Chapter 47 Just One Goal

During halftime, Ancelotti encouraged his players in the locker room: "It's just one goal, only one goal. Imagine who we are, we are Real Madrid! We came here to win the championship!"

At the same time, in the Dortmund locker room, Klopp clapped his hands forcefully: "It's just one goal, only one goal. We are only leading by one goal! If you think you can rest easy with that, then wait for the regret at the end of the game!"

Ancelotti: "What we did in the second half of the first half was right, using our best weapons against them. Their defense isn't impregnable. As long as we can keep putting pressure on them, we can create opportunities!"

Klopp: "In response to their play in the second half of the first half, we need to stabilize the rhythm. Zhou Yi is doing the right thing, that's how we need to play. Now we're in the lead, so we should be more patient and calmer than them..."

Ancelotti: "There are a full forty-five minutes left, I don't think we can't score. Our attacking power is the strongest this season, as long as we have confidence in ourselves, we are invincible!"

Klopp: "There are forty-five minutes left, anything can happen. But I think no matter what happens, the most important thing is not to give up!"

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During halftime, discussions were also taking place within the Chinese team.

Of course, these were spontaneous discussions, not requested by the coach.

After watching the first half, everyone was happy that Dortmund had withstood the pressure at the last moment and didn't concede a goal.

But some were worried that Dortmund wouldn't be able to withstand Real Madrid's frantic counterattack in the second half. After all, Real Madrid's attacking firepower was very fierce.

This concern was not without reason. This season, Real Madrid had scored thirty-seven goals in the Champions League, the most of any team participating in the competition. And in La Liga, Real Madrid had scored a whopping one hundred and four goals in a season, the most in the entire league. Although Barcelona also scored one hundred league goals this season, they could only rank second. These one hundred and four goals made Real Madrid number one not only in La Liga but also in the top five European leagues. Manchester City scored one hundred and two goals in the Premier League this season, but could only be second.

In all of Europe, only the Austrian league champion, Salzburg Red Bull, had scored more goals than them—one hundred and ten. But the quality of the Austrian league was too low, and this number of goals was only numerically larger than Real Madrid's.

Regarding some teammates' concerns, Sun Pan snorted: "If I were there, this kind of problem wouldn't even need to be considered!"

He had played for Atletico Madrid for two seasons. Although he had now returned to Chelsea, he still regarded Real Madrid as an enemy.

Some players were also worried about injuries.

Because before the end of the first half, Khedira swept Zhou Yi down from behind. There was an uproar in front of the TV at the time. In any case, none of the players present were teammates with Khedira, so there were naturally no psychological barriers to cursing.

Everyone was worried that something might happen to Zhou Yi in this game.

Zhou Yi had long used his actual performance to shape himself into the Chinese team's golden thigh. Before the World Cup started, no one wanted anything to happen to this golden thigh.

Dortmund's win or loss wasn't important; what was important was to return a healthy core thigh to them.

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The fifteen minutes of halftime passed quickly. The players from both sides returned to the field one after another, and the game restarted.

At the beginning of the second half, Real Madrid launched a fierce attack. Di Maria was brought down by Reus when cutting inside. Reus was cautioned with a yellow card, and Real Madrid was awarded a free kick in a very good position, twenty-five meters from the goal, slightly to the left.

This kick was taken by Cristiano Ronaldo. After the Portuguese positioned the ball, Dortmund's wall was also set up.

After hearing the referee's whistle, he ran up and shot.

He shot with his right foot. After the ball flew up, it hit a Dortmund wall player who jumped up, creating a slight upward trend. This jump happened to make the shot more tricky. The ball flew higher, but then suddenly came down...

Fortunately, Weidenfeller was very focused and reacted very quickly. He jumped up and lifted his hand to push the ball over the crossbar.

"Wow! That was close! Weidenfeller pushed the ball out with one hand!"

Cristiano Ronaldo looked very depressed and helpless when he saw that his shot hadn't gone in. He shook his head and kept muttering, seemingly unable to believe that such a tricky shot had still been saved by Weidenfeller...

Real Madrid won a corner kick.

For this corner kick, Modric did not kick the ball directly into the penalty area, but made some changes and played a tactical corner.

He passed the ball to Carvajal, who came up to meet him.

Then he ran away from behind Carvajal.

Carvajal originally wanted to cross, but felt that the opportunity was not very good, so he passed the ball to Modric, who was bypassing him from behind.

Modric did not stop the ball. Instead, as the ball rolled towards him, he looked up to observe the situation in Dortmund's penalty area, and then he kicked directly, using his left foot to pass the ball to the far post of the goal!

At this time, Dortmund's players were pressing outward - after the corner kick was taken, they had to quickly press forward, which was basically one of the common sense when defending a corner kick.

But sometimes, this can become an opportunity to be exploited.

Zhou Yi used this opportunity in the first half to assist Hummels to score a goal.

And this time, Real Madrid's midfield commander, Modric, also planned to use this opportunity.

He lofted the ball to the far post, and at the same time, many Real Madrid players turned and cut back toward the goal.

They were previously among the Dortmund players, so at this time, cutting back to receive the ball would not be offside.

Weidenfeller also retreated backward following the ball, retreating toward the far post of the goal. He was planning to push the ball out.

But he looked at the flight of the ball below, estimated the height of the ball, and felt that before the ball flew out of the baseline, no one should be able to head the ball—it was really too high...

So he didn't do anything and planned to watch the ball fly out of the baseline—wouldn't it be better if he didn't give the opponent a corner kick?

As a result, at this moment, he saw a shocking scene - Real Madrid's number seven jumped high, as if flying in the air! He flew to the baseline, and then, before the ball flew out of the baseline, he shook his head and headed the ball back!

Of course, this ball was indeed too high. Even Cristiano Ronaldo, a person with extraordinary jumping ability, could only touch the ball, and could not hit the ball solidly.

But this touch made the ball fly high, over Weidenfeller's head, and directly to the area in front of the goal behind him.

It wasn't Hummels or Sokratis, who were known for their headers, who hastily returned to defense and appeared here, but Schmelzer.

Schmelzer only looked at the ball flying in the air, wanting to grab the landing point, but completely didn't notice the surrounding situation.

As a result, at this moment, Bale jumped high, pressing down on Schmelzer's head before he jumped!

Then he tapped the flying ball downwards!

The ball flew into Dortmund's goal, which was already an empty net, without any suspense...

"Gareth Bale!!! Real Madrid has tied the score!" The Spanish commentator shouted excitedly. "They scored a goal at the beginning of the second half! That's great! Real Madrid has a perfect start to the second half!"

"Ah, Real Madrid has tied the score!" Marcel Reif screamed when he saw the ball flying into the goal, "An aerial relay of headers, Bale headed the ball into the goal! Losing a goal and being tied at the beginning of the second half is really too bad..."

"This ball..." He Ping sighed.

Can this ball be said to be Dortmund's defense having a problem?

Of course, Dortmund's defense did have a bit of a problem, but it wasn't that fatal.

The deadly thing was that no one expected Cristiano Ronaldo to be able to jump so high and actually save the ball...

Precisely because of insufficient preparation for this, they could only watch helplessly as the ball flew to the most dangerous area, and were powerless.

This time it was Real Madrid's players who ran wildly to celebrate, while the lost Dortmund players provided the background for them.

When Ancelotti saw the goal, he stood up from the coach's bench and waved his arms, then clapped his hands, which was relatively calm. On the other hand, Zidane next to him was very excited, waving his fists and jumping up, and then rushing back to hug the people around him one by one.

Stealing Ancelotti's thunder...

Ancelotti looked at him with an expression as if saying: "Are you the head coach, or am I the head coach?"