Chapter 1 周易's Daily Life

Zhou Yi couldn't participate in team training at all, nor could he do any ball training. He came to the training base almost every day just to have Kotana massage and do acupuncture on him, and then let Kotana practice cupping on his body.

For the first two days, after doing these things, he would leave and have his agent Schulze pick him up and take him home.

But later, he didn't leave so early. After finishing the massage and acupuncture, he would continue to stay in the physiotherapy room where Kotana worked and chat with her.

Kotana was the only therapist in this physiotherapy room, and players wouldn't come to her unless they had injuries or fatigue during training. Most of the time, Kotana had nothing to do and would read books after finishing her work.

However, she wasn't against Zhou Yi staying to chat with her.

She might not be able to chat with others, but with Zhou Yi, she had a worthy opponent and enjoyed the conversation very much.

For Zhou Yi, it was the same. He didn't know if it was because he knew Kotana well enough, or for some other reason. Anyway, he felt very comfortable chatting with Kotana. Especially after moving out, he now felt more and more that he and Kotana seemed to be on the same wavelength.

He didn't have this feeling when they lived together before, but now that they were separated, the feeling was even stronger.

He now quite enjoyed being alone with Kotana.

※※※

Zhou Yi enjoyed the time he spent with Kotana, but Klopp didn't enjoy the time without Zhou Yi.

Although he tried several methods in training, none of them yielded good results.

This was reflected in the sixth round of the league, where Dortmund challenged Nuremberg away. The opponent wasn't very strong, but Dortmund couldn't win.

After taking the lead, Dortmund allowed the opponent to equalize, and they couldn't regain the lead until the end of the match.

As a result, Dortmund's proud and incredible twenty-three-game winning streak in the league came to an end.

After the game, the reporters' questions were surprisingly consistent.

The questions they posed to Klopp were all asking whether the failure to win the game away was related to Zhou Yi's absence.

Although Klopp knew it was related, he couldn't admit it: "We have many excellent players, and Dortmund is not a team of one person. We and the players are very sorry for not being able to win the game, but I don't think it's related to Zhou Yi's absence. The players were a little tired after the game against Napoli..."

His statement was also well-founded—Dortmund's Champions League group match against Napoli was very difficult, and they didn't get enough rest after returning to Germany. In the match against Nuremberg, the players weren't active enough, which was indeed a manifestation of fatigue.

However, the reporters felt that Klopp was using a seemingly reasonable excuse to cover up Dortmund's real trouble.

After this league match, the Dortmund club officially announced that Zhou Yi's injury might require a month of rest.

This was definitely not good news for Dortmund...

Although Dortmund was still ranked first in the league with sixteen points after being tied by Nuremberg, the crisis had already appeared.

Bayern Munich also had five wins and one draw, with sixteen points, ranking second. In the month that Zhou Yi was absent, Bayern Munich had many opportunities to overtake Dortmund.

※※※

On the evening of September 24, Dortmund challenged Munich 1860 away.

This was a German Cup match.

Facing Munich 1860, who were ranked fifth in the Second Bundesliga, Dortmund played very hard.

Neither side scored in the ninety minutes of the match, resulting in a 0-0 draw.

It wasn't until extra time that Dortmund scored two goals in a row, eliminating their opponents.

Although they successfully advanced to the next round, many people saw Dortmund's predicament.

After losing Zhou Yi, the team's attacking power had declined significantly. Neither Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan, nor Sahin could drive the attack.

Previously, when Mkhitaryan scored twice and Aubameyang scored a hat-trick, some people thought that they had not only filled the gap left by Gotze and Lewandowski's departure, but could also become Zhou Yi's successors when necessary. But now it seemed that those who thought so were naive.

People found that the reason why Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang performed well was because Zhou Yi was on the field. When Zhou Yi was there, they performed well, but when Zhou Yi wasn't there, their performance would be greatly reduced.

Everyone knew that Zhou Yi was the core of Dortmund, but everyone didn't have a unified standard for how to understand this sentence and the definition of "core". The concept was actually very vague.

Now everyone knew why Zhou Yi was the "core".

Simply put, if Zhou Yi was on the field, Dortmund's players would perform very well, even the newcomers who had just joined the team. But if Zhou Yi wasn't there, even the players who had performed well before would not be able to perform at their normal level, but would be in a slump and perform poorly.

At this time, everyone was even more grateful that Dortmund had left no stone unturned to keep Zhou Yi in the first place.

And although Mkhitaryan really wanted to play as an attacking midfielder, it now seemed that as long as Zhou Yi was there, he couldn't play this position. If Zhou Yi wasn't there, even if he played in this position, his performance would be very different from Zhou Yi's...

A reporter interviewed Zhou Yi, and Zhou Yi seemed very calm: "I believe in my teammates. They can win games even without me. I think you should give them more patience."

He didn't want to put too much pressure on his teammates.

※※※

In the next league game, the seventh round, Dortmund hosted Freiburg.

In this match, Dortmund defeated Freiburg 5-0 at home.

If you looked at the score, you would think that Dortmund performed very well. They played a wonderful game and changed everyone's opinion of them.

But in reality, the game didn't go so smoothly.

Dortmund didn't open the scoring until the thirty-fifth minute of the first half, with a goal from Reus.

But then Dortmund wasn't able to extend the lead.

It wasn't until the end of the first half that Freiburg defender Fallou Diagné fouled Sven Bender in the penalty area and was sent off with a red card, which made the situation more favorable for Dortmund.

Dortmund not only had one more player than their opponents, but they also got a penalty.

However, they also paid the price—Sven Bender was injured in the foul and couldn't continue the game, so he had to be substituted.

With Zhou Yi and Gündoğan both injured one after another, Dortmund's midfield was already stretched thin, and Sven Bender's injury was the last straw.

However, Yan Min wasn't on the roster for this match, so he couldn't be expected to get a chance to play.

Sven Bender was replaced by veteran Oliver Kirch.

Reus took the penalty and accurately kicked the ball into Freiburg's goal.

In the first half, Dortmund led by two goals.

In the second half, Dortmund, with one more player, completely controlled the situation on the field. In the fifty-eighth minute, Mark extended the lead for the team.

In the seventieth minute, Mark scored twice, and Dortmund led Freiburg 4-0.

In the seventy-ninth minute, Kuba, who came on as a substitute, sealed the score at 5-0 for the team, and Dortmund won the game.

Although they won a big victory, Dortmund fans weren't happy because they didn't know how Sven Bender's injury was.

If the injury was serious and he had to be absent for a long time, Dortmund's midfield would be in big trouble... Because before this match, the team's captain, Sebastian Kehl, who also played as a defensive midfielder, was injured in training, and it was said that the situation was not optimistic and he would be absent for many matches.

If Sven Bender also had to be absent for many matches, Dortmund's midfield wouldn't even have a defensive midfielder...

Fortunately, the news after the game was that Sven Bender's injury wasn't serious. He was substituted early out of caution, and the final examination results were good. He didn't have to miss the next game.

But that didn't mean that Dortmund was lucky.

Because later in training, young defender Marian Sarr and main left-back Schmelzer were successively added to the injury list due to injuries.

Sarr was a young defender born in 1995 and not yet nineteen years old, so his injury didn't have too much of an impact on the team.

The big impact was Schmelzer's injury.

Now, Dortmund's main left-back and right-back were both injured and couldn't play.

When Piszczek was injured, Klopp could use the versatile Großkreutz to replace him, and "Big Cross" did a good job. But now that Schmelzer was also injured, Klopp couldn't split Großkreutz in half to use him, right?

In the month or so since the season started, Dortmund had already had many players injured, which hadn't happened in the previous seasons.

The reason why Dortmund was able to suppress Bayern Munich in the league and their results in the Champions League got better year by year was largely due to the fact that they had fewer player injuries during that time.

"...In the previous seasons, Dortmund was like a high-speed engine, efficient and tireless, which earned them the initiative. But a machine can't always maintain a good condition without wear and tear. Now this engine has malfunctioned, and the parts are aging one after another... Klopp's chariot has to slow down, otherwise it may explode directly and disintegrate in high-speed operation..."

The German "Bild" commented on the problems Dortmund had encountered recently.

Some media, especially Munich media, believed that Dortmund's current high number of injuries was related to Klopp's high-intensity training, and that Klopp's training method accelerated the aging and wear of the players' bodies, leading to their frequent injuries now.

They even blamed Klopp and Dortmund for Götze's injury, because Götze was injured just after transferring to Bayern Munich and missed the team's pre-season training and the first few rounds of the league. They believed that Dortmund and Klopp had drained Götze dry, allowing Götze to join Bayern Munich with an injury.

Although other media weren't as conspiratorial as the Munich media, they also believed that the frequent injuries of players should sound an alarm for Klopp. While Dortmund was at its peak, it was also standing on the edge of a cliff. A little carelessness could cause them to fall from the clouds.