Chapter Nineteen: Roar

At halftime, Pakourt made a few adjustments to the team. He pushed Shao Jiayi farther up the pitch and decided to switch the formation to last season's three-five-two, increasing control in midfield and giving the forwards greater support.

Pakourt had chosen to defend by attacking. He had finally understood.

In a city derby, you go at it head-on. No holding back. If they lost in an open fight, the fans might still forgive him. But if they retreated into their shell and drew, he would be cursed by the supporters.

The second half began quickly, with Bayern Munich kicking off first. This season, Bayern Munich's biggest flaw had been that they took far too long to get going.

"Munich 1860 have won back possession, and Bayern Munich still seem not to have found their rhythm."

Chen Nu's expression was rather gloomy. Since the latter half of last season, Bayern Munich had grown more and more unstable.

After several passes, Shao Jiayi laid the ball back to Thomas Hassler, who made a decisive long pass. The ball sailed beyond midfield, where Markus Schrott was waiting.

Sauer and Markus Schrott challenged for the header. Schrott flicked it on, sending the ball toward the center, where three or four players lifted their heads to judge the drop.

"Markus Schrott flicks it on! Link misjudges it! Momo!"

Lizarazu, Momo, and Link had been aligned side by side. Link jumped to contest the header, but misread it, and the ball fell to Momo's feet. Momo drove forward with the ball toward Bayern Munich's goal.

"What an appalling, unforgivable blunder!"

The fans of both teams roared from the stands. On the touchline, Hitzfeld's face grew dark. He could not understand why the old hands he had trusted again and again kept letting him down. But now was not the time to think about that.

Momo's acceleration was rapid. When Lizarazu and Link tried to close him down together, Momo slipped through their grasp as easily as a bar of soap, breaking free of the double team and charging on toward Bayern Munich's goal.

Kahn's expression did not change. His golden hair framed a face of stubborn steel, and just as Momo was about to enter the penalty area, he came surging out like a mighty lion.

Momo's eyes lit up. What a chance! He struck immediately, unleashing a powerful shot, but it could not beat Kahn's outstretched fingers. Kahn got a hand to it and pushed it away.

"Momo shoots! Kahn! Kahn keeps it out! There's still a chance! Momo!"

Kahn had not held onto the ball. It rebounded back toward Momo, and by then Link and Lizarazu had arrived, but Momo still got the inside of his left foot to it.

"Brilliant! Momo gets a shot away under pressure from Lizarazu and Link!"

The ball skidded along the ground, curling past Kahn. Everyone watched its path, but in the end it brushed the post and rolled wide.

Momo looked disappointed. The second goal—so close, and now gone. But Pakourt's eyes lit up. Momo's ability to seize opportunities seemed to have sharpened again.

"What a pity. Momo failed to take that chance, but he has already done more than enough. Bayern Munich will restart with a goal kick."

The match then became locked in a tense stalemate for a while, but one thing was certain: Bayern Munich's tempo grew ever quicker. The situation on the pitch gradually returned to the pattern of the first half, and Munich 1860 were once again being pinned back.

Pakourt's face showed concern. With all the running and movement, the Munich 1860 players were beginning to run out of stamina.

"Pizarro! Pizarro takes the ball and drives forward!"

At the sixty-second minute, Bayern Munich found their opening. In this match, Pizarro had been outstanding, and Munich 1860's back line seemed to exist almost not at all for him.

"Pizarro shoots! Simon Jentsch!!!"

Momo looked toward Munich 1860's back line and, for reasons he could not quite explain, felt a sudden heaviness. He sensed that Munich 1860 lacked passion.

At 1860, all he had heard was talk of surviving relegation, of not going down, of keeping results steady. Coach Pakourt had not even mentioned the word championship once. Yes, never once. It seemed even Pakourt had never imagined his team could win the title.

Whether in cup matches or in the league, when they lost, they remained unmoved; when they won, they remained unmoved. All of it came not from steadiness or composure, but from numbness.

There had once been moments when Munich 1860 burned with passion. They had led the table at the halfway point many times. They had Martin Max, a late bloomer who won the Bundesliga scoring title twice after turning thirty.

And yet even then, Munich 1860 never won the championship, and achieved nothing in the cup either. Partly because the club, under financial pressure, sold them off, and partly because they had seen through the fickleness of human relations and felt no attachment to the club.

"Pizarro! Pizarro has put Bayern Munich back in front! Two to one!"

Looking at the Munich 1860 supporters in the stands, their faces full of sorrow, looking at the Bayern Munich fans, feverish and exultant, and then at his teammates on the pitch, whose eyes showed almost no reaction at all, Momo suddenly found himself thinking of the conviction he had held at the very beginning.

If a match cannot be won, then it does not matter how many goals you concede.

"Give me the ball."

Momo said this to every teammate who came near him: Shao Jiayi, Markus Schrott, Thomas Hassler.

He longed for victory. He longed for goals. He refused to accept defeat. Come then. If no one was willing to carry Munich 1860 with him, then he would carry them alone.

"Momo seems to be dropping deeper now. He's constantly asking for the ball."

By then everyone had noticed it. Momo seemed to have become fired up all at once. Since the kickoff from the center spot, he had been trying to break through on his own, single-handedly.

In the end, Bayern Munich still managed to stop him, but Momo had also become a thorn lodged in their hearts.

It was like walking a night road with a chill wind always blowing at your back, or like a knife suspended overhead, swaying back and forth, never knowing when it would fall.

"Shao Jiayi carries the ball down the flank and breaks forward. Momo is waiting for support in the distance. Shao Jiayi slides it through, and Momo has the ball."

The first to connect with Momo, to find real understanding with him, was Shao Jiayi. Both of them wanted to attack, and in this situation, the two were perfectly in step.

Momo controlled the ball at his feet and began a suicidal charge toward Bayern Munich's goal.

Coach, do you still not understand how Munich 1860 are going to play? Four-four-two? Four-four-one-one? Three-five-two?

Forget defense. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack is the best defense.