Greatest of All Legends

Chapter 168: Liga NOS is Back III

With the Familicao team pegged down even further by the Porto team, their playing style turned aggressive as they tried to find a chance that could revitalize their hopes.

They didn’t hesitate to push the Porto players off the ball to regain possession even if it would result in a foul and within the next ten minutes after conceding, they had added four fouls and a yellow card to their match statistics.

At this point, a weakness of the Porto team’s midfielders started showing up which was that apart from the defenders, every other player in this formation was a bit on the physically weaker side.

Shoya Nakajima was Asian, and not to be racist or anything, but most Asians were a bit on the smaller and shorter side, and so was Shoya who stood at 1.67m which was just about 5 feet and 5 inches.

Otavio wasn’t much different with his small stature of just about 1.72 meters

Fabio was 1.7 meters, and while Jason and Ze Luis were quite tall, they weren’t exactly strength-based players either so it was easy enough for the Familicao defenders and midfielders to bully them off the ball.

Of course, the players could try dribbling past the defenders or passing the ball instead, but the fact remained that they were physically unmatched and it showed in their attacking prowess.

Thus they weren’t able to keep the pressure on the Familicao team and the Familicao team started sneaking more balls past the Porto defense line.

Luckily, the Porto defenders were up to the task, and the other players assisted in defending against the Familicao team’s incessant attacks, managing to waive off most of their attacks, but then the unexpected happened.

#44th minute…

The Familicao team were on the attack and were passing the ball among themselves from the midfield while the Porto team was pressing hard, trying to retrieve the ball, but the Familicao players kept the ball moving and made sure it stayed out of their reach.

Suddenly one of the midfielders pushed the ball forward past Mamadou Loum and swung hard at the ball, intending to have a long-range effort at goal.

Tomas Esteves saw what the Familicao player was trying to do and jumped in the way of the shot while twisting mid-air to block the ball with his backside.

The ball flew at him, deflected off of him, and flew up and out of play, but the next second, the referee’s shrill whistle called the attention of everyone to the referee only to see him pointing at the penalty spot.

The Familicao players who were just about to go to the referee to complain that the ball had deflected off Tomas Esteves’s hand no longer had to bother with the effort as it seemed like the referee had seen what happened.

The Porto players however, couldn’t stay still and ran at the referee to try and convince him that the ball had come at Tomas’s hand and that it wasn’t a deliberate foul, but the referee didn’t care as Tomas Esteves’s hand was a bit high and for him that meant a penalty.

The Porto players did not give up easily and in the end, the referee was forced to check with the VAR, but even after doing so, his decision remained the same and the Porto players could only grudgingly keep their comments to themselves before they were penalized by the referee.

Pedro Goncalves of the Familicao team was the one who stepped up to take the penalty, placing the ball on the penalty spot and stepping back.

*Fweeeeee*

Goncalves ran at the ball and swung hard, sending the ball towards the bottom left corner of the Porto goal.

Diogo Costa who had dived based on a guess had guessed right and pushed the ball mid-dive, trying to push it out of play but,

*CLANG!*

The ball collided hard on the left goal post and flew back at Goncalves who immediately swung at the ball to send it back to the goal, wanting to make up for missing the penalty, but Diogo Costa managed to recover from his dive and jump into the face of the ball again, just barely managing to push it towards the right.

Unfortunately, the Porto players could not jubilate at the double save from Diogo Costa because another Familicao appeared out of nowhere and slammed the ball into the back of the net, instantly invalidating the efforts of the young Portuguese goalkeeper.

{Despite the splendid efforts of the Diogo Costa, Familicao have gotten one back at last and now they can work on equalizing the game}

{I’m sure the question going on in the young Portuguese goalkeeper’s mind is “Where were my defenders?”}

{I’m sure the manager and the fans are wondering the same thing}

{They didn’t make any effort to lighten his burden and completely hung him out to dry} The commentator did his work while the Familicao players quickly headed back to their half of the field, hoping to try and build off this momentum and see if they could still do something in the few minutes left of the first half.

The assistant referee on the sidelines held up the board to let the players know that there were an added three minutes of injury time.

The Porto players comforted the goalkeeper and headed back to kick off the match again.

The Porto team quickly kicked off again with ZeLuis passing the ball to Shoya Nakajima who passed the ball to Otavio who quickly laid the ball off to Fabio Viera on the right.

Fabio Viera tried to head into the opponent’s half, but saw two players coming at him and quickly turned back and sent the ball to Tomas Esteves.

Tomas sent the ball to Mamadou Loum in the midfield with his first touch and Mamadou quickly trapped the ball before sending a low pass to Telles.

Telles watched the ball that came his way and glanced at the player who was running at him before chipping the ball deftly over him with a smooth tap on the underside of the ball, sending the ball at Jason.

Jason caught the ball off his chest and let the ball fall to his waist level, juggling it on his knee twice, before flicking it over the player who had come at him and escaping from him.

Going behind the player to catch the ball as soon as it touched the ground, Jason started running into the Familicao’s half of the field, not bothering to check if there were any teammates around him as he knew he was currently in a closed situation and the only way out was by either holding the ball long enough for his teammates to arrive or running at the defense by himself.

Jason obviously chose the latter.

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