Chapter 316: Chapter 75: Golden Ball Award Ranking! The Fourth Superstar of World Football! The Making of a Legend! The Shock from China

"We’re short on players for the left flank right now."

Wang Shuo nodded, showing he understood.

The veteran Van der Heyden hadn’t been heavily used during the Klopp era, and under Tuchel, he had lost his place entirely.

Marco Rose was still a very capable player.

After meeting with his former teammates, Wang Shuo truly felt the new face of Mainz.

Although Mainz earned 20 million euros from selling Wang Shuo, their total spending in the transfer market was less than 1 million euros.

"The club has too many things to take care of. For example, the youth academy needs to be expanded, the first team’s facilities need to be improved and updated, and a lot of the youth teams’ buses have to be replaced..."

As Tuchel spoke, he spread his hands.

’Twenty million euros?’

It sounded like a lot, but after accounting for installment payments, the first deposit was only about 5 million euros.

’How much could that really accomplish?’

A single bus from Mann cost several hundred thousand euros, and a high-spec model would be well over that.

Bayern’s custom model was said to cost as much as 800,000 euros.

’How many of those could you buy?’

"By the way, Heidel asked me to tell you to come back and visit more often when you have time."

Wang Shuo nodded in agreement.

He didn’t bring up Zhao Yifan with Tuchel.

Because he knew that with Tuchel’s personality, if he didn’t mention it, Tuchel would provide assistance where he could.

Bringing it up would only be counterproductive.

...

Dortmund defeated Mainz 1-0.

At home, Bayern drew 1-1 with Bayer Leverkusen.

Van Gaal’s team remained in 9th place in the league.

The two goals were scored in the 6th and 14th minutes, respectively.

In this round of matches, Hamburg lost 0-1 to Bochum at home.

The most eye-catching match of the round was Werder Bremen’s 6-0 demolition of Freiburg away from home.

Meanwhile, Hoffenheim thrashed Cologne 4-0 away.

With this victory, Rangnick’s team surpassed Hamburg in the league standings, rising directly to 4th place.

Backed by a powerful financial consortium, Hoffenheim had been making consecutive high-level investments.

This season, for example, they had once again invested 15 million euros.

In the Bundesliga, this was already considered a fairly impressive level of spending.

And this was reflected in Hoffenheim’s league position, as well as the team’s fighting strength on the pitch.

Bundesliga Matchday 14 featured Dortmund challenging Hoffenheim away from home.

Just two minutes after kickoff, Wang Shuo assisted Kuba for a goal.

But at the start of the second half, Hoffenheim launched a counterattack, and in the 48th minute, Demba Ba scored the equalizer for Hoffenheim.

Neither side was able to score again after that.

Immediately after the match, Bild published a commentary arguing that although Wang Shuo only had one assist, he was still the most threatening player on the field.

"He single-handedly drew three yellow cards from Hoffenheim’s defense!"

But in the end, Dortmund failed to secure all three points away from home.

In the same round, Bayer Leverkusen thrashed Stuttgart 4-0 at home, thanks to a hat-trick from Kiesling.

Bayern, meanwhile, secured a complete 3-0 victory over Hannover 96 away.

Mainz drew 1-1 with Hamburg at home.

Dortmund continued to lead the table with 33 points.

Bayer Leverkusen was second with 30 points.

However, with the three points from this round, Bayern shot up directly to 5th place.

...

Midweek, Dortmund welcomed Vienna Rapid for the fifth round of the UEFA Europa League group stage at home.

Since the team had already qualified as the group leader, Klopp adopted a rotation strategy.

But given that it was a home game, Wang Shuo and other key players were on the bench.

After a hard-fought first half, neither side managed to score.

The most ridiculous part was that Vienna Rapid had received four yellow cards in the first half alone.

Players like Reus and Götze all performed exceptionally well.

After play resumed in the second half, Reus received a brilliant pass from Götze and broke into the left side of the penalty area to open the scoring for Dortmund.

Just six minutes later, Schmelzer assisted Valdes for a goal from the left flank.

In the end, Dortmund achieved a resounding 2-0 victory over Vienna Rapid at home.

...

The day after the UEFA Europa League group stage match, as announced well in advance, France Football Magazine was set to gradually release the rankings of the 30-man shortlist for the 2009 European Golden Ball Award on its official website.

After training, Wang Shuo and his Dortmund teammates all gathered in the lounge, waiting for the final list to be announced.

But unexpectedly...

"No way! It crashed?"

They tried to open the official France Football Magazine website on the lounge computer, but all they got was a 502 error.

This was ridiculous!

"Is this year’s Golden Ball getting an unusual amount of attention? This has never happened before. What’s going on?"

"There’s nothing that special about this year, is there? Isn’t it a sure thing that Messi will win?"

"The only suspense was what the editor-in-chief of France Football Magazine said before—that it wouldn’t be a surprise if Barça swept the top three."

"That still shouldn’t be enough to cause this."

"Yeah, for it to crash like this is crazy."

"No, if you want to talk about what’s special this year, it’s definitely the addition of our Wang Shuo," Foyelner chimed in.

When it mattered, he still looked out for his buddy.

Everyone thought about it, and it seemed plausible.

’But do I really have that kind of influence?’

Wang Shuo himself had his doubts.

He recalled seeing many fans on Chinese sports forums discussing the event the day before.

’Could it be that the fans from China are all trying to access the France Football Magazine website?’

’If that’s really the case, then it’s time for Europe to feel the shockwave from China!’

The France Football Magazine website had crashed, but the media outlets in Germany were unaffected.