Chapter 116: First MOTM
After laying on the ground for more than ten seconds while waiting for the mental roller coaster to be over, Jason sat up to see his jersey number in red on the board that was being held by the assistant referee on the sidelines.
Jason simply stood up without a hint of defiance and began dusting his clothes before heading to the sidelines because judging by how his vision was squirming as if he was in a sharingan-induced genjutsu, it was safe to say, the match was over for him already.
He didn’t even dare to jog to the sidelines for that reason as he could currently not trust his sense of balance, but despite how he internally felt, Jason’s impassive face made it seem like he was okay.
Somehow, even his slightly wavering steps weren’t noticed as he clapped while heading to the sidelines.
The Porto fans and even some Santa Clara fans gave him an ovation as he walked off the field, high-fived Jesus Corona and headed to the sidelines after getting a pat on the back from the team’s manager.
{And there he is, the player of the day, getting a much-deserved ovation from the fans as he walks off the pitch}
{With two goals for the team and an overall impressive performance from the player, I think it would be safe to say that he is most deservedly the man of the match, but we will see what the ratings say after the match, won’t we?} The commentator, as usual, would not allow himself to be left out of any proceedings of the match and lay bare his opinion, which was very similar to the opinions of everyone else watching the match.
Jason shook hands with the other players on the bench before sitting down while rubbing his brow and closing his eyes for a much-needed rest as his squirming vision was making him queasy, all while completely unaware that cameras were currently trained on him for a few seconds before most of the cameras returned to capture the live game.
Jason stayed with his eyes closed for almost five minutes until he felt the throbbing in his head reduce, almost falling asleep from exhaustion, but then a sudden rise in the cheers of the crowd in the stadium made him shoot his eyes open to find out what was happening only to see a powerful shot from the Santa Clara center forward deflecting off Ivan Marcano before ending up in the back of the net, bringing the score of the game to 1 : 3.It was surprising and it had resulted in what could hardly be called a mistake from the Porto defense, but who cared anyway, they were still two goals in the lead, Jason thought as he shut his eyes once again, but barely another five minutes later, he heard a sudden spike in the noise in the crowds but this time a lot of the noise was filled with annoyance, thus the moment he opened his eyes, he immediately looked at the Santa Clara side of the field where the Porto players celebrating fell into his vision.
A smile arose on Jason’s face before he turned to look at the huge screen to see the replay of the goal.
It was Wilson Manafa who had scored this time, it seemed, Jason noted as the replay started.
After a period of possession just outside the 18-yard box, Otavio had passed the ball to Jesus Corona who was at the right corner of the Santa Clara 18-yard box.
Holding off his player while Wilson Manafa ran past him before releasing the ball into his path, Wilson ran on the outside right of the 18-yard box and delivered a cross inside the box that flew at Vincent Aboubakar who had been subbed on for Ze Luis.
Vincent Aboubakar got his head to the ball and headed it at the Santa Clara goal, but the ball hit the crossbar and bounced towards the left side of the box where Luiz Diaz was.
Diaz had wanted to shoot the ball again but had then changed his mind and sent the ball behind him to Alex Telles who sent a cross back into the center of the 18-yard box.
This time the ball found Wilson Manafa who had moved into the box after his earlier attempt at a cross.
Wilson Manafa had simply trapped the ball with his chest in a completely unmarked position and unhurriedly fired the ball into the back of the net, giving his team back their three-goal lead in the 91st minute of the game.
After this goal, there were no more surprises until the match ended a few minutes later.
After the final whistle was blown, Jason stood up with the rest of the players on the bench and though he wished for nothing more than rest at this moment, he had to go on the field as it had been announced earlier that he was indeed the man of the match.
No one had performed better than him on the pitch today, both when he was still on the pitch and when he was on the bench.
He was also a major driving force behind his team’s win and his individual performances on the ball were also amazing so it had to be asked that, “If not him, who else would dare take the man of the award for the game?”
Jason was also quite happy that he would be receiving his first personal award in the football world, even though it was just a measly Man-of-the-Match award that many players would scoff at since it didn’t mean much to them, but to Jason it did.
In Jason’s past life, he played almost 800 games, but he had only about a hundred man of the match awards, which in reality couldn’t be considered bad, but when it was in the weakest leagues worldwide, it wasn’t worth sh*t.
Of course, things were different now and he already had a Man of the Match award after four games which could be considered exceptional… at least for his age.
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