The God of Football Starts With Passive Skills-Chapter 254 - 66: Magician Wang Shuo! When Wang Shuo Starts to Show Off! Wang Shuo: "Marco, Do You Want to Score Tonight?
But Wang Shuo felt that the Westfalen Stadium, packed with over 80,000 people, was a true fortress!
Nine minutes after his first goal, De De, on the left flank, sent a diagonal through ball. Wang Shuo used his explosive speed to burst through the Landes backline, getting to De De’s pass before anyone else and dinking it into the net.
The ball shot into the Landes goal at incredible speed.
3-0!
Wang Shuo had scored a brace!
The moment Wang Shuo turned and wheeled away in celebration, chants of "Wang Shuo" echoed throughout the entire Westfalen Stadium.
And just before the end of the first half, Wang Shuo seized another opportunity.
After dropping back to receive the ball, he turned and threaded a pass straight through the defense.
The ball split the two Landes center-backs perfectly.
Reus was absolutely stunned.
’My God, does Wang Shuo have eyes in the back of his head?’
’He was clearly running away from the goal, so how could he have possibly seen a passing lane like that behind him?’
But Reus ran onto Wang Shuo’s pass.
One touch, a shot, a goal!
The young Dortmund player once again sprinted off the pitch, running to the same section of the stands to celebrate.
By halftime, Dortmund was already leading Landes 4-0.
The aggregate score was now 8-0!
...
With the result all but decided, Klopp began making substitutions in the second half.
After all, on August 9th, Dortmund was set to play their first match of the new Bundesliga season.
It was a home game against the newly promoted Cologne.
This was undoubtedly a crucial showdown.
Players like Wang Shuo and Shahin were taken off one by one.
Players like Sven Bender and Valdes were brought on to replace them.
As Wang Shuo came off the pitch, Valdes courteously high-fived him.
At first, Valdes had been resentful of Wang Shuo for taking his starting spot and his number 9 jersey. Now, however, he was simply numb to it all.
He had sensed something was coming throughout the summer preparations—no, even before the summer training camp, when he heard that Wang Shuo had already been training on his own for some time.
During the training camp, Wang Shuo’s diligence, hard work, and the skill he demonstrated made Valdes feel utterly inadequate in comparison.
Just looking at his running stats from last season in the Bundesliga—an average of 12 kilometers per game—was something Valdes couldn’t even dream of matching.
From the preseason friendlies to the UEFA Europa League qualifying rounds, this series of matches made Valdes acutely aware of the enormous gap in ability between him and Wang Shuo.
Jealousy can only exist when the gap in ability isn’t too large, when one feels they still have a chance to mount a comeback.
But when he realized that as long as Wang Shuo remained fit and healthy, he stood absolutely no chance, his jealousy turned mostly to envy.
And then, despair.
Still, there was a silver lining: he found his life had become much easier.
At least he no longer spent his days feeling conflicted and anxious as he had at the start.
Besides, he figured that getting on good terms with Wang Shuo might become a great story to tell later in his career.
At the very least, he could say he was Wang Shuo’s substitute!
Another clear sign was that after Dortmund made its series of substitutions, the unstoppable attack from the first half came to a screeching halt in the second.
No matter how hard Valdes and the others tried, they always seemed to fall just short of scoring.
’Turns out the Danes weren’t as weak as I thought.’
In the end, Dortmund defeated Denmark’s Landes 4-0. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮
With an 8-0 aggregate score, they comfortably advanced to the fourth qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League.
That’s right, after the third round, there was still a fourth.
The first leg of the fourth round was scheduled for August 20th.
Dortmund would once again play the away leg first.
The opponent they drew this time was Lech Poznan from the Polish league.
The team had finished third in the Polish league last season and had also won their domestic cup.
In the previous season’s UEFA Cup, they had defeated established teams like Switzerland’s Grasshoppers and Austria Vienna. Despite being drawn into a group with Moscow Central Army, Deportivo La Coruña, Nancy, and Feyenoord, they still managed to advance in third place.
They were ultimately knocked out in the Round of 32, losing narrowly to Serie A’s Udinese after a 2-2 draw at home and a 2-1 loss away.
In the just-concluded Polish Super Cup, a goal from their striker, Lewandowski, secured them a 1-1 draw against the defending champions, Cracovia Wisła. They went on to win the Super Cup in the ensuing penalty shootout.
In other words, this was a very tricky opponent whose strength was by no means weak.
Although the UEFA Europa League didn’t offer much in prize money, the most important thing for Dortmund right now was to integrate the team and rebuild morale.
Even if it was just the UEFA Europa League, Klopp was determined to win it.
