Chapter 214 A Pyrrhic Victory

After Zhou Yi put Dortmund in the lead, the game restarted. Leverkusen, trailing by a goal, was certainly not willing to lose to Dortmund on the road.

Before this match, Leverkusen had 34 points, ranking second, while Dortmund had 32 points, ranking third.

If Dortmund won this game, they would overtake Leverkusen by one point and regain second place in the league.

Leverkusen’s plan when they came to this away game was to take advantage of Dortmund's recent poor form and defeat them on their home turf, extending the point difference to five points.

Although Leverkusen was down one player, so was Dortmund. Therefore, there was no difference in the number of players on both sides, which gave Leverkusen the courage to tie the score.

If Dortmund had one more player, Leverkusen would have to think twice when launching a desperate counterattack, wondering if they, with fewer players, would be vulnerable to a counterattack from Dortmund.

Now that both sides had the same number of players, there was no advantage or disadvantage to speak of.

Klopp also reacted quickly. While Dortmund players were celebrating the goal, he grabbed the nearest player on the field and instructed him to pass on the latest instructions to the others—retreat to defend and launch counterattacks.

At the same time, he was preparing to use his third substitution.

Mkhitaryan was warming up.

This substitution did not involve any tactical adjustments or significance. It was purely to stall for time.

However, the person he wanted to replace with Mkhitaryan was not Zhou Yi. Zhou Yi could control the rhythm of the game on the field, and he was not entirely useless in defense either.

Zhou Yi scored the penalty in the eighty-seventh minute of the match.

There wasn't much time left before the end of the game.

When the fourth official raised the sign for five minutes of injury time on the sidelines, whistles rang out in Westfalenstadion. Dortmund fans clearly felt that this injury time was too long. What if Leverkusen tied the score in these five minutes?

In the ninety-first minute, Klopp used his last substitution.

He replaced forward Mark Wagner with Mkhitaryan.

Instead of jogging off the field, Mark walked off slowly, which caused dissatisfaction among Leverkusen players on the field. Someone wanted to come up and "help" Mark walk faster, but was pushed back by Mark.

Immediately, the players from both sides quickly surrounded each other again.

However, this time, the "indignation" of the Dortmund players was more like a disguise, used to cover up their true purpose.

The real purpose was, of course, to delay the game.

Since the referee had given five minutes of injury time, they would use other things to make these five minutes pass faster. Although the referee would also add time for delays that occurred during injury time, generally speaking, they would rarely add the full amount of time, and would just do it as a formality.

Moreover, this was Dortmund's home field, and the referee couldn't ignore the home advantage.

Marcel Reif said, "Leverkusen's players are too impulsive... Coming up to push Mark at this time is simply providing ammunition for Dortmund... Now Dortmund can openly waste some time..."

Leverkusen coach Hyypiä stood on the sidelines, spreading his hands, not knowing whether he was helpless with his players' lack of composure, or dissatisfied with Dortmund's shamelessness.

In the end, the conflict between the two sides ended after a minute. In fact, Dortmund restrained themselves a lot in this conflict, which could also be seen as proof that Dortmund deliberately delayed the time—although they looked very unhappy with Leverkusen's approach, the Dortmund players only surrounded them and yelled, without actually laying a hand on them. This was different from the conflict caused by Zhou Yi being brought down in the penalty area.

Mark received a yellow card for pushing the opposing player, but he didn't have a yellow card before, so it didn't matter even if he had one now. He helped the team delay some more time, and his mission was completed.

Looking at this chaotic scene, Marcel Reif shook his head and sighed: "No matter what the final result is, this game has had a great impact on both teams. It can be said that it's a pyrrhic victory. They fought so fiercely in this league game, it's really worrying how much energy and form they can bring to the Champions League game in the middle of next week..."

If the battle between the second and third place teams in this league led to both teams being eliminated from the Champions League group stage, Marcel Reif really couldn't say whether it was worth it...

Of course, outsiders could consider this issue, but the two teams involved, Dortmund and Leverkusen, were not qualified to consider such issues.

※※※

After Mkhitaryan came on the field, the result of this game was almost fixed.

The conflict caused by Mark's substitution seemed to have consumed Leverkusen players' temper and fighting spirit. In the next few minutes, although Leverkusen had several shots, they did not pose any threat to Weidenfeller's goal.

When the referee blew the whistle to end the game, whistles and cheers sounded simultaneously in Westfalenstadion.

The cheers were of course for this victory, but the whistles were dissatisfaction with the referee.

For this victory, Dortmund paid the price of two main players being injured, and Yan Min being sent off with a red card, not to mention the fact that many players received yellow cards.

In the eyes of Dortmund fans, these were completely avoidable. From the beginning of the game, Leverkusen showed a very strong aggressiveness. Their actions were very big. If the referee could enforce the law strictly and curb Leverkusen's tendency, reducing the intensity of the game, maybe Sven Bender and Sahin would not have been injured, Zhou Yi would not have been brought down in the penalty area, and Yan Min would not have been sent off with a red card for trying to stand up for him...

Most importantly, if Leverkusen didn't play like this, it shouldn't have been so difficult for Dortmund, playing at home, to win the game.

Dortmund fans were dissatisfied, and Leverkusen players and coaches were equally dissatisfied with this result.

They still believed that Zhou Yi had faked a fall in the penalty area, and he had fooled the referee, causing Dortmund to benefit unfairly, and Spahic was sent off as a result.

Dortmund's deliberate delaying tactics at the last moment also made them very angry, thinking that Dortmund was too despicable.

All of these would become topics of debate after the game. Although the game was over, the topics it sparked were far from over.

After the game, Zhou Yi was pulled by reporters to the mixed zone for interviews. What everyone wanted to know most was whether he had faked a fall in the penalty area.

Faced with this question, Zhou Yi took off his shoes and socks, and then showed everyone a red patch above his right heel.

"This was kicked by Spahic. Just because my leg isn't broken now, you can't think it's not a foul. That's very unfair, right?"

Faced with the evidence Zhou Yi presented, the reporters all put their cameras and camcorders up to take pictures of this scene.

Afterwards, a Chinese reporter asked Zhou Yi what he thought of Yan Min's red card.

"What do I think? I don't want to comment on the referee of this game." Although Zhou Yi said so, everyone could still feel some dissatisfaction from his tone. "Of course, it's not a good behavior to get a red card in the game, but I think the locker room, including me, won't complain about him making the team one less player. Yan Min played very well in this game, and this red card is also part of his excellent performance."

A German reporter asked: "You fought so fiercely in the game against Leverkusen, and Sven Bender and Sahin were injured as a result. Will this affect the crucial Champions League group stage game in the middle of the week? Do you think it's worth paying such a price to win the game?"

"Whether it's worth it or not, I don't know. But when we're in this game, we're of course thinking about this game. Also, I don't actually think this will have any adverse effects on our next Champions League game. We will get out of this group."

After saying that, Zhou Yi waved his hand, stopped accepting interviews, and left the mixed zone.

Although he won the game, judging from his expression, he was not very happy.

This made what he said earlier less credible.

No adverse effects on the next Champions League group stage game?

Sven Bender and Sahin, these two main defensive midfielders, are injured, and Dortmund's only available defensive midfielder now is veteran Sebastian Kehl.

How is that possible?

Now it's still unknown how serious Sven Bender and Sahin's injuries are, whether they are very serious injuries or minor injuries.

Anyway, after the two of them came off the field, they were taken directly to the hospital for examination and treatment. From this point of view, it's probably not a minor injury that can be recovered from in a few days of rest.

The injuries of two main players, this is what makes Zhou Yi feel bad, right?

On the other side, at the post-match press conference, Klopp was also very troubled by this matter: "Yes, we won the game. But I don't want to think about this matter now..."

No one asked him why he didn't want to consider it, because they would inevitably get an answer that everyone knew.

Because Dortmund had lost two main players in one game!

Sometimes, it makes people feel that even using "bad luck" cannot describe Dortmund...