Mark Lawrenson's analysis made sense. No one could guarantee that every touch of the ball would be accurate under ninety minutes of high pressure. Only God, not humans, could do that.

So as long as the Japanese team continued to be so strong, forcing the Chinese team to make mistakes, they would be able to score another goal.

Another goal, and a two-goal lead meant that the Japanese team would have victory within their grasp.

Falling behind by two goals in the Olympic final and still wanting to come back was underestimating the Japanese team.

While the Japanese team swarmed around the other Chinese players, Zhou Yi still had a "shadow" in Hotaru Yamaguchi by his side.

Yamaguchi was still following Zhou Yi closely, not changing his approach because the team had slowed down the pace.

How close were he and Zhou Yi?

A television broadcast shot perfectly illustrated this - in a no-ball situation, Zhou Yi stood on the field, looking like he was all alone, but when he took a step to the left, Hotaru Yamaguchi, hidden behind him, was revealed...

"Hotaru Yamaguchi is practically Zhou Yi's shadow warrior!" the commentator on Japanese television exclaimed. "I think Zhou Yi will definitely be deeply impressed by Hotaru Yamaguchi, because there are so few people who can defend him to this extent!"

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The Japanese team's pressing did create some gaps in their defense, but the Chinese team's current state meant that playing fast breaks and counterattacks would only increase the error rate.

And the Japanese team certainly wanted the Chinese team to speed up their attack and rhythm, so that they would have more opportunities to counterattack with more mistakes.

They wanted to win in the chaos!

And what Zhou Yi had to do was very simple, and that was to go against them and slow down their rhythm.

When the ball was passed to his feet, he didn't rush to pass it forward, but passed it back or sideways.

Not only was Zhou Yi not in a hurry to pass forward, but what made the uninformed spectators feel very curious and interesting was that the Chinese National Olympic team's performance was very unified. All eleven people seemed to be one person, with a high degree of ideological consistency.

They could only understand that Zhou Yi was really the brain of this team, and how well this team cooperated with Zhou Yi.

Every time the Chinese team got the ball, they had to pass it around in their own half for a long time before kicking the ball forward - of course, they couldn't keep passing the ball in their own half all the time, otherwise they would eventually pass it further and further back, until they reached a dead end. The Japanese team certainly knew that the Chinese team was doing this to slow down the pace, and they would not allow the Chinese team to get their way. So when the Chinese team passed the ball back and forth, they swarmed even more frantically, hoping to snatch the ball from the feet of the Chinese players, and then launch a counterattack directly, just like the first goal.

Although the audience was frightened, the National Olympic team players, who had been re-inspired by Zhou Yi, performed very calmly. Because they had confidence in themselves. Since the Chinese National Olympic team determined Zhou Yi as the core before embarking on the Olympic Games, the entire team's passing and controlling ability had been strengthened. Before the Olympic Games, everyone mainly practiced passing and receiving the ball, practicing like they were practicing basic skills. Blazevic came up with many tricks to increase the fun of training, so that everyone kept practicing.

Finally, in the match against the South Korean team, they demonstrated the results of their training.

And now, it was another opportunity to show the results.

The Japanese players kept running and grabbing, hoping to snatch the ball.

But the Chinese team passed the ball further and further back, and even goalkeeper Sun Pan joined the ranks of passing the ball.

It was actually a very dangerous move for the goalkeeper to participate in passing the ball, because if the opponent could directly steal the ball from the goalkeeper's feet, then it would be directly facing an empty goal, and any kick would go in. At that time, the probability of not scoring would be much smaller than the probability of scoring!

So when the Chinese defenders passed the ball back to Sun Pan, Japanese forward Kensuke Nagai also rushed into the penalty area.

Japan pressed their formation further and further forward, compressing the space for the Chinese team to control the ball in the backcourt bit by bit.

This was frightening, for fear that the ball would reach the feet of a Chinese player and lose control... Especially when it reached Zhang Jiadong's feet, everyone's hearts would involuntarily clench. Not that Zhang Jiadong was bad, but they were worried that losing the ball would have some impact on his psychology, and these effects would be reflected in his actions.

Someone complained on Weibo that the Chinese team was "playing with fire."

He Ping put it more vividly: "The Chinese team has been walking on a tightrope for this period of time! Of course, we can understand why they are doing this, to slow down the Japanese team's speed, to disrupt their rhythm. But it's still worrying that they will fall off the tightrope..."

Mark Lawrenson initially had the same idea as He Ping, but as a third-party neutral commentator, he suddenly felt that this scene of the Chinese team looked a bit familiar.

Familiar to what?

Familiar to Dortmund.

Under Zhou Yi's leadership, Dortmund passed the ball back and forth in the midfield and backcourt, waiting for their opponents to press up, and when there was enough space behind them, they would suddenly launch a counterattack!

This was a kind of offensive routine for Zhou Yi's Dortmund.

Did the Chinese National Olympic team want to do the same?

Thinking of this, Mark Lawrenson leaned forward to look at the field, because he was sitting high up in the commentary box, he could see the whole picture of the field. He could see the positions and running routes of the Chinese and Japanese players on the field clearly.

Now it was the Chinese team in control of the ball, and the ball was being passed back and forth between the Chinese players wearing red jerseys. The red and blue players were constantly changing positions according to different situations. But these changes in position were not completely without rules, but had a most basic reason - and that was the position of the ball.

The ball was constantly changing position on the field, and it also drove the players of both sides to change their positions without understanding.

Wherever the ball was, that place would relatively concentrate more players from both sides. The ball was not only the focus of the vision of the spectators, but also the focus of the actions of the players.

So can it be said that the ball controlled the running and attention of the players of both sides?

But the ball would not run and fly around on the field by itself. Someone had to kick it, and the person who kicked the ball would not just swing a kick at random, but would inevitably have a purpose.

So it was people who controlled the ball...

Thinking of this, a thought suddenly and uncontrollably popped into Mark Lawrenson's mind, forcing him to widen his eyes and continue to stare at the field, even forgetting to commentate. So the audience watching this final through the BBC experienced a few minutes of inexplicably uncommentated match, and some people even thought there was something wrong with their TV...

And at this time, Mark Lawrenson was staring at the field. He didn't need to be too deliberate to see that the ball was always frequently passed to Zhou Yi. This was also a characteristic of Zhou Yi's play. No matter what position he was in, the ball would always converge from all directions, be processed by him, and then be passed to various places. He was like a central processing unit.

The positioning of Zhou Yi's role was actually a topic that didn't need much discussion. There were many names for him in the media now, such as "Dortmund's Brain," "Midfield Commander," "Command Tower," "Pivot"...

But at this moment, when Mark Lawrenson saw Zhou Yi constantly passing the ball back and forth, and then the players of both sides running back and forth, he had a new interpretation of Zhou Yi's role - he looked at the scene on the field and felt like he was watching a chess game. The players on the field were like chess pieces, being manipulated to act according to the chess player's ideas.

But the chess player was not two people, but only one, and that was... Zhou Yi!

The commentator sitting high up in the live commentary box could examine the whole situation from God's perspective, including the audience watching TV could also watch the game from God's perspective through the camera position. Everyone was used to this viewing mode.

But if you think about it carefully, there was a player on the field who could also look down on the field from the air like them, and know every player's actions like the back of his hand... This was very strange.

Mark Lawrenson felt that it was normal for him to watch the game from God's perspective, but when he thought that Zhou Yi could also compete from God's perspective like himself, he felt it was incredible.

How was this possible? How could a person jump out of his dimension to observe himself? This feeling was like having an out-of-body experience.

But apart from that, there seemed to be no better explanation.

And this explanation could also make Mark Lawrenson understand why Zhou Yi had such a terrifying vision and control over the overall situation - because he was not a chess piece, he was a chess player!

In Mark Lawrenson's opinion, when Zhou Yi was leading the entire Chinese team in passing the ball back and forth in the backcourt, he was also constantly observing and probing the Japanese team's reaction. If they showed their vigilance against the Chinese team playing a counterattack against them, then everything would stop there. When the Chinese team controlled the ball again, they would continue to pass the ball back and forth, but they would not rush to play forward.

After Mark Lawrenson figured this out, the more he looked at Zhou Yi playing football, the more he felt that this young man was terrible. In the passionate football match, he was calmly like an international chess player... No, he heard that Easterners liked to play Go, he was like those calm Go players.

Calmly observing the situation, manipulating the chess pieces in his hand... He was playing football in this incredible way!