Chapter 1 Zhou Yi, Look!

"Zhou Yi, look!" Mark called Zhou Yi into his room and pointed at the computer screen for him to see.

Zhou Yi immediately spotted the photo of himself, Götze, and Mark holding the German Cup.

"The official website reported about us! Look at the title they used—'The Youth A-Team's Trident'! Isn't it cool!" Mark said excitedly.

"It is indeed cool," Zhou Yi said, looking at the screen.

On the plane returning to Dortmund from Berlin, a reporter from Dortmund's official website interviewed him and his teammates.

He didn't expect the report to be published so quickly.

This wasn't the first time he'd appeared on Dortmund's official website, but it was the first time he'd appeared on the homepage.

The report introduced the "Trident" combination in Dortmund's U19 team.

It claimed that the Trident combination had made an indispensable contribution to Dortmund's German Cup victory.

While Zhou Yi was reading the report, Mark kept chattering beside him, gesticulating excitedly.

Zhou Yi patted his shoulder. "Calm down, Mark. This is just on our club's website. What will you do when you get on *Kicker*?"

Hearing Zhou Yi say this, Mark was stunned. Judging from his expression, Zhou Yi knew that he must have started imagining the scene of his photo appearing in *Kicker*.

Ah, a child who loves to daydream… How enviable!

※※※

Yang Mu Ge held the local newspaper, the *West Tribune*, in his hand. This was a media outlet that focused on reporting Schalke 04 news, just like the *Ruhr News*, which specialized in reporting Dortmund club news.

In the corner of the newspaper, Yang Mu Ge found news about Dortmund U19 winning the Youth German Cup final.

In just a few words, a few short lines, the *West Tribune* made their position clear in this way—they were being neutral and objective enough by giving their mortal enemy's success a little space to mention it. As for detailed reports, forget about it.

But Yang Mu Ge didn't need the *West Tribune* to report in detail, because he had watched the entire match.

Zhou Yi's performance in the game impressed him. He found that since coming to Germany, every time he saw Zhou Yi, he felt that he was very different from the last time, and that he was improving rapidly.

The current Zhou Yi was completely different from the student player who had first entered the reality show team.

He really was someone who was born to play soccer. In Germany, a place rich in soccer culture, he was simply thriving.

If he hadn't chosen to go to school in the first place, but had accepted formal professional soccer training instead, perhaps he would have been someone of He Ying's caliber.

But it didn't matter. Fortunately, he came to Germany, and fortunately, he chose the path he should take.

Yang Mu Ge was genuinely happy for Zhou Yi.

"Hi, Yang." Draxler saw Yang Mu Ge holding the newspaper in a daze, so he took the initiative to greet him. "Why are you thinking of buying a newspaper to read?"

Yang Mu Ge pointed to the news about Dortmund U19 winning the championship for Draxler to see.

"Ah… Dortmund… Damn it!" The smile on Draxler's face disappeared. Just one day had passed, a day when Dortmund fans were happy and Schalke 04 fans were unhappy.

Especially for someone who was a Schalke 04 youth team player, this feeling was even deeper.

The mortal enemies had returned with the German Cup from the final, and they had completely stolen the show.

"I didn't watch the game, but let me guess, your friend must have shone in the game, right?" Draxler asked.

Yang Mu Ge nodded. "Yeah, two assists, helping Dortmund win 2:0 against Freiburg."

"Both goals were related to him…" Draxler suddenly said to Yang Mu Ge with a serious expression, "Yang, we have to work harder. I have a very bad feeling. Maybe that friend of yours, he will appear in… the first team earlier than us!"

※※※

Dortmund U19 won the Youth German Cup championship, but this didn't have a big impact on the team itself.

Except that Yeballa gave the whole team two days off after returning to Dortmund.

But Zhou Yi and Mark were not idle during these two days either. They went to the soccer field near Mark's house again, where Zhou Yi passed the ball to Mark and Mark shot.

This practiced Zhou Yi's passing and Mark's shooting.

Zhou Yi's passing was already very good, but he was still not satisfied. Sometimes he still felt that he saw an opening, but he couldn't pass the soccer ball over because the pass was too difficult, and a rash pass would cause him to lose the ball. So he had to pass the soccer ball horizontally or back again, so that both sides could reposition themselves and find new openings.

But in this way, the team's offensive rhythm was delayed.

Zhou Yi's goal was to train his short passing stat to above ninety, and now his short passing was sixty-five, a little higher than Götze's, who was sixty-four.

There were still twenty-five points away from the minimum goal of ninety.

You should know that Zhou Yi's short passing was only twenty-two points when he first started.

In fact, Zhou Yi's progress was very rapid, but he also felt that as the value increased, the difficulty of increasing it became greater and greater. He had been stuck at sixty-five points for almost a month.

Although training in the virtual world had the ability to increase the effect of training, it ultimately had to be put into actual training. If you only trained in the virtual world, and didn't even touch the ball outside the virtual world, and still expected your abilities to increase, then you would really be dreaming.

Therefore, in the team's daily training, Zhou Yi's training was very serious. In addition to extra physical training, he would also carry out some basic technical training in his spare time.

Especially after discovering the soccer field near Mark's house, whenever he had the opportunity, on days without games, Zhou Yi would come here to train with Mark. He practiced passing, and Mark practiced shooting. The two of them matched up perfectly. He passed the ball to Mark, and Mark shot the soccer ball towards the goal.

Later, after Götze joined, it became a special training for fast passing and running.

※※※

The reassembled Dortmund U19 were asked by their coach, Yeballa, to quickly forget the Youth German Cup championship they had just won.

"We still have the league championship to fight for next, and indulging in past achievements is meaningless for the future. So today's training will be no different from usual."

After Yeballa finished speaking, he used practical actions to prove this to the players—he called Zhou Yi, Mark, and Götze out again to play the game.

"Ah? Still playing? Isn't the German Cup over?" Zhou Yi was very strange.

"Did you think I prepared this specifically for the German Cup final? No! You haven't won yet!"

But the three of them weren't too frustrated. After getting used to playing this game, they thought it was actually quite fun…

Yeballa had strengthened his idea in the German Cup final. In the remaining games of this season, he would use the Trident tactic as his main tactic.

He would rely on the performance of the Trident to impact the league championship.

Facing Freiburg's fierce high pressing, the Trident tactic could operate well, so why not place more hope on them?

※※※

One week after the Youth German Cup final, Dortmund U19 ushered in the twenty-fifth round of the German U19 League's Western Division.

In this game, Dortmund played Hu Paidal at home.

This team was currently ranked second to last in the league and wasn't very strong.

But despite this, Yeballa still sent out the entire main force, with all three members of the Trident starting.

He just wanted to use more games to hone the Trident, and strive to be able to sharpen the Trident when the playoffs arrived.

And the performance of the Trident didn't disappoint Yeballa. In this game, Dortmund defeated Hu Paidal 5:0 at home, with Götze scoring twice, Mark scoring one goal, and Zhou Yi also completing two assists.

In this way, Dortmund, ranked first, led Bayer Leverkusen, ranked second, by five points and qualified for the playoffs one round in advance.

And from them down, all the teams could only look forward to fighting again next year.

Another week later, in the last round of the Western League, Dortmund challenged Bayer Leverkusen, the second-placed team in the league, away from home.

They still sent out the entire main force, but this time Zhou Yi was substituted after only playing half the game.

It wasn't because of poor performance, but because Yeballa wanted to save his strength for the playoffs.

Götze was also substituted not long after the start of the second half. Only Mark was left on the field from the Trident.

In the end, Dortmund U19 lost to Bayer Leverkusen U19 1:3 away from home. However, the outcome of this game was no longer important. The Dortmund players who had qualified for the playoffs in advance were obviously absent-minded on the field. All they could think about now was the playoffs, not the game in front of them.

Yeballa didn't criticize the team either.

After all, they were young people, and it was difficult to control their emotions. They had done very well this season, and it didn't matter if they lost this last insignificant game.

In this way, Dortmund U19 ended all their games in the Western League of the U19 League this season. In twenty-six league games, Dortmund U19 won twenty, drew four, and lost two, accumulating sixty-three points, scoring ninety-one goals, and conceding thirty-two goals, with a goal difference of fifty-nine.

Except for conceding four more goals than second-placed Bayer Leverkusen, they were ranked first in all other data.

And last season, the same team led by Yeballa was only ranked fourth in the Western League, and didn't even make the playoffs. They won sixteen games, drew four games, and lost six games in twenty-six league games. Their performance was completely different from now.

Of course, this season's Dortmund U19 had some more players compared to last season's, such as Daniel Ginczek, the top scorer in the U17 Western League last season, Mario Götze, and Zhou Yi and Mark.

They were all important reasons why the team could have such an outstanding performance.

Next, they had to prepare for the playoff semi-final in a week.

And Dortmund's opponent in the semi-final was very coincidentally Freiburg U19 again…