Lin Hai Ting Tao

Chapter 412 Goodbye, Muscle Man

He got up from the ground as Götze passed the football to Lewandowski.

Then he saw Lewandowski shoot the football into Arsenal's goal.

He had once again become the best foil for Dortmund's goal...

He turned his gaze to Zhou Yi, his eyes burning with anger.

Two goals conceded, and he was the butt of jokes twice!

He would definitely have his revenge!

※※※

The television broadcast repeatedly replayed the goal, starting from the moment Zhou Yi shook off Song. In the end, they even replayed Zhou Yi's move against Song in slow motion.

The football rolled past him, and everyone would think that Zhou Yi was letting the football pass, then turning around and moving forward.

Alexandre Song thought so too, so his choice wasn't really anything to criticize. Everything he did was right.

It was just that Zhou Yi was more cunning than he had imagined...

He didn't really let the football pass, but instead used his left foot to pull the football to the right, brushing past the side-stepping Song.

The key to this move was that Zhou Yi did it subtly and inconspicuously, just like the brilliant pass to Lewandowski earlier, it was completely unexpected. So it was impossible to guard against.

It was as if he had originally intended to carry the football forward, but only changed his mind temporarily after seeing Song's sideways movement.

This naturally caught Song, who was defending him, off guard.

Compared to Alexandre Song, who was aggressive and always wanted to take Zhou Yi down, Zhou Yi rarely had such seemingly aggressive moves. His moves against Song were very subtle and skillful, as if...

"Zhou Yi is like a Tai Chi master, every punch thrown by Song with all his strength is defused by Zhou Yi with a gentle force. Using four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds is what Zhou Yi's style of play is all about!" He Ping hit the nail on the head.

Yes, watching his assist to Lewandowski's first goal, and his moves to get rid of Song, the movements were not big, and at first glance, there was no sense of power, but they revealed the cleverness and ingenuity of the Chinese.

He really seemed like a Tai Chi master entangled with Song, his sleeves fluttering, feeling like he didn't use much strength, but constantly made the other party fall flat on their face.

※※※

The game restarted, and now Arsenal were behind on the road, and the problem facing them was a bit complicated—should they strive to equalize the score before the game, or just accept a narrow defeat of one goal?

If this was the knockout stage, perhaps Arsenal would accept this result, after all, it was only a narrow defeat by one goal, and they had an away goal. Returning to their home stadium, they only needed to win 1-0 to advance. But now it was the group stage, and the victory of any game was related to whether they could qualify from the group in the end, and in what position.

Judging from the situation in this group, Dortmund was likely to be the opponent that would compete with Arsenal for the top spot in the group in the end—Wenger didn't quite believe the so-called experts who said that Dortmund would perform worse in their second Champions League season because their opponents had figured them out.

He had always believed that Dortmund was Arsenal's number one enemy in the group stage, followed by Marseille.

So the result of the game against Dortmund would determine the final ranking of Arsenal's qualification from the group.

If they wanted to compete for the top spot in the group, they had to overwhelm Dortmund.

Losing to Dortmund on the road would leave Arsenal with less room to maneuver...

So they should strive to tie the opponent on the road.

But if they attack because of this, do you remember how they conceded the goal just now?

Dortmund's counterattack was very threatening.

So now Arsenal was in a rather complicated situation.

And Arsenal player Alexandre Song himself faced a very simple problem—no matter how the situation changed, he now had only one idea: to take down Zhou Yi!

But it was not easy for him to take down Zhou Yi...

Zhou Yi now dealt with him almost effortlessly.

For example, when he received the ball from a teammate from behind near the midfield line, after stopping the ball and turning around, he seemed to have foreseen the future and quickly used the foot that stopped the ball to push the football lightly inward. As soon as he pushed the football, Song's sliding tackle arrived... The result was naturally a miss, and Song, who fell to the ground, could only watch Zhou Yi take the football away.

For another example, when a teammate passed the football to Zhou Yi, Zhou Yi leaned back when receiving the ball. This action was not conducive to him making follow-up actions after receiving the ball, so Song could confidently approach him and put pressure on him.

But Zhou Yi didn't want to receive the ball at all. He directly poked the football passed by his teammate out, and the football went through Song's legs, giving it to Großkreutz who was responding to Zhou Yi... And Song suffered a football version of "crotch humiliation."

There were many similar scenes of the two sides fighting. Zhou Yi basically didn't make any physical contact with Song anymore.

Anyway, Song himself was not a speed-type player, he couldn't rush up and knock Zhou Yi down before Zhou Yi received the ball.

Again and again, when Zhou Yi was playing Song around, the laughter and whistles would always sound in the stands of Westfalenstadion.

When Song was arrogant before, Dortmund fans hated him so much, and the South Stand was full of various scoldings against him.

Now Dortmund fans could finally laugh heartily.

In their laughter, Alexandre Song became more and more embarrassed.

"Alexandre Song, who is defending Zhou Yi, is now indeed under a lot of pressure..." He Ping also ridiculed Song, which was simply adding fuel to the fire.

※※※

Zhou Yi's one-sided crushing of Alexandre Song came to an abrupt end in the seventy-eighth minute of the game.

When Zhou Yi once again used a flexible movement to twist and dodge Song, the Cameroonian international turned around and stretched out his hands to hug Zhou Yi around the waist, and then, like wrestling, threw Zhou Yi directly to the ground.

The referee's whistle sounded, ran towards the foul by Alexandre Song, and then showed him a... yellow card!

"Yellow card! Alexandre Song received a yellow card! This is his second yellow card in this game! He's going to be sent off!" Marcel Reif shouted with some schadenfreude.

"Song finally couldn't bear it anymore and applied for a second yellow card!" He Ping also continued to ridicule Song.

Arsenal players surrounded the referee, hoping that the referee could be lenient, but how could the penalty be easily changed? Not to mention that Song's foul just now was completely like Judo wrestling.

If such a foul couldn't be given a yellow card, then wouldn't players be able to do whatever they want in the game?

So Song's yellow card was unavoidable.

While his teammates were still trying to fight for Song, Song stood outside, seemingly indifferent.

Until Zhou Yi called him: "Hey, muscle man."

Song looked back at him and saw him pointing at his temple with his hand.

"Share a little bit of my life experience. Football isn't just about muscles, you have to use your brain. Goodbye, muscle man," he said in English.

※※※

"Is he warning that Song to calm down?" Mark in front of the TV asked. After he finished asking, his sister's voice rang out behind him.

"It's just telling that muscle idiot to use his brain when playing football."

Mark turned around to look and found Cortana looking down at her own book, as if she hadn't said that sentence at all.

※※※

No matter how Arsenal players pleaded for Song, the referee still showed Song a red card. The poor Cameroonian was sent off the field just like that...

And his exit was also a turning point for Arsenal. Because Song was the only Arsenal midfielder in this game who could defend, his exit meant that Arsenal had no defensive force in midfield.

His red card also directly made Wenger make the final choice—don't even think about attacking, defend.

He replaced Gervinho with a young midfielder, Frimpong.

Hoping to strengthen the defense, while the whole team's formation was withdrawn to the back to consolidate the defense.

Although Arsenal took the initiative to withdraw, Dortmund did not press forward across the board to try to score more goals.

Because the person who specifically controlled Dortmund's rhythm on the field was Zhou Yi, and when Zhou Yi saw that Van Persie and Walcott were still on the field, he knew that Arsenal still had a strong ability to launch a quick counterattack. If Dortmund pressed forward too hard, it would become a great opportunity for Arsenal to launch a counterattack. Just like Dortmund's second goal.

Zhou Yi didn't want such a thing to happen to Dortmund in reverse.

So he led Dortmund to play control football. No matter how Arsenal withdrew to defend, Dortmund was not in a hurry to launch a large-scale attack, but slowly maneuvered with Arsenal in midfield.

Time passed by in this maneuvering.

Finally, when the referee blew the whistle to end the whole game, Dortmund defeated Arsenal, the seeded team in this group, 2-1 at home, making a good start to their new season's Champions League journey.

As for what is the rookie wall?

Sorry, in this game, whether it was from Zhou Yi or the entire Dortmund team, there was no sign of hitting the wall at all...