Chapter 1 After Returning Home

After Zhou Yi returned to China, he and his national teammates trained at the Chongming Island training base in Shanghai. A week later, they would depart from here for Tokyo, Japan, to challenge the Japanese national team.

Upon returning to the national team, Zhou Yi was welcomed by his teammates. Although young, he commanded great prestige within the team. This prestige wasn't earned through colluding with team leaders or coaches, forming cliques, or playing power games. Instead, it was earned through his performance in training and matches.

And this performance wasn't just his performance at Borussia Dortmund. To be honest, the Zhou Yi of Borussia Dortmund was quite distant from the national team players. How he performed at a foreign club didn't necessarily determine his status in the national team.

If a player performs like a god in their club, but becomes a weakling once they join the national team, failing to step up when needed, how could such a player earn the trust of their teammates? Even if the head coach supports them, it would likely cause a backlash from the other players.

So Zhou Yi truly conquered everyone with his performance in the national team, earning everyone's trust.

Everyone knew that although he was young, he was someone they could rely on at any time.

In last year's Asian Cup, if it weren't for him, the Chinese team wouldn't have even had a chance of advancing from the group stage, let alone reaching the finals.

Similarly, in this year's Olympics, the Chinese team would definitely not have won that precious gold medal if it weren't for him.

The other young players from the national Olympic team who had just joined the national team didn't enjoy the same treatment as Zhou Yi. Although the older players of the national team also welcomed their arrival, that welcome was more out of politeness, a bit different from their heartfelt affection for Zhou Yi.

The national Olympic team winning the gold medal at the Olympics was the pride of Chinese football, but their resumes in the national team were still blank, needing to prove that they were worthy of this collective. Before training and competing with them, many people in the national team probably looked at them with suspicion, though they wouldn't directly show it.

Not to mention that these people were here to take the places of the veterans. Anyone who could truly open their hearts and unconditionally accept them would truly be a paragon of morality.

But one can't say that there was a phenomenon of seniority within the national team because of this. This wasn't about seniority, but about ability. If these newcomers performed exceptionally well in both training and matches after joining, the national team players would also accept them, just like they accepted Zhou Yi back then. When Zhou Yi first came to the national team, many people were also sizing him up with curious and suspicious eyes, but Zhou Yi only needed one training session to conquer everyone...

At the Chongming Island training base, everyone was immersed in preparing for the training camp against the Japanese team. In addition to training on the field, the coaching staff also showed the players videos of Japan's recent matches to understand and analyze their opponents.

There were many reporters covering the Chinese team's training. After all, this was the first time the Chinese team had participated in the Top Ten qualifiers after missing the past two World Cup qualifiers. After being spectators for eight years, they were now personally playing the game, which naturally stirred the hearts of fans across the country.

The media covering the Chinese team's training hoped to see traces of the Chinese team's tactics and lineup against the Japanese team during training.

But unfortunately, each training session of the Chinese team was only open to the media reporters for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was basically just some unimportant warm-up training or shooting practice, not involving any tactical content.

Internal teaching matches were also completely closed, impossible to see. To prevent reporters from spying, Gao Hongbo even required the staff of the training base to surround the training field with curtains to prevent reporters from peeking.

With such strict precautions, the information that reporters could obtain was pitifully small. No wonder the Chinese media wasn't particularly friendly to Gao Hongbo—he really didn't know how to take care of the reporters' feelings. This setup wasn't just to prevent the leakage of military secrets; it was practically treating them like thieves.

But also because of such tight defense, neither the Chinese nor the Japanese reporters could obtain more information about the Chinese team. In that Chinese team challenging the Japanese team on their home turf, would the starting lineup be greatly changed from the previous two matches? Would all the newly recruited national Olympic team players start?

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After the training camp in Shanghai ended, the Chinese team set off for Japan. At the airport, many fans came to see them off.

In fact, in this group, the Chinese team, with two wins in two matches, was in a good situation, ranking second in the group with six points. Ranking first in the group was Japan, with two wins and one draw, totaling seven points, but the key was that Japan had played one more game than them and only had one more point than them.

As long as the Chinese team didn't lose to the Japanese team away, they would have completed the mission.

After waving goodbye to the fans seeing them off at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the entire Chinese team took a plane to Tokyo Narita International Airport.

Here, they took a bus to the hotel where they were staying and began preparing for the match two days later.

In this match day, the Chinese team only had one match, so they had relatively more time to prepare. Just the training camp in China alone lasted a week, which was rare considering how European leagues squeeze in national team match days.

The news of the Chinese team's arrival in Japan also became a highly anticipated piece of news in Japan.

At Narita Airport and in front of the hotel where they were staying, the Chinese players saw not Chinese reporters, but... Japanese reporters!

This shows how much attention Japan was paying to this match.

In the recently concluded Olympics, the Chinese national Olympic team defeated the Japanese team in the final to win the gold medal. This craze hasn't passed yet.

In China, some media claimed that they wanted to avenge the defeat in last year's Asian Cup final. At the same time, in Japan, some media were also clamoring to avenge the defeat in the Olympic final.

Both sides felt that the other was an enemy and had a score to settle. How could this match not attract attention?

In Japan, the most popular Chinese player was Zhou Yi, because he had been teammates with Kagawa Shinji for two years at Borussia Dortmund, and the two had a good relationship on and off the field. Japanese reporters knew this. When he was at Borussia Dortmund, Zhou Yi would also accept interviews from Japanese reporters, so he and some Japanese reporters were old acquaintances.

In the eyes of Japanese media reporters and Japanese fans, Zhou Yi was the most familiar Chinese player to them. Wherever there was an interview, he was surrounded by the most people.

Of course, Japanese reporters would also use honorifics when facing Zhou Yi, a treatment that other Chinese players didn't enjoy.

Although both sides were already at odds before the match, Zhou Yi was quite courteous to his Japanese opponents.

"The Japanese team is a top-tier team in Asia, and we still have a certain gap with them. This time, we're also playing away... the situation is unfavorable for us. But we will do our best." Zhou Yi spoke particularly humbly and modestly. If he hadn't just led the national Olympic team to defeat the Japanese team in the Olympic final, many people might have truly believed that the Chinese team was facing great difficulties on their away game.

But now, no one believed that Zhou Yi and his Chinese team were really that harmless.

Kagawa Shinji was the name that the Japanese side mentioned the most to Zhou Yi.

"This match will be the first time you and Kagawa have faced each other on the field as opponents. Zhou-san, what are your expectations for this showdown?"

"I hope everyone can perform at their best," Zhou Yi said.

"Have you and Kagawa privately discussed this match?"

"No, he's at Manchester United now, and we don't have many opportunities to communicate privately."

"Kagawa said he's looking forward to playing against Zhou-san."

"I'm also looking forward to playing against him, after all, we've never faced each other as opponents before."

"Then can you predict the outcome of this match?"

Zhou Yi shook his head: "Football is round, predicting the outcome is a meaningless thing. All we can do is give it our all on the field. As for the result, don't think too much about it before the match."

The Japanese media had good comments on Zhou Yi's performance when facing Japanese reporters—he was neither arrogant nor humble, and the confidence that naturally radiated from him, rather than being forced, showed that he was someone who had truly seen big occasions.

The Japanese media also believed that after Hidetoshi Nakata, Asia had produced another truly world-class player—they didn't think Park Ji-sung was a world-class player, perhaps due to Japanese football's hostility and prejudice towards Korean football.

Whether their evaluation of Hidetoshi Nakata was too high is also debatable.

However, the Japanese media's evaluation of Zhou Yi made the Chinese media and fans feel quite good—being recognized and respected by the enemy proves that Zhou Yi's strength and charm are outstanding.