Chapter 1 A Lucky Start

While the Real Madrid coaching staff sat in silence, over on the Borussia Dortmund bench, after Jürgen Klopp had finished hugging and celebrating with his staff, he didn't continue to revel in the moment. Instead, he turned his gaze toward Zhou Yi on the field.

During the warm-up before the match, Zhou Yi had noticed Iker Casillas's instability when catching high balls. He then relayed this information, and it was passed on to the whole team.

So, if credit was to be given for this goal, although Mats Hummels was the one who scored, the biggest contribution actually came from Zhou Yi.

The reason Zhou Yi chose to loft the ball high into the penalty area was likely to exploit Casillas's weakness in handling high balls.

And he really capitalized on it.

Having such an excellent player was truly a blessing for him and the Borussia Dortmund club.

However, the better Zhou Yi performed, the more uncertain Klopp became about how long Zhou Yi would stay here.

With his kind of performance, it was becoming increasingly difficult for a small club like Dortmund to keep him.

Klopp had similar thoughts near the end of last season, but they weren't as strong as they were now.

Moreover, due to Mario Götze's sudden departure and Robert Lewandowski's determination to go to Bayern Munich, Dortmund had lost two key players in quick succession. Klopp was absolutely unwilling to let Zhou Yi leave under any circumstances.

At that time, Zhou Yi hadn't requested a transfer either, seemingly also considering the difficult situation the team was in.

So, he completed his contract extension with the club.

But did signing an extension mean he would stay?

Klopp wasn't that naive.

He would stay to help Dortmund transition perfectly, and then what?

What other reason could he use to demand that he stay?

Feelings?

Honestly, that was the weakest argument.

Zhou Yi didn't owe Dortmund anything. He had brought the team unimaginable glory: four consecutive league titles, a Champions League title, and a Club World Cup, a European Super Cup, and the German Cup, German Super Cup… all of these were achieved after Zhou Yi started playing for Dortmund.

He had given Dortmund so many honors, that using sentiment to keep him was untenable. From Klopp's understanding of Zhou Yi, the young man seemed easy to talk to, but he actually had his own ideas and was very determined. Once he made a decision, he wouldn't be easily swayed.

He was someone who clearly knew what he wanted to do and how to do it.

There were too few young people with his capabilities these days.

So young, only twenty-three years old, how could he stay in Dortmund forever?

In fact, Dortmund had been lucky to have him for five seasons. If he hadn't personally gone to Barcelona to persuade him, he might have gone to Arsenal or Barcelona...

Besides feelings, Dortmund lacked persuasive power in the more practical area of money. Dortmund's financial resources were not as good as Bayern Munich's, and Klopp didn't believe that relying on money to keep him was reliable.

Honor?

Zhou Yi had already achieved all the honors he could in Dortmund. What else hadn't he won in Dortmund? The German Telekom Cup?

So, while those around him were excitedly celebrating the lead, Klopp suddenly felt a sense of loss and sadness. He sensed that he was about to lose such an excellent player...

※※※

The Dortmund players finished celebrating their goal and slowly jogged back to their own half.

The Real Madrid players were already waiting for them in their positions.

Conceding a goal first was frustrating, but it didn't defeat them.

Especially after Carlo Ancelotti had shown them the recording of Dortmund's home game against Atlético Madrid, everyone should have realized that conceding a goal to Dortmund was not unacceptable or unbelievable.

The key wasn't whether you conceded a goal, but what you did after conceding it.

What to do?

Of course, to equalize!

Through the previous exchanges, Real Madrid could see that Dortmund's defense wasn't impenetrable. With Neven Subotić missing, Dortmund's defense could be considered weakened.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos's ability to defend directly and in the air was good, but his biggest problem was that he was tall and slow.

Real Madrid, on the other hand, had no shortage of fast players.

For example, all three members of the BBC combination were very fast.

※※※

When the Dortmund players returned to their positions, the referee Kuipers blew his whistle and the game restarted.

Real Madrid launched a fierce attack on Dortmund's goal.

Considering the problems in Dortmund's defense, Real Madrid's midfield, led by Luka Modrić, abandoned their usual passing and control tactics. Instead, they opted for a simpler, more direct approach, using more through balls to target the space behind Dortmund's defense and fully exploit the speed advantage of their attacking players.

And that's exactly how Real Madrid played.

This style was also more suitable for them. After all, since the Mourinho era, Real Madrid had established a fast-paced attacking style. Ancelotti continued this style, while making some adjustments. But overall, the style remained unchanged. Real Madrid's current personnel configuration was also very suitable for this style of play.

Faced with Real Madrid's simple and direct assault, Dortmund found it more difficult to defend and looked a bit disheveled.

How disheveled?

In the thirty-seventh minute, Dortmund's full-back Łukasz Piszczek made a fatal mistake when passing the ball back in his own half. His pass was too weak, and Gareth Bale used his speed to intercept the ball and then dribbled forward!

The Estadio da Luz erupted with cheers and encouragement from Real Madrid fans.

Bale broke through in a straight line, shaking off the defender, but Dortmund's defense reacted quickly. They immediately formed a defensive line in the penalty area, blocking Bale's path.

Despite this, Bale still had a great opportunity.

He dribbled to the edge of the penalty area, and two Dortmund defenders closed in on him. At this point, they couldn't worry about the other Real Madrid players.

In fact, Karim Benzema had already run into open space, with no Dortmund players around him.

But when faced with two Dortmund defenders blocking him, Bale chose to shoot with his left foot.

As a result, he couldn't stabilize his body well while running at high speed, and the shot was rushed and went wide of the post...

"Bale stabs a shot—Oh! It's wide! That was a great opportunity!"

"He should have passed to Benzema. Benzema was completely open, but he didn't see him..."

"Bale wasted this opportunity so unnecessarily!"

There was a collective sigh from the commentary box.

He Ping breathed a sigh of relief, feeling lingering fear.

※※※

Zhou Yi also noticed the trouble the team was currently facing.

Real Madrid clearly wanted to speed up the tempo, so Dortmund had to do everything possible to prevent them from succeeding. They had to slow the pace down.

When Dortmund had possession, Zhou Yi changed his previous approach of going toe-to-toe with Real Madrid and instead started to focus on passing and control.

He used more lateral and backward passes to forcibly reduce the speed.

However, Piszczek had just made a mistake in a back pass, which would inevitably affect the mentality of some Dortmund players, including Piszczek himself, when passing and controlling the ball, leading to a lack of confidence.

In response to this situation, Zhou Yi constantly moved around, supporting his teammates, and used his steady receiving and passing to boost their confidence.

Under his leadership, the Dortmund players finally calmed down and their passing became more stable.

But naturally, Zhou Yi also became the target of Real Madrid's attention.

In the forty-fourth minute, after Zhou Yi passed the ball, he was kicked to the ground by Sami Khedira.

Referee Kuipers blew his whistle to stop the game and showed Khedira a yellow card.

Some members of the Real Madrid coaching staff on the sidelines were unhappy about this.

But there was nothing to be unhappy about. If anything, they should be unhappy with Khedira.

As a defensive midfielder, receiving a yellow card before the end of the first half meant it would be difficult to play the rest of the game.

Zhou Yi, who was kicked to the ground by Khedira, didn't get up immediately. Instead, he lay on the ground holding his calf for a while. Only after the referee had finished showing Khedira the card, recorded it, and asked him if he needed a stretcher, did he wave his hand and slowly get up from the ground.

When he got up and the game resumed, the regular time of the first half was already over.

After two minutes of injury time, referee Kuipers blew the whistle to end the first half.

"The first half is over! Thanks to Hummels's header, Dortmund leads Real Madrid 1-0 in the first half!"

"1-0 is the most common first-half score in the Champions League final, appearing fifteen times in total. This is good news for Dortmund, a good start. The last team to come back from a halftime deficit was Barcelona in 2006, when they beat Arsenal 2-1... And Real Madrid has never won a European final after trailing at halftime. These may be good omens."