Lin Hai Ting Tao
Chapter 170 Misunderstanding
Who was the most disappointed when Zhou Yi didn't pass the football forward but chose to pass it back?
Of course, it was Mainz's head coach, Tuchel, sitting on the sidelines.
He had been eagerly waiting for the rabbit to crash into the tree stump.
But he didn't expect that just before it was about to hit the stump, Zhou Yi suddenly slammed on the brakes and turned to pass the football back.
Tuchel was surprised. Then, when he saw Zhou Yi constantly passing the ball back, even running back himself, he understood—the opponent had seen through his tactical intentions.
But so what if they had?
Tuchel sat in the coach's seat without even shifting his weight.
Even if they saw through it, wouldn't they still have to face his iron-barrel formation? Could they score goals by passing back all the time?
This time, Dortmund had escaped a disaster, but there were still ninety minutes left in the game. He didn't believe Dortmund would be so lucky every time during those ninety minutes.
With a little patience, Mainz would always find an opportunity.
It would just take a little longer than he had anticipated.
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Zhou Yi also tried to receive the ball in the frontcourt, but he was always followed by someone. With tight marking and a dense defense, it was difficult for him to turn around and organize an attack. He had no choice but to pass back.
Zhou Yi felt that it was meaningless to just pass the ball back and forth with his teammates in the frontcourt, so he simply ran back, all the way to the defensive midfielder position, directly facing his own center backs.
As expected, the opposing player who was tightly marking him didn't follow.
A dense defense is very particular about the integrity of the defensive formation. In this system, everyone must be in their designated position, or else gaps will appear.
The person defending Zhou Yi didn't dare to follow him all the way up, fearing that he would be drawn out of position, leading to gaps in the defensive line.
So Zhou Yi now had a relaxed environment to control the ball and turn around.
But at the same time, he was also further away from Mainz's goal. And the further away from the goal, the smaller the threat. This applied not only to forwards but also to Zhou Yi now.
Zhou Yi controlled the football at his feet, looked at the distant goal, and a thought sprouted in his mind—maybe he should practice long passes…
Previously, his practice had always focused on short and medium-range passes. He practiced passes of five meters, ten meters, and fifteen meters the most, and he passed them the best. But he rarely practiced long passes of more than twenty-five meters, because he rarely used them in games.
His playing style was to pass the ball while running, always running into open spaces to receive and pass the ball. He was always surrounded by his teammates, and the passing distance didn't need to be too long. If he wanted to transfer the football laterally, he wouldn't kick it directly with a long pass, but would pass it to nearby teammates while running to the next open space to receive the ball, then pass it to the teammates in front, and run again, transferring it laterally through continuous passing and running.
Of course, this kind of transfer speed wasn't as fast as a direct long pass, but Zhou Yi could guarantee accuracy, and the football was always within a controllable range. During this lateral transfer, if a gap was found in the opponent's defensive line, then the lateral pass could be immediately changed to a through ball, and the football would be like a sharp knife, directly piercing the opponent's heart.
So Zhou Yi had never thought about practicing long passes. He felt that his short and medium-range passes hadn't even reached a perfect level yet, so what was the point of considering other things? His energy and time were also limited.
But now, Zhou Yi especially wished he had a long pass that could hit wherever he aimed, as accurate as a cruise missile.
He tried to pass the ball, wanting to pass it directly from the back to Kinczek, but it went wide, and the football was intercepted by the opponent's defender.
Zhou Yi immediately decided not to try long passes in this game, otherwise, giving the football to the opponent again and again would be a blow to his team's morale. He would practice long passes later. Now he still had to go up.
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When Dortmund was attacking, Zhou Yi and his teammates cooperated to send the football forward, and the resistance they encountered when passing through the midfield was minimal.
Once they reached the opponent's thirty-meter area, they could immediately feel the pressure from Mainz's dense defense.
Zhou Yi chose to pass the ball laterally. As soon as he passed the ball, the person responsible for marking him tightly came up. After passing the ball, Zhou Yi didn't stay in place but ran to the next receiving point.
He constantly turned his head to look around while running, observing the situation and looking for an open space to pass the ball.
Mark wasn't idle either, also looking for open spaces.
But after a run, both of them felt the same way—Mainz had really taken dense defense to the extreme, and they couldn't find a chance to pass and run!
Their defensive line maintained a very complete formation. When one place moved, the entire defensive line moved with it. The pace was consistent, and the coordination was seamless.
This kind of performance easily reminded people of the old Mainz—they had established themselves in the U19 league with their good defense.
After Tuchel came, the team raised the banner of offense, to the point that people forgot that they actually had defensive genes. And now Tuchel was just letting Mainz pick up what they were good at again…
But this change was really surprising. Who would have thought that Mainz, who had been playing such a great offensive game before, would turn 180 degrees and play dense defense?
Zhou Yi couldn't find a chance to pass the ball forward. He could only constantly run laterally and vertically, and then pass back and forth with his teammates in the process. When he couldn't break through the opponent's goal, he had to at least ensure that the football was under his team's control.
Sometimes, Zhou Yi would directly pass the football back to the defensive line, and then run back himself, passing the ball back and forth with the defenders.
And the Mainz players were really calm, watching Dortmund pass the ball back and forth in their own half, without moving up at all.
This kind of game wasn't very entertaining, so the Dortmund fans in the stands booed.
But their boos didn't make Mainz move past the midfield line at all.
This was perhaps the characteristic of German football, valuing discipline, so even the U19 players could follow orders on the field.
This kind of tactical discipline might not even be seen often in the first team, but it appeared in this game, which was indeed a severe test for the young players of Dortmund's U19 team. If they lost their cool before their opponents and started playing carelessly, their mistakes would increase, and then Mainz's defensive counterattacks would be accurate every time.
Dortmund's coach, Jebara, was already standing on the sidelines watching the game. He was very worried, but he didn't have any good solutions at the moment.
The only thing he could be thankful for was that Dortmund's rhythm was controlled by Zhou Yi, and Zhou Yi was still very calm and didn't seem to be flustered.
Seeing that the Mainz players weren't coming up, he didn't rush and continued to pass the ball back and forth in his own half, without intending to move the football forward.
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To outsiders, Dortmund only knew how to pass the ball back in their own half. This wasn't Dortmund's playing style, but now Zhou Yi was controlling the team's rhythm, so if Zhou Yi wanted to play like this, the other Dortmund players had to cooperate with him. But this approach was meaningless.
But in fact, Zhou Yi's mind wasn't idle when he was passing the ball back in his own half. He was constantly thinking about how to break the deadlock.
He had considered all kinds of passing methods. Apart from the long pass that he obviously couldn't do yet, other methods had been rejected in his mind.
Was there really no way?
A flash of inspiration suddenly struck Zhou Yi's mind. He thought of a place that he had always overlooked.
Why be so fixated on passing the ball?
As long as they could win, passing and shooting were the same, right?
He felt that he had fallen into a misconception in his thinking mode, always thinking about how to pass the ball, how to launch an attack, and ultimately assist his teammates in scoring.
But I can score myself!
I used to be a forward!
Thinking of this, when the football was passed to Zhou Yi's feet again, he didn't continue to pass the ball back but suddenly turned around and passed it forward.
Schürrle, who was already getting a little impatient with Dortmund's seemingly endless back passes and was preparing to come up and intercept them, didn't expect Zhou Yi to turn around and brush past him, missing him completely.
Once Zhou Yi passed the football forward, Dortmund played a fast-passing, fast-running game.
However, they would definitely stop in front of the opponent's thirty-meter area.
Mainz didn't take Dortmund's attack too seriously, anyway, they just had to retreat to their own defense.
As expected, Dortmund's attack slowed down when they reached the Mainz thirty-meter area.
Götze had pulled to the left to get the ball. Zhou Yi passed the football to him, but he didn't have a good way to go inside. If he tried to break through with the ball himself, the chances of failure were very high.
So he passed the football back to Zhou Yi.
Zhou Yi didn't receive the ball but made a feint to receive it, letting the football pass between his legs.
Then he turned around, and the football had rolled towards Mark.
Mark had also pulled out of the penalty area. He didn't have a fixed position and didn't have to stay in the penalty area.
As the football rolled towards Mark, Zhou Yi accelerated towards Mark.
When receiving the ball, Zhou Yi ran past him, without intending to stop, continuing to run forward.
When running past Mark, he didn't give Mark any eye signals, hand gestures, or verbal reminders.
But Mark knew what to do. He used his heel to flick the football behind him, passing it exactly to the front of Zhou Yi's running path!
Zhou Yi suddenly accelerated to chase the football. This acceleration was so sudden that the Mainz player following him didn't expect it. Zhou Yi's running had always been slow and leisurely before, rarely with sudden bursts of speed. The marking player, who was used to his previous running rhythm, naturally maintained a slow running speed. He didn't expect Zhou Yi to accelerate and shake him off.
Zhou Yi, who had shaken off the defender, faced the football flicked by Mark and raised his right foot!
At the edge of the penalty area, he chose to shoot from distance!
Boom!
Zhou Yi's straightened instep hit the football hard, and the football flew towards the goal.
This long shot was very sudden, and Mainz's goalkeeper was caught off guard. He jumped to save the ball a beat too late and couldn't catch the football. He could only watch helplessly as the football… flew into the goal!
Ten minutes into the game, Dortmund took the lead!
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PS, there's something I need to tell everyone.
Because I only have six chapters in reserve, and I'll be attending the Qidian Annual Meeting in Shanghai from today until the 7th, my writing time is uncertain and not guaranteed, so to avoid running out of reserves and having to stop updating.
For the next period, I can only update once a day.
I will only be able to resume the rhythm of two updates a day when my reserves are restored to more than ten chapters.
Actually, I don't want to do this, but I really have too few reserves, and I'm very panicked. In order to prevent the reserve problem from disrupting my writing rhythm, I have no choice but to do so...
I'm really sorry!