八字万年历

Chapter 171: Liga NOS is Back VI

The whole Porto team celebrated Jason’s goal while the Familicao players looked distraught as they had lost even more footing and the game was practically over.

There was no way in hell that the Porto team would allow them to come back from a three-goal deficit so it was pretty much over for them and every one of them knew it.

They could only watch as the Porto team celebrated their victory over them and could only stare with respect in their eyes at the player who was most instrumental in their defeat.

Jason of course did not know about their thoughts as he was too deep in his own thoughts at that moment.

This was his first-ever professional hat trick after all.

He had never scored a hat-trick in his past life, not even by luck, after all, even if he got one or two lucky goals in a match, it was already quite difficult for weaker teams to get three goals in one match, especially when every other team they played against were much stronger teams.

Thus this was another milestone that he had never sniffed in his past life and now he had finally gotten his first hat trick, so how could he not be happy?

In fact, at this moment, he was boiling and felt like he could even score a couple more goals as long as the ball got to him, but before he could think even further, he noticed the manager on the sideline saying something to the assistant referee who held the board on the sideline.

‘Does the coach want to make a substitution?’ Jason wondered to himself, his smile not leaving his face as he and his teammates made their way back into their half of the pitch after their celebrations.

The manager had only made one substitution earlier, thus he still had two chances to make a substitution, so it wasn’t unexpected that the manager would make a substitution.

What was unexpected to Jason was when he saw his jersey number in red on the board and realized that the manager was trying to substitute him just after he scored a hat trick.

His mood instantly soured, but he kept his smile on his face to hide his displeasure as he headed down to the sidelines while clapping slowly as he walked off the field.

High-fiving Romario Baro and giving him a half hug, Jason stepped off the field and was replaced by Romario Baro.

“Good performance out there,” Sergio Conceicao patted Jason on his shoulder as he headed to the bench.

Jason was a bit incensed by the Portuguese manager’s touch as he didn’t understand why he was being taken off, nor did he want to be taken off.

There wasn’t even a discussion of something like this when the manager was discussing the game plan before the match, so Jason could not be more confused at the moment, but his displeasure was a bit more than his confusion.

Unfortunately, he knew that the Portuguese manager was not the kind of manager who explained most of his decisions so his annoyance slowly filtered away when he realized that there was no point in getting angry at the manager.

The happiness from scoring his hat trick helped him to get over his displeasure quickly and he sat on the bench with a smile, joking and laughing with the guys on the bench as they watched the match and waited for it to be over.

It seemed that the manager had opted for a more defensive approach for reasons unknown to the players, but their job was to play according to the manager’s instructions, which they did and the clock slowly ran out until the final whistle was blown.

The score remained Familicao 2 : 5 Porto at the end of the match.

After the match, Jason headed to the field to receive the match ball and the man of the match award all while taking pictures with the award.

After collecting the match ball and the award, he gave them to Shoya who helped him take them to the locker room because Jason had to wait behind for an interview.

He didn’t even try to sneak away as he knew that it wasn’t avoidable and he headed to where the interview was to be held and sat behind a table filled that had a few microphones placed on them.

The reporters were well-kitted with nose masks, while some of them even wore gloves, and soon the interview began with a question from a female reporter from Sport TV.

“It’s your first hat trick ever, how did you feel watching the ball go in?” the reporter asked.

“I was ecstatic, I feel happy, and I’m glad that I helped the team win. Other than that, it feels good to cross this milestone, you know?” Jason replied cheerily.

“Speaking of milestones, you also managed to score a stunner of a free-kick, which is also your first free-kick attempt for the team, Did you plan to score the free-kick from the moment you stepped away from the ball?” the reporter asked again.

“Ah, about that, it’s actually quite funny cuz I wasn’t meant to take the free-kick,” Jason said with a laugh.

“What do you mean?” the reporter asked, a bit confused by Jason’s answer.

“Well, if you check the replay, you’ll probably see that I wasn’t even there until Telles called me,”

“He actually wanted me to just step over the ball as part of the free-kick routine, to confuse the other team as he wanted to cross the ball into the box instead of taking the free-kick directly, but as I ran at the ball, I saw that none of them seemed to want to move so I just took the shot,”

“Luckily it went in, or I’d have had a lot of explaining to do,” Jason explained with a laugh while the other reporters laughed as well when they finally understood what had actually transpired.

“It’s been about three months since the Liga NOS was suspended and today the league is finally back, do you have any comments about the matter?” Another reporter asked Jason.

“Well, as you’ve said, it’s been a while since the Liga NOS was suspended and though we were not happy with it, we also understood that it was for the safety of everyone,”

“Luckily, we have moved past the worst and the league is finally resuming. Of course, things aren’t exactly the same, the fans aren’t at the stadium and the silence is quite disconcerting, but in all this, the truth remains that the Liga NOS is back and I’m sure everyone is happy about it,” Jason answered honestly.

After this question, the interview continued and Jason answered a few more questions before he finally stood up to end the interview.

His exhaustion was finally setting in and announcing to him that if he didn’t find a bed to lay on within the next hour, wherever he was where he would wake up the next day.

Leaving the interview, Jason quickly headed to the locker room where his teammates were already cleaning up and preparing to leave.

Jason joined them, but while clearing up, he suddenly remembered something, took out his phone, and snapped a picture of the locker room, before taking a picture with Otavio, Fabio Viera, ZeLuis, and Shoya Nakajima.

He also took pictures with a few other players after which he continued packing up and went to clean up when it was his turn to shower.

The team finally left on the team bus for the hotel where they would spend the night as it was already quite late, so the team would only be leaving Vila Nova de Familicao the next day despite it not being more than an hour’s drive back to Porto.

On the bus, Jason pulled out his phone and opened the Instagram app.

Selecting all the pictures he had taken earlier, he added the caption,

“First game since the lockdown and first hat-trick… wish you guys were here with us,”

After carefully typing in the caption, adding a few emojis, and triple-checking what he wrote, he finally clicked ‘post’.

After posting it on Instagram, he closed the app and went to do the same on Facebook and Twitter as well.

With that done, he slid into Sofia’s DMs to reply to some messages she sent earlier.

Surprisingly, Sofia was online at that moment, so she replied to him barely a minute after he had texted her.

Jason chatted with Sofia all the way till they reached their hotel, and checked in, but before laying down, he sent Sofia a good night text and then hit the sack.

Less than a minute later, he was already asleep with a smile still on his face.