Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 231

Chapter 231: Blue and Black VS Blue and White II
The match between Inter Milan and Porto began on a cautious note with both teams playing to retain possession and keep their opponents from coming anywhere close to their goal with the ball at their legs.

Just as had been expected, it was a tough deadlock with both teams seemingly equally matched up against the other as neither of them budged defensively in the first few minutes of the game, but since they couldn’t stay defensively, they soon began to show bits of the attacking football they had in store.

Porto was the first to launch an attack that looked like it could reward them and open up the match.

#6th minute…

Porto had gotten a free kick after Borja Valero had fouled Luis Diaz somewhere on the right side of the Inter Milan team’s half of the pitch.

Alex Telles stood over the free kick while the rest of his teammates positioned themselves to receive the ball with most of them just edging outside of Inter Milan’s penalty area.

*Fweeeeeee*

As soon as the referee’s whistle blew loudly, Telles ran at the ball and swung it into the Inter Milan team’s penalty box where players of both Porto and Inter Milan were running into.

Running like a tank, Danilo Perreira used his burly physique to bulldoze his way through the Inter Milan players and jumped for the ball, catching it on his head and sending it where he thought to be the direction of Inter Milan’s goal.

The ball flew off Danilo’s head and flew at the Inter Milan goal while Samir Handanovic, Inter Milan’s goalkeeper ran for the ball and leaped, hoping to catch it before it fell into the net but then,

*CLANG!*

The ball smashed against the top of the crossbar and flew out of play to the dismay of the Porto players, especially Danilo himself who held his head in his hands in disappointment at the ball not going in.

{Oh, it just skidded off the top of the bar!}

{Inter Milan are lucky not to have conceded there} Guiseppe squealed with excitement at the chance that had just appeared but gone to waste.

With Porto making this attempt and coming so close to scoring, it was a given that the Inter Milan team would respond in kind irrespective of whether they were likely to score or not, so one thing was for sure, the time for cautious gameplay was over.

Just as Guiseppe expected, the moment Handanovic sent the ball in with a goal kick, it was brought under control in the midfield by Borja Valero who headed the ball to Brozovic, and Brozovic immediately sent the ball forward intending to launch an attack.

Lautaro received the ball up front and had to deal with Porto’s defense but he was soon boxed in and could not dribble past any of the Porto defense so he opted to send the ball towards the right wing where Alexis Sanchez took control of the ball.

Alexis Sanchez tried to break in from the wing but with a successful double team of Sergio Oliveira and Alex Telles, he was successfully driven out of play and lost the ball.

Porto got the throw-in, but as soon as the ball got back into play, the Inter Milan team surged forward on a high press intending to sweep the ball and try to get a goal.

#22nd minute…

Ever since both teams put down their cautious attitude, the match had gotten a lot more exciting with both teams trying to get the ball past each other’s goalkeepers and be the one to break the deadlock.

Shots had been sent flying at both ends of the field with a noticeably higher percentage coming from the Inter Milan side of the field and this was a cause of alarm for the Porto fans watching from their homes and the Porto manager on the sidelines.

Sergio Conceicao didn’t like a deadlock, and he hated it when his team was being the one oppressed even more on the attack.

It was clear that his team’s attacking power was lacking a huge amount of variations that Jason’s dribbling skills and uncanny ability to get past his marker brought, but he had chosen this path because he believed that it was better to keep the Inter Milan team at bay in the first half and then try to go for the win in the second half when the Inter Milan team was exhausted.

He was planning to bring Jason on at that time because he knew that Jason would have a field day playing around with the exhausted Inter Milan defenders and this could bring about more goal-scoring options for his team.

This was not to say that Otavio and Luis Diaz were not doing well, but they weren’t running at the Inter Milan defense as much as he would like them to do and whenever they did, they were easily double-teamed and bullied off the ball by the rough defending style of the Italian team.

This was also one of the reasons why he had not started Jason earlier.

Jason’s physique was good and his physicality was even better, but even that could not help him in defending the ball against the Italian defenders who would smash into him at every moment, not to mention that there was a risk of Jason getting an injury if he started the game.

His thoughts made it seem like he was okay with either Luis Diaz or Otavio being the ones to get injured, but that wasn’t true.

As a manager, Sergio Conceicao knew that things like injuries were inevitable and unavoidable, but even then, he had formulated a plan and this plan depended on Jason’s dribbling abilities and peculiar playing style, thus he could not afford to lose Jason before the appropriate moment.

More than he wanted to admit it, he had been relying a lot on Jason lately even when there was a whole team of stars at his disposal, but he couldn’t help it as Jason for some reason kept on delivering and this was something that would get any manager’s attention and favor.

‘Sh*t,’ Sergio Conceicao suddenly flinched when he saw a powerful shot that was sent at Augustin Marchesin by Christian Eriksen from just outside the box.

Augustin Marchesin dived for the ball and got his hand, but it was not enough as the ball deflected slightly off his hand and smashed off the inside of the left post before rolling past the goal line.