The Shanghai Chongming team's home stadium is the Shanghai Stadium. This name might sound unfamiliar to people from outside Shanghai, but if you mention "the Eighty Thousand People Stadium," many football fans from other places will immediately know what you're talking about.

Although the stadium is called "the Eighty Thousand People Stadium," it actually can't hold that many people. The seating capacity is 56,000.

That's a difference of more than 20,000, so why is it still called "the Eighty Thousand People Stadium"?

Because this stadium was built for the Eighth National Games, which were held in Shanghai. During the opening ceremony, with temporary seating, there were approximately 80,000 people. At the time, this capacity was one of the highest in China, so it became commonly known as "the Eighty Thousand People Stadium."

Its official name is "Shanghai Stadium."

The match between Borussia Dortmund and Shanghai Chongming filled the Eighty Thousand People Stadium to capacity.

Most of the people there were actually there to see Borussia Dortmund and Zhou Yi. This was very similar to the situation in Guangzhou.

Many of Chongming's own fans were also there to see Zhou Yi.

In addition, there were quite a few Shenhua fans in uniform, their blue jerseys standing out in a sea of red and yellow-black. Judging from their uniform attire and coordinated movements, this was clearly the Blue Devils fan club, a well-known organization in Shanghai.

This surprised everyone—what were Shenhua fans doing en masse at a match between Chongming and Borussia Dortmund?

The answer became clear as soon as the game started…

They unfurled a banner and displayed it in the stands, where it was visible to everyone, including the television cameras broadcasting the game.

It read: "Only Shenhua Can Represent Shanghai!"

The text was in Chinese above and German below.

This was clearly a protest from the Shenhua fans, directed at Borussia Dortmund, for their "oversight" in choosing their opponent. They were reminding them that the Chongming team, in their red jerseys, could not represent Shanghai football.

It was also a show of force to the Chongming fans, letting them know who the top dogs were in Shanghai.

However, the banner was quickly confiscated by stadium security…

This led to a small-scale clash between the two sets of fans, but fortunately, the security personnel acted quickly and decisively. Coupled with the fact that everyone was more interested in Borussia Dortmund and Zhou Yi, the conflict did not escalate.

The CCTV commentator cleverly avoided mentioning any of this that was happening in the stands, not even the banner. As the national television station, anything their commentators said could be amplified by the media and fans, which would not be in their best interests.

So staying silent was the best course of action, and the television broadcast no longer showed the area where the blue-clad fans were gathered.

Online, however, where public discourse was not so tightly controlled, many fans were discussing the incident.

Some felt that this rivalry between the fans of the two Shanghai teams had spilled over into a match against a foreign team, which was inappropriate.

Some fans angrily said that it was a disgrace to show this to foreigners because the banner had German on it. German reporters would certainly not miss this news item and would definitely report on it after the match.

But other fans applauded the Shenhua fans, arguing that Shenhua's fans were the closest to European fan culture in all of China. The Blue Devils' organization and fighting spirit were several levels above those of other Chinese Super League fan groups.

They also argued that those fans who were worried about embarrassing themselves in front of foreigners were showing their inherent servility. When it came to the Revierderby in Germany's Ruhr region, the intensity of the fan rivalry was much fiercer than anything between Shenhua and Chongming. The whole world's media reported on it and focused on it, and Chinese media and fans praised it as a symbol of the spirit and culture of football. Why did the same thing become an embarrassment when it happened in China?

The two sides engaged in a war of words online, and the match itself received less attention.

The match itself wasn't particularly special, aside from the initial incident.

Unlike the match between Borussia Dortmund and Hengyuan, where Hengyuan launched some attacks at the beginning of the match, which at least excited the Guangzhou fans a bit,

Borussia Dortmund, having learned from that experience, did not take Chongming lightly. They controlled the tempo and the game from the start, so Chongming had few opportunities.

In the thirteenth minute, Reus scored the first goal for Borussia Dortmund.

The Eighty Thousand People Stadium was filled with noise and cheers. Except for the die-hard Chongming fans, everyone was cheering for Borussia Dortmund's goal—Reus was also very popular in China. He was handsome and played well, so naturally he had many supporters.

Among the cheering crowd, of course, were the Shenhua fans—they cheered as loudly as they could under the watchful eyes of the armed police. They were happy to see anything that embarrassed their rivals.

This was derby emotion. This emotion was not only evident when the two teams played each other directly.

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Borussia Dortmund continued to press their advantage, scoring three goals in the first half. Zhou Yi contributed one assist. In addition, his work in midfield was one of the reasons why Borussia Dortmund was able to dominate the game.

Shanghai Chongming were completely outmatched by Zhou Yi's Borussia Dortmund.

Yan Min, who did not start the match, was very unhappy with the cheering that erupted in the stands every time his team conceded a goal. He felt that since everyone was Chinese, they should support the Chinese team. Even if they were not Chongming fans, shouldn't they be on the side of the Chinese team when facing a foreign opponent? Why was everyone cheering when Borussia Dortmund scored? It wasn't as if Zhou Yi had scored. If Zhou Yi had scored, he could have understood the cheers…

The angry Yan Min could only sit on the bench and sulk, occasionally looking up at the Chinese fans in the stands, feeling more and more dissatisfied.

He vented his anger during the warm-up at halftime.

The starting players had gone into the locker room, while he and the other substitutes stayed on the field to warm up under the guidance of the assistant coach.

He kicked the ball at the goal again and again, but because he was using too much force, his accuracy was poor and the ball flew all over the place.

"Warm up properly, Yan Min!" the assistant coach scolded.

Yan Min shrank his neck and restrained his temper a little.

He didn't dare offend the coach because he was still hoping to play in this match… If he offended the assistant coach, with a single word, he might be sitting on the bench until the end of the match.

The assistant coach had a lot of say in the selection of substitutes, and the head coach had to respect and listen to their opinions.

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At the start of the second half, Klopp made a number of changes to the team. As they waited to kick off, four Borussia Dortmund players stood on the sidelines, waiting to come on.

Because it was a commercial match, there were no strict limits on the number of substitutions. How many players could be substituted was agreed upon before the match. In this kind of match, there was usually no limit on the number of substitutions.

So basically, the starting lineup would be completely changed during the course of a match.

Borussia Dortmund substituted four players at the beginning of the second half. Reus, who had scored in the first half, was substituted off. This was a bit of a disappointment for many of the female Chinese fans in the stands.

Fortunately, Zhou Yi was not substituted off, so that everyone would not find the second half of the match boring…

Regarding the matter of not substituting Zhou Yi off during halftime, Klopp had discussed it with Zhou Yi, the club's financial director Tresch, and the club's CEO Watzke at the beginning of the China tour.

Everyone's opinions had to be respected, so all the representatives of interests were present.

After some discussion, it was decided not to substitute Zhou Yi off during halftime in every match, but Zhou Yi could not play the entire match either. Anyway, he would be substituted off in the second half. Klopp would decide when to substitute him off.

This arrangement fully took into account the interests of all parties. From a commercial point of view, keeping Zhou Yi on the field for a longer period of time would also give the sponsors of this China tour a good explanation. From a competitive point of view, not letting Zhou Yi play the entire match was also to prevent him from becoming too tired and getting injured. As for Zhou Yi himself, he didn't care when he came off. He was happy to play a little longer in front of his compatriots.

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Although Borussia Dortmund substituted four players at the beginning of the second half, the control of the game did not decrease. They continued to dominate, and the match almost became a Borussia Dortmund exhibition match.

They took advantage of this and scored two more goals.

The cheers from the stands came one after another. The fans even started doing the Mexican wave, really treating the match as a carnival.

This made Yan Min, who had been called back to warm up again by the coach, very unhappy—we are fighting desperately against Borussia Dortmund, can you not look like you are on a spring outing! That's really disrespectful to us!

But when he looked at the field again, Yan Min was even angrier—his teammates didn't seem to be trying to fight Borussia Dortmund at all? It was as if they were afraid of injuring Borussia Dortmund's players. Their movements were very careful and restrained, completely different from their performance in the Chinese Super League.

The CCTV commentator explained the performance of the Shanghai Chongming players this way: "They just finished a league match three days ago and are really too tired. In fact, it's not a good idea to schedule the match in the middle of the normal league season. Our players can't show their best competitive form, which is a bit of a waste of the opportunity to play against the European champions and reduces the entertainment value of this match…"

The commentator also found this one-sided match a bit boring, but he couldn't change anything.

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Three minutes later, Yan Min was called back. The assistant coach patted him on the shoulder. Yan Min knew that he was about to be substituted on. He waited expectantly for the assistant coach to give him specific tactical instructions.

Unexpectedly, after patting him on the shoulder, the assistant coach simply said, "Go out there and play well, experience the match. There aren't many opportunities to compete against the European champions."

"Okay!" Yan Min nodded excitedly, waiting for the assistant coach's next instructions, but the assistant coach turned around to instruct the other players who were about to be substituted on. The instructions were pretty much the same: "Perform well, experience the match, learn from the European champions…"

Yan Min quickly moved closer to the assistant coach and asked, "Coach, is there anything else?"

"What else?" The assistant coach looked at Yan Min strangely, with a surprised expression.

"Oh, nothing…" Yan Min quickly lowered his head and stepped aside.

He knew that the coaching staff probably didn't expect any decent results from this match…

But he wouldn't give up so easily. Even if he couldn't beat Borussia Dortmund, he still wanted to find a way to cause them a little trouble. It would be worth it if he could score a goal against them!

During a break in play, Yan Min was substituted on, along with five other teammates.

Everyone was excited, thinking about learning from the European champions.

But Yan Min frowned. He was wondering how he could score a goal against Borussia Dortmund…