In the second half, after Lu Wenbin, who posed the greatest threat, was not on the field, the home team St. Pauli launched a fierce counterattack amid the cheers of the fans.
They scored two goals in the second half and ended the game with a score of 3-3, ending Hoffenheim's winning streak after the winter break.
However, Hoffenheim players' hearts were all on the next German Cup final, and it was an away game, so it's no wonder that they were equalized by their opponents.
Therefore, after the game, Ralph did not blame anyone, but just waited in the locker room with everyone for the result of another game that started at the same time.
A few minutes later, the result of Borussia Mönchengladbach's away game against Jena came out, which was surprising but also made Hoffenheim's players and coaches feel relieved.
Facing Jena, which was second from the bottom in the Bundesliga and had been beaten 5-1 by Hoffenheim in the German Cup semi-finals, Borussia Mönchengladbach failed to win the game away from home and was tied 2-2 by Jena.
In this way, Hoffenheim can continue to rank first in the Bundesliga standings with the advantage of goal difference over Borussia Mönchengladbach, and everyone can go to the German Cup final with peace of mind.
In the match against St. Pauli, because the team did not win, Lu Wenbin only received a reward of 1 assist 500 + 2 goals 2000 points, a total of 2500 experience points.
Fortunately, Lu Wenbin gained enough experience from the previous games and the German Cup semi-finals.
Although he only received 2500 reward points in this game, combined with the previous experience, his experience also rose to level 11 51212/50000, exceeding the experience required for upgrading.
After the experience exceeded the upgrade line, the system automatically upgraded, and Lu Wenbin's level experience became level 12 1212/100,000, and he received an upgrade reward of 10 skill points.
Now, Lu Wenbin can add three more attribute points before the German Cup.
After Lu Wenbin has been established as the team's first core and offensive finisher, it is obvious that Lu Wenbin needs stronger off-ball running ability so that he can more easily receive passes from his teammates in open spaces and create shooting opportunities.
In previous games, although Lu Wenbin had several shooting opportunities in every game, in fact, because Lu Wenbin's off-ball running attribute was too low, many more frontcourt opportunities created by his teammates were wasted, and the ball was not received by Lu Wenbin.
If it weren't for Lu Wenbin's high shooting accuracy, in fact, Lu Wenbin's ability to create shooting opportunities in every game would not be qualified to be an offensive terminator.
Therefore, this is also the benefit of Lu Wenbin raising his shooting attribute to the full value of 20/20: as long as he is given the opportunity to shoot, he has a high probability of scoring a goal.
This is why the head coach is willing to promote him to the core, and why his teammates are willing to serve him and provide him with ammunition.
Because everyone knows that as long as Lu Wenbin is given a chance to shoot, he has a great chance of sending the ball into the opponent's goal, and it will rarely be wasted.
However, other forwards including Ibisevic, Obasi and Demba Ba cannot do this. Their shooting accuracy is much worse than that of Lu Wenbin.
Even though those forwards are better at running without the ball than Lu Wenbin and have more shooting opportunities than Lu Wenbin, they are more likely to shoot in vain and score fewer goals than Lu Wenbin.
Therefore, with the full shooting attribute, Lu Wenbin needs to make more off-ball runs to receive passes from his teammates.
Therefore, Lu Wenbin made a quick decision and used 9 skill points to upgrade his 10/10 off-ball running to 13/13, and the remaining 1 skill point was stored there for future use.
The effect of adding points to system skills is immediate.
The day after the match with St. Pauli, Hoffenheim conducted their last training session before the German Cup final.
We just played a game and now have to prepare for the German Cup final. We don’t have time to take a break, so the intensity of this training is not very high, just to let everyone maintain physical condition.
However, during this ordinary training, Lu Wenbin's ability to find gaps and create shooting opportunities surprised the coaches and teammates on the team.
The maximum value of each attribute is only 20 points, and each increase will bring about a significant change, let alone adding 3 points at once.
After Lu Wenbin added 3 points of off-ball running, his ability to find open space to receive the ball in training suddenly improved a lot, and he also got a lot more shooting opportunities.
This surprised the coach and teammates, but also gave them more confidence and expectations for the German Cup.
Although outside media commented that it was natural for Hoffenheim to lose to Bayern Munich and suffer their first defeat after the winter break, how could Hoffenheim's coach and players admit defeat in advance
Now that we have reached the finals, who would be content with just being the runner-up before the finals even begin
Even facing the Bundesliga champion Bayern Munich, Hoffenheim wants to give it a try.
The team's core player Lu Wenbin's off-ball running ability suddenly increased significantly before the game. Although the reason was unknown, Hoffenheim's coaches and players were naturally very happy.
You know, Bayern Munich's defense is not as good as the opponents Hoffenheim faced in the Bundesliga.
With Lu Wenbin's previous ability to run without the ball, it was a bit difficult for him to get a chance to receive the ball and shoot in Bayern Munich's penalty area.
Fortunately, for some unknown reason, Lu Wenbin's ability to run without the ball has greatly improved, so everyone is much more confident about the German Cup final.
Although we don’t know whether we can beat Bayern, everyone is much more confident that Lu Wenbin will score in the final.
As long as there are goals, there is a possibility of defeating the opponent.
…
On April 18, the day before the final, the Hoffenheim team drove to Frankfurt and then flew to the capital Berlin: the annual German Football Association Cup final is held at the Berlin Olympic Stadium.
The German Cup was almost ignored before the final, and even the German local media did not report much.
But when it came to the finals, not only the media in Germany, but also many media in Europe and the world paid attention to it, and sent reporters and commentators to report on the scene. There were dozens of countries that broadcast the game live.
After all, this is a cup championship in one of Europe's top leagues.
Therefore, when the Hoffenheim team came out of Berlin Airport, they were surrounded and interviewed by a large group of reporters in the airport lobby.
Except for head coach Ralf Rangnick, no one else had ever seen so many reporters interviewing and filming together. The flash lights almost blinded the eyes of Lu Wenbin and others.
In addition to German journalists, these journalists also come from Britain, France, Spain, Italy, China, and Brazil, and can be said to be spread all over the world.