八字万年历

Chapter 372: The Race for Trophies X

The game soon resumed and the time slowly passed as the two teams played attacking football and tried to find another goal to light up the game.

#85th minute…

Time was slowly running out in the game, and it was already almost guaranteed that Oporto would win the game with them being so much in the driver’s seat, but they were still constantly striving to add to their tally.

Jason was especially putting a lot of pressure on the opposition defense as he ran at them whenever he got the ball and he almost always got through every time, but so far, they had just barely managed to hold on.

However, they couldn’t keep this up for long as Jason finally found the opportunity he was looking for while making a run down the right flank.

He nutmegged the first defender that came at him before making a clever body feint to the left before going right and escaping the second defender.

Despite escaping the defender, he had changed his direction which gave the Nacional goalkeeper time to rush out at him just as he stepped into the penalty box.

Seeing the goalkeeper coming at him, Jason waited until the goalkeeper was close enough before sending a chipped shot over him and at the goal.

The ball flew high and seemed like it would not enter the goal, but Jason who had made the shot knew where the ball was going, and just like he expected the ball began dipping towards the top left corner of the goal, but just when the ball was about to go in, Jason saw Mylo running at the ball and lunging at it with his head.

Just before the ball made it past the goalline, Mylo headed it and sent it into the back of the net before he crashed back down to the ground as well.

{GOAL!!!}

{He’s made it a hat-trick!}

{The initial chip shot looked like it wasn’t going in, but he made sure that it was and he’s got a hat-trick because of it} The commentator shouted Mylo’s praises while Mylo himself took off in jubilation, but Jason had to fight a frown from appearing on his face.

‘This thieving bastard,’ Jason thought in annoyance as he watched Mylo doing an extravagant celebration after stealing his goal.

This wasn’t even the first time in the match as Mylo had done the same with the goal before this.

It was almost like he was watching and waiting to steal any goal opportunities that surfaced.

Normally this was a good quality for a striker, but when it was Jason’s goals that were being stolen, Jason found it hard to accept it and just go with it.

He had just barely managed to regain enough focus to play better and after squeezing himself out, someone had crashed in, pushed him aside, and stolen the reward for all his efforts.

Jason didn’t even feel like joining the other guys in celebration and just began heading back to their half of the field, shaking his head tiredly, but before he even reached the other half of the field, he saw the assistant referee holding up the board with his number glaring at him in red.

‘…’ even in his mind, he had nothing to say and just began walking off the field, dapping Corona as he stepped off the field.

The manager patted him on the back as he walked by and headed for the bench.

Jason dapped the other guys on the bench as he sat down nodding at their comments, but not saying a word.

He silently watched the game till the referee blew the final whistle.

Jason glanced at the final scores on the scoreboard as he stood up from the bench.

*Oporto 5 : 0 Nacional*

{The final whistle has been blown, and Oporto have won!}

{They’ve left no room for doubt and have put out an undeniably good performance in this game which should leave their opponents in their coming game scared for the days to come!}

{After this, Oporto will be going against Benfica for the Candido de Oliveira cup, and with the form they have displayed in this match, their fans will have a lot to look forward to with their hopes high}

******

***23rd December 2020***

The Oporto team bus arrived at the Estadio Aveiro de Municipal for the long-awaited Candido de Oliveira Cup.

The Oporto player’s confident arrival at the stadium was fully covered by reporters who did not let a single second pass by without a shutter clicking.

After the players entered the stadium, they were led to their locker room where they quickly changed into training gear and headed out to the pitch for pre-match training.

The players did their warm-ups and began doing some light drills to warm up and prepare for the upcoming game.

On the other half of the field, the Benfica players were doing the same thing to prepare for the game.

After about half an hour, the players headed back to the locker room for the pre-match tactical meeting.

“We’ll be using our 4-4-2 formation in this match as usual and in the starting lineup are;”

” Augustine Marchesin as our goalkeeper as usual, Manafa and Zaidiu as our right backs and left back respectively,”

” Pepe and Mbemba are the two center backs, Sergio and Uribe will be in center midfield while Corona and Otavio will be on the right and left flanks respectively,”

” For this match our two forwards will be Marega and Taremi,” the head manager finished calling out the names in the line-up and went on to describe the adjustment to their normal playing style, giving specific instructions to each player.

Time slowly flowed by and soon it was time for the players to step out onto the pitch for the match.

The match formalities were not much different from a normal match and the only noticeable difference was the trophy placed near the entrance of the tunnel from which the players walked out.

***

*Fweeeeeee*

The referee blew his whistle loudly to kick off the Candido de Olivera cup final between the two biggest teams in Portugal who would be battling it out for the next ninety minutes for a chance at the first silverware of the season.

The viewers did not have to wait long to get some excitement in the game as the two teams immediately began tearing at each other right from the first minute.

It was already well known that whenever the dragons faced the eagles, one could always expect 90 minutes of spectacular attacking football, but whenever there was a trophy at stake, there was a different kind of fervor at which they went at each other and the viewers began to witness it right from the start of the game.

#12th minute…

Corona made an incisive run from the right wing, cutting through the Eagles’ defense like a hot knife through butter, but soon he ran up against the stubborn defending of Vertoghen and he had to lay off the ball to Taremi who hit it with his first touch, sending a thunderous shot at goal.

{Hits it first time!} The commentator shouted excitedly as the ball flew at Benfica’s goal.

{Saved! The keeper was equal to it!} The commentator shouted as the Benfica pulled off a spectacular dive and punched the ball away.

{In the grand scale of things, ninety minutes isn’t a very long period of time, but it definitely wouldn’t be short of excitement!}

{What a hit!}

#19th minute…

Benfica’s midfielder, Tarabt was having the time of his life playing around with the ball in the middle of the field and it was taking the full efforts of the Oporto players to prevent him from taking the ball past them and causing danger, but even now, they were unable to take the ball from him as he cut through them, and finally got close enough to take a shot.

Tarabt didn’t hesitate to take the shot, but the ball flew just wide of the post, allowing the Oporto players to heave a sigh of relief.

#25th minute…

Oporto was once again on the attack and they were doing all they could to break the deadlock.

Otavio made a cutting run inside from the left wing, pushing against his marker and twisting and turning with the ball for all he was worth, doing his best to avoid losing the ball and buy time for the strikers to free themselves.

As Otavio gradually drew closer to the goal, his marker could no longer keep his cool and increased his efforts to stop Otavio from going any further, but to his surprise, Otavio fell to the ground after a slightly heavy push.

That was not the end of it as the referee’s whistle immediately went off as he ran forward and pointed to the penalty spot.