After defeating Frankfurt, Wolfsburg received good news and bad news.
The bad news was that Dortmund and Schalke, who were ahead of them, both won their matches!
However, the good news was that fifth-placed Leverkusen was surprisingly held to a draw at home by relegation-threatened Braunschweig!
As a result, Wolfsburg opened up a three-point lead over Leverkusen!
It's worth noting that there are still six rounds left in the Bundesliga.
Not to mention a three-point difference, even a one-point difference is enough to cause people to sigh in despair.
Sometimes, a single point can determine whether a team plays in the Champions League or the Europa League, whether it enters heaven or falls into hell.
This also involves tens of millions of euros in prize money!
Tens of millions of euros is a huge sum for most Bundesliga clubs whose financial situation is not affluent.
It can even support a newly promoted Bundesliga team for three years of operating costs!
For Mark Lane, Champions League prize money, operating costs, none of it concerned him.
As a player, his goal this season was very clear.
It was to help Wolfsburg secure a Champions League spot while achieving his individual season goals!
The Champions League is the highest level of competition on this planet.
It is also one of the highest stages every professional player dreams of.
Even for many superstars who may never set foot on a World Cup pitch in their lives, the Champions League is their World Cup!
Shevchenko once said something similar!
Therefore, Mark Lane naturally hoped that he could help the team qualify for next season's Champions League, stand on the highly anticipated Champions League stage, and compete with other powerhouse clubs and superstar players.
If Wolfsburg can advance to next season's Champions League, they will certainly make extensive signings to improve the team's squad strength and depth.
It's important to remember that Wolfsburg, backed by the Volkswagen Group, is very wealthy!
This way, with the team's strength enhanced, the possibility of overthrowing Bayern's dominance next season will also be higher.
Of course, Mark Lane was not worried that the arrival of new players would affect his playing time and status in the team.
On the contrary, he very much enjoyed healthy competition with his teammates, as it would motivate him to become stronger!
Stronger than me?
Only temporarily.
Given time, he could surpass any player!
Moreover, the stronger his teammates, the stronger the team, and the greater the chance of competing for championship trophies.
After all, football is not a one-person sport... As the Bundesliga entered April, major media outlets began various promotions for the final scramble for the top four in the League.
Many media outlets offered their predictions on which three teams would qualify for next season's Champions League.
Bild predicted that Dortmund, Schalke, and Wolfsburg would make it into the top four;
Kicker predicted that Dortmund, Wolfsburg, and Leverkusen would secure Champions League tickets;
Süddeutsche Zeitung predicted Dortmund, Schalke, and Leverkusen... With Wolfsburg's strong momentum, many media outlets cast their votes for this factory team backed by the Volkswagen Group.
Many media outlets mentioned Mark Lane's excellent performance as a rising star for Wolfsburg, highlighting it as one of the key reasons why Wolfsburg has consistently remained in the top four since the winter break.
In matches where he scored or assisted, he helped Wolfsburg earn many points, with a winning rate of seventy percent!
It's worth noting that as his fame grew and popularity soared, Mark Lane's social media followers had already surpassed one hundred thousand.
Along with his adoring fans, this also attracted many media outlets with ulterior motives.
For example, the Munich-based Münchener Merkur was the first to sing a different tune from those media outlets praising Mark Lane:
"Mark Lane recently completed his tenth appearance in the Bundesliga."
"This eighteen-year-old Wolfsburg youngster was promoted from the youth team to the first team during the winter break, and in just three short months, he made his Bundesliga debut, his first Bundesliga start, scored his first Bundesliga goal, and was named to the Bundesliga Team of the Week. His rise in speed rivals that of the former Dortmund prodigy Mario Götze! Some media even call him the new Reus, Germany's Ronaldinho..."
"However, after analysis by our professional football team, while he may be excellent, he has many shortcomings."
"He is too physically slight, and too slow. While he can dribble on the wing, he can't fully shake off opponents. In the middle, he lacks physicality and gets knocked off the ball by opponents..."
"His only truly impressive quality is his flashy footwork."
"This is only Mark Lane's first Bundesliga season, and other teams haven't studied this young player much. By next season, he will certainly expose his weaknesses and fade away..."
"Based on his technical characteristics, we project his future development model to be Tomáš Rosický..."
However, not everyone deliberately ignored Mark Lane's stunning performance.
For example, Borussia Dortmund fans.
Perhaps due to the moniker "new Reus," or perhaps the long-standing rivalry between Dortmund and Bayern, Dortmund fans had a rather favorable impression of Mark Lane.
After this report was published, many Dortmund fans flocked to the newspaper's official social media account comment section to leave messages:
"What's wrong with Rosický? Is my Dortmund legend that bad?!"
"You Munich idiots, you only praise your so-called talents from the youth academy. Mark Lane completely crushes them!"
"Mark Lane has already achieved double-digit goals and assists in the Bundesliga, while your youth academy players are sitting on the bench handing out water..."
"Guardiola even thinks he's talented. Do you brain-dead people know more about football than Guardiola?!"
It's worth mentioning that Mark Lane scored five goals and provided six assists in just ten Bundesliga matches!
These impressive statistics also made him the youngest player in the Bundesliga to achieve 5+5 goals and assists at 18 years and 190 days old.
At the same time, he also surpassed Mario Götze to become the youngest player in the Bundesliga to achieve double-digit goal contributions in a single season!
Therefore, Münchener Merkur's blatant disparaging report was directly met with boycott and outrage from Wolfsburg fans and fans of many other teams.
If Mark Lane was really that bad, wouldn't the Bundesliga teams that lost to him and Wolfsburg be even worse?!
This widespread criticism also caused Münchener Merkur's official website to be flooded with too many visitors, forcing it to shut down its servers for rectification.
After the rectification, they quickly removed the report, acting as if nothing had happened.
Of course, Mark Lane was completely unaware of this incident.
Because he was in Berlin participating in a commercial endorsement event for Rexona!
Of course, he was accompanied by the fitness influencer Pamela.
This was also the first time the two had met again after more than a week.
However, the young man and woman, who had already grown closer through texts and video calls, did not feel much awkwardness.
"Hi, Pamela, we meet again..."
"Yes..."
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