The 2013-2014 season of the Bundesliga came to an end.

In the end, Dortmund won the league title, winning it for the fourth consecutive season.

And Bayern Munich? They played perfectly the entire season, with only three games where they made mistakes. As a result, Dortmund seized the opportunity. Now they can only accept this outcome.

Schalke 04 defeated Nuremberg 4:1 at home in the final round, ending the season with a victory. They ultimately ranked third in the league and secured a spot in the Champions League group stage for next season.

Wolfsburg defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach 3:1 at home. As a result, although Leverkusen defeated Werder Bremen 2:1 at home, they still could not surpass Wolfsburg. Thus, Wolfsburg snatched a bargain at the last moment and secured a Champions League spot.

Leverkusen can only participate in the Europa League with resentment.

Borussia Mönchengladbach finished sixth and also secured a spot in the Europa League for next season.

In terms of individual honors, Zhou Yi became the Bundesliga's assist king with twenty-five assists.

Mark Wagner won the Bundesliga's top scorer award with twenty-two goals.

Dortmund reaped a great harvest.

However, for Bayern Munich and Dortmund, the season is not over yet.

On May 17, Bayern Munich will participate in the German Cup final, and their opponent is Wolfsburg.

This is the only game in which Bayern Munich can fight for honor, to avoid ending the season empty-handed.

Dortmund will participate in the Champions League final on May 24, and their opponent is Real Madrid.

Real Madrid performed poorly in La Liga this season, but they made their way to the final in the Champions League.

Many people are not very optimistic about Dortmund.

They think it's already great that they can reach the Champions League final. Given the team's current incomplete lineup, it is very difficult to beat Real Madrid.

Most importantly, since the Champions League was reformed, no team has been able to successfully defend their title. This is basically like a curse.

There have been defending champions who reached the final before.

Before the Champions League was reformed, there were twelve successful title defenses. But since the reform, there has been no such luck.

Four champion teams have reached the Champions League final again in the following year. They are AC Milan in 1995, who lost to Ajax, the young upstarts at the time. Kluivert became famous in that battle and then transferred to AC Milan.

In 1996, Ajax, as the defending champion, also reached the Champions League final, where they lost to Juventus in a penalty shootout, painfully missing the opportunity to defend their title.

One year later in 1997, it was Juventus's turn to have a chance to defend their title. Their opponent in the final was Dortmund. As a result, that final made super substitute Ricken's world-beating goal, helping Dortmund beat Juventus 3:1.

Dortmund won their club's first Champions League title in history, while Juventus lost the opportunity to defend their title.

From 1995 to 1997, in three Champions League finals, the previous champion reached the final, but was defeated. The same thing happened three times in a row, and the curse that the Champions League cannot be defended after the reform appeared.

For many years after that, no defending champion was able to reach the final again. They were always eliminated before the final.

Until 2009, Manchester United, the Champions League champion of the previous season, finally reached the final again. Their opponent was Barcelona led by Guardiola, and Manchester United was completely defeated by Barcelona 0:2 in that game.

Guardiola ushered in the era of the Dream Team III. That year, he led Barcelona to win six championships, unprecedented and unsurpassed.

Of course, such an awesome "universe team" was also unable to break the curse of defending the Champions League title.

The following year, they were blocked from the final by Mourinho's Inter Milan in the semi-finals—originally, many Barcelona fans were still looking forward to lifting the Champions League trophy at the Bernabeu and severely slapping Real Madrid in the face...

In the world of football, many times your analysis may not be as convincing as a "curse."

Football is round, so the possibility of various "superstitious" situations is higher.

"Curses" are always more marketable in football.

Sometimes it really makes people have to think about "curses," because the elimination of some defending champions is really incomprehensible.

If AC Milan, the Champions League champion in 1991, won the championship again, then they would have won three consecutive Champions League titles—AC Milan in the previous season was the last team to successfully defend the Champions League title.

They met Marseille in the quarter-finals.

The first leg at the San Siro ended in a 1:1 draw. In the second leg, AC Milan adopted a full-fledged offensive tactic but failed to turn the situation around, unable to resist Chris Waddle's goal. Waddle even suffered a slight concussion in a confrontation before, but he still helped Marseille take a 2:1 lead after recovering.

The score was maintained until before stoppage time. AC Milan was not without hope. As long as they scored another goal, they would tie the score and eliminate Marseille with the advantage of away goals. But at this moment, several lights in Marseille's home stadium, the Stade Vélodrome, suddenly had problems.

The referee believed that the game could continue, but AC Milan seemed to think this was a great opportunity. They could use the light problem as an excuse to demand a rematch.

So the whole team retreated to the locker room and refused to return to the field.

The referee was not polite and directly rejected AC Milan's request for a rematch. In the end, Marseille was judged to win 3:0. AC Milan not only lost the opportunity to defend their title, but was also banned by UEFA from participating in European competitions next season because of this willful request for a rematch.

So that incomparably glorious AC Milan bid farewell to the Champions League. In the season when they were not allowed to participate in the Champions League, Barcelona defeated Sampdoria and won their club's first Champions League trophy in history. The team led by Cruyff was also known as the "Dream Team."

However, it was such a dream team that was completely defeated by AC Milan 0:4 in the Champions League final two years later.

At the same time, AC Milan also reached the Champions League final in the 1992-1993 season when they resumed participating in the Champions League, but finally lost to Marseille. Of course, Marseille was later exposed for a match-fixing scandal. Although they were not stripped of their Champions League title, they were deprived of the right to participate in the Toyota Cup. AC Milan replaced them in the Toyota Cup, making people think that the Champions League title that year was changed to AC Milan, but it was not. UEFA's reason was that the appeal period had passed, so the Champions League title still belonged to Marseille.

In the 2006-2007 season, defending champion Barcelona was eliminated by Liverpool in the round of 16. And Liverpool, who eliminated them, had also had an internal conflict before the game. At that time, Bellamy and Riise not only went to the bar to drink and party before the game, but also had a conflict because they drank too much. After returning to the hotel, Bellamy even took out a golf club and hit Riise in the latter's room.

But even so, in the next game, Liverpool defeated Barcelona 2:1 away, and the people who scored were Bellamy and Riise...

Red Star Belgrade, who defeated Marseille in the final in 1991 and won the Champions League title, originally had a chance to defend their title. However, the Yugoslav civil war broke out, and many of the team's stars left the team to seek development in Western Europe. The team was badly damaged, and with the United Nations sanctions, Yugoslav teams were prohibited from participating in the Champions League, and the national team could not participate in the European Cup. The extremely powerful Yugoslav football was destroyed by the war...

In 2003, AC Milan defeated Juventus in a penalty shootout and once again won the Champions League. But the following year, when they easily won 4:1 against Deportivo La Coruña in the first leg of the quarter-finals, they inexplicably lost 0:4 to Deportivo La Coruña in the second leg and were eliminated.

In 2010, Guardiola's Barcelona was in its heyday. Everyone felt that if any team could break the curse, it must be the "universe team" led by Guardiola. As a result, such a Barcelona was suffocated to death in their home stadium by Mourinho's bus in the semi-finals...

Of course, the worst defending champion was Chelsea. After defeating Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in 2012 and winning the club's first Champions League title in history, they were eliminated the following year without even making it through the group stage...

All the above examples fully illustrate how powerful the curse of "defending champions cannot defend their titles" is.

The many reasons mentioned before that Dortmund is unlikely to win the Champions League are not as effective as the sentence "Champions League champions cannot defend their titles, this is a curse."

The odds offered by the bookmakers obviously favor Real Madrid more.

※※※

After winning the league title, Klopp gave the team a full day off to let them rest and recover.

After a day of rest, Dortmund's players returned to the Brackel training base to prepare for the Champions League final.

A reporter blocked the entrance of the training base and asked Zhou Yi about his views on the curse that defending champions cannot defend their titles.

Zhou Yi waved his hand with a smile: "I believe in science, not superstition."

The reporter said: "But you also said that Real Madrid can't win against German teams away from home is a curse..."

Zhou Yi spread his hands: "When did I say that? I said it was Murphy's Law, it's science, not superstition."

The reporter seemed to have known that Zhou Yi would say this, and asked triumphantly: "But Real Madrid defeated Schalke 04 6:1 away from home and Bayern Munich 4:0 away from home this season, both are German teams..."

Zhou Yi nodded: "Yeah. So Real Madrid has proven with practical actions that there has never been any curse, right?"

The questioning reporter was speechless and couldn't say anything.

He really didn't expect Zhou Yi's face to be so thick, and he could change his face so quickly...

A Chinese reporter next to him couldn't help but laugh like a barbell when he saw the foreign reporter being deflated—didn't this brother do his homework before interviewing Zhou Yi? Didn't he understand what kind of person Zhou Yi is?