八字万年历

Chapter 112: First Start V

Moussa Marega’s outstretched foot flew at the ball as everyone held their breath and awaited what seemed inevitable but to everyone’s surprise, Moussa Marega’s outstretched foot missed the ball by what seemed like mere inches and the ball continued across the front of the goal.

Seeing Moussa Marega miss the ball, everyone thought the ball would safely roll away from the front of Santa Clara’s goal and the Porto fans were already groaning in exasperation when they suddenly saw Jason appear from behind one of Santa Clara’s players in their 18-yard box and lunge for the ball in the same manner as Moussa Marega earlier.

But unlike Marega, Jason’s outstretched foot managed to touch the ball this time and changed the direction of the ball rolling across the front of the goal to rolling towards the goal, yet just before the Porto players and fans could throw up their hands in jubilation, a Santa Clara player appeared behind the ball at the last moment, chasing it down for all he was worth as it rolled toward his team’s goal.

To the Porto players and fans’ dismay, the Santa Clara player’s efforts paid off and he managed to swing his leg at the ball just before it rolled onto the goal line and cleared the ball away for a corner.

The stadium erupted with cheers and applause for the Santa Clara player who had managed to just barely save his team from falling into a deeper ditch than the one they were already in.

Jason who had sat up laid back down with a hand across his forehead as he rued the missed chance at doubling the team’s lead and doubling up his goal tally in the match.

To say he was disappointed would be an understatement, but the next moment a big grin appeared on his face,

‘I wouldn’t love this sport if things like this didn’t happen,’ he thought with an excited yet wry smile on his face as he sat up.

Romario Baro who had just arrived in the Santa Clara 18yard box walked up to Jason and held out his hand to Jason.

Jason grabbed Baro’s hand and was pulled up by him as Romario said to him,

“Nice one bro,”

Jason simply nodded and moved between some defenders of the Santa Clara team, looking for a good location to await the cross from the corner kick.

Alex Telles ran over to the left corner and placed the ball on the line before stepping back and awaiting the whistle while intently watching the struggle between the Porto players and the Santa Clara players in the Santa Clara penalty area.

*Fweeeeeeee*

Alex Telles ran for the ball and swung it into the penalty box in an out-swinging cross.

Jason was immediately surprised to see the ball heading for him especially when he was standing as far away from the Santa Clara goal and was almost outside the Santa Clara 18-yard box.

Jason had always known that his heading wasn’t his strongest point, thus he had stayed farther away from the goal to allow for other members of the team who were stronger in the air than he was to fight for the ball, so seeing the ball coming at him was quite surprising and a bit unnerving, especially since he was so far away from the goal.

But he didn’t lose his composure and leaped off the ground, intending to direct the ball towards another player as he did not trust himself to generate enough power on the ball to score a header from how far out he was.

While mid-air, Jason directed the ball toward the nearest yellow Porto ‘Away’ jersey that he could see which happened to be the team captain.

Pepe trapped the ball that came at him on his chest without skipping a beat at the unexpected pass before he suddenly turned and shot the ball at the Santa Clara goal before it could touch the floor.

The Santa Clara goalkeeper was lucky to be close to where Pepe had shot the ball at and quickly put out his hand to block the ball that rushed at him, just barely managing to keep it out of his team’s goal, but the ball bounced back into play just in front of the Santa Clara goal.

Before the Santa Clara players could make an effort to try and clear the ball, Ze Luis whom the ball landed just in front of sent the ball flying back from where it came, but this time the ball slammed past the goalkeeper who was rooted to the spot and sent the net bulging.

Ze Luis didn’t need anyone to tell him before he took off towards the sidelines, his teammates following after him.

{They’ve done it!}

{On the cusp of half-time, they’ve doubled their lead!}

{With that shot, Porto has changed the points of discussion at half-time for both teams and further solidified their lead!}

{Santa Clara now have a mountain to climb and it’s a dangerous one too!} As usual, the commentator just wouldn’t stay quiet and did his job of commenting on the game and stirring up the emotions of the fans, but no one cared at that moment.

The Porto fans were too busy rejoicing and the Santa Clara fans were groaning in annoyance at having gone behind just after pulling off an almost magical on-line clearance, just a minute earlier.

Was this team trying to give them a heart attack?

The team had gotten their hopes up after keeping out an almost surefire goal only to concede a totally unexpected goal the very next minute.

‘What was the fu**ing point?’ The fans thought and had the sudden intrusive thought to grab their team’s players and give them a few good slaps, but they stayed glued to their seats and did not act on their thoughts.

Some of them even still held hope that their team could pull off a comeback in the second half.

Of course, it wasn’t a plausible idea, but a person could at least hope, right?