Chapter 29 Barrios' Brace

Barrios' brace plunged the Mestalla into an awkward silence, followed by a tidal wave of boos and other noises crashing against eardrums and hearts.

The TV broadcast zoomed in on a close-up of Emeri, the young manager of Valencia, frowning tightly, pursing his lips, his face ashen.

He obviously hadn't expected the match to turn out like this.

But Emeri had no intention of resigning himself to fate.

After all, this was his home ground. If he surrendered like this, wouldn't it be too embarrassing?

Valencia's players also had no intention of giving up.

Being defeated at their home ground by a rookie team participating in the Champions League for the first time in seven years would be too humiliating...

So, after the match resumed, Valencia launched a near-frantic onslaught on Dortmund's goal.

Klopp also made adjustments, instructing the team to tighten their defense and weather this wave of attacks first.

Zhou Yi wasn't surprised by Valencia's performance. In the numerous simulated matches, Valencia had also mounted comebacks after falling behind. This was their home ground, after all. Such a reaction was normal. It would be strange if Valencia suddenly lost their fighting spirit at this point...

This wasn't a knockout round. Being scored two away goals at home, trailing by two goals overall, might lead to a loss of fighting desire. Because in that situation, the home team would need to score three consecutive goals in the remaining twenty minutes, which was almost impossible.

But now, it was just a group stage match. It wasn't enough to make Valencia feel like they had no reason to live.

Faced with Valencia's frantic counterattack, Dortmund could only tighten their defense.

Zhou Yi was substituted off in the seventy-seventh minute.

Because his contribution to the defense wasn't significant, Klopp believed it was dangerous to keep him on the field when the team needed to defend with everything they had. He was likely to become a weak point for the opponent's bombardment, so he replaced Zhou Yi with Kehl.

"Zhou Yi has been substituted off. He has completed his task perfectly! In this match, Dortmund's two goals are directly or indirectly related to him... If Dortmund ultimately wins this match, it can be said that Zhou Yi is the team's biggest contributor!" That was He Ping's comment. In his opinion, Zhou Yi's contribution was greater than Barrios', who scored two goals. This is what a qualified Chinese commentator would do.

In Marcel Reif's view, Zhou Yi's contribution to the team was as important as Barrios'.

"If Dortmund can win this match, there are two most important contributors: Barrios and Zhou Yi. Zhou Yi is responsible for organizing the attack, and Barrios is responsible for converting the organized attack into goals. This is the first official Champions League match for both of these players, but their performance has impressed us all. You can't see any nervousness from participating in the match for the first time. I see Dortmund's hope in them..."

Marcel Reif's evaluation was also very high, but still slightly more rational than He Ping's.

Zhou Yi applauded and greeted the fans in the stands as he left the field, but he mostly received boos and middle fingers because this was Valencia's home ground, and the fans here wouldn't like someone who caused their team to lose.

But Zhou Yi didn't care. He wore a relaxed smile on his face, continuing to wave his arms and applaud towards the stands before heading off the field.

It wasn't clear whether he was really thanking the fans or provoking them...

In any case, he was finally substituted off.

Valencia could breathe a sigh of relief.

※※※

While boos kept pouring out of the TV, Zhou Jianliang applauded his son in front of the TV.

In fact, this scene seemed quite silly to someone who didn't understand the inside story, and might even find Zhou Jianliang a bit pretentious.

But this was a natural expression of a fan's emotions.

Even if that wasn't his son, he would make a similar gesture for a player he liked, let alone it was his son...

Li Cuiyun watched her husband standing in front of the TV with a serious face, applauding his son.

She didn't find it strange.

Since her son became a professional player, she had accompanied her husband to watch many matches in the past year or so, and she could understand the emotions of the fans to some extent.

Before watching soccer, she thought fans were a bunch of crazy people, completely unreasonable.

What kind of person would make so many crazy moves in the stands?

Now she knew that when a person has spiritual sustenance and belief, no matter how crazy the move, it can be done, and it is not surprising.

She also clapped her hands, applauding her son.

※※※

After Zhou Yi left the field, although they had two defensive midfielders in the midfield, Dortmund's defense was hardly successful. Faced with Valencia's desperate onslaught, Dortmund struggled.

Marcel Reif said: "Logically speaking, after replacing a defensive midfielder, the midfield's defensive strength should have been improved. This shouldn't have happened... Dortmund seems to be frightened by Valencia's desperate momentum, and doesn't know how to play anymore... Dangerous!"

As he spoke, Mata suddenly took a long shot, penetrating Dortmund's layers of defense, forcing Weidenfeller to make a very thrilling save - his fingertips deflected the ball out of the baseline!

After getting up, Weidenfeller clapped his hands forcefully, shouting loudly at his teammates, not knowing whether he was reminding them or scolding them...

Zhou Yi, who was off the field, also became a little nervous.

After all, this was the Champions League, and leading by two goals didn't mean anything.

Fortunately, Dortmund finally got through the adaptation period without Zhou Yi, and gradually stabilized their defense. Subotic and Hummels, the two central defenders, had strong frontal interception abilities. As long as Dortmund tightened their defense and didn't give the opponent too much space behind them, it wouldn't be so easy for Valencia to score.

In the end, Dortmund held on to their two-goal lead away from home and took away three points with a narrow victory.

This was also their first victory in the Champions League main competition in seven years, their first three points.

After the match, Dortmund's players celebrated wildly, almost completely attracting the hatred of Valencia fans.

Watching these Dortmund players celebrate, Marcel Reif said: "Looking at it now, losing to Wolfsburg at home was worth it. Away from home, Klopp ensured that he had a healthy and well-conditioned team, without being drained too much energy by the league... However, how will they face their derby opponent Schalke 04 this weekend after consuming a lot of energy in the Champions League?"

This was indeed a problem, but at this moment, no Dortmund player or coach would consider such a problem.

Celebrate the victory first.

In fact, this would indeed affect the next league match, after all, there were only four days between the two matches.

Dortmund was playing away again, and it was hard to say whether three days would be enough for the players to recover to their best condition after a long journey and a fierce match.

This was also one of the reasons why Zhou Yi was substituted early. Klopp must have thought about the upcoming Ruhr derby.

The league match against Wolfsburg could be abandoned for the Champions League, but the match against Schalke 04 could not be abandoned under any circumstances.

If the match against Schalke 04 had been before this Champions League match, Klopp might have given up this Champions League group match for the Ruhr derby.

After the match, the team collectively took a plane back to Dortmund overnight.

On the plane, Klopp announced that the team would have a day off.

Although the match against Schalke 04 was only four days away, rest and relaxation were still essential. If they didn't get enough rest, the team wouldn't be in good enough condition to face their opponents.

※※※

The next day, Zhou Yi slept until almost noon before getting up.

He felt very tired. This time, he surprisingly didn't choose to enter the virtual space for training during his sleep, because he just wanted to sleep, completely and purely sleep.

He had a good sleep, without even having a dream.

It could be seen that Zhou Yi was really tired, having spent too much energy in the match against Valencia.

He hadn't felt like this before... The Champions League was indeed different from any match Zhou Yi had experienced before.

The pace was faster, the intensity of the confrontation was higher, and it was more physically demanding.

After getting up, Zhou Yi, who didn't have to go to the training base to participate in training with the team, turned on his computer and browsed the post-match reports from major media outlets, both domestic and foreign.

This was a regular routine.

The German and Chinese media were both very happy that Dortmund was able to defeat Valencia.

It was even a bit of a surprise.

Seeing these comments, Zhou Yi rolled his eyes while sitting in front of the computer.

Because some media outlets actually defined Dortmund's victory as an "upset."

He doubted whether the reporters and editors who wrote this had actually watched the match. Anyone who had watched the match probably wouldn't think it was an upset.

Dortmund controlled the situation most of the time, and it wasn't surprising that they won the match.

Not to mention that he had contributed to it.

If the media was surprised by this victory, wouldn't that mean they were surprised by his performance?

That wasn't the case. The Chinese media only praised and flattered Zhou Yi frantically, without any doubt. The German media also fairly and objectively stated that Zhou Yi performed very well in his first Champions League match, calmly and calmly, like a veteran who had experienced many battles.

Although they were all praising him, the German media's wording was still more cautious and restrained, not as unprincipled as the Chinese media, with phrases like "One person dominates the match, Zhou Yi reminds people of the king of soccer, Maradona," "Chinese genius shines in the Champions League, becoming the Champions League player of the week," "Zhou Yi surprises the whole of Europe, Valencia can only tremble at his feet"...

These words would make the average person blush.

But Zhou Yi wasn't an average person. He actually liked to find articles that praised him to read. After reading them, he felt refreshed.

He didn't have any worries about being proud or complacent.