Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 255

Chapter 255: 2020/21 First Pre-Season Friendly I
**29th August 2020**

*1:52 pm*

Inside the Campo Pequeno Shopping mall, Jason sat at one of the seats at the food court and pulled out a whooper burger that he had bought from a Burger King outlet near the mall.

He had come to the mall to secure a few things that he would be using now that it was confirmed that he would be having a prolonged stay in Lisbon.

Taking off the nose mask on the lower half of his face, he bit into the burger with relish especially since it was his first meal of the day.

He had been up for most of the night reading romance novels and apart from a few bits of information, it felt like a waste of time, but even then, he had only gotten to go to sleep at almost 4 am in the morning.

With him sleeping that late, he didn’t wake up until past 11 am and only after lounging in bed for another hour did he finally get up.

Realizing that he needed a few things if he was going to be in Lisbon for a while, he had decided to visit the mall, but before getting to the mall, he had branched at Burger King to get something to eat.

He had then gone to the mall to buy the things he needed, but he decided to eat first before he went shopping.

Halfway through his burger, his eyes fell on one of the televisions in the food court.

“Eh?” his eyes widened in surprise as he saw Mylo on the TV in Porto’s warm-up kit as he ran across the field, shuttling between cones that were specifically arranged.

Jason had known that Porto had a match today.

Specifically a pre-season friendly against Rio Ave, but he hadn’t known the time of the match so he was a bit surprised to see the teams already warming up on the TV, but most of his surprise wasn’t from seeing the match already about to hold.

One of the reasons for his surprise was that knowing that there was no love lost between Porto and Benfica, he was more than a bit surprised to see a Porto match being shown in a public place in Lisbon.

That wasn’t a normal thing, but who knew what the people who put the TV in the food court were thinking?

For all he knew, maybe this was some sort of “hate-watching” thing that people in Lisbon did.

That was by the side though… in reality, the biggest reason for Jason’s surprise was seeing Mylo in a get-up that suggested that he was going to be starting the match.

Sure it was a pre-season friendly, but even then…

Jason couldn’t help but have a wry smile on his face as he watched the Porto team continue to warm up in preparation for their upcoming match.

When he had joined the team halfway through the last season, the manager had left him on the training ground for weeks before finally adding him to the team line-up but even then, he was just a bench player for a few games before he finally got a chance to play, but Mylo who had just been signed to the senior team just yesterday was already chosen by the manager to start the match.

He understood that the team currently didn’t have strikers and they needed people to fill in the vacant space, moreover, it was a good chance for the manager to see what Mylo could do on the pitch since it was a friendly game, but knowing that it was a logical choice didn’t help and Jason couldn’t help but feel a slight annoyance, yet he quickly let it blow over.

There was nothing he could do about it anyway, especially now that he was injured and wasn’t involved with the team for the time being.

He went back to eating, but while he ate, the two teams finished their warm-ups, went for a last-minute tactical meeting with their managers, and began arranging themselves on the field.

Before Jason could finish his meal, the match started and Jason involuntarily began watching the game, and his eating speed which was already slow, slowed down even more considerably.

Porto arranged themselves in their usual 4-4-2 holding formation and the line-up consisted of;

GK: Diogo Costa,

LB: Zaidu Sanusi,

RB: Mattheus Uribe,

CBs: Diogo Leite, Chancel Mbemba,

CMFs: Romario Baro, Joao Mario,

LMF: Luis Diaz,

RMF: Fabio Viera,

CFs: Moussa Marega, Mylo Baumgartner.

It was obvious that Porto wasn’t using their best team, but that was the whole point of pre-season matches as even the Rio Ave team had quite a few players that Jason couldn’t recognize from the time he had played against them just a few months earlier.

However, barely five minutes into the game, it became clear that even though this wasn’t Porto’s strongest line-up, the Rio Ave team was still vastly outmatched against this much weaker line-up and were already on the defensive just five minutes into the game.

The Porto team kept pushing the Rio Ave team back until the only thing they could do whenever they managed to get a foot on the ball was to launch a counter, but even that ended up as a waste before the Porto defense which ended up shutting them down before they could go anywhere.

In the thirteenth minute of the game, the inevitable finally happened.

Luis Diaz received a pass from Joao Mario on the left side of the penalty box and he ran at the box cutting past one Rio Ave defender before sending an inside pass to Romario Baro who was just outside the penalty box.

Romario Baro initially planned to shoot the ball, but a couple of Rio Ave players jumped into his path and he ended up faking a shot before laying off the ball to Mylo inside the penalty box.

Mylo’s back was facing the Rio Ave goal as he received the ball, but instead of turning, he simply sent the ball towards the right side of the box where Fabio Viera was running in from.

Fabio Viera hit the ball with the side of his right foot on his first touch, sending the ball across the penalty box back to the left side where Luis Diaz appeared and slotted the ball into the back of the net coolly.

{GOAL!}

{We’re off to an early start!}

{Porto looking as sharp as they were last season come up with a beautiful team goal}

{They’re already showing off the performances that enabled them to end the previous season as champions} The commentator’s voice could be clearly heard in the food court where Jason was watching the match as he finally finished his meal.

Checking his watch to see that he still had time to watch the match, Jason immediately stood up to go buy more food to keep his mouth busy as he watched the match since his stomach still didn’t feel full after his earlier meal.

After filling up a tray with just about anything that could be eaten with one hand, Jason headed back to his seat, surprisingly remaining unnoticed by anyone in the food court despite not having a mask on his face because their attention was on the TV.

Porto had just gotten their first goal, but immediately after the Rio Ave team kicked off, the Porto team swarmed them and snatched the ball once again before beginning to push them back, but this time the Rio Ave team managed to push back at the Porto team and launched an attack of their own.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t hold off the Porto team for long, and soon Porto unleashed a devastating counter after snatching the ball off the Rio Ave left winger when he tried to initiate an attack.

Mattheus Uribe sent the ball towards Romario Baro in the midfield and Baro took control of the ball and then sent it down the right wing into the path of Fabio Viera without hesitation.

Fabio Viera beat his marker for pace and snatched the ball, pushing it forward and chasing after it with incredible pace, his marker only being able to chase after him from behind.

As he approached the right side of Rio Ave’s 18-yard box, Viera sent in a high cross towards Moussa Marega who was just arriving into the box.

Pushing against the Rio Ave players in the box, Marega managed to take to the air and get to the ball with his head, but due to interference from opposing players, he wasn’t able to get his head to the ball properly and headed the ball towards the right side of the goal.

The ball looked like it would end up out of play on the right side of the Rio Ave goal when a leg in white socks with a hint of blue appeared out from behind a Rio Ave player and poked the ball, changing its direction and sending it into the back of the net before the Rio Ave goalkeeper could react.

{And Oh! What a goal!}

{Signed yesterday! Scores today! What a player! Mylo Baumgartner stamps his name into the Porto home ground with a spectacular first goal for the club!}