八字万年历

Chapter 51  A Disappointing Finals

The day before…

After finishing his training he had dragged his tired legs to go wash up and change, not forgetting to leave his sweat-covered training attire for the staff in charge of handling them.

After washing and changing, he had walked alone out of the training complex, Mylo having left a long while ago.

Instead of heading straight back to his boarding, he had decided to go get something to eat, as well as meet Sofia while at it, so he had gone to the Miami restaurant.

He had eaten there and then spent the rest of his evening exploring the streets of Porto with Sofia, ignoring his legs throbbing in annoyance at his actions, but hey, the heart wants what it wants.

They had to bear with it.

He had only arrived back at his place at almost 10 pm and he had gone to sleep immediately.

This had led to him waking up quite late this morning, only leaving the warm embrace of his blanket at 6:30 am.

In reality, he could have woken up earlier as the amount of tiredness he had felt yesterday was nowhere near enough to cause him to change his normal schedule.

His waking up as late as 6:30 could be attributed to two things, of which the first was that as a member of the senior team, there was no team training for the day as today was a match day and he wasn\'t part of the match day squad that would be traveling to Braga.

Second, he had a previous arrangement planned for the day and the place he was supposed to get it done didn\'t open as early as 7 am so why bother stressing himself?

He might as well just enjoy a few more minutes in bed before getting ready to go to the customs office to retrieve his car that had arrived in Porto two days ago.

With these thoughts, Jason stepped out of his bed and began his day.

He did a few stretches and did some yoga to help with muscle exhaustion as his calf and thigh muscles still felt a bit sores from the previous day\'s training.

After he was done, he had his bath, dressed up, stepped out of his room, and exchanged a few words with Mylo while grabbing a bottle of milk inside the refrigerator which happened to be the last one.

He made a mental note to buy another pack on his way back and then left the building, not worried about breakfast as he planned to go to CTFD Portogaia for training for the day after picking up his car and he would be able to get something to eat from the cafeteria.

Jason quickly got a taxi to take him to where he would pick up the car and despite it being quite a distance from their boarding, the driver was quite experienced and had ample knowledge of the traffic situations of various streets in the city so he was able to arrive in just over an hour.

He paid the fare and released the driver as he was going to be driving a car away from here so he had no reason to make the driver wait behind for him.

Due to it still being quite early in the morning, Jason was able to quickly meet the right people, sign all the appropriate documents, and less than an hour later he was caressing the steering wheel of his baby.

Throwing the International Driving Permit that the club had helped him get as well as his Work permit into the car\'s safe, Jason pushed the button to start the car and it came to life with a low hum.

Jason first checked the fuel and battery levels and saw that they were at a satisfactory level, but considering that he had made sure they were filled before he had the car sent over, that was to be expected.

All that remained to do was to connect his phone to the car to access the maps as he still wasn\'t knowledgeable enough about Porto to be driving without a map.

He quickly did that and turned on some music while he was at it before zooming out of the parking lot and into the streets of Porto, his next destination being the CTFD Portogaia training complex.

Unsurprisingly enough, it took him almost two hours to get there, showing that technology was still no match for human experience when it came to maneuvering the almost midday streets of Porto.

As soon as he arrived, he hopped out in a hurry, a bit anxious to begin his training since he had wasted quite a bit of time already, but did not forget to get some food at the cafeteria before getting his training equipment and beginning his training with the aid of one of the fitness coaches available.

His major aim was still agility, and reflex sharpening so he opted for training drills that would help with sharpening those abilities, but even then, he didn\'t forget to do other training and exercises as he couldn\'t only rely on just those two qualities to play in the Primera Liga.

He even spent a few hours in the gym and before he realized how much time had gone, it was already past 6 pm and the sky was already darkening, the sun gradually moving out of view and the time for the Taca da Liga finals was fast approaching.

Thinking to himself that since his car had arrived, he could afford to leave a little late the training complex late at night, he opted to continue training and watch the match on the TV in the cafeteria with all the other staff members who wouldn\'t have left yet.

Thus he finished his training at a few minutes to 7 and went to freshen up before moving to the cafeteria. When he reached there, he realized that he had underestimated how much the level of loyalty that the staff members of the club had for their club as the place was filled with people conversing and sharing food and drinks while waiting for the match to begin.

Despite his surprise at the current scene, Jason greeted and related well with the crowd even as they sat together to watch the game.

Soon, 7:45 arrived and the match began with the Porto and the Braga sides fighting for the Taca da Liga silverware.

The match began with both sides playing attacking football as they both wanted to be the side that got their hands on the trophy at the end of the match, but before long the Braga side began to play more cautiously, allowing the Porto side to play with more momentum and display their attacking prowess. Nôv(el)B\\\\jnn

Yet, it did not take long to notice that something strange was happening.

The Braga side had put their focus on stopping all passes from reaching the two strikers of the Porto side and they were succeeding.

By the time the first half had ended, the strikers could count the number of their touches on the ball to be below ten individually.

Soon the second half started and the same situation repeated itself despite the Porto side playing with renewed vigor. They just couldn\'t get through the Braga side\'s defense that felt like a titanium net today. Despite the fan\'s expectations that the wingers would step up since the strikers were being closely marked, the wingers were just as ineffective on the ball if not more.

They constantly lost the ball and neither of them moved into an advantageous position enough to affect the game.

The game slowly approached its end and just when the fans of both teams were thinking that they would have to wait for extra time or even penalties to decide who would lift the trophy, the Braga side launched a devastating attack in the 94th minute of the game.

They tore through the Porto defense and sent almost all their players forward and after absolutely ripping up the Porto\'s defense, the team\'s left back found Ricardo Horta, the Braga team\'s right winger with a cleverly executed curling pass that flew across the Porto penalty area.

Ricardo Horta did not waste any time in complimenting the exquisitely delivered pass with a one-touch shot that sent the ball into the back of the net.

Words were not enough to describe the forms of jubilations that tore through the stadium from the Braga team\'s players, their management, and their fans.

Their shouts of joy and jubilation directly extinguished any hopes of the Porto side equalizing, especially as they had scored such a late goal that had every potential to be a winning goal.

The bitter looks of the Porto team as well as the travelling fans were also displayed clearly for everyone to see.

Jason watching this from the other side of the screen could only think, \'Coach is gonna be pissed.\'