Under-17 head coach Eckel is rewatching footage of the youth team match between Borussia Dortmund and Fortuna Dusseldorf. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Zhou Yi's performance was perfect, except that he didn't score.

But then again, does he care about one or two goals with such a performance?

Zhou Yi's positioning is the playmaker of the midfield, and the passing organization is his job, scoring goals?

That's not in his aptitude assessment program.

However, Zhou Yi's performance was so good that it didn't surprise Ekerl too much.

Because he has watched Zhou Yi's performance, it was the Chinese teenager's match against Dortmund Youth Team, and Zhou Yi's series of performances after starting the game impressed him deeply.

So when he learned that Jurgen Klopp had gone to Barcelona to sign the kid, he wasn't surprised at all.

He was even happy that it was Dortmund who finally signed Zhou Yi.

This warm-up match just proved that Zhou Yi's physical fitness can play for the Dortmund U17 youth team.

The person who really surprised Eckel was not Zhou Yi, but ...... Mark Wagner.

The man who was always a substitute in the youth team and couldn't even get into the squad didn't expect to score a hat-trick in the game.

It has been said that scoring goals is not the only measure of a player's performance.

But for strikers, especially centre-forwards, scoring goals is the only measure against them.

A striker who can't score goals may be excellent in other aspects, and everyone will still think that this striker is a little uninteresting.

But a striker, even if his performance in other aspects is average, but he can score goals, then everyone will think that he is an excellent striker.

For a long time, in the youth team, Eccer did not feel that this Mark Wagner had any qualities to be a good striker.

His physical fitness is not good enough, and his individual ability is not outstanding.

If you have to find an advantage, it may be comprehensive.

Looks like it can do anything.

But in fact, it is just mediocrity across the board.

Ecker has always been unoptimistic about Mark Wagner's future, believing that the kid is unfit for the Borussia Dortmund first team and will not be able to secure a professional contract at Borussia Dortmund.

His best result would be to change teams and see if he could play in the second division.

His future will not belong to Dortmund anyway.

But after this game, Ecker had a different opinion.

If this isn't a sign of Mark's accidental hits, then ...... Ecker is about to reassess Mark's future.

As long as Mark can continue to perform like this and continue to play, it is still too early for the first team to be in the first team, but at least he should be able to make the Under-19s.

Perhaps the biggest discovery of the game was Marc Wagner.

So why did Mark behave the way he did?

Eker doesn't find it difficult to guess this, it's very simple, it's because of Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yike lives in Mark's house, and the tacit understanding between the two is guaranteed.

In the game, in addition to three assists, Zhou Yi also sent passes to Mark many times.

He gives Mark far more passes than he gives to his other teammates.

This conscious cooperation made Eckel think of something more.

He began to wonder if it was possible to fix this combination in the team.

Since Zhou Yi and Mark have a more tacit cooperation, why not make them a pair?

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During the team's offensive training, Mark Wagner was placed in a group with Zhou Yi.

At first, no one took this move seriously, and they didn't think there was anything to worry about the coach's arrangement.

But when Mark and Zhou Yi were put in a group for every offensive training, everyone finally came back to their senses - the coach deliberately arranged it, just to take advantage of the tacit understanding between Zhou Yi and Mark.

However, there is no objection to the coach's arrangement.

Mark's performance in the last game was all in the eyes of everyone. Being able to score a hat-trick shows that he is in good shape and is valued by the coach.

This arrangement is also a great encouragement and affirmation for Mark, which makes Mark full of confidence in the next training. Recognition from the coach was even more positive for him than a hat-trick in the game.

Mark also played a very important role in the team in the warm-up games that followed.

Sometimes it's a starter, sometimes it's a substitute. Because it was a warm-up game, the significance of the starting substitute was not important.

The key is performance in the game.

Eckel also tested it and separated Zhou Yi from Mark, and found that Mark's performance was completely different when he partnered with Zhou Yi and when he didn't partner Zhou Yi.

When he was present at the same time as Zhou Yi, he was like a fish in water.

But when Zhou Yi was not on the court, he looked very helpless.

But is this Mark's problem?

On closer inspection, Eker came to the conclusion that it was a problem with the rest of Dortmund's players.

After these warm-up games, Ecker found that Mark is actually a striker who is very good at finding open positions, he is not strong enough and his speed is not good, so if he wants to have a chance to shoot in the penalty area, it is best to be able to catch the ball in the open space.

If he can't do that, it's hard for him to score.

Finding space near the penalty area was instinctive for Mark.

When Zhou Yi was on the field, Mark found an empty time, and Zhou Yi also found a vacancy, passing the football over, and Mark could form a chance to shoot.

But if Zhou Yi is not there, then even if Mark finds a vacancy, his teammates may not be able to deliver the football in time. It's not that the other Dortmund players can't find a vacancy and can't pass it, but in this regard, Zhou Yi moves faster than all of them.

This is known as reading the game one to two seconds faster than the average player.

Zidane is an expert in this regard, and he once said that he is only one or two seconds shorter than others can read the game.

But it's that one to two seconds that can make the difference between an average role player and a world-class master.

Since Zhou Yi and Mark cooperate better than other teammates, what reason is there to break them up?

Maybe we can create a golden pair of Dortmund U17 pairs?

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The winter break in the Bundesliga is over, but the youth league has not yet begun.

This is because there are fewer teams participating in the youth league.

The most recent youth team match was not played until the end of February.

German football has a well-developed youth league with both the U17 and U19 divisions.

And it's national in nature.

However, there was no such thing before 2002. In 2002, in order to increase the development of young players, the German Football Association decided to establish a national youth football league.

The league is divided into three divisions: northeast, west and south according to the geographical location of each region.

Borussia Dortmund's U17 is in the Western Conference and is currently fifth, not too good, but not bad. At their best, they finished second in the league, behind their arch-rivals Schalke 04U17.

Later, after Götze, Schneider and others were transferred to the first team and the Under-19s, the team's results began to decline, with ups and downs.

By the time of the winter break, it was in fifth place.

Schalke 04U17 is in first place.

There are a total of 14 teams participating in the Western Division, which are basically youth teams from various professional clubs.

Compared to senior team competitions, youth team competitions are not so formal and relatively casual.

For example, you can often see an unfamiliar face in a match, and the next time you play again, that person is gone. He may have been drawn from the lower youth team on an impromptu basis and went back after this game.

There is also a player who always performs in the U17 team, who is valued by the U19 or U23, or even by the first team, and who rides a triple jump like a rocket, and goes directly to the first team to participate in the game, and naturally he will not be seen in the youth team competition.

This is the case with Gotze, for example.

Although he is not very old, only 16 years old, it is difficult for him to improve his quality at the U17 level. At this time, it is normal to go to a higher team to challenge a more difficult opponent.

On days when there are no official competitions, the youth team mainly relies on warm-up matches and friendly matches with various youth teams to maintain the state of the game.

In those games, Mark has already secured his starting position with his excellent performances.

After five games in which he scored his first hat-trick, Mark scored again, and of course all three goals were assisted by Zhou Yi.

By the time the final warm-up game was over, Mark had handed in a report card that everyone was looking at – he had scored eighteen goals in seven warm-up games and was the team's top scorer of that time.

In Mark, everyone seems to see the story of "the ugly duckling turns into a swan".

Before the winter break, he was still a 10,000-year-old substitute who was difficult to even get into the game squad, but now he has become the team's most relied on offensive firepower.

Many people can't understand at first why such a huge change has happened to Mark, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as "earth-shaking".

Later, they realized that it was all because of Zhou Yi.

Marc was a mediocre player who was good for nothing before Zhou Yi came to the team, and although he was able to move from Under-9 to Under-17 at Borussia Dortmund, Under-17 was the pinnacle of what he did with all his might.

It is impossible to go any further.

No one is optimistic about Mark's future.

But when Zhou Yi came to the team, someone was finally able to discover the hidden sparkle in Mark and inspire it.

That's when Mark was given a new lease of life.

If Borussia Dortmund didn't have Zhou Yi in the youth team, Mark would continue to sink like this until he finally left the team.

When the time comes, no one will know that they have missed out on a qualified professional player.

That's the risk in football, maybe a lot of young people who leave football for various reasons, not because they don't have enough ability, it's just that they lack the right person who can inspire them.

Compared to them, Mark is undoubtedly lucky.