Chapter 1 The Most Watched Match

The Ruhr derby was the most anticipated match of this round of league games, and it was scheduled for the last slot on Sunday.

Before that, Bayern Munich had narrowly defeated Fortuna Düsseldorf 3:2 at home. Although the process was somewhat thrilling, Bayern Munich ultimately won and secured three points, which was enough.

Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund seemed to be playing Russian roulette, holding a revolver loaded with only one bullet and firing it at their own heads. Bayern Munich escaped this time. The gun was now in Borussia Dortmund's hands, and the threat of death and the pressure fell on them.

Last season, in the Ruhr derby at their home stadium, Schalke 04 watched helplessly as Borussia Dortmund defeated them at the Veltins-Arena, stepping over their corpses to ascend the championship throne. This was a great humiliation for Schalke 04.

Now they had a good opportunity for revenge.

If they could cause Borussia Dortmund to lose the league title because of a loss to them, the entire Schalke 04 team would feel honored. Their hatred for their arch-rivals made them not care whether Bayern Munich would benefit. They just wanted to see Borussia Dortmund in pain and despair.

It was clear from the starting lineup announced before the match that, despite the Champions League round of sixteen second leg against Galatasaray in three days, they had no intention of conserving any strength in this Ruhr derby.

Schalke 04's fans were also very supportive, constantly booing Borussia Dortmund's players after the game started. Whenever a Borussia Dortmund player got the ball, a piercing hiss would echo throughout the stadium.

Among them, Zhou Yi received the loudest boos.

On the one hand, it was because he was the most threatening player in Borussia Dortmund's lineup. On the other hand, it was because of his past with Schalke 04, most famously his use of Newton's Second Law to humiliate a media reporter who supported Schalke 04, which made the entire Schalke 04 supporter base a laughingstock in German public opinion.

So, how lovable Zhou Yi was in the eyes of Borussia Dortmund fans, that's how hateful he was in the eyes of Schalke 04 fans.

Fortunately, Schalke 04's fans didn't hate Yang Muge, Zhou Yi's good friend, out of blind spite. Of course, this was also because Yang Muge's own performance was excellent and his attitude was very professional. He never brought up his relationship with Zhou Yi, and whenever he played, he defended Zhou Yi more diligently than anyone else. The Schalke 04 fans saw all this and weren't fools, so naturally they wouldn't offend their own player because of an opponent.

To put it bluntly, if it had been the Yang Muge of two years ago, no one would have cared about him. But the current Yang Muge, even if Schalke 04 didn't want him, he would have plenty of places to go. Many teams in Europe wanted such a low-key and hardworking midfield workhorse. There were too few defensive midfielders who were willing to stay behind and defend. Since the rise of the organizational defensive midfielder, every defensive midfielder had a restless heart and a desire to attack. A defensive midfielder who couldn't join the attack seemed embarrassed to call himself a defensive midfielder.

In such a situation, Yang Muge, who could stay behind the midfield line for the entire game if the coach didn't allow him to cross it, was truly a hot commodity in the eyes of many coaches.

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In this game, Yang Muge's task was to curb Zhou Yi's performance. Of course, his defense against Zhou Yi wasn't an unprincipled man-marking, not to say that wherever Zhou Yi went, he had to follow. He still had to stay in his position.

If Zhou Yi didn't come up from the backcourt when Borussia Dortmund was attacking, Yang Muge wouldn't go up either, and would just defend in his own position.

But if Zhou Yi crossed the midfield line and entered Schalke 04's midfield, then he would be locked onto by Yang Muge, and it wouldn't be so easy to get rid of him.

In the fifth minute, Zhou Yi got the ball in the frontcourt and, just as he turned around, collided head-on with Yang Muge. The ball at his feet was also poked away by Yang Muge. Then both of them fell to the ground, but the referee Gagelmann didn't blow his whistle.

Yang Muge poked the ball out before he fell, completing a steal. The ball was poked to Draxler, allowing Schalke 04 to launch a counterattack.

Zhou Yi seemed helpless about Gagelmann's decision, but he also knew that this was the characteristic of the Ruhr derby. If there was no physical contact, how could it be called "Germany's most explosive derby"?

Yang Muge pulled him up, then ran away. The fact that he still remembered to pull him up was enough to show that Yang Muge was very humane. If it were someone else, they might have roared at Zhou Yi, accusing him of diving...

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Schalke 04 had indeed prepared very thoroughly for this game. Yang Muge's defense against Zhou Yi was just a microcosm of Schalke 04's defense in this game.

In response to Borussia Dortmund's attacking tactics, Schalke 04's coach Jens Keller's countermeasure was to press tirelessly, not just against Zhou Yi alone, but against everyone on Borussia Dortmund.

Even when Borussia Dortmund's players passed the ball back to goalkeeper Weidenfeller, either Farfán or Huntelaar, the starting forwards for Schalke 04 in this game, would go up to press, even if Weidenfeller could render their pressing useless with a long ball.

This level of pressing made it difficult for Borussia Dortmund's players.

Because this was the Ruhr derby, the pressing wasn't just simple pressing. It also included a lot of physical contact. This physical contact might be called a foul in ordinary games, but it was taken for granted in the Ruhr derby. If fouls were called, the game couldn't be played. So the referee Gagelmann's standards were relatively lenient, which ensured that the game could proceed smoothly, just like the ball between Yang Muge and Zhou Yi just now.

However, everything has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage of doing so was that it was not easy to control the tempers of both sides...

Of course, the Ruhr derby was known for being fiery, so this was quite normal.

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In the twelfth minute, Schalke 04 relied on their crazy pressing in the frontcourt to directly steal an opportunity from Borussia Dortmund's players.

Sven Bender was surrounded when he got the ball in the backcourt. In one second, he had no chance to pass the ball. He could only choose to protect the ball. If Schalke 04's players tried to steal the ball from him, there was a high probability that they would foul.

But when Höger came up and knocked him to the ground, then stole the ball, the referee Gagelmann didn't call a foul on Höger. Instead, he signaled for the game to continue.

After stealing the ball, Höger passed the ball to the overlapping fullback Atsuto Uchida. The Japanese international then passed the ball to the center, and Draxler, who had moved forward, shot the ball into Weidenfeller's goal.

"1:0!! Julian Draxler!!" Marcel Reif exclaimed. "Schalke 04 takes the lead!"

As the ball flew into Borussia Dortmund's goal, huge cheers rang out in the Veltins-Arena.

"Schalke 04 is in the lead, but I think the happiest people right now are probably not Schalke 04's fans, but Bayern Munich's fans!" The Chinese commentator Duan Xin joked. Then he laughed.

A lot of voices immediately appeared on the Chinese internet scolding him for being a Bayern Munich fan...

It was no secret that Duan Xin was a Bayern Munich fan. Everyone knew that.

And domestic Bayern Munich fans ridiculed those domestic Borussia Dortmund fans who scolded Duan Xin for being unable to afford to lose.

Fans of both sides were fighting on the Chinese internet.

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While the fans of both sides in China were fighting on the internet, the match between Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 was becoming increasingly intense.

Borussia Dortmund's players believed that Schalke 04's goal was born from a foul, so when Schalke 04's players celebrated the goal, they collectively protested to the referee Gagelmann. However, their protests were ineffective. Gagelmann did not deny the goal because of this.

So after the game started, the mentality of the trailing Borussia Dortmund players changed somewhat.

Their actions became bigger and bigger.

Schalke 04 naturally refused to be outdone, so the scene became more and more fiery.

In the twenty-third minute, Borussia Dortmund's fullback Piszczek received the first yellow card of the game. This was once again considered by Borussia Dortmund's players to be evidence that the referee Gagelmann was biased towards the home team Schalke 04—everyone is playing like this, why give a yellow card to our people and not give a yellow card to their people?

However, soon, in the twenty-eighth minute, Gagelmann also gave a yellow card to Schalke 04's forward Huntelaar, who had been too aggressive in a scramble, which was considered a balance.

But this kind of balance was of no help to this game and was meaningless...