Chapter 301 Bad Leagues
The Champions League game has been completed, and now everyone is looking at the league again.
Everyone was staring at the respective matches of Dortmund and Bayern Munich in the league.
The league champion did not decide the outcome, nothing was possible.
In the 32nd round of the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich faces Werder Bremen at home, while Dortmund challenges Leverkusen away.
In the last round of the league, Dortmund's opponent was Mainz, ranked seventh in the league. Mainz wanted to compete for the European competition qualification, and there was a reason to fight with Dortmund.
In this round of the league, Leverkusen also has the reason to fight with Dortmund.
As of the 31st round of the league, Leverkusen ranked fourth with 54 points, four points away from Schalke 04, the third in the league. It is not that there is no possibility of catching up with Schalke 04.
But their most pressing thing now is not to chase Schalke 04, but to prevent being caught up by Wolfsburg.
Wolfsburg, fifth in the league, has 53 points, just one point away from Leverkusen.
But the fourth and fifth leagues in the league are completely different worlds - the fourth league can participate in the UEFA Champions League qualifiers next season, and after passing the qualifiers, you can participate in the Champions League main competition. At that time, at least six group games can be played, with a lot of bonuses to play and win. This is one of the very important fiscal revenue for the Bundesliga clubs that are financially healthy.
The fifth place in the league can only participate in the Europa League. Whether it is the appearance fee, game bonus and broadcast fee sharing, it is a big difference from the Champions League. Losing the Champions League qualification and playing the Europa League means that the fiscal revenue will be reduced by a lot next season.
No team wants this to happen.
So Leverkusen doesn't care much about Schalke 04 now, they are more concerned about the results of Wolfsburg's game.
In order not to let Wolfsburg catch up with them, Leverkusen of course has to fight Dortmund in the next league. Moreover, this is still at their own home court, with a home advantage.
As long as they can beat Dortmund, no matter what Wolfsburg plays, Leverkusen can breathe a sigh of relief.
In this round of the league, Wolfsburg faces Freiburg at home. The latter ranked 13th in the league. In theory, there is still pressure to relegate, but in fact, there is no need to consider relegation. So it can be said that it is almost a desireless person.
Wolfsburg is likely to beat Freiburg at home.
Under such circumstances, Leverkusen must defeat Dortmund at home.
Dortmund, who just finished the Champions League, won it not easy when he didn't face such a Leverkusen away.
Not to mention, they spent a lot of physical fitness in the Champions League game - that tactic is very effective against Atletico Madrid, but it also has a great impact on physical fitness. After playing this game, whether Dortmund can still play against Leverkusen with the full main lineup will have to be a question mark.
※※※
Dortmund last time played against Leverkusen in the league, but it was a very fierce game.
There were also controversies after the game.
It was the most difficult time for Dortmund, ranking third in the league, while Leverkusen ranked above them - second in the league.
The two sides played very stalemate and fiercely in the game.
Sven Bend and Shahin left the game one after another after another. It was the time when Dortmund was at its worst. The injury of the players one after another made many people think that Dortmund was cursed.
During the game, Leverkusen's Korean star Son Heung-min also performed very well, helping Leverkusen to score the first record.
But later Zhou Yi equalized the score.
At the last moment of the game, Zhou Yi was tackled by Leverkusen defender Spasic in the penalty area, winning a penalty for Dortmund, but it also caused a conflict between the players of both sides.
Yan Min was sent off for accumulating yellow cards in this conflict, and Spaşic was also sent off for a foul on Zhou Yi.
Both sides paid a heavy price.
Zhou Yi personally took the penalty kick he received, helping Dortmund complete the reversal.
In the end, Dortmund paid the price of two injuries at home and one of them being sent off, and finally defeated Leverkusen with a score of 2:1.
After the game, Leverkusen was very dissatisfied with losing to Dortmund. They believed that Zhou Yi fell in the penalty area and was a fake fall. If there were no such fake fall, Dortmund would not have won the penalty kick and would not have won the game.
Dortmund was naturally very unhappy because for this victory, they injured two players and Yan Mi was sent off with a red card.
The gunpowder smells strong between the two sides.
Now, after half a season, the two sides met again, and the smell of gunpowder remained unabated.
Leverkusen wants to keep his fourth place in the league, while Dortmund wants to keep his first place in the league. Neither side can afford to lose or draw.
※※※
Before the game started, the verbal battle between the media between the two sides had already begun. Leverkusen media took the lead and brought out historical results to cheer the team up: "...The two sides fought 69 times in the history of the Bundesliga. Dortmund had only a slight advantage in 26 wins, nineteen draws and twenty-four losses. The advantage was very, very weak and almost negligible. Moreover, when we face Dortmund at home, we had historical results advantages - seventeen wins, nine draws and eight losses, and we had an absolute advantage..."
Leverkusen media talks about the historical results, and Dortmund is naturally not to be outdone. Dortmund's media also brought out historical records: "...... Moving out long-standing historical results cannot explain any problem, because more than ten years ago, the players in both sides are not a group of people now, and the result of their confrontation is no reference value. If you want to compare, compare the results of the same group of players - since Klopp coached Dortmund in 2008, the "Hornets" have never lost to Leverkusen away... The last time Dortmund lost away here was on May 19, 2007, when the team's head coach was still Door, and Dortmund lost 1:2. In the next seven years, Dortmund has remained unbeaten when he was away from Leverkusen six times, with three wins and three draws..."
The Dortmund media's counterattack was more powerful. After all, what they showed was the results of the current Dortmund players fighting Leverkusen, which was even more convincing.
In addition, for Dortmund's striker Mark Wagner, he still has hope to compete for the Bundesliga scorer.
So far this season, he has scored seventeen league goals, only one goal behind Lewandowski, who currently ranks first in the league scorer list.
This is not only a showdown between Mark and Lewandowski, but also a contest between Dortmund and Bayern Munich.
The competition between these two people is very interesting. During the Dortmund period, Lewandowski played a substitute for Mark, and Mark also played a substitute for Lewandowski. There has always been a competitive relationship.
Later, Lewandowski transferred to Bayern Munich, and Mark became the team's main striker again and took on the important task of seizing the team's cities and villages.
Lewandowski, who transferred to Bayern Munich, was in very good shape and quickly squeezed Mandzukic to the bench.
When both of them were in the same team, the competition was not very explicit and fierce. Now they can show this sense of competition unscrupulously.
For Mark, he has never been the honor of the Bundesliga small cannon, and Lewandowski has accomplished this goal at Dortmund - last season, his last season at Dortmund. With Zhou Yi's continuous feeding, Lewandowski beat Leverkusen's Kislin with 26 goals and became the best scorer in the Bundesliga.
Mark scored seventeen league goals in his best season and was finally ranked third in the league scorer list.
At the same time, seventeen league goals were also Mark's best results in his career.
After scoring seventeen goals that time and winning third place in the scorer list, Mark was seriously injured and was scrapped next season. Then his main striker position was occupied by Lewandowski, and Mark was also caught in the repetition of injury and injury... he could no longer regain his position as the main striker until Lewandowski left Dortmund last summer and switched to Bayern Munich.
This season, Mark has escaped the injuries that have plagued him for a long time, performed stably, and found his outstanding form when he won the Bundesliga rookie king that year. He has scored seventeen goals, tying his best career result.
Now there are three rounds left before the end of the league, and he still has the opportunity to refresh this result.
Chapter completed!