Chapter 164 The Price of Victory
After Zhou Yi took the lead for Dortmund, the game started again. Leverkusen, who was behind in the score, was certainly unwilling to lose to Dortmund away.
Before this game, Leverkusen ranked second with 34 points, while Dortmund ranked third with 32 points.
If Dortmund wins this game, they will surpass Leverkusen with one point and become second in the league again.
When Leverkusen came to the away game, he took advantage of Dortmund's poor recent situation and defeated them on the away game, widening the gap to five points.
Although Leverkusen has fewer individuals, Dortmund has also fewer individuals. Therefore, there is no gap in numbers between the two sides, which gives Leverkusen the courage to equalize the score.
If Dortmund had one more person, when Leverkusen counterattacked desperately, he would have to think about whether they were at a disadvantage with a small number of people, would they be attacked by Leverkusen, who was a large number of people?
Now both sides have the same number of people, so there is no need to say that there is a disadvantage or advantage.
Klopp also responded quickly. When Dortmund players celebrated the goal, he had already grabbed one of the nearest players on the court and asked him to pass the latest instructions to others - shrink the defense and fight back.
At the same time, he is still preparing to use the third substitution.
Mkhitaryan is warming up.
There is no technical and tactical adjustment or significance in this substitution. It is purely to delay time.
However, the person he wants to replace with Mkhitaryan is not Zhou Yi. Zhou Yi can control the rhythm on the court, and he is not useless in defense.
When Zhou Yi scored a penalty, it was the 87th minute of the game.
There is actually not much time left before the game ends.
When the fourth official raised the five-minute sign of injury time on the sidelines, a booed sound from West** Stadium. Dortmund fans obviously thought the injury time was too much. What if Leverkusen equalized the score in these five minutes?
In the 91st minute, Klopp used up the last substitution.
He replaced forward Mark Wagner with Mkhitaryan.
Mark, who was replaced, did not trot all the way, but slowly walked off the field, which aroused dissatisfaction among the Leverkusen players on the field. Some people wanted to come up and "help" Mark go faster, but was pushed back by Mark.
This time, the players on both sides quickly gathered together again.
However, this time, the "resentment" of Dortmund players is more like a disguise to conceal their true purpose.
The real purpose is of course to delay the game.
Since the referee gave five minutes of injury stop time, use other things to make these five minutes too fast. Although the referee will also make the time-lapse incidents that are delayed during injury stop time, generally speaking, there are fewer stoppage time, and it is just overwhelming.
Moreover, this is Dortmund's home court, and the referee must not ignore the home court factors.
Marcel Leif said: "Leverkusen's players are too impulsive... At this time, taking the initiative to push Mark is simply providing ammunition to Dortmund... Now Dortmund can waste some time openly..."
Leverkusen's head coach Hepia stood on the sidelines, spreading his hands, not knowing whether he was helpless about his players' insolence or dissatisfied with Dortmund's shamelessness.
Finally, one minute later, the conflict between the players of both sides ended. In fact, Dortmund restrained a lot of this conflict, which can also be seen as a proof of Dortmund's intentional delay of time. Although it seems unhappy about the Leverkusen player's approach, the Dortmund players just surrounded him and shouted with their mouths and did not get started. This is different from the conflict caused by Zhou Yi being tackled in the penalty area.
Mark received a yellow card because he pushed the opponent's player with his backhand, but he did not have a yellow card before, so it doesn't matter even if he carries a yellow card now. He helped the team to waste some more time and his mission has been completed.
Looking at this messy scene, Marcel Leif shook his head and said: "No matter what the final result is, this game has had a great impact on both teams. It can be said that both sides are hurt. They fought so fiercely in this league, which makes people worry about how much energy and state they can put into next week's Champions League match..."
If both teams were eliminated in the Champions League group stage due to the two and three places in this league, Marcel Leif really couldn't tell whether it was worth it...
Of course, outsiders can also consider this issue, but the two teams Dortmund and Leverkusen who are in it are not qualified to consider this issue.
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After Mkhitaryan came on the court, the result of this game was actually almost fixed.
The conflict caused by Mark when he left the court seemed to have consumed the temper and fighting spirit of Leverkusen's players. In the next few minutes, although Leverkusen also shot several times, it did not pose any threat to the goal guarded by Weidenfeller.
When the referee blew the whistle at the end of the game, boos and cheers rang out at the West** Stadium.
The cheers were of course given to the victory, but the booing was dissatisfaction with the referee.
For this victory, Dortmund paid the price of two main players being injured and Yan Min was sent off by a red card, not to mention that many players received yellow cards.
In the eyes of Dortmund fans, these are completely avoidable. From the beginning of the game, Leverkusen showed very strong aggressiveness, and they all acted very much. If the referee can strictly enforce the law and curb Leverkusen's tendency, the intensity of the game will be reduced. Perhaps Sven Bend and Shahin will not be injured, Zhou Yi will not be tackled by the opponent in the penalty area, and Yan Min will not be sent off by a red card for trying to stand out for him...
The most important thing is that if Leverkusen doesn't play like this, it wouldn't be so difficult for Dortmund, who is playing at home, to win the game.
Dortmund fans were dissatisfied, and Leverkusen's players and coaches were also dissatisfied with the result.
They still think that Zhou Yi was a fake fall in the penalty area. He deceived the referee, resulting in Dortmund's unjust profits, and Spasic was sent off for this.
At the last moment, Dortmund's intentional delay in time also annoyed them, thinking that Dortmund was too despicable.
And these will become topics of debate after the game. Although the game is over, the topics caused by the game are far from over.
After the game, Zhou Yi was pulled to the mixed zone by reporters for interview. What everyone wants to know most is whether he fell in the penalty area was a fake fall.
Faced with this problem, Zhou Yi took off his sneakers and socks, and then asked everyone to see a red spot above his right heel.
"This was kicked by Spasic. You can't just think it's not a foul because my leg is not broken now. This is very unfair, right?"
Faced with the evidence presented by Zhou Yi, the reporters put the camera and camera lenses up and took pictures of this scene.
Then a Chinese reporter asked Zhou Yi what he thought of Yan Min’s red card.
"What do you think? I don't want to evaluate the referee of this game." Although Zhou Yi said this, everyone could still feel some dissatisfaction from his tone. "It is certainly a bad behavior to get a red card in the game, but I think no one will complain about him leaving the team with one person missing in the locker room, including me. Yan Min's performance was excellent in this game, and this red card was also part of his outstanding performance."
A German reporter asked: "You fought so fiercely in the game against Leverkusen, and Sven Bend and Shahin were injured. Will this affect the key qualifying for the Champions League group stage in the next mid-week? Do you think it is worth it to win the game at such a price?"
"I don't know if it's worth it. But when we are in this game, of course we consider this game. In addition, I don't actually think this will have any adverse impact on our next Champions League matches, and we will qualify from this group."
After saying that, Zhou Yi waved his hand and stopped accepting interviews and left the mixed area.
Although he won the game, he was not very happy judging from his expression.
This made the words he said before not so credible.
Will there be no adverse impact on the next Champions League group stage?
Sven Bend and Shahin, the two main midfielders, were injured. Dortmund's only midfielder who can be used now is veteran Sebastian Kyle.
How could it be affected?
I don’t know what the injuries of Sven Bend and Shahin are. Is it a serious injury or a minor injury?
Anyway, after both of them got off the field, they were directly pulled to the hospital for examination and treatment. From this point of view, it is probably not a minor injury that can return after a few days of rest.
The two main players were injured, which is the reason why Zhou Yi was in a bad mood?
On the other side, at the post-match press conference, Klopp was also worried about this: "Yes, we won the game. But I don't want to think about this now..."
Why don’t you want to think about it? No one asks him, because you will inevitably get an answer that everyone knows.
Because Dortmund actually lost two main players in one game!
Sometimes, it makes people feel that just using "bad luck" cannot describe Dortmund...
Chapter completed!