At the Westfalen Stadium, seeing Hunemayer's pass miss, Lu Wenbin rushed towards the ball. Tens of thousands of Dortmund fans booed loudly, trying to interfere with Lu Wenbin.
However, Lu Wenbin ignored the noise in the stands, his eyes were only on football.
Amedik had no time to blame Hunemayer and also hurriedly chased the ball, trying to destroy it.
Lu Wenbin and Amedik chased each other towards the football, but Lu Wenbin took advantage of his position and got the ball first.
Then, with just a light move, Lu Wenbin entered the penalty area with the ball.
After entering the penalty area, in addition to Amedik next to him, Hunemayer who made a mistake also rushed towards Lu Wenbin.
And goalkeeper Ziegler also blocked the near corner with his claws and teeth.
But Lu Wenbin is confident in his 18/18 shooting attributes.
Without waiting for Hunemeier to arrive or Amedik to disrupt the attack, Lu Wenbin raised his foot and prepared to shoot.
He aimed at the far corner.
As long as this ball goes in, Hoffenheim will be able to reverse the situation and defeat Dortmund, and Dortmund will not even have a chance to equalize the score.
However, just as Lu Wenbin raised his foot and had not yet kicked the football, he suddenly lost his balance and fell into the penalty area: Amedik behind him tackled Lu Wenbin from behind in desperation.
The referee, who saw Amedik commit a foul from behind not far away, blew the whistle without hesitation and pointed to the penalty spot: penalty.
Then, he reached into his butt pocket and pulled out a red card, ready to show it to Amedik who had just gotten up from the ground.
In an instant, Dortmund's penalty area became a powder keg. Dortmund's players immediately surrounded the referee and excitedly defended their teammates:
"NO, NO, NO, Amedik did not commit a foul, this is a good ball!"
"Amedik tackled the ball first, this is not a foul!"
"Sir, Amedik shouldn't have received a red card, and this penalty shouldn't have existed!"
The Dortmund fans in the stands were also instantly excited, with boos, curses, "black whistle" and so on, overwhelming, as if they wanted to swallow up the referee.
However, the referee insisted on his decision, showed Amedik a red card expressionlessly, signaled him to leave the field, and began to threaten the Dortmund players around him:
"I am sure that Amedik tackled Lu from behind and knocked him down first before he tackled the ball. This is a foul in the penalty area that deserves a red card and a penalty. You don't need to say anything more. If anyone questions it again, I will take action!"
Helplessly, Dortmund's players could only disperse cursing, and Amedik could only spread his hands, expressing his dissatisfaction with the penalty, and then walked off the field obediently.
On the other side, Lu Wenbin rolled on the ground twice and stood up with the help of his teammate Ibisevic.
"Lu, how are you, can you take the penalty?" Eduardo asked.
Seitz, Copado, Gustavo and others also surrounded Lu Wenbin and looked at him nervously.
According to the arrangement of head coach Ralf Rangnick, when a penalty kick occurs on the field, the first penalty taker is captain Salihovic.
But Salihovic was not on the court in this game, and the second free throw taker was Lu Wenbin.
Lu Wenbin's shooting skills have been proven in the previous five games and this game. None of his teammates dares to say that they are more confident than Lu Wenbin.
Moreover, judging from Lu Wenbin's performance in recent games, Lu Wenbin seems to be a big-game player. The more important the game, the better his performance. I believe Lu Wenbin will not miss the 12-yard shot.
It would have been best if Lu Wenbin had not been injured and could have taken the penalty kick.
Lu Wenbin did not give in. He stretched his legs and moved them a bit, then nodded and said, "No problem!"
Eduardo patted Lu Wenbin on the shoulder and said, "It's up to you!"
Other teammates also came up to pat Lu Wenbin on the shoulder or head, and everything was said without words.
This is a penalty kick that decides the fate of both teams.
Originally, Amedik committed the foul in the 93rd minute. Combined with the time the referee took to issue a card and drive away the Dortmund players, the regular game time was basically over after the penalty kick.
If Lu Wenbin had scored the penalty, Hoffenheim, as a second-tier team, would have scored two goals in the stoppage time to reverse the score to 4-3 and defeat Dortmund, advancing to the semi-finals of the German Cup.
If they can't even score the penalty, it will be a big blow to Hoffenheim's morale and the variables in the overtime phase will be too great.
Everyone knows this, including all the Dortmund fans in the stands.
When Lu Wenbin found the ball and walked towards the penalty spot with the ball in his arms, there was a barrage of boos and shouts from the stands, accompanied by racist insults from some excited extreme fans.
"Good luck jerk off, little brat!"
"Ziegler and Westfalen's goal posts will keep your penalty kick out!"
"Come on, yellow monkey, kick it to the stands!"
"Chinaman, you can't kick it in!"
Through the net, Lu Wenbin could vaguely see the faces of the ferocious Dortmund fans in the stands behind the goal.
Lu Wenbin knew the intentions of these Dortmund fans. They just wanted to interfere with him and prevent him from scoring this goal.
But Lu Wenbin has confidence in the system and he has a psychological advantage over any opponent.
Since his shooting attribute is 18/18, then as long as he doesn't do anything stupid, he will basically be safe from a penalty kick as close as 12 yards.
Lu Wenbin placed the ball on the penalty spot and checked if there was anything abnormal around the penalty spot to avoid kicking the ball into a small mound of dirt or slipping, etc.
After seeing that there was nothing unusual, Lu Wenbin stepped back and prepared to take the free throw.
The other players of Hoffenheim and Dortmund stood outside the penalty area, ready to rush into the penalty area to grab the second point.
The referee stood on the side and after confirming that no one had rushed into the penalty area early, he blew the whistle to allow Lu Wenbin to take the free throw.
Then, Lu Wenbin started to run.
Ziegler half-crouched on the goal line, trying to tell from Lu Wenbin's run-up and eyes that Lu Wenbin wanted to shoot that side.
But he was disappointed.
Lu Wenbin didn't look at the goal or him at all, but stared at the football.
After taking a few steps, Lu Wenbin stood on his left foot and kicked the football with the instep of his right foot.
Before Lu Wenbin kicked the football, Ziegler, who was unable to guess from Lu Wenbin's actions which side he was going to shoot, could only try his luck and dive to the left.
Ziegler was lucky, he guessed the right direction.
However, Lu Wenbin's 18/18 shooting attribute allowed him to take a free kick without any interference, which was really accurate.
The football slipped along the grass and went into the lower left corner of the goal in front of Ziegler's palm as he flew over to save the ball.