Chapter 160 League Title

"The game is over! Borussia Dortmund defeated Schalke 04 2-1 on the road! This victory also secures them the league title for this season with four rounds to spare!"

"The league is over! Yes! The league is over!" Duan Xin said, playing on words. "Borussia Dortmund defeated Schalke 04 2-1 away, and they successfully defended their title! There are still three rounds left in the season, but for Borussia Dortmund, it's meaningless!"

As the referee blew the final whistle, Borussia Dortmund's substitutes rushed onto the field, celebrating the championship wildly at Schalke 04's home. Their frenzy even exceeded the excitement they should have had, because they were celebrating the championship at the home of their arch-rivals. Being able to celebrate the championship at the home of their rivals would make them particularly excited. At the same time, to deliberately infuriate their rivals, they exaggerated their emotions during the celebration.

As expected, their celebration was met with boos from Schalke 04 fans.

There were even conflicts between the players on both sides because of this, but they were quickly pulled apart, preventing the conflict from escalating.

Schalke 04's players and fans couldn't stand the Borussia Dortmund players celebrating the championship so unscrupulously on their turf.

Fortunately, the award ceremony wouldn't be held here, otherwise Schalke 04 would probably be spitting blood from anger.

Amidst the boos echoing throughout the Veltins-Arena, the Borussia Dortmund players finally left the field "reluctantly" and returned to their locker room.

They continued to celebrate in the locker room, almost turning the visitor's locker room in the Veltins-Arena into a mess.

After a long time of making noise, they finally left the stadium and took the bus back to Dortmund.

After arriving in Dortmund, few people chose to go home. Instead, they all made plans to continue celebrating. They had already contacted a restaurant on the bus and were going to have a feast together.

This was even more crazy than their championship win last season, after all, this was a title defense. Defending a title is much more difficult than winning it for the first time. Everyone knows that conquering the country is easy, but guarding it is difficult.

Zhou Yi didn't go home either, but went out with his teammates.

Klopp and the coaching staff also attended the team's dinner party after returning to Dortmund. After a season of hard work, they successfully defended their title, so making a fuss at this time wasn't a big deal.

In Dortmund, fans took to the streets to celebrate the championship in various ways.

The whole of Dortmund seemed to have turned into a city that never sleeps.

Tonight, and even tomorrow, all of Germany's sports media would only talk about Borussia Dortmund's title defense.

Before the season, some media believed that it would be difficult for Borussia Dortmund to defend their title, almost impossible. But now, those people's faces were swollen from the slaps.

Except for the very beginning of the league, Borussia Dortmund's advantage in the league had always been very large.

Objectively speaking, after Heynckes took over Bayern Munich again, the entire Bayern Munich team had greatly improved. If it weren't for Borussia Dortmund, they could still have regained the league title. After all, they were ranked second now.

But unfortunately, while they performed well, Borussia Dortmund performed even better and more consistently, never giving Bayern Munich a chance to close the gap. Borussia Dortmund's performance in the Bundesliga this season can be described with one word - dominance. Borussia Dortmund's performance in the Bundesliga this season was simply dominant.

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The match between Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 was held in the evening local time. It was almost midnight after the game. The Borussia Dortmund team took a bus back overnight, and then celebrated. It was almost impossible to finish before dawn. So Klopp simply announced that there would be no training the next morning, so that the players could have a good rest, and then come back for training in the afternoon.

Although the Champions League match against Chelsea was in three days, there was no other way, so they could only let the players rest.

At this time, everyone consciously or unconsciously ignored the upcoming Champions League semi-final. Winning the league title was the goal of the entire season, so let them have fun first.

The Borussia Dortmund players really celebrated crazily that night. After the dinner, many players went to the next event. Zhou Yi got drunk at the first one, so he didn't make it to the second. He didn't even know how he got back. Anyway, when he woke up the next day, he found himself lying in the house, but not in his room, but on the sofa in the living room, without even changing his clothes.

Zhou Yi looked at Santana's room. The door was tightly closed. Since Mark was injured, he hadn't seen Santana except for occasionally seeing her at the team. She should always be with her brother.

He also looked at Hannah's room. The door was locked. Hannah rarely came back to live here now. She seemed to have a new boyfriend, and she spent more time with her boyfriend.

Zhou Yi should be thankful that he was the only one in the house last night, otherwise it would have been too embarrassing...

Getting up from the sofa, Zhou Yi felt sore all over, as if he had been beaten. He didn't know if it was because the game yesterday was too intense, or because he used too much force when celebrating the title defense, or because of his sleeping position...

He sat on the sofa, holding his forehead, feeling that yesterday was really crazy. Everyone had been suppressed for a whole season, and when they finally released, they used a little too much force.

From the pre-season training camp, the intensity of the training was very high. After the training camp, Borussia Dortmund's training volume was still considered high compared to other Bundesliga teams. Everyone was very tired, but for the championship, everyone was holding on.

Now that they had won the championship, they could relax a little. They had been celebrating since the end of the game yesterday, so there was no chance to treat Yang Muge to dinner. It seemed that this meal could only be postponed for the time being...

Zhou Yi remembered that the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea was in three days... No, it was in two days... He quickly jumped off the sofa and went to wash up.

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On the second day of the match, the German media were discussing Borussia Dortmund's successful defense of the league title.

Many media believed that Borussia Dortmund winning the league title four rounds in advance was a good thing for themselves, because it meant that they could concentrate on the Champions League.

But for Borussia Dortmund's Champions League journey, perhaps this was the only good thing. Everything else was bad news.

Hummels was suspended due to a red card, coach Klopp was suspended, and now Sven Bender was injured again. The upcoming Champions League semi-final would definitely be difficult. The first leg was an away game... The situation was extremely unfavorable for Borussia Dortmund.

The day after the Revierderby, the latest news about Sven Bender's injury came out.

Ankle ligament tear, out for the season.

So Borussia Dortmund had one more piece of bad news...

As Borussia Dortmund's midfield iron gate this season, Sven Bender made great contributions to the team's league title and entry into the Champions League semi-finals. Conversely, his absence would definitely have a profound impact on Borussia Dortmund.

Although they defeated Schalke 04 away and won the league title four rounds in advance, if Klopp had a choice, he would rather postpone winning the title by one round than pay the price of Sven Bender being out for the season...

After training in the afternoon, the players also learned about Sven Bender's injury, and the atmosphere in the locker room was a bit heavy.

The joy of defending the league title was diluted a lot.

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A day later, the entire Borussia Dortmund team set off to fly to London, England, to challenge their opponents in the semi-finals, Chelsea.

Speaking of this opponent, their performance this season was also a legendary story. Before the start of the new season, the club hired young coach Boas as the head coach. This young Portuguese coach coached Porto before coming to Chelsea, leading Porto to win the league title, the domestic cup title and the UEFA Cup title, and was regarded as the "successor to Mourinho."

Chelsea hired him because of this nickname. They hoped that Boas could bring Chelsea a glorious era like Mourinho did when he came to Chelsea from Porto.

And Boas was also very familiar with Chelsea, because when Mourinho coached Chelsea, Boas also worked at Chelsea as Mourinho's assistant.

The young coach Boas, who had just led Porto to win the treble, was naturally also ambitious and looked forward to creating his own era at Chelsea. But reality gave him a blow, and he couldn't control the locker room at all. After losing 1:3 to Napoli in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16, Boas was sacked.

At that time, everyone thought that Chelsea was doomed to be eliminated, but Di Matteo, who took over as interim coach, led the team to defeat Napoli 4:1 at home and eliminate their opponents. Then they advanced to the Champions League semi-finals like a hot knife through butter.

In fact, if you want to talk about dark horses, Chelsea's performance in the Champions League this season can also be regarded as a dark horse. They almost didn't qualify for the group stage, and they almost got eliminated in the Round of 16, but now they have reached the Champions League semi-finals. Compared to them, Borussia Dortmund is not a dark horse at all...

However, with injuries, fatigue and an away game, Borussia Dortmund lost 0:2 to Chelsea. The team's performance was hard to say good. Although everyone was active and worked hard, the slump could not be compensated by hard work. At the same time, the absence of Hummels and Sven Bender had a great impact on Borussia Dortmund's defense. When they met a tough Chelsea, their defense was too weak.

The drawbacks of Klopp not being on the sidelines also became apparent. Assistant coach Zeljko Buvac, who replaced Klopp, was not comparable to Klopp in terms of on-the-spot response...

In the end, Borussia Dortmund lost so helplessly away from home. They lost the first leg like this, and didn't even get an away goal, which couldn't help but worry about their prospects...