Rushing Back and Forth, Exhaustion Showing

The Telekom Cup only had two matches, but they were scheduled very close together.

According to the schedule, after advancing to the next round, they would travel to face another opponent—Dortmund—the next day, on August 6th.

In the match against Hamburg, Dortmund secured a narrow 1-0 victory thanks to a goal from Lewandowski, advancing to the final and becoming Werder Bremen's opponent in the championship.

With time running tight, after defeating Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen had no choice but to immediately fly to Dortmund, the location of their next opponent.

By the time they got off the plane, took the bus, and arrived at the booked hotel, it was already 2:30 in the morning.

At that point, there were only 17 hours left until the match started.

"Hurry up, hurry up, everyone get to your rooms and sleep. We're gathering for training at 10:30 tomorrow morning!"

The coaches sent the players off to their rooms to sleep, leaving them with little time to rest.

If they didn't sleep well tonight, they probably wouldn't even have the strength to run when they hit the field tomorrow.

"What kind of crappy schedule is this? It's so tight, there's no time to rest at all!"

Coach Rolf couldn't help complaining after settling the players in.

"The Telekom Cup has always been like this, but it's really unfair to us!"

The home team, Dortmund, could rest on their laurels on their own turf, while Werder Bremen had to travel across half of Germany, exhausted from the journey. This would cause Werder Bremen immense difficulty, while their opponent faced no such problem.

But as an invited supporting act, just being able to participate in the tournament was already good enough, so they couldn't expect too much.

"Alright, everyone go rest. Keep yourselves in good shape—we've got a match to play tomorrow!"

Schaaf clapped his hands and sent everyone off.

As for himself, he opened his computer and started watching the earlier match between Hamburg and Dortmund.

As the team's Head Coach, facing the next opponent without doing some targeted research beforehand would be a bit irresponsible.

Dortmund's squad had some changes for the new season—they brought in a few people and let some players go.

Dortmund's biggest summer signing was spending 17.1 million euros to bring in Reus, a promising young talent from Borussia Mönchengladbach, to replace the Japanese midfielder Shinji Kagawa, who had been bought by Manchester United.

They also spent 5.5 million euros to take striker Sippel from Stuttgart.

Sippel was bought by Klopp as a backup, since their substitute striker Barrios had been sold to Chinese Super League club Guangzhou Evergrande for 8.5 million euros.

Although Barrios had performed well for Dortmund in the past, once the Pole Lewandowski established himself in the team and took over the starting spot, he rarely got playing time.

If Barrios had been willing to accept a backup role, it might have been fine.

But he didn't want to be a substitute, and his temper wasn't great either. With his potential mostly tapped out, keeping him on the team would have been a significant risk to the locker room.

So, when the Chinese Super League's big-spending club came knocking, Klopp didn't hesitate to sell him off for cash.

Overall, Dortmund's squad strength hadn't suffered too much damage that summer.

Although they lost starting midfielder Shinji Kagawa, the newcomer Reus had even greater potential. As long as he gelled with the team, he might one day surpass Kagawa's contributions to the club.

Unlike Bayern, Dortmund was a fiery, passionate young guard. Their style of play was unrestrained and explosive, stirring up a storm of youth on the Bundesliga Field.

Last season, riding that storm of youth, they had toppled the Bundesliga overlord Bayern Munich three times, taking both the league and cup titles and leaving Bayern completely helpless.

Facing an opponent that relied on pressing and aggressive running to play, Werder Bremen couldn't use the same tactics they had against Bayern.

Letting a young team like Dortmund swarm their goal was extremely dangerous, because once they got into a frenzy, even top Giant Clubs couldn't stop them!

So, what tactics should he use against them?

Schaaf rubbed his temples, thinking hard.

Maybe because they had beaten the mighty Bayern, many of the team's young players were feeling pretty excited.

Even though they had gone to bed early as the coaches instructed, they couldn't fall asleep for a long time.

By the time they finally dozed off, they had no idea what time it was.

The next morning at 10:30, it was time for the team to gather for training.

But less than half the players showed up on time, and most of those who did were veterans—the young players were almost completely absent.

"I'll go call them down!"

Seeing the Head Coach's expression darken, assistant coach Hennebach volunteered.

"Why not let them sleep a bit more? Let's train first!"

The fitness coach objected, arguing that waking the young players now would leave them under-rested and severely impact their performance in the evening match.

But Coach Schaaf nodded to Hennebach, signaling him to go get them.

"I'd rather lose this match than let these young guys think that in my team, I tolerate people who don't follow the rules!"

He had already delayed the team's gathering time, giving them plenty of rest.

It was their own fault for not managing their mindset, leading to oversleeping.

Of course, he bore some responsibility too—he hadn't guided the players' mental state in advance, calmed the young ones' emotions, or shared his experience with them.

But now, he couldn't just let the players break the rules without consequences. That would undermine his authority as Head Coach and even give the young players the wrong impression.

It seemed that breaking the team's rules wasn't such a big deal, since there were no consequences anyway.

If they really let that kind of mindset take hold, it wouldn't just affect the team's tactical planning down the line—it could even impact these young players' careers.

No team would want players who were undisciplined and didn't follow the rules.

Lin Quan and De Bruyne exchanged a glance, gaining a deeper understanding of their coach.

When Coach Schaaf was being reasonable, he wouldn't give you a hard time, but when it came to work, he had his own iron-fisted, ruthless side, with a strong sense of principle.

Sure enough, someone who could stay in the Head Coach position for so long was no pushover.

Since the players weren't all present, the morning training was simple.

Lin Quan had been practicing free kicks with De Bruyne lately—one working on powerful drives, the other on outside-of-the-foot curves.

De Bruyne's free kicks were already top-notch, but they lacked a bit of variety in front of the goal.

So, when facing experienced goalkeepers, his shots were easily saved.

That's why he planned to add some variation to his free kicks, something like the knuckleball Cristiano Ronaldo often used.

Let the ball drop suddenly halfway through its flight, catching the opponent off guard.

Mastering that wasn't easy—besides having enough power, you also needed to control the angle of the strike and the point of contact with the ball.

When kicking a knuckleball, you had to make the ball spin as little as possible, so the air resistance on the ball would be much greater than on a spinning one.

When a player kicked the ball hard, it gave it a very high initial speed, and when that initial speed exceeded the final speed, the Magnus effect became very noticeable.

The ball, at its highest point in flight, wouldn't drop like a normal parabola—it would suddenly plummet like an elevator.

That was the principle behind the knuckleball!

This principle was later confirmed by La Gazzetta dello Sport, which hired professional sports kinematics and mechanics experts to make precise calculations.

And according to the experts' formula, to achieve the knuckleball effect, the ball's initial speed had to exceed 100 kilometers per hour, which demanded immense power from the kicker.