BXBX NOVEL Chapter 223: Dragon Style V
Chapter 223: Dragon Style V
The whistle for the end of the first half had been blown and the match immediately came to a halt.
Despite the efforts of the two teams to trouble the scoreboard operator one more time before the first-half whistle was blown, they came up short and did not manage to make any more waves until the referee finally blew for the end of the first half.
The players trudged off the field with different looks on their faces as they headed to their locker rooms to refresh themselves and recharge their batteries for the second half of the game.
The Porto players filed into their locker room where the head manager was already waiting for them to arrive with his arms folded.
Sergio Conceicao didn’t wait for the players to completely settle down and opened his mouth,
“Hurry up and settle down, we have a lot of things to go over,” he chastised, not wanting to waste any time at the moment.
The players hurriedly kept quiet and sat down while some of them drank water from their bottles as quietly as possible while keeping their eyes trained on the manager.
“First things first… Good work out there in scoring two goals and putting us in the lead, Jason and Tiquinho especially,” Sergio Conceicao began and then paused,“… But!”
“What were the rest of you guys doing, especially the defense and the midfield?” he asked, his voice rising slightly.
“Sergio, Danilo, I remember telling you to help the defense in keeping out the Rangers team from the center of the pitch, but I never said you should neglect your mid-field duties,”
“Our opponents were just playing around in our mid-field and were allowed to build up quite a few attacks that resulted in us conceding a goal and causing us to lose a goal’s advantage to our opponents and now they’re on our backs more than ever,”
“Also, Wilson, what the hell are you doing letting that Kent guy get past you every time Rangers were on an attack, huh?”
“If you had done your duties well, then the opponents wouldn’t have been able to get one back,” the Portuguese head manager laid out all his observations first as it was always best to let the players know their wrongs so that they would know what part of their performances needed improvement.
“Do you have any excuses for playing like that? Maybe there’s something I’m not seeing,” Sergio Conceicao spoke again and waited for a response, but none of the players spoke up.
“So, no excuses? Good, that’s over… now here’s what we’re going to do in the second half,”
“Wilson, I want your full focus on staying back and keeping that Kent guy away from our box by any means necessary, the rest of the defenders will carry on with what they had been doing previously, but I want your full focus on keeping the opponents out this time,”
“Danilo and Sergio, I want you guys to move forward a bit more so that it’s easier for our team to control possession, we can’t afford to keep giving up possession to our opponents so easily. If they don’t have the ball, then they can’t do anything with it, right?” Sergio Conceicao asked rhetorically but a few of the players responded with affirmative nods.
“So Otavio, Danilo, and Sergio will form a triangle in the center and keep the ball moving while Telles will come from the back to help with passing,”
“Jason, Fabio, and Tiquinho upfront will need more support from the midfield if they are going to be able to help us further our lead, I’m counting on you guys to be up to it,” the manager said while facing the three midfielders.
“Yes coach,” the three players answered in unison and Sergio Conceicao nodded with satisfaction.
From then on, the manager went further into explaining the game plan to the players until it was time for the players to head back to the field for the second half.
“Let’s go out there and win, there are no other options on the table,” Sergio Conceicao said his final words to the players as they headed out and the players affirmed his words with cheers, nods, and determined looks while a rare few had confident looks on their faces as they headed out to the field.
The players were soon gathered on the field once again and they arranged themselves on their respective halves of the field as they awaited the commencement of the second half.
*Fweeeeee*
The second half of the Round of 16 match between F.C Porto and Rangers F.C began with the referee’s whistle blowing loudly.
The Rangers team was the one to kick off the second half and at first glance, it was easy to notice that there was a change in the team’s line-up.
Jermain Defoe, a player that the streets of England would never forget had been substituted on the field for Joe Aribo as the center forward for the Rangers team.
Jermain Defoe was the one that kicked off the game and there was no oddness in his movements as he immediately began moving across the field while staying in an open position to receive the ball.
Of course, the Porto players didn’t allow the ball to reach him before they snatched the ball back from the Rangers team and began passing around the ball in the middle of the field among themselves.
Almost a minute passed after they had retrieved the ball yet the Porto team kept on passing the ball back and forth across the field.
At first glance, it seemed like they had cooled off from their first-half playing style of continuous attacks, but the more experienced eye noticed that Porto had chosen stability over a back-and-forth game that would leave them vulnerable to sudden counterattacks.
However, choosing a stable style of play did not necessarily mean that they had given up on scoring goals…
#49th minute…
Porto’s style of play had slowed the game down and did not allow for the Rangers team to burst out on the counter as they had done so many times in the first half.
In fact, they were still adjusting to Porto’s new tactic and this was evident by the possession stats since the second half which was a whopping 73% to 27% in the favour of Porto.
The Porto team was currently in possession of the ball, but they had been pushed back quite a bit because of the pressure from the Rangers team that was continuously trying to regain possession of the ball.
Suddenly, Jason received the ball on the left side of the field, and with a smoothly executed Elastico, he got rid of his marker and burst past the halfway line with the ball, running with the ball down the left wing.
{What quick feet! He’s gotten rid of his marker and is bursting down the left wing with amazing agility, is he trying to start something here!?} the commentator immediately began delivering his commentary, his words slowly becoming faster as they rolled off his tongue.
Jason was not paying attention to the commentator as he ran down the left wing, rather his focus was trained on the players that were rapidly drawing nearer when all of a sudden he noticed a blue and white striped jersey dashing across the right side of the field across from him.
Not hesitating for a moment, Jason waited for the players coming at him to come closer before sending a lobbed-through pass across the field all the way toward the right side of the field.
{Cross field ball! Who’s there to get on the end of this pass!?}
The ball glided through the air until it arrived in the path of Fabio Viera who had begun making a run down the right side of the field the moment he noticed Jason’s movement and it seemed his judgment was paying off.
Catching the ball off his chest, Fabio Viera allowed the ball to fall to his feet and he pushed the ball forward into the Rangers team’s penalty box.
Rangers’ goalkeeper, Alan McGregor, immediately rushed out to meet Fabio Viera midway, but that was his undoing as Fabio sent a cheeky chip ball over Alan McGregor who had jumped up in an attempt to catch the ball, but failed.
The Scottish-born goalkeeper could only watch the ball drop into the back of the net that he was supposed to be guarding while the commentator’s voice erupted with a loud shout.
{GOAL!!!}
{Barely four minutes into the second half and Porto have their third!}
{They’re cruelly ripping apart the Rangers team’s Europa League dream and they’re doing so with a smile on their faces!}
{Their joy as they celebrate says a lot about how much this goal means to them!}
{With it, they once again extend their lead to two!}
The words of the commentator passed through one ear of Fabio Viera and out the other as he ran towards Jason and jumped on him while the rest of the Porto team followed by trying to jump on Viera who was being held by Jason.