八字万年历

Chapter 262: Liga NOS is back!

There was nothing Sofia could do about it at that point and her fingers involuntarily went to her lips more than five times as they headed back the way they came, but her fingers would stop on touching her mask.

In her eyes were a rush of various emotions that made for a complicated gaze in her eyes as she stared at Jason’s back while he led the way.

Jason did not dare look back as he was already at his wits end trying to maintain his composure after what he had just pulled off.

In the end, neither of them was able to continue their earlier conversation so they were silent until they parted ways later.

The problem came the next morning when Jason woke up the next morning to a link that Adele sent him.

The link led to a tabloid that had a picture of him kissing Sofia on the front page with the title being,

“Youth Football Sensation sighted in Rival City scoring off the pitch. Even injuries can’t stop him from getting a win.”

“What the fu*k is this sh*t?” Jason had no words.

Apart from the horrendous title that made absolutely no sense, he was annoyed by what the tabloid itself was depicting.

He did not need to read the tabloid to know that whatever was written there was untruer than even rumors which was to be expected from a tabloid and there was nothing he could do about it.

He could sue them, but that was just about a waste of time as there was no point since the article was already out and there was nothing to gain from sueing them either.

The only good thing so far was that whoever was sneakily taking the pictures wasn’t able to get a clear shot of Sofia’s face.

The only time they could have gotten a clear shot of her face that night was when she had taken off her mask, but Jason was all over her lips at that time so there was no clear snapshot of her face which made it look like Jason had a mystery girlfriend, though that was no big deal as Jason was not hiding it.

The problem was Sofia’s reaction to the whole thing… If she noticed at all.

Jason hoped she didn’t see the tabloid since it wasn’t a famous one, but he underestimated the extent that journalists would go to create a sensation, especially during the transfer season.

Soon other media channels began to send out articles about Jason’s appearance at Lisbon during the transfer window and soon all sorts of rumors broke out about a possible transfer to Benfica for Jason.

That was bullsh*t and Jason knew this, but other people didn’t and soon he started receiving calls from people about the rumors that was floating about.

After finally managing to convince Porto’s head manager that he was merely in Lisbon for a holiday and not signing any contract deals behind the team’s back, Jason finally managed to get some peace.

The fact that the manager had even called him in the first place was already strange as it was this same guy that had put a hundred million Euros tag on his head before the transfer season window even opened.

The head manager of all people should know how difficult it was for any club to pull out a hundred million Euros, not to mention a club like Benfica.

He wasn’t denying the history of the Benfica club, but the club was more likely to be the one selling a player for that amount than buying a player for that amount.

As a matter of fact, transfers that went above the fifty million mark in the Liga NOS were already rare enough so the chance of a transfer deal of a hundred million was almost an impossibility.

Or at least, that was what Jason thought, but who knew what could happen.

Before Jason could enjoy a bit of peace after answering all calls from his teammates and manager, another call came in and this one was from Sofia.

Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, Sofia had seen the tabloid, but her face wasn’t shown so there was no harm done, but to avoid being continuously pestered by the media, especially now that it was known that Jason was in Lisbon, they couldn’t meet as often anymore… According to Sofia.

To Jason, this way if thinking was flawed as he couldn’t care less whether he was seen or not, but as Sofia had a problem with it, he didn’t have much of a choice.

There weren’t much private places they could meet at unless they planned on doing private deeds and their relationship wasn’t that far gone yet.

With that causing a halt on all of his other romance plans, Jason didn’t bother delaying and headed back to Porto to start his rehabilitation period.

The season was already approaching anyway and he had to be ready to jump in the moment he recovered as the longer he was off the field, the harder it would be to get back on the field.

This wasn’t only referring to his fitness, but also the chemistry of the lineup.

The manager had to take into accounts the chemistry of the lineup and if the player chemistry deteriorated instead of increasing when he brings Jason back into the lineup after his injury, he may have to bench Jason for a while.

Jason wasn’t about to be fall down the pecking order in the club so he immediately headed back to Porto.

It was time to regain focus.

He had spent two weeks chasing love, but the returns were slow and he couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

With Jason heading back to Porto to begin his rehabilitation, time flew by even faster.

As he focused on recovering full motion in his shoulder, he also began doing light football drills to further accelerate his return to match fitness.

He didn’t want to have to wait till his shoulder was fully healed before he touched a ball again.

He hadn’t stopped physical training right from the start, but it had been a while since he had had a training session that involved a ball as it was dangerous and Jason accepted that fact, so he had avoided it.

The first of the last four weeks of Jason’s speculated recovery period passed by and the long awaited time finally arrived.

**19th September 2020**

*9:00pm*

{The new season had arrived and it is Porto’s first match day of the Liga NOS 2020/21 season}

{For everyone who was hoping for an exciting match for the new season, we have Porto vs Braga!}

{The dragons will be hosting Braga here at the Estadio do Dragao in a match that guarantees excitement worthy of our patience till this point!}

{The two teams have met many times in this competition and many times outside this competition and while one would think the Dragons to be the stronger opponent, Braga have proven that they have what it takes to be dragon slayers in the last few seasons}

{Will the defending champions of the League title continue their run from last season, or will they suffer a setback right here at the start of their season campaign, we’ll have to wait and see} The commentator got to work, building up even more excitement for an already anticipated first game of the season.

Porto fans everywhere had set other things aside at this time of night, ignoring sleep and staying glued to their screens to witness with excitement, the first Porto game of the season.

Not only Porto fans, but fans of other teams, and even a few neutrals who didn’t have anything else going on tuned in to watch the game.

Jason was also in front of his TV in his house holding a slice of pizza that he had ordered.

Unfortunately for him, his left shoulder had not recovered to the point where he was able to cook without risks so he had to settle for buying food ever since he was injured and that wasn’t something he fancied too much, but beggars can’t be choosers.

He bit into the slice of pizza as he watched his teammates step out of the tunnel in the newly designed home jersey for the 2020/21 season.

It was still blue the familiar blue and white colors but the design was different with the blue stripes being thinner and more numerous than on the previous season’s jersey.

To him, it looked almost exactly the same, but who didn’t know that football clubs changed their jerseys every season so they could get people to buy jerseys every year.

However, he wasn’t complaining as that was a part of the game and was a way for the fans to support the club.

Though that didn’t stop Jason from thinking it was funny.

It was the same thing that a particular multinational American technology company that sold phones with almost the same features, or even lesser features with each release and people kept buying because it was socially unacceptable to some people to not use that company’s products.

Jason could understand buying a new jersey with a different design every season because it was cheap, and it was something done for passion, but he could not understand buying a new phone almost every six months because of a trend.

‘I can never understand these Gen-z kids,’ he muttered to himself as he watched the match kick off.