenaciously after returning to their home, and they tied Real Madrid 1-1, so that Real Madrid was still unable to conquer the German stadium.

Of course, regarding this second leg, some people may say that this is because Real Madrid had already advanced in advance, so the players were too relaxed in their mentality and did not pay much attention to it. The situation is not the same as the current group stage. This time, Real Madrid will definitely not have any underestimation mentality. They will treat the game more seriously. In this way, the last match is not of much reference value.

But in any case, there is a reason why the curse is called a curse.

Real Madrid cannot win away against German teams, this is the curse. Before this game, the media's overwhelming hype of this curse concept will definitely affect the mentality of Real Madrid players.

If they are eager to prove that they will not be affected by the curse, then they will be impetuous in the game.

If they do believe in the curse and have concerns in their hearts, it will make them timid in the game.

Although Mourinho said in an interview that he and his team would not care about any "curse," who knows what the Real Madrid players really think in their hearts? I am afraid that even he himself does not know...

So how does Dortmund view this issue?

Klopp said in an interview that he does not care about any curse, he believes that what determines the outcome of the game can only be the performance of both players in the game, and has nothing to do with the curse.

As the core of the team, Zhou Yi will naturally be asked about this issue by the media.

Outside the training ground, he said seriously: "Curse? Nonsense, I can't understand why people still believe in medieval excuses in the twenty-first century. I don't believe in curses, this is nonsense."

He said very firmly, so that some reporters couldn't help but ask: "But the fact is that Real Madrid has only won once in Germany... How do you explain this?"

Zhou Yi looked at him and said very seriously: "There is a very scientific term called 'Murphy's Law'. I think this should be able to explain your question."

After speaking, he said goodbye to the reporters.

A group of reporters stood there still savoring what Zhou Yi had just said.

"Murphy's Law?" Some reporters didn't understand.

But some reporters understood: "Damn, Zhou Yi is playing tricks!"

Those who didn't understand asked those who understood to explain: "How do you say? Why is it playing tricks?"

"Do you know this saying? If you drop a piece of bread smeared with jam on the ground, then the side with the jam must land on the ground." The person who understood asked back.

"Yes, yes, I've heard of it..." The person who didn't understand nodded repeatedly.

"This is Murphy's Law. That is to say, if something can go wrong, then it will definitely go wrong."

With his explanation, the person who didn't understand understood.

"So Zhou Yi is saying that if Real Madrid can lose to Dortmund, then they will definitely lose to Dortmund?"

"Yes! That's why they say that Zhou Yi is full of bad ideas! He hurts people so badly! Haha!" The Chinese reporter who said this laughed very happily, obviously he didn't seem to think this was Zhou Yi's shortcoming...

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"Murphy's Law" is not known to everyone in China, but in the Western world, it has become a popular slang term. When Zhou Yi said this, the German reporter's eyes lit up.

The next day, the German "Kicker" used such a title: "Zhou Yi: No 'Curse', Only 'Murphy's Law'."

Without much explanation, just looking at this title, everyone knows what Zhou Yi means.

Murphy's Law is actually a psychological effect, in which "things that can go wrong will always go wrong" and "if you worry about a certain situation happening, then it is more likely to happen" are the main contents of Murphy's Law.

Zhou Yi is actually only using psychology to explain why there is a "curse". Since it is considered a curse, it means that this kind of bad thing happens frequently, then of course it belongs to the scope of explanation of "Murphy's Law".

At the same time, the media also interpreted Zhou Yi's words as Zhou Yi's provocation against Real Madrid, announcing in advance that Real Madrid would definitely lose the game away.

His remarks were naturally criticized by the Spanish media, who believed that Zhou Yi was arrogant and disrespectful to his opponents.

In response, Zhou Yi said in the "Squeezing Out Lao Guo" group: "I'm really wronged, I just told them that the curse is unscientific, if you want to be scientific, you have to use the term 'Murphy's Law', and it can be explained as deliberately provoking arrogance, how can you say that the reporter's brain is so big?"

"Pretend, keep pretending." Sun Pan watched coldly.

"Pretend, keep pretending."

"Pretend, keep pretending."

……

The others below followed to maintain the formation. Even Yang Muge and He Ying were among them.

Zhou Yi could only sigh "the world is getting worse, people's hearts are not as good as before", even Lao Yang and He Ying followed Sun Pan and learned to be bad.