Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 69

Chapter 69: Europa League Match Line-up
After returning to Porto that same night, the players dispersed for the night but were back at training the next day with only the players who had played against Vitoria de Guimares having a few extra hours of recovery.

All the other players were hard at training in preparation for the Europa League first leg of the round of 32 match against Bayer Leverkusen.

The players didn’t need anyone to tell them that this was a match that carried a lot of weight and even worse was that they were up against a very tough opponent so the players were hard at training for the following days that led up to the d-day.

**19th February 2020**

*4:35 pm*

At the CTFD Portogaia training center, the Porto senior squad had just finished their training session and were already packing up to leave the training grounds when the head manager arrived to inform the players of the team’s line-up that would be going to the BayArena for the Europa League match.

“As the starting line-up hasn’t been decided yet, I’ll be calling those who would be part of the provisional squad for the next game,”

“The players involved in the squad are Augustin Marchesin, Diogo Costa, Pepe, Ivan Marcano, Chancel Mbemba, Alex Telles, Wilson Manafa, Danilo Perreira, Sergio Oliveira, Otavio, Shoya Nakajima, Tiquinho Soares, Moussa Marega, Jason Bolu, Luiz Diaz, Jesus Corona, Mattheus Uribe, and Vincent Aboubakar,”

Jason who was among the crowd of players hadn’t been too expectant that the manager had decided to add him to the provisional squad for the Europa League match, so he was quite happy that he was picked, though he wasn’t fully sure if he would get a chance to grace the field since this was an Europa League knockout game which wasn’t usually used as a stage for youth players.

But that didn’t stop him from hoping that he could finally grace the field and finally play his first game for the club.

The manager who was ignorant of his thoughts had already continued speaking,

“Those of you that are part of the squad should be here by 9:00 am tomorrow morning as we need to prepare for our flight to Leverkusen tomorrow, that will be all,” Sergio Conceicao said as he returned the notepad in his hand to Vitor Bruno and began to walk away, no longer having anything to say for the time being.

With the manager having walked away after saying what he had come to say, the players began to disperse, some leaving to prepare to leave the training grounds while others went to continue training.

Jason was of course part of the latter group and he quickly went back to training, hoping to complete a few more drills before leaving the training ground.

He quickly got to it, not letting the fact that he was part of the line-up for the Europa League match deter him from training as much as usual.

He didn’t stop training until it was half past six after which he said ended his training and began to pack up, stuffing most of his training equipment into his team locker and taking only his personal equipment.

Jason didn’t bother showering because he planned to jog back to his apartment as a sort of training since he had not driven his car to the training center that day.

So, saying his goodbyes to his trainer and other staff members of the training center that he was quite familiar with from his days of watching matches together with them in the training cafeteria, he began his jog back home.

Jason took it easy and did this as more of a leisurely jog than an intensive one, slowly eating up the distance with a measured but leisurely pace, his headphones on his ears blocking out all outside noise.

Despite Jason jogging at a pace that he considered leisurely, he still managed to reach his lodging about forty-five minutes later which goes to show that professional sportsmen were different from the average as Jason had done leisurely what would take more normal people an intensive effort to manage to complete.

Jason of course wasn’t thinking about this, but rather was currently pulling open the door to their apartment with an annoyed look.

As for why he had an annoyed look on his face, It was because upon reaching the apartment, he was met with an empty space where his “baby” should have been.

… In more human terms, his car was gone.

The only reason why he hadn’t freaked out was because this was not the first time this was happening… unfortunately.

Despite their relationship that bordered something like friendship, Jason’s roommate, Mylo had a weird quirk of messing with his stuff and “borrowing” his things without saying a word and expecting Jason to be cool with it.

Jason as a man who had lived for almost sixty years in total was definitely NOT cool with it and had complained about it to Mylo a few times that he didn’t appreciate his things being borrowed.

But despite talking to Mylo about it, his things were still unsafe, and likely to be kidnapped at any time.

If Jason bought food and left it hanging around, Mylo would “borrow” it.

If Jason bought drinks and kept them in the refrigerator, Mylo would “kidnap” them and they would never be seen again.

Even Jason’s clothes were not safe anymore and Mylo had on more than one occasion, “hired without pay”, some of Jason’s drip to go pick up girls and Jason had only found out that his clothes had been “commandeered” after he saw it lying around in their living room where Mylo had removed it in the prelude to the battle that ended up taking place in his bedroom.

Now even his car had been “conscripted forcefully ” by this roommate of his and Jason felt that it was finally time he put his foot down and end this before it went any further.

Jason quickly pulled out his phone and dialed Mylo’s number but Mylo’s phone kept ringing without him picking up the call, so Jason could only hang up the call and go have his bath, deciding to wait till Mylo came back.