Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 176

Chapter 176: Road to Liga NOS Champions 2019/20 III
The assistant referee held up the board and on it, the number 7 was in red while the number 21 was green.

Beside the referee stood Jason who was pouring some water on his hair while waiting for Luis Diaz who was the owner of the number 7 jersey to come to the sidelines.

Soon enough, Jason high-fived Luis Diaz, threw his bottle to the side, and ran onto the field, nodding at the teammates he came across as he took position on the field.

The Porto fans who were viewing the game from their homes either on their TV or on their other devices, cheered a bit, hopeful that Jason could do something to change the game, especially given his run of form in the last few days.

They were already displeased before the match started when they realized that he wasn’t a part of the line-up, considering that his performance for the team had been influential in all the last few matches, but now that they were losing to a team like Desportivo das Aves, their fury had been truly incensed.

The fans could only hope that there was still enough in the tank of the Porto players to try and make a comeback or at least equalize.

As Jason ran unto the field, the commentator did not stay silent and he soon started singling out the new threat to the Desportivo das Aves.

{There he comes, his picture one of determination and a beacon of hope for the current injured dragons}

{Ever since he joined the team, his performance has been phenomenal and his form in the last few games has displayed that this kid is going places}

{The manager may be looking to him to lead the team to a comeback here, but we’ll see whether he is up to the task or not, wouldn’t we?}

‘This guy needs to learn to shut up sometimes,’ Jason thought to himself as he noticed the look in the eyes of the Desportivo das Aves players around him change and heard the opposition team’s manager shouting orders to the players to make sure he was never free.

While waiting for the referee to blow his whistle, Jason closed his eyes and started whispering to himself,

“You want to become the best, right?”

“Well, you are not the best… but you’ll become the best,”

“To become the best, you must win, and to win, you must score,”

“… and no one is going to be able to stop me,” whispering these words to himself to psyche himself up, his eyes shot open and gleamed with composure and intent.

It seemed like a monster had awoken and was hungry.

Luckily, there was prey right in front of him.

*Fweeeeeeee*

The referee blew the whistle and the Porto team kicked off immediately the whistle was blown and the ball started moving around between them at a quick pace.

The Porto team attacked boldly because they had their back to the corner and the only way out was through the Desportivo das Aves team.

It didn’t take long before Jason got his first touch on the ball, receiving a grounded pass from Telles, Jason quickly turned and fed the ball past his marker before accelerating past the Desportivo das Aves player to chase after the ball.

Reaching the ball, Jason accelerated past the halfway line and sent the ball to Sergio Oliveira before making a run out towards the left while his marker chased hard after him.

Sergio Oliveira did not bother trapping the ball and just sent the ball back into Jason’s path as he ran down the left of the Desportivo das Aves 18-yard box.

Stretching out his leg to catch the ball, Jason trapped the ball with his first touch, but before he could move, his marker slammed into him from behind almost sending him off balance.

Barely managing to stay on his feet, Jason dragged the ball along with him as he cut into the Desportivo das Aves’s 18-yard box while holding off his marker with his right hand.

Due to how tightly he was being pushed from behind, Jason could not even attempt dribbling the players in front of him so he did the next best thing and crossed the ball immediately, just barely managing to swing at the ball.

The ball flew into to the Desportivo das Aves’s 18-yard box and across the goal and the players in the box jumped at the ball.

Moussa Marega fought off his marker to jump for the ball, but the player managed to hassle him enough that he missed the header and the ball flew past everyone and went down the right wing.

Luckily for the Porto team, Jesus Corona was just arriving at the right side of the Desportivo das Aves 18-yard box and he stopped the ball from going out, trapping the ball before turning to the opponent’s 18-yard box and moving towards it.

Jason who had been freed up a bit by his marker since he was no longer with the ball started moving towards the center of the Desportivo das Aves 18-yard box to be able to receive a pass from Jesus Corona.

Jesus Corona saw his intention and the moment he saw Jason become free enough, he immediately sent the ball at him.

Jason watched the ball approach, and readied his body for the shot, his body already going through the motions to meet the ball first time, but just as the ball reached him and he was swinging at the ball, somebody slammed into him from behind causing him to miss the ball and sending him to the ground.

As Jason fell to the ground, he saw the ball get cleared by a Desportivo das Aves defender while his teammates called out to the referee for a penalty as everyone had seen him get slammed into from behind.

“Ref! Ref!” Moussa Marega called to the referee while gesturing at Jason who was still on the ground.

Shockingly, the referee’s whistle stayed silent despite the obvious foul and play continued.

Jason slowly stood up, surprised that the referee wasn’t giving a penalty for an obvious foul, and he wasn’t the only one.

Sergio Conceicao on the sidelines was having a hard time staying silent and the Porto fans were raining curses down on the referee from their homes because everyone had seen that the foul was an obvious penalty.

The Desportivo das Aves player who had sent Jason flying was the same player who had been hassling Jason roughly when he started the attack earlier, yet even back then, the referee hadn’t called for a foul, nor had he even given an advantage to the Porto team.

‘Well that sucks,’ Jason thought in annoyance as he moved back to the left side of the midfield.

If that penalty had been given, then the Porto team was already almost guaranteed a goal and that meant they would have been a step closer to equalizing the game, but the referee had decided to not call for a foul.

A minute later, the ball went out of play and Jason went to the referee to complain about the earlier incident, but the referee waved him off, not interested in listening to Jason’s opinion.

‘Who is this kid that’s trying to tell me how to do my job?’ the referee thought with annoyance.

Seeing that his words were not going anywhere near the ears of the referee, Jason stopped talking and walked away, not intent on speaking to someone who didn’t want to listen.

‘There’ll be other chances,’ Jason consoled himself as he went back to his position.

#64th minute…

The Desportivo das Aves team had tried to start an attack and had the ball stolen from them by Danilo Perreira who had sent the ball to Alex Telles who was in the middle of the field.

Thus a lightning fast counter-attack began as Alex Telles sent the ball to Jesus Corona who was already running down the right side of the field.

Seeing the attack, Jason made use of his high acceleration and pace to burst past his marker and then he decided to move towards the center instead of running down the left wing.

This would help to make it easier for the ball to reach him, not to mention that he was faster than the two strikers and was obviously the only one who could receive a through pass from Corona at that moment.

Quickly making it to the middle of the park, Jason reduced his pace till he was matching the Desportivo das Aves defense line, making sure that he wasn’t offside.

Jesus Corona immediately got the message when he saw Jason’s run and sent a through ball behind the Desportivo das Aves defenders and Jason immediately increased his pace, edging past the defenders and just barely escaping their attempts to stop him from going after the ball.

After escaping the defenders, Jason caught up to the ball, but he immediately noticed the Desportivo das Aves goalkeeper who had come off his goal line and was charging at him.

Immediately, Jason’s body arched as if he wanted to take a shot prompting the goalkeeper to immediately get down and spread his hands wide, but Jason just faked the shot instead and fed the ball past the goalkeeper’s left while the goalkeeper could only crash to the ground while watching Jason run past him with the ball..

With the goalkeeper out of the way, Jason hit the ball with the side of his right foot and sent it into the back of the net, a brief smile lighting up on his face as the ball rolled past the goal line of the Desportivo das Aves goal.

{What a goal! What a goal!}

{Could this be the start of a comeback?}

{A beautiful set-up counter attack that ended with a rarely seen, but classy finish}

{He was brought on with hopes that he could leave his prints on the game and he has done so, getting on the scoreboard in just barely ten minutes since he has come on}

{With a goal this early in the second half, there just might be time for one mo… oh wait, what’s this?}

{The referee assistant’s flag is up… could it be?} The commentary from the commentator was cut in by the referee’s whistle going off.