Lin Hai Ting Tao
Chapter 337 Inter Milan, Scared Stiff
Lucio slammed on the brakes and turned to chase back, but he was too late.
Mark was decisive, leaving him behind and charging towards Inter Milan's goal alone.
"Mark Wagner! A golden opportunity—!" Marcel shouted excitedly, drawing out the words.
"Mark! Mark!" Mrs. Wagner cried out in a trembling voice in front of the TV, almost throwing herself at the screen.
Kottana, who had been forced to come home to watch the game by her mother, clenched her fists tightly, her body trembling slightly.
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Just as he reached the edge of the penalty arc, Cesar charged out to the penalty spot. The distance between them was very short and rapidly closing.
At this moment, Mark didn't hesitate and shot directly!
He used the inside of his right foot to curl a shot towards the far post.
Although Cesar made a save attempt and even touched the ball, he was too far away. He only grazed it with his fingertips, failing to truly alter the ball's trajectory.
The intense spin on the ball continued to propel it forward along the path Mark had set.
After drawing an arc, the ball struck the inside of the far post... and then fell inside the goal line!
Goal!
The third time the ball has flown into Inter Milan's goal!
"Ahhhhh!" Marcel Reif exclaimed. "Unbelievable! In the eighty-ninth minute, Dortmund scores again at the last moment!! 3-4! They've gone from being down by four goals to chasing back within one goal in just half a game!"
"Mark Wagner scores his second goal! Well done! It's a pity there's not much time left for Dortmund. If they didn't have one less player, I think Dortmund could completely tie this game..." He Ping lamented for Dortmund while cheering.
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The San Siro Stadium fell into an awkward and uneasy silence as the ball flew into the goal.
They really didn't expect that their team, after leading by four goals, could still be chased to within a single goal. It was simply too… pathetic!
Was this the performance expected of the defending champions?
It was a disgrace!
And we have one more player than them!
In the silence, Mark, who had scored, turned to run and celebrate his brace, but he saw Zhou Yi waving at him and shouting, "Go get the ball back, Mark! We still have some time!"
Zhou Yi woke Mark up—right, we're still one goal behind!
So he turned around again and ran back into Inter Milan's penalty area, charging into the goal, picking up the ball, and then running back to the center circle.
The other players who wanted to come and celebrate the goal were stopped by Zhou Yi: "We're only one goal behind, the game isn't over yet!"
The implication was… we want to tie the game!
Everyone was stunned for a moment, then they reacted. They didn't think Zhou Yi was daydreaming—since we've already come back from 0-4 to 3-4, how could scoring another goal be daydreaming? Isn't this perfectly normal?
Now that the team's morale is high, what is impossible?
Let's do it!
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Seeing Mark running back with the ball in his arms, the commentators finally realized Dortmund's ambition.
"They actually still want to score again?"
"It's the eighty-ninth minute now... and we're about to enter stoppage time. How much time will there be in stoppage time? The second half has been quite smooth, so at most four minutes... Can they score another goal in four minutes?"
"Dortmund just scored a goal, and their morale is high. They certainly look unstoppable. But Inter Milan can't be stupid, they're only leading by one goal now, shouldn't they be falling back to defend? On the field, Inter Milan has six defenders, the penalty area is almost full. As long as they shrink their defense, there won't be any space left for Dortmund. It won't be easy to score again... Dortmund's previous goals all relied on counterattacks, not a single goal came from a true positional attack. Isn't that enough to explain the problem?"
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Klopp couldn't hear the commentators. He jumped up from the ground excitedly after Mark scored.
This goal proved that his decision was right, as long as Zhou Yi remained on the field, anything was possible!
Four minutes left… maybe it really isn't impossible!
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Mark quickly ran back to the center circle, then placed the ball in the center circle and stepped back out.
The Inter Milan players only reacted at this moment.
They looked at each other. Leading the opponent 4-0 seemed like just a moment ago, but in the blink of an eye, the opponent had chased back to within one point…
This feeling was too strange, it felt unreal, as if they were dreaming.
Benitez was on the sidelines, his face, which was already slightly red, was now ashen.
If the team had followed his adjustments, how could they have gotten to this point?
They were originally leading by two goals, now they were only leading by one, and the atmosphere suddenly became tense.
He had substituted two defenders one after another, but they had all ignored the signals he had sent… Now they were getting a lesson, weren't they?
But Benitez wasn't happy at all.
Because if he couldn't win this game, it wouldn't do him any good either!
He now hoped that Mark's goal could completely wake up the Inter Milan players, and let them honestly fall back to defend in the last few minutes, no matter what, they had to protect their one-point lead first!
In reality, the Inter Milan players were indeed intimidated by Dortmund's momentum.
Before, they were thinking of teaching Dortmund a lesson with goals, but now they didn't think so. They realized that if they continued to press forward like this, it really wasn't impossible for the opponent to score another goal before the end of the game…
Dortmund had obviously gone berserk, and the Inter Milan players had to put away their previous contempt and take this game seriously.
So after the game restarted, Inter Milan didn't rush to launch an attack, but kept passing the ball back in the backcourt, hoping to drag out the game as much as possible.
In their passing, the ninety minutes of the game came to an end.
The fourth official raised the sign for stoppage time at the side of the field, as expected, it was four minutes!
"Four minutes of stoppage time… If Dortmund still wants to tie the score, they only have four minutes left… It's difficult, although Dortmund has already done very well, but I still have to say it's difficult," said Marcel Reif. "The ball is still under Inter Milan's control. Dortmund must first regain possession of the ball, and then launch an attack. And they may not have many chances to try. They must find a way to break through Inter Milan's goal in the shortest possible time and with the fewest possible attempts. It's too difficult!"
Faced with Inter Milan's passing in the backcourt, Dortmund pressed forward almost across the board, frantically pressing Inter Milan. Seeing this kind of running, it was really hard to believe that they had been one player short since the eleventh minute of the game, and had been running for eighty minutes with ten players.
But this was exactly what Dortmund could do, because Klopp was a coach who valued physical fitness and running ability very much. In the past two years, physical training had been the top priority in Dortmund's preseason training. The players' running ability had been improved to varying degrees in the hellish training, so they could tirelessly entangle and fight with Inter Milan in every corner of the field from the beginning of the game to the end, in order to grab the ball.
And because of this, at this time, they still had the strength to entangle and fight with Inter Milan in every corner of the field, in order to grab the ball.
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Dortmund's desperate style of play left a lot of gaps behind them, and Inter Milan naturally saw it. As long as they could send the ball up, they could launch a very threatening counterattack and kill Dortmund.
But this time, Inter Milan seemed very hesitant and didn't do so.
Because they were worried that after going up, the opponent would regain possession of the ball and launch a counterattack.
The time of the third goal wasn't too far from now, and everyone still remembered it vividly.
Inter Milan wasn't in a hurry, they just passed the ball back in the backcourt, and then attracted Dortmund's players to come up and press, gradually pushing their formation forward.
Time passed quickly in this passing, and in the blink of an eye, two and a half minutes of the four minutes of stoppage time had passed, leaving only one and a half minutes until the end.
Perhaps they felt that there was enough time left, or perhaps they felt that this counterattack would definitely score a goal and kill Dortmund.
Anyway, Inter Milan ended their boring passing at this time and passed the ball forward.
When the "Cheetah" Eto'o chased the ball, there was actually only one Inter Milan player in the frontcourt, and the others were still in the backcourt. This was also out of safety considerations, so as not to be hit by Dortmund with a counterattack again.
Anyway, it would be good if this ball could go in, and it wouldn't matter if it didn't, there wasn't much time left for Dortmund.
Eto'o took the ball and charged towards Dortmund's penalty area, attracting Dortmund's defenders to come and intercept him.
Because he was alone, without support, and Eto'o's physical strength had also declined significantly, Eto'o eventually lost the ball in the encirclement of three Dortmund defenders.
Then, Hummels quickly passed the ball to Sven Bender—Zhou Yi was in the frontcourt and didn't come back to defend, he was probably exhausted too.
"Dortmund passes the ball forward, but they didn't choose to kick it long, but still used the ground passing method... There's not much time left for Dortmund, they have to hurry!" He Ping said anxiously.
After Sven Bender got the ball, he wasn't too far from Zhou Yi. He passed it forward, passing the ball to Zhou Yi.
This time, Inter Milan made a strict local defense against Zhou Yi, and Zanetti immediately came up to stick to him, not letting Zhou Yi turn around with the ball.
Zhou Yi held the ball, stuck out his butt, and kept Zanetti behind him.
Zanetti wanted to steal the ball, but couldn't reach the ball. He was afraid of fouling if he stretched out his foot and gave Dortmund a free kick opportunity. At that time, Hummels, Subotic and other central defenders with excellent headers would swarm to the front of the goal, and the pressure would be too great…
So he didn't foul.
Zhou Yi waited for a moment.
Mark ran over.
Seeing Mark coming to meet him, Zhou Yi passed the ball to him. Then he turned around and ran forward, not running too fast, but Zanetti still followed him.
Mark didn't pass the ball back to Zhou Yi, but instead made a diagonal pass, giving the ball to Lewandowski who had retreated.
After Lewandowski retreated, Inter Milan's center back Lucio also came up to block him, not letting him turn around easily.
After he came up, Samuel, who was originally on the flank, also moved closer to the center to fill the position—Cordoba was defending Gotze on the other flank.
However, in this way, the distance between him and the side back Maicon was widened.
Zhou Yi saw this gap.
He accelerated towards Lewandowski, meeting the Polish forward who couldn't turn around.
Of course, Zanetti was still following him.
Seeing Zhou Yi running up, and unable to turn around himself, Lewandowski simply passed the ball to Zhou Yi, and then turned around and ran inside.
Zhou Yi didn't stop the ball, but instead met the ball passed by Lewandowski, and swung his right foot, looking like he was going to have a one-two with Lewandowski, but in fact, he used the instep of his straightened right foot to cut the ball to the right!
The ball flew forward at a high speed close to the grass, drawing an inconspicuous arc, just passing through the gap between Samuel and Maicon, and rushing straight behind Inter Milan's defense!
"Zhou Yi! His pass has once again penetrated Inter Milan's defense!" He Ping exclaimed.