They pressed hard in the midfield, but not by pushing forward blindly. Instead, they focused on keeping their formation compact.
The goal was to ensure that whenever the ball reached the feet of players like Harvey, Iniesta, and Messi in the midfield, there were enough players around to immediately swarm them.
At the very least, they had to be forced to move the ball to the wings or even pass it back.
And once the ball was on the wings, that was where Dortmund's defense excelled, using the sideline to pressure their opponents.
For the first three-plus minutes, the ball was almost entirely under Barça's control.
Even when Dortmund managed to win the ball back, they would lose it almost immediately, completely unable to maintain possession.
Then, in the fourth minute, Wang Shuo suddenly dropped back from the attack, ran to the left of the center circle, and raised his hand to call for the ball.
