八字万年历

Chapter 98: Europa League Round of 32, Second Leg IV

Soon the celebrations ended and the Porto team headed back to their half for the match to continue and the match kicked off again.

Immediately after the match kicked off again, everyone noticed that the Bayer Leverkusen players were playing more frenziedly than earlier and had increased their efforts to get back at the Porto team.

The Porto defense, completely stunned by this sudden change in tempo was unable to react in time, and for a while, shots were sent flying at the Porto goal from all directions, but thanks to the heroics of the Porto goalkeeper and the inadequacies of the Bayer Leverkusen forwards, the scoreboard remained unchanged.

The Porto team was no soft persimmon either and also launched various attacks that despite not resulting in a goal, still managed to trouble the Leverkusen team.

One thing to note was the Leverkusen players’ borderline extreme attitude to Jason.

They were extremely wary of him and at one point had even begun to double-mark him to stop him from getting the ball, and whenever he managed to get the ball, they immediately initiated a press, employing zonal marking tactics to block his passing lanes while also staying just far enough from him that he couldn’t attempt to dribble or run past them.

Whenever he tried to get past them, they made sure he was brought down, not caring if he was fouled by them.

Jason was no match for such oppressive tactics, especially as a rookie on the big stages, and his attacking efforts to help the team were completely shut down.

Other members of the team quickly realized this and stepped up to try and take the reins of the Porto attack, but none of their efforts resulted in a goal.

With their attacking methods shut down, it was only a matter of time before disaster struck for the Porto team.

In the 74th minute, the Porto team had just launched a counterattack, but just after reaching the Bayer Leverkusen penalty area, they lost the ball to the Leverkusen team who wasted no time in launching a counter of their own.

The ball advanced all the way from the Bayer Leverkusen penalty area to just a few yards away from the Porto penalty area in a matter of seconds courtesy of quick passes and movement from the Bayer Leverkusen players.

Kareem Demirbay received a pass from Kai Havertz just outside of the Porto penalty area and instead of trying to work the ball into the penalty area, he decided to take a shot right from where he was despite having no one in his way.

A thunderous right-footed shot from Kareem Demirbay was all it took for the ball to fly unhindered and crash into the crossbar before smashing into the back of the net, to the dismay of the Porto goalkeeper’s efforts.

{GOALLL!!!}

{Bayer Leverkusen is making a statement here!}

{They are not done yet and are now one goal from giving themselves are fighting chance!}

{Can they get their attempt at redemption in the remaining moments of the game?} The commentator was speaking with unbiased excitement that also displayed his impartiality to the two teams.

The Bayer Leverkusen team didn’t get carried away and barely celebrated their goal before heading back to their half so that the match could resume quickly.

With the Bayer Leverkusen team a goal closer to taking the match into extra time and giving them a chance at the ticket to the next round, the Porto players buckled up and did their best to get another goal to completely shut out the game… or at least prevent the Leverkusen team from scoring.

Jason also increased his efforts and incessantly tried to carve his way through the Leverkusen defense, either by dribbling through them or sending the ball past them, but the Leverkusen defenders were proving to be quite the nut to crack and were not giving him any space to create anything and brought him down as soon as it seemed like he would get past them.

Even when he barely managed to send the ball past his marker into the path of the other players, the player usually couldn’t do much with the ball as he was not the only one being marked heavily.

Seeing that his attempts at breaking through the Leverkusen defense were not working and knowing that if he continued, this could potentially lead to injury as he had already been brought down five times by the Leverkusen team and was already feeling winded, Jason decided to shift his efforts to help the team defend.

If they could maintain the current score, then their ticket into the round of 16 would be secured, but things did not always go the way one wanted them to go.

In the 85th minute of the game, just when everyone was thinking that the game was finally slipping away from the Leverkusen team, Danilo Perreira suddenly made a pass that didn’t meet it’s intended target as it was stolen by a Leverkusen player who darted into the Porto penalty area.

Lucas Alario who had intercepted the pass from Danilo Perreira ran into the Porto penalty area but instead of running at the goal, he avoided the defenders and ran forward as if he was trying to run off the field with the ball.

Of course, the Porto players did not buy the fact that such an idiotic action could be done by a professional player whose team was so desperately searching for a goal so they kept their eyes on him and chased after him to try and retrieve the ball but once they were close enough, Alario suddenly released a grounded cross that flew behind the defensive line and flew across the goal.

Kai Havertz suddenly appeared unnoticed behind the defenders and with the tip of his boot, poked the ball powerfully into the Porto goal before Augustin Marchesin could even react.

{GOAL!!!}

{Bayer Leverkusen grab on for dear life and have earned themselves an extra thirty minutes to rewrite history should the scores remain like this at the end of 90 minutes} The commentator performed as deserving of his post as he could.